Chapter 4 part 1
Chapter 4
For a psychic, it’s the little things that are the most important.
The uninformed think that psychics can read a person’s thoughts, memories and darkest fears as easily as one can open up a newspaper, but this is not quite true. Sure, psychics can do so, but it requires significant effort on their part and most sentient creatures tend to take offense. Because of this, most psychics learn to discern their target’s thoughts through easily-read parts of the mental process such as surface impressions along with a careful study of nervous habits and physical tics.
And when you have fifteen years of experience and a deeper connection to your subject than most, it’s easier than reading a large print children’s book.
Syl and Caroline were sitting in a dingy fast food restaurant whose unofficial corporate motto was likely “Beat the Health Inspector.” It was late and the two were the only customers left in the building, and so the establishment’s employees had decided to retire to the back of the kitchen, their chattering barely audible over the small building’s air conditioner. Caroline was sitting opposite Syl in the booth, burger and fries haphazardly strewn about her tray as the trainer blankly picked at the food as if she was a vulture who fancied itself a gourmet. One hand idly played with her hair as another hand deposited a fry into the left side of her mouth, where she chewed slowly. Syl was so accustomed to seeing these personal habits that she didn’t need to sense the mix of anxiety and apprehension coming from Caroline’s mind to know what she was thinking.
Maybe it was because Syl had the exact same nervous habits. When two beings are mentally connected together from birth it can be hard to tell what unconscious behaviors come from who. Syl was a psychic and it was all she had ever known since birth, and so she accepted it as a matter of course.
In any event Syl was well aware that Caroline’s thoughts were not currently open to discussion, so the Gardevoir chose to occupy herself with a mystery of her own. She had told Caroline that Raticlaw’s mental presence was unmistakable, and that was true. What she hadn’t pointed out was that his thoughts were utterly incomprehensible to her, the mental equivalent of trying to catch a greased piglet after rolling around in motor oil.
Not being able to pierce his thoughts wasn’t the part that bothered her: she was used to dark types being an impenetrable black stain in her mental vision, their mental presences a shapeless, amorphous blob that slipped through any psychic’s attempt to grasp and manipulate them like water through a sieve. What bothered her was the way he did it: his thoughts were out in the open, yet the more she tried to focus on them the vaguer and more indistinct they became. She had never encountered anything like it: was it the result of evolution, she wondered, or something else.
In short the strange Pokemon was a puzzle to Syl. The Gardevoir considered herself lucky that she happened to like puzzles.
“Let’s go,” Caroline said, breaking Syl out of her reverie. Syl began to protest that she hadn’t finished eating until she looked down at her empty tray. She had been so deep in her own thoughts that she hadn’t noticed that she had finished eating.
***************************************************************
There’s no reason we have to go with him, you know.
The sun had already set, and a full moon was beginning to appear in the night sky along with a small number of stars. The empty streets were periodically lit by lamps that had seen better days and only the sound of the pair’s footfalls and an occasional car broke the night’s silence. Caroline’s heart sank: she knew that Syl had been looking for an opening all day, but she had also been looking forward to enjoying the first evening in which she was not afraid for her life in what seemed like forever.
“Can we not talk about this?” Caroline asked, although there was little conviction in her voice.
You’re aware that you really can’t put this off, yes? Syl asked.
Jonah is probably going to want to leave tomorrow, if not sooner.
“You’re not going to leave it be then?”
That’s the general idea, yes.
Syl watched as Caroline took a moment to run her fingers through her hair. “After what happened back in the forest, I really don’t want to travel alone anymore.”
You have me.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Syl continued as if Caroline hadn’t even spoken.
And yet you’re placing your faith in a boy we hardly know instead of your best friend? Syl’s “voice” projected a sense of hurt.
Do you really trust him that much, or is this just a way to make yourself feel better about what happened?
Syl could feel Caroline’s mood darken. “I nearly lost you,” she said quietly, “I don’t want to ever have to go through that again. Do you understand?”
There was a long silence.
“Look, there’s no reason we have to travel with him forever,” Caroline finally added, “but until we’re stronger having someone at our back can’t hurt.”
“Hey, Caroline!”
Caroline and Syl turned to see Jonah walking out of a buffet towards them, Hariyama and Growlithe in tow. He waved at them and smiled. Caroline felt a sensation of wry amusement emanating from Syl.
Well, speak of the Devil.
***************************************************************
“This isn’t going anywhere,” the Rattata complained.
Raticlaw grunted in a way that suggested that politeness was the only reason he was bothering to acknowledge the figment’s existence. “No ****.”
