(A/N: I know, I'm late. And I was so proud of myself for managing to keep a semi-regular schedule, gah. I'll try to get back on track with the next chapter. In the meantime, thanks for reading!)

RETURNING HOME

CHAPTER 8

Blood is warm and sticky under his palm—his blood or the man's or both, he's not sure, his side hurts bright red with every step but he can't stop to check, can't stop to catch his breath either, if he stops they'll get him. Mud sucks at the soles of his boots and he half-stumbles, staggers forwards, somehow manages to regain balance; branches crack under his feet. His heart is a desperate drum in his back, thumping loud-loud-louder, and without slowing down he fumbles to unbuckle his pokéball belt and lets it drop to the ground, lets it go thud in the dark but it's not enough, surely they're right behind him, surely soon he'll hear their footsteps and there'll be fingers grasping his arm and

his eyes snap open. It takes a handful of seconds before his breath unhitches from where it got stuck in his lungs—before he makes out the wall and the pillow and remembers that he got away, that he made it to Misty's gym and that that was over a week ago. His shirt drenched with sweat, he curls up around his knees and tries to convince his heart to stop pounding, breathing in ragged gasps: he got away. He got away, they're not there. Around him the room is quiet. Looks like he wasn't screaming for once, at least.

Or almost quiet. There's a rustling between the blankets and Pikachu wriggles himself under his arm, nuzzling and licking his face until he manages to pull his lips into a wobbly sort-of-smile. "I'm fine," he whispers; "Sorry I woke you up, buddy." But he lets the pokémon snuggle in the space between his legs and his chest, his hands shaking still.

He got away. Except not really, did he? Even when he thought he had he never really broke free from Giovanni's grasp. It only loosened slightly, just enough so he could peek through his fingers to see what he would do. And even now his reach extends far enough that the only place where maybe he won't find him feels like another prison.

Falling back asleep doesn't really seem an option, so he rolls to his back after a while, throwing one arm over his still-clammy forehead. Something at the corner of his eye catches his attention and he turns, frowning: Brock's bed on the other side of the room is empty. Ash sits up and glances at the bathroom door. The light there is off, but the room's not completely dark either—there's a blueish gleam coming from beyond the half wall, flickering with movement.

He pushes the blankets aside and stands. Misty is asleep in the bunk above his when he looks up, her hair a red snarl on the pillow; and he lets his breath out a little. He lingers for a second and then heads towards the source of the light. The soft patter of Pikachu's footsteps follows after him.

The TV is on in the other room, muted; scenes from some old black and white movie flash silently on the screen. In the semi-dark Brock is sitting on the couch, bundled up in a blanket. The light from the TV paints a blue shine on his face, but his eyes are fixed on the door instead like he's waiting for something to happen. Ash watches him for a bit, frowning still.

"Brock?"

He jumps slightly. Then turns and his features soften into a tired-looking smile: "Hey Ash. Didn't hear you there."

"What are you doing?"

Brock purses his lips and lets a breath out in a small sigh. "Maybe nothing," he finally answers. "I just, well. That weird scene last evening didn't exactly leave me trusting these people any more than I did before, so I thought I'd keep an eye out for tonight. Just to make sure everything's chill."

"You didn't say anything."

"Didn't want you and Misty to worry more than necessary. You both deserve some rest."

Ash doesn't reply. After a couple moments he walks to the couch and sits down, gathering his knees to his chest. "You can get back to bed if you want. You don't need to stay up as well," Brock tells him, shifting a little to let Pikachu climb between the two of them. He gives a shrug.

"It's fine," he says. On the TV screen a masked man with a sword is riding a Rapidash across a gray plain. "I wasn't gonna sleep anymore anyway."

"Still having nightmares?"

"Yeah."

"It'll get better, I'm sure. Give it time."

"Doesn't really matter. It's not—the nightmares I'm mostly worried about."

"I'm sure the rest is going to get better too."

