26--no charizards allowed
26: No Charizards Allowed

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.
Chad scooped her off the old, stained rug and sat on the bed. She kicked and struggled in his hands, but when Chad let go, she stayed sitting on his leg, crying; his arms held her small, shaking body.
"Kill me," she whimpered into him. "Cause I can't do it. Not with Friana here, I promised I wouldn't." Raelle lay against him long after she stopped crying, the tears had dried on her face when she peeled herself away from his vast belly. She looked up at him, her eyes puffy, fur mussed and one ear drooping. She sniffled.
"Sorry."
"It's okay."
"Got a headache." She slid off the bed, crawled to her nightstand and groped for the half-empty beer bottle. Chad leaned over and removed it. Her eyes watched the bottle lift in his gold-orange hand. "Greedy, get your own."
"Don't drink this stuff anymore."
"Don't tell me what to do." She got on her bed again, rolling onto her stomach and clawing at the sheets till she made it up. "Okay. I'm real sorry. Sometimes when I'm drunk. . . . You can leave."
"I know."
Raelle blinked her tired eyes and smiled. She had a missing tooth. "Thanks." She sidled over next to him.
"Raelle, you make me really worry. You have to stop drinking that beer. It does bad things to you."
"I can't stop."
"Why."
"It's the only thing that works. I got started and it went on from there." She looked at her lap.
"What happened?"
"Long story."
"I'll listen."
Raelle scooched back till she sat in front of her pillow. "Okay. Where'd it start. Well, I grew up wild."
"You mean, mountains and grass and . . .?"
"Yeah, with my family. Hell, I'm talking like a human, calling myself wild. Humans, they like twist their words." She let out a burp. "When they get together in their normal lifestyle, do their thing, they call it being civilized. When we do it, they call it being wild."
"I call it being free."
"I like your thinking. Anyway, I was dumb. I got curious about the city. Back then it wasn't run by humans. Anyway, I got a job dancing. You could say I was a natural."
"That day I caught you dancing in the living room."
Raelle laughed, her belly jiggling. Then she coughed. "Yeah, that's another habit I can't break. So, soon I was a hit. I had a job in a top club. Humans were already there, but they didn't bug me, so I didn't think nothing. But then when they were gonna put you to death, I came out and protested. I got on the news too. I got my fifteen minutes, like they say, right? Well no one listened to us Pokémon. And so it goes.
"Well, then I met Marius Mewtwo. You heard on the news about him?"
"Not much. I heard he disappeared, a few years ago.
"Few years for you, lots for me. Charizards live for what, ten thousand years?"
"Not that long. They say around six thousand." Though Chizmo was sure older.
"How old are you."
"Probably around six hundred."
"You don't know the number?"
Chad shrugged. "We don't count. We know it's a lot."
Raelle laughed. "Yeah. Anyway, it was like ten years ago he disappeared. You didn't hear much because humans didn't want no one to hear. Before he disappeared, he had a secret group of Pokémon helping him with a project. I joined hem. Marius invented the Ball to End All Balls." She grinned. "A Poké Ball that if it does its thing, no Poké Ball would ever work again!"
"But. . . Poké Balls still work."
"I'm getting to that." Raelle looked down and breathed deep. "Marius's ball needed the Master Ball to work. Something about a magic power that the one Master Ball has over all the other Poké Balls that get made. Well, Marius was working on getting hold of it when they found us out. They. . .caught Marius, me, and some others. Team Rocket did it, and we found out the government told them to. To keep Marius from stopping Poké Balls. They knew he would give his life for his work."
"Team Rocket?"
"Why not, Team Rocket's the best at catching Pokémon, the government sucks. One guy, his name was Darlock. He started torturing us to find out where Marius hid the ball. They didn't mean to kill Marius so fast, I heard-Darlock took it too far. He had all these torture machines-"
Chad tightened his arm around Raelle's shoulders, petting her. Raelle swallowed and went on. "When Marius died, they went on to the rest of us. Darlock tortured me. But I didn't know where the fucking ball was-no one knew but Marius! But Darlock cut my tail off when I kept screaming I didn't know. I near electrocuted myself to death. Without our tails for a ground, Raichu do that. Well then they threw me in a cell and let me die. But I pulled through. My body's electricity kinda shut down. So. . .I got no electric attacks now."
And he had been angry at having no fire spin.
"Friana saved me. She slunk in a hole in the roof-she was a Caterpie then-and she unlocked my cell. She woulda saved the others too, but I think they were mostly dead.
"We wandered through the woods. We had no idea where we were. If it wasn't for Friana helping me--keeping up her pep talks. . .I came back to Poké City. What else could I do? Couldn't go back wild. I need my comforts. Friana stayed with me like she still does. She's the best friend I ever had."
"Team Rocket never found out you got away?"
"I don't think they ever got my name. It seems like, when they didn't find the ball, they chucked the whole thing. Well I lost my job dancing cause of my tail. Who wants a cripple dancing in a night club? I couldn't get a job anywhere. Dancing's all I ever learned to do. I can read now, cause Friana taught me, but it don't help. I get better pay on welfare than any of the shit jobs I can do, especially with Friana as a dependent. So then the drinking. . . I was always a drinker, soon as I came here, but now it got real bad. When I'm drunk, I forget how much everything sucks."
"You should stop," said Chad. "You. . ."
"Lotsa things I 'should' do."
"What about this-movement. This Poké Ball, what happened to it?"
Snort. "Who knows. They got Marius, that broke up the whole thing. No Marius, no movement. He was the brain." She dangled her feet on the edge of the bed, swinging them feebly. "So there's no underground movement now. If another one comes up-don't join."
"Your tail-could it ever be healed?"
"If it could would I still have a damn stump?" She glared forward. "The worst part is remembering it getting cut. I was going no, no. . ."
"I understand."
She whirled towards him. "No you don't. It didn't happen to you."
Chad told her about being framed and exiled, then about Dorien. Raelle's mouth shaped into a sort of smile as he spoke. She cocked her head.
"The pool." Chad shivered; his tail burned brighter as he glanced around the room, shawled in his chills. "The pool was the worst."
"Humans suck the big one."
Chad gave Raelle a last pat and jumped off the bed. "I'm going to sleep, you gonna be all right?"
"Yeah." She waved. "I want you to know--If you were a Raichu I would go out with you in a second. I can't believe that Chizmo, and Chiffy. What they did? To a nice guy like you?"
"Nobody's perfect." He gave her a shady-eyed look. "You still mad about the fire and everything?"
"Nah. Long as you help me clean it up."
"Deal." He paused in the open doorway. "So. . .around when can we be going back to Chah? Vixen's not taking this too good."
"I know. Soon as I get in touch with Kora, let her know why I didn't show up. . . I, uh, have a confession to make and I feel real bad." She sat on the bed again. "I didn't have to wait no three days to take you guys back. I wanted to meet you. So I told her three days."
"Oh."
"You were like my hero. I'm real sorry. Didn't know Russ would slash my tires."
Chad smiled. "It's okay. Just, uh, don't do it again."
Raelle winked. "You have my word." She reached for a can of beer but, seeing Chad watching, took her hand away. "No more for tonight."
"Deal. And those cigarettes too." He thought of one more question. "Raelle? Why don't you ask this Kora to take you back home? I think it would help you to get out of the city. Friana could go too."
Raelle looked at him with a face frozen in failure to understand, her mouth ajar; then she shut it and her eyes narrowed, ears lowering.
"I could never go home."
"Why not?"
"Just can't."
"Why not."
"Last thing my father said to me--when I hugged him goodbye you know what he said? 'You'll be back.'" Raelle closed her eyes. "I can't go back ever."
"Never say never."
He smelled Raelle's fading beer breath as she stood up on the bed, on tiptoe, raised an eyebrow (as far as Raichu had eyebrows) and kissed his cheek as he ducked to receive it. "Go on, dreamer, get some sleep." She rubbed the top of his head.


31: Alakazams Never Forget


They drove to the only bus taking them anywhere near the outskirts, and got dropped off at a shopping center. Chad enjoyed the sunny, late-March day as they walked down a street lined with trees and houses. It sure beat the bus, where he had needed two seats plus the aisle for his tail. He breathed fresh air and let his arms swing freely, two things he couldn't do much in the city.
"Forgot it's a while away," Raelle said, taking a drag on her cigarette as they walked onto a dirt road cleaving two fields. "Last time we went out here my car worked better." Distant forests and houses edged the horizon. Chad longed for a swoop at a meal on the run. I'm going home today.
"Ah, but such a refreshing, free stroll," said Friana from Raelle's backpack.
"For those of us getting a free ride." Vixen stopped to lick her back paw. "I think I have a splinter."
"How about I take Friana a while," said Chad. Raelle handed him the backpack. He wasn't sure how to fasten it around his wings, so he clasped his hands, hugging it to his chest.
"You could take all of us," said Vixen. She thumped a tail against his loosely folded left wing. "You know, these things?"
Chad shrugged. "It's faster. Would anyone mind?" he said, knowing someone would.
Raelle tossed her cigarette butt on the dry dirt and watched it breathe its last long wisp. She was glaring, as if at her reflection.
"Some of us have apprehensions about flying," said Friana. "Walking's fine." When Chad looked behind him at their footprints in the dust, he got Vixen's glare too.

