Chapter 11: A Simple Question
(Kaylee Harrison)
Kaylee was sorely regretting her decision to run off with Gav. At first it had been fine, as the plan was to split up the group of pursuers as well, and in doing so lose them and get the hell out of here. It was so far so good, or as good as running for their lives from people who had tracked them out of Saffron could be. Kaylee's blood was thundering in her veins as she tried to calculate where they would have to go to hook up with the others.
That was when two people crashed into the path perpendicular to them, and for a second Kaylee thought Victoria and Beth had found them. The reason she was confused had to do with the blue Pokémon that accompanied these people, with the white round belly and the hypnotic swirl design. Then she realized that these people were definitely not teenagers, or female for that matter, and the Pokémon before them did not really resemble Beth's Poliwhirl at all. It seemed much angrier, and it was a good deal bigger to boot.
She regretted her decision to team up with Gav since every single one of the Pokémon they were now up against were Water-types.
They had no choice. Running was no longer an option, as the flying purple star was blocking their path any way they tried to go. The Golduck as well was keeping them boxed in on the left, whereas the Poliwrath was on the right. The two men stood dead ahead, and Kaylee would have preferred to take their chances charging at them, if it hadn't been for the fact that all three Water-types were a good deal faster than two teenagers.
Gav and she exchanged one desperate, hopeless look before releasing Geodude, Cubone and the two Growlithes. The men before them seemed confused for a moment, then unbearably amused and smug. The battle started in earnest then, and Kaylee knew at once how this would go.
The yelping and howling of her Pokémon sent sympathy pain shooting through Kaylee's limbs as she shouted orders to them, trying to get them to establish a path to flee through. It was no use. It was four on three, but with the type advantage and their opponents sporting an evolved team, they were only postponing the inevitable.
Steam rose from one Growlithe in a huge plume that carried to the sky. Smoke signals, Kaylee thought, her train of thought derailed and desperate. Someone please, see us.
Gav and Geodude were faring so much worse. Water and dirt became mud, clinging heavily to the Rock-type's form, and she could see the corrosive stuff sneaking deeper and deeper. She knew that Geodudes didn't have blood or organs, but the water was acting on it as surely as a toxin to a human, sinking down through receptive pores and leaking into the highway of life that would take it closer and closer to vital areas within. Cubone was suffering as well, rolling through the mud to try to escape the attacks but getting slower and slower by the minute.
Gav never, ever fought with Onix. Onix was too old, too recognizable for them to ever want to use him in anything but the most dire situations. Now he recalled Geodude, who had fainted with a crash against the ground, and she knew when he met her eyes that this was one of those "no choice" situations. She held her breath as Gav freed the Pokéball from his belt, her thoughts flying to Jerry Armstrong in Pewter, and in that moment she had never felt so small and useless. Who do we think we are? shot through her head as her Growlithe howled in pain. We're just kids.
Just as one of her Growlithe swooned on his feet and hit the ground in a muddy splash, two more people exploded out of the bushes to their right. Kaylee's heart sank even as adrenaline surged through her, and she recalled both her Pokémon in a haze of red light, ready to just jump on Onix and tear off through the underbrush away from here. Onix, however, was not out yet. Gav was just holding the Pokéball, staring in disbelief at something. Kaylee turned to look, the sound of vines slapping over rubbery flesh reaching her ears before the scene unfolded before her.
An explosion of water met water in midair, and in a second Kaylee was drenched. What she saw through her waterlogged bangs, though, was the Golduck sliding through the mud and bashing up against a tree trunk. Tiny leaves followed its progress and crashed hard against the duck's skin.
Finally Kaylee understood. She located Victoria and Beth through the flurry of vines, leaves and water and dragged Gav over to the two sisters. She had never been more happy to see any two people in her life.
Bellsprout sent its razor leaves over to the Poliwrath next, who charged at the small plant. Bellsprout went to dodge, but was tackled brutally to the ground. Oddish came to the rescue, slapping vines over Poliwrath before wrapping it up in them. In response Bellsprout sent out a big cloud of powdery violet dust, and Poliwrath shuddered just enough to dislodge it from Bellsprout. Oddish lifted Poliwrath up into the air and kept it captive, its small body swaying as Poliwrath struggled and thrashed, looking like a bizarre coconut held aloft in a tree.
Meanwhile Beth's Water-types clashed with the Golduck and Starmie, and were joined a second later by Bellsprout. Another cloud of powder proved to be Stun Spore, and Beth's Staryu took to the sky and spun furiously, wafting the powder faster. None of the enemies escaped being hit by it—not even the humans. As the two men crashed to the ground on rigid, unresponsive limbs, the four trainers immediately started recalling their teams.
