Chapter Nine

Bruno took long, cold licks at a triple-scoop ice cream cone, vanilla stacked on top of mint and cherries wrapped in a chewy waffle cone. After he chomped through the last of the cone, he licked his muzzle, which had a minty flavor clinging to his hairs. Peter finished his off, chocolate with brownie chunks, and surveyed the streets around them.

"Hasn't been much going on, huh? I thought we'd get a bit more action with the transfer."

Bruno barked in agreement. Then he took out a piece of paper, scribbled a rough map, and pointed at a spot a few blocks away.

"Yeah, that does seem like a good spot," Peter said, tucking the map into his pocket. "Let's patrol over there for a few hours, alright?"

They moved out of a pristine shopping district into a more run-down area with worn brick facades, faded store signs, and idle wanderers leaning against storefront windows and sitting on stoops. A faint, tepid breeze carried cigarette smoke, scraps of trash, and the cries of Pokémon through winding alleys and out of street gutters.

Bruno stifled a groan as the foul air burned his nose. Peter glanced down at him and said, "There's a plaza with a fountain up ahead. Should be more relaxing over there."

As they approached the fountain, Bruno heard cries of distress up ahead. A boy, somewhere in the early teens, shouted "Give him back! Thief!"

Bruno barked and ran ahead. Peter, with a hand on his holster, followed closely behind. They sprinted into the fountain plaza just as a black mist, hovering around the heads of people gasping for air, faded to a light haze.

Six people, all wearing white masks with Gothic scowls, sprinted into a nearby alley. Peter sighed and said, "Damn White Knights. Bruno, find whoever they're after and bag them before they do. I'll get statements."

Bruno leapt onto a nearby rooftop and looked down in an alley. The six White Knights had stopped around a figure, sitting on the ground, with a wide-brimmed black hat and a black leather jacket. The figure stood up and dusted off their pants, they exchanged some words, the figure pointed, and the Knights ran off in that direction.

Bruno started off towards the Knights, but a flash of color drew his eyes back towards the figure. As they turned away, their hair whirled out from under the hat, revealing a vibrant purple hue. His curiosity piqued, Bruno lingered a while longer, hoping to catch a glimpse of the figure's face. He wasn't sure why the figure intrigued him so, until it turned the corner, and he saw the front of her face. It was angular, fox-like, with fur as dark and lustrous as satin, and yellow eyes like jasper that glittered even in the shadows of the hat. She also had a peculiar aura, awash with deep reds, dark blues, and a cloudy purple, like a sunset at the cusp of night, overshadowed with large, proud cumulus clouds. So strong her aura was, it blazed like a lighthouse beacon over a pale glittering sea of lesser auras, and it left the faint sensation of heat on his fur, like a sunlight-soaked blanket wrapped around his chest.

The Pokémon froze. As she turned around, Bruno ducked behind the building's concrete ledge and waited until he heard her walk away. His first instinct told him to follow after her, but he reminded himself of his mission and dashed off after the receding footsteps of the Knights. He leapt back and forth between them, and though he could sense their own footsteps just fine, he never once caught a sign of their quarry. No one lurked in the shadows of abandoned buildings, or fled down narrow alleyways. Only the wind and the rhythmic, march-like footsteps of Knights stirred the filthy papers and broken glass scattered across cracked concrete.

After a fruitless half an hour, Bruno raced back to his partner. Peter was waiting on a park bench, with one can of lemonade in his hand and another sitting on the seat next to him. Bruno took the can, cracked it open, and chugged half in one swallow.

"Did the Knights get him?" Peter asked.

Bruno shook his head.

"Slippery bastard. Well, it's better than sending another assault victim to the hospital." Peter took a sip and wiped his mouth. "So, what did you see, before you went off? You were standing up there for quite a while."

Bruno wrote down everything he could remember about the Pokémon and handed it to Peter. He read it carefully and chuckled.

"A Pokémon, walking around in people clothes? Now that's something you don't see every day. Well, other than you, but that's besides the point. And you say it walked back towards me?"

Bruno nodded. Peter shrugged and said, "I must've missed it. Oh well. Ready to head back?"

Bruno looked up, at the crimson sunset crowning the tops of the crumbling buildings. Beyond that light, he could dimly sense the other, more radiant sunset. It tugged at him. No other words could describe the urge to race off into the sunset in search of those radiant hues.

Peter caught him looking into the sunset and guessed his thoughts. "What's the matter, you saw a pretty lady and now you want to go chasing after her? Looks like poor old Peter's going to be all alone!"

Peter howled with laughter as Bruno lightly punched him in the shoulder. He wiped the tears out of his face and asked if Bruno wanted a cup of coffee.

The prospect of food drove that Pokémon out of his thoughts, but as they walked towards the nearest reputable coffee shop, he could still feel the warmth of that sunset on his back.

Seven's stomach felt icy cold as she walked up to her target. Her fingers shook as they wrapped around the pokéball at her waist.

