A/N: Uh... Ch. 2 revamp. Yeeeah.

Ch. 2 - Escape

As she walked through the woods, Carrie's stomach grumbled loudly and she lurched over in pain. Not having food for over a day was really hurting her already weak body.

Then she saw something ahead of her that looked rather odd for the forest setting – a thick cloud of smoke was rising in the distance. Carrie gasped as she quickly guessed in her head the general length left to her home and, ignoring the pain in her stomach once again, began to run towards the smoke. Pachirisu had long since darted ahead of her, so she couldn't even send it to scout ahead.

She slowed as she approached, first noticing that her house was in fact not on fire. Looking around quickly, she then spotted her father and Machamp a short distance away, a large box at their feet. The smoke Carrie had seen was forming from a fire on the ground in front of them; they were burning something. Hate boiled inside her, but she tried to push it aside. Now wasn't the time for that. If things went well, her father wouldn't know she'd ever been back.

Hiding behind a rather thick tree, she unclenched her fist and stared at the tiny red and white ball she'd been clutching since she left the lab. She pushed a button in the center, and the sphere doubled in size in a matter of seconds, after which she let it fall to the ground, where it opened. In a flash of white light, a shape began to form on the ground by her foot. The sphere then bounced back to Carrie's hand, its job done, as the shape formed into Cyndaquil and the light faded.

"We're here," Carrie said, "but be quiet and stay hidden. Don't leave this spot, okay? I'll be right back, I just need to change and get some things. Then we'll go into the woods and… well, we'll find something to do." And before waiting for the creature's reply, she turned to peek at her father again. He and Machamp were still laughing happily as the man slapped the Pokémon on the shoulder, and threw some sort of cloth into the fire. The four-armed Pokémon looked down, and breathed out flames from his mouth onto the already burning pile, incinerating the new item in seconds. Carrie felt sicker than she had all day, unaware that the demon could actually breathe fire – she had never seen Machamp actually do battle, or… well, do anything other than punch the living daylights out of anything that made it angry.

As her father pulled something else out of the box at his feet, Carrie took her chance to sprint from her spot to the back of her home. Once there, she stepped carefully around it to the porch, walking up the steps backwards to keep her eyes on Machamp and her father's back, then quickly sneaking through the half-open screen door. She hurried to her bedroom, stopping in her tracks as she reached the doorway to find her mother sobbing over the bed, with Pachirisu curled up on the pillow.

"Mom?"

"Carrie!" the woman screamed as she sprang up and hugged her daughter painfully, her tears dripping into Carrie's hair. "Oh, I thought you were never coming back, when I saw you running away, I thought you were going to go try and become a Pokémon trainer! I had Pachirisu follow you though to make sure you were okay, and when you collapsed at the lab, oh, I was so worried…"

"I am going to be a trainer, mom," Carrie lied… or rather, half-lied. Even if Cyndaquil wouldn't go with her, this was her chance to get out for good, and she was going to take it. "I only came home to get some stuff to take with me, and to say good-bye if I happened to see you." Her mother broke away and took a few steps back, horrified, as Carrie continued.

"I can't stay here. Not with them, not after all he's done to us. I am over four years passed the legal age, so there is nothing you or that pig can do to stop me, so don't even try." Carrie waited for her mother to respond, but all she did was shake her head with that same expression of surprise. Hoping her mother understood, Carrie walked calmly over to her bed (her mother quickly stumbled out of the way to the wall) and knelt down to retrieve a beat-up, ripped, old blue backpack she once used for schoolbooks. With a little effort due to her weak body and the heaviness of the bag, Carrie lifted it above her bed and flipped it over, dumping the bag's contents out. She then reached over to the small table at the side of her bed for her phone and her money, however neither was there.

"Mom, where is my phone?" she asked, reaching under her bed again, this time for her box of clothes. She felt around for a minute, feeling nothing but the hard, cold floor.

And then it hit her.

"Mom," Carrie said, standing up and looking at the woman now slumped against the wall beside the closet door. "Where is my phone? And my money, and my clothes?" The woman didn't reply, but that was an answer in itself. Carrie quickly grabbed her backpack and darted furiously from the room, leaving her mother to fall and burst into tears.

Carrie kicked open the screen door, having apparently blown closed by the wind, and actually forced it off the bottom hinges, but she ignored that and stormed down towards her father and his Pokémon, who had looked up at the sound of the breaking door.

"What the hell did you do with my clothes, you damn monster!" Carrie screamed at her father.

The man laughed loudly. "You mean these?" he asked, kicking the box behind him. He snapped his fingers. Without a verbal order, Machamp breathed fire down at the box, burning it and anything still left inside down to ashes.

