Chapter 16

Immune to most street borne diseases and with hands calloused enough to withstand a needle stick, Zach rummaged through the guts of an overstuffed donation bin. It was filled with unwashed garbage and tattered trash, but he stuck his hands in anyway. Buried treasure wasn't found sitting on the surface after all. Nearby, Pantera lounged in the shadow of an adjacent brick building. The shade of its face paled in comparison to the rich velvet of her coat, but a little darkness was better than nothing. Twilight was a minxy tease for a creature of the night like her.

"Look at this," Zach commented, holding up a piece of black leather equipped with a set of straps that formed a triangle of questionable origin. "I don't even know what the hell this is." He tossed the article over his shoulder. Bits and pieces of business suits followed. At least those had an obvious purpose.

Pantera swatted at the articles that fluttered close to her. The cat hadn't left Zach's side since partnering in the secrecy of Reynolds Power Plant days ago. They ate together, slept together, and scavenged together, even when that meant ripping open bag after bag of pungent oversized hipster jeans. Zach cursed as an avalanche of bad banana peels and other biodegradable sludge suddenly washed over his feet.

"For the love of grimer," he cursed. Not every lavender scented landmine contained stretched out jeggings, ripped undershirts, and holey tennis shoes. Donation bin and dumping ground were synonymous in Midtown. Sorting through the muck was a game of Russian roulette, only instead of blowing your brains out, you blew out the last half of your intestinal tract in a pale faced sweat from some unnamed bacteria.

Zach shook the curdled crud from his boots and used a hand-knitted scarf to wipe up the rest. At least Grandma's stitching was good for something. Pantera laid back and curled the tip of her tail, fully content with watching the deep dive from afar. She already had her fun chasing away the swinub nosing around the area. Donation bins attracted all sorts of beggars, cheapskates, and con artists looking to make some easy coin. Some even tried to base their territories around the hoarding hot spots, but Pantera owned all manner of darkness, inside and out. She disbanded those trash mongers with a flick of her whiskers. Zach had the pleasure of combing the cream of the rotted crop at his leisure, but tonight the whole landfill smelled sour.

"What are you looking for?" Pantera asked with a twitch of her ear.

"I'll know it when I see it," Zach replied with his top half stooped over the open hatch of the bin. Some of the best goodies were usually buried away inside. He found a stash of cashmere blouses with perfume still stuck to the threads and a pair of thick Sherpa socks without fleas in them. Both ended up next to the dirty dish rags molding in the corner.

"Hold on a second, I think I found something," Zach mumbled from the depths of the pit. He withdrew from the hatch and pulled out a large trench coat. He held it up by the shoulders and shook it out for better examination. The coat was black. Almost as black as the pigment used to dye it. Two columns of buttons were stitched along the front and not a single one was missing. Every seam was intact and the gold label embroidered at the cuffs and collar tagged the garment as a designer brand. A mark defaced the waistline, but it was small enough to be dismissed by most thrifty spenders.

The inside of the jacket was double lined for added insulation. The outside was waterproofed. Extra swatches were attached to the arms and collar to protect against repetitive wear. One might actually pass as a gentleman while wearing such a coat, no matter the smell underneath. Zach tossed the coat onto the nearest banana peel with a sigh. He wasn't exactly sure why he was disappointed considering he didn't even know what he was looking for.

That's when he saw it. The roselia amongst the gloom. A blue baseball cap poked out from underneath the sleeve of a multicolored zip-up jacket in a small crevice between the bags. Zach quickly snatched it up. He brushed off a layer of lint from the yellow logo embossed on the front. It looked strikingly similar to some type of bird pokemon that belonged to a professional sports team. The person who threw the hat away must not have been a fan because the hat was in perfect condition.

Zach tugged off his wool cap and snapped the new one on from back to front. He found other hats while digging: clip-ons, cowboy wranglers, and bills with better fits, but this one wasn't like the rest. This one matched the color of his jacket perfectly. Satisfied, Zach kicked his way out of the rubbish. Something metallic caught his eye and he paused at the edge of the stinking stacks. A gold wrist watch had tumbled out of a pile during the search.

It glittered against the rough and dirty asphalt. The trinket was probably a token of forced affection from some ritzy woman to her tailored suit wearing boy toy who already had enough accessories to make a snubbull jealous. The watch softly ticked from its spot on the ground. It counted the seconds Zach took to assess its value. A piece like that would fetch some heavy coin at the pawn shop on Divine Street.

Zach bent down and picked up the spheal imprinted bandana beside the watch. He snapped off the dirt, stroked out the creases, and tucked it back into his pocket. Next time, he'd be more careful when climbing through the plastic and polyester jungle. Zach shoved his hands in suite and lumbered down the side street, out of the complex. He didn't bother to look up to see if Pantera followed behind. She always did. One quick trot and the cat pranced up beside him, effortlessly shifting into a walk that matched his own. She didn't have to slow her pace anymore to accommodate his limp, especially when he was in a good mood. It amazed Zach what proper food, sleep, and stimulation could do to one's health.