Ash raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, right, and yet you're sitting here in the middle of the night cause you don't trust the only people that can help me."

"It might be just me being a little paranoid," Brock says. His lips stretch into a smile that trying to be reassuring, maybe, but the shadows under his eyes kind of tell a different story. "I mean, after all they are putting their life in danger to help us, and we're complete strangers to them. Maybe it's not all that unreasonable that they're impatient to see something a little more concrete than promises in return."

But you don't think that's all there is, Ash wants to retort. But instead he leans his chin on his knees and stares at the blue-tinted floor, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that hasn't quite left his gut since last evening. "Maybe you should just do what they want and leave then."

"Not until we're sure that we're leaving you in good hands. We've been over this Ash, you're not getting rid of us so easily."

He can tell he's trying to get a smile out of him, but his stomach's suddenly scrunched up tighter and it takes him a moment to consciously make out why: they're leaving. Now or in a couple days, that doesn't change much in the end. He didn't think it'd be hard to just hide somewhere away from everyone at first, when he had barely managed to reach Misty's gym and he was already prepared to leave again—he had endured the silence and isolation for so long that he'd forgotten there was anything else. But now it's different, isn't it? He's let himself get used to having them around, a little, and he didn't really realize it was happening but it must have because now the thought of giving that up again for who knows how long feels—feels—

(scary?)

He can't quite find the right word—he's spent too long trying not to feel anything for that. But it's a crumpled squeezed up thing somewhere in his middle, and he pulls his knees closer, sinking his teeth into his lip. He doesn't want them to go, that's it.

"Can you do me a favor, Brock?" he sighs after a moment. Brock turns to look at him.

"Of course. Anything."

Ash bites his lip again. "Be careful," he tells him. The words are heavy. "I mean when you leave. When they ask you and Misty to do—whatever you'll have to do to keep your part of the deal. I've seen Giovanni just get people killed without thinking twice. If he really thinks you're getting in his way he won't stop just because you're kind of famous and it's gonna make a stink. He's not—someone who jokes around when he wants something done."

Don't look away, he remembers his voice saying as he laid in front of him the pictures of the family and the burned house. I want you to keep this in mind. Remember that this is what happens to those who think they can trick me. "...Yeah, I think I'm starting to see that," Brock says with a deep breath. "You have my word. I have every intention to do that. You know, that was kind of the point of this whole 'sitting here in the middle of the night' thing."

He says nothing. Brock pauses again, resting his chin atop his hands. He studies the silence. "What do you think, Ash?" he asks after a bit. "Honestly. And don't give me that I can defend myself shtick. Forget about that for a second. Do these people seem okay to you?"

"I dunno," Ash shrugs. "Mrs. R seemed sincere when she said all that stuff. Abbie looks fine too. That guy was just weird." He shudders and glances up. On the TV screen the masked guy's swordfighting his way across a mob of bandits. "Can we talk about something else, Brock?"

Brock tilts his head in surprise a bit, but nods then. "Alright. What do you want to talk about?"

"I dunno. Something. How's your family?"

It could be any other question, probably—mostly he just wants to hear about something not to do with Giovanni, with the four walls around them. Brock seems glad he asked, though. "They're fine," he says. "Well, more or less, at least. My parents are a disaster at taking care of the gym, but I've been helping out, and my brother Forrest is determined to take up the gym leader role and he's training like mad for it. Oh, and my sister Yolanda started her journey as a trainer this past April, last I heard from her she already had five badges."

He keeps talking, his voice quiet as to not wake up Misty as well. Ash listens, slips in a question here and there; smiles some even. Laughs a bit once, as Brock tells him of how his mother tried to turn their gym into a water type one overnight and gives a convincing impression of his father's dramatic reaction. And just for a little while maybe he lets himself forget.

—-

It's by pure chance that he gets another occasion to run.

