CHAPTER 25: Jumping Ship

She couldn't lie. Not again. Not to V. She was so fed up of lying! But V… V would hate her. And Gengar, Gengar would –

Anabel frowned. She had no clue what Gengar would do.

But the ghost had come to see, when he'd thought Anabel had been in trouble. It had to mean… something. V listened to him, so maybe…

"Is Gengar around? Can I ask him something?"

"Sure." V's eyes went far away and soon that creepy mind-cold brushed Anabel's mind.

~Gengar, do… do you think it's good, that V and I are friends?~

~Isolated human minds break.~ What? ~Yes. She needs you.~

Anabel blinked. Gengar's voice, his appearance, the way he lurked around, lapping up their fear, his everything screamed bad, but he… ~You'd argue for me, if I got her really mad?~

The cold echoes grew loud. Ow. ~Tell her, silly cub.~

Maybe V would just shout at her. Like for caring too much about training rules. V would should at her, but she'd not stay angry.

Good people owned up.

Anabel squared her shoulders. "V, Rosie… Rosie knows about the mindspeak. She knows about poachers. And it's my fault."

So she told everything, and V didn't shout or leave the tent. V just listened, her silver eyes piercing and her jaw clenched. But except for her own thumping heart, Anabel sensed nothing, and she would, right? If V had been too furious.

"You're really not angry?"

V looked down. "I would've trusted her too," she whispered.

"I… Rosie does care, V."

V's sudden fear cut like sharp sand against bare skin. "She doesn't get to control me, to trick you, and to use 'I care' as an excuse!" she hissed, lips trembling. "That's… that's what he did. I couldn't tell he was bad, Ann. I thought he was brilliant for the longest time. Rosie…"

There was only one 'he' and that wasn't somewhere Anabel felt ready to go, even if it didn't feel fair at all to compare Rosie to V's evil dad.

"She's going to tell Darren. Darren's so mad at us, Ann. If he thinks he can lose his chance at breeding if he doesn't tell… he'll tell."

Espeon was sleeping next to Anabel, so beautiful and solid, her fur soft under Anabel's fingers.

What if they decided to take Espeon from her?

Anabel couldn't live like this.

"We're zeroes." Zero, one, two, three… just words, shorthands for trainers. Now it sounded like a curse. "If we weren't zeroes, nobody would say anything to us, V. We've got to stop being zeroes. Then we won't have to lie."

"You'll wake us, Milord?"

Wake? What?

"We should go," V said. Her voice had gone certain. "In the night. To Rustboro."

Go? "But… what about Seth? He said he'd come with us to the Gym. It's not right!"

Rustboro was three solid days' ride away if they didn't leave the route. They'd –

"We'd have to pack our tents, V… We'll never be silent enough."

V took a sharp breath and picked her sleeping eevee up. "Sorry, Princess," she muttered as the pokemon yapped in dismay, pawing at her in annoyance. "It's hot enough to sleep with no tent. We'll say we don't want to have to bother with the tent tomorrow. We've got to ball Eeveevee and Espeon now. They'll sleep better in their balls anyway."

Anabel squeezed her eyes shut.

The world was still the same mess when she opened them again.

"If we're not with them, we can't get them in trouble, Ann. We'll see them again. We'll have more time to think of a good plan."

A good plan. Anabel had no plan, and this was all her fault. So she nodded.

V- August 10th 341 – Monday

Five hours' sleep had turned Valeria's wobbly legs into stiff aching clubs, but the route would be flat and they couldn't not go.

The others had trusted Gengar to stand guard alone in case wild pokemon showed up. They trusted him. Except they didn't.

Bitterness burned Valeria's throat. Rosie had tricked Ann.

Rosie hadn't cared, about making Ann a liar, a betrayer. If Ann hadn't been Ann – Valeria swallowed. It was the kind of things you lost best friends, and Rosie had figured that didn't matter. That it was all for Valeria's own good.

Ann nudged her. Valeria exhaled slowly and tried to smile.

They couldn't use torchlights, not until they were too far to be seen. Gengar was their eyes, leading them across the tall grass through a sea of shadows. Ann's hand clutching hers made it more of an adventure and less of a terrifying blind escape.