Partnering with Pantera was the best thing to ever happen to him. Her presence scared away scavengers feathered, furred, and skinned alike, allowing him access to food that wasn't rotten or spoiled and other unmolested resources. And at night, her purr chased away the pesky voices in his head so he could sleep without petty squabbles, complaints, or fits of rage and regret to disturb him. No more headaches during the day either. Zach's mind was peaceful when Pantera was in it.

Together, they navigated the secret corridors that branched across the city. Zach took the lead. After following the cat for days, he learned how to maneuver through tight obstructed spaces without brushing up against anything and was confident in his ability to traverse the concrete planes without disturbing the festering world around him. He also learned how to breathe without making a sound, how to wait, and how to watch until he became all but invisible. Which came in handy when the police liked to punch your ticket every time they saw your face.

Not that learning any of these new skills was easy or enjoyable. Undoing decades of poor posture and lazy habits was painful. Almost as much as the nagging of the world's most perfect apex predator coaching your every step of the way: Turn your shoulders not your body. Support your weight with your legs not your hands. Twist your neck not your torso. Stop scratching your ears. The cat was ruthless, but the day Zach chucked a pallet like a Frisbee against some gangbangers looking for a way to pass the time showed them both the fruits of their labor. Pantera didn't have to raise a claw to defend him. Now, Zach understood why trainers liked having pokemon around. They instilled confidence and control into whoever commanded them, even when they weren't fighting. Zach could only imagine the power a partnership years in the making could create. The things they could accomplish . . .

An empty tin can rattled against the concrete. Zach whirled around and spotted a street urchin scurrying around the corner away from them. They'd been spotted. "He's running," Zach announced.

"I'll catch him," the cat reassured.

Pantera bounded after the noisy rattata and disappeared around the corner with a whip of her tail. The street rabble might not recognize Zach sporting a new blue coat and hat, but they would recognize Pantera. Her figure was too striking to forget. They didn't have to know the details of the species to know there was a monetary reward involved in her capture. Both the police department and news media were strobing images of Pantherians across every digital surface known to existence. Zach couldn't take the chance of an eavesdropper turning snitch and alerting the authorities of their location.

The world was ready to crucify the cat for the bodies she left behind. They didn't care why she did it, only the Pulitzer Prize awaiting at the end of the story. Zach would never be able to clear her name under such high stakes. No one would believe that a giant rare breed of pokemon that looked like a demon did what it did because it wanted to protect somebody. A pokemon that killed people was always put down no matter how justified their actions. That was the law.

Hiding the cat was the only way to keep her safe. And if she remained a mystery long enough, her legend would become one like the talking meowth or sewer sharpedo: Believable but complete myth. Fun to talk about, but unreasonable, because that's the way the world worked. All they had to do was stay out of the mainstream channels, public and ill repute alike, and keep moving until the excitement died down. Pantera was already a master of stealth. With his street smarts, she'd learn to overcome the human advantage easily. He'd teach her what security cameras looked like, when drug dealers were likely to appear on seemingly abandoned street corners, which alleys had rooftop peepers, and which windows had old women with nothing better to do than stare down at the street all day long. In the meantime, gossip of a black devil would spread. Fear, imagination, and drunken visions would fuel the myth.

Together, they'd acquire a reputation of dastardly wit and destruction, all while maintaining their anonymity. The streets would know neither his name nor his face, only the legend: The Midtown Murderer. Zach liked the sound of it. They'd be incorporeal. Unbound. He flicked his fingers off of the brim of his hat in salute to the future storm brewing above his head. In anticipation of his success, raindrops began to fall from above. Luckily, he didn't have to worry about water in his eyes now. He didn't have to worry about snitches either, not when Pantera returned a few minutes later, jewel flushed with light.

For a moment, Zach was afraid her fear mongering would draw too much attention, but he didn't hear any screams, and that was always a good thing, so he moved on as quickly as he did the donation bin. The rain started to pick up and the swirling clouds warned of an imminent downpour. Pantera's oil slick fur shed the water faster than the clouds, but her tail swished violently whenever thunder rolled by. Sometimes, she even looked up at the sky and chattered like she was cursing somebody. Zach understood her discomfort given she'd been stung more than once with an electric tickle to the nervous system, but he liked the rain even more now that he could listen to it without worrying about the voices in his head.

The storm had a soothing voice, but the thought of getting utterly drenched wasn't all that appealing now that he had a dry place to go home to. Reynolds Power Plant was surprisingly accommodating when you got past the toxic exterior and explosive facelift. It remained relatively dry inside aside from the giant gaping hole in a quarter of the building. Safety and privacy were assured in the maze work of passages within. Some of the office furniture survived and made a decent bed. The walls were also so high that the smoke of a fire couldn't escape even if it burned all night long.

