Vixen handed Chad a slim leather strap with a yellow tag. "Put that around your neck. It's your pass into the city so they know you're not someone else's Pokémon running loose." Technically, he was someone else's Pokémon running loose, thought Chad as he fumbled with the clasp behind his neck. He followed Vixen down the path away from the house. In the setting sun, he could just see Jade out in front waving, when he looked back around. He was glad when the path turned.
He was now treading on unfamiliar ground for the first time in a few years. It felt strange. New energy rose in him, lifting his tail and putting spring in his step. The flame lit their way as they walkeddown the quiet wooded road. Vixen, her nose pointed forward, set a brisk pace.
Just as he was about to suggest flying to their destination, the road gave way to a paved street lined with houses and trees. Arriving at an intersection, Chad saw sights he had only seen before on Jade's television. Buildings lined the streets and cars zoomed by. Humans walked to and fro. Flaming in alarm, Chad halted, flapping his wings. The left one hit a mailbox, the right one hit a passerby. Pedestrians yelped and scuttled clear.
"They're not going to attack, don't freak," said Vixen. "It's normal for Pokémon to walk around here right with humans, it's close to the city. Keep those wings folded, there's no room for them."
""Let me fly us the rest of the way." He ached to escape this swamp of congestion, noise and bad smells. Looking up he saw Pidgeys, a Spearow, even an Articuno.
"Keep those feet on the ground. The thing here is to not attract attention. Not something you're known for."
"I'm still known?"
"We're not sticking around long enough to find out. You go up there, you're a flying billboard--not to mention you've gained enough weight to blot out the sun. Charizards are uncommon, they stand out."
"But there are some?"
"We're not staying long enough for you to flirt either. You'd be disappointed, they've got the IQ of a brick wall. I thought the ones back home were dense?" Vixen rolled her green eyes. "Chah. The few I've met make you look like an Alakazam. Burnouts, so to speak."
So Chad stood waiting at the light with two good wings on his back. Even in the poor light he could tell he was making heads turn. But each one just walked on by; apparently they didn't recognize him as the mad charizard of television infamy. Human memories seemed blessedly short.
When the "don't walk" sign changed to WALK, Chad followed Vixen across, feeling a growl form in his throat to answer the engines of the cars lined up to his left, gunning for the green light. He held his head high, knowing you weren't allowed to act like an animal here. Among the humans walked other Pokémon; here a Drowzee, there a Venonat, walking with un-animal-like stiffness. Chad felt better seeing them, but sadly, he saw no charizards.
Now in town, more people and Pokémon clogged the streets. Hemming one side of the dirty sidewalk were buildings, on the other side a line of parked cars. Though Chad saw lots of easy prey, he didn't feel an urge to pounce. Besides his not being hungry, they streamed past with barely a look at the deadly predator; so far removed from nature that they didn't seem like prey. Or even animals. Humans and Pokémon alike looked straight ahead, a mixed bag of species streaming in either direction like they all had somewhere important to be.
"We're going to be staying one night in this person's apartment, then she's calling a friend over to teleport us to Chah, with her magic," said Vixen. Her tail whipped Chad's leg as he stopped to peer in a bakery window. "You're fat enough already. She wants us at her car before dark." It was twilight now.
Chad had gained thirty pounds at the most--not much to his huge body--but just see if Vixen let the tiniest thing pass without beating him over the head with it.
"Ow!" Someone bumped into his tail; he turned to see a Poliwhirl shaking its fist at him. "Why don't you look where you're waving that thing, you klutz!"
"Hey, I didn't see--"
"Just keep walking," said Vixen. Chad swallowed a fire breath. He couldn't wait to be back home, at the top of the food chain again!
Vixen led him off the dirty sidewalk, down a dirtier alley. They emerged in a weedy parking lot behind a boarded-up store. The chubby, black-striped backside of a Raichu stood leaned against a rusty, metallic-blue car whose left headlight was lined with ducktape, like a black eye. The Raichu's tail, instead of curving long and ending in a lightning-bolt shape, was only about six inches, like an old black electric cord jaggedly cut. A globe of smoke hazed in front of her, as if she were breathing it out.
"Here he is," Vixen called. "Chad, the one and only."
The Raichu ground a cigarette butt on the pavement. "I'm Raelle, how do you do," she said, turning around with her stubby brown-black paw out. "Whoa." Taking a big step back, she looked him up and down, swaying the big gold hoops hanging from her ears. "That's a charizard."
"I warned you he was big," said Vixen.
"Yeah but--" Raelle smiled up at Chad, who smelled foul smoke on her breath, even at this distance. "Okay, when you're in my car, just keep that tail in front of you and well--stay calm. I just had the seats reupholstered."
Her tail-stub perked, Raelle pulled the handle on the car's back door. It cracked and grunted open. "Hop in--there's more room in the back. Don't worry, I won't smoke in the car."
Chad ducked his head, into unfamiliar smells of beer and cigarettes. He wasn't sure where to step because of all the disposable cups, bags, plates, cans and CDs and jewel cases. . . Raelle saw him hesitating with one foot lifted.
"Step anywhere, don't worry about that junk."
Crunch went cups and cans and jewel cases. The front seats were covered in fake Electabuzz fur, the back ones buried in junk.
"Shove it on the floor."
Chad's arm shoveled it over in a landslide. Now he saw the seats. Where they weren't ripped or burned, they were stained. He assumed they were flammable and refrained from cleaning them.
He sucked in his gut and crammed himself in, with his tail in front, his head against the ceiling and his wings everywhere else. Though it was a big car, with the front seat fully forward, he barely fit. The smells of foul smoke and fermentation enveloped him. Papers protruded from a back pouch on the passenger seat where Vixen climbed in. Just once, he wouldn't mind a Poké Ball.
"So, before we go, are you really the Crimson City charizard back there?"
"The same."
Raelle got out her keys. Chad saw the dashboard was practically held together with duck tape. "My hero is in the back seat of my car. I hope you don't mind if I keep you up with all my questions later?"
"Sure." He owed her one. "If I can stay awake. Where are we going?"
"My place." Raelle turned the key and the car choked to life. The growl made his horns vibrate.
"Oh yeah, muffler don't work!"
Chad tried to look out the side window, but it was taped up too because of a spider web crack. The engine shuddered as Raelle put it in reverse, then put it back in forward and they were roaring down the road, where there wasn't traffic.
On either side of the passenger seat, Chad saw Vixen's tails curry. Raelle glanced over.
"Yeah, I know this car's a piece of shit, but it's got a great stereo. Still paying for it." Raelle cranked up the music--sound bites ticking to a synthesized drum--to drown out the muffler, or lack thereof. Out from the trunk the bass tones pounded.
"Damn it's dark," shouted Raelle, gunning the gas as a light turned yellow. "Hate driving at night, got no inside lights. Gotta get it fixed before this sucker goes in for inspection next month."
As Raelle drove, practically hitched to the car in front, Chad watched the road ahead, beyond the pendulum of objects swinging from the front mirror.
Raelle rapped her chubby paw on the wheel. "Damn! It's hot in here."
Chad hadn't noticed.
"It's you."