“Oh God, please help me…”
Raticlaw sank a pair of claws into the thug’s back, causing him to yelp pitifully. “Quit yer *****in’,” he said, twisting his claws for emphasis.
“As fun as it is to watch you play ‘Bad Cop, Bad Cop,’” the Rattata said dryly, “maybe you should try a different approach?”
Raticlaw snorted derisively. “You seem to be full of ideas today. Why don’t you tell me?”
“I only represent a fraction of your brainpower. You think of something.”
Raticlaw opened his mouth to make a retort, but suddenly shut it as inspiration dawned. He stroked his whiskers in thought.
“Brainpower, huh?” he said to no one in particular. “That gives me an idea…”
The thug whimpered. Not only did he have to pick a fight with an overgrown Raticate, he had to pick a fight with an overgrown Raticate that talked to itself.
***************************************************************
Syl gave the Growlithe a critical look.
How did Jonah capture you? she asked again, not sure she had heard correctly.
Some Pokemon species are naturally predisposed to proficiency and fascination with the spoken word, while others treat language strictly as a tool for conveying information and treat those obsessed with the art behind it with roughly the same enthusiasm that people give to a trainspotter discussing his hobby. Growlithe are an example of the latter.
“He gave food,” Growlithe replied in a curt series of barks.
So you consider him your master?
Growlithe gave it some thought. “Will he keep giving food?”
“Why not?” Jonah replied. He had never considered that this would be a point on which a Pokemon would base its loyalty: it was a way of thinking alien to someone who had never had to root through a garbage can for his next meal.
“Good enough,” the Growlithe said. “That good too.”
Caroline smiled slightly as she kept scratching Growlithe behind the ears, causing the puppy Pokemon to exhale in satisfaction.
“Needs a bath and a checkup, but he’s cute,” Caroline said. “Where’d you find him?”
Caroline watched as Jonah’s good mood almost instantly evaporated. “He and Raticlaw were fighting over garbage.”
Caroline began to look around. “You found Raticlaw? Where is he?”
“I told him not to fight over garbage. He…didn’t take it that well.”
Caroline—knowing what she did about Jonah and Raticlaw’s relationship—filled in the blanks. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So he’s not coming back?” she asked.
“Who knows?” Jonah said. “He can go screw himself as far as I care.”
Jonah looked up to the sky. The moon was making its steady climb towards its zenith.
“Come on, let’s go back to the center,” he said. His two Pokemon went with him as he began to walk away, and after a moment’s hesitation Syl and Caroline followed.
The two humans and three Pokemon made their way down the quiet streets towards the Pokemon center. The Growlithe grunted contently, happy to have had a full meal without swallowing a piece of packaging in the process. The puppy and psychic walked beside their respective trainers while Hachiman followed the group but a step behind, deferring to Jonah’s authority and the limiting width of the sidewalk.
“Little *******,” Jonah suddenly said without provocation, apparently eager to hear himself talk about how much he didn’t like Raticlaw. Caroline said nothing as Jonah ranted: given the already rocky relationship boy and rat had established over the past few days, she thought it wise to let him vent.
“I don’t get him,” Jonah complained, kicking at a stray soda can. “He has to be right about the stupidest things, or he gets ******.”
And you were hoping Raticlaw would come along too, Syl said to Caroline in a tone that suggested “I told you so.”
Still think that’s a good idea?
I never said anything about that, Caroline thought, knowing that her Gardevoir could read her thoughts and hoping to keep the conversation private.
You were thinking it.
We could do worse, Caroline thought.
We could also do better than a cantankerous rodent, Syl retorted.
You know I’m with you all the way, she added, forestalling Caroline’s response,
but I don’t think it’s wise to trust someone so…capricious.
Syl watched as Caroline digested this. Trainer and Pokemon had no doubts about his battle prowess and both knew he had he had technically fulfilled his promise to bring them this far (even if they had been carrying him a decent part of the way), but there was no guarantee he would go any further. More importantly, neither of them were sure what had motivated him to do so in the first place. Pride? Duty? Ego? Given what they had experienced so far, probably the third.
I’m glad you’re thinking of me, Syl said, but--
Syl stopped in midstride, gaze fixated on something in the distance. What was unnerving was that she appeared to be attempting to gaze through a wall not six feet in front of her face. The spectacle was enough to cause even Jonah to stop in midrant.
Hachiman looked to Jonah. Jonah looked to Caroline. Caroline shrugged at Jonah. Jonah shrugged at Hachiman. Hachiman decided to take the initiative.
“Lady Syl, are you alright?” Hachiman ventured. The Gardevoir seemed to ignore him, her gaze unwavering.
It’s Raticlaw, she finally said.
He’s…calling to us?