A noise, a voice, had Valeria stop sharp and turn. No, no voice, no Rosie or Seth, just her own heart thudding in her ears and tricking her brain.

It was so quiet. Every step, every soft crunch of grass, felt like it'd wake a whole city. They didn't even dare whisper.

Something flat and hard replaced grass under her feet. The route! Valeria slid her backpack off her shoulders. Hours and hours of riding had transformed their bicycles into an extension of themselves. Valeria pushed on the unpitying thing's pedals, a groan trapped in her throat and her legs begging for mercy.

Ann –a slightly darker moving shadow betrayed by the soft squeak of her bike- laughed, the same aches mirrored in her voice, and soon both were laughing soft as they could, pushing hard as they dared, heading into a thick darkness barely pierced by the shimmering constellations stretching all over the moonless sky.

"There, we're journeying," Ann huffed, "and don't you dare complain."

"Grandma's stories did not go like this," she added after a while.

It wasn't that funny, but for some reason Valeria couldn't stop giggling. She shivered, gasping for breath.

~How do people get out of lies, Milord? How do we get people to trust us and not ask questions?~

~Inferiority breeds acceptance. Surround yourself with weaker humans instead of seeking mentors. Or choose mentors among those who have no interest other than your abilities.~ Gengar's eyes flickered to her and definitely smiled. ~Caring comes with questions, does it not?~

His big sentences tied her brain into knots. He was like a birthday present she could stare at but not open, and he knew it. ~I'm not sorry, and I'm going to keep asking,~ she warned. His words bounced in her mind even after the cold was gone and the echoes had faded to the slightest hum.

Weaker humans. Like what, nine year olds? They were zeroes, nobody was weaker. Valeria bit her lip. Gengar spoke like a villain. Ann would freak out if she heard him.

~Your masters had friends, Milord?~

~I had many masters. You asked about lies. Not all lied to their friends.~ Valeria flinched. She hadn't meant to lie to Rosie. She hadn't meant to like Rosie. ~Some paid the price for their honesty.~

A small growl escaped her lips. When she had been little, she'd thought that good was always good and bad always bad. She missed that.

~It doesn't scare you, that I could tell on you? Or Ann could.~

"V," Ann urgently whispered. "what's that?"

A dull rumble had replaced the silence. The route was shaking.

A deep honking sound blasted through the air. Behind them, powerful beams of light speared through the night, casting huge shadows over the now yellow road.

The girls swerved sharply into the grass, blinded by powerful headlights as soon as they tried to look back.

A massive white monster sped for them, its angry grill gaping like a huge hungry mouth. The monster screamed to a stop, revealing wheels upon wheels and a steel-gray trailer lined with small white lights.

"Does Gene have one of those?" Ann whispered.

V giggled nervously, too petrified to move. "This one's way big. Wouldn't even fit in Mauville." Gene could stack his delivery truck and a half-dozen spares in the trailer alone.

The truck's cabin door was kicked open by a leg. High-energy music poured out of the truck, the kind that made you want to get out an air guitar. Attached to the leg was a stout short-haired woman shaking her head.

"Ever been on an eighteen wheeler?" she called. "Sure beats being squashed by one at get-off-my-road o'clock. Hop in!"

Ann had tucked away her bike before Valeria could at least pretend to make sure it was safe. Her own exhausted brain –and legs- were ready to let the woman adopt her.

~Ball me, cub.~

~I wasn't going to forget you!~

Gengar vanished in a net of red energy. Soon, the two girls found themselves sitting almost comfortably on the wide middle seat between the trucker and a man who had the exact same pale blue eyes and full mouth. He had to be her son.

"You're going to Rustboro, Ma'am?" Valeria checked, almost shouting over the music.

"What are you bringing there?" Anabel added.

The woman turned the radio down. Her sleeveless shirt cut into her muscled shoulders. "Yup, Rustboro's Iron Mine and then the loggers' camp in Petalburg Woods. I've got shiny new toys for everyone." Toys? A grin cracked her leathery face. "Machinery. Now, at what time are routes closed to trainers?"

