Eternally Vernal, Chapter 10: Casting A Pall.

"Hey, wake up, Tony."

Gates groaned as he rotated. Eyes half-opened, weighed down by dried rheum, he wished that they offered no vision at all in preference to what Carol awakened him to point out. "Throw a shoe at it and hope that it dies."

A black bird tapped at the window a few times. "I think it's a messenger," she admitted, "I'm going to let it in."

"The message is, 'You're screwed.' "

Carol asked why he sounded so certain while she turned a crank that tilted outward the window's pane. Flapping about a little, the bird slipped through and landed beside Gates, projecting one leg and clicking every few seconds until the man responded. Aside from un-burying his face in pillow puffiness, he offered only a sigh. "Onyx, you are the shittiest of misfortune cookies." From the tiny cylinder strapped to the bird's leg Gates removed a tightly rolled slip of paper and with that the murkrow was off again.

"A friend of yours?" Carol asked, shutting the window behind their morning company.

"A friend of our mutual acquaintance, Max Syfax. Esquire, to boot. I'd like to give him my boot, sometime."

Carol sat on the bed and ran her palms over its sheets, far more fine than her own, she realized. "Pod job?" He hummed in assent, letting the slip of paper fall away and letting his head return to a fluffy furrow. "I don't want to order a rock-slide against you, Tony."

"I need the money."

"I can loan you—"

Gates' head and neck sprang up for a few sentences. "No you can't. This isn't a dozen tins for my dogs or catching up on rent. I've got two busted cars to replace, and both because Warden's a damned automobile wrecking machine. I'm gonna be liable for the car that hit Warden—thank God there wasn't anybody in the passenger seat—and I never got around to replacing my own car after he did that one in."

Carol laid herself down, her head resting against and slightly upon his midsection. "You never told me that story."

"The day he came galloping in to ruin my life: he ran faster than I was driving, jumped in the back, I turned to see what happened, looked forward a second later—right into one of those thousand-year guys. Somebody ought to cut a road through them, some are so wide."

"It'll be the last pod job, though, right? Even if you need the money."

Gates lay in contemplation for a moment. "I hope so, if it works out the… ."

"Promise me," she whispered. Unacknowledged, she clambered up to lean her face over his till he nodded and whispered an affirmation. She kissed him and excused herself, needing to call into the gym and let her support staff know that she would be out of town for at least part of the day.

Scoparin hospitality is defined by contradiction. For an example, take morning meals. They offer their guests a wonderful spread, even including both the glass of milk and the glass of juice that happens only on commercials extolling the importance of assembling a "complete" breakfast. Then, for the coup de grace, they add a humanoid ipecac.

" ' "So glad you could join us," the layabout poacher said as his benevolent patron, Mr. Syfax, Esquire, approached with an air of beneficence.' That's how you're supposed to welcome your better, Gates," Max said, drawing out the third of four chairs at Anthony and Carol's breakfast table. Neither repeated the quotation in recognition of their lesson, but Maximilian continued undaunted. "Time is up. We're going to take the ralts presently. Are you in or are you down and out?"

Anthony imitated somebody with proper manners, or at least tried to, slicing through some truly exquisite bacon using knife and fork to aid him. The imitation went no farther; he still spoke with his mouth full. "There's something about this job that's been bugging me. It's been back here—" Gates tapped his occipital protuberance, "—all this time. If this were small potatoes, you would've offered Velasquez my salary and he would've bagged it for you solo, or at least tried to. Instead, you give me this line that sounds like you're only wanting to have one shiny ralts on hand; Old Man Well doesn't worry about scooping up all of the shiny pokemon he can. Now, it looks like you had to have Onyx track me down so you could meet with me in person, again. Look at this egg. What does it remind you of?" Gates gestured with his knife.

"Whatever it is, it's filled your belly with philosophy this morning. Do educate us, our great, enlightened one." Maximilian's voice reeked of invective.

"That piece of paper that you had printed up with the yellow highlighting. You wanted me to know that this gardevoir and ralts had no known social ties with pokemon in the area, I guess you figured that would make me more willing to agree to the job. And when it didn't really, you picked up the paper and pointed at it. But, I can't know for sure that you didn't make up that report for some reason. I've done plenty of jobs for you and you never talk about something like that. Usually you throw me or us some leppa berries to go with the potions and revives in case a target has backup. Now, you stroll up here and call yourself, 'benevolent patron.' O, yes, what a nice guy you are."

"In or out?"

Gates rocked fore and aft, swallowing a bite of egg, letting it land upon and force back down a laugh that wanted to emerge. "This isn't a wild pokemon that hatched a shiny offspring, got spotted, and is just really good at evading capture. You know this gardevoir, you know she had an owner, and you know that she's savvy. She won't just fire off random techniques in a panic, tire herself out, and get bagged by any old poacher. You've been biding your time and biting your tongue because you know that you need me and Vel and Hemmy and Onyx and Cyrus and Seth and Ruby and the element of surprise to round things out and have a chance of getting at that ralts."

Max drank Gates' milk. "Did you pass out on your couch during a whodunit marathon one night, letting the art of deductive reasoning worm its way into your vacuous head?"

Gates lifted his glass of juice. "Cheers, asshole."

"The target has been under passive observation for some time. That it created a shiny offspring was a matter of chance. Mister Well wants it and is willing to pay you handsomely to bring it in. In or out?"

Gates glanced at MacLeod, who offered only pleading eyes. Finishing his juice, Gates responded. "It's a shit job, but I need the money. One thing, I want your promise—like client and attorney—if we bring in both the gardevoir and the ralts, they stay together. I don't care why you've been keeping tabs on this gardevoir, and even if I did care I know better than to find out, but you know damned well that this is only going to end in that gardevoir getting killed or getting trapped. If we can trap both, we will, and you're not going to force them apart until they're ready to go their separate ways. Agreed?"

Maximilian stood up from his seat. "I can't guarantee that. However, I will promise to… suggest that they be allowed to remain in contact."

Gates said to MacLeod, "I think that's the best we're going to get out of him."

Carol did not look at Max to make eye contact, but she did ask of him before he left, "This gardevoir, does she have a name?"

To that, all he could say with certainty was, "I think so. Mister Well's old sea bird once became carried away and said something more than she intended to."

