Chapter 45

As quickly as we had entered the Opal we were back out in the night air, though the sky was beginning to turn pink by that time. The two of us stood there for a moment in silence, exhausted and overwhelmed by the narrative Arceus had made known. I turned to look at Lilly and saw that she was staring at the ground, her hands dangling by her sides. I watched her for a moment, worried by her blank expression. Then, she spoke.

"I need to lie down for a minute," she said with barely a whisper, already sinking to her knees.

I knew we could not stay there for much longer, as the new day would bring new challengers to this place. But I did not know where exactly we were to go next, so I allowed her to rest there upon the ground. I hovered nearby, trying to quickly think of our next move, but was soon interrupted again.

"Can you hold my hand?" It was the first time she had ever asked me to do something like that, and I was too startled to answer right away. Hold my . . . hand? I looked down at my hands, trying to figure out how one holds a hand. Did she want me to put her hand in mine? And then what? She must have been watching me because she reached up from the ground. "Here, give me your hand." I obliged. She pulled her arm back down, and I gradually alighted and sat beside her.

I suddenly recalled taking her hand when I laid dying in that forest, when she was cold and lifeless on top of me. But in this moment, her four fingers were threaded through two of mine and her thumb was wrapped around the other side. It was not often that I held anything in my hands like that, and the sensation was foreign to me at first, but I felt the muscles in my hand quickly adapt to her small one.

We stayed this way in silence for a few minutes, watching the stars gradually fade away together and inhaling the briny scent of the ocean. I had a strong desire to read her mind but held back, hoping she would tell me herself. "That was a lot for you to witness all at once," I said when I could see the beginnings of a sunrise in the clouds above us. "Are you alright?" At first, I thought she hadn't heard me, but after a moment she said, "I'm okay."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, trying not to appear too eager. But she lazily shook her head once. "I need some time to think."

Bird Pokémon were beginning to chirp. Lilly's eyes were wet and the skin under them was dark as she stared at the sky above, but she was not crying. I felt her squeeze my hand tightly with a sweaty palm. "Are you afraid?" I asked quietly. In lieu of an answer, she twisted toward me and brought her other hand toward mine.

"I'm . . . not afraid," she said after a moment.

If I had eyebrows, that answer would have made me raise one. "Is that so?" I asked, looking down toward her.

"Why would I be?" As she turned her head to look up at me, I saw light slowly returning to her eyes. "For the first time . . . I don't feel like I have to do this alone, you know?" The faintest of smiles played on her face as she said that. "I don't know what's ahead, but . . . I can face my destiny, or anything, with you by my side."

My throat tightened hearing that last phrase, choking off any response I might have had. All I could do was squeeze her hand that was still in mine. "There's so much I don't understand," she continued, looking toward the sky again, "Everything Arceus said . . . it's all connected somehow. I just need to put the pieces together."

I cleared my throat. "Then, we must go to Sinnoh," I said, looking back toward the Pokémon League. "We'll be able to find some of our answers there. But first . . . there's the matter of actually living there."

"Aunt Charlotte said I have an uncle in Sinnoh," Lilly began, "but . . . he might have a family. I don't want to . . . I don't want Team Rocket to . . ."

I felt her hands start to shake. "We do not have many options given our circumstances," I said carefully. "You cannot very well rent a place, as you're so young. Living in a hotel would also make you look suspicious, and you would run out of money very quickly," I added before she could suggest it.

"We could maybe . . . live outside," she mumbled, half to herself.

"No, you need Pokémon to do that." I replied. "You don't have a team, remember? And you certainly cannot start a new one once we arrive."

Lilly released my hand and covered her face with her hands. "Don't remind me," she sighed loudly, kicking the ground with her heels, "I'm gonna lose my mind!"

I knew she was upset, but I still could not help but find a little humor in her reaction. I levitated her and sat her back to mine, as I was growing tired from sitting. I let my tail drape over her legs behind me. "Perhaps you could have Pokémon once some time passes," I said, trying to be positive, "but for now it is too great a risk, you could draw attention to yourself." I felt her back expand as she sighed again, then she leaned her head against my shoulder.

"Do you recall the name of the town?" I asked, looking behind myself and at the top of her head. "Your aunt visited her brother during the business trip. This is your uncle, I presume?"

"Yeah," Lilly answered, "she said . . . he lives in a town with a daycare, right?"

"Ah!" I gasped as I sat up quickly, making her fall backwards. "I must not have been paying attention when she said that. Wait here a moment." I was gone before she could chide me for moving so abruptly.