For the last two days, she roamed the streets and watched Pokémon battles unfold. At first, she feared being unable to get anyone to accept a challenge, but after watching for a day, she realized that challenges were seldom turned down, especially if a quick one-on-one battle was promised.

Her bigger challenge was finding a space unwatched by the white masks. Everywhere she went, they seemed to scowl at her out of shop windows and from the shadows of alleyways. On this day, she went hours without seeing a mask, and a large number of trainers roamed alone in the older parts of the city. Tailing after one teen that caught her eye, she resolved to make today her first success. She had already wasted two precious days and most of this one planning, and no matter how much she shook at the thought of getting caught, she couldn't waste any more time.

"Hey, wanna battle?" she asked. For a split second, she feared that her visage, that of an older man, could make him hesitate. That fear, however, evaporated in the warmth of the kid's smile.

"Absolutely! Take it easy on me, alright? I'm trying to raise this one gently."

Seven hesitantly returned the smile. "Sure, I can do that."

They walked over to a clearing in a plaza with a fountain. A fine mist drifted in the wind, dampening the smell of cigarettes and car exhaust. The concrete beneath her shoes felt slick, but cracks and loose gravel helped her keep her footing.

"Alright, now come on out Wriggler!"

At the expansion of the pokeball, she concentrated and formed a billowing cloud of illusory black smoke around the whole plaza. Though she introduced no extra contaminant to the air, everyone shrouded in her illusion coughed violently, their lungs set afire through her manipulation of minds. Seven dashed through the illusion, snatched the enlarged pokeball out from the kid's hand, and ran.

The kid, however, managed to shout "Give him back! Thief!" At this cry, six people leaning against walls in a nearby alley slipped white masks over their faces and ran after her. She sprinted for the nearest alley and rounded a corner. To her relief, it was empty. She stopped, took a deep breath, and changed the illusion around herself, transforming her appearance to that of a girl's face she glimpsed in the plaza, adding a yellow skirt and loose white top for good measure.

Once the illusion was complete, she turned around and walked back the way she came. However, the white-masked men ran straight into her, knocking her to the ground. She threw one arm over her head to hold her hat in place and another back behind her to cushion her fall.

One of the men stooped over her. He held out his hand and said, "Excuse us miss, are you alright?"

"Oh, uh, yes, I'm fine," Seven stammered.

"Sorry to run into you like that, but we're after a Rocket. He wore a black coat and black hat, and just ran down here."

"Yeah, he ran that way," Seven said, pointing down the alley behind her. The man thanked her, and they all ran off, pulling clubs and knives out of their pockets. Seven shivered, turned away, and left the alley.

As she turned towards the fountain plaza, however, she sensed someone watching her from the alley. Unnerved, she turned back around, but she saw no one. With a last look at the rooftops, she walked back into the plaza.

Before she could leave, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to face them and flinched when she saw the officer's badge.

"Sorry to startle you," the tall, muscular officer said. "I'm collecting witness statements. Did you see what happened here?"

"No," she told him, pointing at the alley from where she came. "I was over there just now. Why, what happened?"

"A robbery," the cop told her as he wrote on a notepad. His callused fingers rasped against the paper, creating a chilling, shrill squeak. His penmanship was slow and meticulous, and Seven felt a slight temptation to peek at the neat, orderly writing on the paper. "Now, did you happen to see the person who fled the scene?"

"Well, I saw a man with a black coat and black hat run past me. Then those guys knocked me over."

"Oh, the White Knights. Did you see anything else?"

"No. They ran after him, and I walked over here."

The officer made an elegant flourish with his pen and left a neat black period on the paper. "Alright then. I'll just need your name and address, and then you can go."

Seven's blood froze. Hastily, she started "Ste-" but remembered her current visage and said, "Serena Sun."

The officer wrote each letter of the false name as if carving them into stone. "Alright, and your address?"

She knew that the word "address" referred to an area of residence, but she had no address to give the man. Then she remembered the numbers plastered on the window of a smoothie shop she had visited, along with a street sign near it. Praying that she remembered correctly, she gave him the number and street name. Each letter of the fabricated address sank into the paper with as resolute and immovable a hand as if they were welded onto a block of steel.

"Thank you, and stay safe on your way home, alright?"

Seven held back a deep breath of relief, nodded, and walked towards the hiding hole on her map, telling herself again and again not to run. Once she was alone, she resisted the urge to flee no longer and sprinted to the dead-end alley. Only when she knocked on the door did she realize she forgot to change her illusion back, and she changed it just before the eyes peered out at her.

Safe inside the hidden room, she handed the man her hard-earned pokéball and slumped against the wall.

"Tough day, I wager," he said as he cracked the pokeball's chip off. "Too bad you didn't get much out of it. Just a Caterpie. Oh well, it still counts towards your total." The man licked his lips and cackled. "Better hurry, though you don't want to disappoint Giovanni."

That night, Seven lay sleepless in her bed, plagued with fear, disappointment, and the lingering sensation that someone was watching her. She shuddered, pulled the blankets tighter over her, and squeezed her eyes shut until sleep took her.


Changelog: 8/19/18 - polished the prose a touch