When Victoria went to recall Bellsprout, though, it whipped vines up to grab onto a tree branch and lifted itself out of the path of red light. Kaylee stared at it, confused, a second before she realized what must be happening.
"Oh, crap," she said, unable to keep the smile from coming to her face even in light of their very dire situation. "It's going to evolve."
"Now?" was the first word out of Victoria's mouth. A second later though she ran to the bottom of the tree and held her arms out for Bellsprout. "Come on, buddy, we have to go."
Bellsprout lowered itself down and let itself be carried, and the four trainers started booking it through the woods. Beth got on the phone with someone, and Kaylee soon ascertained that it was Gina.
"Where are you? Give your coordinates to Gav and we'll find you," Beth said, shoving her phone to Gav. Gav held it to his ear with one hand and fiddled with his PDA with the other, and it struck Kaylee that this image of her brother pretty much summed up his whole existence. Gather information—mess with technology—run for his life.
They stumbled upon Orion and Gina quickly, and Kaylee let out a huge sigh of relief at seeing them intact and unharmed. She turned to see Victoria put Bellsprout down and take many huge steps backwards and away from it. It was getting bigger by the minute. Victoria tore her eyes away from her Pokémon and glanced from face to face in the group. "I know we're on a tight schedule here, but… I need to wait until it's done. I don't know what will happen if we try to teleport in the middle of this."
Gina had started talking over the end of her sentence. "It shouldn't be more than a few more minutes… Gav and Kaylee can go first."
Kaylee nodded. "Yeah, don't worry about it." The words almost made her laugh. The idea of her telling Victoria, casually, that they had nothing to be concerned over was humorous given the circumstance. She turned tentatively to Orion. "Are you coming?"
Orion met her eyes briefly, taking a while to register her words. Then he nodded. "You four were the last ones we were waiting for. The others are already in a safe spot."
Kaylee frowned, Zahlia springing to her mind. Fire had seemed to lace under her limbs the second that man had identified the Nakawa sister in that clearing, but she hadn't had time to cook up insane conspiracy and betrayal theories. Kaylee knew there was a logical explanation for it, and that she and Gav had just become paranoid over the years. Tempted though she was to offer to stay behind, the thought of her near-fainted Growlithes changed Kaylee's mind.
"We're not too useful anymore," she said to Gav, reluctantly. "We should go first."
Gav hesitated, and she saw his eyes snap over to Victoria, lingering. Victoria looked up at him and rolled her eyes. A second later, though, she lifted them back up to him in a small smile. "Go," she said. Kadabra approached them, and they did.
Jason jumped when they appeared about two feet from him. "Holy crap!" he said, stumbling back and wincing on his bad ankle. "Amaris, is your Kadabra doing that on purpose?"
"Possibly," Amaris said, his tones clipped. Kaylee thought he was just in his perpetual bad mood until she saw his rolled-up jeans and the swelling that had started up around his knee.
"Oh god," she said, staring at the injury. "I, uh, don't know a lot about medicine, but that looks—"
"Then I'd appreciate you stopping right now," Amaris cut in.
Kaylee let him have that one, and turned away. The guy probably had a broken leg, after all. Just then Kaylee caught sight of Zahlia and Blake, all the way on the other end of the little clearing they were in. Kaylee stopped to debate in her head about the questions she wanted to ask, but ultimately her impulse won out.
"What happened back there?" she asked, getting up and strolling over to Zahlia. Blake looked up at his sister at once and Zahlia's eyes did not move from the ground. A chill travelled down Kaylee's spine when she didn't say anything. "Hello? I asked you a question."
"Kay, this isn't the time," Gav said from behind her. Kaylee clenched her teeth, a weird little shiver starting in the exact center of her body. She ignored her brother and took another step forward.
"Zahlia," she tried again, trying to inject feeling into that word. "What is going on?"
"Kaylee—" Gav started again, but he was cut off.
"No, you know what? I'm curious too." It was Jason, and Kaylee saw him limp into her peripheral vision. "How did that guy who wanted to kill us know you?"
Gav was over now, too, trying to edge his way between Jason, Kaylee and Zahlia. "When we get back to the cottage, guys, please."
"What?" Jason asked, turning to stare at Gav. "It's a simple question. It should be a simple answer."
"Lay off my sister," Blake said, standing and speaking up at last. His dark eyes bore into Jason's, and Kaylee became suddenly aware that this could easily turn into a fight.
"What are you trying to hide?" Jason asked, and from his place by a tree Amaris groaned loudly, knocking the back of his head against the trunk and rolling his eyes.
Probably for the better, Victoria and Beth arrived just then. Bellsprout was absent, and Kaylee figured it was in its Pokéball. "No incident," Victoria reported at once, her eyes scanning everyone's faces. "Gina and Orion are on their way."