"Midnight to five," Anabel replied promptly, "but we're supposed to ride on the sides and be ready to get off them quickly between 10 PM and 7 AM. We're sorry! We just really need to get to Rusboro."

Ann's pleading eyes would melt the heart of anyone with a heart. It wouldn't be good if the woman got worried, though. Valeria had to distract her. She kept one hand in her belt-pouch, over Gengar's pokeball. She could pretend she was older than eleven like that.

"What's it like," she asked the man, her mouth dry, "working with your mom?"

He leaned back with a grin. "Well, none of my friends' moms let them stay up so late."

"You even get to pick the music," his mom said, meeting their eyes as if to say 'don't I deserve an award?' "I'm Wren, my boy's –"

"Blaze." the man cut in.

Wren scoffed. "You spend six months agonizing over a proper name for your beautiful baby and then he grows up and wants to be known as Blaze… You've got names?"

"Ann. She's V. You don't mind dropping us off in Rustboro? Or even the mines. I've never been. What are they like?"

V sagged back against the leather seat, happy to let Ann take over. A soft smell of incense filled the cabin, and the music gave new colors to the lit road under them. Sometimes, the tall grass rustled, proof that night was much more awake than people gave it credit for.

"… 'cause beldum were built, see? Pa coordinated the digging back in the day. He made me visit as a girl. That's still possible today, as long as you don't try to catch the workforce in your pokeballs."

"V, we've got to visit the mines. They sound awesome."

"Sure..." Valeria seriously admired Ann for being able to hold a conversation at this hour.

Yawns kept tearing out of her mouth. She soon caught Blaze making big fake yawns at her. He couldn't see Ann's glare. It was harmless teasing, but Valeria loved Ann for being protective. She let her yawns grow even bigger, making Blaze laugh and Ann relax into chuckles of her own.

Blaze grabbed a thin blanked from behind him and handed it to them. "Nighty night," he grinned. "It's three hours to your stop. Don't freak out if you wake up in the trailer. We put the people who snore in there."

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Bundled up with her head on Ann's shoulder, Valeria was dreaming before her eyes had finished closing.

A - Oo*oOo*oO

"Rustboro!"

Anabel jerked awake. Blaze's hand stopped her from keeling over against the windshield.

"Last call for passengers to Rustboro City!" Wren shouted with a big grin. "Hop off, you can set camp just there, behind those trees. City's boundaries are just a hundred yards beyond. If you're brave, there's a campsite twenty minutes' walk from here."

"Thank you so much," Anabel exclaimed, fumbling with backpack until she'd slung it over her shoulder.

She grinned, still dazed, as she and V jumped off the truck. Rustboro. The biggest city in Western Hoenn, where all the science was done. She was so ready to win her first badge.

Dawn was creeping towards the horizon, painting the sky a lighter blue. Six AM. A thrill shoot through her body as she sleepily stumbled forward, laughter tumbling out of her lips.

Wow, they'd made it!

"The Gym opens in two hours, V. I've got the phone number saved." V's lips twitched at that, but how else were they supposed to book their battle? "We can sleep until eight."

For the first time in days Anabel felt just happy, and brave. They were ready. Espeon and Machop were ready. They'd win.

They'd not be zeroes anymore.

The grass was shorter, the ground was dry and flat, with enough trees it could almost be called a wood. Anabel and Valeria shared a glance. Who needed a tent? The picnicblanket was more than enough.

Gengar bled out of his pokeball when Valeria pressed the button.

"Milord, don't let us be murdered or eaten, and please wake us at eight."

~Is my destiny to become an alarm clock?~

"Shut up, all of this, it's also because of you," Ann warned. "So be grateful and wake us up without giving us a heart attack."

She was so proud of herself for not having screamed when she'd opened her eyes, shivering from unnatural cold, to be faced with Gengar, inches from her nose, eyes like shining blood stones, in the dead of night.

"Wake V up," she decided. "She thinks you're cute." Nobody was perfect… "She can wake me."

Seth woke her up first.

Anabel froze, blinking sleep-haze out of her eyes as she stared at the vidphone screen. It wasn't even the first message.