***************************************************************
The town had definitely seen better days. While the section nearly the highway was still relatively bustling and hence good for business, much of the outer part of the town was little more than a lengthy patch of urban blight, a motley collection of squat brick buildings with “For Sale” signs, graffiti, and plywood-covered windows.
The group stood before a two story structure that at one point might have been an office building but now served as an Ozymandian tribute to capitalism instead. Barring present company, it seemed that nothing alive had even bothered with this side of town.
“So, this is the place?” Caroline said, looking over the building.
Yes, Syl replied.
He wants to be found.
They watched as Jonah pored over the the building, trying to find a way inside. Any apparent entrance had been locked or nailed shut a long time ago. Jonah yanked at the handle on a side door, but the door refusing to yield even an inch. Hachiman stood right behind him, watching intently.
“Maybe we should help him find a way in,” Caroline suggested.
“Do it Hachiman!”
Before Caroline and Syl could react, the Hariyama leveled one mighty palm and brought it forcefully against the door. The sound of eighty pounds of wood being forcefully ripped off its hinges broke the silence with an explosive bang before being followed by the sound of aforementioned eighty pounds of wood succumbing to the force of gravity.
One of the perks of a psychic bond is that speaking is optional. In an instant Syl had read Caroline’s mind and teleported the pair near the doorway where Hachiman was admiring his handiwork. Jonah gave Caroline a grin that suggested what he had done was nothing short of the greatest idea to have ever been conceived by mortal man.
Caroline frowned. “Are you insane?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, as if doing so would somehow make the last several moments transpire more quietly. She felt a sensation from Syl that suggested the psychic type took grim amusement in being right. Caroline tried to ignore it.
“Took you guys long enough,” a voice said gruffly, coming from inside. “Come in.” Jonah and Caroline looked to each other hesitantly before obeying.
What greeted them inside was Raticlaw sitting amidst a veritable mound of office detritus and atop a badly bruised, very scared street thug. The thug—lying flat and sprawled out on the ground--lifted his gaze to look at them, whimpered at the sight of the newcomers and returned to staring at the floor as if trying to avoid drawing attention to himself. The now-ruined door had landed just a couple inches short of his head.
“You know you could have just come through the window,” Raticlaw said, gesturing towards somewhere in the darkness behind him, “but I guess this works too.”
“Sorry,” Caroline said apologetically, shooting Jonah a look. Jonah looked at her and shrugged. They turned back to see Raticlaw staring past them. Raticlaw’s attention was drawn to Hachiman peering through the doorway, the fighting type too high and too wide to fit through the opening he had created. The rat Pokemon cocked his head.
“Where did fatty come from?” he asked.
Jonah realized that Raticlaw must not have seen Hachiman earlier. “That’s Hachiman. He’s my Pokemon.”
Raticlaw looked incredulous. “******** he is. How did you catch him?”
Jonah fought him while you were incapacitated, Syl said,
and won.
The rodent glared at her. “You’re shitting me.”
I swear upon my honor that it is nothing but the truth, she replied, and adding so that only the teenagers could hear,
I won’t tell him if you won’t.
Caroline nodded. “Yup, charged him with a knife and everything.”
“It is true, sir.” Hachiman affirmed. Raticlaw gave them a look of a creature that suddenly felt like everything it had known to be true was a lie. He looked back and forth between everyone gathered around him as if trying to find inconsistency in their faces. It eventually occurred to him that he wasn’t going to find it.
“Not bad kid,” Raticlaw said to Jonah. It was the epitome of a grudging compliment, but a compliment nonetheless. Hachiman felt the urge to speak up.
“I have heard many things about you, Lord Raticlaw,” he said.
Raticlaw’s ears perked up. “Really?”
“Yes sir. I have heard about how you took on a dozen enemies at once and triumphed.”
It was just possible to see Raticlaw puff his chest out. Unfortunately Hachiman chose to continue talking.
“Lord Jonah has even said that your battle prowess is second only to your ability to toss salad, although I am not sure how food preparation is related to battling.”
Raticlaw’s stare at Jonah demanded an explanation.
“I think he misheard me,” Jonah offered lamely.
“I am quite sure I heard correctly, sir,” Hachiman said firmly.
It was at this point that Growlithe walked through the door, fresh from marking its territory. It looked at Raticlaw and gave it the closest canine equivalent to a triumphant grin.
What little respect Raticlaw had for Jonah disintegrated like a sandcastle in the path of a tidal wave.
“Wow, you’ve caught a tactless idiot and a mutt,” Raticlaw said derisively, “truly the three of you deserve each other.”
Caroline decided to step in before the flames got even hotter. “You called us here. What do you want?”