"Sorry," said Chad as Raelle rolled down the window.
"Oh, you can't help it. I would use the AC but that's shot too."
"So . . . where's your place?" Chad shouted. "Is it close?"
"Poké City. Citizens mostly Pokémon," Raelle shouted back. Paws on ears, Vixen stuck her nose out the window.
"A city just for Pokémon, huh," said Chad.
Raelle snorted and the car sped up. "A fucking joke. Humans run it too. They find something worth running, they run it or they wreck it. Guess we got lucky."
"But the Pokémon--do they fight back?"
A car outside honked, the horn dipping in pitch as Raelle pulled in front. The driver gave the finger as they passed. Raelle returned it.
"What do you think we did when you were locked up? You saw all that, right?"
"Yeah."
"So how'd you fake your death?"
"I'm not sure. Someone faked it for me."
There was a pause.
"What happened to your tail?" Chad realized he shouldn't have asked.
Raelle's right ear pricked up, the gold hoop earring swaying, and she looked slightly toward him so he saw the edge of her grin. "None of your business."
She parked the car way in the back of a crowded lot. "Here we are. Chad, hold your tail down. Stay in the car." Raelle jumped out, looked around, then motioned them out. "All right, follow me." Raelle raced to the door in her hopping gait. Coughing, she fumbled the key in the door and pushed Chad in ahead of her. "Go."
Chad's tail flame illuminated a narrow, almost too narrow, wooden stairwell flanked by graffiti-covered concrete walls. He smelled smoke, urine, rotten food, and heard voices and music.
"Up," said Raelle, keys jingling in her hand. "I'm on the second floor."
"Someone after us?"
"Charizards ain't allowed in this unit. They had too many accidents." She placed a paw up on his back, pushing him up the first stairs, which were steeper and smaller than Jade's. He went on all fours to keep his balance.
"So, Chad's already causing trouble. What happens if they catch you?" said Vixen.
"I get fined."
Chad was awkwardly negotiating the stairs, careful to hold his tail up. "You sure you want to do this? I could sleep out--"
"You don't wanna sleep outside anywhere in this neighborhood. Them landlords don't scare me. It's just for a couple days and I'm helping a hero. Whoa, watch the tail back here! I am flammable too."
"Sorry."
"Damn." Raelle stared up at Chad in her living room. Chad, who had barely squeezed in the front door, was thinking along those lines too, for a different reason. The apartment was a larger version of the car. Again he smelled smoke and beer, and saw plenty of evidence of both in the cans, bottles, empty packs and overflowing ash trays on end tables and the floor, strewn among other junk. Raelle pointed a little thumb at his tail. "You're huge and on fire."
"It's genetic."
Raelle laughed. "Yeah, well I gotta find you a place to sleep, where you won't burn down the building. I guess you can't like turn it off."
"Not really."
Raelle's ears perked. "Wait." She went into another room through an archway. "Yeah, the tiles are ceramic, the good stuff. I think if you lie on your back," she called as Chad entered the kitchen, "and drape that end over your leg or something?" She looked up at him, perking a brow. "Can you do that?"
"He moves in his sleep, alot," said Vixen.
Chad put his hands on his hips. "Oh, yeah like you know that."
Raelle laughed. "Anyway this is all I got. If you crack my tiles. . .well, I'll forgive you. You are a hero."
"Would people recognize me?"
"Probably not. What was it, fifteen years. . ."
"Fourteen," said Vixen.
"Yeah. Well, when you flamed that asshole," said Raelle, "that was the one time we Pokémon felt the power. We spoke on the news. Our voice was heard." The sparkle of memory flicked out of her eyes. "Course, it didn't last."
"But you didn't fail," said Chad. "That human Jade rescued me because she saw me on the news."
"Yeah." She smiled, then her face went serious. "You know how to, like, use toilets and everything, right?"
"Rest assured."
"I hope you can fit in our bathroom."
"Our?"
"Raelle?" came a high, soft female voice from another room. A Pokémon voice. "Are you going to introduce me?"
"Friana!" Raelle slapped her forehead and ran down a hallway opposite the kitchen. "I am so sorry, I was trying to find a place he can sleep at. . ." Chad and Vixen stood at the edge of the hall as Raelle and the unseen other talked. As Raelle stepped back into the dim but adequate living room light, she carried on a red cushion a green, crescent-shaped, leathery thing with round eyes, spiky cheekbones and a tiny mouth. The mouth smiled as the eyes met Chad's. "So here he is. The legendary Crimson City charizard?"
Raelle set the pillow with the Metapod on the couch. "The same. I told you I'd be bringing him home tonight. Friana, meet Chad, and his friend Vixen. I'm calling up Kora, hopefully we can go over there tomorrow."
"My, it's nice to see you even if only for a little while," said Friana, blinking. "I've read about you, seen the old news clips. . . To me you're a part of history. I was only born a couple years after you made your heroic scene."
"You were lucky," said Chad, sitting next to her. "I feel funny being a hero, to tell you the truth."
"Everyone's a hero in their way," said Friana. "It's just a matter of showing it."
He had shown it by killing someone. Chad's stomach rumbled.
"I forgot about dinner," said Raelle, coming back in with two cans, one open. "You like beer?"
"I've never had it," said Chad.
Raelle handed him the unopened can. "It tastes better than it smells."
"Oh, Raelle," said Friana. "You shouldn't rub your habits onto others."
"What, he's going back to the wilderness. He'll never get another chance."
Chad gagged on the first and last mouthful. Grimacing, he handed the can back to Raelle, who finished it after Vixen held out a paw in refusal. Raelle put both cans down, wiped her mouth, and went to the phone. "You guys like pizza?"
"I'm willing to try." He was practically willing to gnaw on wood by now.
Raelle smiled. "What rock you been hiding under. We gotta show you all the cool stuff before you go home."
"That's all right," said Vixen. While staring at Chad's stomach, Raelle gave an order of two large pizzas to the human on the screen.
"Thank you, but I don't eat," said Friana as Chad offered to hold a slice for her. "Metapods live on fat reserves."
"Really." Chad, folded the piece and stuffed it in his mouth whole. He had never seen a real Metapod before. "What if the fat runs out?" he said through crust and cheese.
"We metamorphose into Butterfree before that happens."
"Are you going to. . .evolve soon?"
"Soon," said Friana. "I'm not sure how soon. It's different for everyone. But I'll know when it's coming."
Raelle hung up the phone. "It's set. I'm gonna drive you guys out to Kora's in three days, she'll teleport you home. Woulda been tomorrow, but she's gonna be busy at some magic retreat or whatever those psychics do." She went to her little fridge and pulled out another beer. "Damn, I can't get over it. You were alive all these years."
"We owe you a lot," said Chad. "Is. . . there anything I could do for you, before we go?"
"No, no--" Raelle cocked her head. "Well there is one thing. I'll tell you tomorrow morning." She winked. "You can handle it."
Vixen scowled. Chad swallowed and smiled back.