Those had started at seven. It was ten-to-eight. Ghosts.

Anabel's head whipped suspiciously to Gengar. ~It is not eight yet.~

Ghosts, he was hopeless. Anabel scrambled for her phone.

Her eyes snapped back to Gengar. Hungry red eyes. He could taste her rapid heartbeat.

Anabel sucked in a breath, stirring anger joining her emotions.

He made himself very small and floated backwards, until he was half-hidden behind V. Coward. ~Pay me no heed.~

V's eyes blinked open. "T's eight already?"

Gengar couldn't help feeding on fear. V wouldn't want them to fight. Ghosts, Anabel wished she could banish fear from her life. She decided to ignore Gengar and scrolled up the vidphone conversation. A geodude was stuck in her throat.

'Where are you?'

'Answer your phone'

'Tell V to answer her phone'

'Ann!'

Twenty-three missed calls. Anabel's stomach churned. Seth was mad.

"Sorry, was sleeping," she whispered to phone mechanically, watching it transcribe her words. "I put it on silent. The light woke me up."

A notification instantly popped up. 'Where are you? Answer right now. I don't care what your hair looks like or if your voice's raspier than a zigzagoon's.'

Anabel frowned until she remembered Nova squealed like a gutted spoink if any of the guys tried to get into her tent or talk to her before she'd woken up properly.

~Your escape will have been pointless if you reveal too much now.~

V's hand clumsily latched around her arm. "What Milord said," she mumbled, shaking herself awake. "Don't tell them we're already in Rustboro."

"We don't want to get you in trouble because of us," she told the phone. "We left for Rusboro. We'll get strong, and then we'll be… we'll see each other again."

Anabel watched the words appear in text, and changed them a bit to sound more confident. She took a sharp breath, pressing send when V gave her a nod.

She spent a whole ten minutes staring at the screen while V packed and got dressed, but Seth didn't text back.

'Thank you so much for helping us train,' she whispered to her phone before pressing send.

Seth didn't answer.

Ann didn't know what she was hoping for, maybe an 'it's okay'.

The nothing was like losing a friend.

V squeezed her arm. "You're calling the Gym?"

Anabel squared her shoulders. "I am." A man answered, and just like that they were told they could battle Roxanne tomorrow at 11.30AM.

They'd be ones. Finally.

Anabel shoved her vidphone in her beltpouch and threw on fresh clothes. A smile broke her lips. She couldn't wait to show Espeon a real city.

"He'd tell you if he called the Rangers to tell on us, wouldn't he?"

Ghosts. "Hey, you said you liked Seth now!"

V's silver eyes tightened. "Sure. I liked Rosie too, though."

Anabel huffed. "He'd better not. He trained us. He won't make it all useless by telling on us!" She took a shuddering breath. "There's a training place next to the campsite. Come on."

Rustboro was metal, concrete and glass. Two to four-story buildings with huge windows, painted in soft greens, pinks and blues, filled the valley, surrounding bigger buildings, factories they had to be, or maybe companies. Those dwarfed everything else, gazing upon the city like proud parents.

There were no gardens Anabel could see, only a few green spots, and a brown one full of tiny tents. "There. That's where we must go."

Verdanturf had never seemed small to Anabel, but that had been before. They were on a hill, but it wasn't high enough to see the end of the city. It looked like it stretched to infinity.

"Ready, guys?" Skarmory might panic, and then they'd not be able to catch him, but Espeon and Machop deserved to walk by her.

"Eh."

"MaaaaaAAAAAH!" Machop roared at the city below, slamming his fists on his muscled chest.

V burst out laughing, but Anabel couldn't. Machop was serious and trying to look strong and brave. A good trainer couldn't make fun, even if it was funny.

"Ghosts," she exclaimed as his bellows died down, "don't scare all of Roxanne's pokemon away! Who're we going to battle then?"

"Espeon, espee-eh."

"Chop," Machop agreed.

Laughter burst out of Anabel's mouth before she could guiltily stifle it. "No, Geo is V's. I expect you to root for her, actually."

Machop gave her a look of utter disbelief.

