A/N: Okay, so at least it's been less than a year, just like I promised. ^.^;
Quickly: Hi, Kayote's Bane! I don't believe you did review the last copy, but welcome back and I'm glad you're still enjoying it. ^^
Now: You guys can consider this chapter in two lights: either as a slightly early birthday present for Flannery (happy birthday! See, deadlines help me get things done!) or as a slightly late gift from me to you for my birthday, in true Hobbitish fashion.
Either way, enjoy what there is to enjoy, and feedback is very much appreciated, since there are some things in here I'm not entirely sure about … but then, I have gotten into stuff I haven't written before, so I supposed it's part and parcel of walking a story's new ground.
Oh, warning for swearing in this chapter.
~ VIII ~
UNDER THE ROCKETS’ RED GLARE
‘OOF!’
Keegan’s foot caught on a stubby bush and she stumbled, making pebbles skid everywhere until she caught her balance. ‘Stupid trees … can they even be called trees?’ she wondered, kicking the foliage belligerently.
‘Frii friiiii~’ Bramble singsonged, then tittered madly as she twirled in the air overhead, her wings glittering in the sporadic sunlight.
‘Oh, shut it, you,’ Keegan muttered, hopping over a loose rock and almost skidding on the gravel behind it. A second later she had to duck suddenly as the butterfree’s wings grazed her hair, the pokémon drifting down the steep and craggy mountain on the breeze before performing a mocking twirl.
‘Bram-
ble,’ Keegan sighed, but didn’t have the energy to tell the pokémon off, her legs past the point of aching and into the realm of feeling downright rubbery. Down at her feet, Hazel huffed in discontent, her ears moving back in irritation before flickering to a neutral upright position as the butterfree fluttered nearer to them once again.
Keegan didn’t know what she’d been expecting when she took the butterfree with her, but what she got hadn’t been part of it. The pokémon had been quite willing to battle with her in the Safari Zone, and she hadn’t exactly been disobedient since, but there was attitude there. Keegan didn’t think it was because the butterfly was angry with being taken from her home—in fact, when she’d released her for the first time in the Fuchsia Pokémon Centre Bramble had been nothing less than enthralled with all the new things she could look at (and almost been chomped on by an irate and stir-crazy nidoqueen when she turned out to be too much of a nuisance). Same for when they got to Cinnabar (minus the nidoqueen-chomping. This time it was a houndour).
I think it’s just because she doesn’t like being talked back to. Or didn’t like being told what to do unless it was something that coincided with what she
wanted to do.
Keegan’ stomach flip-flopped as she made this realisation, watching the butterfree glide along on the wind while she herself trudged down the non-existent path, a pang beginning to grow in her side.
Uh oh. She could turn out to be more of a problem in battle than I thought.
Especially considering how many of said battles had, in the past, turned out to be double or even triple matches. Bram had had plenty of time to meet with the rest of the team while they waited out the storm in Fuchsia City, and thus far the outlook hadn’t been encouraging. Firefoot had been a bit bemused, though quite willing to make friends, but he was about the only one. While Tarn was adjusting well to the arcanine once he became sure the massive dog wouldn’t be going around stepping on him (not deliberately, anyway), Bramble’s dominant nature, combined with her energy, seemed to intimidate him, and it was an issue Keegan couldn’t see going away as easily as the former had.
That same dominant nature, on the other hand, had pegged Hazel instantly as Bram’s rival, and sparks had flown between them ever since. Keegan wished she could say the butterfree was ‘mischievous’, but ‘catty’ was probably the better term.
At least Hazel’s trying
to be mature about this.
Mature, right. If sitting/perching at opposite sides of a room and
staring at one another for hours on end could be called mature.
I think what Hazel’s most annoyed at is how Bram treats me, though.
Not that Bram treated Keegan badly, just not with the respect that Hazel apparently thought was appropriate.
Why did I decide to keep Bram, again? I didn’t leave Alto Mare to capture pokémon.
Because if you had let her go you would have had to go out into the middle of the storm and back into the Safari Zone?
Oh yeah …
Just leaving the butterfree at the Pokémon Centre to be released later by Nurse Joy had seemed too much of a slap in the face after the battle they’d shared in the Safari Zone (no matter that said battle had turned out to be a disaster). Every time Keegan flexed her hand she would remember that; the way the butterfree had saved her, and then saving the butterfree in return …
Releasing her at all
would have seemed like a slap in the face. Or over the antenna. Or whatever.
