Drop A Feather

So, that was the beginning of Katy's inquisitions and consequently the end of William's responses. Apparently he had decided he'd already said too much, but if that was the case, she wasn't sure why he said that much to begin with. Was it because she fed him? Would he have been less likely to tell her he carried a past of getting mixed up with the wrong people had she not made him a sandwich? Or was it because they found a dead body together?

But when the park closed, William didn't have any objection to her following him wherever it was he would lay his head to rest. He ended up settling in a field with tall grass near one of the few trees visible. Katy shared her water with him and he sighed big and loud when he lay down on his back with his bag pillowing his head. Katy did the same, snuggling up to Houdini who rested his head across her waist and stared blatantly at William. "Be nice," she said quietly to her Pokémon. By the time the stars had become their brightest, the trainers had fallen asleep.

The next morning, Katy awoke to Houdini whispering. "khha khha," he breathed. She sat up and rubbed her eyes before she looked around for what was making Houdini do his "baby breath" imitation.

In the dim light of the rising sun, fire flashed across the field in great blasts, coming from two directions. Katy stood up to see better and she found Loki and his trainer facing off in a duel. The Magmar shot a jet of flames from his beak and William sprinted right into it, splitting it down the middle with his own fiery fist until he reached the Pokémon within close range. Arms were flying, claws were slashing, fire was burning a circle in the field around them. Even where there were no flames, the grass suddenly wilted and died, turning charred and black. And Katy just watched amazed as William sparred with his partner, both of them with surprising reflexes that mimicked martial arts. Ralts was impressed, too. It had gotten up from William's bag where it must have slept next to his head all night to watch. Though it seemed to have trouble seeing him over the tall grass, so Katy picked it up to give it a better view. She heard its tiny gasp when William swung a flaming roundhouse at his Magmar who just barely blocked it in time. Loki followed with a Flamethrower right across William's naked back. "OHO!" The man skipped away and bounced on his toes to endure the burn. His Magmar turned to watch him, claws by his sides. "Nice," William panted, trying to reach between his shoulder blades to soothe his burn. The Pokémon watched him walk around, its beak holding a constant "o." "I'm all right, I'm all right," the trainer waved a hand at Loki, but Katy noticed a wince in his features as he walked back to his bag. "Good job." He picked up Loki's Ball and opened it. The Magmar turned to white light and jumped across the field into the container before it closed.

"How bad did he get you?" asked Katy, trying to get a view of his back, mainly to occupy herself from becoming mesmerized by his broad, muscular chest and sculpted abs.

"Not bad," he said, turning around to pick up his shirt. That's when Katy saw the red patches across his shoulders.

"Wait. Let me…" She dug in her bag for her first aid supplies, retrieving a small pouch of burn cream. She tore the wrapper and approached him. He didn't move, so he was apparently not denying her help. "Hold still. This will be really cold." She pressed a small amount onto his back. And as if he were hell-bent on doing exactly the opposite of what she said and had not prepared for what she warned, he flinched and hollered at the icy sensation, pinching his shoulders together. "Hold still!" Katy gently massaged it into his inflamed skin.

Soon he calmed down and began to feel the relief the ointment brought him and he sighed in contentment. After she had finished, William slipped his shirt on and turned to face her. "Thanks."

"No problem. You train with your Pokémon a lot?"

He shrugged his shirt into a comfortable position. "Every day."

Katy kind of stared through him now. "I wish I was a Deviant."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be, kid. Just more shit to take care of. On top of staying hydrated, fed, healthy—you godda keep track of your Ability's energy." He started putting his shoes back on. It was then Katy noticed he'd been barefoot the whole time. "Godda vent when you build up too much and you godda rest when you don't have enough. It sucks. You run out, you could die. It's like losing blood." He laced up his sneakers. "And even if you don't die, you're cold. Nauseated. Just gross-weak." William started going through his bag again. "And when you got too much, you run a fever. Also get nauseated. Can cause brain damage. Leave you a vegetable if you're not careful."