"I'm not joking." Anabel said. "Geo's been helping making you strong, right? She's on our side. And if she loses, Eeveevee will have lost too."

Espeon's tails swished in displeasure at the thought. "Eh."

Machop gave a grudging nod.

It was all perfect until a girl rushed up to them as they were setting up their spot at the campsite. It was almost lunch-time.

"Did you see the guy who just landed on a dragonite?" the girl gasped, before rushing off once more, excitedly telling everyone else.

No.

Anabel took out her vidphone, biting back a growing grin despite her nervousness. 'Really?' she texted. 'We're spot 103.'

"How do you know he's not here to shout at us?" V whispered.

"Come on, it's Seth!"

Sizzling energy announced Dragonite before he even appeared. He swooped down to them, his wings barely moving. The dragon landed with a thump, raising a huge puff of dust. The rider jumped off his back.

It was Seth, but he was wrapped from head to toe in a dark suit and had a motorcycle helmet.

He tore his helmet off and threw his backpack on the ground, kicking off the suit to reveal his usual clothes. "You have no idea how cold it gets when he flies fast," he gasped, his yellow eyes glaring daggers at them.

He set his scarf straight before throwing his arms open in shock.

"How did you get here so fast! Did Skarmory agree to carry you? But you… there's two of you! Did he learn Fly?"

"How did you know we were here?" People were gathering and gaping at them and Anabel was just ridiculously pleased to see him.

Dragonite huffed, a puff of ice and energy shooting out of his nostrils. The onlookers scrambled backwards and stopped being so obvious about staring.

"I told the Gym I was your friend and that we were to meet before your badge battle. They told me you'd already booked for tomorrow. So I called the camping, asking to tell me when you'd come."

"You can do that?" V looked outraged.

"They know me. Rosie feels awful by the way."

V's face darkened.

"You… you're… what about your License?" Anabel said. "You won't tell?"

"That Gengar should be handled by a six? You think they'll take my License for that? The only people at the pokemon school who've got more badges than me are at least one year older."

Anabel grinned. They could keep training together!

"It's a bit different for Darren," Seth allowed. "He already had a warning and if Gengar hurt you… But breeding's more strict. They need really honest people who don't put others at risk, and it makes sense, right? But I'm not a breeder and I kind of hate you for leaving like that. Aren't we friends?"

Anabel's face crumpled. "We are! I'm so sorry. I didn't –"

"How about we buy you ice-cream?" V cut in. "And smile at Ann before she starts crying." Hey. "Running away was my plan."

Seth grinned. "Ice-cream works." He patted Anabel's arm, his grin turning into rueful chuckles. "Don't cry. Please?"

Anabel's cheeks burned. She shot V a glare she hoped was chilling.

V was not chilled.

"Where's Nova?"

Seth huffed. "Nova won't be paying attention to anyone or anything for the next three days. Miltank is just too gorgeous." He snickered. "She's always like that with new pokemon. So, how did you get here?"

"A trucker lady gave us a lift," Anabel admitted. "Do you know beldum?" She'd fallen asleep before she could finish asking Wren all her questions.

" Beldum, metang, metagross," Seth replied in this best pokedex voice. Anabel chuckled. "Robot-pokemon, psychic-steel types, engineered by man some five centuries ago. Two beldum must fuse together to make a metang, and two metang for a metagross." A wry smile lit his face. "That's why metagross are so smart: four brains. BUT, it means you have to train four of the blighters to get a metagross. Why?"

V cocked an eyebrow. "All metagross have multiple personalities?"

Good point.

"Well…" For once Seth looked stumped. "Maybe each beldum has pretty much the same personality?"

"Are there any outside the mines?" Anabel said.

"I read that some of them live in arid rocky places." Seth grimaced, as if that was a load of bunk. "They're very rare… I've never seen a wild one, or even a caught one."

Interlude: - Rustboro, Glitter Halls. -

A man and a woman shared a bottle in the casino, shrouded in a cloud of smoke. She sat slouched in crumpled white clothes, barely a hint of makeup on her sun-lined face, her sleek green bun her only remarkable feature. He was bald and silver-eyed, muscled and strikingly handsome. His three-day beard and friendly smile made him look ten years younger than his forty-five.

