Chapter 4

Consciousness was very rare for me over the next few hours. When it did come, I would soon pass out again from the pain. But I was able to notice some things during the few second spans that I was slightly aware. First it was just thoughts, 'Where am I...? What's going on...? What's happening...?' The fourth time I was able to notice voices, and a pressure surrounding my body. The few times after that, I got images. None of them were very telling of my situation, I mostly saw people. A Lucario holding some bandages, a Blastiose carrying a boulder, and a Ninetails with some rocks floating around it. It didn't make much sense until I finally became aware enough to actually focus my mind. When I did, many things came to me at once.

First and foremost was the pain. I had felt it before, but never really acknowledged it till now. It wasn't as bad as before, hence my not passing out immediately, but it still hurt. Every single part of my body felt like it was being hit with Hyper Beam dead on. Despite that, I noticed I seemed to have a lot of energy, as well as a weird taste in my mouth. I identified the taste as Oran Berries, which surprised me. I was able to open my eyes, and after they got adjusted to the light, I saw even more things that confused me. We were still in the canyon, and there were fallen rocks everywhere, but the center had been cleared out, and we were laying in the middle of it.

Alice was next to me, bandaged pretty much everywhere. With a large amount of effort and almost blacking out from the pain, I saw that I was as well. I could feel a small form pressed against my back, which I deduced to be Lee. I wanted to see if he was ok, but I couldn't risk passing out from trying to move too much. By the feel of it, I had broken three of my legs, most of my ribs and my upper jaw. I also had a severe concussion and had sprained my neck pretty bad. I have caused and received enough injuries to know what they feel like. I figured Alice was about the same state as me. The people that helped us seemed to be gone, they left no paw prints or any way of identifying them. But the Lucario did seem familiar.

Behind me I felt Lee start to stir, it took him a minute but then he surprised me by actually getting up and walking into my vision. "Are you ok?" he asked. "What happened," I managed to cough out, hoping he could deduce my condition himself. Thankfully he did, and responded with a bundle of words to fast to understand with my concussion. After seeing my confused look, he slowed down. "You guys were fighting and it got so clouded down there I couldn't see anything. So I went to the edge of the cliff, and after a minute there was an explosion and the cliff fell. I thought I was going to die, but something, a Psychic-Type, slowed my fall. I still hit the ground pretty hard and passed out, but it doesn't hurt very badly now."

After that he had about the same experience I did, but with more information. "I saw a group healing all of us and clearing the rocks from around you and Alice. I would have seen more, but I passed out after seeing how bad you looked. The next time I woke up we were here and they were gone." He finished his story and took a breath. It was a lot to take in, and he was silent while I thought. I could have stayed like that for hours, had it not been for Alice starting to wake up. Lee ran over to her and asked the same thing he did to me. I heard her say she was fine, then laugh, only to groan in pain.

"Hey," I called out, "I hate to ask. But do you know how you're injured?" She didn't turn around, but she did manage to tell me. "Most of my ribs are broken, leg and arm on the left side are both broken in two places, my shoulder used to be dislocated, but it got reset. Sprained my neck, major concussion, and a lot of cuts and bruises. You?" It was a relief that she knew as well as I did, but it made me want to ask how. I made a mental note to ask later, then told her my injuries. There was really nothing else to say after that, and it would have remained that way if Lee had not seen the rescue party and started calling to them.

As soon as they noticed us, I panicked. Immediately I started trying to get up, only to fall down and black out for a few seconds. When I came to a few seconds later, lee was by my side and Alice had actually turned over, I could see the pain on her face from it. "Cinthro, what's wrong?" Lee had a lot of concern in his voice, it actually made me feel bad, but it didn't change my mind. "I'm sorry, but I need to get out of here." I was about to try to get up again, when Alice spoke, visibly ignoring the pain. "Relax, they can't get down here anyway. Just don't try to get up again, let's talk about this."

I sighed, "Look, I have a pretty bad record. If they find me here with two injured people…" I trailed off for a minute, and almost whispered the last words. "I don't want to get kicked out of here." It was lee who spoke next, "We all have pretty bad pasts. It's our future that defines us, I'm sure they will see that." I still wasn't convinced, but Alice managed to change my mind. "He's right and you know that, we both do. Besides you're not the only one here with a record." I smiled then, knowing she was right, but I had to have a little fun. "Of course you have a record, why am I not surprised." She smiled back at me, "Careful, we still have to talk later." I laughed and nodded, ignoring the pain in my chest.

There was a Staraptor with the rescue group, so pretty soon they were all down in the canyon with us. As soon as they were, the doctors with them ran over to us. They confirmed that Alice and I were correct about our injuries, and that everything that could be done already was, much to our surprise. The next news wasn't nearly as good, apparently all three of us needed to go to the hospital. And because me and Alice couldn't walk, we were going to be airlifted there. So, much to the complaint of the three of us, we were put on a stretcher on the Staraptor's back and flown into town.