At least she’d had time to think about what to do; the ferries had been stopped for three days due to the storm passing over, and even if they hadn’t been she might have stayed in Fuchsia anyway, just to give herself time to rest up. Her hand wasn’t bad, Nurse Joy had reassured her, but it had been painful and heavily bruised at the time and would probably remain achy for a week or so.
In the present, Keegan absently flexed her fist in a motion that was almost second nature now, testing just how stiff her fingers were. Nurse Joy had told her she wouldn’t have to see a doctor—which had been rather a bucketful of ice, since Keegan had never even considered what might happen if she had an injury as bad as
that—but the nurse had still made her write down a list of common painkillers, right after making sure the girl’s first-aid bag carried a bottle of one of them.
Then Keegan had boarded a ferry as soon as the storm had passed over, relieved enough to be leaving Fuchsia (and creepy Koga) behind that she almost hadn’t minded being on the ocean again.
It was two days after that, the sky still overcast and threatening rain and the sheer humidity of the island making the idea of hiking less than exciting.
But it’s better than being in Fuchsia, and at least I’m making steps forward.
… Hah! She snorted in between puffing for air, jumping almost nimbly from one rock to another and automatically checking her feet to make sure Hazel had enough space to follow. She’d asked all over town for directions to the gym, and all they could really tell her was that it had burned down a year or so ago.
But they also told me that trainers still come to challenge Blaine and leave with badges in hand, so he has to be around here somewhere.
‘Somewhere’ wasn’t close enough, she decided as the path began to wind past an outcropping which cast several feet of shadow, and the girl detoured up slightly to sit against it. It was with a half-sigh, half-groan that she slid to the pebbly ground, stretching out her legs.
Really the only drawback, Keegan reflected as she shook off her bag-strap, was that the humidity of the island meant the shade didn’t offer much in the way of coolness.
The warmth of the rock doesn’t help either.
‘Bii.’ With a grunt Hazel settled by Keegan’s leg, automatically kneading the hard stone beneath her and swishing her tail around her side. For some long moments they just rested, Keegan’s breath slowly evening out along with the fading stitch in her ribs as they watched the blue and glittering white figure that was Bram flitting this way and that against the overcast sky. The butterfree vanished behind a crag and Keegan tilted her head back against the warm rock, staring straight up into the sky as she stroked Hazel absently. Despite the grey clouds and likelihood of rain—again—it was quiet and relatively still and, for once, peaceful.
It didn’t last.
Bram had only been gone for a minute or two when abruptly she came shooting back into the airspace in front of them. ‘Brriiifriii!’ she shrilled, her voice thin and slightly echoing.
What the? Keegan blinked confusedly at the butterfly pokémon as she sped nearer, her tiny claws waving frantically and her small body doing an urgent twirl, darting this way and that, back and forth. ‘Fuuriiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’
‘Eeebuui?’ Hazel’s long ears perked up and she scrambled to her paws, glancing uncertainly towards the crags the butterfree had disappeared behind. That was about when Keegan realised Bram’s constant dance was in that direction, and her tiny paws kept motioning towards the rocks.
The girl’s stomach plummeted while her heart leapt, dual thoughts running through her mind:
She’s found the gym!
What the hell’s up now?
With a mixture of dread and excitement Keegan clambered to her feet and heaved her bag onto her shoulder, automatically dusting herself off before following Hazel’s nervously whisking tail towards the contour-pretending-to-be-a-path that led behind the crags.
It wasn’t long before they heard the echo of unrecognisable voices resounding through the thin hive of gorges which lay further around the mountain, and Keegan felt a pang of apprehension.
Maybe … it’s some gym trainers?
Not likely.
Fingering her pendant absently, shoes stepping lightly over rough stone, Keegan followed Bram’s flitting path. The butterfree looked satisfied now she finally had her trainer’s attention, and she almost seemed to vibrate with energy and determination to do … whatever it was she wanted to do.
I have a bad feeling about this.
Have you given any reason to ever give yourself good ones? The voice dubbed ‘the little fox’ asked dryly, and Keegan grimaced.
Okay, so I’m nosy. I blame you.
Oh yes, blame the imaginary voice in your head, that’s incredibly sane.
The blonde-haired girl shook her head violently. Dammit, why did she have to talk to herself so much? At least she didn’t do it out loud.
To keep herself from rambling at herself inside her own mind she focussed back upon the voices, growing clearer as they were. There were two, both male, but while one was young and light, the other was deeper and gruff with age or adversity.
Keegan was just wondering where she had heard this before—because the déjà vu was nearly overwhelming—when she hurried around a jutting rock-face to find herself on the edge of a ravine and the voices abruptly as clear as the day was dark. She froze, automatically ducking and huddling against the crag, Hazel crowding at her ankles and Bram alighting on the jagged stone with an air that was almost smug, and yet also sharp with anticipation.