Katy blinked. "Shit."

"It's just more to maintain. Not a whole lot of advantage to having an Ability. Especially not with Pokémon." He stopped and looked up at her. "They didn't teach you this stuff in school?"

"Barely. Not the biology of it. Just… the mutation part of it." Katy shrugged.

"Hm." He dug through his bag some more. "Probably not a bad idea." When he found what he was looking for, he sat back and pulled his shoed foot in his lap where he began picking the bottom with his knife.

Katy sat back down. "Is your Ability what got you in trouble with… whoever?"

He didn't answer right away. "No. I… inserted myself into situations… that I was probably better off staying out of."

"What kind of situations?" She realized she'd asked a version of this last night and received a reply likened to a brick wall, but she figured she'd try it again.

"Just…" He sighed and tilted his head another angle to pick more mud off his shoe. "Government stuff, federal shit. You drop a feather in those areas, you get swarmed for the rest of your life."

"What did you do?"

"It doesn't matter now."

Damn. Katy backed up and went around to find another way in. "Well, what was it that Taron McCallister was doing that got him killed? Who did he work for?"

"He worked for Advancement Inc., you know, that company that keeps testing all kinds of new shit on Pokémon and people. Got the liberals all in a tizzy every damn day of the week." William switched feet and started on the sole of his other shoe. "Medicine, machinery, trying to make everything automated."

Katy raised her eyebrows. "Oh yeah! Are they the ones who were on the news a couple years ago for, like, throwing all their dead test subjects in a landfill?"

"Yeah," William chuckled. This was the first time she'd heard even a hint of a laugh from him. And it was at the mention of a giant pile of dead people. "They were first in trouble for the pollution, then the cops found out what the fuck it was in the landfills that was polluting everything. Turning all the Grimer in the area into freaky rabid mutants and shit." He shook his head with another chuckle. Like the behavior of the human race was amusing to him.

"So, you think liberal vigilantes killed Taron?"

"No. I don't."

Katy waited. She was almost tired of asking questions. She was tired of seeming clueless. But she wanted to learn. So, she just waited for him to complete her thought for her.

He glanced at her. "I think he knew something. Something Advancement is in on. Working on. And I think it didn't sit well with Taron. And he expressed an opposing thought. And I think that's what got him killed."

She narrowed her eyes a bit. "You mean his own people."

"Or the government. But, hey; same thing." He shrugged with a lazy, cocked eyebrow.

Katy considered all of this for a moment then looped back to her intentions with starting this subject. She began putting pieces together from two days ago until now. And finally she had it. "Is that what you did?"

He stopped picking at his shoes completely.

Ding ding.

William looked up at her, this time with a steely expression. Katy held her ground and waited for him to respond. "What makes you think that."

She shrugged casually. "Just a guess." Katy tilted her head. "You kind of seem like the guy who would… stand up against something. If you didn't believe in it. Even if it was something you were close to."

He paused for another moment then leaned back on his hands. The Ralts took advantage of the opportunity to crawl into his lap and sit there like she was waiting for him to ask her what she wanted for Christmas. "How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-five."

His eyes went wide and he dipped his chin. "No shit?"

"No shit. Why."

"I thought you were, like, fuckin' eighteen or something." He cleaned his knife off on his thigh.

"Everyone always thinks I'm younger than I am," she mumbled. "But that's what you did, right? You worked for Advancement?"

He sighed. "I… worked in the building. Maintenance." He closed his knife up and put it back in his bag. "Saw enough. Heard enough."

"So, you said something."

"No, I was smart enough not to say something. I should have gone to the police, I guess." He rubbed the back of his neck. "But. I didn't. At the time it was… something of an emergency so I kind of took matters into my own hands."

"What did you do?"

William inhaled. "Well. I did more than drop a feather."