A technician from the institute informed Warden's master that the sawsbuck's operation was successful, and after a full-body massage—suggested by the patient and described in a less-candid way—he seemed to recover much sensation and mobility, although he did still complain about his body moving "backward on one side." Instead of to the basement, Gates and MacLeod were led to a large, ground-level facility. Identified as a physical-therapy laboratory, it looked like somebody took an athletics gymnasium and hired a carnival company to redesign it for a televised game show. Through the chaos of strange mechanisms with ropes, pulleys, weights, and electronic indicators, Gates found his way to a team of students shouting at and encouraging something to try harder—jump kicking against a large metal target connected to a machine that measured forces of impact, Warden's might now interested them for reasons other than research. Cheers and jeers erupted and currency changed hands as Gates neared Warden and called his name, causing the sawsbuck to have no longer any regard whatsoever for the technicians' current study.

Split almost strictly along gender lines, the male students complained that their betting pool just drained, while the female students—and Carol, although she was mostly successful in hiding it—found too adorable to ignore the sawsbuck that licked its master's face and struggled to find a way to hug him, as though his affection overwhelmed his reason and as though his forelimbs could manage more than a token effort at crossing and entwining as would be necessary. Gates secretly felt likewise and compensated for Warden's incomplete hug with an extra-strong one of his own, but he forgot not his role as a disciplinarian and mentor, then reminding Warden that wandering off on his own, crossing before traffic, and getting nearly killed were all against the rules. Leading his protege away, Gates confounded the students' complaints; "Tell it to Harrison," he ordered them.

Harrison soon appeared, with his old friend Syfax beside him. Although Harrison offered an extended stay in their suite, MacLeod intended only to return to her gym, and Gates assumed he would ride back with her. Syfax had none of the latter half of that. "No. You're riding in my limousine, north on L–C. There, you will join Velasquez and prepare to do your job."

Gates made a remark to Carol about the always-unfortunate timing of matters between them and bade her goodbye. "Remember, you promised me," she said as she walked backward, ensuring that she could see and hear his acknowledgment and blow him a kiss farewell. She felt, "But I'd rather you broke that promise than—" on the tip of her tongue, but she knew not why, nor how that sentence was supposed to end.

"Can't. His ball doesn't work anymore. Try it." Gates handed Maximilian Warden's ball. Poking a ball-point pen tip into the hole that once seated the ball's button, its impotent scanning and disappointing buzz convinced the dandy that Warden was indeed not to be recalled. "We've been fortunate to borrow the beds of pick-up trucks owned by friends. Assuming you've got an appointment with Vel, you could send him here to get us."

Maximilian shook his head. "Not here; get you wherever Onyx finds you, having fled to hide somewhere in the interim. No, I'm not letting you perform a Hunter Hague disappearing act, or whatever scheme to annoy me it is that's trying to form in your mind; we're solving this problem without letting you out of my sight."

Warden watched Maximilian as he considered the situation and found inspiration. "I can fit in there."

"You're not helping," Gates grumbled at Warden.

"Yes, I do think you can, since you did an admirable job of nearly fitting yourself into a coupe last night. Not comfortably, but I'd rather not need to ask the students in materials science to remove the roof." He asked the chauffeur to open the trunk and from it Max produced some tools. With unexpected deft and the efficiency of a montage, he cast out of the vehicle its two rear bench seats and a small refrigerator. "Buck, load up." The spectacle entertained some passers-by, but with enough squirming and disregard for the ceiling liner Warden squeezed in and soon seemed proud that his body became the men's temporary velvet-upholstered seat backs.

Riding through Coumarin, Gates did not much care to see the city pass by and sat in silence, deliberately ignoring overhearing whatever calls Maximilian took during the ride. They were nearly out of town when Maximilian addressed him, "You've brought your dogs, naturally—but this deer and that meowstic you have, now: an invasive and a Psychic-type. Should I be concerned with this change of team composition?"

"Every new day's an adventure, right? The way I'm looking at it, I'll see if Warden and Tizzy are any help at first and if they get under foot I'll ball her up and Warden I can send ahead to cut off a route or just be a distraction or a way to flush your friend out. But I plan to keep Warden with me for as long as I can." The seating shifted and failingly squirmed in hopes of showing his mentor an expression of affection. "He talks and on the job that got me that damned cat, him relaying for my dogs was a little better than guessing from their barking." Max seemed satisfied enough to return to his other at-hand matters. His penultimate statement on-loop in his mind, Gates idly stroked Warden's pelt, which delighted the latter greatly, and caused a few still-rogue parts to feel like they were properly connected again.

Regardless of the terrible music being played too loudly from a speaker overhead, Tizzy could not clench her ears tightly enough to block out the vaudeville act to which she played audience and half of which she rode upon. "Explain again, Mentor," Warden demanded with an embarrassed tone.

"We need money, Warden."

"I have money." Warden rolled his head in a broad circle and twisted as much as he could without disturbing stands of apparel, trying to straighten out the bend in his spine that being folded against the coupe caused and being folded within the limo aggravated.

"You have some money, but you cost money. When I feed you, money. When I wash you, money." Gates selected a new camouflage hat and tried it on. "And when your money is gone, then what?"

Warden sniffed at the hat and suppressed a sneeze. "I don't need money in the forest." Gates agreed, and considered what equipment Warden could bear. On Syfax's dime, his imagination ran wild. "Mentor, let's live in the forest." Gates reminded Warden of all the luxuries that would be lost: bed, television, warm water on tap, food without either a search or a battle to get it. Warden lowered his head, "I want both. How can we do both?"

Gates moved on to examine some other racks. "I didn't want to say anything to you until I was sure, but I applied for the ranger service, so if a spot opens up, we'll have a job there. I can't say if it'll be your forest or another one, or even a forest at all. We'd be taking whatever we could get. They could put us on a boat for the sea services for all I know. But it'd be salaried."

The buck struggled to envision what sea service would be. The closest he could come up with was an extension of the stuff he saw on the show before the dogs' favorite, with the humans wearing small clothing running slowly up and down the beach and throwing orange things that float at people who forgot how to swim while they were swimming. "I like the job with Carol."