‘—if this is a good idea,’ the younger voice was saying, his tone concerned. ‘If we get caught—’
‘It’s our job to make sure we don’t get caught,’ the other, more mature voice said calmly as Keegan shifted quietly to peer over the edge of the rocks mounted on the precipice, eyes swinging this way and that in search. She caught a flash of red—red clothing—and sidled along the edge to get a better look, taking in the scrubby-bushed and stony valley. ‘But we’re to consider all options. You can bet Team Aqua has taken Tohjo into consideration.’
There!
She saw them: two men apparently investigating the rocks and cliff below. They were both clad in a baggy, sleeveless grey uniform, cinched at the waist with a belt. The hems of their pants were secured around their boots by thick red bandages a little like something a ninja might wear. She couldn’t see their faces, obscured as they each were by a hooded red mantle set with demonic-like horns.
‘—dangerous, but it’s about the only volcano not in Hoenn,’ the older man was saying as Keegan tuned back in, although unable to keep from staring at the creepy hoods.
Why would they be interested in volcanoes? she wondered almost absently. Then,
what’s with the horns?
‘Mount Silver would likely be even more risky to investigate than this one if it weren’t already dead and any operation based in Mount Ember would need a lot more planning if we’re to catch Moltres in the bargain.’
Wait a minute, what?!
A chill ran down her back, accompanied by the realisation that, once again, she was probably in way over her head. In a knee-jerk reaction she scrambled back against the crag and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, her stomach twisting and heart pounding with adrenaline.
If they’re going to catch a Legendary…
A Legendary which isn’t anywhere near
here.
But they know about it, so that means they’re involved, right?
‘Buufurii~’
At Bram’s soft warble Keegan’s head jerked up, just in time to see the butterfree detach herself from the rock and flit into the valley.
‘No, wait! Bram!’ Keegan hissed, but the only answer she received was a gentle twirl and an eyes-screwed-up expression which might have annoyance. Or constipation. Keegan was willing to bet the former.
Dammit! This isn’t a good idea!
Since when has that stopped you?
But all the other times I actually had
to do something!
Oh really?
Slapping a hand to her face with a soundless groan, Keegan bounced a pokéball down to where Hazel was perched, tail swishing wildly, upon the edge of the crag, her eyes huge and round as she stared at the men as though they were fascinating new objects she had never seen before.
The eevee heard the device coming and turned around sharply, her ears flat against her head, but her distressed mew was lost to red light.
‘I know, I know,’ Keegan muttered at the pokéball as she attached it to her belt, swallowing through a tight throat before taking a deep breath and scrambling to her feet. ‘But I can’t leave Bram behind.’
Time to play a game.
Brody sighed, running a hand through his sweaty, shaggy hair, then reflexively tugging his hood lower over his eyes when the movement threatened to push it down.
Godda—I mean, ****, it’s hot.
A second later he realised he’d censored his own thoughts and shook his head with a slight chuckle, absently brushing dust off the screen of his radar with a gloved thumb. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his companion turn to raise a thin eyebrow at him from underneath his hood, and grinned. ‘Nothin’.’
Ten years with Larry as my partner, I’m surprised I haven’t kicked the name-in-vain thing entirely.
Larry wasn’t religious, per se—he just had a healthy respect for people’s beliefs, and tried very hard to respect those beliefs in what he did and said. Although—Brody’s grin faded—that was a problem considering what their Team goals were, as Brody consistently pointed out, but whenever he did he almost always regretted it afterward. That was when Larry would look at him with hollow eyes and not say anything, because he didn’t have to ask if Brody had really forgotten those days long past when it hadn’t been a problem but an asset.
Those days before the Magmas had become eco-terrorists.
Brody shook his head violently, trailing in the wake of his partner’s meandering path as the older man examined rock and cliff for weak points in composition.
Stop it. Just … just stop thinking.
It had to mean something when he thought of his own Team as terrorists, it had to, but they were his Team and his life and his
family and no matter how it made him feel the idea of leaving made him feel worse.
That, he knew, was why Larry stoically kept performing his duties despite the fact that they had long since started to betray his personal moral standards; because no matter what, the Team had begun as something to be proud of. They had given themselves to it, body, heart and soul, and they would continue to give all three if it meant contributing to the Team.
That was why they were there, in the middle of Team Rocket territory—
suicidal!—plotting to influence Mount Cinnabar into erupting—
unthinkable!—despite the inevitable loss of life and home for the citizens in the town below them—
and we say we’re not terrorists?