While Raelle reached up and rang the doorbell, Chad studied the brass knocker shaped like a Gyarados on the weathered wooden door of Kora's cottage.
"I hope she's not mad at me for this." Raelle's fingers fidgeted, as if wanting a cigarette.
"You have nothing to fear," said Friana. "Alakazams never forget. You were a friend to her once and I'm sure she's looking forward to seeing you, like we are her."
"Right. Thanks."
Chad smelled sweet smoke as the door opened. "Come in! At last I get to meet one of my teenage idols!" The Alakazam, dressed in a flowing robelike dress, held the door open as they crossed the threshold: first Raelle, then Chad holding Friana, and lastly Vixen, trailing them by a few feet.
"Like my incense?" said Kora, seeing Chad sniffing the air. "Made from Essence of Gloom."
"Yeah, it's neat."
"Doesn't gloom stink?" said Vixen.
"Not when mixed with certain other herbs. Believe it or not this is mostly Gloom. The line between a good smell and a bad smell is thinner than most people think."
"It's nice to meet you," said Chad. "I heard you're going to take us home?"
"I intend to. You're the Crimson City Charizard?" Kora held out her hand. "Call me Kora. I protested for your freedom back when the horrific incident took place. I lived in the city then. It was dreadful."
"There are more dreadful places," said Chad with a sly grin. Kora laughed.
"I keep forgetting where you're coming from." She stepped back as the Ninetales lookd up at her. "And this is Vixen?"
"The same," said the fox.
"All right. Everyone take a seat," her arm gestured in a sweep to a semi-circle couch. "Be sure to mind open flames."
"I know," said Chad, his tail tip against his chest. Kora went around a corner and returned with teacups and teapot. She poured them tea, all but Vixen, who declined.
"Herbs from Mount Moon," she said as Chad sipped it, dripping a little. "So Raelle. Friana! How've you been. It's been three years."
Friana told briefly of the books she'd read. Listening to her, anyone would've thought they were living it up. "It's tough at times, but we're getting by fine."
Seeing Raelle shrugging, with circles under her eyes and beer belly in her lap, Kora said, "I'll be sending you a little check anyway, just in case. So." She put her hands together and turned to Chad. "I hate to disappoint you, but I need a day to prepare this spell. Ordinarily I could take you anywhere in an instant, but I've never been to Chah. Before I can teleport, I need a memory of the place to focus my energy. That's a hard fast rule to teleportation. If you don't have a clear picture of where you're going, you could end up in Limbo."
"What's Limbo?" asked Chad.
"The void of the far reaches of outer space. Said to be another universe, but no one knows much about it except that it's where you go first whenever you teleport. My powers-the power of every Alakazam from the moment it's born, as an Abra-use Limbo to link any two places and travel between them. However, if you don't visualize a clear image of where you're headed, or if you visualize Limbo itself," and she shivered, "you go to Limbo and stay there. So I need today to draw in your thoughts, and tonight to refine the transferred memories." Kora shrugged. "Maybe another Alakazam could do it all in minutes-maybe I could, but I'm not about to take chances. The main challenge is that I'm taking two of you. So, are we finished with tea and ready to begin? Who wants to go first?"
Chad shrugged. "I will."
"Okay."
Kora sat next to him and held her yellow hands, palms up, on her lap. "Put your hands on mine and close your eyes. Relax."
Chad tried to relax. It wasn't hard. The day was warm and the walk had been pleasant. He breathed in the incense-flavored air.
"Imagine yourself on Chah. Picture a safe place-a meadow, a hill, a cave. Just no lava, please."
Chad remembered sunbathing on a warm, flat rock on a summer midday after a huge lunch.
"Ah, I see you basking in the sun. Wonderful memory. Focus it into the clearest picture you can." Chad's head tipped to the side and he jerked it back up. He was falling asleep!
"Excellent. You can open your eyes now."
"You went into my head? I didn't feel anything."
"I only peeked. I didn't attempt to manipulate."
"Well that's good. Uh, would that be easy to do?"
"Not really. You're in good strength. Only if you were very weakened could I ever control your mind."
He hoped she wasn't just trying to put him at ease.
"Now Vixen, your turn."
Chad got up. Vixen hesitated on the couch, then scooched toward Kora, but not close enough to give Chad room behind her. Her tails fidgeted as she placed a paw in Kora's three-fingered, yellow hand.
"You have to relax," said Kora. "Your mind is locked in a safe, closed to the outside. But you have the power to open the door. Let's try again."
After a while Kora worked loose a thought from Vixen, who gratefully leapt off the couch.

Because the bus wouldn't come back to the shopping center for two more hours, they walked towards the city, to the nearest station.
The tube station was noisy and stuffy. Raelle paid her fee and took their tickets. But before they made it through the turnstyle, the man spoke up. "I'm afraid the Metapod has to pay full fare too."
Raelle's face screwed up. "But she always rides with me."
"It needs its own seat, it's the law. One seat per Pokémon." He got an eyeful of Chad coming up behind her. "At least one. He's going to need two."
Raelle rolled her eyes and dug in her purse for more money. "I am just too tired to argue."
Chad wouldn't fit in the turnstyle, so he had to go around. He heard humans behind him chuckling.
"I didn't know you could talk human," said Chad as they boarded a car where Chad was allowed.
"When you live in the city you kinda have to. Friana can too. In two languages."
"Oh, Rae, it's not so big a deal," said Friana. "I still prefer Pokémon."
Chad was surprised he had only been charged double. Wedging himself on the seats with his folded wings plastered against the windows, his belly ballooned into the aisle, putting him uncomfortably close to the human pair across from him. I'm flying *everywhere* from now on. Raelle looked past Chad's knee and said, "Guess it's tough being big sometimes, huh."
"It's all relative," he rumbled into his tail flame. Twisting his neck, he watched the scenery fly by whenever the tube breached the ground. The sun was already behind the trees.
"Well I hope everyone's as suspicious as I am of that--creature."
Leave it to Vixen to break the silence.
"Whatever do you mean?" said Friana, sitting in her papoose on Raelle's other side. "She's quite powerful, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions. She's doing us a nice favor."
"Those critters have an IQ of 5000, give or take. And they're extremely powerful. I find it hard to believe she had to try that hard to see our thoughts, AND she has to wait a night to do a couple little transports. Notice how she didn't ask you ONE question about your experiences, Chad? She probably read each of our minds as we walked in the door."
"She's probably stronger than she lets on," said Chad, "but I wouldn't go that far."
"Why not? It's what Alakazams do best. She's up to something, it's just a game of wait-and-see for us lower life forms."
Chad shrugged. "I'm sure she means well."
"Because she wooed you," said Vixen. "I saw you two making eyes at each other."
"Our eyes were closed." Chad studied Vixen's face for a sign she was teasing, but found only the same glower she had given the world all day. "What are you insinuating?"
"Oh, now you're putting on the stupid act. Careful, you don't have much to work with."
"Oh, dear," said Friana.
Chad stifled a flame. "Vixen I've had it. You glared at me all morning, now you start in on the insults. Now tell me what's up, or-just shove it!" He crossed his arms and stared ahead, then saw the nervous glances of the humans across the aisle, and frowned at his belly.
Vixen wasn't done. "You shove it. I hope you pictured a place on Chah that's miles from mine."
"Oh Vix, you're so full of it!" said Raelle. "I don't know how Chad puts up with your bullshit but if I was him you'd be ashes by now."
"I'm surprised you're not ashes Raelle. You think I don't know what you and Chad do once I'm asleep?" Chad smacked his head. Did she really believe he and Raelle. . . "Vixen you're nuts. We're friends, how could we--we're not even--"
Raelle snorted. "Don't pay attention, Chad, she's a jealous-"
"Me jealous?! I bet--"
"Yeah you!" said Raelle. "You know you love him and you wish he was your kind. You got a lotta guts treating him like shit--"
"And you have a lot of guts leading us right into an Alakazam's house!"
"What did you think she was, if she can teleport you!"
"Oh dear. . ." Seeing they were beyond her, Friana closed her eyes, using her great gift of patience. Why not catch a nap?
While they talked, the man sitting across from them a few seats down rolled his eyes and pointed a thumb. "Free Pokémon."
"And they want full citizen rights?" said the lady next to him.
The tips of Chad's wing shot forward like blinders, separating Raelle and Vixen. "Please," he said as the car slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. "I got a headache--"
"Shut your furnace. You've got something coming to you--you reptile!" Vixen cut the other passengers and leaped gracefully over the gap first. Raelle and Chad caught her up at a jog. They quickly marched up the station stairs into a chilly, windy evening.
On the sidewalk, Raelle spun to face them with her hands on her round yellow cheeks.
"Oh my god Friana!"


32: Destiny Bond

Chad waddled behind Raelle and Vixen's quick little feet zipping back down the stairs. When a charmeleon (a fast runner) grew into a charizard, its legs remained the same length, only bulking up to support more weight and provide takeoff power. There was barely any flying room; an overhead sign stated: POKEMON WITH WINGSPANS EXCEEDING 5' MAY NOT FLY WITHIN THIS BUILDING.
"Calm down." A security worker brought a chair and had Raelle sit down near the restroom doors. "We're going to locate your Metapod in no time."
"I can't believe myself." Raelle leaned back against the chair, shaking her head limply. She stared forward at the gap with the empty tracks. "She was right next to me. You gotta understand, she's like my best friend, I owe her everything. Then I forget her on the subway." She buried her face in her paws.
Chad stroked her striped back. "Pull yourself together. Uh. . ." he looked at the woman, "Raelle, ask her. . . where the next stop is?"
Raelle's head snapped up. "Yeah! Chad thanks! Uh, ma'am, where's the next stop? Friana would know to ask someone to drop her off."
"Let me go see."
She came back with a schedule. "Violet Town Gym. How about you give them a call."
"Right." Raelle whipped out her phone, a non-video one. "You have the number?"
The lady gave it to her. Raelle's hands shook, her earrings jangled as she punched the little black buttons.
". . .Yeah, this is Raelle Raichu. . .No, I'm calling to ask if a Metapod got dropped off like ten minutes ago. . .She's in a backpack." Raelle breathed quickly, fiddling with the edge of the chair as she held the phone to her ear. Finally her face broke out in a smile and she sighed. "Thank god! Thank you so much! We'll be right over." She hung up. "Some nice guy carried her in the gym! Friana knew she had to go to the closest building!"
"The next express comes in about fifteen minutes," said the lady as Raelle slipped her phone back in her purse. "It stops at Violet Gym too."
"Thank you so much."
"Something tells me we've got trouble ahead," Vixen mumbled as the lady walked away.
She had no idea.