“To be honest I was thinking I would just attract you and Syl,” Raticlaw said, doing his best to ignore Jonah and his Pokemon, “doesn’t really matter, I guess.”
“So,” Caroline pressed, trying to get more out of Raticlaw than a non-answer, “is there a reason you’re sitting on top of someone in an abandoned building in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, him?” Raticlaw pointed a clawed finger down at the thug. “Found this wannabe gangster trying to shake down an old lady and decided to set him straight. Been trying to get information out of him but he’s being pretty damn stubborn.”
“Oh God, help me…”
The thug’s cry echoed through the room as a pair of claws sank into his back.
“It didn’t work the last fifteen times you ****ing said it, it won’t work the sixteenth time,” Raticlaw said to the thug with exasperation. “So, this is where you come in. Syl, you know Hypnosis?”
Yes.
Raticlaw hopped off the thug, grabbed him by his hair, and hoisted him up into an awkward kneeling position. “Make it happen.”
Syl looked to Caroline. Caroline looked to Raticlaw.
“This is illegal, isn’t it,” she asked.
“Probably,” Raticlaw replied, “Manslaughter, false imprisonment, breaking and entering, violating someone’s right to not incriminate himself…I think humans look down on that. Been out in the sticks awhile so I could be wrong though.”
Jonah walked up besides Caroline. “So what you’re saying is that you got us out of deep **** only to land us in even deeper ****,” he said.
“You could say that,” Raticlaw replied.
“Some hero you are.”
Raticlaw shrugged. “And you’d rather be Spearow food? Whatever kid. If you’re screwed at least you’re getting screwed for the right reasons.” He shook the thug’s head for emphasis. “If you’re going through Hell might as well keep going, right?”
Jonah and Caroline exchanged a look. Caroline turned to Syl.
I told you so, Syl said matter-of-factly.
“Just do it Syl,” Caroline replied curtly. Syl nodded, reappeared in front of the thug in the blink of an eye, and forced his eyes to stare into hers, the man trying to fight against her psychic grasp and failing. An eerie blue glow emanated from her eyes, and soon the thug stopped struggling.
Stand, Syl said. The thug did so. She turned to Raticlaw.
You know how Hypnosis works, yes? she asked.
“Yeah yeah. Can’t force him to do something he will never do, can’t make him jump in front of a bus, etcetera etcetera,” Raticlaw said with a wave of a clawed hand. Turning to the thug, he said, “hey you, you in a gang?”
“Yeah,” the thug replied. His tone was flat and hollow, his mental state equivalent to the lights being on but no one being home.
“How many of you?”
“Eight.”
“And what do you guys do?”
“Drug runnin’, Pokemon smugglin’, that sort of thing.”
Raticlaw’s ears perked up at the mention of Pokemon smuggling. “Really. Pokemon smuggling for who?”
“I dunno man. Some dude rolls up in a truck, we load it up, he pays us and he drives off. We don’t ask no questions.”
“And when does this happen?”
“Dunno.”
You must answer the question.
“I dunno man,” the thug said, “no schedule or nothin’, he just rolls up with only a couple day’s warnin.”
“Well, do you know if he’s coming soon then?”
“Yeah, said he’d be comin’ tonight.”
Raticlaw grinned as he turned to the trainers. Jonah caught on first.
“We are not going to bust a gang shipment,” he said sternly. “You’re out of your friggin’ mind.”
“Why not?” Raticlaw asked. “You help me and I’ll look past the nasty things you said about me and not do horrible things to you in your sleep.” The rat Pokemon watched Jonah squirm at the thought and felt a tinge of satisfaction.
“Plus,” he continued, “if you’re gonna break the law might as well do it for something that no one is going to convict you for.” Raticlaw could see that both trainers found a certain persuasive logic in what he said. He turned back to the thug.
“Where’s your hideout, homeboy?” he asked.
***************************************************************
There are certain advantages to locating your hideout in the midst of urban blight, highest among them being the ability to hide in plain sight.
Sure, it’s common sense that such areas are a breeding ground for criminal enterprise: even the police are aware of it. But while the police are ostensibly supposed to patrol said areas there are only so many petty vandalism calls one can answer before deciding that the law’s time and expenses could be better spent elsewhere. Add in the trouble of legal niceties such as “search warrants” and a well placed bribe or two and soon The Man becomes a non-issue for the criminally inclined.
The second advantage is the prevalence of abandoned warehouses. One of the unwritten rules of organized crime requires that any gang, triad or mafia worth its salt work out of at least one dilapidated, shady warehouse staffed by equally shady men who are also well armed. No one is sure why this is a requirement (especially for gangs that don’t traffic in goods requiring large amounts of long-term storage), but in a business where tradition is enforced via blunt instruments to the head tradition tends to be questioned only in the abstract.