When we got there, the doctors brought us into a room and put Alice and I on some medicine to relieve the pain. Lee just got a checkup, but decided to stay with us anyway. After about ten minutes, the police came to our room, earning a sigh from both of us. "Ah, two criminals in the hospital, that's a rare sight. Usually at least one of them ends up dead." The officer was a Machop, and clearly didn't like us. "They aren't murderers!" Lee defended. Causing both of us to sink a little deeper into the bed. "Really?" The officer challenged, "Alice Keaorus, charged with the murder of Devin Tyrous. And Cinthro Oranis, charged with over 20 cases of assault with murderous intent."

Lee was really surprised by this information, but for some reason stood by us anyway. "They are not-" Alice cut him off, and she was mad. "You can't just give that information away. You're not even charging us with anything!" The cop stopped smiling at that, but didn't leave without getting the last word. "Not yet, but I'll be watching you two. It's only a matter of time before you'll slip up." And then he left, passing the nurse on the way out. She came in and apologized for the officer's behavior. Then gave us a drink that was meant to put us to sleep and let the treatment take over. Before we took it however, we decided it would be best to talk to Lee.

"Hey," I started, "we are both sorry that you had to find out that way…" "It's ok," He responded quickly. "Like I said before, you aren't your past. And it seems like you both really want to be better than that. Maybe I can help you with that, but you need to get better first." After a little bit more conversation, we finally relented and took the drink, which worked quickly to put us to sleep. We were out for about six hours, during which the medicine as well as treatment from the doctors managed to almost fully heal us. That turned out to be a good thing, since it meant that I was feeling better for the surprise waiting for me when I woke up.

I opened my eyes slowly, feeling well rested. I could hear Lee snoring in the chair next to me, but I couldn't see him. Instead all I could see were the very mad looking eyes of a person standing over me. "What did you do?!" Whoever this person was they were seething mad, but I was used to this confrontation. I snarled at the girl, "I did what I did, if you have a problem then take it up with someone else." She backed away a little bit, so I was able to see a little bit about her. She was a Combusken, built really well for a girl. She was wearing what looked to be a martial arts uniform, probably intimidating to most people, but not me.

"You listen here; you need to stay away from my friend. You got that? You were all she could talk about yesterday, and now she is in a hospital." I finally understood what the girl was talking about, and really didn't like the subject, so I changed it. "She was talking about me all day?" I asked with genuine curiosity. She was about to respond, when Alice called out to her. "Kat? What are you doing here?" The girl, Kat apparently, turned around quickly. "And you, how dare you get put in here. You should know better than to let a chump like this beat you." This time I growled, loudly, "You leave her alone. Take it up with me, see how much of a chump I am."

She looked at me and smiled evilly, "I just might. But I thought you told me to take it up with someone else." Damn it, I thought to myself. I got to mad and got sloppy. I tried to stutter out a response, but didn't get anywhere. It was Alice that defended me, "Hey Kat, lay off him. He was just as hurt as I was." The girl snorted, but said nothing, choosing to just stare at me evilly. "Sorry about her. This is Kathrine, she is my best friend." Alice introduced her and she help out her hand, not even looking at me. I shook it, but couldn't resist a comment. "She seems like a delight." This earned me a glare from Alice, but no words. There was silence for a bit, until Lee woke up.

"Hey, who's the new girl?" Alice gave him the same information she gave me. This made lee look like he remembered something, but before he could say it, a Swampert burst through the door. He walked right up to me and poked me in the chest. "How dare you!" Unlike Kat, he was just shouting. I, on the other hand, was fed up with people being mad at me. I snapped at his neck to make him back up, "And who the hell are you." Lee stepped between us, but we were so mad we didn't even notice. I felt Alice put her hand on my shoulder, which snapped me out of my anger for a minute. Enough time for lee to be heard. "Alex, calm down. He was trying to help me."

"Some good that did," I heard Alex mumble. I would have lunged at him, had Alice not tightened her grip on me. "Please, can you not yell? He has been yelled at enough today." I put my head back on the pillow, greatly relieved to have someone standing up for me. And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I started doing something I haven't done in years. I started to cry. Softly at first, then harder. All of the emotions of the day, with all the stuff that had been happening, and then having someone there for me like that finally set me over the edge. No one had even been my friend since Sara died, and it brought back so many memories. "Thank you," I whispered to Alice. Then I looked at her, and even through my tears I could see that she understood. And then she gave me the final surprise of the day, she started crying too.

At this point the other three in the room were in a really awkward situation. They left to go to the cafeteria, but we really didn't notice. She sat with me on my bed, and we cried and held each other. I knew that it was the same for her, the first time that she had truly dealt with the emotions of the past. And we both needed it. We fell asleep like that, in each other's arms. And I noticed that despite the emotions, despite everything that had happened since Sara died, I actually enjoyed it. I didn't want to, but I spent just a few seconds imagining what it would be like to be in love again. Then I thought of Sara again and cried even harder, but I was still smiling, somehow…