Aside from the occasional soul startling lightning strike, the plant was a personal paradise. And at this pace, they would make it home without having to strip naked on a clothesline. The rain started to pull the smell of wet poochyena from Zach's jacket. Pantera shifted upwind to avoid it. Zach sniffed the lapel and patted it against his chest. A dog of the streets, always and forever.

Now that the rain settled in, the rest of the trash diggers withdrew into their hovels. Most people had enough sense by now to know a flash flood wasn't far behind the pleasant sprinkle. The storm front crawling its way across the region had stalled over the city like a snorlax in the street and there was no telling when it would move again. Even Zach's new hat wouldn't protect him from the force of that rainy day. If they held their noses and cut through the double dumpsters of the corner restaurant, they'd make it to Reynold's faster, but the path to the right smelled like copper and rain. The true blood of Midtown, so Zach veered off to the right. He wound his way onto a sidewalk and stopped on the edge of a pothole colleting water in the road.

Once upon a time, it used to be his doormat. Zach lifted his head and looked down the graffiti plastered walls of his old alley. He hadn't been back since the night he ran across town to the police station. Wading through these noxious waters never once crossed his mind since then. That part of his life was over. He didn't want to think about the grime he crawled through to get there. But now that it was within view, he couldn't stop thinking about it.

Whispers from ghosts in a field of half eaten corpses beckoned him closer. They drew him in with thoughts he'd been avoiding for days. Was that night truly as terrible as he first thought it was? Was the rain playing tricks on him again? He heard things coming from the alley. Real things. Things that weren't supposed to be coming from an alley that didn't have anything living in it. Pantera looked up at Zach as he stepped a little closer.

He had to take one last look. After that, he could fill this cesspool with mortar and concrete and leave it all behind. Given his last visit, Zach braced himself for the worst decomposition had to offer, but when he turned the corner, the bodies of the pokemon Pantera had delivered to him were gone. Not a trace of their horrible deaths remained. It was like they had vanished. Like they never existed at all. Someone must have finally noticed the stench and cleaned up the massacre before a scandal broke out. The city couldn't handle a pokemon killer and a people killer at the same time. Which was fine by Zach. There wasn't anything worth remembering in that alley anyway. But that didn't mean it was empty.

Zach quickly ducked behind the corner again. A person stood in the rear of the alley with their back to him. They hadn't noticed the intrusion when his footfalls had been as quiet as the rain. Pantera hurriedly trotted up behind Zach. Together, they peeked around the edge of the brick.

"It's the woman," Pantera exclaimed. But not just any woman. It was Baby. And she wasn't in uniform. She wore a blue and white rain jacket in preparation of the weather, but the hood wasn't up so the rain frazzled her hair anyway. "What is she doing?"

Not much from the looks of it. Baby simply stared at the ground with her hands at her sides. Were the stains of his old life so dark that they couldn't be scrubbed away by the city's public workers? With no semblance of a campsite left, she probably thought he had forsaken her and abandoned Midtown. If that was true, she shouldn't look so dumbfounded. She was the one who let him go after all.

Maybe she thought she'd be fast enough to catch him before it was too late. Dash those 100 yards and stop him like she did all those times before. Baby held something in her left hand. A bag of snacks judging by the little yellow figures on it. It looked full and she hadn't moved since they arrived. Just how long had she been standing there? Her jacket was starting to soak up water despite the waterproofing. The hypocrite. She'd catch her death standing around like that. Baby was always going on about saving this and helping that. She couldn't even take care of herself. Dying from the common cold wouldn't be worth the irony.

"She never listens," Pantera suddenly said. She watched Baby without blinking. "She needs to be taught a lesson."

Zach looked down at the long black shadow beside him as if it just spontaneously materialized from another dimension. That's exactly what he was about to say, but it didn't sound the same coming from Pantera. It sounded worse. It reminded Zach that this wasn't the first time the three of them met like this before. Their circumstances were different now given all that had happened, but Zach would never forget the fear he felt before coming to understand the nature of the beast.

He remembered how the devil appeared again and again, shattering livelihoods as easily as the glass she leapt through. Pantera wasn't just another stray on the streets. She was a natural born killer, and in the right hands, a weapon of mass destruction. 110 lbs. of black fur, serrated teeth, and hooked claws. She was part of the reason Zach didn't want to remember this alley. She was the reason no one came running at the sound of a rustling bag of treats. Zach slipped one foot behind him and shifted away from the cat. Pantera snapped her attention on him as if he'd taken off running.

"What is it?" she asked. The jewel on her head glowed with the quickening beat of his heart. Her pupils expanded, sucking up more of his soul with every millimeter they gained. Zach couldn't shut her out because he had already let her in. Her eyes were black as night when they lashed against Baby's back once more. Pantera whipped her tail back and forth.