People walked and talked, munched on hot dogs and pretzels, scattered like additional debris on the littered grounds outside Violet Gym. Some munched on hot dogs and pretzels. Chad heard a crowd inside; apparently a tournament was in progress.
Two guards in deep purple uniform stopped them at the double doors.
"Did a Metapod in a papoose come by here?" said Raelle as they showed their ID tags to the humans, who didn't notice Chad's was counterfeit.
"Metapod in a--?" Then it dawned on his face. "Oh, yes, a man and a lady dropped one off. Lost?"
"Yeah. She's ours."
"Just go to the top floor, to our lost and found. Elevator's straight down there, make a right. Don't worry about security stopping you because you don't have tickets, the tournament's almost over."
"Can't believe they chucked her in the lost and found," said Raelle as Chad pressed the elevator button for the 8th floor. "I can't believe this."
Vixen only stared intensely at the floor and clutching her slim stomach as the elevator stopped.
They emerged into the noisy indoor stadium, under a roof that ended where the topmost seats began; a high domed roof covered the stadium lit by orangeish flourescent lights. An announcer's voice boomed, blurry over the soupy echo of human voices. The crowd brought unpleasant memories back, and he didn't care for the occasional step he made onto something sticky on the concrete. His feet needed a good flame. Passersby gave him and his fiery tail a wide berth as they walked past the topmost seats on their right and souvenir vendors on their left. Raelle managed a smile.
"Ain't no one gonna mug us with you here."
"Lost and found," said Chad, pointing to a sign way down the other end of the wide, open hall.
"Where?" said Vixen. Chad led them on and soon they saw it.
"You saw that all the way back there? Damn, charizards see good," said Raelle.
"Too good," said Vixen.
She had no idea.
They would have run the rest of the way if not for human traffic. As they turned away from the bowl-shaped stadium, cheers rose, released, from the crowd. All too familiar. He hoped no one would recognize him; it sounded like hundreds of thousands of humans here.
"We're here to get our Metapod," Raelle shouted up, too short to reach the counter. The man leaned over and looked down his nose at her.
"Name's Friana? Her tag's in her pack."
"Oh, you mean this Metapod?" He took out Friana, in her papoose, and put her on the counter. Chad reached for her but the man snatched her away and put her back behind the desk. The noise drowned out Friana's voice.
"Hey!" said Chad. "You can give her to me. I'm the only one who can reach the counter."
"What is he saying?" said the man. Chad had forgotten the language barrier.
"He's saying he's with us. Thanks for everything. Is there a fee?"
"I'm sorry. I can't give a Pokémon to a Pokémon. She's the property of Violet Gym until a human claims her."
"What?" said Raelle as Chad lunged across the desk. But Friana was too far. The man yelped and jumped back against the far side of the desk, recoiling from the orange beast with neck and arms intruding like a tree branch.
"Hand her over, please." Chad's eyes glowed blue. The guy threw his hands over his face.
"Leer, Chad! Do your thing!" said Vixen.
"Oh dear," said Friana.
"Look, it's the law, you gotta give her over." Raelle took her tag out of her purse. "See?"
"Miss Raichu," said the man in falsetto, pushing his glasses back up his nose as Chad growled. "If you don't get your charizard out of this area I'm calling security!"
"All right, chill. Chad," Raelle said in Pokémon language, "In human territory you can't just grab. You gotta negotiate. Can you like wait over there so we don't get kicked out?"
"Yeah--sorry." He stepped out toward the seats, trying to relax. Not so long ago, he would not have listened.
No one was in the topmost seat near him, so he peered over into the bowl of people, whose voices were giving him a headache. This stadium was bigger than Crimson City's and held almost a full house. A battle was beginning in the faraway arena, whose center was painted to look like a Poké Ball. It looked tiny from here but he easily picked out details. He'd seen snippets of battles on TV, but hadn't seen one live since, well, his own debut.
A Golem stood, a speck on the white side of the arena. Waiting to fight, and be injured, like the robot it must have been trained to be. From the opposite trainer's cell, a young man with light brown hair pulled out a Ball. He wound up his arm. Chad didn't hear clearly what he shouted.
A flash of red curled out from the ball and materialized into a graceful golden body, curving with subtle bulges of muscles; one line of movement from nose to flaming tail tip. The long, slender tail whipped, the swanlike neck and arching wings dived into motion as the small gold charizard dodged the Golem's rolling ram. Chad heard the Golem's trainer barking orders, and heard the blurry blare of the announcer, but not one word came from the brown-haired boy. The she-char's perfectly launched fire spin grabbed the rocky hulk in its whirl, knocking it unconscious. Chad saw her lower, then lift, her smoothly shaped golden head, roar a victory flame, and look around.
Her eyes met Chad's.
"Look, here's fifty bucks," Raelle was saying behind him, from far, far away. "You can buy another Metapod."
Chad's wings spread, as if to float down over the screaming wall of people.
"Blue-eyes?" the charizard called, spreading cerulean wings, which contrasted with her flame-orange eyes. The trainer was holding out a Poké Ball. The female stood back a moment, eyes lingering on Chad, before submitting to the beam. Her slender figure squeezed into a flash of red that the ball clapped closed on, painfully severing the lizards' connection. Blue-eyes.
Chad realized he was leaning very far forward. He flapped his wings for balance.
"Next time you forget your Pokemon on a subway don't expect us to sell them back so cheap," the man behind the counter was saying. The Raichu elbowed Chad's back. He jumped, tail flaring.
"Chad, we're leaving this dump."
Chad turned around. Clutching Friana tightly, Raelle lifted a brow. "Vixen with you?"
Vixen. . .
"I don't know, she. . ."
The Ninetales ran up from somewhere. "Here I am, ready to hit the road?"


"First and foremost," said Vixen in the passenger seat as Raelle drove from the subway station back to the apartment, "I'll apologize for being a bitch this afternoon."
"Good," said Raelle. "You get to go home tomorrow anyway."
"Ohh," said Friana from the back seat. "Let's not quarrel! It's been a long day and I think we'd all do better with a little relaxation? Raelle, you programmed the TV to save 'All My Eevee'?" Raelle smacked her forehead. "Damn!"
"Oh well, we'll watch a movie. Chad, there's one we have somewhere with a charizard, oh, Raelle, you have to dig it up. It's his last night here. What was it-Pikachu . . .Pikachu something."
Last night here. . .
". . . And we have popcorn. . ."
"Oh, Friana!" Raelle blew out a loud sigh. "I can't believe you're so cheerful when I left you on the friggin subway!"
"I didn't really mind. I was worried at first, but then this couple, they were on their way to the tournament so that was their stop anyway. It entertained them that I could speak their language."
"That was the last time I'll forget you anywhere. I'll keep your pack on, even on the tube-"
"I know, you nearly squeezed me out of my shell on the ride back to the car!" She giggled. "Don't worry yourself. But when you take them out tomorrow, I hope nobody minds if I stay home?" She gave a laugh.
"Didn't get much reading in today."
"Not at all. Geez. Don't know anyone else who'd forgive me so easy."
"Being a Metapod teaches patience. Can you turn the radio on? Something slow, to relax everyone."
Raelle fumbled a disc off the dashboard and squinted at it in the dark. "Slowpoke Brothers okay?"
Chad tried to listen to the blaring radio, look out the front windshield at the neon signs and streetlights. But the female charizard's gold body writhed through his mind; chills ran over the back of his neck and into his stomach in a sweet swell to the slow music. If they had not forgotten Friana. . .
"As I was saying," said Friana, barely making herself heard over the music, "this movie, it's cute. Try to take it lightly and not be offended. The charizard gets his head stuck in a pipe."
The pleasure soured into a nervous clench. A knot of Caterpies rolled around in Chad's gut. He felt short of breath.
"You know, Chad, I'm gonna miss you," said Raelle. "Too bad you ain't staying longer. I bet I could teach you to disco." She and Friana laughed. "Oh yeah, Friana, if you're digging up that movie, that's short, we can watch a second one. I have a request--Run, Exeggutor."
"With Edgar Nassy?" said Friana. "I hear he's up for another Oscar for In the Palm of my Tree."
The knots in Chad's stomach burst. "I changed my mind."
"What?" said Vixen, in a flat voice.
"I'm staying."
"What?" said Vixen.
"You don't have to, but I am, for a little while-"
"You mean not going back home?"
"Right." He met Vixen's stare with eyes steady and chin jutting forward, lit from below with his tail.
"You're nuts."
"Well hey," said Raelle. "We'd love to have you! Man, there's a million jobs you could get. You'd make a great security guard." She honked the horn. "All right Chad! Whooo!"
Friana laughed.
"I guess that means I'm staying too," said Vixen. "I can't let him go this on his own."
"Vixen, I don't need-"
"Wait. If Vixen stays she has to promise to not have another bitch-o-rama." Raelle paused. "Deal?"
"Deal. So Chad, what made you change your mind?"
"You could say it was destiny." Chad barely heard his own voice. Blue-eyes.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You have no idea."
"I promised not to be bitchy so I won't pursue this right now."
"Really," said Raelle, dipping a French fry in ketchup, "what made you pick us over the old back woods?"
"It. . ." Chad shrugged. "Just. . ."
"Realizing the other lizards'll rip you to pieces if you show your face on Chah without having committed some heroic act or found a cure for Chiffy's wing or Chizmo's arthritis first?" Vixen said, then sipped her soda from a straw. Chad opened his mouth to say that had been a very small part. Instead he shoveled more stir-fry in. Apparently Vixen had not seen the gold charizard.
"Was it that girl charizard?" said Raelle.
Chad stopped chewing and let it slide down his throat. "What girl charizard?" He rested his hand on the table to keep it from shaking.
"Heh heh heh." Raelle forked greasy vegetables into her mouth. "At the disco?"
All the butterflies and shakes and flushes flitted away. Chad shook his clearing head. "Nah, she wasn't my type. Charmina?"
"That was Charmina I saw dragging you in the back?"
"You gigolo," said Vixen.
He turned a piece of cold chicken over his tail. "Nothing happened."
"You're so full of it."
"Watch the bitch-o-meter, Vixen. Yeah, Charmina. . .She's into the drug thing, I met her in rehab a couple years ago. Think she just got out again. Ran away from her trainer after she evolved, and after being traded like ten times. It's the story of most of the char's I've met in this town. Not many here. But I guess enough to keep her in business."
Raelle, squeezing ketchup out of a packet, didn't seem to notice Vixen's pointy-nosed glare, which expressed that she didn't like Raichu chastising her.
"Why do they grow so . . .fast, with a trainer? From what I learned, I'm over six hundred years old. Like I told you the other night."
Raelle whistled. "Don't look a day over twenty baby."
"Or act a day over two."
Chad smiled at Vixen, she was allowing herself a smile too.
"Venusaurs and Blastoises live about as long as charizards," said Friana, "but the longest-lived of all is said to be Dragonite. Some say over ten thousand years."
"Wow. . ." said Chad. "But--when a charmander's raised by a trainer, or other kinds are, it evolves in a few years. Sometimes months."
"You got me," said Raelle. "In the wild it takes a lot longer. I mean I've never seen a--lightning stone? In my life. We just kind of got to be Raichu."
"Pokémon are magical creatures," said Friana. "It's not known completely how or why they evolve so quickly when they begin battling for trainers; battling brings about a magic effect that never happens in the wild. Trained Pokémon become better in battle. But wild ones are more independent."
"Just as well you didn't go for Charmina anyway," said Raelle between swigs of beer. "Wild charizards and trained ones don't mix. They think different. I mean, you're totally different from the ones I met before."
"I think that's just him," said Vixen.
Chad fixed his eyes on Raelle's bottle, but he couldn't keep stopping her; she had a right to drink.
"Trained ones don't usually breed either," said Friana. "Especially not females."
If he didn't know them better by now, he would have thought they were saying all this based on what was running through his head: the beautiful slip of gold charizard, with the slender tail and flaming almond eyes.
Another prisoner to a red-and-white cell. But she had seemed willing to battle, ven showing satisfaction.
How dare they brainwash that living breathing being. He would get her out. He would show her the light. He. . .
He forced himself to curl up to sleep on the kitchen floor that night amid a quarrel upstairs and music downstairs. He whispered, "I'm gonna see you again."