But Groudon’s power spread with flame and rock and the reach of land, and it wasn’t only Hoenn that Maxie aimed to ‘rescue’ from the influence of the ocean.
He realised he’d put quote marks around the word ‘rescue’ a second later, even in his own mind, and had to stop short and lower his face to take a moment to compose himself, his chest clenched with guilt.
So much for not thinking, he chastised himself bitterly, and rubbed his eyes with his scarlet-wrapped forearm, pretending it was only because of the dust.
The truth was, it didn’t matter
what his Leader intended to do.
What mattered was
why.
The why that was the reason they continued to serve.
The device in his hand chimed and he blinked in mild surprise, having been staring at it unseeingly with his head still downcast.
Oh.
‘I’ve picked up a possible insertion point,’ he said finally, coming aware that he’d stopped and
Larry had stopped and was waiting patiently for him to report.
Get your head out of the past and onto the now, you idiot.
It was times like this he almost envied Larry; the man possessed a frightening ability to
not think about things which would potentially conflict him.
‘Looks like it goes right into the mountain. If we could just get through, we could follow it all the way into the core.’ He examined the green-lined sketch on the graphed screen. ‘It doesn’t seem too thick. I could use Secret Power if—’ He was interrupted by the snap-fizzle of a releasing pokémon and sighed, shaking his head slightly with weary fondness as he finished unnecessarily, ‘if I had a crack or fissure to work with.’
The orange-haired agent turned around and stepped away, gesturing at the rock wall with a wry twist of his lips.
‘Mmrrrg?’ The magmar behind him tilted her head in slight hesitance, her claws tapping together timidly.
‘Rock Smash,’ Larry told her from further back to avoid the worst of the heat rippling off her flame-patterned body. ‘On the cliff.’
‘Mmrrr.’ Magmar nodded, flexing her fists and stumping forward to the cliff, her blazing tail whipping the air. She drew her arm back, aimed the blow with a squinting eye, and let loose. Her fist impacted the cliff with shattering crunch and a billow of dust which swirled in the faint waver of air around her, hissing as it settled against her red-and-yellow flesh. The rock-face shuddered but held; yet when the dinosaur-like pokémon withdrew her arm there was a lattice of hairline fractures spread where she had connected.
Magmar turned around on a talon, cocking her head with a waver of her flame crests and putting her claws together in faint hopefulness, waiting for approval.
‘That’ll do,’ Brody said without looking up from clipping the radar to his belt, pulling a pokéball off the leather with his spare hand and letting it drop.
It snapped open with red light as there was a drift of breeze and, in a stray shaft of sunlight gleaming over the edge of the ravine, the air behind and above them sparkled green with dust.
‘Use—’
‘Ember!’ Larry shouted of his pokémon, and Brody whirled around away from the crag, his spare hand flashing to a spare pokéball and an automatic command already on his lips.
‘Protect!’
The fractured gleam of the barrier distorted Magmar’s exhaled flames to eerily dancing shadows while a Water Gun—coming from somewhere among the rocks—turned to a darkened splatter on a flickering surface, the steam a short-lived hiss. The heat trapped inside the barricade from the two fire pokémon made the air above them shimmer and seem to come ablaze for a few brief seconds.
Sleep Powder, Brody recognised, just before the Protect splintered and there was a roar of flames not their own.
‘Protect!’ the Magma agent shouted again, eyes scanning the ravine, ignoring the flecks of ash which drifted down on them and the itchy sweat which trickled down the sides of his face.
‘There!’ Larry pinpointed the direction the attack had come from just before the blaze obscured their sight, breaking upon the green barrier and causing it to dissolve. ‘Fire Blast!’
Brody backed to the wall both to avoid the heat and in an attempt to get a clear view, his eyes darting this way and that, blinking rapidly against the sting of ash. Magmar’s Fire Blast crashed against the rocks to the left, but it was a rapid, undulating movement across the centre wall which caught Brody’s attention.
We’re being double-teamed.
The realisation brought nothing but calm; this was what they trained for, this was what he and Larry in particular were good at. Larry worked best on impulse, but Brody was the strategist.
‘Larry. Centre-right, likely the water-type pokémon.’
Larry nodded slightly, his eyes flickering to see Brody’s hand fingering his other pokéball, the motion hidden by the turn of the younger man’s body towards the cliff. The older agent caught his partner’s eyes and he tilted his head slightly in silent acknowledgement.
‘Smokescreen,’ Brody said softly.