There were some before. There was that time that the Dragonair Giovanni wanted him to steal managed to break free from the cage and knocked out two of the men that were with him with a hyper beam. He could have tried to run then—for a moment there was enough chaos that maybe he would have managed. But there were other people in the way, alerted by the noise. If he ran they would have been the ones to pay for it, like the little girl with the Eevee, like the pokémon he sent to die.

So he didn't.

The dig site is empty. Ash kicks a pebble with his booth, sending it rolling somewhere in the dark. It's an easy job, Giovanni said: there might be a couple guards, but nothing you shouldn't be able to handle. There was one guard, but he was standing with his back to the rock and his head lolling forward, dozing on his feet, and it took him a moment to call one of his pokémon out of its pokéball and knock him unconscious. Easy, he thinks. It leaves an ironic aftertaste, like a sourness lingering at the roof of his mouth.

He turns the yellow beam of the flashlight around, towards the entrance of the cave opening agape on the side of Mt. Moon. "That way," he says. The men follow him without a word.

Inside the cave it's pitch black—the flashlights barely manage to reach the stalactites hanging over their heads. The darkness is cold and drippy, dank in his nostrils. They follow the wooden beams holding up the ceiling along a few twists and turns, their footsteps a loud echo between the narrow walls; and finally the cave opens into a larger chamber and there are the moon stones, so many of them, shining a quiet silver shine under their lights.

They fill two sacks with them. They go back then, but as they retrace their steps something rattles in the dark above, a sound like crumbling, like gravel hitting stone. Ash stops and flicks the flashlight up. "Some problem?" one of the men urges him, and as he does Ash hears it again, the same sound but longer, a handful of sand pattering over rocks.

"Heard that?"

There's silence for a second. Then the sound comes once more and this time it doesn't stop, it grows in a roaring crescendo, and maybe they triggered it with some incautious move or maybe it was something else but a moment later the ground's shaking under his feet and there's dust falling from above in heaps, falling on his face and in his eyes, and there's a loud sudden CRACK and the roof of the cave collapses on itself. Or so it seems—it's only a couple boulders that fell, but for a few moments the air's nothing but dust and there's coughing and cursing and one light hits the floor and goes off and

(now now NOW do it now you might never get the chance again)

Ash drops the sack with the stones and the flashlight and runs. He makes it to the entrance of the cave, but it's not enough—outside it's all bare ground and rocks with nowhere to hide and they're right behind him already, if he tries to run for the trees at the edge there'll be nothing to shield him and they're too close, they'll get him for sure. So instead he throws himself to the left and presses his back to the side of the mountain, his heart slamming against his ribs. "Let's split," he hears one of them say. "He's still around."

A cold dagger sinks into his gut: the locator on his pokémon. He forgot, Mew, he forgot, how could he be so stupid? He looks down at his pokéball belt, but it's too late to get rid of it now, he's got nowhere to go and they know he's close, they know he didn't go anywhere. His breath hitches in his chest and he shuts his eyes for a moment, shaking. He can hear footsteps.

Slowly, trying not to make any noise, he crouches down and gropes the ground for something, anything to use as a weapon. His fingers close around a rock. He nearly drops it; frantically grasps it again. He waits.

—-

"Giovanni's tracking parties are still out there according to our contact," Abbie informs them in the morning. "So whatever he's after it appears he hasn't found it yet. Which increases the chances of it being you."

Ash swallows and smushes his lips into a thin line, his eyes on the floor at her feet. He says nothing, and next to him Misty presses her nails into the fabric of the couch a little, tossing the question back and forth on her tongue. She takes a breath. "Can we ask you something, Abbie?"

The woman raises her eyebrows in expectation. "It's—about your friend," Misty continues, and Abbie's eyebrow quirks a bit further. "You know, the other guy."

Silence still. The woman's expression says nothing but yes, go on. So she does: "We were wondering if—you're sure we can trust him."

There's another pause, although brief, and she's not sure she likes it. "Is there a particular reason you're asking?"

"It's just that he acted kind of weird yesterday," says Brock. "He seemed really eager to get us to leave. Sort of—well, threatening too."