33: Of Gloom and Gloomleaf

"I wasn't going to say anything on the express, I was too tired," said August as he stood in Chivonne's doorway. It was one of the last nights that she would sleep indoors, now that it was warming up. "What made you make me hang around while you looked through that empty stadium for like an hour. Who is this "Blue-eyes."
Chivonne realized she could tell August everything, and he wouldn't call her silly like Brett would have. Like Julian, he would take her seriously.
"You want to know," she patted her polished black-marble bed. "Sit down."
"Wow," said August when she had told him everything: seeing Blue-eyes on TV, trying to go to Crimson City, the body. She didn't mention the disappearing disk; she still had not decided when to tell him about Daninger, Lunia and Team Rocket.
August put his arm around her folded wings. Once like her son, she felt strange hugging him now. "I remember running outside after you, and watching you fly away. I worried that you might never come back."
"If I say I'll come back, you can always trust I will," said Chivonne, putting her arm around him. Her tail burned bright. "Unless something's happened."
He smiled over at her. "I know that now."
Chivonne scooted back on her bed to lounge; August sat on the floor looking at the trophies and ribbons on the walls. "So you think you saw this male in the crowd?"
Her head rose up on her slim neck. "Standing in back of the highest seats, with his wings out. If I hadn't seen the body, I'd swear it was Blue-eyes." She shuddered. "I never used to believe in these things. But he was staring straight at me."
"Do you think it was an illusion? Gastlies like to play those tricks."
"A Gastly couldn't read my mind, especially not while I'm awake. He--I'd better stop talking, I'm not thinking straight." She rolled over.
"If you like I'll help you find out who he was." August smiled, tilting his head to meet her stare, her head on its side. "I think you and him should get together."
Chivonne sat up. She leaped off the bed, tail pointed up, and turned on her computer. Finally she was coming back to her senses! "August, I'm glad I told you."
August pulled up the only chair in the room as Chivonne moved her stool to one side of the monitor. He felt heartened by her sudden good spirits. She was usually so preoccupied. "You know you can tell me anything."
Chivonne clicked up the Internet. "Violet Gym first, we can get a listing of all the trainers in that tournament and, most importantly, their Pokémon."
"After that?"
"Everywhere."
They stayed on the computer late into the night, the screen giving their faces a cold blue hue. Violet Gym's web site offered links to information on all the trainers and their teams. In his search for a mate for Chivonne, August had mostly checked information on breeders. But none matched up here anyway. None of the charizards pictured had that exact golden orange hue, or those cerulean eyes. They tried looking him up in the worldwide Pokémon database. Nothing.
"One more way," said Chivonne. "Free Pokémon citizens. He was alone up there."
The citizenship database, which the law required all free Pokémon to register in for their ID, turned up nothing. "It's as if he doesn't exist," said Chivonne.
"Well, I gotta get some sleep." His voice cracked as Chivonne shut the computer down. "I'm sorry." Shrug. "Must have been a trick."
It was downright obscene that all the charizards left on this continent were few enough to search through almost all the males in only five or six hours.
"The search might seem over," said Chivonne, settling onto her bed in her tail flame's light. "But I haven't given up yet."

Raelle backed out of the hall closet heaped over with an orange-and-brown plaid blanket.
"Let's spread this out," she said as Chad took two corners. Vixen took the last corner in her mouth and they laid the big blanket over where the carpet was singed black and in one place burnt clean through. The scar barely showed now, even the few holes and snags in the blanket not revealing enough to tell of the hell below. Raelle had chad place a chair on the blanket while she came back in with two rolled-up hangings. "Colorful," said Chad as he nailed them up over the burns on the wall. They rolled down showing swirls of blue, green and yellow.
"Tie-dyed," said Raelle after the hammering stopped. "Forget where I got it but I'm sure glad I didn't chuck it."
"Yeah." Chad picked up the badly burnt overstuffed chair, which was damaged far beyond repair. "I'll just take this outside--"
"No, put it down," said Raelle. "Can't just leave it at the dumpster. Looks too suspicious. I'll show you where you can fly it tonight."
Chad sized up the chair, feeling his chin. "Not sure I can fly with it."
"You can walk. It's not far."
"Maybe I could flame it the rest of the--"
"No." Raelle held out her hands and laughed. "No more fire! You're a pyromaniac."
"When you breathe fire, everything looks like wood."
"For Chad, everything looks like wood anyway," said Vixen. "So you're just going to cover it all up?"
"For now yeah. I'll paint the wall, don't know about the rug." Raelle burped and waddled over to her little beer fridge, bumping into the coffee table on the way.
As Raelle had a beer and went out to smoke, Chad studied the charred chair. Had he really based his decision all on a female he'd glanced at once? Yes--and he felt wonderful!
Chad came out of the bathroom and flicked on the television for the first time since he had come here, and sat down trying to figure out how to work the programs. Jade had had an information channel where you could look up maps and things--just what he needed.
Raelle groaned on the couch, eyes closed. Pain drew her face in at lines not normally visible.
"Can you turn, TV off." Her mouth barely moved. Chad shut it back off, and while Raelle slept he took the few beer cans on the coffee table that were still unopened and emptied them into the sink.

Dear Jade,

How are you and Mo doing? I decided to stay in Poké City for a little while. Because I saw a female I want to meet. I can't tell you where I'm staying because it's illegal, and it's in a bad neighborhood, and I might leave it soon, so don't worry about not writing back, and soon I will visit you and tell you everything. I can't wait to see you.

Love,
Chad

Chad addressed the envelope, licked it shut and glided from the roof, headed to the library for a stamp, and to find the golden beauty. The sidewalk was cool and damp, the air smelled like last night's rain. Vixen caught up with him on the street. "Where are you going?"
"Library."
"You can read?" She saw the letter in his hand. "And write?"
"Yeah, I guess that's a surprise?"
"Considering how inept you sounded the other night. Have you considered we'll have to get jobs if we want to stay here?" Chad walked faster but Vixen easily kept pace. "You didn't think it over, did you."
"Maybe I'm going to the library to do some thinking, and some job hunting," said Chad, surprised at his own brain for thinking up such a neat lie.
"Well hey." Vixen stopped in her tracks. "This city's really wising you up."
"What can I say." He started walking again, but Vixen didn't follow. "Are you coming?"
"It's kind of stupid going to a library if you can't read." Vixen's face reverted to a glare. He wanted to say it was going to give her wrinkles.
"If you want I'll start teaching you."
"Thanks but I don't need lessons from a charizard to survive. When we're back in the wild it won't make a difference anyway."
Chad put his hand on his hip. "How are you so sure we're going back to the wild so soon?"
But Vixen was already walking briskly back to the apartment, sun and shade alternately hitting her as she passed buildings and alleys. Her nine tails bloomed out behind her.
Chad breathed a sigh of relief.