"It's her," she said. "It's all her fault. She's the reason you don't want to come back. She's the reason no one is coming back."

"That's not what I meant," Zach said, but the cat wouldn't listen.

"She doesn't care about you. She never did."

"You're lying."

"She's a killer.'

"She couldn't be."

"You heard the thunder. She almost struck you with it!"

"But she didn't!"

"But she will!"

"Why?"

"Because, she's the police."

Pantera's voice sounded so much like his own that Zach couldn't tell the two apart anymore. Then, Baby was in his head too, telling him a completely different story. "I thought we were friends," the memory said. Pantera opened her jaws against the intruder. "Don't listen to her. Listen to me. I'm the one who loves you."

"But she's my friend."

"She's nothing!"

"I'm nothing!"

And the voices held at bay by the devil's charm suddenly flooded back into Zach's consciousness. His voice, her voice, and snippets of conversations past poured out all at once. They filled him with words he didn't understand. Things he said but didn't mean. Things he meant but didn't say. They clawed, screamed, and giggled to the front of this thoughts.

"Are you insane?" they said.

"Open up you bastard!"

"We like her. You should walk her home."

"It's not safe to be out here by yourself."

"Fine, but only until 5th Avenue."

"I can make you something."

"I'm not a murderer!"

Zach bit his lip, closed his eyes, and drilled his palms into his ears. "Stop," he cried, hunching over into himself to block out the voices.

"You don't need them," Pantera said, shoving her way to the front.

"You only need me."

"Get away from me!" he snarled, throwing his hands down and stomping his foot forward. Pantera flinched backwards into an aluminum trash can from the attack and the lid clattered loudly to the ground. Its ear rattling boom startled the cat and she dashed off into the shadows with a flash of her silver eyes. Zach stood with his shoulders bowed and hands braced, ready to choke the life out of whatever voice dared speak next.

"Who's there?" Baby shouted from within the alley.

Zach froze. He forgot she was still in the alley. It was impossible to hide his presence now, but his back was to her. If he left now, she'd never know who stalked her shadow. He could still make it back to Reynolds in time.

"I know you're there," Baby started again. "Show yourself!" Her meek but determined voice was like the rain. A gentle invitation for the storm to come.

Should he run, for real this time? Zach relaxed his fists. He wouldn't be able to outrace her anyway. He scuffed his feet to make sure he didn't startle the officer in waiting when he appeared around the corner. Baby held one hand behind her back. The other continued to clutch the bag at her side. The last time they saw each other, she'd eaten a mouthful of floor boards. The bruises on her face had morphed into larger darker shapes because of it. She should be at home licking her wounds, not wandering around the streets like a drifter.

"What do you think you're doing?" Zach growled, marching towards her. Baby dropped her arm from her back and weakly raised the hand holding the bag. Zach stopped in front of her. Their slight difference in height now outmatched by his growing sense of responsibility for the bumbling idiot. What sort of poison was she peddling this time? Zach grabbed the bag so that they both held it together. It was a bag of poketreats. Pichu danced on the front like cheerleaders and a vast black hole opened up in Zach's stomach. It consumed everything around it, hollowing him out from head to foot. Zach dropped the bag and Baby held it a little closer to her chest. He looked into her concrete colored eyes. She looked away.

Baby would never find what she was looking for and she knew it. Death and dismay were baked into the bricks of Midtown. She felt it radiating from the ground where the blood had been. On some cosmic level, she knew something terrible had happened here. The unopened bag in her hand was proof that the two cheering pokemon she had hoped to meet weren't going to come to her call no matter how many times she rattled the bag.

Zach didn't have the courage to tell her the truth. Not that he actually knew what happened that night he woke up in hell anyway. What he saw then in fear, what he thought he knew, and what he knew now, muddied the truth. The only thing he knew for certain was that when he left the alley that night, Pantera followed him, and when he came back, Minun and Plusle were dead. If he didn't speculate, it was the same as not knowing, and if he didn't know, he could pretend it never happened.

They could both pretend, but Baby made an awful liar. Her shoulders barely held up her head and her eyes had lost their color. Bright and shiny Baby was stormier on the inside then the skies above. She wasn't here to hand out poketreats. She was lost and had wandered into his alley again trying to find her way home. The collar of her shirt was soaked. Rain streaked down her cheeks and suddenly, Zach couldn't stand the rain any longer. He grabbed the hood of Baby's rain jacket and yanked it over her head. He held her there because staring at the sulfur soaked brick was better than her miserable face. Baby didn't push back and that made it even worse.

"You idiot," Zach muttered, throwing her upright again. Baby tottered back and grabbed the hood of her jacket to keep it from falling off. She wasn't supposed to be miserable like him. She was supposed to be better. She was the hero. They stared at one another until Zach finally whirled around and started out of the alley.

"Come with me," he commanded. "I want to show you something."