Torkoal huffed, inhaled, and a second later the hole in her back geysered smog until they were surrounded by a thick, billowing haze. It pressed against the rock walls, wreathing around piles and formations of stone and obscuring nearly everything.
Keegan clamped a hand over her nose and wiped her watering eyes. Beside her, Firefoot coughed and whined deep in his throat for the horrible stench blocking his senses.
Oh damn …!
Her fingers fumbled for Bram’s pokéball—she had managed to return the headstrong butterfree, but only
after the men had become aware of their presence and retaliated to the butterfly’s Sleep Powder—and released her into the same mire they were all enveloped by.
‘Frriii,’ Bram screwed up her face in distaste at the murky surroundings, perching on a rock and shaking her wings irritably as though to rid herself of any ash or grime that might cling to her.
‘Whirlwi—’ Keegan began, but Bram had already drawn her wings back and beat the air violently, sending dust and smoke flurrying through the ravine and up into the sky. Keegan flinched and buried her face in her arms to protect herself from the sharp wind, and when there was silence and stillness the girl looked up gingerly, her eyes searching the lingering haze of dust for the men to find—nothing.
‘Viibuuuu!’
Keegan’s heart skipped at the pained cry and she jolted to her feet.
Tarn.
Something plummeted out of the sky at Bram, and with a surprised squeal the butterfree threw herself off the rock. Its apex crumbled a moment later beneath the force of the vibrava’s claws, sending up a puff of dirt and pebbles.
Keegan jerked reflexively away from the abrupt appearance of the hostile dragonfly, automatically returning Bram before the irate butterfree could gain her balance on the ground. ‘Bite—’ she started without thinking, but then the girl’s heel caught on a stone and sent her toppling over with a squeak and a whoomph.
Firefoot surged past her in a blur of orange and black, his massive jaws snapping shut on dust as the vibrava beat its wings and sent itself flying backward. Its mandibles clicked and it spat twisting blue—
something—something that weren’t flames but couldn’t be described as anything else either—
It ripped into Firefoot—and dispelled the after-image of a Quick Attack, crashing against the rocks behind Keegan. She coughed at the thin debris that flecked down on her, tiny embers making her skin twitch slightly with static.
The vibrava sideslipped, then banked away on the draught of Firefoot’s passing. Keegan pushed herself up, still gripping Bram’s pokéball, her limbs wobbly but willing. She was just rising to her feet when someone seized her shoulder and she instinctively pulled away and around at the same time, her fist striking out at the hand. She caught a glimpse of a shocked, hood-shaded face, right before there was a blur of orange and Firefoot knocked the man away from her, releasing her from his grip with a wrench.
Keegan stumbled, catching her balance by grabbing Firefoot’s ruff before hauling herself up and onto his back. The arcanine’s head was lowered, teeth bared towards the man in a snarl of warning, but the instant he felt Keegan’s weight he shot off in the direction of Tarn’s cry.
Keegan clung to him tightly, her heart pounding, and didn’t look back.
If she had, she might have seen Larry sink, stunned, against a rock and bury his face in one shaking hand.
Rock crunched as Swellow’s Steel Wing cut a swathe in the ground, slicing through the shimmer of the vaporeon’s suddenly illusory form. The water-fox bounded up a rock and back to jump paw-first at Swellow, but the bird used Quick Attack in turn and instead the water pokémon stumbled as it hit the gravel, its injured hind leg buckling.
From the shadow and relative safety of a rock, Brody watched assessingly as Swellow spiralled up on the breeze to gain some height, giving the vaporeon the chance to recover its footing. With a cry the eeveelution lifted its muzzle to the air, light reflecting rainbows off the ice building around its nose.
‘Aerial Ace!’ Brody commanded, and Swellow pulled in her wings to tumble into a corkscrewing dive, missing the Aurora Beam which lanced past her in a dazzle of sunlight—still close enough to coat her topmost feathers with rime. The vaporeon tried to slide away on the ice-dusted floor of the ravine, but it was limping from the injury from Swellow’s initial attack and the exertion of battle combined.
Not that there’s anything that can evade an Aerial Ace anyway.
‘Flame Wheel!’
‘Arrccth!’
An arcanine?! Brody jerked around, surprised—he knew a fire pokémon was likely in the battle for the other side but arcanine were a rarity for the average trainer in Tohjo, let alone Hoenn.
He jumped back, catching himself on the rock, his clothes billowing with heat as an orange-and-black shape swept past, leaving a heat-shimmer in its wake. Swellow flared, wings snapping out, and Brody winced—
that had to hurt. The bird managed to catch the heat of the massive dog’s attack and lift herself up on it rather than ram right into it as she would have had she maintained the Aerial Ace. Sure, she would have hurt the arcanine—but she would’ve got a lot more than a few singed tail feathers in return, too.