NO BODILY FLAMES PERMITTED PAST THIS POINT.
Chad stood on the sidewalk in front of the library and growled, clenching his fists before he remembered the letter and the bill for the stamp. He huffed a puff of fire, squeezed in the revolving door, and walked in. He was tired of being banned from grocery stores, bathrooms, subway cars, Chah. Surely the personnel would give him the little information he wanted if he just asked nicely at the desk.
"I promise I won't light anything," he said as he stepped up to the desk and the librarian recoiled. He had forgotten again that humans couldn't understand him. Oh why hadn't he brought a paper and a pencil?
"Security!" the librarian cried, hitting a button on the desk.
An Arcanine ran up. "Sorry," he said, "no charizards allowed in here."
"I just wanted to look up someone," said Chad. "I have no computer. And I need one stamp." He held out the bill and letter.
The Arcanine scraped a paw on the floor. "If you can keep that tail in and be very careful, come with me." To the librarian he said, "He'll just be one minute."
The Arcanine took Chad to a room filled with computers, many with Pokémon seated at them. Chad saw a Bulbasaur, a Dodrio, even a Gengar. The Arcanine stopped at an empty one. "Just be quick."
Chad sat down. He had never seen a computer mouse, but with the Arcanine's help he was soon on the fast track of information.
"How do I find one person?"
"Human or Pokémon?"
"Pokémon. I saw--her--at Violet Gym."
The Arcanine gave him a brief instruction. Chad looked through the trainers who had attended, and the first one who came up was the winner--August Kasper.
And his charizard, Chivonne. Chivonne had single-handedly beaten the opponent's team of six to win the tournament. She had won many competitions, including best-of-species, three-Pokémon teams, and tons of single tourneys. Called the "last charizard" because she was the last one to have been taken from the mainland wilderness, almost a hundred years ago, and tamed.
Where did she live? His eyes flitted over the delicious words. Taupe Town, a small settlement on the populated east edge of Gloomleaf Forest.
Chad clicked "Gloomleaf Forest."
"His time's up," said the librarian standing in the doorway. "This is against fire safety codes."
"Sorry buddy." The Arcanine reached up and punched a key. The windows left the monitor and Chad was staring at the desktop screen.
"But--"
"You don't want them to arrest you," he said, in Pokémon now. "I know it's not fair, but what can you do."
Chad couldn't afford more law trouble. He bought a stamp, mailed the letter and left. As he walked out onto the sunny sidewalk, facing the wind, he had his mind not on the anger of being kicked out, but on a shining sun-creature, Chivonne. Now he knew she was trained, extensively so, even if she hadn't evolved artificially. Tame Pokémon were loyal to their owners; they didn't want to live wild. This Chivonne would never want to fly away with him. She would not want to mate with him. Chances were, she would not connect with him beyond casual conversation.
"I don't care." In his mind, she looked at him again and shouted. Blue-eyes.
He knew who might know something about Gloomleaf. Someone he could trust with a secret.

"You."
Raelle's puffy eyes glared at Chad when he squeezed himself in the door. Her paw pointed unsteadily at the charizard's nose.
"Raelle?"
"I want my beer."
"You drank your beer." He pushed past her, looking for Friana. "Good to see you're up, though. You feeling better?"
"I feel like shit. Where'd you hide my beer." Raelle opened her empty fridge. "God, maybe I did drink it all. Chad if I give you twenty Poké yens can you go down to the store and pick me up a six-pack?" She took her cigarette pack and lighter off the kitchen counter; her trembling fingers flicked one in her mouth and lit up. "I'm sorry everyone, just need one quick cigarette."
"I won't pick up any of that junk. You know that." He went down the hall as Raelle exhaled at him. "Friana?"
"Come in. Oh, dear, Raelle's smoking inside again," the Metapod sighed, and gave a little cough as Chad walked in, filling her small room, which was nearly wall-to-wall with bookshelves. Friana looked up from a book, her turner against her chin. "The poor soul. Hi, Chad."
"Hi." He shut the door and opened her window. "This should help."
"Thank you. Raelle is usually more mindful but when she's drunk she can become inconsiderate. Still, it matters less when I'm into a good book."
It was sure nice to see someone smiling. He sat down. Friana was reading a thick hardcover titled The Collective Works of Nora Venusaur. "Mind if I keep company?"
"Of course not! So, where've you been all morning?"
He told her he'd been to the library.
"It's always nice to get out at this time of year," said Friana. "The first signs of spring."
"Spring." Chad's hands fidgeted. "Uh, is there some place around here where you can actually tell it's spring?"
"As a matter of fact, if you carry all my stuff, I'll direct us there. It's been a while since Raelle took me."
Chad sprang to his feet and scooped up the leathery green crescent of a Pokémon. "I'll carry a Snorlax if I have to."
"Your words are music to my ears."
All Friana owned besides her books was her cushion, her papoose, her page turner, her bookstand and a few blankets. Chad grabbed the blanket, the bookstand and book she had been reading, then Friana and her cushion. He would turn the pages.

The flowers Friana described on the short trip were not yet blooming, but Chad didn't need direction once he was high enough to see a while around. He was already swooping towards the island of trees in a spiky gray sea of buildings.
"I guess I don't mind a spoiler," Friana said from his arm. "Flying feels wonderful. You're quite skillful."
"Thanks. Been doing it a while." Chad's big feet landed gently on a small, manicured field. They walked closer to the edge of the woods, which from the ground looked larger than it was. He spread the blanket on sunny grass, set Friana up with her book, and situated himself so he wouldn't burn anything or knock anything over (his wings had a way of doing that). He lay on his back, looking up at the wide blue. The first spring birds sang in nearby trees. It was just past noon, the heat of the day; Chad felt warm chills as the sun heated his skin. He growled with contentment and closed his eyes, curling his toes and swishing his tail. Some things never lost their novelty.
"Can you turn the page?" said Friana, and he figured it was just as well that he wasn't going to nap.
"Uh, I have something I want to know about," he said as he turned the page and clipped it in. "It's not important, so if you'd rather read. . ."
"I do enough reading. What is it?"
"Gloomleaf Forest. Do you know anything about there?"
"Ah, Gloomleaf." Friana's eyes wandered up and she smiled as much as her stiff green shell allowed. "It's a huge forest west of the Mt. Moon range, and north of the Charmountains. It encompasses thousands of square miles, and most of it is still unexplored. It's dangerous because of Victreebel and other dangerous species inhabiting it, and there are sections that no human has ever returned from."
"No humans live there?"
"There are some small towns on the east edge, I believe."
Chad could not hold back. "Is Taupe Town one?"
"Taupe? I'm not sure. A lot of farm settlements. I've never been to Gloomleaf. . .but I've read about it. It's far from here. . . and it's beautiful."
"I'm going there," he said, sharply inhaling the crisp air through his nose. "Don't tell any of them, though. Think I could fly there. . ." He stared up at the trees, hearing a Spearow's shrill call.
Friana looked back up from her book. A gust of wind flapped the edges of the pages. "You'd have to fly for several days. It's not a day trip." She laughed.
Chad frowned.
"Do you know someone in Taupe Town?" she said.
"Nah. Just heard it was a nice area."
"You're not the only one looking for a better place." Friana sighed. "When I'm a Butterfree, I'm going to fly to all the places I've been reading about. It's one reason I read so much and watch so much Travel Channel. Turn page?"
He turned the next page and secured it in the clip, holding it down against the wind. "When are you gonna be a Butterfree, do you know yet?"
"Soon." Friana's eyes followed the flight of a bird from the grass up into a tree. "Some time very soon I'll break out of my shell."
She wasn't smiling.
"Aren't you looking forward to that?"
"In some ways . . . Chad, there's something I haven't told you, I'm sure Raelle hasn't either, but now that you've decided to stay you should know."
Chad sat waiting for her to go on.
"Raelle attempted suicide once, right in our apartment."
Chad turned his head nearly 180 degrees toward where the apartment was. "Will she. . ."
"So long as I'm like this, probably not. I was still a Caterpie. I came home early one afternoon and found her passed out in her bedroom, near the phone. The receiver was lying off the hook, so I knew something was wrong. I tried to wake her up, I couldn't, so I dialed 911. It was awful. I accompanied her to the hospital, they pumped her stomach; she had swallowed sleeping pills plus some other drugs. And beer.
"Raelle told me after she was released that she had changed her mind after swallowing the pills, but fainted before she could call 911 herself. The emergency squad told me I saved her life with that call."
"She's lucky to have you."
"Thanks. But if I'd come home on time it would have been too late. I left early because that's what I did once in a while on Fridays when the workload at the garden greenhouse was light."
"So you saved her twice."
"Oh, Raelle told you?"
"She opened up to me a couple nights ago."
"Sadly, she was probably drunk."
"Very. So you want me to keep an eye on her?"
"Well, you can't let her tie you down. This is no home for any Pokémon, least of all a wild charizard! The thing is that right now she won't try anything that dreadful, because she has charge of me. I told her I'll die without her care. It's not true; Metapods need nothing but a place to hole up till they evolve. I said it to keep her alive."
"That was smart."
"I was desperate. And now with you and Vixen here, Raelle might get to thinking I'm fine without her. We all have to watch her. One moment she's so cheerful, the next she's miserable. She's rarely sober. She just never found a way to cope with what Darlock did to her. Or with feeling like she can't go home to her family."
"Well, she didn't look too hot when we left." Chad picked Friana on her cushion up, set her aside and gathered the blanket. "I can't stop her habits, Chah knows I tried."
"Even a charizard can't make Raelle help herself until she's ready," said Friana as Chad scooped her up and flew off back for the apartment.