When Raelle finally flicked off the television, it was way into the night. Chad lay on his back and draped his tail tip over his ankle, as Raelle had instructed. His wings, half folded, walled around him against cupboards and sink. The tiles were cool and rough, a lot like a cavern floor, but he wasn't sleeping like a charmander. Above him, below him, voices and the vibrating heartbeat of car stereos snatched him out of sleep every time he drifted down. Well, it was only three nights. Soon he would be back in a calm, clean, quiet--
Crash! Upstairs, glass shattered as Pokémon shouted. Chad got up on his elbows. Something big banged on the ceiling, then another crash. As he got his wings behind him and crossed the living room, he met Vixen coming out of the hall.
"You heard that?" he said.
"What do you think I am, deaf? I'll get Raelle."
Vixen went to Raelle's room while Chad stood guard, watching the front door.
"Go back to sleep," Raelle groaned. "They're just drunk again. Those Hitmo's always fight up there."
Chad and Vixen were too tired to argue, but Chad sat awake till the commotion died. How could he sleep with a full-blown battle raging right above him? Blinking bleary eyes, he thought of Jade's quiet basement.
"Well I told you there was one thing you could do in return," said Raelle over fast food next morning. Chad and Vixen got the bucket of chicken while Raelle had salad and fries. Chad sizzled the meat over his tail. Fast food was good, but rough on his digestion.
He ate another buffalo wing. "Okay, what?"
"When you're done with that, come out with me."
"Uh. . ." Raelle hesitated as they both climbed onto on the apartment roof. A stiff wind blew. "How about this. So I can get an idea of how you fly, can you like, show me?"
Chad put his hands on his hips and fanned his wings like a huge blue cape. "My pleasure."
He pushed off and flew high over forests of buildings and cars in the morning light. Feeling a burst of energy he rocketed up, beating his wings hard, then tucked them in, twirling, taking big breaths of crisp air. He probably shouldn't fly this high. . . but he just couldn't resist grabbing all that sky.
Slightly winded, he landed on the roof's rim, his feet gripping it. "Well, how'd I do?"
"Whoa. Uh, that was cool, but, this is my first time flying, so how about let's cut the spinning stuff and keep it plain?"
"Sure." He jumped down and got on all fours. "Hop on my back, and hold onto my neck. Tight, but not too tight."
Chad felt Raelle trembling as she got a seat on his back. She was heavier than she looked, but lighter than some meals he'd had. "You don't know how cool this is," she said, clinging to his neck with her stubby arms. "I always wanted to fly."
Chad gave her a grin. "I'm honored. Here we go." He bunched his haunches and raised his wings--
Her arms squeezed his neck in a death grip. "Wait!"
"What?" he gasped, tugging at the paws.
"I'm not so sure now."
He looked around at her. "I won't drop you."
"Uh. . ."
"If you want I'll hold you myself," he said, even as he got the feeling that holding Raelle would not be like holding Mo. "There's no way I would drop you. Back on Chah that's how I caught prey." He licked his lips teasingly. Raelle pouted.
"Sorry."
Raelle shook her head, no, it was nothing he'd said. "Okay," she said. "Let's try that."
Chad got his arms snugly around Raelle's round, bouncy body. "Comfy?"
"Yup."
"I got you real good, you can't slip out," he said, feeling her heart pound through her at 90 miles a minute. "Ready?"
Raelle swallowed. "Yeah."
Chad stretched his wings again. Raelle kicked, one foot getting him between the legs. He dropped her and doubled over.
She covered her mouth. "I'm so sorry."
"Um, that's okay." He got up, flaming nonchalantly, letting off heat. "I guess you don't like flying?"
Raelle shrugged, heading for the door to the stairwell. "Nobody's perfect."
"Ever done it?"
"I said it was my first time."
So she was scared of the idea.
"Sorry it didn't work out," he said following her down. "Didn't mean to give you any scares."
Raelle turned around and pointed. "Keep that tail up when you go down the steps. I think you're making burn marks."
"I'm sorry I didn't take you guys too," said Chad to Vixen and Friana, who were up watching television when the two got back into the apartment. "But I'm not supposed to fly around too much, might attract attention . . ."
"Yeah, Team Rocket's been hitting this town lately," said Raelle, climbing up next to Friana. Her body pooled on the couch. "Like we don't have enough trouble."
"I've ridden Chad a thousand times," said Vixen, lapping daintily from a coffee cup. "Probably the more I stay off his back, the longer I'll live."
"And I don't want a spoiler," said Friana on the blue overstuffed chair, looking up from her book on its plastic stand. Apparently Vixen had been turning pages, for she didn't have her turner in her mouth. "My first flight will be on my own wings." Her eyes wandered wistfully up. "When I'm a butterfree, things will be different."
Lounging back, Raelle burped. "I said that too when I was a pikachu." She held up a bottle, swished it around, took the last swig and set it behind her on the end table, shoving aside cans and wrappers. "Can't say I was wrong."
27: Burn Baby Burn (Disco Inferno) "I hope you all understand what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about burning down a building. It's coming from the soul." --The Trammps
The last evening before they would go to see Kora, they went out riding in Raelle's car again. Friana declined to come, saying with a laugh that "Metapods can't dance very well. At least this one can't!" Chad wondered what he was in for.
"Chad, your last night in Poké City's gonna be a learning one," Raelle shouted over her shoulder to make herself heard over muffler and stereo as they sat in city traffic. "A dose of culture for you country folks."
"Where are we going?" Chad shouted back.
"Club Dragon Rage. Almost there already."
"Is that a disco?" said Vixen.
"It's better than a disco."
"This is a disco," said Vixen as they strolled toward the open double doors. A gaudy neon sign, surrounded by graffiti, blinked the club's name. Chad already felt the bass tones in his stomach, but was eager to get inside, anything to edge out of the sidewalk crowds. When he followed Raelle and Vixen into the dark mouth of the club, the first thing he thought of was Crimson City Gym. Here, the pandemonium had a beat.
Chad squinted in the mist of cigarette smoke. Further inside, a dense crowd shook and swayed under swirling colored lights, to horn-twistingly loud music, blurred by conversations. "No cover before ten," Raelle yelled, flashing them a smile over her shoulder. The crowded sidewalk was looking better and better, but Chad was determined to try this. Maybe there was something good that he had not yet noticed; it looked pretty popular. He studied the tons of Pokémon (and some humans) as Raelle led them nearer; dozens of bodies pressed together. His skin felt crawly and he rustled his wings. Above them a huge faceted ball cast a whirlpool of speckles spinning on the floor. Everything moved.
"Come on, Chad!" said Raelle, becoming one with the crowd as she caught the smile of another Raichu and faced him. What was he supposed to do? Chad strained his neck above the masses to get air but breathed in cigarette smoke. He longed to stand alone under the sun on a cliff, hearing only wind. Trying new things didn't always lead to pleasant surprises.
"Well, I'm ready to go," said Vixen; Chad leaned down to hear her but couldn't duck his head without smacking someone. "Where is Raelle?"
Chad pivoted his head, looking around his wings, but Raelle was subsumed in the crowd. "I don't see her."
"Great," said Vixen. "See any place to sit?"
"No."
"Do you see a bar? A place with lights?"