Carrie screamed with rage and ran at the man, fists in the air. She threw herself at him as soon as she was close, but Machamp simply reached out and grabbed her wrist, whipping her to the side where she stumbled and fell, rolling a few feet further away and squirming in pain before she tried to stand again.

Before she could fully get on her feet, however, Machamp was there. He kicked her powerfully in the gut, launching her another few meters away, where she landed face first in the dirt. She slowly heaved herself up onto all fours and leaned forward, finally vomiting. Before she even finished, her father walked confidently up to her and just stood there, waiting.

When Carrie finally finished, she noticed her father's foot, and looked up weakly at the towering figure above her. She again tried to stand. This time, the man gripped the girl's shoulders and lifted her completely off the ground, and held her up to his face before speaking.

"Get inside," he said fiercely. "You are to wash yourself, and then you will begin preparing my dinner. And from now on, you will be sleeping on the floor. Machamp will be using your bed. You don't deserve one, not after this. You think you can just run away? Never. Now get in the house. Do you understand me?"

Carrie's body ached in pain as he gripped her damaged shoulder. She forced herself to look him in the eye. "You… call that… a house?"

The man roared and thrust the girl from him and she landed harshly on her back. She looked up just in time to see the fat man fall face-first into the dirt, surrounded by what appeared to be tiny sparks. Carrie quickly looked over to the thick tree; Cyndaquil hadn't moved and was watching intently.

"Go, Carrie," shouted her mother from the porch, hurrying down the stairs and running to her daughter. As Carrie stood up, she noticed Blissey by the fire, now engaged in a battle with Machamp, firing a tiny electrical blast at him, which forced him to fall to one knee, momentarily paralyzed, and she understood what had happened. Blissey had used Thunder Wave (which Carrie didn't know she could even learn) against her father and Machamp. She and her mother were trying to give her time to run.

She turned as her mother ran up to her, carrying the only clothes she had left – the damp outfit she'd worn yesterday that had been hanging out to try, pink cap included.

"Thanks, mom," she said, taking the pile of wet clothing and forcing them halfway into her otherwise empty backpack.

"Be careful out there," her mother replied. "I love you."

Just then, Blissey gave a scream, and Carrie only spared a second to look; Machamp had apparently struck Blissey, who was rolling backwards, but a white squirrel had dove from an overhead branch and was now glowing a bright neon blue color as it pumped more electricity into the surprised four-armed Pokémon.

"I love you too," Carrie said. Her mother smiled a teary smile before running to command her Pokémon. Carrie turned also, jogged over to Cyndaquil, and recalled him to his pokéball before sprinting once again into the forest.

She had only been walking for fifteen minutes when she stopped, hungry and tired, and had to lean against a tree for support. She had ran for about five minutes, she guessed, before deciding it her father wouldn't bother chasing her and she slowed, more due to fatigue than believing she was safe. But now, she was simply too tired to continue any further. After all she'd been through in the last day and a half, she was unsure of how she was even alive, let alone able to still move.

After resting for a few minutes, she removed Cyndaquil's pokéball from her pocket and dropped it to the ground. While she didn't expect to offer him a front row seat to a show, after what he had just seen, Carrie was sure he would offer a full apology and change his mind about her.

"So," she said once he had fully appeared, "do you see why I'm a little edgy?"

"Cyn," Cyndaquil replied thoughtfully, turning away. Carrie had no idea what he'd said, but she guessed the worst. She couldn't believe that after seeing that whole thing, Cyndaquil still thought there was a problem with her. It was too much for her brain to handle.

"Quil?" Cyndaquil squeaked, turning around again, then waited some more. Carrie didn't reply. In fact, she hardly heard him speaking.

"Quiiiiiiiiil," Cyndaquil said, opening his mouth wide.

"I haven't had food… in two days…" Carrie choked out.

Her Pokémon nodded. She looked down as he waddled off into the grass.

That's it then, she thought. He doesn't want to go with me. I have no food. I have no home. Some dream…

She let her body slide limply down the tree she was leaning against, and made no effort to stop the tears that flooded out of her eyes. She'd have to do it the hard way, then… go out into the wild and catch her own first Pokémon and try to make it obey her. If she even got that far, she reminded herself, as her stomach grumbled once more.

She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, unmoving. It could have been a few minutes or a few hours. A sudden rustle of the grass startled her, however, and she looked up, expecting to be attacked but didn't care enough to try to run.

Instead, she found Cyndaquil walking backwards in her direction, dragging something with his mouth. Carrie, just relieved that she wasn't about to be killed, returned to staring straight ahead into nothing.