Not worth it.
‘Quick Att—’
Scarlet light flared, the vaporeon returned, and Brody’s order died on his lips as his eyes properly registered the arcanine’s trainer for the first time: blonde, blue-eyed, with a thin face and thick hair and a flash of red at her throat—
Keegan …?
‘Agility!’
The arcanine sprang aside from Swellow as she flickered past, the bird flaring and banking sharply, almost tumbling when her wing scraped the ground. Nimbly the arcanine leapt over the scattered debris before it, and then with a flick of its dusty white tail and a flash of white-ruffed paws was gone.
They were escaping—they—they
had escaped—but Brody’s muscles and vocal chords didn’t seem to want to work to stop it.
He just … couldn't move.
It can’t have been her, he rationalised.
It can’t have been her because she’s dead and has been for years and if she’s alive then all of this was for nothing and it can’t
have been for nothing because if it was then what are we worth and—
‘Brody,’ a hoarse and broken voice said from somewhere to the side, and then someone coughed and it came again, cleaner, smoother: ‘
Brody.’ accompanied by a scuff of dirt and pebbles bouncing off the side of his leg.
‘It wasn’t her,’ Brody said. ‘It wasn’t her, it can’t've been her, it couldn’t, it wasn’t—’
He was shaking—no, he was
being shaken, and he snapped out of his transfixed daze to find Larry was before him, his lined face weathered by dust and shock but grey eyes clear—mostly—and determined—
desperate.
‘It was her. She had the pendant, Brody, it was
her—we have to
move, Brody, we can’t let her get away. Forget Cinnabar; Keegan is more important than all the volcanoes in the world.’
Brody took a deep breath, and the world snapped back into place—but it was a different place than it had been five minutes ago. Swellow was crouched on a rock, head cocked with concern; a slight breeze was drifting through the ravine, carrying with it the smell of fire and dampness and burned dust; Larry was waiting for him—again—because he had stopped to think too much—again.
He couldn’t afford to think anymore.
Keegan was alive.
Right then, that was all that mattered.
* * *
Tynan kicked at the ground. He was frustrated, he was bored, and there was that kind of clammy humidity in the air which made his clothes stick to him and godammit it was
annoying.
After spending three days trapped in Fuchsia because of the storm, he’d been happy to get out of the city. As far as he was concerned, Fuchsia City and all its surroundings and
especially the gym could go drop off the map into non-existence. He didn’t want to think about what had happened there. He could get by perfectly well
without thinking about what had happened there.
Only what had happened there seemed not to want to leave him alone, until as much as he tried
not thinking about it, that’s how much he seemed to end up thinking about it, and it was racing around in his mind until his head seemed to throb with Janine’s words.
Because, f
uck it all, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, she was right.
Well, she was right about the fact that Marowak had taken the lead. Tynan liked to think that if the assertive (arrogant) dinosaur hadn’t done so he’d have done perfectly well on his own—
But that was the part Tynan knew was a lie.
Then, when he’d reached Cinnabar—about ready to skip and dance with the knowledge he was out of Fuchsia—he had stopped in at the Pokémon Centre and emerged ready for almost anything (except another ninja).
That was when he realised he didn’t have a f
ucking clue what he wanted to do on Cinnabar. Sure, it was one thing to say you were going to go out and train at gyms, but given his recent experience he wasn’t sure he wanted to go near a gym at the moment (assuming he could even
find it, because Blaine was known as a riddler for a reason). And other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to do on Cinnabar.
There were the hot springs, but he’d been on Cinnabar for two days and had already gone to them, and there was only so much time he could spend soaking before he got bored.
But what annoyed him the most was the realisation that, despite assertions of the contrary, he was
still fucking following someone else’s lead. He had been since Celadon. He had wanted to figure out what the hell made trainers like Erika and that Keegan girl so … not strong, he doubted Keegan would last two minutes against Erika, but confident?
Not quite the right word, since
he was confident, but he didn’t know how else to describe it.
In any case, he hadn’t known where to start, so he’d followed Keegan. He’d followed her to Fuchsia, and now he’d followed her to Cinnabar, and he hadn’t been following her for long but it still rankled that Janine seemed to be right in more aspects of his life than simple battling. If it could have been called a battle, when he had practically been
victimised by the traps in the gym.
Fucking ninja.