"On the other hand he's mentioned to me that you had a request that wasn't part of our accord, though," Abbie remarks. There's a slight sharp note in her words, a flicker of—annoyance, maybe? Misty frowns. "Isn't that so?"

Brock gives a half shrug. "...Well, yeah, but I—didn't think it'd be a very big deal. I was only talking about a few more days. And Misty would go back to her gym exactly like we agreed."

Abbie brings a hand to her hip. Her fingers drum, close to where the holster and the gun are. "Alright. Listen," she says. "I get it, your situation is particular and you've been through enough hardships already. We've been accommodating for you for this reason. But we have a deal, and we've been doing our part with nothing but your word in return. My partner may have been harsher than necessary, but you are going to have to do what you promised."

"We will," Brock assures her. "We still have every intention to, we're not backing out. We just want to be absolutely sure that Ash is going to be safe here, that's all."

The woman looks at him for a moment, then sighs and the curve of her mouth seem to soften slightly. "I'll talk to him. I'm sure I can convince him to be a little more patient."

"Thanks—"

She flicks her hand in the air in a hasty don't-mention-it gesture. "Are we done?"

Misty gives a slightly uncertain nod. "Can I ask you something else?" Ash says though, and she turns to look at him again, as does Abbie.

"Go ahead."

Ash studies her for a moment. "Are you Mrs. R's daughter?" he asks then. Misty blinks a little and turns back to the woman, and—yes, how did she not notice? It's not obvious, but her eyes are the same gold, down to the darker specks around the irises, and something in the lines of her face looks similar as well, especially around the lips. Her brow furrows in surprise for a second, then she gives a somewhat amused smirk.

"Aye. Proudly carrying out the family traditions," she answers, pushing her sunglasses back onto her nose. "Got any more questions?"

They don't, so she turns to leave. "How did you know that?" Brock asks Ash, as her footsteps dim on the stairs. He shrugs.

"I guessed. They look sorta the same."

Brock ponders about it for a second, raising one hand to stroke his chin. "Well, at least this tells us something about her motives. It's also her family Giovanni threatened."

Misty bites her lips and sinks back onto the couch. "Yeah, I guess," she says, but the idea of leaving still feels like a hard knot in her throat. I won't let anything happen to him this time, she promised Delia just a few days ago, and now she's gonna have to leave him with people she knows next to nothing about for what might be months. Maybe longer. Dismantling Giovanni's empire hardly even feels like a tangible possibility.

She lets out a sigh. "There's still that other guy though. I still don't like him. I don't care what she says."

"I'll be okay, guys. You can go," Ash says. But he's staring at the floor and his shoulders slump forward a bit. She turns to look at him teases a little, hoping for a reaction:

"Hey, you want us to leave really bad, huh? Well, tough luck. You're gonna have to put up with us for a while longer."

He glances back at her and smiles slightly, but lowers his eyes again after without saying anything. Misty sighs again, running hers over the room. She's hardly been here for two days and she's already memorized every corner and fake plant. Such a small space to spend months hiding in.

The knot hasn't loosened one bit. She tries to swallow it down, but it won't go away.

—-

"Don't you miss your gym?"

Misty frowns. She's been telling him a few more stories about things that happened during his absence, until she seemed to run out and they slipped back into silence for a bit. He didn't mind, though, for a change; for a while it felt almost comfortable, almost free of horrible thoughts. "Yeah, I do," she says, then gives a slight shrug. She's sitting with her fingers laced around her ankles, her head thrown back against the couch cushions. "But it'll be there when I go back, right? What, are you trying to get me to leave again?"

She turns towards him with a smirk. "I'm not," he protests. He takes a breath then, trying to reach for the words far down into himself. They come out sort of choppy, stumbling where they shouldn't be. "And I—don't. Y'know."

"You don't what?"

"What you said before." He breathes again. "I don't—want you guys to leave. I mean it's okay and—I think you should but—I don't—want you to."