"Quil," Cyndaquil said in his high-pitched voice, which was the only reason Carrie noticed that he had spoken. She turned her head slightly to the side to look at him again. He was holding something round and blue in his tiny, extended arms, holding the object out for her to take. She reached over and picked it carefully out of his hands and examined it.

"You got this… for me?" she asked, realizing what the item was – an oran berry.

"Cyndaquil," he said, stepping aside so that the leaf he had been dragging was visible. There were at least a dozen various berries resting on it.

"Where…. How did you even…? " Carrie said as she ate the oran berry whole and reached for a triangular pink one.

Cyndaquil just watched as Carrie ate her way through the entire leaf full of berries. Afterwards, she rested her head against the tree she'd been leaning on, as if she were about to sleep. Cyndaquil tapped his foot on the ground, which caught her attention. They stared at each other for a few minutes before Carrie realized what he was waiting for.

"Oh, thank you for finding me food," she said, attempting to bow her head. Cyndaquil still appeared disappointed, but he nodded anyway and turned to the leaf, and began to nibble on it.

Though Carrie was indeed looking and feeling much better, berries were no substitute for a two days' lack of food. Once she was finished, Carrie felt well enough to continue to New Bark Town at least, where she would have to have a proper meal. Still, there was one matter that needed to be settled first.

"Well… what do you think, Cyndaquil?" Carrie asked as she prepared to leave her resting spot. She watched the Pokémon anxiously, waiting for the reply she knew was coming

The tiny Pokémon thought for a few minutes before replying. Whatever he said didn't take long and afterwards he shrugged, but nevertheless he waddled over and stood by Carrie's side. Carrie didn't know what to make of it.

"Um… right, okay then. Shall we go back to the lab?" Carrie just said, feeling uneasy still. She put his minimized pokéball back into her pocket and began to head down the path to New Bark Town.

In truth, it was an extremely boring walk. There we no wild Pokémon around, or if they were, they hadn't felt the need to bother the pair. Not that Carrie really minded that, in her current condition. Neither Carrie nor Cyndaquil spoke. While a part of the reason was because she still was unsure if her new partner would stick with her once they got to the lab and had to officially register her as a trainer, she still felt a little dizzy and was having trouble concentrating, so instead she decided it was probably better to not try to make conversation.

Instead, her thoughts turned to her mother. Thoughts of helplessness and despair began to consume her. What was going to happen to her once Blissey and Pachirisu fell? Or, what was happening to her right now? Carrie was sure that even together, her mother's only remaining Pokémon stood no chance of defeating Machamp. She doubted her mother even knew the name of a single attack. Her mother couldn't handle being on a journey and instead settled down with her Pokémon since then. Carrie had fled her home ages ago… though she was unaware of exactly how long it had been, she knew it was long enough to be highly unlikely that the battle was still going on.

Carrie had a sudden, strong urge to rush back. How could she be so selfish as to let her mother put her life in danger for her and just run? An old memory forced itself into her mind… a faceless boy, her childhood friend, swatting away her hand, rejecting her apology for shouting at him, his small voice fresh in her mind as if he'd just spoken: "You're just like your father." Maybe he was right. Maybe she was just like her father.

But she couldn't admit that now. She had just gotten Cyndaquil to trust her… she thought. Turning back now would betray that. And even if she did go back, what could be gained from it? It was most likely that her mother was seriously hurt, if not dead at the hands of that demon Pokémon, and going back would only put herself and Cyndaquil in unnecessary danger. And if she did go back, she would probably have no help in running away again so the chances of escaping a second time were slim-to-none. It would make her mother's decision, her pain, all for nothing.

No, she finally decided. What's done is done. It's too late to do anything about that now. I just have to keep going and do my best and… hope she wasn't killed.

Carrie cried silently for the rest of the walk, right up to the door of Professor Elm's lab.

"I see," said Elm. "Are you absolutely sure you have changed your mind?"

"Cynda," Cyndaquil replied proudly.

"Right then," Elm said. "Well, Carrie, I knew you could prove yourself a good person, but to have won over Cyndaquil in less than a few hours is simply remarkable! Whatever you have done, you have done it well. Now, you will need a Pokédex and a trainer's license. Please follow me."

Carrie had no idea what to say, as she knew full well that she hadn't actually done anything worthy of Cyndaquil's respect, unless attacking your father unarmed was considered bravery to the little Pokémon or something absurd like that. She saw no reason to trouble anyone with that fact, however.

Elm continued to chat casually as Carrie picked up her Cyndaquil and followed the professor to the back of the room. They were now in the actual lab, where trainers normally received their Pokémon. Elm sat down at a computer, and began typing furiously. Several minutes later, the professor stood up.