"Good," Gav said, sounding harried and impatient. He clicked away on his PDA and waited a second while something loaded. "It looks like we teleported over the corner of Celadon City… we're now to the south of it. It's not much of a walk to get back on track towards Viridian Forest."
"Okay," Gina said, but her eyes were traveling between Amaris and Jason. "But we've got injuries…"
"I just shouldn't run on my leg," Jason said, his eyes still trained stormily on Zahlia. "I'm fine."
"I'm not," Amaris said bluntly.
Gav frowned, his expression going thoughtful and troubled, and Kaylee cast one last glance at the Nakawa siblings before she went over to stand next to her brother. She noticed that Orion was pointedly not looking at Zahlia, or at anyone, for that matter.
"Do you think the psychic types can handle taking us back to the forest?" Beth asked uncertainly, squatting down so she could look at Abra. Abra reached out and Beth's face split into a smile and she put her hand into its paw.
"Probably, if we use potions on them in between hops," Amaris said, his voice sounding strained again. Gina moved over to him, sort of hovering, and he shot a glare at her. She rolled her eyes, but remained.
"Okay," Gav said. "I don't see what other choice we have. I'd use Onix, but let's try the option that doesn't leave a huge trail for people to follow. Jason, Amaris, take it away."
Edith's reaction when she opened the door to find the entire group outside her cottage, some of their number leaning heavily on the others, was kind of priceless. Kaylee didn't think eyes could get that big. "What are you doing back so soon?" she asked, her eyes darting over everyone a mile a minute.
"Gonna let us in?" Kaylee asked, an automatic grin coming to her face. There was no real feeling behind the expression, but it felt normal to poke fun at Edith's freeze-reaction to unexpected events.
"Oh, yeah," she said, practically flying back from the door and watching as the group shuffled inside. Amaris was led to and deposited on the couch by Gina, but Jason managed to hide his limp fairly well. Edith noticed it, though, and a second later Jason was forced onto the other side of the couch. Edith began to examine both boys' legs, and Gina returned to her pastime of awkward hovering.
While this was happening Gav and Victoria went into a two-person huddle near the door, frowns deeply etched on both of their faces. Blake had started to head down the hall, but stopped when he saw that his sister was standing stock-still near the wall, staring straight ahead like a soldier. After a little back-and-forth sway of indecision, he remained by her side. Victoria and Gav finished their huddle and walked over to the Nakawas. Kaylee cast a glance at Orion and saw that he was finally looking at Zahlia. His expression was mostly unreadable, but she thought she could see some kind of hope in there, too.
"We need to know how that man knew you," Gav said quietly. Kaylee moved in closer to listen, but to her shock Gav put his hand out for her to stop, not even looking over his shoulder at her. Anger flared in Kaylee at being kept out of the loop, and for the first time ever her eyes travelled to Victoria and she felt a pang of jealousy. When had she been so utterly replaced at her brother's side? Had it been gradual and she'd simply been blind to it?
The anger morphed at once to confusion and exhaustion. Kaylee shook her head, struggling not to feel this irrational envy. Victoria had done so much for the two of them, as had Beth. Kaylee knew it was just their many recent near-scrapes that had worn her down into this person with ugly feelings she didn't want to have. With great effort she took a few steps back and watched from a distance, refusing to stop listening to this discussion.
"He's an associate of my family," Zahlia said quietly. It had taken her a little while to respond. Kaylee noticed that Blake was watching Zahlia with just as much intensity as the rest of them; it occurred to her only now that this was probably news to him as well.
"Did you know he worked at Silph?" Gav asked, his line of questioning going in a direction Kaylee could not predict.
"Yes," Zahlia said. This group was starting to gather an audience now, as Orion and Beth had moved over to stand near where Kaylee was. Even Edith had stopped talking in rapid medical jargon to Amaris and Jason. Kaylee cast a glance to the sofa; the people there were indeed, focused on Zahlia as well. Edith was not looking over, still feeling around Amaris' swollen knee, but the stiffness of her posture told Kaylee she was listening hard.
Why didn't you tell us someone you knew worked there? would have been Kaylee's next question, but it proved how differently she and Gav thought. His next one was, "Did you really get the card key from near the fountain, or did you get it from that man?"
"I got it from him," Zahila said.
Victoria asked the next one. "You asked him for it?"
"No," Zahlia clarified. "I took it from his coat pocket."
"While we were together on the Silph tour?" Gav asked, and Kaylee could hear the confusion in his voice.
"I went back later on. I asked to meet with him to talk about my family, and catch up. I took it from his jacket while it was on the back of his chair."
There was silence now, and the mood of the room shifted to one of intense confusion and bewilderment. Kaylee exchanged a look with Beth, but neither of them seemed to have insight. Their brows hung low over their eyes, and Kaylee's brain struggled to think up reasons behind Zahlia's strange behavior.