In this particular blighted area there was a particular warehouse that was particularly uninspiring by criminal syndicate standards. It was a warehouse, granted, but it was a sad little prefabricated metal structure whose only apparent reason for still standing was because it was simply not cost efficient to tear it down. Aging paint chipped off the walls revealing slightly rusting metal beneath. If criminal warehouses were wine, this one would have been the type one buys at supermarkets: a wine regardless, but a crude and base wine meant for the hoi polloi and beneath the notice of more refined palates.
The emptiness of the streets was disturbed by a lone figure shuffling slowly towards the warehouse. His attire—torn in places and sporting bloodstains in others—suggested to the observer that he was a gang member who apparently liked pulling the tails of cats. If one were to have gotten a closer look however, they might have instead been drawn to the man’s vacant eyes, fixated as they were on something visible only to their owner. He walked with an awkward gait like his body was not entirely under his own control. After several agonizing minutes he finally reached a door set into one of the walls of the warehouse. The hand slowly grasped the handle and pulled it open. The thug walked inside.
A series of small rooms greeted him: this area had been a front office back when the warehouse had been used for legitimate enterprise and showed little sign of use beyond then, the resident gang apparently having little use for the space. The thug shuffled through until he found what he was looking for.
He opened the closet door, walked inside, and shut the door. And then he fell unconscious.
***************************************************************
The glow in Syl’s eyes faded.
We’re in.
The group had chosen to stake out on the second floor of a nearby building, one that they had entered without the utilization of Hachiman’s fists per Raticlaw’s insistence. The group kept watch out of a dirty broken window waiting to see if anything went south. At the moment, it appeared that disaster was still deciding to spend its summer up north.
Raticlaw grunted in acknowledgement. “Anybody else in there?”
Not the way he went in apparently, Syl said.
I can sense others inside, but it’s…fuzzy. Syl disliked using such an imprecise term, but it was the only way she knew to convey the idea to the psychically unattuned.
“Fuzzy? You found me didn’t you?” Raticlaw asked.
That’s different. You wanted me to find you and your mental pattern is…unique. Trying to count all the people in a building a quarter of a mile away is a bit harder.
“Feh. Excuses, excuses,” Raticlaw snorted. “You can teleport us in there now, right?”
Syl nodded.
Yes. I have a lock on the man, so I can get us in there without risking teleporting inside a wall.
“Alright then,” Raticlaw said, “here’s the plan. Syl and I are going in, the rest of you are staying here as backup.” Jonah and Caroline both gave him a look of confused bafflement.
“You wanted us here and you’re not even going to use us?” Jonah asked.
Raticlaw sighed. “I want to look around inside first and that’ll require some subtlety. And let’s face it kid, you and that Hariyama are about as subtle as a friggin’ freight train. We’ll call when we need you.” He turned back to Syl. “Let’s go, time’s a wastin’.”
Syl looked to Caroline for her orders. If she was looking for Caroline to say “no” she wasn’t going to get it even though Caroline’s facial expression suggested that Raticlaw had asked her to personally throw her Pokemon to a pack of rabid wolves.
“Be careful in there, Syl,” Caroline said. Syl and Raticlaw vanished from sight in the time it took the psychic type to nod.
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Many people hold the common misconception that teleportation is one of the easiest psychic powers to master. If the lowly Abra is a master of teleportation, they argue, how hard can it truly be?
The uninformed tend to discount the complexities of teleportation, instead viewing techniques like being able to lift a truck with one’s mind as a greater challenge to the psychic mind. While lifting a truck is an impressive feat by any measure, by psychic standards such techniques are the domain of banal mental brawn, an act performable by even the least psychically attuned with enough training and raw determination. Teleporting is a different beast altogether, requiring the ability to skillfully manipulate natural laws in several dimensions at once in order to facilitate the instantaneous transfer of matter over long distances safely. This is a difficult feat for creatures used to thinking only in four dimensions and failing in this delicate balancing act brings potentially disastrous consequences for the user.
This is part of the reason why one does not meet many dumb psychics: stupidity is literally fatal.
Fortunately Syl was not one of them. Rat and psychic humanoid materialized in the closet, landing on top of the sleeping thug Syl had hypnotized earlier. He made a small grunt in his sleep as their weight came down on him but otherwise remained unconscious.
The Rattata released his tight grip on Raticlaw’s head.
“Did we really need this broad to get in?” he asked Raticlaw rhetorically. “We could have found a sewer entrance or a ventilation shaft or something.”