"I have sent your registration to the Pokémon League HQ. You are now officially a registered trainer. When you receive a pokédex, you will need to register yourself as the owner, and then you will need to connect it to the league database and it will download your trainer license. Your pokédex will essentially serve as your license. Wherever you are required to show the license, you may show it via your Pokédex, and it will still count." Carrie nodded to show she was listening as the professor went on. "In addition, you will need these," Elm added. He turned and opened a drawer on the desk he had been sitting at. After pulling out a few papers, he then extracted a pokéball belt, specially designed to carry six pokéballs and a pokédex, which he then handed wordlessly to Carrie, before turning around again, this time opening a different drawer.

"Select whichever pokédex you like," he said, stepping aside. "Since you're the last trainer probably for this season, you may as well get to choose."

Carrie carefully placed Cyndaquil and the belt on the desk and then peeked into the drawer. Inside was a large collection of multicolored, rectangular handheld devices. She skimmed them for a second, pulling out a green one and a silver one to compare them. She examined the outer casing of both, opened them, and compared the insides. Other than the colors and the legendary Pokémon depicted on the front cover – the green one had an engraved picture of a long, frightening dragon-like creature, while the silver one featured what appeared to be a great bird with large wings – the pokédexes appeared to all be the same. Carrie replaced them, and pulled out the girliest pokédex she could find – a light pink one with an engraved image of what looked like some sort of kitten with an abnormally long tail. She opened it quickly to make sure it was similar to the previous two, then closed it and looked expectantly at the professor.

"Once you have registered yourself, you will be finished and ready to set out," he repeated, making it clear that she should do that immediately.

"Oh, yeah. Right…" Carrie flipped open her new Pokédex and found the button to activate it, hitting the mute button quickly as it began to play an annoying tune while it booted up. The first screen flashed between a block of text demanding Carrie to scan her eye with the pokéball scanner, and an image of the pokédex showing where the scanner was. She held the device up to her eye and pushed the button. The scanner flashed a bright light, which made her scream.

"What the…? It could have warned me it was about to blind me!" she yelled furiously, blinking several times in order to see again.

"That's why the sound is on by default," Elm said, chuckling despite himself.

Carrie looked back down at the screen. In the time it took for her to regain her sight, the pokédex had already located and downloaded the correct trainer's license. Completely baffled at how the pokédex managed to accomplish that by simply scanning her eye, she confirmed it, and the pokédex went into standby mode, displaying a list of options. She decided to fiddle with the settings later, though, and slipped the closed pokédex into the holder on her new belt.

"You should register your Cyndaquil as well," Elm added. "You will have to do that for every new Pokémon that you don't plan to send to your PC storage system, as those ones will be registered after transport automatically. There are options to do it manually, or you could simply scan his pokéball while he is inside. You will have to do that either way, so it would be easier to just start with it."

Carrie sighed and took out her pokédex again, as Cyndaquil recalled himself wordlessly. She wondered if he still had some sort of problem with her as she held his pokéball up to the scanner. After a second or two, it confirmed the capture with another flash.

"It's going to do that as long as you have the sound off," Professor Elm said. Carrie didn't reply as she let Cyndaquil out again, but she did give him an angry glare, as if it were his fault for having designed them this way. Elm either didn't notice or pretended not to.

Meanwhile, the pokédex had returned to standby mode. Carrie closed it again, rather impressed at both how it found the correct license and how easy it was to register a capture.

"I suppose that's all, then," she said, half expecting the professor to stop her with some other requirement. "Shall we go, Cyndaquil?"

Her Pokémon recalled himself again, without another word. Carrie picked up her belt and fit it hastily around her jeans, only fitting it through a few loops, as she intended to ditch these clothes as soon as she could change into her wet ones.

"Well… thanks, professor."

"You're welcome," Elm replied. "Do be careful out there, and good luck on your quest. Don't forget you can always come home if things are too challenging for you. Be sure to call me if anything comes up."

"Oh, about that… I don't have a phone anymore. It got a little… broken."

"I see," replied Elm. "Well, you should try to pick up a Pokégear, then. They're really quite useful for any trainer, and include more than a simple phone. Be sure you let me know of your new number when you get it."

"Right…" Carrie replied. As if she had enough money for that. She wasn't even sure she was going to be able to afford a meal. Speaking of…

"Professor… you wouldn't happen to have any food I could have before I go, do you?"

After a brief stop in the kitchen, Professor Elm led Carrie through the lab and back to the front door, where he stood out front as he waved good-bye to Carrie, who waved happily in return as she headed back into the forest, trying to remember which pocket in her backpack held her food and which held her Pokémon's.