"Did you know in advance about the extra rooms in Silph?" Gav asked. Kaylee heard Edith make a sound of slight alarm from the couch, and Jason started muttering to her, no doubt explaining a little about their mission.
"No," Zahlia said at once, and with a pang of regret and complex frustration, Kaylee discovered that she did not believe her.
Victoria was up again. "The real question is, why the hell would you keep this from us?" Kaylee felt any residual anger she had felt towards Victoria vanish as she finally asked the question that had been burning at Kaylee for the past hour.
Zahlia didn't seem to know how to answer it at first. She had been staring straight ahead the whole time, only moving her eyes to fix them on Gav's or Victoria's face, depending on who was questioning her. Kaylee thought she looked like a straight-backed warrior, trained to never show weakness on the battlefield. The memory of the way she had spoken to the man in the warehouse flooded back to her at once.
Finally Zahlia spoke. "I didn't want to bring my family into it. I just wanted to get us inside. So I decided to try to use my contact to do so."
"Why didn't you want us to know?" Victoria asked, shifting her weight to her other leg so her hip cocked out as she crossed her arms. Kaylee thought the outline of her back right now was the perfect silhouette of an angry mother. "This is just an associate of your dad's. We wouldn't have incriminated your entire family along with an acquaintance."
"She did you all a favor," Blake said. Kaylee had almost forgotten he was in the room. She glanced over at him and saw that the tentative, confused look he had worn earlier was utterly gone, replaced by a blank yet scowling expression that reminded Kaylee of his sister. "And duh she wouldn't want our family to get involved in this."
"Unless you want to give us information too, stay out of it," Victoria said to Blake, her words harsh but her tone even. Blake glared hard at her, but Zahlia put her hand on his shoulder. Kaylee was a little surprised to see Blake angrily shrug her off.
"I'd like it if you would tell us what you know about your father's associate," Gav said, his voice calm. Kaylee knew that kind of calm, though. He always spoke that way when he was trying to hide how deeply upset he truly was about something. "This information could have been very valuable to us going in. Honestly I would have made you and Blake stay back at the Center that night had I known there was even an outside chance of someone recognizing you."
"I had assumed you would feel that way," Zahlia said, her voice still flat.
"So you lied so you'd have an opportunity to come in with us?" Victoria asked, sounding skeptical.
"It doesn't matter," Gav said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "We have a whole new set of problems, here. Zahlia has been identified, but we were all seen today. Edith, not to put you on the spot, but you're going to have to decide soon if you're still willing to take the risk of harboring us—"
"We sound like fugitives," Beth said, at the same time Edith said, "of course I want you to stay."
Kaylee said to Beth, "we kind of are fugitives," at the same time Gina said, "Edith, seriously, think about it a while before you—"
Jason cut her off with, "we'll make sure nothing bad happens here." While he was speaking Amaris called something over to Gav and his voice was swallowed by the other babble entirely.
"Stop, stop," Victoria said, putting her hands up in her classic T formation. "One at a freaking time."
Amaris repeated himself. "Gav, as soon as you can, I need to talk to you about one of my Pokémon." Gav nodded to Amaris, his expression turning to one of wary worry, but as her brother opened his mouth to ask, Amaris plowed onward. "And regarding the incident in the woods, I doubt that we'd be instantly recognizable one-on-one. We're very conspicuous in a large group, though."
"You don't think they'd know who we are on sight?" Gina asked, frowning.
"Not after only one frantic scuffle in the woods, no. We were all together for under a minute before we scattered." He paused to wince, and Edith continued checking his leg. He looked at her with a mild annoyance that seemed to be more reflex than anything. "After that we split up, and even then we were still fighting or fleeing the whole time. They probably have a rudimentary description of us, but not a great one."
"Solid," Jason said. At some point tiredness had hit him, as his head was back against the couch and his eyes were closed.
"For now, we're safe," Beth said, cross-legged on the floor. "That's what counts. We can take our time and go over the information we have, keep an eye on the news and see if any of this was reported. I somehow doubt it will be…"
"You and me both," Victoria said. "And if they don't report it, we'll know for sure that they're covering up the break-in because they don't want an investigation."
"I think it's safe to establish that, yes, they are hiding something and yes, it is probably illegal," Amaris said. Kaylee deemed him the King of Sarcasm in her head, and imagined a little crown and robe for him. Exhaustion had begun to addle her brain as well.
"If we do go out together again in the future, we'll need to have way better disguises," Beth said quietly. The moment she said it, people started looking around the room at one another, sizing each other up. Victoria was the first one to chuckle, shaking her head and sighing.
"Well, I've always wondered what it would be like to be a brunette."