Vixen described a bar well enough for Chad to recognize one at the far side of the room. He wove through the drunken crowd, Vixen following.
"We'll wait here till one of us sees her," said Vixen as they found stools. "Then we pounce. I have a headache already. Keep your eyes open."
Chad tried, but the smoke was making them tear. "What are they all doing?" This was supposed to be for enjoyment?
"Dancing," said Vixen. "Don't ask."
This resembled in no way the dancing he knew. How could this mass of worming limbs compare to the spacious swoops and glides of charizard grace? Or the leap of an Arcanine? He coughed on the smoke. Any charizard would look ridiculous doing that--they needed to fly to look graceful. Especially him.
Chad was about to close his eyes for good and make for the door when he saw a distant flame through the haze. A charizard's tail--and female. Chad slid off the stool.
"I'll be right back."
"Yeah right," said the fox as Chad wove through the crowd. They somehow made room for him.
Chad drew nearer at last, crossing the obstacle course of people. The first charizard that he had seen in a few years. In the flecks of dim light trickling over her, he saw her color--a dark golden orange. She was over six feet, almost as tall as he was, with suede-blue eyes.
"Hi," he said and she turned around. He smelled too many drinks on her breath as she burped and accidentally flamed his face.
She laughed. "Sorry."
"That's okay," Chad laughed too. "What's your name?"
"Charmina. Never saw a male like you."
Chad could say the same for her as a female, but not in a completely good way. Still, this was his chance to make a good first impression. Once she wasn't drunk, it would feel good to talk to one of his own kind.
"So, do you come here often?" he said.
Charmina was laughing. "Yeah all the time!" Her hand grasped his wrist. "Come with me."
Chad stumbled as she lurched forward, waddling awkwardly. She walked into a chair on the way towards a door. Chad helped her maneuver around it. What is it with drinking problems here? She opened the door and they walked into a little room. Chad could not believe his luck. This was really his chance to make a first impression, and a first roll in the den, like they said. Unlike most other youths, Chad had never had a chance to "play around."
Their tails lit up the small concrete room with a slouching bed against one wall. Charmina got on the floor and Chad followed her down. "What's your name?" she breathed.
"Chad."
"Oh, Chad."
Her hand ran along his chest. He lay on her, pressing forward, feeling her breathe beneath him.
She planted her hands on his front, pushing him back. "Hello. You have to pay first."
"Pay. . .?" His face twisted in confusion; too much blood in his brain. He could not catch his breath.
"You know--money?" She wriggled out from under him, holding her hand out. "Five hundred. It's your first time in the city, isn't it."
"I don't have any money." Payment for sex? What would they think of next!
"What kind of idiot are you?" Charmina shoved him away and flamed his face. "Get out!"
The noise slapped him in the face when he opened the door and stepped out. Looking back, he saw her sitting on the floor on her bum with her feet and tail in front of her, maybe too drunk to get up. She looked at him and crossed her arms, flapping her wings irritably.
Chad felt his masculinity draining away as he forged back across the loud dance floor, set apart from the rhythm. Hopefully no one he knew had seen him.
"Okay, maybe the disco scene ain't for you," said Raelle as they drove back to the apartment. "But hey, it was worth a try, right?"
"Right." Chad tried to look cheerful, but. . . another chance, and he had blown it. Was he really so pathetic that he had to pay females to play with him? Would this continue once he got home?
I have six or seven thousand more years to live, but with humans it might not be a hundred. He wrestled with second thoughts about going home as much as he wrestled with the music coming from the apartment below as he tried to sleep that night. Going home would be running away, but he'd had enough.
28: Prepare For Trouble (or, the Scarlet Letter)
The sky threatened rain, but Chivonne and August were still out in the back field. "Good one," he said, coming over to pat Chivonne on the back as she landed from doing multiple flips while flaming, creating a loop of fire. "Let's take five. So anyway, I was going to bring this up before. Do you want to have another meeting with what's-his-name, his charizard you saw yesterday?"
"No."
"Just 'no'? What was wrong with this male, huh?"
Chivonne lay on the grass, rolling around just to feel it on her back. As if it was any one thing; there didn't even have to be anything "wrong". This male had been intelligent and easy to talk to. But those raised by trainers grew up so quickly that they were often left in the dust, emotionally; and their philosophies on life were different. This male believed in loyalty to his trainer and the "honor" of doing battle.
"After all, you battle just like me," he had said.
"I do. For the money. I plan to buy a future for our kind in the wild. Me and my future mate," she had lain out next to him, "could fly out and live in the Charmountains. Or Charizard Valley, or wherever. . ."
"You're joking," he had said. "Living in a drafty den, being attacked by who knows what, not even knowing where your next meal is?"
That had pretty much ended their discussion. There were some kinds of experience that battles didn't cover, and likewise, that being wild didn't.
"I mean, Chivonne, I left the room and everything. I understand if he wasn't perfect, but come on, no one is," said August.
"I'm not asking for perfection. I'm asking for competence. I have to know he can take care of himself. "
"He looked good to me."
Chivonne gave him a look that asked how in the world could he be judge. "Maybe he had his own reservations. Male charizards, those ready to pair for good, aren't slobbering for every female they see. We didn't hit it off."
August sat down next to her, his hands resting on his shins. "I'm just saying it because this is the fourth male you've seen. Even I dated the first girl I went out with, for a few weeks."
"I used to 'date' too. But I'm done playing around."
"This isn't playing around. You want a mate, so I'm doing all I can. You will eventually pick someone?"
Chivonne swished her tail, charring the grass below it. "I appreciate what you're doing, it's very thoughtful. But I have no idea. Would you be in the mood if it were a blind date arranged by, say, Pokémon?"
"That's not the same."
Chivonne nodded silently. She felt bad putting August through this, but she was not going to compromise something that would last six thousand years just to suit him. It was not his life. Was she really being picky and unreasonable in wanting this to be arranged and developed by her and her future mate? In wanting there to be aspects of her life that humans didn't have a hand in? August's species had a way of forgetting they didn't have to control everything just for it to work.
"It's the same, August. It's just as mysterious and complex." August shook his head, his arms draped on his knees. "It is different. There aren't that many for you to choose from."
"I have more time to do it," said Chivonne. "You don't. Why haven't you chosen anyone?"
As soon as Chivonne spoke those words she wanted to snatch them back. Both of them knew that she was a good chunk of the reason why August had problems with his girlfriends. But he didn't argue now, and she admired him for it. What a charizard he would have made.
"I'm sorry. I know I make things difficult."
"The thing is that you shouldn't. It just shouldn't be a problem, you're a Pokémon. Those girls--if they'd been serious they would have stuck it out."
"Do you miss any of them."
August shrugged. "A little, but it goes away. Did you ever have a--boyfriend before the war and everything? You've said you had other. . ."
"Before the war. . . they could hardly be called boyfriends. But after it--one day I flew looking for shelter, another lair towards the other end of my home range. A huge male--the biggest one I'd ever seen--swooped down on me. I was completely surprised. He grabbed me and flew me to a cave--he could practically tuck me under his arm. His name was Chub--he said I looked like his mate, whom he'd lost in the war. The poor male had gone mad. He pinned me on the rocks at the edge of the cave."
