Chapter 35: Interlude for Casey
The airship hung low over the trees, its searchlights scanning the ruins of the Iris below. The hot metal and ruined gas bags of the flying fortress had been burning when they hit the ground and left a huge scar the face of the forest. Everything still smoldered slightly, and there were a few flickering flames that cast weird shadows off the warped metal…
Casey sighed angrily and rested her forehead against the windshield. She was exhausted from her hours of combing the wreckage on foot… the last sweep from the airship had seemed like a good idea at first, but she was quickly loosing interest. She was just… too… tired…
But wait: Rook couldn't be below the wreck of the Iris. The place where the lens had fallen (or really, had been knocked out by Ian, she thought angrily) would be miles to the north. The Iris had drifted to the south after the battle, while no one was controlling it.
So Rook could still be to the north, getting away!
But if he's gotten away, Casey thought, he's already long gone, and if he's dead, he'll still be dead in the morning. With that thought in mind, Casey flew sleepily to a clearing a few miles to the east, just south of Viridian Forest, and set the airship down. Careful to lock all the doors and post two of her Pokemon on guard, she curled in the small bunk room, holding Tediursa tightly in her arms.
Casey felt a little guilty about leaving Ian and Richard behind… mostly Ian. And she was starting to really like him, too… why did everyone she loved have to leave her? Well, she had left Ian. But if he had just let her kill Rook…
None of it would be happening. She and Ian might have been holding hands and watching the stars back at the beach house in Pallet Town then… instead, Casey was huddled in an airship, searching for a murderer. Hardly romantic, not to mention lonely… Casey rolled over so that she faced the metal wall and focused on the dark around her until she was asleep. It was hallow and unsatisfactory, but sleep nonetheless.
(-o-)
The airship's windshield had several built in scanners and filters; Casey used the infrared heat-sensing device to check the blocks of ice she had discovered about six miles north of where the Iris crashed.
The only thing she could see was the blue-on-blue layers of ice… no warm bodies. But when she switched off the infrared filter, something came into view among the chunks of ice. Something large and gray.
Casey quickly landed the airship and jumped out, Nidoqueen and Totodile just behind her. She sprinted over to the body lying among the ice, moving more carefully as she neared it. Salamance lay still on the ground, which had turned to mud beneath it. Casey didn't have to experiment to know that it was dead. The Pokemon had sunk in to the soggy earth, but had yet to start to rot. The ice seemed to have preserved it.
It was a little sad really… Rook hadn't even bothered to burry his favorite Pokemon. Casey sighed, and with Nidoqueen's help, dug a shallow grave and put the dead dragon in it. But there was still no sign of Rook. He had gotten away.
Casey checked around the ice field and found a few muddy footprints, heading west, but they ended at the mulch and loam of the forest floor…
But there was something else, another clue: lying in a puddle next to the line of prints was Rook's white trench coat. And sticking out of the mud at its side, like a monolith for ants, was Rook's metal mask.
Casey scooped it up, trying not to get her fingers in the mud. As if he didn't stand out enough already…
She set the mask on Salamance's grave like a tombstone… of sorts. What she really wanted to do was smash the mask. That face had killed her grandfather… that face had ruined her life. She wouldn't let Rook harm anyone ever again… she would hunt him, and he would never get away… but first, she needed to re-supply for the journey ahead, and maybe sleep for a few nights in an actual bed.
As soon as it was dark, Casey climbed back into her airship and headed south, to Pallet Town.
(-o-)
Casey landed on the beach just to the east of Pallet Town and ran through the sand until she reached the familiar back porch of her house.
Somewhere along her journey, she had misplaced her copy of the house key. She couldn't go to Beech for his copy, so she would have to take the spare from under the front porch… as she went around the house, Casey saw that the kitchen light was on. Her first thought was that she had left the light on the last time she had been there…
Beech will be pissed about the electric bill…
But as she reached the front porch and fished underneath the loose board, Casey found the spare key was missing. No one who didn't know it was there could have found it, so…
Casey darted back to the kitchen window and looked in. She couldn't see anyone, but there where dirty plates stacked next to the sink, and Ian and Richard's backpacks lay on the floor by the front door. Casey swallowed and slowly backed away from the window…
There was a chime from her bag. Casey ducked down, sat on the ground, and opened her bag… immediately, one of the pokeballs burst open with a flash of red light. Suddenly, Sebastian stood, back to her, on the grass. The huge turtle Pokemon waddled back to the spot where he had sat since Casey's grandfather had died and returned to his shell. There was no point in trying to move him… she had been lucky to get him away the first time. So Casey let him lie there. Maybe Ian could find something to do with him…
Ian.
I need to see him, she thought, heading toward the back porch.
(-o-)
The window was open, letting in a cool night breeze. It also let in Casey, though Ian didn't know or intend that.
She stood beside his bed, her thin shadow, cast by moon, falling on his chest. His glasses sat on the table beside his bed. The radio on the windowsill was turned on, but silenced. Ian looked different without his glasses on… Casey wasn't sure whether she liked it better or worse. His hair was a mess too, and getting long. Some days it had seemed like he never combed it.
Casey found herself crying and didn't know what to do. She wanted to take Ian's hand or hug him, but was afraid he might wake up… looking around nervously, to make sure she was truly alone in the room, Casey dropped to her knees like a young child praying by her bed.
She leaned in and kissed Ian gently on the lips… he didn't react, so she did it again, not sure if she wanted him to wake up or not. This time, he groaned and rolled over… but he was smiling in his sleep: Casey checked.
Wiping away her tears, she vaulted out the window, landed quietly on the porch, and took off running down the beach, back towards her ship.
She hadn't gotten supplies, but she could get those somewhere else. She had to get away from Ian for now… even though the only thing she really wanted to do was be with him.
I promise I'll go back, she told herself. I'll go back to Ian as soon as I'm done with Rook. I promise.