Inferno, Chapter 7

Hellooo, one and all! EmDrago here, back with another installment! I gotta admit, I'm curious just how far this could go. Anyway, enough blathering from me, let's get to the story!

A Dark Place In A Bright Mind

Blaze's POV

As Blaze sat in his spot next to the tree, he began to think about his experience with Team Rocket. He had been tortured on a multitude of occasions, tested on plenty of times before, and even forced to do unpleasant things going against his nature, but he had always refused to kill, no matter what they threw at him. But now… now things were just strange.

While he regretted the actual killing, he didn't regret who he had taken. Anyone who treated Team Rocket with religious zeal was beyond help, anyway, and for the sake of everybody, should just be put away.

"Is that how I really feel?" Blaze asked himself. He wasn't sure.

He was only fifteen but looked older due to his height, yet some might have called him a child due to his wear. He happened to like it since it matched the species whose blood ran through his veins, blood he had spilled too often for his liking. But sometimes it was just too much of a giveaway. He would have to consult the matter with Lora when she returned. If she returned.

"Stop thinking like that."

He shook his head to clear his head, then stood up and began to pace around. He wasn't sure how much time had passed; he used the sun as an indicator, but it was currently hidden by the leafy canopy above him. Nor did he dare risk exposing himself unless it was a life-or-death circumstance. Or if Lora was in danger.

He didn't necessarily need her for physical help; he needed her for emotional support. Throughout his life, he had been referred to as the "test-tube freak". He hated that reference, but nothing he said would get them to stop, and he refused to stoop to their level to get what he wanted. So he relied on Lora to pick him back up where the others tore him down. It had been up to her to fit back together the pieces that made him up, that everyone was so fond of tearing apart, like a roast chicken.

He looked at the city, worried for Lora's safety. But she was far safer without him, especially in a crowded place such as a city. And she had some protection in the form of her pokeball. Blaze shivered as he remembered her trying to coax him into trapping her in the thing. Pokemon, he thought, deserved to be free, as much as he wanted freedom. Who was he, then, to trap helpless pokemon into those cursed, metal spheres?

He shook his head again and looked back at the city, fingering the crystal Lora had given him. He remembered the day they used it to escape, though it had been very dangerous…

Flashback/ two years or so ago…

Blaze limped into his and Lora's shared room. The beating he took today was particularly brutal, and he hoped the crystal would have enough energy to make their escape fast. He couldn't do it tonight, though. His leg was too painful right now to even think about it.

"Oh, Arceus, what happened this time?" Lora asked him as he stepped in, panting from his exertions. He looked up at her with the one eye that wasn't swollen shut, and he replied

"They tried to make me mate again today, but I fought back."

Lora scoffed in disgust, then patted the space on the bed next to her. He limped over to her and propped his leg up, sucking in his breath when Lora began to wrap up the damaged leg.

"How much more energy does the crystal need before we can use it?" Blaze whispered. Lora looked at the door and responded

"We can use it at any point right now. However, our chances of escape are at their highest if we fill it to the maximum level. With the restrictions I have to keep, I can only afford so much. At the rate I'm going, it might take another month before we can attempt it, but if we do wait until then, our chances are better. Besides, you need time to heal."

Blaze shook his head and responded

"It doesn't matter if I had a year to heal; they'll just keep hurting me. I wouldn't want to try it tonight; I can barely walk, let alone run. But I would prefer to do it sometime this week."

Lora froze in shock, and she asked

"Are you crazy?! If we did that, we wouldn't get very far, you won't have enough time to heal, we have no supplies-"

"Lora," Blaze cut her off "we can't let such things stop us. Yes, I know it will be difficult, but if we stay here it will become impossible. I can't take this abuse much longer, and I want to see the clear skies, breath the fresh air, and know what true freedom feels like. The longer we wait, the more likely they'll catch onto us. We need to act before it's too late."

Lora hesitated, thinking about their precarious position. If they didn't do this right, and the first time, Blaze would experience torture unlike anything he had ever suffered before, and they would likely kill her, so she wouldn't be able to help.

"You do realize if we screw this up it will mean my death and your suffering, right?"

He looked at her with blazing determination and said

"Then we won't screw up."

"Blaze-"

"Lora. We. Will. Not. Screw. Up. Do you understand me?"

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded.

Three days later…

Blaze walked in, his leg feeling much better due to Lora's administrations. Fortunately, the scientists had gone easy on him today. He closed the door behind him and asked quietly

"Is it ready?" Lora nodded and pulled the crystal from the little hole in the wall, showing it to him. Blaze grabbed it in his claws and inspected it. Finally he said

"It doesn't look any different than before. Are you sure this will work?"

Lora nodded and replied

"It will work, but I don't know how far we'll get. I also don't know any specific places we could travel to, so there's no telling where we'll end up." Blaze nodded and said darkly

"Anywhere else is better than here. Do we have any supplies?"