"He forced you?"
"Almost. I scratched him hard in the belly; it took him by surprise, and I slipped out from under him. Once we were in the air, I defeated him. He was as shocked as I was."
"I thought this was a dating story."
"Yeah, I mated with him when he came back from hunting. He flew off after the fight." To collect his dignity more than his prey. "He was very good. Mostly his size."
August was blushing. "Why--after what he did?"
Chivonne shrugged. "He aroused me. I just wanted to make it clear that he wasn't going to mate me unless I wanted it too." After a few months it had burned out, a fire without fuel. He was as willing to fly away as she was. She never saw him again. Chivonne rolled onto her back, feet in the air.
"Do you regret--doing any of that? Do you miss--him?" August shrugged, red as a charmeleon.
"I don't regret anything." What was there to regret? "I. . . miss everyone I knew. Not that I long to see Chub again--we didn't like each other much--I'll just always remember him." He had been wild. They all had been. They all had stirred something in her that trained Pokémon failed to. They were standing on opposite sides of a river, too distant to connect.
"Guess it's not as personal for your kind."
Chivonne rolled back on her stomach, picking at the grass. "When you share it with your real mate, it becomes something you don't talk about, like I've just been talking. That was--masturbation." I wonder sometimes if my soul mate's dead, she almost added, but held back, afraid, like she were looking over a cliff's edge with her wings tied. She ducked her head, trying to look under at his lowered face. "Do you feel better knowing we're even?"
The deep blush began to leave his face as he smiled back. "We're not actually even. Guys don't get that lucky." Blushing again, he said, "I guess it's not all it's cracked up to be anyway."
"It isn't." Actually it was.
The wind picked up and the first tiny raindrops fell, they got up to head back to the house. Daninger and Lunia were leaving for a private Pokémon tournament tomorrow morning.
"I can't get her to breed, I can't get her to go to another meeting, I'm sorry," said August to Daninger as he and Lunia packed their suitcases. It rained hard outside; Chivonne was downstairs making dinner. "She says she wants a wild male."
"Sounds to me like a disobedient charizard," said Daninger. "Sure you don't want me to train her for a few weeks?"
"Thanks, but she wouldn't agree."
Daninger folded a suit jacket and placed it on top of matching pants. "I know. That lizard dislikes me."
"Why?"
"She's very stubborn, and very smart. Not to mention her ego could barely fit in a gym. She doesn't like the fact that Lunia and I head this household. Plus the mating thing's making her moody. And if she does find a mate, she'll be ten times worse. She could become hostile towards us."
"Not to me."
"She'd turn on you in an instant. Wild charizards are unpredictable."
"Chivonne's trained."
"That's where you're wrong." Daninger pressed the clothes down, leaned on the suitcase and zipped it shut. "Chivonne would be roughly 600 years old now. She was alive when they flew wild all over this continent. Her perspectives are different. She's acting like she's trained because it's her best option, not because she has been moved in any way by this family. Chivonne means to see charizards fly wild again, and she's making money towards it. Took me a while to figure her out, but I knew there had to be a reason she throws so much energy into something she hates."
"Well there's nothing wrong with that, right? Would be good for nature."
"What concerns me is what else she could be planning in order to achieve it. Don't be so quick to trust her." Daninger stood both suitcases side by side on the floor. "But there is something important I wanted to tell you. While Lunia and I are gone these three days, make sure Chivonne doesn't try to leave the property. There have been several reports of Team Rocket hitting the area and they'd love to get their hands on a specimen like Chivonne. I'm saying this because she tends to make her trips and things when I'm not here. She's doesn't realize how the big wide world could hurt her, and that I made that rule for her protection. She's been lucky so far."
That wasn't the impression August had of Chivonne. And he had heard no reports lately about Team Rocket, other than the usual. "Yeah, sure, no sweat," he said, waving as he backed out of the room. "Good luck on the, uh, tournament." Chivonne clicked and typed on her computer. The war had set technology back; she wondered how many things had been lost.
Hacking, though, had easily reinvented itself. Daninger apparently still did not know, even after six years, about her hacking into his computer through the Internet, and then when he had ceased to use a continuous connection, routing his machine to hers one-way with the main power lines. As long as the house had power, she had access to everything. However, as she sifted through the files, she encountered a new firewall. Apparently the suspicion was two-way.
Her tail burned brighter as she began hacking it. Like flaming through masonry, the new challenge only motivated her more. If it was protected, it was important.
At last she found a file titled "list57" (1557 was this year) and clicked it. Be @ Yellow Town on the 28th, all will stay at Jemma's house. Meet @ Yellow Gym in the gym room @ noon on the 29th. Lunia has to be in uniform beforehand. A reminder that he had not yet deleted, was her best guess. Either way, tomorrow was March 28th. Chivonne clicked up her map and looked the place up. Yellow Town was abandoned, ghosted since the end of the war. It was some distance, but not too far to fly in a day. Flying might be the only way to get there, since no express routes or even roads led to Yellow Town anymore. She poked August's shoulder. He turned around from hanging up and tucking away his phone to see Chivonne with her free-Pokémon ID tag around her neck on a gold chain. Daninger had left about an hour ago. "Is Dan clairvoyant or something?" he said as he looked her over from head to toe.
"What, he thought I might be heading out?" August gave a laugh. "Well I already knew you're clairvoyant."
Chivonne laughed too. "What did he say?" she said as she got something from the fridge, to snack before the flight.
"He warned me not to let you go anywhere."
"All the more reason for me to go. August, please promise to tell no one I was gone. I'll be away a day at the most. This is important."
"I can't lie to Daninger. He'll see it all over my face." August leaned his head down into his hand.
Daninger lies to you all the time.
"Where are you going?" Chivonne walked in a circle. "I don't want to endanger you by telling you. Please trust me, and don't tell Daninger. I don't know what he'd do to you or me if he found out."
"Can I go with you?"
"No." Chivonne looked at the floor.
"Just 'no'?"
"I'm going into a dangerous area."
"Why?"
"Because there's something I need to know, it's personal. Please, if you tell Daninger about this it could put--me--in danger."
"I should know then! Are you going to a city? Just tell me where. . ."
"I can't." Chivonne covered her face. "I wish I could." She hugged him; he was a good head taller than her now. August hugged her back.
"I trust you," he said stroking her wing.
"And I trust you."
"Take care of yourself." Chivonne glided in the early evening, putting up with the sting of the light rain. Using her natural sense of direction, she beelined it for the hilly, forested area that hid Yellow Town, traveling over areas that nothing ground-bound could cross. The government needed to do something about criminal activity in the ghost towns. They should level them.
The forest was reclaiming the roads and buildings that had once been a young town killed before its time. Chivonne lit on the outskirts, in a small clearing near a cracked, weedy road. It was still drizzling, and afternoon was losing its light. She had not seen anyone, but she would not fly up to look; she was too visible from the sky, especially at night. A charizard couldn't hide in darkness.