The sound of his steps echoed ahead of him. Splash. Pause. Splash. They were the only steps he heard because Baby didn't take the bait. She wasn't going to follow him. Splash. Pause. Splash. Maybe it was better this way. He warned her not to trust strangers like him. That lesson must've finally soaked through that incredibly thick skull of hers.

Splash! Splash! Splash! Baby trotted up behind him. "Where are we going?" she asked.

Zach firmly planted a frown on his face to keep from smiling. "You'll find out soon enough," he said.

Zach led the way out of the alley and into a cluttered breezeway. They squeezed through a couple columns of empty vegetable boxes, tip-toed around a cooking oil spill, and scaled an iron gate to get to the other side. From there, they skittered past congested backstreets and wormed through the clogged and long forgotten arteries of the city. Baby tackled the obstacles without breaking anything, but she snagged enough rusty nails to rip a hole in her pants. Having untangled her more than once, Zach held up the last piece of chain link fence so she could pass under it without tearing her clothes off.

Baby slipped under, stopped on the inside of the property and looked up with a hand to her hood. "Reynolds?" she observed. "But you said we shouldn't go in there."

"No," Zach corrected with only a smidgen of hypocrisy. He dropped the fence and trudged on ahead. "I said you'd have to be insane." He kicked down the weeds, shoved a door open with his shoulder, and disappeared into the black depths of Reynolds Power Plant. When the pitter patter of little feet didn't follow, he stuck his head out of the door again.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked. Baby ran her hands back and forth along the zipper of the pouch. Her toes drifted together.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark?" Zach teased. Baby puffed up faster than a jigglypuff, but her eyes darted to the jagged lines of glass hanging in the windows. They looked exactly like the ones in her kitchen. Zach positioned himself outside of the door and sighed. "You've already come this far," he said. "Why stop now?"

Baby's torch might have dwindled to the size of a charmander's tail in the rain, but that was more than enough to light one's way in the dark, especially for a champion like her. It was a Midtown police officer's job to wipe the ass of the city, but Baby took more shit the past few days than a field of miltank. She earned the right to stand alongside the best, or rather, the worst of them. The streets were never fair, caring, or understanding, but once in a while, they took care of their own. There was an eye in the middle of the shit storm. She just needed to lift her chin up enough to see it. That's where he came in.

"Hurry up," Zach said. "And bring those treats with you."

Picking up on the clue, the gold star detective hurried over and hopped inside without a second thought. Poochyena like her couldn't resist a bone when it dangled in front of them. Zach turned to follow her.

"What do you think you're doing?" a voice asked.

Zach paused and slowly looked over his shoulder. The shadow with silver eyes had returned and now stood in the field of grass and metal several feet away. It reminded Zach of the horror movies he caught glimpses of in the park, the ones with a farmer holding a chainsaw at the edge of a cornfield. But he wasn't a scarecrow. Not anymore, and he had her to thank for that. Zach spun away, flicking his coat tails at Pantera before he disappeared into the power plant. The darkness greeted him promptly, as did the "ouchies" and "Oh geez"s of a blind buffoon bumbling around.

Zach heard Baby stumble into something before he found her tottering on the edge of falling over. She'd bust a kneecap wandering around on her own so he snatched her by the wrist and pulled her along in the right direction. She didn't startle at the unexpected touch. Probably because the sound of his footsteps was enough to warn her of his approach. It would take time for their eyes to adjust to the dark, but Zach already knew how to see with and without his eyes. He didn't need Pantera for these sorts of things anymore. The echo of their footsteps off of the walls and ceiling helped him gauge the distance they needed to go. Every scuff of their feet told him the texture of the floor and their relative location. The energy hiding in the machines hummed and vibrated, warning of any imminent contact.

Hand in hand, they made their way through the catacombs of the plant. Zach eventually turned into the doorway of an electrical control room. Breaker boxes, electrical cabinets, and disconnects the size of dressers lined the walls. Clear plastic viewing panels revealed veins of wire and circuity inside. Coils, conduit, and conductors of varying grades snaked up the walls and into the ceiling. The space in the middle of the room was empty. White scratches in the concrete were all that remained of highly specialized and quickly pilfered equipment.

Zach stopped a step or two inside. Baby remained beside him and continued to grasp the sleeve of his jacket even when he released her. She saw even less than he did in the black windowless room and relied on his guidance for direction. Zach leaned over to the nearest machine and gently knocked on its metal sheeted side. Baby flinched at the unexpected noise and Zach snickered to himself. He couldn't wait to see what she did next. The knock vibrated through the thin metal of the machine, stirring the cluster of voltorb sleeping between the panel boxes. Dozens more were piled in and around the cabinets.