"I do too, but it's not enough. Not right now, anyway." Gates continued on, standing before a display that featured something on his list: whole-head masks and wire mesh. Selecting one of each, he faced Warden. "I wonder if they make something that will fit you. I guess I could wrap your head with something, but the wire might be a problem unless I can cut it right." He called to an employee and asked him about preparing a silver wire mesh to protect his sawsbuck, and elaborated that the Psychic-type on his back was not the one he was worried about. The question rose to the department manager who suggested a few small ones, wired together. "Syfax's dime," Gates reassured himself and paid for them on the deal that the manager perform the alteration. Labor's fruit delivered a few minutes later, Gates let the manager demonstrate how to properly place it on Warden's head and affix it using its own wires. Gates examined it and estimated how it might be properly secured with either a length of bandage or a scarf.

Warden blinked and lifted his head to a slight angle. "Continue."

"Continue what?" Anthony asked.

"Tizzy, continue." The cat on Warden's back scowled at the back of Warden's head, and snubbed him. In turning, she closed her eyes; upon opening them, she saw Onyx perched near the ceiling, watching them closely.

Gates asked Warden, "I guess she was telling you something with telepathy and you stopped hearing her when I put this on you?" With Warden's agreement, Gates felt relieved.

Velasquez and Syfax were on a different level of the building, although it was an extension of the same sporting goods department. While Gates was awash in apparel and accessories, his accomplices were test driving. At Max's command, Carlos stepped through a door and into an artificial forest. Walking slowly and carefully, he pressed foliage with one hand and kept his other near his holster. "Thirty seconds," he faintly heard in his ear through a small speaker. Kneeling a little, he picked up an artificial broken stick and tossed it high. Striking a treecko's tail, Carlos drew on it and fired three practice darts. Two hit, one as it reacted to the stick's strike and another as it fled.

"You missed," Max complained through the radio.

Returning to the staging area, Velasquez placed the dart gun on the table. "This grip is shit. Can they change it? I'm used to something thicker."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Max rhetorically asked as he extended a hand to the treecko that returned the three recovered darts. "Here's a different one. If that's a better fit, I'll see if they can get something to satisfy you."

The treecko left after shouting something rude at Carlos, who ignored it and noted curiously, "Mister Max, you're acting awfully nice to me."

Taking up another dart gun, he pointed it at each of Carlos's feet and tested its action. "I'm taking care of myself. And I'm taking care of you. Listen, unbelievable as it may be, I botched something. Not a big thing, but an important thing. This gardevoir knows, but she doesn't know that it matters. She's technically wild but she domesticated herself after becoming close to somebody under my care, so to speak—like you are, so you know. He's gone away on business and left her behind. I was this close to taking care of her when she popped away. Onyx tracked her down; wherever she went to escape me, she got trapped by some nobody who made the right investments and then the right connections. It wouldn't do to move on her there so I waited and she never told him anything; I know because he's a blabbermouth, so my entire social circle knew she wanted nothing to do with him and kept to herself. Then she got away from him and became a hermit. Soon, a hermit with a shiny offspring. Gates went soft on us in a few more ways, so don't tell him this, but I would be very satisfied to know that the gardevoir is dead. Trapped I can tolerate, but that doesn't solve my problem. The ralts is money on the table, but if you have the chance, priorities: kill the gardevoir and let the ralts run away. Some lucky summer journey punk can have it for all I care. Are we clear about how your mission is going to go tonight?"

"I told you from the first time, killing pokemon's not—"

"India isn't that persuasive; you're standing here only because I want you to be. Are we clear?"

Carlos took from Maximilian the weapon he offered, "Claro." Signaling his readiness for another practice session, a treecko with two superficial wounds on his side chose a new place to hide while a timer counted down from twenty.

Magdalene sensed a bad vibe and wanted nothing to do with the home before her, but Kit insisted. "It'll be okay. I made a promise and I'm going to keep it, and it's silly leaving you out in the elements. Don't you want to sleep under a roof again?"

The mienshao scoffed and remained near the mailbox, for a moment. Crossing her arms defiantly, her claws sank into, and snagged within, her filthy and tangled fur. "May I bathe here, privately?" she asked.

Kit projected back, "If you want to, but you'd waste a free chance to benefit from Mom's skills. I told you, you'll leave here looking and feeling like a million bucks."

Having successfully convinced her traveling companion, Kit approached the door, not breaking her stride, knowing that it would open before her. A woman passing her prime and expertly defying her years welcomed in an old friend. "Kit! I knew I felt something. Why were you trying to hide from me? You know I hate surprises."

In a flash of mental imagery, Kit enlightened the lady, communicating everything she needed to know about the mienshao slowly coming up the walkway, including her sensitivity to Psychic-type thinking, having sparred against one far too many times and having wounded pathways from suffering an invasive psychic procedure.

After welcoming her guest with a wave, the woman asked Kit to make any preparations she wanted to make for her friend. "Hello, Magdalene. My name is Colette, and I want you to know that I'm not going to pry into your mind or read your future or anything like that, unless you ask. But, since you don't talk, I would like permission to listen to your mind so I can read your thoughts when you want me to." Magdalene withdrew an inch; Colette clarified, "Only when you want me to, so if you concentrate on something like it's written on imaginary paper and you read it aloud I'll get it, even though you'll just be speaking pokemon talk. But your other thoughts are yours to keep. Is that okay?"

Magdalene refused at first and left as far as the end of the drive, but after looking around and back and after a momentary loss of composure, she consented. Colette again welcomed the guest, with a measured degree of kind expression. The mienshao peeked inside and seemed to study the home's layout.

Kit interjected telepathically from the bathroom. "I ran it too hot I think, so while it cools down I'm going to the store. She likes a certain shampoo." Colette waved her right arm as a gesture, and added when Magdalene did not move, whispered, "Go on in, you can make yourself comfortable. Don't worry about it." That worked. Kit took some money, apologized for doing so, and let Colette shut the door behind her. "Kit showed me a little about you. I'll be frank because my career is based on honesty: you haven't been a great friend to her since you met."

The mienshao sat silently on the least impressive piece of furniture, as she judged it, and waited for her host to continue, which was delayed until Magdalene's nose and whiskers nervously twitched.

"Did Kit tell you anything about me?"