Now to find Yellow Gym. The note had said to meet there tomorrow, so maybe she was ahead of them. But Daninger and Lunia had to be somewhere besides home. She came to a large building in the town square, not a far walk from the outermost roads. Holding her tail as low as she could without lighting anything, she crept out of the underbrush. She had better get in there before it got too dark and anyone passing by would spot her.
She debated trying to find this Jemma's house, but would probably see all she had to at this gym meeting. Besides, there would be less risk of being found. She found the gym doors and tugged on them. They were locked. She knocked hard on the door before dashing into the shrubbery and watching for someone to come out. No one did; this town still seemed deserted. She began trying the windows till she found one, on the 3rd story of the building, that was not locked. She perched her toes on the sill, slid it up and climbed into the dark.
Holding her tail in front of her, she saw a floor just a few feet down and landed inside. She heard a noise. Whirling around, she recognized the sound as a water drop. The roof was leaking. Limp with relief, she set about looking for the gym room. Finding it, and seeing that it too was abandoned, she circled it to find somewhere to hide. A loft near the ceiling, was stuffed with old boxes, mats, and other equipment coated with dust. The metal stairwell leading to it had fallen apart; Chivonne landed on the railing and leaped in, sneezing in the dust. Stomping on the floor, it felt sturdy, so Chivonne began rearranging the objects to create a cubby. The floor was so far below that if she allowed herself only a small peephole, any light flickering within would not be noticed by near-sighted humans. All she had to do was avoid lighting these wooden boxes and combustible, mostly plastic mats. She extended the whole cubby all the way to the window, so that if someone sent a flying type up here she could slip out unseen. She took out the few panes still hanging onto the frame, and popped the frame out. All the better to hear noises outside.
The smooth, cool floor was fireproof, like virtually all gym rooms, so it was tail-safe. In her cubby, Chivonne napped. For the first time in a while, she dreamed about Blue-eyes, and woke with a wonderful, painful throbbing up her belly and down her tail that quickly retreated. Light was coming up through the square peephole. Chivonne uncurled, stretched everything but her huge wings. She crept over to peer out. Late morning light streamed in the dusty windows, and down on the floor human voices murmured in conversation.
All the humans, about two dozen, were dressed in black uniforms with big red R's on the shirt fronts, and black boots and gloves. Her suspicions had been right. Daninger was in Team Rocket. And Lunia?
Everyone but Daninger and Lunia seemed to be there now, making about forty people. The light through the window looked like noon. Then, from the far end of the room-Chivonne's right-two separate doors opened. All the members arranged themselves in two rows on the outsides of the doors, so whoever stepped through would pass by all of them.
Lunia stepped in through one door, fully dressed in Team Rocket uniform except for one detail: the R was missing.
"Prepare for trouble," she shouted, striding forward.
Out the other door came Daninger, dressed in a black suit and holding Lunia's R out in both hands. "And make it double."
He was a Team Rocket boss.
"To protect the world from devastation," said Lunia, walking past the other members.
"To unite all people within our nation."
"To denounce the evils of truth and love."
"To extend our reach to the stars above."
"Lunia."
"Daninger."
"Team Rocket circling the galaxy day and night."
"Bow in terror to our might."
"That's right!" said some small, unseen Pokémon beside Daninger. Chivonne couldn't see what it was--people were blocking her view.
At the end of the rows Daninger and Lunia faced each other. Daninger pinned the big R on her black shirt. "You are now my partner. Every mission we ever take on will be with us as a pair."
"Our first mission," Daninger said as he turned out to the two rows of people, "will be to investigate the missing ball of Marius Mewtwo. As you well know, we have the one Master Ball in our possession already, but we must find its other half. We cannot allow the existence of an invention that would render all Poké Balls useless. In my research I have uncovered a hint that was previously overlooked. In the tapes made of his last hours of life, Marius's last word before he dropped dead, was not a word, but someone's name. I cannot reveal it at present, for it is too top secret. Lunia and I will be working on this mystery, and everyone else here will be on call to investigate should anything come up in his or her field of work. Other than that, you can continue on your current assignments. This is just to let you know that this new lead has surfaced and I will be actively working on assignment again. This means, of course, that if anybody tries to bother me with trifles, I may have to do some re-assigning. Is everything clear?"
They murmured yes's.
"Are you still looking into the capture of your brother-in-law's charizard?" said a member. Daninger turned on his heel.
"For now that is on hold. The specimen is proving more difficult than I imagined. As for my brother-in-law, he has no idea I or Lunia is associated with the Team. That makes him safe."
The other members mumbled agreement.
Chivonne smelled smoke. Her stomach flipped as she turned to see that her tail had lit a neglected dust bunny, which, lifted by the flames' wind, brushed against the side. The fire grabbed the box, gaining new life in the bone-dry timber. Her hands came down on the flames; in mockery they slithered around her fingers.
"Hey, is that smoke up there?" said a human voice below as Chivonne pressed her wing against the box. But it crackled from within, and the flames licked higher, framing her wing like lace.
"That's not smoke, that's a fire! Go, Gyarados!" said a woman as Chivonne crawled through the smoke-filled cubby and launched herself out the window. Behind rocks well clear of the gym, Chivonne torched her wing clean, and started the long and secret journey home.
She stayed under cover in the woods, trying to put as much ground as possible between her and them. Making her way up a low mountain face bordering the bulk of the town, she spied Daninger on a walk. Half a gasp escaped her before she slipped behind the trees. He had not seen.
No one, not even Lunia, was with Daninger as he walked along the path. The boss must be on his lunch. Well she was on hers. She crept up behind overgrown rocks, and peered out, her long neck stretching out like a snake's; her orange eyes watched him stroll the trail below. No one would connect the deed to her, after she ate her fill and incinerated any remains. She thought of swooping down and getting her gold claws in that flesh; she crouched, her wings lifting against the leaves. Her tongue swam in saliva.
But he was the only one with information about this Marius ball, on which the survival of her species and many others could rest. Pokémon everywhere, free at last. If nothing else, they could know again the passage of days, and life outside a battle arena. What other one thing could grant so much? The chance would never come again, or to anyone else. She let her wings fall, and Daninger walked on in the sun in his black suit. He might lead her to the light after all.
29: Russell and the Building Violation (Or: Dinner, Interrupted)
Chad fell asleep late, to the beat of dance music below, and he woke up early, to dance music coming from the living room.
The music grew louder as he rounded the bend. In there was Raelle. To the beat she leaped, twisting and kicking, moving her feet; her shoulders flowed. Her stubby tail whipped; her earrings swung and flashed. Freed from the cocoon of space allowed her on that dance floor, Raelle could really move. She smiled, her eyes half closed. On the floor a boom box and a small vacuum cleaner, one switched on and one switched off, sat side by side.
In mid-leap, the dance dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing. Leaning forward on the boom box, Raelle saw him in the doorway. Between coughing fits she shut the music off. She began fiddling with the vacuum, hauling it into the middle of the floor. "Damn, you're up early."
"Where'd you learn to dance like that?"
"Nowhere." Raelle abandoned the vacuum. She took a half-empty pack off the coffee table and slipped a cigarette out. "I'm going outside. Can you gimme a light?"
Chad remembered reading about what smoking did to you.