Zach accidentally stumbled across the hoard of orb pokemon while exploring the plant with Pantera. He thought the discovery would kill them both when the telltale sparks of a self-destruct began, but Pantera's soft heavy paws calmed the agitated orbs. She showed Zach how to quiet the tremors as well as invoke sparks without summoning the wrath of a long lost thunder god. It was risky business. Just one self-destruct and the whole place would blow up in a catastrophic chain reaction. But felines were masters in the art of provocation and Zach picked up a few new tricks. Life was short on the streets. Might as well enjoy it while they could.

The vibrations of his knock tickled the nearest voltorb from its dreams. It crackled with awakening energy and lit up the nook he was in with a dim yellow glow. The charge stimulated the voltorb next to it, causing the pokemon to shift with sleepy irritation. He too built a charge and buzzed softly with electricity, notifying his brethren that he wasn't ready to get out of bed just yet. The glow strengthened, filling the space with gentle light that pulsated with each lucid dream that passed between the pokemons' heads.

A different sort of chain reaction started and the room began to glow like a cave of hidden treasure. As each voltorb stirred more electric energy built within the room. It used the dustox dust clinging to the machine as a catalyst to take shape and direction. It morphed into soft yellow lines of energy fringed with a purple afterglow. The lines hummed and waved between the piles of pokemon. One voltorb, especially sensitive to disturbance, started to screech, but he was still heavy with sleep and the attack only amounted to a whistle.

Widely recognized as a defensive move among pokemon, other voltorb raised their voices until a melodious chorus bounced between the four walls. But today was a lazy day for the pokemon. They wouldn't make another move without the influence of another stimulus. The magnemite clinging to the ceiling, however, saw the building energy as an opportunity to recharge with little to no extra effort. They detached themselves from the wall and levitated closer to the ground. The positive and negative influences of their magnets amongst each other pushed the pokemon into a spiral formation.

The oscillating position of their poles, combined with the charge of the voltorb, magnetized the metal dust and debris scattered around the equipment. Shiny flecks of metal varying in size from powder to shrapnel rose into the air. Baby held out her arms in front of her. In the light of the pokemon, the hairs on her forearms began to stand on end. She couldn't see it but the tail of her braid and surrounding wisps of hair also floated about her in a weightless fashion. The smooth spell of zero gravity bathed her every movement in poise and elegance. She looked over at Zach and her eyes sparkled with the wonder of street magic. She wouldn't be able to resist standing on the sidelines for much longer. Zach nodded. Who was he to try and stop her?

With his approval, Baby let go of his sleeve and moved deeper into the metallic constellations. She reached out and tapped the closest piece of floating metal. It knocked into another that had an edge thin enough to cut glass. It brushed up against her jacket and cut a line across it. Baby didn't notice. The thought of getting cut to ribbons didn't cross her mind. Neither did inhaling toxic dust, being electrocuted by a swarm of wild pokemon, or blowing up Reynolds for a second time. There was only the shimmering fantasy spiraling around them.

Dustox dust had that effect on people. Its opioid like qualities eased all doubt and hesitation right before it poisoned you senseless. But a small dose like this wouldn't hurt. It might even relieve some of the pain Baby kept pretending she didn't feel. They weren't in any real danger anyway. The dustox wouldn't be back until morning after the street lights went out. The voltorb were half asleep and the magnemite weren't perturbed by the presence of humans as long as they didn't interfere with their electrical equilibrium.

Zach leaned against the doorframe and watched Baby's brazen curiosity get the best of her. She moved along the wall, counting the voltorb piled between the cabinets and dispensing poketreats for them to find later on when they woke up. An electrode shifted underneath the largest cluster, knocking a much smaller voltorb from its place at the top. Roughly the size of a pokeball, Baby reached out and caught it in one of the most casual crises averting caresses Zach had ever seen.

Still prone to agitation, the pokemon fluttered open an eye. Baby carefully held her finger to her lips and smiled, reassuring the pokemon that this was all just a dream. She smelled like prime poketreats so it had to be true. The voltorb fell back asleep with a screechy sigh. Baby whistled back, gently set the pokemon down, and subsequently saved them all from a fiery and explosive death.

Afterwards, she wisely retreated to the center of the room. The magnemite circled around her in a perfectly balanced ballet. Baby's braid swished back and forth with the rhythmic energy. She closed her eyes, stretched her arms into the stardust, and spun in sync with the pokemon. Zach leaned a little deeper into the doorframe and let the dust do its work. It sparkled and shimmered around Baby, spinning with her like she was the center of the universe. The way she moved was as natural as the energy coursing around them. Perfectly at ease in the midst of danger and perfectly out of tune, she looked happy and that made him happy.

Zach smiled. He thought it was funny. Baby came into his life like a hurricane, spinning everything he thought he knew about himself and the world on its head faster than a weather vane, but nothing about this moment felt wrong. In fact, it all felt incredibly right. In this place, with these pokemon, they could forget about the outside world, leave the madness and the darkness behind. But the outside was always trying to make its way in. Always.