I can see you, you know.
The Rattata turned to look up at her, surprised to have another being acknowledge his existence. “You can see me?”
A feeling of exasperation washed over both rodents, a similar sensation that one feels trying to explain how water is wet.
You are a quasi-tangible hallucination known to periodically manifest after the inhalation of Stun Spores. The temporary damage done to the central nervous system occasionally unleashes untapped psychic potential that the victim’s mind is not able to handle in its damaged state, and so the mind creates a proto-psychic projection as a metaphorical “safety valve” to help dispose of the excess psychic energy. This proto-psychic projection often takes the form of a tangible being or object that exists only to the user and those creatures capable of detecting the discharge of psychic energy.
Rodent and rodent figment stared blankly at Syl. It occurred to the psychic type that she might have gotten too technical.
Look, deliriants in the Stun Spore as well as short term neural damage have resulted in your existence in Raticlaw’s perception of reality. Therefore to psychics you also exist. Until you finally disappear, at least.
“Oh, right,” the Rattata said uncertainly. “I was just testing you, is all.”
I’m sure.
Raticlaw gave her a wry smile. “Is this…personal experience talking?” he asked. He had learned long ago that when humans spoke of “frenching the Bellsprout” they were not referring to an act of zoophilia.
Syl gave him a dirty look.
I lived on a Pokemon ranch. You’d be surprised at how many Pokemon simply must poke the Shroomish to see what happens.
The Rattata shuffled nervously on Raticlaw’s head, having finally grasped the ramifications of the Gardevoir’s words. “So…uh…how much time do I have left?”
Syl picked him up effortlessly and gave him a once over.
I can feel the discharge of psychic energy emanating from you beginning to slow. A few hours at most, perhaps. The Rattata looked crestfallen, apparently never having contemplated death in his scant hours of corporeal existence. Suddenly he perked up, a look of determination on his face.
“I don’t want to die trapped in the closet,” he said, “are we going to do this or what?”
Raticlaw nodded. “Yeah, let’s do it. Syl, how many people are in here?”
Syl closed her eyes as she began to concentrate. Her eyes shot open in surprise, and she told Raticlaw the how many she had detected.
“That few?” he asked incredulously. “Where the Hell are the rest of them?”
***************************************************************
“Someone’s coming,” Jonah hissed.
Caroline looked up, hand paused in midstroke down Growlithe’s back. The canine Pokemon had curled up into a ball and gone to sleep, apparently disinterested in the tedious boredom of the stakeout and how—contrary to his expectations—no steaks were involved. Jonah quickly cut off her reply with an index finger pressed against his lips, and he gestured for her to come over to him and take a look. She crept up quietly to the window Jonah was kneeling under and took a look. A trio of shady-looking men were walking towards the warehouse in a nonchalant manner that suggested anything but. They chatted easily among themselves as they passed under Jonah and Caroline’s two-story perch.
“This is ******** man,” one complained bitterly. “We don’t need eight people to load Pokeballs onto no damn truck.”
“Shut up,” one said, “you know we have to be there to make sure he don’t try to stiff us.”
“Plus make sure the pigs don’t get in the way,” the third added.
“That’s what we pay the pigs off for,” the first one replied.
“Whatever *****, we still get paid so just—“
“Woof!”
Jonah felt his heart stop. He slowly turned around and looked in horror as Growlithe barked in his sleep, the puppy Pokemon’s limbs twitching as a tableau of adventure played out inside the recesses of his mind. The thugs’ conversation had ground to a sudden halt, their attention drawn to the noise above them. Jonah and Caroline were so tense you could have bounced a coin off of either.
After what seemed like several forevers, one thug finally said, “just a stray mutt.”
“Yeah.”
“Come on, you know he’ll be ****** if we’re late,” the third said.
Jonah and Caroline visibly relaxed at the sound of retreating footsteps.
And that’s when the Weavile came bursting through the window.
***************************************************************
Raticlaw and Syl crept carefully through the mess of hastily stacked crates and assorted packaging materials. In contrast to the outside the storage space inside the warehouse was in fair condition, or at least as well maintained and organized as one could expect from a small criminal enterprise. As far as Syl could tell all the other gang members were in another part of the building, but the pair was taking no chances, stepping as quietly as they could and triple-checking for guards before passing through the open. For the moment though it seemed no one was coming, and Raticlaw had chosen to indulge his curiosity and rifle through whatever he could open with his claws as Syl kept watch.
Stolen car parts, some drugs… Raticlaw thought as he picked his way through the various crates, l
ooks like these guys have a sweet gig as the middlemen of crime.
Syl read his surface thoughts and sent a sensation of agreement back to him.