Arriving in Sinnoh's largest city, Jubilife, I began to fervently search the minds of those around me. Only a few minutes passed before I found someone speaking excitedly about the newfound strength of their Pokémon. When her friend inquired, she mentioned the name of the town where the daycare was located. I quickly teleported back to Lilly to tell her. She jumped when she saw me.

"He lives in a place called Solaceon," I said with a nod. She started to get to her feet. "Will we go there right now?" she asked, hesitation weighing her words down.

I considered that for a moment, but ultimately decided against it. "We will leave from Kanto by boat," I decided. "If Team Rocket is still only looking for me, us teleporting to Sinnoh may also arouse suspicion. It will be safer this way."

Lilly looked down at her shoes. "Then I . . . I want to say goodbye to my team," she said quietly. The pain in her voice was heartbreaking, but I had to be firm in my refusal. "We cannot—"

"But Mewtwo, I . . . I can't just leave them again!" She grabbed at my arms, her eyes growing wide. "They'll never forgive me!"

"Your team will understand, I know they will," I said calmly, despite her desperation. "All they care is that you're safe, right?"

"But I don't know what happened when the Rockets came! I need to know if my aunt and Silver are okay, too!"

"They must be alright," I tried to reassure her, "even if the police were not there, Silver seems more than capable of holding his own. He will make a fearsome trainer someday."

She was not even appeased by me complimenting Silver. "I need my team to know that I'm alright!" Her voice wavered as she said that, "I-I'm . . . I just got back to them—"

"I will find a way to tell them once we safely arrive at our destination. Will you calm down for a moment and listen to reason?" I shrugged my arms out of her grip and placed my hands on her shoulders.

"You saw how . . . useless I was at the hideout." I hated using that word, but it was the truth. "Going back to your house today is a risk I cannot take, no matter how unlikely it is that Team Rocket is still there. We were lucky last time, but no amount of luck will save you, or even me, if we run into them again so soon."

I watched her swallow the rest of her argument at that last statement. "I know that I've been wrong before, but I am certain that going back now, no matter how briefly, could make things worse for everybody."

"I know," she murmured, reaching up to wipe her eyes with her wrist, "I understand now."

I sensed that someone was coming from the mouth of the cave, which was not too far from us. "We must go," I said before taking the both of us back to Kanto.

It was nearing midnight when Lilly emerged from Diglett's Cave, appearing alone. She would soon arrive at the port city of Vermillion just before the night ship departed for a faraway country, carrying on it hundreds of people and Pokémon from all walks of life. I watched from high above, keeping an eye out for any suspicious figures as she walked up to the ticket counter. A red-faced man stood behind a window, looking at her skeptically when she approached. I waited for her ask for one ticket, but instead her question was, "How much is a ticket to Sinnoh?"

I reactively put a hand to my forehead. Lilly, you don't have any money!

We had rehearsed her lines to the vendor at least ten times to make my eventual intervention as seamless and ingenuous as possible. She was only supposed to request a ticket; it would not be deceit if she never said she would pay for it. Unfortunately, Lilly wouldn't even be able to play her "I'm a champion of this region" card to get out of this, as not only did she not have her identification but we were also trying not to draw attention to ourselves.

He raised an eyebrow. "Do your parents know you're here?"

Lilly stiffened at the word 'parents.' "They've sent me to visit family in Sinnoh by myself," she said, looking away from his scrutinizing gaze.

"I apologize miss, but we do not allow passengers under the age of—" the speaker stopped, his eyes flashing blue for a brief moment. His words suddenly became flat as they turned into mine. "Actually, children under the age of thirteen may travel aboard free of charge." This was not the case, but nobody was around to refute his statement.

The ticket vendor swiftly presented a card with a room number printed in silver, and Lilly took it with a trembling hand. "Right this way, miss," the man said listlessly, pressing the button next to the microphone he spoke into. The allowed her to pass through the gate and onto the dock, where she walked timidly, dwarfed against the larger yachts and cruise ships bobbing gently in the harbor.

"Last call for tonight's Sinnoh departure!" a woman's voice shouted, and Lilly hastened toward one of the larger ships. She paused to look behind her for a moment. I'm here, I put my hand on her shoulder, let's hurry. She inhaled and continued onward, at last arriving in front of the S.S. Coronet. A young woman stood with her hands behind her back, surprised when she saw Lilly approach her. But Lilly stood with a much more convincing aura than before, and the woman's face relaxed.

"May I see your card, miss?" she asked. Lilly held her card out for the woman to see, and after a nod she was allowed to board.

The collector looked around for any last-minute passengers before calling out, "Anchors aweigh!" and following Lilly up the ramp and onto the ship.

So close to the end! Maybe one chapter plus an epilogue left :-) hope you enjoyed!