"They're coming," a voice whispered in the dark. Zach ignored the shadow and focused on Baby. She opened her eyes and invited him to join her, keeping her movements small but enthusiastic, like a kid sharing a secret. Zach shook his head. She did enough cheering, giggling, and nonsense making for the both of them. Besides, he didn't need any more secrets.

"We have to leave," the voice said again.

Zach pawed at his ear. Now that Baby had stopped moving, some of the magnemite circled in closer. Her presence in the center must have acted like a grounding rod, channeling some invisible force between them. People were great conductors of electricity. It wouldn't be impossible for them to have some type of attractive force to the pokemon. If that was the case, maybe Baby didn't go around looking for stray pokemon as much as he thought she did. Maybe the stray pokemon were the ones who found her?

"You can't trust her," the shadow behind him hissed. Zach dropped his smile.

"What do you know?" he barked back, keeping his eyes on the torch ahead even when the darkness slid in to whisper at his ear.

"I know she's betrayed you."

Baby wasn't capable of a poker bluff, let alone deceit. The woman in question sneezed and startled some of the voltorb into producing larger sparks. The crackle of electricity brightened the room for a moment, lighting up the edges of Pantera's face before she disappeared in the darkness again.

"They will catch you," she said.

"Who?" Zach questioned, a pinch of paranoia heightening his blood pressure.

"The ones who make lightning."

Zach turned his cheek into his shoulder with the statement. Make lightning? Was she talking about a pokemon? The movement turned his ear to the vast open passageways behind him. That's when he heard it. The outside coming in. Fast.

"They're here!"

Several beams of light appeared in the darkness, waving and shaking in the distance with the shudder of a hot pursuit. Zach recognized the rustle of armored vests, shuffling boots, and jingling utility belts anywhere. It was a raid. The police were coming for him. For Pantera. Zach whirled around and vanished into the darkness to confirm his suspicions. Pantera bounded after him. Back in the room, Baby spun around a couple more times before the dancing left her breathless and she swayed to a stop. Her smiled weakened when it fell upon an empty doorway.

"Zach?" she called. With no one to catch her mistake, she relapsed a little further. "Zachery?'

Baby ducked under a magnemite and trotted over to the empty doorway. Its solid black face paralyzed her for only a moment before she charged through and felt her way into a large production area. The high windows in the ceiling illuminated the space just enough for her to safely find her footing. Not that she needed to take another step. A heavy shadow hurried toward her with a fast paced: Step. Pause. Step.

Baby smiled as a set of shoulders carved a silver crescent out of the darkness. "There you are," she said, but Zach's silence seethed with palpable animosity. "What is it? What happened?" Baby's x-ray vision was so focused on what was in front of her that she never saw the Pantherian run by within an arms distance of her.

"Stop!" someone from across the plant shouted. "Stop right there!"

"Police!" another added.

Baby looked up at the flashing lights strobing in the background and sank about two inches. The way they had come in was blocked by a dozen or so star wielding vigilantes.

"You tricked me!" Zach snarled as he hobbled towards her. Once a checkered hat, always a checkered hat. He was a fool to think any of that had changed because of a couple of pokemon. "She told me not to trust you!"

"She?" Baby asked, snapping out of her daze.

Zach didn't make eye contact as he barreled past her. The innocent idiot charm wouldn't work on him anymore. "You lied to me!" he snarled.

"About what?" Baby tried again. "Just slow down a minute and talk to me!"

So she could stall until her buddies arrived? Yeah, right. Zach picked up speed. Drawn by the voices, several beams of light flashed in their direction. One fell on Baby who was positioned closer to them, and the rest quickly followed. She shielded her eyes from the light as much as the screams.

"Don't move!" they repeated. "On your knees!" "Police!"

Baby spotted Zach fading farther into the darkness. "Don't run!" she yelled. "It'll only make it worse!"

"Don't move!"

Baby bit her lip as the sound of several weapons being drawn replaced the screams. The white hot spotlight of a dozen flashlights burned the back of her neck. The raid had finally caught up to them. "I'm a cop," she loudly announced but the adrenaline of the raid was flowing at maximum capacity.

"On your knees!" the officers continued to shout. "Hands above your head!"

Baby closed her eyes, opened them with a shaky breath, and spread her fingers. She slowly raised them above her shoulders and set one knee after another on the ground. She fully intended to comply with their orders, but there was nothing like the rush of catching a criminal with your bare hands. One of the raiders, armed head to toe in black, tackled Baby from behind. She hit the ground and cut her cheek on a piece of metal. Three knees staked her through the back to keep her there. Someone wrenched her arms behind her back. Another flattened her face against the floor with their elbow, stabbing the metal through the rest of her cheek. Blood drooled from the corner of her mouth. Baby winked up through the tears welling in her eyes, but all she saw was darkness. Zach was gone and he didn't dare look back. He knew better than to stop and turn around. He learned from his mistakes. He ran as hard as he could for the nearest exit.