"No. That stuff's dangerous."
"Fuck you." She let the door hang ajar as her feet thumped down the stairs. "Breakfast is leftovers. Eat whatever you want, we're going to Kora's when Vixen gets up." "Pizza?" Chad held the last cold slice out to Vixen as she padded into the kitchen, blinking sleepy eyes.
"Shove it." Vixen opened the fridge, found nothing to her liking, and sat down to groom her sleep-bedraggled fur. "I want to go home. You don't know how happy I'm going to be later today."
Chad warmed up the slice for Vixen, burning it. "Whoops." He looked at her, she looked at him, he ate it himself.
"There's something you haven't learned yet, Chad. It's called moderation."
Chad held Friana on her cushion as they headed out to Raelle's car. It was a cloudy, nippy day, but the Metapod wanted to come along. "Not just to wish them well, but to see Kora," she said as they walked through the parking lot. "She and I just love to get into conversations about books we've read."
"You like to read?" Chad thought of Jade. I can still go back.
"Heh. Does Friana like to read," said Raelle. "She's a bookworm. The best thing ever invented is that little page-turner she can use with her mouth."
"And the worst thing is when I'm home alone and I drop it!" Friana giggled.
Raelle, leading the others, stopped short several feet from her car.
"Shit."
"What?" Vixen sniffed the air, creeping toward the car with her head low and her ears perked.
Chad strode forward. "Nothing. . ." He trailed off.
Raelle kicked one of the flat tires. "Rai! Fucking son of a Koffing! Slashed my tires again."
"Who did?" Chad lashed his tail.
"Russell. My ex-boyfriend."
Vixen sat down, her tails arranging themselves. "Well what are we going to do now?"
Raelle shrugged. "Buy new ones, what else."
"Where is this Russell?" Chad growled.
"Forget him. Who knows where the hell he is." Raelle hiked her purse back up on her small shoulder and started back to the apartment, earrings bobbing.
"Why'd he do that?"
"No reason." Raelle halted and looked up at him. "Something you gotta understand about Russell. He's struggling. It's really hard to make it as a musician."
"What's that got to do with slashing your tires?"
Raelle started walking again. She pulled a cigarette and lighter from her purse. "I can't explain."
"Can we take the tube to Kora?" said Vixen.
She pursed her lips and exhaled smoke. "Naw, Kora lives out past town, I gotta drive. And she's never been to these projects, I'd have to get in touch and give her directions. We'll take the tube to the shop, and have the piece of shit towed, and I'll drive us back. I'll give her a call, say we're gonna be late. You guys just hang out here."
"Kora will understand and everything," said Friana. "We'll call her."
"No wait, dammit," said Raelle. "They'll have to deliver'em here, 'cause I ain't paying for another tow and who knows what the hell it costs to have them put the tires on. I can't, I'm too small. Guys, it might be another night at my place."
"Well," said Chad, "I can probably help with that too-small stuff."
The cigarette smoke floated out in a haze as she smiled. "Yeah, that's right." "Looking good, you're a quick learner," said Raelle, coming back out that evening to check on Chad as he replaced the last tire. She walked with a wobble, talked with a slur. Her hand plopped heavily on his thigh. "Thanks. What are men for. We got dinner, come in."
Chad tightened the last lug nut and packed the tools in the trunk. He followed Raelle inside.
"I called Russell but he wasn't there." Raelle stumbled up the steps; Chad supported her back. "Called Kora, she ain't there, left a message. . ."
"Are you okay?"
"Just drunk. What, am I scarin' you?"
"Yes." "So, you catch 'All My Eevee' today?" said Raelle, picking at a fast-food salad.
"Of course," said Friana.
"Tell me!" Lettuce flew out of her mouth. Vixen grimaced, nibbling on a burger.
"Jasper Jolteon finally got caught cheating with Fiera."
"No way, can't believe I missed that. Who caught him?"
"You'll never guess. It wasn't Falina, she still has no idea, she's still wrapped up in that awful divorce case. Veronica caught them and now she's blackmailing Jasper. . ."
Chad paused from eating one of his burgers to listen to the music. Everyone stopped to listen. The tinny boom-box sound strained up from outside. Raelle ran to the window, leaped on her footstool and heaved it open. The song poured in with the draft. Someone was singing to it.
"Was I out of my head? Was I out of my mind? How could I have ever been so blind, I was waiting for. . ." It drew Chad to the window; Vixen slunk around him, cutting ahead. "Who is it?" said Friana.
No one answered, all under the spell of the lilting male voice. ". . .No matter what I say, only what I do, I never mean to do bad things to you. . ."
"So quiet but I finally woke up," Raelle sang along, an octave higher. She clasped her paws together and laughed. Down below, the Wigglytuff, with a small boom box beside him, waved. He said something Chad didn't hear, and Raelle nodded. "Yeah, come up." She shut the window and smiled sadly, stepping down from the stool.
"Well. That's Russell."
"He's a Wigglytuff."
Raelle spun on him, one hand on her hip. She squinted. "Are you one of them people who's like against interspecies dating?"
"No. It's just, not what I expected."
"He ain't what I expected either." Raelle slumped into the overstuffed blue chair. Chad looked at the window, then around at the door.
"Are you gonna let him in?"
"He has a key."
Heavy footsteps plodded up the stairwell. Raelle got up and answered the door as the key fumbled into it from the other side. Russell stepped in, sans boombox, and embraced her, his light pink arms seizing Raelle's pear-shaped figure. Chad remembered his parents hugging, not to mention Chiffy and Cherilla. What did it feel like, when a female's hand held the back of your head, when her tail twined with yours?
"I came to say I was sorry," Russ mumbled, almost too low for Chad to hear.
"Eh?"
"Yeah." They kissed. Raelle pulled out of his grasp.
"I'll pay for the tires. Man, it's hot in here," Russell was saying as his gaze wandered across the living room. Meeting Chad's cerulean stare, he jumped back, pointing.
"Who the hell. . ."
"Oh-I'm sorry," Raelle's hand shook as she gestured out to Chad and Vixen. She wiped her forehead absently. "They're my guests, Vixen and-"
Russell whirled on her, his big green eyes locking with her beady black ones. "You bringing a charizard in here you nut? You never told me about him."
"Yeah, well, I just met him." Raelle sauntered over to her fridge. Her hand had just touched the handle when Russell pulled her to him. "Russ-"
"So what you been doing in here all night?" He slammed her against the wall. Raelle pawed at his hands. "Having fun with a big guy, then smiling at me?"
"Russ-" Raelle gasped.
Chad's big feet thundered up to Russell. With his sinewy arms and strong clawed hands he yanked the Wigglytuff's pliant body off Raelle. Raelle fell forward, kicking once to get on her feet. "Chad!"
Russell's foot shot backward into Chad's gut. Chad stumbled back clutching his stomach.
"I know a few moves too you dick."
Chad regained his wind and roared. The floor vibrated; beer bottles clanked on the tables. Raelle shouted something in the background.
Russell began to inflate himself. "Like a big mouth is gonna scare me."