It feels strange, pulling things out of his chest instead of pushing them further below. It's not painless, but it's a weird kind of hurt, one that feels somehow almost relieving. Misty looks at him for a moment and her smirk fades into something that's still a smile, sort of, but but stretched and a little wobbly at the corners. She shift closer and lays one hand on his arm. His first instinct is still to flinch, but he manages not to.

"It's just gonna be for a while," she says. She has to know that it's not true, though, and he lets out a small scoffing sound, lowering his eyes to the floor.

"Is it?"

"Well, maybe not a short while," she admits. "But it's not going to be forever. We need to have that battle, right? And Pikachu will be here to keep you company in the meantime. Won't you, Pikachu?"

Pikachu nods. Ash tries to stretch his lips into something resembling a smile as well, but doesn't look up. Misty's hand stays there. Her thumb finds the scar along his forearm and distractedly follows it a little. It's another unfamiliar sensation still, being touched gently. He forgot it was even possible.

Misty's thumb stops, still on his scar. "How did you get this one?" she asks after a moment. Ash sucks his lips between his teeth.

"It's—not really a nice story."

"Yeah, I figured that."

He pulls his arm away. "Well there isn't really a lot to say," he answers, wrapping it around his knees with the other. "I didn't do something Giovanni wanted. So one of them called out one of his pokémon and used it on me. A Scyther."

There's silence for a second. "What did he want you to do?" Misty asks then, a slight tremble in her voice. Ash pulls his knees closer.

"The same thing. Use my pokémon to hurt someone."

"And you refused."

"I stopped refusing at some point."

"But you did for as long as you could." She's quiet for a moment, like she's trying to think of what to say next. "I don't know if I would have been able to do that at all, Ash. Most people probably wouldn't have. You're not—a bad person because eventually you couldn't take it anymore. You're just a human being."

There's a bit of him somewhere that wants to cling to her words and believe that maybe they could be true, wants it desperately. But the things Giovanni said to him echo louder in his mind, and louder still the cries of pain, the screaming. He bites the inside of his cheek. "Yeah well, not like that changes anything. It doesn't—make all the people I hurt stop being hurt, does it?"

"No," she says. She takes a breath and lets it out in a sort-of sigh. "Fine. What about—all the people you didn't hurt? All the people and the pokémon you helped or saved or—hey Brock," she cranes her head back, trying to look at him above the back of the couch. "Remember when we told you about that crazy thing that happened while we were traveling in the Orange Islands? When we visited Shamouti?"

Brock doesn't turn away from the pot and the stove, but there's a smile in the tone of his voice. "You mean when Ash ended up saving the entire world? Yeah, that's hard to forget about."

Ash swallows and says nothing. "Doesn't any of that mean something too?" she asks. He shrugs a little.

"I didn't really do all that much that time. And it's not like I had a choice anyway."

"But there were so many other times when you did. And you didn't even have to think about it, you just did whatever you could do to help, even if it meant getting hurt or risking your life." She shakes her head. "Do you have any idea how many times I watched you—throw yourself in the way of a hyper beam, or from a cliff or something equally stupid all because you saw someone who needed your help and I thought well this is it, no way that idiot didn't get himself killed this time?"

She stretches one foot in his direction and kicks him a bit, like she got retroactively mad just thinking about it. Then sighs one more time. "Really," she says. "You're the farthest I've ever met from a bad person, Ash."

He's not sure what to make of all that. It's not your fault, he said the other night, to her and a little maybe to himself too, but it's another thing entirely to actually believe it. To even begin to.

But maybe it's okay if he doesn't make anything of it right now. Maybe he can just let himself not think about it for a while longer. It's still more than he thought he'd ever allow himself to do.

—-

When the shadow of one of the men comes into sight Ash doesn't give himself the time to think.