34: Playing the Metapod

The cool breeze flapped the faded living room curtains like sails. With Chad here, windows were usually open during the day.
Chad re-entered the living room after a bacon-and-eggs breakfast. Every meal here was small, which made him hungry every other hour. Most of his inquiries about jobs in the past two days had ended with a "Sorry, we don't allow open flames."
"Hey Raelle, you know where Gloomleaf Forest is?"
Raelle, on the couch, groaned. A beer can had tipped onto the already stained rug. Morning cartoons played on TV. For the third night in a row, he nor Friana nor Vixen had heard her come in at night. After what Friana had told him in the park, he was grateful to find her drunk on the couch.
"Gloomleaf. . .I forget," she croaked.
"You look terrible."
"I feel terrible."
Vixen came in the front door, envelopes in her mouth. Her paws made no sound as she trotted over to the coffee table and plunked them down. "Mail's here."
Raelle sat up and reached over her gut to grab it. She flipped through the letters; junk mail tumbled to the floor. "Ohhh." She groaned, closing her eyes and opening one letter. It unfolded on her belly as she read.
"Uh, rent's due. Anyone got money?"
No one spoke.
"We need money to live here. Either we get some or they'll shut my water off again." She rolled her eyes. "What'm I saying, we need money everywhere." She began opening the next letter. "Another one from the office. I didn't park in the wrong section again, did I Friana?"
"No," said the Metapod from a chair.
"Oh shit." Her gaze rolled onto Chad. "They're asking about the burn marks going up the stairs to the roof. You been holding your tail too low going down."
"Sorry."
Raelle shrugged at Vixen. "I'll tell'em it was you."
"In your dreams."
"Look Vix, if it's you, they'll make you leave. If it's Chad, they'll find out he's supposed to be dead, and fix their mistake."
Vixen glowered. "Well neither of us can live here legally. Chad and I need to move to the fire unit."
"They'll check his DNA if he applies for a place."
Chad started down the hall.
"And where are you going?" said Vixen.
"Little charmander's room."
"Jiggle the handle and put the seat down," said Vixen as he shut the door.
Quick, human, male footsteps drummed up the stairs. Chad froze, still peeing. He heard Raelle going into Friana's room, saying something to Vixen, Vixen answering, and then Raelle answering the door.
"Hold on a sec, I'll get my roommate," he heard Raelle say, and then, "Fuck Russell! I'm through with him!"
The bathroom door breezed open and Raelle stuck her head in. Chad stepped back from the toilet, the stream of pee dying. "Do you mind?"
"Human cops here looking for you," she rasped. "Out the window!"
"You got a Poké Ball?"
Raelle slapped her forehead. "Dammit, no, you need a license! What did I ever need a fucking Poké Ball for? Now go!"
She shut the bathroom door and yelled for Friana.
Chad took a look at the bathroom window. He would need a miracle. He climbed on the toilet seat, opened the window and stuck his head and arms out. Now the wings. By ducking low as he could, he managed to slide the spikes through, and then his middle stopped him dead. His head, arms and part of his wings were outside. The rest of him was in, with his feet on the towel rack, which he knew was not built to support charizards. He fought the urge to solve all his problems with a good flamethrower.
Just as he was looking down at the rows of cars and saying a little prayer, he saw a woman in a uniform with a miniskirt coming down a parking lot aisle. It was an Officer Jenny. Chad reached one arm through and yanked the window blind out over his head, holding it between his stomach and the windowsill. He tucked his wings in as tightly as he could and hoped nothing showed past the suspicious bulge.
Slowly, carefully, he began the long and tortuous journey back inside. His foot felt through the air for the toilet seat. The window frame dug into his belly.
". . .He's my ex, he's always trying to get me busted," Raelle was saying to the other cops as Chad got his head through and stepped down. "He's a nutcase. Want a beer?" He heard them heading toward the kitchen.
"Sure."
Chad locked the bathroom door and nursed his bruises. He stretched each wing, thanking Chah that neither was hurt.
"But I do have to check the bedrooms and everything, I hope you understand," said a male cop. "Jenny's checking out back." Chad heard the beer fridge open and shut again, and Raelle giving some answer as she opened a can.
"Hey. Lay off my wall hanging!"
"So where'd this come from." Uh-oh. "Floor too. Looks like classic charizard damage to me."
"Oh, my roommate. Vixen. She got drunk the other night. You know those Ninetales. But it's not her fault--she had a fight with my ex--he came in here to harass me again. Started out wanting to apologize for slashing my tires."
"Raelle!" Vixen barked from the kitchen.
Chad had to hand it to Raelle. She was a good storyteller.
"All right, bedrooms are fine, I'll just have a look in the bathroom and we'll be out of here."
A hand fumbled the doorknob. Chad inhaled.
"I think my roommate's using the bathroom, I'll get her out."
"Your roommate's in the kitchen."
"My other roommate."
"How many Pokémon live here?" His voice now came from the living room. Chad heard Raelle dash down the hall and he unlocked the door for her. She covered her mouth, seeing more charizard than bathroom. There he was, over six feet tall with round belly, wide blue wings, long tail and big feet.
"He's coming in here, he wants to search. Get out the window dammit!"
"I couldn't fit!" he rasped.
Raelle covered her face. "Okay--turn the shower on. If he comes over hop in and close the curtain. He won't look for a charizard in the shower."
"What?!"
"And be quiet! Your voice is so loud!"
Raelle closed the door again. Chad realized it was his only hope. He turned on the hot water, becoming his own Dorien.
"Uh, she's in the shower," Chad heard her say as he put an ear to the door. "I told her to stay inside the curtain and you can peek in the room."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that, I'll just wait."
"She takes long showers."
"I can wait--"
"I'll come with you, look, I got a lot to do. I'll open the door and show you I ain't hiding a damn charizard in my bathroom. I wanna lodge a complaint against Russ, by the way."
Chad heard the doorknob turning and hopped in the bathtub, sweeping the curtain shut. It brushed his side. The water hissed, steaming off his tail flame. Chad pressed his side and wings to the wet wall, held his flame against his belly and ducked down facing away from the water, thankful that the opaque burgundy curtain would hide his light. Trying to relax, he studied the rack crammed with shampoos and soaps.
Hard rubber shoes thudded on the tile floor. He silently prayed as strings of water ran off every appendage.
"Just coming in for a minute, Friana," said Raelle, apparently meaning him. "He just wants to see the bathroom."
The cop took two more steps inside. "Hot in here."
"Yeah, she takes hot showers too."
"Claw marks," he said, his voice by the window.
"Roommate gets PMS. What you doing?"
There was a pause; Chad heard only the drumming of the shower. "Just taking a sample."
"DNA? You can just check her here."
"I will. Well, Friana," said the cop, raising his voice, "we're sorry to have to intrude like this, it's all in the name of duty. Just making sure you're in no danger. You have a good day."
"You too," Chad peeped in his highest voice, which was not high.
"What?"
Chad covered his mouth.
"Oh, Friana, very funny," Raelle was saying as the man's footsteps kind of shuffled out of the bathroom. "She's got a real bad cold. . ."
He heard their footsteps leaving the tiles and then the door shut. Their voices faded down the hallway and he breathed out relief, flaming the shower wall. A tile cracked.
"We'll be doing a follow-up visit to make sure everything's okay."
"When."
Chad could just tell the cop was smiling. "That's for us to know."
"Look, I ain't done nothing."
"It's the law, ma'am. This is a case of assault, possibly attempted murder. Whatever attacked that wigglytuff is dangerous. And this isn't the first report of charizards here, we've received two others. So we have to investigate."
After the cop had left, Raelle let loose a slew of cusses at least worth the impact of her former thundershock. Chad stepped into the hall, dripping and steaming.
"My first and last shower."
"Why'd you talk?! We almost got busted so bad--"
"I had no idea I'm wanted again!" Chad flung his arms up, then flamed them dry. "Even if it is a lesser charge. I'm obviously not staying now."
"Yeah, we all gotta leave. They could be back any minute." Raelle went into Friana's room.
"And Chad, the guy found a piece of your claw or something where you ripped up the wallpaper. What the hell were you doing in there."
"Trying to get unstuck."
Raelle yanked the picnic blanket off of Friana, on her cushion on her bed. "You can come out now. Chad's done being your stand-in."
"I heard his performance. Wonderful job," said Friana as Raelle went into her own room and began yanking drawers open, then pulling things out of her closet.
"Yeah, well, when they get back to the station they're gonna experience the undead." She whirled on Chad, pulling the drawstring on one of her bags. "They are going to match you. You can hide in the shower but you still got charizard DNA."
"Think my DNA's still in the database?"
"Nothing leaves the database. We got to make like an Abra."
Chad stepped out into the living room, and ran a cool blue flame over his body to dry himself (first things first). Fire was a much better cleanser than water. Then he went into the kitchen and started packing food. Again, first things first.


35: Learn to Fly

"Good thing we got rid of that chair, or there woulda been be no way to say Vixen did it." Raelle carried a six-pack and two loose cans out to the car, under an overcast sky. The strong breeze whipped Chad's folded wings as he opened up the trunk and lowered Friana's favorite books in.
Raelle stuffed the cans under the back seat. "Be damned if I leave my beer behind."
"We should only take what we absolutely need," said Vixen, following Raelle as the Raichu lugged another duffel bag over and heaved it into the trunk.
"I need my stuff."
Lastly, Raelle came out with Friana on her back, keys jingling in one hand. Chad carried her cushion, blanket, page-turner and bookstand, and Vixen trailed them.
Someone else was standing by the car when the four of them returned. Russell, holding a bouquet of white roses.
Chad stepped close behind Raelle.
"My favorite flowers," Raelle said as she looked up at him. "Won't cut it this time, Russ. That shit you told the cops is why we gotta leave."
"I called them back." Russell removed his sunglasses and folded them in his hands. "I told them it might have been Punchers and Joe, upstairs. I said I exaggerated. They said they would call it off."
"How could you Russ." Raelle strode up to him as Vixen got in the car. She shook her head and looked away. "You're lying."
"I ain't lying!"
Chad saw genuine tears brimming in the wigglytuff's big green eyes. "I love you Rae. Please." He touched her arm. "I'm so sorry for everything. Don't go. We can work this out."
Raelle looked at him a long time. She looked at the flowers thrust towards her, then up at him. "Fuck you."
She started toward the car, blinking. Russell began to inflate. Slamming the flowers on the pavement he lunged at her. Chad dived between them, growling. Russell bounced back as he swore.
"You can flame him all you want this time, we'll wait for you," said Raelle, opening the back door. She belted Friana in, then opened the driver-side door and got behind the wheel.
Chad whirled back around and roared. Russell ran. Chad could still catch up and torch him, but he didn't bother. He walked around to the other back door and crammed himself in the car.
"I have a new request," said Chad as they inched through city traffic, both front windows open as usual. Some getaway, but at least the muffler quieted while idling. "No one drink behind the wheel when me, or my friends, are passengers. And that includes already being drunk."
"Chad, we're gonna be on the road all day. If I don't get a drink soon I'm gonna break out in shakes and hot flashes and believe me you will not want to ride with me."
The car crawled over a bump and Raelle and Friana's worldly goods clanked in the trunk.
"Drunk driving is worse."
"He's right," said Friana. "You know that I always make my shell Harden in this car."
Raelle made an exasperated sound. "Okay! All right. No drinking till we crash for the night."
Chad shifted his tail, lifting his hips to relieve the cramping. "You think they're still coming after us?"
"You bet. We gotta hide you."
"I have my own request," said Vixen. "Before we speed up and no one can hear anything, can we please decide where we are going?"
"Don't know yet, just wanna hit the highway," said Raelle.
"Let's go to Kora's," said Friana. "She can take us anywhere."
"Fine," said Vixen, "I'll even agree to Kora. But where will she teleport us?"
"Gloomleaf," Chad heard his mouth say.
"Where?" said Vixen.
"That's an excellent idea!" said Friana, smiling as she sat sideways in the space not taken by Chad, the seat belt snug around her. "The remote and beautiful Gloomleaf Forest. Dangerous for humans too, so they'll never bother to go looking there."
"I could use a vacation," said Raelle. "Good hotels?"
"That's the beauty of it," said Friana. "No settlements to speak of."
"Screw it, then," said Raelle. "I ain't going nowhere there's no toilets."
"Well it's the wilds or nothing for me," said Chad. "I'm telling Kora she can take me there or I'll fly there myself."
"What about Chah?" said Vixen.
"I'll worry about where I wanna go, you worry about you," said Chad. "I'm going to Gloomleaf."
"You have got to be one of the most impulsive idiots I have ever met," said Vixen. "But that would make me the second most, 'cause I'm going with you."
"So am I," said Friana. "If you don't mind carrying me."
"You're the easiest one," said Chad. "Raelle?"
"I can't believe you guys. Friana I don't want to go living in no woods."
"Well you've had your turn choosing living quarters, now it's mine. I'm about ready to undergo metamorphosis, making the woods the most practical place for me. I've heard the winters are much milder there."
"What about the hunting?" said Vixen. "Chad we don't know anything about this place."
"I'm gonna learn."
"You're gonna starve. Neither of us have done any real hunting in over fourteen years!"
Chad shrugged. "Not long for a charizard. If you're a bit rusty, I'll lend a claw."
"You'll keep your hands to yourself. I don't need charity."
"There is no beer in the forest," said Raelle. "I'm going, I got no choice, but I'll be dead in a week--Well hey! There's like little towns around the edges, right? We could crash in one of them, get jobs. Anyone who wants to rough it, and like, kill their own food, can camp outside."
"That's kinda what I had in mind," said Chad. He took a breath, feeling his face flush. "Does. . .anyone heard of Taupe Town? On the edge of Gloomleaf?"
Raelle shook her head. "Sounds kinda dull."