Testing the woman's promise, Magdalene thought, then thought to herself, and after trusting that her host was still waiting for a message intently imagined as what she wanted to say and how she both wanted to, and could only, speak it, "She said you used to train Psychic-types, mostly abras like she was."

Colette chuckled. "Abras better than she was. Kit made me reconsider the tagline on my business cards, that I could broaden the vision in any Psychic. A miserable failure we were, and then friends in failure when her owners refused to take her back since they wanted one with the right gift." Observing only another twitch as a response, she changed tacks. "Let's see if I can still do the trick." Colette picked up a framed photograph from the table beside her, held it flat on her extended palm, and raised her other hand while visibly concentrating. Lowering the first, the frame stayed in the air and seconds later drifted very slowly toward Magdalene, who eventually caught it. "That's me and her, and six floating pokeballs; back when I was in practice I was pretty good. Most Psychic-class trainers plateau at two, maybe three. That's how I knew I could be something more than a type specialist, even one leading a gym. But, since I quit training and made a career for myself, all I ever use telekinesis for is making it easier to reach for pens and for passing my own salt shakers."

The mienshao sat silently for a while, her posture sagging and breathing becoming slower but heavier.

"Magdalene, Kit showed me a little of what you've shared with her. I can't make you feel better, but I would like for you to at least feel safe. Kit's almost back and she thinks she found the shampoo you like—"

Maggie shook her head forcefully and Colette could not help but sense a notion of why.

"—because she means well for you. So, please, stop thinking of yourself as a nuisance and let this shame go down the drain with the bathwater when you're done." With a little effort and knee pain, she rose to cross the room as had her photograph. "It's one of only two rules in this house, and I'm strict about them: No pokemon who enters is allowed to leave unless it feels ready to take on the world and win. Even Kit, which is why she stayed here so long, and why she's come back."

Kit teleported from one side of the entry door to the other holding a sack and projected, "I'll check the water and get your surprise set up for you."

"Surprise? Set up?" Magdalene asked.

Colette and Kit communicated briefly. "I don't want to ruin it, but Kit got you something that you've been missing."

"Kit assumes too much. And she needs to stop stealing my memories. I think she does it when I sleep."

Colette reached out to touch Magdalene's shoulder, which twisted but did not draw away. "Are you afraid she might see the wrong one?" Colette gently shifted her hand to comfort her, whispering, "You don't need to want her to see it. You don't need to worry if she does." The lady stepped toward her kitchen and added, "Kit says the water's still hot but it's probably how you like it. When you're done, treat yourself to anything in here you like to eat, or take a snack with you to the tub if you can't wait for supper. I'll be in my study doing phone work a few times tonight. Please do not bother me for any reason if the door is shut; if Kit isn't sure, assume that whatever you might want is okay to take or use. I've fostered a hundred pokemon in my years—don't worry about causing trouble, there's nothing I haven't dealt with."

Like a rolling oxymoron, Velasquez's truck made a one vehicle procession for Syfax's limousine and turned from a paved road onto a dirt path that led to visitor parking for a public wilderness area that Linalool City's northwestern outskirts had grown near to. While Carlos parked, the limousine enduring the unloading of its passengers and then departed with a haste that suggested the car was either afraid of being exposed to nature or desperate to recover its missing parts. "This place is busy. Is that going to be a problem?" Velasquez asked of Mister Max as the latter strode near with attention focused on his communications device.

Pocketing the device, Max glanced around. "All the better. Wherever they are, your target won't be. I will have a word with the people who matter. You two put on your inbred bumpkin costumes—hey, that was fast—and look like amateurs; wow, how do you do it? Now, play your roles while we wait for the blackbirds to change shifts."

Unlacing his boots, Gates began his working-for-Syfax ritual. Reaching into the sacred plastic bag he withdrew a bundle of black, long cut socks, removed the worn-through ones he was wearing, and put them on with a wiggle of his toes.

Warden watched in awe. "Tell me, Mentor, why have soft feet when you must do so much to protect them?"

Gates tightened his boots' laces. "They're just a part of the package. I didn't get to choose any options before I got my body." Gathering his gear, Velasquez having done the same, Gates reminded Warden not to say anything about why they were here and as a group they went to the ranger station and registered as a tiny corporate retreat sort of thing. They soon trekked into the woods, largely south by southwest, guided by a map provided by their benefactor. Arriving upon the spot-marking "X," they established their campsite. Everything in order, Gates and Velasquez released their pokemon. Cyrus and Seth set about studying the area around the site to get acclimated to the environment, learning which smells and trails were endemic and safe to neglect. Ruby mostly stayed near to Carlos. She did stray once to greet Warden, but refrained as he was busy translating countless complaints for Tizzy, who had her fill of wilderness when she ran away from Œufweiß and felt betrayed that Gates' paperwork promised her she would not be pressed into Ranger service yet now she was surrounded by ten times more trees than she had ever at once seen.

All had waited just long enough to grow bored of waiting when Hemmy landed near the rocks that Velasquez had arranged in case they found a need to start a fire. Pinching a device clipped to his wing, the honchkrow indicated his arrival and Velasquez's telephone rang. Maximilian gave them some rudimentary instructions about where to go, as Hemmy had been made, the gardevoir was already on the move, and Onyx was in the air to reestablish contact. As the call terminated, Hemmy approached the strange duo of Warden and Tizzy. "I know you know I haven't met either of you before. What experience have you in tracking?"

Warden spoke so that the humans could understand, "I have tracked berries, bears, humans, and this cat. I have never been discovered while hiding and when I am quiet I am not heard. You?"

Hemmy cawed. "My actions and my motivations do not always agree. The cat?"

"Disruptive," Warden confirmed. Tizzy thrust out her tongue but had no means to argue contrariwise.

Hemmy did not care to care any more than he already had. "I wish you your due fortunes," he said as though all could equally comprehend his sounds and flew away. Warden translated it at Gates' request; although verbatim and precise, the wording made Gates suspicious of an error.

Sunny's daughter understood her duty but not why she was tasked with it or why her mother felt so strongly about its importance. Believing herself to have achieved her goal, she alerted her mother with a projection of what she saw. It was dismissed as a failure: the color was right, but the flesh of the fruit had the wrong texture. "That one is named payapa and a pokemon who eats one will resist our powers. The colbur berry will have spines." A dozen wild berry patches passed by before one suited Sunny's interests enough to be worth stopping for.