He jumps out of his hiding place and onto him. He's not exceptionally strong, not enough to overpower someone the man's size based on physical strength alone, but he's got something else: he's fast. Giovanni saw the potential in that and trained him to put it to good use. So he jumps onto the man and whacks him in the face with the rock, and when the first blow only manages to stun him he hits again and again and the third time he does there's blood, spraying warm on his face and his hand, and the man stands for another couple seconds and then slumps limp onto the side of the mountain. Ash almost falls with him, but heaves himself back to his feet and without wasting another moment starts running.

There's voices: "He's there," "Get him," and then there's the thunder of gunshot and the night lights up in a flash for a fraction of a second. Another: a stab of pain runs through his side, red and burning and red, and he staggers and grunts through his teeth but doesn't stop.

He makes it to the trees. Branches snap under his feet and slap him across the face, and he unbuckles his pokéball belt with shaky hands and drops it without stopping. He can't see anything. He almost falls once, twice; slams into something and almost goes flying. His side hurts, hurts, hurts, and it's sticky-warm and dripping under his palm, but if he stops they'll catch him, if he stops they'll take him back to Giovanni.

He runs.

He runs until he can't anymore. Until his legs give and he falls for real, hitting his knees first and his face second. Dirt goes up his nose. He gathers himself up a minute later, when he can breathe enough that he doesn't feel as close to passing out anymore, when the world stops feeling wobbly and thin, a little.

It's still dark. The moon is a sliver of white above, shining the same silver shine as the moon stones. He doesn't dare to think it, not even now, not even when he holds his breath and listens and hears no footsteps, no voices. There's blood all over his side and his hand. His or the man's. He's not sure. It looks black in the moonlight.

—-

("Do you want to know what I find most interesting? I didn't make you capable of this.

You always were. It was always within you. All I did was bring it out.")

—-

It's late in the evening when there's noise coming from upstairs—voices, too far away to make out the words. Abbie's, then the man's, then a pause and Abbie's voice again, weirdly muffled, like she's trying to keep it down but speaking too urgently for that. "What the—?" Misty starts, the question an alarmed whisper under her breath, but Brock hushes her, his brow scrunched in an attempt to figure out what's happening.

There's another silence above, but one that feels unnatural and grating, like it's just waiting for something. Ash's insides squeeze together. It doesn't last long: suddenly there's voices again and what sounds like a struggle, something crashing. A loud bang. A pause, spread out thin and stretched; the stairs groaning under someone's footsteps.

Misty jumps to her feet and scrambles to get her backpack from behind the couch. She stands back up with a pokéball in her hand, the other not quite held up to shield him but almost, and Pikachu's at her side a second later. The footsteps keep getting closer, fast, going clang-clang-clang on the stairs; and Ash thinks of different footsteps, of leather shoes clicking along a hallway, and a tremble sets at the base of his spine. He drops his feet to the floor to stand but there he freezes, his hands tight around the edge of the couch. The sound's louder beyond the door: almost there now, almost—

The door flings open. It goes slamming against the wall on the other side and the man barges in, a gun in hand. He waves it towards Misty and Brock, points it like it's nothing, like his finger isn't already on the trigger:

"You two. Out. Now. I'm damn tired of this. I've waited enough."

Misty flinched visibly when the gun flied past her, but now she doesn't move one inch. "What's going on? Where's Abbie?"

"Abbie's upstairs," says the man. His voice's calm on the surface but all raw edges below that, like a growl. "She's busy right now."

"Is she?" Misty holds her head up, her hand grasping the pokéball behind her back. "What was that we just heard?"

"We had a disagreement. It's all settled now. C'mon, get movin'."

"We're not going anywhere."

The man looks at her, a small turn of the wrist away from pointing the gun straight at her head, and Ash swallows what feels like a throatful of sand and wonders if that'd be enough for him to get up from the couch and push her out of the way. Probably not. There's a moment that seems to drag on forever; then Brock stands slowly, keeping his hands in sight. "...Okay, just—calm down. I'm sure we can talk this out."