Lora shook her head and said

"Not in the lines of food. We'll have to rely on the wild for food and water. The most we have is the clothes on your back and the bed blanket. Other than that, we have nothing."

Blaze paused for a moment, then linked his hands behind his head with a huge grin and saying

"So we'll build ourselves up from the bottom, huh? Well, you gotta start somewhere, I suppose."

Lora sighed heavily and asked

"Are you even taking this seriously? Do you know the consequences of what we're planning?"

Blaze lowered his arms, his face darkened, and he replied

"Of course I do; if we fail, you die and I suffer. But if I let that go through my head, then I'll only wind up being scared out of my mind, and I don't need that right now."

Lora paused, then nodded.

"Then we might as well hope for the best. When will we leave?"

"About an hour after light's out. That should be safest."

Then it became a waiting game. They kept calm all through the rest of the time they were expected to stay in their room, following their regular routine, including dinner hour and even conversing with the others, or in Blaze's case, taking the torrent of abuse. Then it was shower hour, and when that had passed they were expected to stay in their rooms again. This would go on until light's out, at approximately nine o'clock. Then everyone was expected to go to bed until five-thirty in the morning, where the cycle would begin again.

After the lights had gone out, Lora and Blaze simply sat in their bed, waiting for the guard's rounds to pass by them, generally an hour or so. Once it had, Blaze picked the lock to the collar around Lora's neck, then she created a small ball of glowing psychic energy so they could see. As quietly as they could manage, they began to gather what things they could take. Blaze got fully dressed and took the crystal in hand, thinking it would definitely be easier to carry around if he could find some string, or even a chain, to make it into a necklace.

When Lora was ready, they checked around the room one more time to see if they had missed anything, then Lora held tightly to Blaze. She had instructed him how to use it, and he had been trying to find a location as far away as possible from Team Rocket. He wasn't too proficient at reading maps, though, so there was no telling where a good location was. From what he could gather, they were in a certain region, named Kanto, and they were somewhere called the "Sevi Islands", a set of seven islands separated from the rest of the region.

He looked over the map, hoping to find something half decent. Finally, he settled on a big city in the middle of the region, believing they could take cover there. He concentrated on the place he saw on the map. The crystal began to glow, and in a flash they were gone, the price for their return to be set the very next day.

Present

Blaze shook his head at his idiocy.

"Maybe if I had chosen a much smaller town, none of this would have happened. But I was too hopeful that a large city could give us better cover. What it really meant was more people to gawk at me. Damn it!"

He paused when he heard light footsteps, then jumped up into the tree he had been hiding behind. Within a minute, Lora appeared bearing two cylindrical things attached to straps wrapped around her shoulders, and in her arms she held two more cylinders, these different colors. Finally she was wearing a pack on her back, and Blaze jumped back down, taking her by slight surprise. She quickly got over it as he asked

"How did it go? And what did you get?"

She began to unload the stuff, describing each one as she did.

"This is the two sleeping bags I got, as well as two tents. I also have a pack and some non-perishable food. And I found a little something for you."

She handed the yellow can to him, and he gripped it in his claws. Then he looked over the items and said

"I don't think you had enough money for all of this. What happened?" Lora shook her head and replied

"Actually, I don't think I could have bought one of these things on my own. This nice young man helped me, he said his name was Loki Del Desierto Rojo, or Loki Riko. He was a strange character, and I sense he had a turbulent past. Anyway, he directed me to the store where I found all this, and he helped pay for it when I realized I didn't have enough. The guy who told me the price was a real jerk about it, though. Anyway, he came in, pretending I was his pokemon, paid for the stuff, then let me go."

Blaze narrowed his eyes in suspicion, asking

"You didn't tell him anything, did you?" Lora hesitated for a moment, then replied

"Nothing important. We should get going now, don't you think?"

Blaze was suspicious, but he was more wary about hanging anywhere near human dwellings, so he began to pick up the stuff, slinging most of it across his back. He turned to Lora when he was finished and said

"Alright, let's get going." The two began to walk off into the forest, away from the city and the potential dangers it held.

At the edge of the city…

Loki spotted the pair through his miniature binoculars, and while the Gardevoir appeared as normal as ever, there was something profoundly… off about the Blaziken he suspected was her travel companion. He knew about Team Rocket, had even gone up against them sometime before. So he wondered just what they had done to make this couple want to avoid them, though it could have been anything considering who they were up against.

He put away his binoculars after they disappeared into the forest, then turned to his Garchomp, saying

"Looks like something fishy is up, and I intend to find out what. If anything, there might be someone we could help." The Garchomp gave him a look he had seen before, and he said

"I know, I know, but those idiots did that to themselves. I don't think these pokemon will cause us any trouble, so long as the Gardevoir's Blaziken friend isn't as much trouble as I suspect he could be. Let's just follow them at a distance for now and see what happens, okay?"

The Garchomp sighed, then nodded. The two set out into the forest, following the same trail Lora and her friend had taken, hoping to make a difference in someone else's lives.

Well, that's all I got for now. Review soon!