So now he was doing just about the only thing he could do while on Cinnabar (because he could have left, but he didn’t know where the hell he would go to next, since he was still, f
uck it all, waiting for some kind of cue). He was finding a secluded, open stretch of land (which, considering Cinnabar was an island, there weren’t a whole lot of in general, but it was a fairly
big island and managed to hide its gym, so there had to be spaces somewhere) so he could train.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d go about doing that either, since most of the training done at the academy had been battling with other students or strategising and not a whole lot of actual individual practice, but he decided he could figure that out when he found a place he liked, and meanwhile he felt as though he was actually doing something under his own steam.
It wasn’t much, but it kept him from feeling like he had to punch out a wall, which was a rather new feeling, all things considered.
With a growl Tynan peeled the front of his shirt away from his body, cursing the humidity and the overcast sky and half wishing it would just rain, dammit, because even though he’d be wet at least it wouldn’t be stuffy. Or
as stuffy, anyway. He trudged down the path, rounding an elongated boulder jutting out from beneath a tangle of rocks, weeds and the shrubbery that passed for trees on this god-forsaken oven of an island.
He ended up almost tripping over the very spiffy if slightly dusty motorbike lying on the ground in the pile’s shade. As it was, his toe caught on the tyre, wrenching his ankle slightly, and he spent several seconds hopping, skipping and stumbling over the bikes—there were four of them—to avoid either stepping on them and possibly breaking his ankle as he fell, or just falling over and possible breaking his ankle on the pebbly ground anyway. He resisted the urge to kick the things: with his luck, that would probably just give him a broken
toe.
Instead he swore mightily, leaning against one of the rocks to massage his ankle. There were obviously people nearby, so he was going to go out on a limb and say this wasn’t the kind of area he wanted to be training in.
Shaking his foot as if that would help ease the slight twinge in his ankle, he set it down and stomped past the bikes, following the path—if it could be called a path—beyond them where it led between a copse of bushes and another jumble of rocks.
Before he got there, however, voices sounded remarkably near in front of him, somewhere through the foliage, and he stopped short.
I don’t want to meet anyone—may as well leave.
He barely managed to move before a group of people came up the path, through the undergrowth. They froze when they saw him, all of them clad in black and red—and the red was in the scarf around the lead man’s neck and the big ‘R’ adorning the front of their shirts.
‘R’. An ‘R’.
Team Rocket.
Tynan stared at the letter, unable to look at anything else, its black backdrop seeming to expand to fill all his sight like the great untameable and unstoppable force it represented. Then a pokéball snapped with a releasal and Tynan’s head jerked up, his entire body moving with him in a backward step as he was abruptly presented with the grim, staring eyes of the leader and his weezing.
For an instant he was aware of everything: the coarse feel of his damp clothes sticking to him; his hair, limp and heavy from the humidity but still drifting on the slightest of breezes; his breathing, quick, too quick, so that he felt as though he couldn’t possibly be getting enough air; his heart pounding in his ribs, so harsh that it pulsed throughout his entire body; his skin tight and close as if only he could shed it he could flee light as a bird, because right then he
couldn’t fucking move—
‘Sludge.’
The dispassionate voice seemed to make everything snap, the broken pieces of a window—mirror,
life—shoved back into places that weren’t quite the same as they had been, but close enough that between one moment and the next Tynan found himself behind a far-too-small rock on the furthest side of the clearing, away from any exit and huddling into the rough stone like a little kid terrified of the monsters under the bed.
But Team Rocket
was the monster under the bed. They were every sane trainer’s worst nightmare—to be confronted with them, to be reminded that not all was right with the world and monsters existed. The worst nightmare, but the kind that no one ever believed would happen to
them.
And yet there he was, confronted by the monster and cowering like a child. He
felt like a child.
A child who was going to die if he didn’t f
ucking
do something—but what could he do? If he tried to run on foot they’d get him even if he made it to the path he’d come down by, but his murkrow didn’t have the strength to Fly him away and he had no other pokémon which could possibly help him to escape—
No other
pokémon.
The bikes. Fuck, the bikes!
The sky was turning into a filmy purple haze, but his mind was starting to clear, and he pulled his coat over his mouth as a filter. He still felt like a child, but one with enough foolish courage or confidence to strike out at the monster rather than run to his parents’ room.
They’re trying to smoke me out. Made sense; why bother running after or directly attacking a panicked trainer (who likely had pokémon and could still do a bit of damage) when you could poison him and wait for him to keel over himself? But they didn’t know he had Murkrow. Or maybe they suspected—flying pokémon were a dime a dozen—and just didn’t care; after all, who but a truly strong trainer—or one insanely suicidal—would bother to have the courage to fight back, if courage it could be called?