She let her daughter down with a stern warning to remain near before inspecting what she had found. A few under-ripened oran berries, hardly worth anything but worth more than nothing. She took the two largest for herself and plucked the two smaller for her daughter whom she summoned to her side. The ralts was accustomed to sleeping as soon after sunset as her mother would find a safe place to settle down, and expected that this was that place. However, Sunny sensed some things. Shadows nearby that moved in a way betraying a masked intent, and a point of light: however dim, it would once in a while flicker, suggesting that it too was poorly masking itself. Sunny wanted to indulge her daughter, but… with a straining concentration, she chose to neglect the shadows—they each, and three in particular, were too much like a smaller version of the blackbird that visited her and warned her before and again today to intrigue her—and instead she focused on the point of light. After a few minutes, it brightened like a nova.

The dogs' horns ached and the men fell down when Tizzy overestimated Warden's ability to keep her balanced over rough terrain and fell off of his back, landing hard enough to open her ears for a second. She fussed and whined while projecting a stream of unfriendly ideas at Warden, but the only ones to receive a shade of her meaning were the men, not targeted by her message but too near to her unfocused diatribe to pick up none of it. Gates quickly produced a healing spray. "Stop it! We're hunting a Psychic-type and you're projecting so loudly I can feel it in my fillings. If you're going to throw your powers around, figure out if the target has left from where Onyx last reported. It's been a while since we checked."

Tizzy rolled her eyes before closing them and concentrating. Among an analogy for a field of stars as diverse as those coming into view above them as the clear skies approached their darkest and most bespeckled, one binary system stood out. Risking an attempt to contact it, she lost the wager, as it was listening intently. Tizzy grabbed Warden's front left ankle and spoke through him, "I found her and we connected—she is running, desperately now. If you want to catch her, you must run, too."

Through the woods they dashed for two thirds of an hour, both parties becoming tired overall. Velasquez complained as Gates began falling behind, and complained more when Gates stopped. "What are you doing? Are you making a phone call?"

"Yes! I'm making a phone call—if I can find some reception. You can get led around all night if you want, I'm going to use a couple brains and figure out where we're being led." Breaking habit, he used his own telephone to dial a memorized number. The recorded greeting made him wince for some reason. After the chime, a familiar voice with a grave timbre repeated itself, "Will you turn and run?"

"I will move forward. Is it still ahead of me?"

Velasquez glanced at Warden and Tizzy. Warden's expression was as solid as marble, while Tizzy's fur was rising to stand on end.

"Will they warm over time?"

Nearer to the telephone that Gates did not hold, in a small room that had sheltered countless pokemon, a kadabra adjusted a fussy strap attached to a purse-like pouch designed to securely hold things that are sometimes difficult to secure, like decks of cards with symbols on them. "Now you do owe me one thing, Maggie. You have to let me in your head so I can learn how to use these cards, too. That way, I can use them if I need them with somebody who hates telepathy, or Dark-types. And, I don't want to find a message you've left behind for me and not know—no…" Kit sprang up on the bed and rushed forward as though she could run through the wall. Teleporting as she left the bed, she effectively did so. Re-materializing on the other side of the house, and in the only room that Colette's guests were forbidden to enter, she rushed to snatch the telephone away from her host.

"I still choose who and how many, right?" came through the receiver, a question at which Colette reaffirmed her previous reading, denying the flex that her client wanted to bend into the circumstance. "Alright. Thank you. I'm sorry about what I said about—"

Kit stripped the receiver away from Colette. "Stok! Don' to! Go, p'ease, home!" she coughed at it; for a pokemon that could not speak to humans, through sheer force of will and the natural benefits that her species' mental capacity offered she did a very good job of begging with coarse monosyllabic words.

It was a voice he had heard only in his mind, before, yet, "Kit?" Gates asked with a surprised shout, "How—what… what the fuck is this? What kind of scam are—God, that's it—" Gates cut himself off by ending the call. Ignoring Carlos's attempts to start an argument, Anthony approached Warden with a tension in his step that made the sawsbuck feel protected. First, he performed some actions on his account, authorizing on-demand transfer of his account's funds to a money card held by a pokemon, as of the next moment renamed, "Warden Gates." Then, unwrapping the improvised balaclava and silver netting from Warden's head, Gates wrapped his trainer's device in the fabric, and slipped it into a vest pocket, the netting in another pocket beside it. "Son, pay attention, I want you to remember everything I tell you. I'm giving you my T.D., you'll probably need it. Go to the ranger station where we were this afternoon, tell them that we left camp without you and didn't come back when we should've, and then leave if that's it. They'll probably want to stop you to ask more questions, don't tell them anything different and demand they feed you if they get annoying. Eventually they'll let you go; find a Linalool pokecenter with a hostel, I'm sure there's one in town, ask for a room for a few days, have them put it on my account using the T.D. and get lots of rest. If Tizzy wants to check the listings for somebody needing a meowstic, she can give herself away; it's noted on my account, have the pokecenter desk take my T.D. and do the paperwork for you. If she wants to stay with you instead, you two can work that out. If I don't find you before the center turns you out because my money's gone or—, go back to Guaiacol and have Miss Murphy let you in. And, if the Murphys or Carol ask about—never-mind that, you'll handle it okay. You're ready enough, and I'm sure they'll help you with things that need thumbs. Warden, I want you to know I'm proud of you. You've caused me more trouble than I knew was possible, made me do things I never wanted to do, and damn it, looking back, I've loved every second of it."

"I don't want to go back to the ranger station. Tizzy can have her ball and walk back alone. I want to be beside you, Mentor."

"I know you do, Warden." Gates repeated himself but in a whisper. "And I want to be the mentor you deserve. But tonight I have to do something that I don't want you learning from. Wasn't there ever anything your old mentor did that you knew he shouldn't do?"

"He let you kill him."

Gates could not help but indulge a morbid chuckle. "He knew he was making a surely fatal mistake, but he did it anyway, didn't he?"

Warden nodded, dipping his head but bringing it up again only halfway.