But where are the Pokemon?
Dunno… Raticlaw began,
wait, someone’s coming.
The pair hunkered down in the corner behind a splintering stack of pallets as four thugs came walking through the doorway separating the storage area from another. They seemed uninterested in this particular area, however, and continued for the doorway to yet another walled off section of the warehouse. They kept walking through the various subcompartments of the warehouse, finally stopping at one in particular. It was another area filled with yet even more boxes and crates, distinguished only from the other sections by the presence of a loading dock. One thug went over to a nearby hand crank and looked to the others. One nodded, and the thug quickly began to turn the crank, the loading dock’s door rolling amid creaking protest.
The sight of the back of a Rhyder truck greeted the thugs, advertising the amazing hauling capacities and discount rates to a group so accustomed to seeing the text that they could likely recite the entire sales pitch by heart. The smell of burning diesel and the hum of the idling engine began to fill the warehouse as the truck’s driver hopped out of the cab.
He walked up to the gang, his posture conveying fearlessness acquired through familiarity with his associates. The driver—a grimy, rough-cut fellow who looked like he would rather drive than sleep—looked around the loading area and stuck an accusing finger at one of the thugs--presumably the leader of the gang--apparently displeased by the surroundings.
“How many times am I going to have to come before you have the goods ready to be loaded?” he asked in exasperation. “Time ain’t free.”
The leader looked unmoved. “Your stuff is…worth a lot. We don’t get it out of storage until we have a damn good reason to do so.”
“And that’s why you store them on the opposite side of the building from the loading dock,” the driver said in disdain.
The leader glowered back. “You want our **** or not?”
“Yeah yeah, I have the money,” the driver replied, gesturing to the truck. “Hurry up and go get the goods.”
The leader gestured to two others in the group. The two nodded and began to walk back the way they had came. Unseen to the five men, a small red bat-winged Rattata was running ahead of the pair as fast as its tiny legs could take it.
***************************************************************
The Weavile swung a wicked clawed hand at Caroline. It missed only narrowly, claws slicing through one of the straps holding up her overalls like a hot knife through butter. It moved to press its advantage against the prone girl, but a sudden burst of flame forced it to leap back. It turned to the offender, claws bared for battle. Growlithe barked, moved by ancient instinct to protect his new companions and unafraid of the dark type Pokemon. The two leapt at each other, each giving its respective battle cry.
Jonah ran to Caroline, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet, relieved to find her more surprised than hurt. He turned back and began to bark orders to Growlithe, but it was quickly becoming apparent that even with the type advantage the puppy Pokemon was terribly outclassed, the former stray no match for a gang Pokemon encouraged to kill without hesitation or remorse. Weavile seemed to realize this and was easily dancing around Growlithe’s attacks, landing superficial cuts and enjoying Growlithe’s howls of pain: it was toying with its victim before delivering the final blow.
Jonah’s mind raced, well aware that their lives were on borrowed time. Syl would doubtless know her trainer was in trouble, but there was no guarantee she would be able to arrive in time or even do anything against the dark type Weavile. Conventional wisdom said that Hachiman would have no trouble against it, but Jonah had left the fighting type in his Pokeball upon entering and his gut told him the building was far too confined for the Hariyama to have any hope of putting up a fight against a smaller, more agile opponent. That, as far as Jonah could tell, left one option.
It wasn’t a very good option. But it was better than no options.
“Caroline, come on!” Jonah yelled, gesturing wildly to the doorway and grabbing a Pokeball from his belt, “Growlithe, return!”
A beam of red light shot out from the Pokeball and contacted Growlithe just as Weavile’s claws were poised for a violent Slash. The attack passed harmlessly through Growlithe as the fire type coalesced into an unidentifiable reddish glob of energy that was sucked back into the Pokeball before the dark type could react. Caught by surprise for only a moment, Weavile turned to the trainers running into the hallway and screeched horribly, furious that its moment of triumph had been stolen from it. It charged them at a blinding speed, claws gleaming with ill intent in the moonlight. Its targets stood in the doorway, watching its advance with a mixture of fascination and horror. It leapt.
Jonah slammed the door shut as hard as he could.
The door gave off a cracking sound as well as a violent shudder as the Weavile went from 40 to zero in half an inch and a tenth of a second. There was a sound of dazed anger, soon followed by the ugly sound of claws carving into wood.
“Growlithe, Flamethrower on the door!” Jonah screamed. A Pokeball at his belt erupted with red light as Growlithe returned to a more tangible form. A burst of flame emerged from Growlithe’s mouth and hit the door, setting it alight and causing a horrific scream to rattle out from behind it.