The afternoon had been good for his wallet. Company kept him wise. Gambling had always been a treacherous friend. He breathed in, his lungs filling with sweet-acrid smoke. It tasted foul, but the smokers' lounge was a haven for privacy and maybe he'd eventually develop a fondness for his most recent vice.

« It worked, kind of. That's research for you. They're flawed, » the woman said. « They won't be trainable for combat. A neurologist will pay for all the specimina we can obtain. He gave us a substancial advance. »

When the man had learned they'd had found a way to use magnetic blasts to confuse beldum and metang into evolving before it was time, his respect for his bosses and whoever did that kind of science had grown tenfold.

He sipped from his wine glass, letting the taste roll over his tongue. He'd not indulged like this in much too long.

Disrupting Rustboro's iron mines was well out of his comfort zone, but he was a man for opportunities. He was new to this world and they could afford to drop him if he botched the job, but if he didn't botch it, his future would be secured.

Before, he would never have accepted to work for an organization so opaque. Before he'd played the corporate game, going above and beyond, playing good with his superiors, never missing those afterworks… And all for what?

He took a long swallow, the red wine bitter against his tongue. He wasn't a quitter.

Only quitters refused to reinvent themselves.

He'd developed a good nose for the smell of desperation. Debt, divorce, accidents, vice… he knew more than anyone what got people's lives off track. 'The company' valued his nose. He'd found them two recruits in the last month alone.

"Don't break it," the woman warned, lazily blowing out a cloud of smoke.

The man looked down at his hand. His knuckles were white around the glass. In his mind he could see her. Every line of her treacherous face. He'd married hoping for someone who'd stand by him, instead he'd found himself tied to an ungrateful gold-digger. She'd played dumb for so long he'd let himself be fooled.

And she'd stolen his child.

He'd always done his best by the kid, and she had turned her against him. How could they give her custody? That penniless, lying litwick. He'd done her a favor by not leaving her in that hovel, and they'd treated him like a criminal for it. She'd doubtless slipped in the judge's bed the moment she'd set foot in that 'shelter'. She'd made him a social pariah, cast out, jobless, forced to sell the house. She believed she'd won.

For a time, he'd been weak enough to believed it too.

He had overheard them by chance. An interview with a mighthyena's teeth inches from his throat had secured him a job.

"Ready?" the woman said, leaving the cigar-butt to extinguish itself in the ashtray. She never felt the need to fill the air with chatter. He liked that.

"Quite." Twenty Class-B duskull were balled in his locker, all freshly downloaded from the secure server.

"We'll keep the wives busy," she assured him.

'Wives' was the codename for the Jennys. He'd laughed the first time and still found it hilarious. He was underground. He was part of a fancy gang. He was cooler than in his twelve-year-old self's wildest dreams.

"You let them work their magic and move in the morning. We'll pick you up at 9." She took a pouch out of her hand-bag. "This will make your life easier."

"Got it," he said, careful not to smile as he took the pouch. The others took themselves and the missions very seriously.

Class-B duskull were trained for city-missions. Like other ghost pokemon, lore rather than science colored people's perception of them. The eerie reaper, notorious for seeking out children's cries, was many a kid's deepest fear, and many an exasperated mother's favorite pokemon.

'Keep crying and the duskull will give you a reason to cry for real, Boy!' The man smiled at the memory. He'd given his poor old mom too many gray hairs.

The duskull would sow their special brand of chaos, keeping the police awake all night and well into the morning. By the time he got near the iron mines, every Jenny in Rustboro would have a better place to be.

"The last's on me," the woman said, standing up to buy another bottle. She was one fearsome drinker.

The man finished his own glass and smiled. Getting into the Gym's logs, and Roxanne's calendar, had been easy. Today, the name he'd been waiting for had been registered. The last name wasn't right, but a little digging left no doubt.

It was high time he got his daughter back.

He whistled when he discovered seven masterballs and a sleep-spore gun in the pouch the woman had given him. That neurologist sure meant business.

Let's go do some metagross hunting.

Thank you for reading, please share your thoughts^^.