"I kinda wish things were different. If time jumped back a while, him and I probably could've gotten along. We've had something wonderful in common. Anyway, you're too important to me for me to go and set a bad example for you." Gates gripped Warden's antlers and pulled his head against his own, and so they stood for many seconds, Gates breaking the silence only to say faintly, "You granted my wish. I'm sorry I might not be able to grant yours."

Velasquez held his tongue until a frizzy Tizzy's reflective eyes disappeared into the deepening darkness. Then, he cut loose. "What the fuck is happening, Gates? You bring them on this hunt, the Psychic kinda helps, kinda blows it, now you send them away, you're making strange phone calls again, and all this time our target's getting away. It's probably halfway to who knows where by now, we're going to be up all night—"

"No," Gates adjusted his own silver mesh after removing his hat and donning his balaclava, and gestured for Velasquez to do likewise. "We're going dark, we're going in, and we're going to murder a gardevoir."

Velasquez showed Gates a suspicious facial expression before he hid it behind his mask. "Is that a fact?"

"It'd better be. I won't like it going the other way." Gates commanded his dogs to press the trail hard. They had a lot of ground to make up.

Having indulged her daughter's pleas, Sunny found a place that seemed defensible enough and let her ralts rest. She so immediately fell asleep, and so peacefully, that Sunny could not help but be lulled by it. Closing her eyes and relaxing, she allowed herself to begin drifting away on a raft of psychic energy, that of other creatures, too sleeping or nocturnally active. In what wanted to become a dream, a few dark spots appeared. One passed overhead and her eyes opened. A glance at the constellations above showed they had hardly moved. Feeling almost ashamed at how poorly she provided for her ralts' safety this night, Sunny picked up her daughter and started away again. Balancing two objectives, first to evade capture and second not to disturb her daughter's sleep, the first tipped the scales. Awakening the ralts with a psychic message, "It's time to run again," Sunny set her down for a moment so she could teleport alone to a high tree branch. Surveying the land, she considered first Lake Muramis. The water would pose a natural barrier if they could not cross it, but if they could it was no help and not far beyond the lake stood the city where young humans go to learn how to do things to pokemon; her daughter would surely be taken. Looking across the way that the threat came from, she saw the lights of Linalool, but to risk crossing their path and then hoping to out-run them, there had to be another option. She looked eastward to the subtle glow of Rennin, a largely residential colony. Faint memories told her that it was considered by the humans to be a quiet town, and was moderately respectful to pokemon no matter their status. Teleporting down again, she gathered her daughter and told her that they were going to go to the house where Granny used to live. The ralts was happy to hear that; although it was lonely without Granny there, it was a fine place to sleep.

Sunny struggled to ensure that none of her concerns escaped her own mind. The underbrush thickened with every furlong and the gap between her and her pursuers narrowed with every heartbeat. A faint flash reflected in a droplet of sap leaking from a tree beside her caused her to turn. Distantly, another flash she saw, a burst of flame. Fire from a Dark-type, most likely houndooms literally blazing a trail.

The dogs took turns burning brush to dust, falling back for a leppa when they felt their fires fading. Seth whined at his master before eating one, anxious and eager to do his job. He would be disappointed further, as when Gates finally gave the command to attack, he gave it to Cyrus. Rushing as quickly as his experienced body could manage, the elder houndoom tore through the bushes, burning some and forcing others, until the gardevoir changed direction toward a less-dense area. Had she thought it would be to her advantage, that thought would not last. Cyrus leapt forward and bit into her fleshy skirt, jerking her backward. Air currents fluffing it like a blanket, Cyrus dug his claws into it to hinder her and let him lunge, biting her body just beneath her dorsal sensory horn and exhaling a gout of flame to worsen the wound. Sunny shifted her ralts to her right arm and shouting with effort swung her left fist behind herself having charged it electrically. Extending her digits on contact, she shocked the dog with a thunder-wave and knocked it free of herself. Distracted by her attack, she drifted into a large tree. Something about it caused a stray thought to enter her mind and she used it for inspiration. Focusing her telekinesis, she severed a small branch from the tree and brought it down upon the houndoom. The stray thought remained.

Gates knelt at Cyrus's side and ordered Seth to stay with him. Velasquez dropped a healing spray from his own gear as he and Ruby passed by. Ordering his bitch to blaze a trail ahead, Carlos followed the fleeing gardevoir and readied his weapon. The ralts looked over her mother's shoulder and watched much of the scrub brush burn away in a narrow line. The man suddenly stopped and took a sturdy posture. Sunny sensed what her daughter saw and quickly turned about, too stopping in place. As Carlos fixed his aim, Sunny raised a palm and focused on the muzzle of the poacher's dart gun. With a subtle gesture and thankfully precise timing, Sunny imparted a little push to the dart as it flew over the mostly burned path, just enough to divert it from being aimed at her upper chest to over her shoulder, brushing her hair and lodging in nearby bark. Inches were enough this time. Sunny returned to her flight, hearing the poachers vocalize orders to their dogs. Ruby and Seth bolted; glancing back and forth, Sunny drew upon all the energy she had and looked for something, anywhere, to direct it. Distantly, perhaps a hundred meters away, she saw a hint of a roof outlined by moonlight—Granny's.

Carlos exchanged his dart gun for his telephone. "We got a problem, Mr. Max. She popped somewhere out of sight and we've lost the trail."

"Good. A long teleport is an act of desperation. Onyx will fly over the area. You keep moving and when Onyx reports, I'll adjust your trajectory."

Gates and Cyrus caught up with Velasquez, the former asking, "How did you miss that shot?"

"I didn't. She didn't try to mess with my mind, either; she knew better. Max wants us to head on and meet him at the road. He put Onyx on patrol again."

Gates wondered if the gardevoir would be better off hiding till Onyx found her, or running till the blackbird's search pattern crossed her path. Comparatively quietly they emerged from the woods along Route R–L, not far from where Syfax expected them, as they found him in Velasquez's truck, waiting. The men recalled their dogs and hopped into the back. Max tapped on the sliding rear window with his ring to bid it be opened.