Suicide. he found himself thinking vaguely as he released Murkrow with a wince at the loud-seeming snap.
Definitely suicide.
But it would be suicide not
to do anything.
‘Gust,’ he whispered, and buried his face in his arms, which were resting on his knees. He lifted Murkrow up as far as he could, the bird’s claws pricking his palms where he held her, and felt her shift, her centre of balance changing as she drew back her wings. A moment later his hair and clothes were caught by gusts of wind, tugging at them violently, harsh fingers of air raking through them. He heard the snap of the gale, the whoosh of gas pushed back, the skate of debris and distantly—a shouted, but unintelligible, command.
Might not have been expecting it, but I guess they weren’t unprepared for it.
That thought flitted through his head, and then Tynan flung Murkrow into the air and was on his feet, throwing Flareon’s pokéball out, moving before he considered what he was doing. ‘Fire Spin, Whirlwind!’
‘Fuuburuu!’
‘Kkrkkrkk!’
With a roar of flames the side of the clearing leading past the thicket lit up and Tynan sprinted for the bikes—and then abruptly found himself pitched forward, his ears ringing with an explosion and an inhuman scream of pain. Cinders drifted down on him as he stumblingly regained his balance and whirled around.
The image of Murkrow plummeting, tumbling in air currents, her feathers all but gone, was something that would be seared into his mind for a long time afterward. So was the smell of burning flesh, although that wouldn’t hit him until after it was all over, and neither would Flareon’s great keen of distress.
Later, he would try to recall the exact events and remember only the sensation of his heart thudding, breathing in ash that tasted literally like sh
it, and the sight of his pokémon falling against a backdrop of flames. Later, he would figure out that the flames had made the gas in the air—pushed back, but not swept away, and pushed higher overhead—catch alight. Later, he would realise he had almost killed her because he hadn’t thought out his strategy well enough, and not even the knowledge that he hadn’t had the time—or complete lucidity—would make up for it.
Now, it was only the knowledge that Murkrow couldn’t stop herself from falling—
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—that had him reacting, although he honestly couldn’t remember
thinking anything. He could barely see the pokéball’s red light against the flames, and for a moment it looked as though she’d been swallowed by them; but then the pokéball dinged and locked down to standby as they did whenever there was a critically injured pokémon inside, so that they weren’t released accidentally by an inattentive trainer.
The flames were dimming, Flareon was darting towards him before vanishing into red light, and his mind had apparently taken a holiday because suddenly he was hurtling towards the four bikes still lying innocuously on the ground beneath the sheer ledge.
They weren’t quite like the ones he knew, but that was only a dim realisation to the overwhelming
gogogogogogogogogogo
He heaved one up and slung his leg over it, gunning it barely before he was properly on it, when he just barely heard another order from behind—‘Air Cutter!’—and didn’t wait to look. Tyres squealed on gravel and he shot off, the rock beside where he had been bursting with dust and debris and thin slices.
The engine roared beneath him, seeming to join with the pound of his heart in his throat and ribs and everywhere else too, and every time the bike skated on gravel and he skidded—
too fast—around a bend it seemed as though his veins
surged with adrenaline. He knew they were behind him: he knew it without a doubt, without even thinking it or needing to hear the roar of their bikes behind him, because they had to be—because they were the monster.
He soared over a ridge and came down on top of a speeding blur of orange and black. He didn’t even have time to curse; adrenaline pumped, his arms jerked on the handlebars, and the bike wrenched beneath him. For a moment the world turned on its axis, the orange-bullet-thing slewing away from underneath him in a tumble of orange and black and yellow and blue and a tint of red. He hit the ground and the bike didn’t skid so much as spin, seeming to twist beneath him while his body instinctively fought for control.
The bike jolted, his unstable seat disappeared from beneath him with a lurch, and he found himself tumbling across the ground in a flurry of clothes, dust and gravel.
And then his world abruptly stilled and he was left, gasping, on the hard, hot ground.
A/N: I am quite aware that technically growlithe/arcanine don't learn Quick Attack, but they can/do learn Extremespeed, and considering the perchance of small furry pokemon to learn Quick Attack I found it odd that growlithe don't.
The thing I wasn't sure about was Tynan's panic attack after being confronted by Team Rocket. I figured that living in Celadon he'd have heard an awful lot about their crimes and be very much aware that they're real and 'out there', but since he's never been out on his own he simply doesn't know how to deal with unexpected pressures or dangers--and, as he said, it's always something that happens to someone
else.
), but it didn't happen and then I just kept hoping it wouldn't take long... and then weeks had passed.