Chad blew a flame out his nostrils, as a warning; Russell jumped and dealt Chad a double slap to the head. Chad staggered away. He crashed backwards onto the coffee table, feet flying. Empty bottles and cans clattered; his wings spanned the room. Raelle screamed. Chad, feet in the air, enlarged his tail flame and swung it at the advancing Russell. The pink balloon Pokémon dodged and leaped back, enlarging in size. Chad sprang forward, his flapping wings brushing both walls. Remember all you learned in training! Still dizzy, he breathed in. He gurgled from the back of his throat, his fire sack pumping up.
"So you gonna make weird noises at me?" Russell laughed.
"Chaaarrr!" came another thunderclap that Chad felt through the floor. Out gushed a flood of flames, setting the rug, the overstuffed blue chair, the poster on the wall behind Russell, and especially Russell himself, all on fire.
Russell fell into the orange, rolling and burning on the rug. Raelle screamed as dark smoke billowed out. Chad leaped onto Russell to slash--
"No!" Raelle slammed into his side. "Chad stop! Oh please, stop it!"
"Someone get the fire extinguisher!" yelled Vixen.
Raelle had already reached it; she sprayed white dust into the smoke. Chad moved in to help. Raelle slapped him away, coughing.
"Get away dammit! You'll make it worse."
"Damn you!" Russell, his pink skin mostly black, staggered up as the smoke cleared, a big ball of blisters and bubbles. "SHIT."
Raelle let the fire extinguisher fall to the floor. "Russell." The Wigglytuff looked at her with one eye open. "Please. Oh god."
"You got any burn-heal?" He sat on the floor. "Damn you." He scrunched the heel of one hand on his face, pressing on one eye. "Damn you, I'm dying here."
"I know I got some-" Raelle ran down the hall into the bathroom. "Wait-"
"The potion is in the kitchen cabinet," said Friana lying sideways in the corner of the living room. "Next to the potato chips."
Chad went to get it but Raelle beat him. He opened the cabinet while she jumped on the counter and grabbed the spray bottle. Russell grabbed it from her hand when she held it out. As soon as he sprayed, the pink areas spread, taking territory back from the black. When he was sufficiently healed he cursed Raelle and Chad out again and slammed the door behind him, taking the potion. "I ain't paying for your tires!" he yelled as he stomped down the stairs.
Chad stared at the black corner of the living room, coated with snowy white dust.
"Geez," said Vixen, slinking out from the hall, "you'd think the police would be here by now to investigate the noise. Not to mention the smoke."
"Cops don't check up on this dump." Raelle went over to the window, she gave Chad a look that, if it hadn't been so weary and droop-eared, would've been a glare. She started to open the window for air, but was too short to get it all the way up. Chad opened it the rest of the way, and she glared again.
"What did you expect me to do," said Chad. "I'm sorry about the fire. But better that than you."
"He wasn't gonna kill me."
"He attacked you!"
Raelle let her head shake from side to side. "You don't understand."
"You're right," called Chad as Raelle went to the fridge and got two beers. She drank them both.
The couch to the left of the charred corner had mostly escaped harm. Chad sat down.
Raelle plopped down next to him with a third beer. "They always said," she said, loudly, "you let a charizard in yer place, he'll burn it down. One way or another. I never listened."
Chad wanted to say stop drinking, but he was tempted to have a few himself. Then he heard a sweet young voice humming. Friana, lying among the strewn fast food. He picked her up and took her to her bedroom.
"I'm sorry we left you there."
"Oh, that's fine," said Friana. "I lie wherever I'm put."
"I wonder where Vixen is." In the kitchen, Chad found her sniffing into a low cabinet. She shut the door and growled.
"This building nearly went up in flames because of you."
"I had to help Raelle."
"Back home you would have hunted her."
"Well we're not home. She's helping us get home."
"She's not doing such a hot job so far."
"You were the one who agreed to it in the first place! You came and got me!"
"Yeah well I hadn't lived with her for three days yet." Vixen sat with her paws tucked in peeking out under her chest. Her tails framed her.
Chad sat down too.
"Did you realize, that humans will destroy Chah, maybe in less than a hundred years?"
Vixen snorted fire out her nose. "I won't be around. You're the lucky one."
Chad stood up. "How can you be so uncaring?"
"Because it makes my life easier. Your life would be easier too if you stopped being such a softie. Think--you would have never even been captured if you hadn't tried to save that Meowth. For someone who's six hundred something, you're pretty slow to pick up on the basics."
Chad hated it when her arguments left his mind blank, yet still knowing that somewhere a good answer was hiding. Then he found it. "Before Mo, Vix, it was you."
* * * * *
Sometimes I feel
Like I am drunk behind the wheel
The wheel of possibility
however it may roll
Give it a spin, see if you can somehow factor in
You know there's always more than one way
to say exactly
What you mean to say Was I out of my head, was I out of my mind?
How could I have ever been so blind, I was waiting for an invitation
It was hard to find
Don't matter what I say, only what I do
I never mean to do bad things to you, so quiet but I finally woke up
If you're sad
Then it's time you spoke up
too
--Okay, I've been listening to this song again and now I've changed my mind, I don't think it's Elvis Costello. If anyone knows who it is PLEASE tell me! This quote is the whole song. I'm sure someone out there has heard it, they play it on the radio a lot.
30: Please Don't Squeeze the Charizard It was near the middle of the night and Chad was scrounging for food in the home of a Raichu, a vegetarian Pokémon. No one had done anything about the fire scar yet. Right now, everyone just wanted to avoid the charred corner.
He braced the can of Magikarp on the counter, grunting as he mangled it with a right-handed can opener. The world was right-handed. Another obstacle thrown between him and protein.
"That stuff stinks," Vixen said from the other end of the kitchen, hunched over a can of chocolate-covered ants. Chad took the fish into the living room and stared bleary-eyed at the television.
"Hey," Raelle whispered as he licked the bottom clean with his long pink tongue. Lying sprawled out on the couch, she winked. Chad set the can on the table by the beer bottles and magazines. Hadn't she been angry about the fight and the blaze just a few hours ago? She gave him a smile only beer could bring to her face on a night like this.
"What is it?"
"I gotta show you something." She propped her pudgy body up, then slid off the couch.
Raelle led him into the bedroom. Chad looked around; Friana wasn't here, Vixen wasn't here.
She slammed the door and leaned against it, grinning.
"Where's Friana."
"Livingroom. Reading." Raelle's smile opened and she licked along the edge of her teeth. "Don't worry about her. Or Vixen. Vixen told me you're a virgin."
And Vixen was always telling him to shut his mouth.
Raelle flopped backwards on her unmade bed and patted her stomach. "You can do me. I always wanted a big guy."
"Raelle," Chad shook his head as he turned to the door. "You're drunk."
"It's better when you're drunk." Raelle stomped over and snatched his hand. "Please. Chad, I want you bad."
Why did he have such good luck with every species besides his own? This was worse than Charmina.
"Charizards are too big anyway," said Chad, pulling his hand away. "I'd kill you. Goodnight."
Raelle's mouth stretched wide into an expression of anguish. She plopped on the floor. "Kill me, then!" Tears sprang to her eyes and she curled up sobbing into her hands.