"Onyx spotted her going to Rennin. I'm dropping you off at the welcome sign. Lose those weapons; if you meet up with Johnny Law, you're just trainers looking for nocturnal species as long as you've only got pokeballs and flashlights on you. Mister Well isn't going to be contributing anything more than what will cover a trespassing charge to your legal defense fund if you screw up." Gates opened the mouth of a gear bag and began changing his equipment to better fit an urban pokemon hunt.

The truck lurched violently as Max felt somewhat impatient. In its bed, Gates and Velasquez discussed what kind of search pattern to make and how to minimize contact with locals. They also switched from projectile weapons to rescue knives after stuffing a few more berries into their pockets from a small bag of equipment that Max bought in the interim as insurance against their failure.

Disappointed that they were no longer allowed to burn through bushes, Cyrus and Seth struggled the hard way through landscaped hedges as they followed a fresh trail: gardevoir layered upon with the scent of fear and dotted regularly by droplets of fresh blood; her trail may as well have glowed like a long neon tube in the night. If only it weren't so long. The latest yard they trespassed into posed a slight challenge, as though it were a fool's security system. Stakes in the backyard with plastic ribbon tied across them like trip wires required the tired dogs to pick up their paws a few times. Ruby entered the yard behind the dogs but hesitated at a ribbon, noticing that the soil had been upturned in a place. She looked around while Carlos caught up to her. Growling faintly and looking at a window of the house, Carlos risked inspecting it. Noticing inside zero pokemon and one potential charge were he caught loitering thus, Carlos paced ahead to catch up with Gates who was mantling a fence after his dogs. Ruby looked again at the window, then at her master, and followed him dutifully.

The poachers continued forward, hastening their chase when a subsequent property owner detected them and threatened them with things worse than alerting the police if they lingered. Reaching the end of the block, Cyrus and Seth quickly sniffed up and down the sidewalk. Near a drainage grate, Seth detected something. Gates and Velasquez checked it out. Aside from a chunk of the surrounding concrete being broken way and absent, there was nothing to see but some blood. Touching it and finding the blood to be still wet, Gates aimed his flashlight through the gaps and spoke to Velasquez, "I was kinda hoping she tried hiding the little one in there, but I think she just slipped her foot along that broken curb. See the blood?" There being no traffic, the dogs crossed and found Sunny's trail to resume on the other side of the street.

"I've been waiting a long time, my 'sister.' Patiently. It's time for you to give me control."

Sunny thought of every word she knew, in her own language and in that of the humans, to order the voice in her head to be silent.

"You want your daughter to be safe, don't you?" asked another gardevoir, an illusion of one to be sure, that appeared anew not far ahead of Sunny every time she blinked in backyard after backyard. "You've said your goodbye. You've given her my gift and your burden. You don't have anywhere to go now. You don't have anybody to turn to now. Except for me. You've entrusted her with me, why not yourself with my shadow?"

Sunny staggered through the badgering image and tripped on a garden hose connected to a pulsating lawn sprinkler. "Because you were never supposed to exist!" Sunny spoke softly but aloud as she strained to gather herself up. A new injury caused by falling on the chunk of concrete she had carried with her for a little while distracted her from her other pains.

"I could say the same for you, 'Sunny,' as you have deigned to be called and allowed yourself to become. I wonder who I could have been if it weren't for your weakness. I'll never know, but I know who I can make you become."

Sunny sensed around. The dogs were catching up. "I don't want to become what you would make of me."

Again she left the mirage and again it appeared before her, but now, across the next street, standing before a large undeveloped lot, one of a few, "I will make you a hero to your daughter because I will help you keep her safe at any cost. That is what you dedicated your life to, and so, my existence as well. Tonight, you have chained me to your cause, and in this moment you won't let me help you accomplish your own goal this night? No more foolish cowardice. Come to me! Surrender your pride and heed my command, and I will guarantee your satisfaction."

Sunny stood upon the sidewalk. The dogs were catching up. "Don't guarantee my satisfaction, just guarantee you'll let me go on without you."

"Go back and get the thing you tripped over, and come into this—our redoubt."

"Good. I needed more trees tonight," Carlos complained as Cyrus and Seth indicated that the trail led into a block of undeveloped lots. Ruby leaned against his leg and he scratched her scalp.

Gates scratched his chin and let the scratch work its way down his neck as he stretched it. "Ready to go back?"

"Wha—? Did you just go as loco as your deer on me?"

Gates rocked his head, a few bones clicked. "I've always been crazy. So crazy, I didn't realize that crazy was right. You know those crazy fortune tellers, they got 'em on T.V., print their birth month columns in cheap papers—" Gates paused for Velasquez's acknowledgment. "They always bugged me, so bad I kinda got hooked on them, once in a while just wanting to know what they said so I could see them proven wrong. All were wrong, except one. That one was always too right. You owe me a lot of money, Vel."

Carlos cleared his throat. "And if we stop talking, we're going to get plenty. And I'll get square with you. I wanted to, but—"

"But nothing. I just want you to understand that the only reasons I'm with you right now is because Warden's not here and it'll up the odds you'll live to get square with me, so I can get square and we can get out. If we were set, I'd let her have you; nothing personal, like you said the time we met."

Vel broke a sweat and glanced around. Aside from the lights of an automobile distantly traveling by, all things about them were motionless. "You think she's that dangerous?"

"My psychic said that somebody dies if we go in, and we know you're going in, so let's make it her." Gates crossed the street and Carlos followed him. In their conversation, the men neglected that their dogs could hear them. Ruby remained behind her master, her head and her tail hung low to the ground. This was the opposite of the other dogs, who seemed more at attention than they had ever been before. They had pressed well into the wooded lot, nearly to the center of the block, when both men's ears popped and the dogs whined, shaking their heads as though their horns ached. The whole area around them faintly glowed, especially above them where the trees' canopy looked like an aurora. Turning to face it, it became clear to them that the change in air pressure was being caused by a massive outlay of Psychic power, distorting the space above them.

As though they weren't already alerted, Carlos shouted, "Heads up!" and both he and Anthony dove to where they hoped the many tree branches above them would not fall. So many branches breaking at once that it sounded like a peel of thunder, the dogs coughed upward bursts of fire to guard themselves. All were struck by something, but none took time to check another first. Climbing from the debris, Gates ordered his dogs to their feet and moving ahead they went different directions into the bushes. Finding Carlos, he lifted the largest branch that had fallen upon him, letting him slide himself free. Ruby bit his hand, albeit gently and tugged him back, but her master resisted and scolded her for a moment. Shining his light to inspect the damage done to his own leg, he noticed that Ruby was favoring one of her own legs, one which now bent in a place that it shouldn't.