Raelle took the car all the way to Kora's. The bumpy country road hardly bothered Chad with the muffler and radio already going. It put things into perspective.
"There's no car here," said Vixen as they pulled up. "I don't think she's home."
Walking up the stepping stones to the front door, Raelle smiled over her shoulder. "Hello. Does an Alakazam need a car."
Chad chuckled as he walked past Vixen.
Raelle rang the doorbell. They waited, then she rang it again. After the third ring Friana called from the back seat.
"I suppose we could break for lunch and see if she arrives?"
Raelle hopped down off the stoop. "Lemme try her on the phone." She whipped out her portable, punched the numbers, waited, tried another number, finally shrugged and shoved it back in her purse. "She ain't answering."
"That's not like her," said Friana.
"Well, I'm gonna have a cigarette. You guys can look through all the munchies, Chad packed every crumb in the apartment."
Chad was finishing a box of Lava Crunchies when Raelle skipped back up the stepping stones. She reached up and tried the doorknob. As the door opened, she looked back past her upstretched arm.
"What is it?" Chad waddled over the stones, and peered in. It was dark.
"Kora never leaves her door unlocked."
Wind rustled ominously in the large trees, whose leaves were just budding. "Smells like rain," said Chad, looking overhead at the swaying branches. Stepping into the dark house, he smelled only faded incense, which could not have covered a smell of bodies or blood from his nose.
"Kora?" called Raelle. She and Chad looked at each other.
"Are you guys going in?" said Vixen.
"Something's wrong," said Raelle.
"I'll go first." Chad stepped up onto the warm carpet, his tail forward. Light came in the windows, showing no evidence of foul play. The stick of incense on the mantle had been extinguished. "Kora?"
Someone was coming in the door. Vixen.
"Friana decided not to come," said Vixen just as Chad's left hand picked a note off the coffee table, slashed with Kora's hurried handwriting.
"To Rae & friends: Don't worry, I have fled fearing Team Rocket's in search of me. My fridge is empty but there are snacks and cans in the cupboards?" He looked at Raelle and Vixen, then read the rest. "Good luck, Kora."
Raelle snatched the note from his hand. "How the hell did she know we'd be down here? And looking for stuff for a trip?" She shook her head at the paper. "It's her writing."
"Alakazams know too much," said Vixen, going into the kitchen. "For that matter, how'd she know we'd be here before anyone else, including Team Rocket. I can see why they'd be after her, though."
"Maybe she just wrote it in case we came," said Chad, shrugging.
"Well we might as well take some food," said Raelle. "Guys, if we're going to Gloomleaf, it's gonna be a long ride."
"Never too long," said Chad. Vixen shot him a suspicious glance as she walked past him out the door, a couple of tails brushing his leg.

"You know, Chad," shouted Vixen as they sped along the highway, "there's plenty of places closer than Gloomleaf where we could hide."
"Hide closer if you want to," said Chad.
"You got us into this, and now you desert us?"
"He didn't get us into shit," said Raelle. "Not his fault Russell attacked me. If he's for Gloomleaf so am I. Hey, small town life would be kinda nice for a while, and we gotta get pretty far away from here anyway. I ain't taking no more chances with humans."
"Well, how many days away is it?" said Vixen.
"Hell, I don't even know if I'm on the right road. There's a map in the glove compartment."
Vixen got it out and unfolded it, a painstaking process when you lack opposable thumbs.
"That's the wrong side. The other side has the whole region."
"Well I can't read okay?"
"Oh yeah, sorry. Hand it back to Chad."
"I wouldn't do that."
"Well I can't read it while I'm driving and Friana can't hold it."
After a moment's hesitation, Vixen handed the accordionated mess over the seat with her paws. Chad finally got the map fully unfolded on the correct side. He found the word Gloomleaf printed across a large area in widely spaced letters. "Well, it's west of here." He started hunting for Taupe Town, against his doubts that the tiny place was shown at all.
"What's the road we gotta get on. We're on Route 38 West."
"Lemme find where we are. . ."
Just as Chad smelled smoke, a big brown spot appeared in the Moon Mountains. Flames burst through and crackled outwards. A yellow flare engulfed the whole map.
"Good going, Chad!" Vixen screamed.
"I'm sorry!" said Chad, crumpling it up as Raelle pulled over. She shut off the engine, coughing as she opened the door.
"It's okay, buddy, just put it out."
Chad finally suffocated the flaming map against his chest, leaving a black smudge. He and Vixen opened the doors to air out the car. Outside the wind had moistened, ruffling the trees. Clouds drifted thickly overhead.
"Well if anyone's gotta go, now's the time." Raelle's paw dug in her purse and flicked out a cigarette. She hunched away from the breeze, shielding it with one hand as she lit up. She pursed her lips and blew smoke. "Here's to my last pack."
Chad stepped out and gave himself a needed stretch. He then flamed the ashes off his front, which led to a full grooming session. That done, he threw his head back and flamed the sky a long plume. Raelle laughed out smoke. "Now that's a light! And hey, don't worry about the map." She wandered over the grass and clapped him on the knee. "We'll get one at the next rest stop."
"Well where is that?" said Vixen, sitting on the car hood preening a tail with her front paw.
"We passed the last one a while ago," Friana called from inside. "I can't watch the mile signs, but I would guess the next stop isn't far off."
"Okay, everybody back in." Raelle sat there as Chad and Vixen piled in and shut the doors, then she turned the key. The engine sputtered, almost caught, then she let go and leaned on the wheel in a moment of silence. She turned the key again, pumping the gas. Again, the engine gave grinds of struggle and died.
"Not this again. Shit." A third try coughed into failure. Raelle slammed her stubby black paw on the wheel.
"Can anything else go wrong?" said Vixen.
Big fat raindrops slapped the windshield. Raelle rolled her window up, and fanned her face with her hand. Chad had heated the car.
"I knew it," said Raelle over the roar of the spot storm pounding the roof. "I knew I shouldn't've took this baby on the highway."
Vixen finally managed to roll her window up, and she faced Raelle. "Well why did you."
Chad watched the mammals lock glares across the middle seat. Rain ran down the fogging windshield. "What else did you want me to take! Get your tails away from me."
"Chad," said Friana.
"Huh?" Chad moved his wing back to see her.
"Why can't we ride Chad? It'll cut the trip in half. More than that! Even together we shouldn't be too heavy, and anyway it should be so much more pleasant. Let's see, I'm about 20 pounds, Raelle's--"
"Let's not talk about my weight," said Raelle.
"I could carry you all," said Chad. "As soon as this storm stops. Not to mention I could find it quicker without having to deal with all these roads."
"Well what about the car?" said Vixen.
Raelle flung her paws up. "Who cares about the friggin car!" Outside the rain was slowing down. "If everyone else is for flying to Gloomleaf, count me in. Besides, this way they'll never track us down, they'll come out here and pick through our stuff but there's no tracks. We are gone."