Jonah turned back to Caroline. “That’s not going to hold for long! Let’s go!”
***************************************************************
The thug watched his partner struggle with the padlock on the door. “Come on man, hurry up.”
The other thug continued to concentrate on the lock, wiggling the key in frustration. “Not my fault this lock is a piece of ****. How come we don’t buy a new one yet?”
“Don’t matter, it’s still our asses if you don’t hurry.”
“So this is where you fine gentlemen keep the Pokemon, huh?”
“Yea—wait, what?”
An invisible force brought the two thugs’ heads together at high speed, causing the pair to crumple in a heap on the floor. Raticlaw stepped over them and walked over to the door. After a moment’s reflection he turned the key, causing the padlock to snap open.
“Dumbass didn’t stick the key all the way in,” he grunted as he heard Syl approaching from behind. Raticlaw grasped the door handle and swung it open, revealing a dark room with a musty smell on the other side. The rat Pokemon grabbed a flashlight that had been sitting by the doorway and waved it at Syl to get her attention. He felt a tug as the flashlight struggled to float out of his hand and let it go, watching as it ascended into the air as if possessed of a will of its own. Light came pouring out of it with an invisible flick of the switch, and soon after the flashlight was heading into the darkness like a spelunker into a cave. The pair followed closely behind.
In better days this had been a breaker room, the electrical panels still bolted to the wall and awaiting a time when power could be supplied to the building without the utility company getting too nosy for their own good. In lieu of its intended use a series of hastily constructed racks had been thrown inside, turning the room into little more than an excessively wired closet. Syl willed the flashlight to sweep slowly through the room. The racks were covered in trays filled with Pokeballs, each ball held shut with a strange looking clamp.
I don’t understand, Syl said,
why all this trouble when you can just send them via computer?
“Security on the online system is too tight,” Raticlaw replied, “might as well try to fart in a church.”
Are you saying it’s unbreakable?
“No, but truck drivers are a lot cheaper than wunderkind hackers.”
Syl gave him a critical look.
You seem to be… knowledgeable about many things.
“I’ve been around,” Raticlaw said simply. He grabbed a Pokeball off one of the racks and easily tore off the clamp, the device clearly meant to keep the Pokemon inside from coming out rather than preventing those on the outside from opening the Pokeball. He walked out of the breaker room and back into the storage area of the warehouse. “Let’s see what we got here.”
I don’t think this is a good ide— Syl began.
Syl’s protest was interrupted by the Pokeball meeting the pavement, releasing its contents with a flash of light. Its occupant—not yet fully coalesced—made a beeline charge at Syl, a distinct keening sound following in its wake. Syl’s sixth sense began to raise a commotion in her mind, telling her to get away, but the opponent was too fast, too close…
A green arm--its edge both humming with psychic energy and dangerously sharp--stopped a hair’s breadth away from Syl’s throat. The reddish haze surrounding her would-be attacker dispersed, revealing a surprised-looking Gallade.
You… the Gallade said, his arm not wavering from its position out of bafflement rather than malice,
are not that hombre humano.
Syl glanced over at Raticlaw.
“I think he said that you’re not human. Or a guy,” Raticlaw replied, his grip on other human languages being piecemeal at best.
Clearly not, Syl replied. The Gallade lowered his arm. Another sharp sound preceded a dying hum as the psychic type’s limb warped and contorted, the edge of his arm growing duller as the tail end of the blade receded into his elbow. He stepped back and gave her a courteous bow.
My apologies, senorita, the Gallade said,
in my haste I mistook you for the one who captured me. He grasped her hand in his and lifted it up to his face and planted a soft kiss on it before she could protest.
Raticlaw couldn’t help but chuckle at the display. “You’re old school, aren’t you?”
The Gallade turned to Raticlaw.
There is no shame in chivalry, senor. He was confused by Raticlaw’s expression changing from amusement to concern, until he looked back at Syl. The Gardevoir wore a look of sudden panic.
“Syl, go!” Raticlaw said, discerning what had caused her sudden shift. Syl began to protest, but Raticlaw’s intense glare and her natural inclinations quickly won out and she vanished from existence with nary a word.
The sound of a thug yelling for his companions suddenly echoed throughout the warehouse. Raticlaw turned and dashed back towards the breaker room.
“Hey you!” he called to the Gallade, throwing any remaining pretense of stealth that remained out the window, “give me a hand in here!”
Forgive me, but what is going on? the Gallade asked.
“Live through this and I’ll tell you later,” Raticlaw said, as he grabbed as many Pokeballs as he could.
Senor, some los hermanos are approaching. And what about that odd Rattata on your—
“Later!”