"Don't run?" Of course he would. The police were chasing him. The whole thing had been a trap to find out where he was hiding. Pantera tried to warn him.

But why not spring the trap back in the alley? What about the poketreats? Were they part of the ruse too? Baby must have known he would trust her, but he never gave her a reason too. Baby didn't know Pantera was with him. Maybe she didn't know the police were following her either? He didn't have time to figure it out. The only thing he could do was escape, survive, and sort through the details later. Up ahead, Pantera scaled the wall and escaped through a window.

Zach would have followed her if not for the clumsy fact that he was human. Instead, he shoved aside a pile of clutter and shimmed through a jammed emergency exit into a side yard filled with overgrown weeds and old benches. Zach tripped on some rubble on the way out and landed on a piece of cracked cement stained with a thousand cigarette butts. He glanced down the sides of the building. The exit discharged into the old break area near the rear side of the plant. Police raids generally covered all major points of exit and entry but Reynolds was too big and dangerous to cover them all.

With no blue and white knights in sight, Zach raced down the yard towards the plant's substation across the parking lot. There was a hole under the fence there where ground ridden pokemon snuck on and off of the property. One quick belly crawl and he'd slip down the gutter's gullet far enough to drop off the edge of the police's radar. If only his knee would stop aching. Zach grabbed his leg and pushed through the pain. He'd regret it later, but this was his chance to escape. The police didn't know the power plant like he did. Their puny flashlights would never breach the hollow depths of Reynold's fast enough to catch him. Stupid cocky checkerboard pawns. They'd never capture this king of the streets. A few more steps and checkmate!

"Halt!" a voice yelled.

If only it was in his head.

"Stop right there!"

A uniformed Midtown police officer tasked with watching the perimeter ran out in front him. Zach pounded to a stop. His coattails flapped up against his legs, tossing rain across the asphalt. The officer grabbed a pokeball from his belt and released a mightyena. Hair bristled and tail held high, the bite pokemon twitched in anticipation of an attack command. Zach held his breath waiting for the ravenous pinch of the pokemon's teeth on his arm, but both parties remained immobile. The officer didn't utter the command. He kept glancing back and forth between Zach and the blue jacket he was wearing. The color confused him somehow, but whatever gave him pause wouldn't last forever.

Zach had seconds to come up with a plan. He clenched and unclenched his hands. He needed to do something but he had no weapon. No bluff. Nothing to defend himself with but his own two hands. Mightyena growled. He wasn't confused in the slightest and his confidence was strong enough to snap the officer out of his stupor. He aimed the prongs of a stun gun at Zach's chest. They'd shock him senseless, but only if they made contact. Zach back stepped to move out of range and a twinge of pain shot up his bad leg. His knee gave out and his heavy ass hit the pavement with a splash.

"Don't move!" the officer yelled. Zach scuttled backwards to get out of the puddle. "I said don't move!"

Mightyena raced forward to add bite to his officer's bark. Pokemon and their damn attacks. Zach cursed them all. There was nothing he could do against the fangs of a well-trained fighter. All he saw was black. The black of mightyena's fur. The color of his future. The darkness of his past. And suddenly, he remembered that smooth sleek shadow undoubtedly watching from a distance. It watched because he commanded it too. That beautiful black encapsulating pitch capable of swallowing a man whole was waiting for his command.

"Pantera!" Zach screamed.

Filled with ecstasy at her first summons, the cat sprinted across the parking lot and soared over Zach with the speed and fury of a pidgeot. She hit the ground running, teeth and claws flashing faster than a quick attack. The rush of her passing billowed mightyena's mane. He was still looking forward when the cat launched herself at the officer. Her teeth punched through both sides of his neck. Blood gushed into the air. Pantera landed on top of the officer and held him between her paws to seal in the suffocation. He kicked and cracked his heels against the pavement, unable to utter a single scream for help.

Holding nothing back, Pantera squeezed her jaws and quickly snapped the human's neck. By the time Mightyena turned around, his trainer was dead. The great black cat shook her fangs free of the worthless sack of bloodless bone and looked up at Mightyena. Her silver scythes cut off his head before he ever knew what happened. Zach scrambled to his feet and hobbled towards the fence.

"Come on!" he yelled, yanking back the fence. "Now's our chance!"

Pantera finished the hound with a crunch and bounced after her trainer, blood dripping from her chin. A smile across her face. She slipped underneath the gate and Zach quickly followed. They took off running side by side down the street. Zach ignored the sharp stabbing pain in his legs. He was high on too much adrenaline to give in to it. An MPD officer and his partner pokemon were dead because of him. Self-defense wouldn't work this time. He couldn't hide his involvement in Pantera's kills any more. Part of him didn't want to. With Pantera at his side, nothing could stand in their way. Nothing could stop them.

That's when Reynolds Power Plant exploded and blew everything he thought he knew about being a pokemon trainer to hell.