Ahead, Gates saw a few flashes from his dogs' fire and before it a silhouette of a gardevoir. "Vel, is your girl going to help us or what?"

"She's hurt, but I hope she can do something; I left my darts in the truck and I doubt a knife's worth shit if she's got that much range."

The silhouette became a little larger; the dogs were driving Sunny back toward the area that had become littered with branches atop crushed-flat scrub. Again and again, flashes of fire shepherded the gardevoir about until she emerged from the un-crushed foliage. "No ralts," Gates noticed, casting his own light at her, "she hid it somewhere. Be ready, Vel."

"Fuck ready!" Carlos shouted as he forced himself to his feet. "Let's just run. Max can kill her himself."

Gates took his eyes off of the gardevoir—and in that instant her stunned reaction—to see Carlos and Ruby stumbling away. "That's not how this goes, my—" The gardevoir appeared before them with a flash, her arms outstretched, symbolically if not necessarily physically blocking their way to the street. Then she levitated a little, spinning and tucking her bulky hands behind her body. Gates called his dogs' names and said, "I'm genuinely sorry, Gardevoir, but I have to choose who and how many. I chose to save him, you chose to save her, and now, we pay for our choices, don't we?"

The gardevoir twisted and straightened up, as though another spirit had stepped into its skin before giggling aloud and saying something short but unintelligible. Then, raising its right arm, it pointed at its right eye with one digit, brought it to its mouth, kissed it, and slowly directed it toward Gates. Her eyes glowed as she looked beyond them. Gates turned to look where she indicated and saw a chunk of concrete with a telekinetic glow around it come against his head.

Carlos shouted an expletive, in a language he'd mostly forgotten that he knew, as his partner in poaching fell to the ground. The concrete chunk rolled near the dead man's dogs, that leapt in aghast disgust as they realized what they witnessed. Seth howled an outburst and charged the gardevoir with a shout of something long and wordy that was supposed to be a poetic vow of vengance. He never finished his sentence, as G. V. activated her telekinesis again, using the sprinkler's spike to puncture Seth's throat and then, after rolling his thrashing body on its back, his heart.

"You are his," the gardevoir sputtered to the houndoom that stood defiantly beside its dead master, "you are guilty." She examined Gates' body and noticed the folding knife that he had uselessly tucked into his sock. Soon opened and in her grip, a telekinetic glow began to form around it.

Cyrus sat beside Gates' corpse. "If I am so judged, I die with my family. Will you hear my final request?"

The knife hovered, but the gardevoir nodded.

"Place my brother here, on the other side of Master. We vowed to stand beside him always, and so we shall, even into the jaws of Ammit."

With an exhausting physical effort, G. V. gripped Seth by one of his horns and positioned him as she had been asked to.

Thanking her, Cyrus concluded, "Now sate your thirst for revenge, yet knowing that its bitter aftertaste will burn your tongue for eternity."

Although the pokemon had been distracted among themselves for some time, it was not enough for Carlos and his twisted ankle to escape the whole of the clearing, much less the wooded lot. No longer energetic enough to levitate her body, the gardevoir used what power she could muster to send forth the garden hose, briefly entangling Carlos's legs with it. He fell to the ground again and Ruby turned back to put herself between him and the unsteady gardevoir.

"Are you guilty, too?" G. V. asked of Ruby.

"Yes. I am guilty, Master is guilty, they were guilty, you are guilty. All of us are guilty save two. Two of us are innocent."

Focusing her telekinesis near the mess in the middle of the arena, G. V. reacquired Gates' knife. "Two?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"The daughters. Yours, given to the home with the ribbons."

G. V.'s eyes widened and flashed very faintly. Distracted by her conversation, she reacted a heartbeat too late as Carlos flicked a dusk ball her way. Its scanning beam painted the gardevoir in demonic shades with brilliant traces. Successful in its attempt, the ball drew in the pokemon's energy, clasped shut, and fell amid splintered tree limbs. Ruby again bit at Carlos's hand to bid him to run, but he shook free. "No, Ruby. I won't owe more." Carlos opened his own knife and listened to the rustling of the dusk ball, and cued by a flash and a crackle as its shell burst open, he thrust the blade forward, plunging it into the gardevoir's re-materializing chest, right against the left side of her ventral sensory horn. Unable to muster more than a muted shriek, she shoved at Carlos's body, which was falling to the ground on its own momentum despite.

The gardevoir faintly coughed as its blood flooded half of what little space its body had for auxiliary lungs. She regarded Ruby. "You are the wisest of these dogs. Two?"

Ruby limped beside Carlos, who had managed to sit mostly upright, and leaned against him, confident that he would lift his arm and put it over her. "Mine is still within, but as you have seen for yourself, the first flame that burns within a houndour is one of loyalty."

The gardevoir concentrated and perceived more clearly than she could see in the darkness that was broken only by two dropped, red-filtered flashlights: a human and a Dark-type masking part of it—two Dark-types, perhaps, if the first one spoke the truth. Soon, a subtle shift, the faintest of ripples—but one of a naive, inherited resolve far bolder than that of its mother—yes, two Dark-types indeed. Able to muster nothing more than shallow, panting breaths, G. V. struggled to command the dog. "Prove your loyalty, swear an oath. Never tell that you know where our other daughter has gone."

Ruby barked brightly despite her pains. "I accept you as my kin."

"Go!"

G. V. perceived the departure of Carlos and Ruby until they left the woods, which was about as far as her perception could still reach. She walked aimlessly until she collided with a large tree, slipped down against its bark, and rolled over to lay against it as comfortably as she could. Placing her palms against the ground, she concentrated on leaving behind whatever trace of a message she could. Feeling the last of her power preparing for release, G. V. stepped aside. "Thank you for letting a shadow have a moment in the light. I hope the true me can offer your shadow the same favor. Your body is almost spent, Sunny. I leave you to write our final message to our daughter."

Recovering control of herself, Sunny made the most of her chance and passed away peacefully.