The car door dripped as Chad opened it. He stepped out onto wet grass in the afternoon sun, breathing rain-soaked air, fresher than in the city.
"Okay." Raelle clapped her paws together. "How we gonna work this."
Chad squatted with his hands on the ground. "Climb on, and hold on."
Vixen jumped on easily and settled into her usual place on his shoulders, her front paws around his neck. She felt no heavier than fifty pounds, lighter than her furry tails suggested. After a few tries, Raelle got up too, with help from Vixen. "NiiIIIIIInetales!" Vixen squeezed his neck; Chad, gagging, felt Raelle's heavier body sliding back. He squatted lower, and both rolled off onto the wet grass.
"She tore me away, she's dead weight," said Vixen as Chad recovered his breath.
"I'll say." He stretched his neck to either side. "I could hold Raelle."
"Not for four or five hours."
"I would switch Raelle and Vixen," said Friana, sitting on her backpack among tussocks of grass.
Eventually they settled with Raelle on Chad's shoulders, Vixen holding onto Raelle, with Friana snugly in her pack on Raelle's back. Raelle had been too afraid of Chad dropping the Metapod, and Chad liked his hands free. A small drawstring sack full of food (they finally argued Raelle into leaving her beer) hung around his neck. Raelle could hold onto the strings.
"If anyone slips the littlest bit, just holler and I'll land, I'l probably feel you slipping anyway." Chad raised his wings.
"Wait," said Raelle. Chad lowered his wings. "Friana, what about your books? You sure you wanna leave'em out here?"
"Where we're going we won't need books," said Friana, "and I'm ready to start living all the things I've read about. Besides, you can always buy new copies. Those are the classics."
Chad flapped his wings up. . .
"Wait, my lovely sound system!"
"Raelle," said Chad. "Don't be scared. Think--the big wide woods. Stereos can't compare. . . to nature."
"Yeah," said Raelle in a small voice. "Feel like I'm gonna throw up. I'm sorry everyone. Sorry Vix."
"It's fine," said Vixen. "Chad won't drop you. If he was gonna drop anyone, it would be me, right Chad?"
"I've put up with you too long to give in to temptation now," he called back. "You ready, Raelle?"
"Uh. . ."
"Raelle," said Friana softly, "just close your eyes. We'll say when you can open them."
Raelle swallowed. "They're closed."

Chad vaulted his wings up, then swept down. He took flight as smoothly as he could, feeling Raelle's tenseness as his feet pushed off. After a few powerful strokes, the wind picked him up, and his body leveled, one orange streak with his tail flowing. The gray highway slimmed below him, the rusty blue car shrinking to a dot. Even with the drag of extra weight, his wings still felt so good stretched out, cutting through the air, being used. His whole body felt more natural in flight.

"You can open'em now."
Raelle gasped. "Whoa. . .Chad! Whoa! This--this is like so cool!"
"I told you," he said.
"Whoa, where's the car?"
"Back there."
"Yea!" said Friana. "Rae I always knew you could do it."
"Rai!" Raelle cried. "Next stop, Gloomleaf!"


In truth, they had to stop several times before Gloomleaf. They obtained a new map to see how long it would take, and to make sure they were on the right track, and of course there were bathroom needs. "I am taking every chance to use a toilet that I can get," said Raelle.
They spent the first night off a highway in the woods, under the stars. Chad lay down on a big rock sparsely spotted with lichen. He curled up loosely at first, but just had to roll over and sprawl his limbs around. No flammable chairs or tables or walls to bump into! Freedom of movement was priceless. He growled. Drifting into sleep, he had a dream, in which Chivonne told him that she was really only pretending to be trained, to fool humans into revealing the secret to Poké Ball destruction. Then she had hot wild sex with him.
"Tomorrow night we get a hotel," said Raelle the next morning as they passed around a box of sugary cereal. Chad flew around for a brief hunt, but found only a Caterpie among the young leaves. Remembering Friana, he let it go.
The following night they failed to find a hotel. Those few that allowed out-of-ball Pokémon in the door at all didn't allow charizards, so they slept in the woods again.

It rained lightly on the third day, but knowing how close they were now made Chad's decision to fly through it. The slight sting of steam on his tail was all but lost in the wash of his thoughts of Chivonne.


Chad flew high over a tiny town just as the sun was setting, and Raelle told him to land. "That dome looks like it could perhaps be a little gym," said Friana.
"Maybe they're more into Pokémon than the place we tried yesterday," said Vixen. "Wouldn't be hard."
Was this Taupe Town?
"We could even stay here," said Raelle as Chad picked a place to land, far enough away from the town that people wouldn't see him overhead. "I had no idea how every damn place outside Poké City can't stand free Pokémon. That guy who whipped the ball out when I talked to him?"
"I guess he thought you were unique or something," said Vixen, rolling her eyes.
Raelle smiled over her shoulder as Chad landed on sparse grass. "Vix, you are unique."
They strolled into town with their tags round their necks, and Chad felt all eyes on them. A boy came up behind them and threw a Poké Ball, hitting Chad between the wings. Caught unaware Chad nearly succumbed. But it was an ordinary ball, and it bounced off. Chad spun around and roared. The boy covered his ears and ran.
"I don't think he meant to hit you," said Raelle, and they laughed.
Chad learned this was Tan Town, not Taupe, but they actually found a hotel that allowed him. It was the gym's hotel, where trainers and their Pokémon could bunk during tournament stays. They didn't want to give them a room without a human there at first, but Raelle talked them into ease. "We ain't looking for trouble. Just beds and a roof."
They were given a fire-safe room, with bare masonry on one side and normal furnishings on the other. When Chad went into the bathroom on his side, he found a tub with a sign over it saying FOR FIRE POKEMON ONLY! NOT INTENDED FOR COOKING. Vixen walked in after dinner, to find Chad lounging in a hot tub of fire, eyes closed in bliss. "Don't mind me," he said with his head leaning back over the edge, cranking the burner knob up with his toes. There was something to be said for human ingenuity.
"I forgot about continental breakfast," said Raelle, spreading jelly on a bagel with a flimsy plastic knife. She joined Vixen, Friana and Chad on the plush chairs in front of the big-screen lobby TV. Chad was eating his third plate heaped high with scrambled eggs as he watched the morning news. He had sampled bagels, cereal, orange juice, croissants and doughnuts, and found them so-so, but instantly liked the eggs. It was probably the last time he would eat them like this. . . but where they were going he could taste fresh blood again. After having befriended Raelle and Friana he would have liked to think that it didn't matter if a kill was fresh or refrigerated, but just the raw red thought of sinking tooth and claw into still-twitching meat made him salivate. He put another piece of scrambled egg in his mouth with his hand and swallowed fast.
The lady was setting down a tray of steaming scrambled eggs, to replace the ones he'd eaten, and she narrowed her eyes and watched, tight-lipped, as he refilled his plate. He was just sitting back down when Raelle drew in her breath, her beady eyes fixated on the screen. "This can't be happening," Vixen said quietly.
"What?" Chad sat and looked. Behind the lady on the news scene was a picture of their apartment building. So they had left just in time to miss some news event. What a coincidence.
". . . apartment complex where three days ago a crazed charizard reportedly flamed a wigglytuff nearly to death."
The scene changed and now Russ's big pink face and green eyes filled the screen.
"I'll kill him!" hissed Raelle with fists clenched, letting her half-eaten bagel fall onto her plate. If her electricity hadn't gone dead her cheeks would be sparking now.
"I came upstairs to give my girlfriend flowers," said Russ on TV. "Apparently, he broke in. There was already damage, all over the place. He tried to flame my girlfriend, then I jumped in front and he attacked with fire--"
"Why the hell does this always happen?" said Chad, slapping his thigh.
The news anchor was speaking again. "DNA testing revealed that this charizard is an illegal clone. Police would not reveal what specimen has been copied for fear of jeopardizing the case. The only suspects are free Pokémon themselves."
Three pictures flashed on the screen: Raelle's, Friana's, and Vixen's.
"Oh, Chah!" Vixen smacked her forehead. "If you're going to put a picture of me on national television don't use that one!"
"Be quiet." Raelle poked Vixen's side, looking behind her where two hotel workers were also watching the news. "Guys. Let's cut breakfast short? I'll turn in the key, you get out of here."
"Anyone with information about these Pokémon is encouraged to call the number on your screen, 1-800-Catchem. That's 1-800 C-A-T, C-H-E. . ."
Raelle leaped onto the counter and plunked the key down as the man behind the desk picked up the phone. He pointed to Raelle. "Someone catch that Raichu!"
Raelle hopped off the desk and landed perfectly. She bounded out the double doors as Chad held them. As someone threw a Poké Ball, he stepped out and slammed them closed. It smacked the glass and rolled inside.
"Come on!" said Vixen standing out on the trimmed lawn by the parking lot. She lashed her tails, hopping around as Chad ran out.
"I got nothing to hold onto!" Raelle cried as she grabbed his neck, straddled him and pulled his imitation leather collar tight on his neck. Vixen held Raelle while Chad held Friana and tugged his collar looser. They were leaving without the backpack, food, money or anything other than themselves and their tags. Chad beat his wings up into the sunny morning. Ahead of them now were only the unsettled woods of Gloomleaf.
Chad flew into the height of noon, soaring over farms and Pokémon ranches. Here on the outskirts were shaved circles and squares, where the dense trees had been cut away for crop fields. Slowly the settlements gave way to uninterrupted woods.
"Okay," said Raelle when all signs of human civilization had disappeared behind them in the haze of the atmosphere. "Guess you figured out we gotta change our plans and hide a little farther in the woods. Okay, I can like, dig a hole and go without a toilet. I can learn to take cold baths."
"First he's an outcast, then he's a convicted murderer, now he's an illegal clone," Vixen called through the wind. "I can't tell if you're getting better or worse."
"It's more sensible if we stay farther in anyway," said Friana from Chad's arms. "People come out to the edges to catch Pokémon, and Chad's a charizard. They won't care about our tags when they're out to catch'em, as they say."
"Hell, someone's probably going nuts back at those farms with the first wild charizard sighting in like, hundreds of years," said Raelle. Oh, how he was tired of being special!
He had no idea.
He heard an ominously familiar buzzing.
"What is that?" Vixen called. "It's a plane! Chad, we're being followed!"
"I know!"
"Then go faster!"
"I AM!"
Below them spread a sea of trees blushing with buds and leaves. Behind them a plane was gaining on them. Chad flapped as hard as he could, huffing and puffing, squinting in the wind. Raelle screamed as she tried to hold on and Vixen's hind claws dug into his back. Still the plane neared. Chad knew he had to land them before it started shooting. There was not even one small clearing in sight--nowhere to land. He saw a ridge carved into the trees, curving with natural imperfection. A stream. He tucked his wings and dived.
"Chad what are you doing!" said Raelle.
"Landing," he said between breaths. "They're--right behind us."
A tree branch raked his face as he dropped past the canopy into the only tiny clearing he saw for miles. He landed clumsily, throwing himself forward and losing his backside passengers. His hands grasped at the grass, his head pounded. As his lungs heaved to regain precious air, he looked up to see the plane fly past.


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