"Enough with the talking," the man snarls. "You've done that already. That's all you've been doin' from the start, talking, talking and doin' nothing to keep your nice promises. I'm fed up with that."

"Okay," Brock says again. He keeps his hands up, palms facing the man. "There's no need for the gun. We never—we never meant to take advantage of you, I'm sure we can settle this misunderstanding."

"The only misunderstanding's the one that old hag made when she decided to deal with children. I've been doin' what I was asked. I want something in return."

"We're not going anywhere," Misty insists. Around the pokéball her fingers are shaking a little, but her thumb finds the release button, ready. "If Abbie's really upstairs let us see her. Get her to come down here."

Silence. Muscles twitch in the man's jaw. "What did you do to her?" Misty wants to know. She takes a huff of breath and releases it in a yell: "Abbie! Abb—"

"Shut that mouth."

"Or what? You're gonna shoot us? You won't get what you want if we're dead."

He shrugs. "There's two of you. Doesn't matter which one lives to keep the deal." He narrows his eyes then, like in an afterthought, and he does tilt his wrist—but not towards Misty. The gun's single eye stares Ash in the face. "Or maybe I'll just get rid of him and get this whole thing over and done with."

Misty's arm stretches in front of him in a blink and Pikachu jumps ahead, sparkles crackling on his cheeks, but there they both stop—he could pull the trigger way faster than Pikachu could deliver an attack, way faster than Misty could throw her pokéball. The air is dense, thick like molasses. Ash forces himself to take a breath of it. He lets go of the edge of the couch, slowly. He stands.

"Are you actually on our side?" he asks. His heart's thumping, but he's forced himself to stand though things much worse than this. Much worse than the maybe-empty threat of a bullet through his brain. "Or were you just pretending all along? Is that why you want my friends to leave so bad?"

The man doesn't speak. But there's another twitch around his eyes, and Ash tells himself maybe he's hit the mark. He thinks of the struggle noises minutes ago, of that heavy bang at the end.

Abbie's upstairs. She's busy right now.

"What's gonna happen once they're gone? You gonna sell me back to Giovanni? Think you'll get some reward out of it?"

Misty's breath catches and she turns to look at him. He holds the man's glance, though. A moment goes by, then another; then finally the man drops the mask. One corner of his mouth rises into a crooked sort of grin. "Nothing personal," he says. "You just don't get an occasion like this twice."

Ash swallows again, his throat so dry it makes a clicking noise. The tremble he felt stir down his back rattles up all the way through him, but he sinks his nails into his palms and tries not to flinch:

"Fine. Then leave my friends out of this. You want me? You got me, I'm right here. Just leave 'em out."

"Ash—"

He takes a step forward. Then another. The man's eyes narrow further, studying his moves. Another step—Misty's fingers grasp his wrist, trying to hold him there. "Ash," she says again. He jerks his arm away and keeps his eyes on the man, on the gun still pointed at his face, thinking of what happened to the people and pokémon who found themselves in the way when he tried to escape, of the little girl with the Eevee, of his pokémon.

"Ash, wait—"

"Pikapi!"

"You stand back," the man tell his friends. "Keep that pokémon at bay too. And you,"—he nods his chin towards Misty—"drop that pokéball you've been hidin' the whole time."

"You're not gonna shoot him," she says, but her voice falters, unsteady. "If you want to bring him back to Giovanni you need him alive."

He shrugs. "Alive, yeah. But I'm sure the big boss won't mind getting him back with a couple holes. Drop it."

There's silence for a couple seconds, like she's trying to figure out if she's got any alternatives, then the thud of the pokéball hitting the floor. It goes rolling somewhere. He doesn't look—he keeps staring straight into the gun, and meanwhile considers his chances: the man's much bigger than he is. Two heads taller at least, and he can see the muscles bulging under his black uniform, muscles like Giovanni's men had, ones that could probably snap his bones in half if given the chance. He's armed. And he might very well have just killed or seriously injured Abbie in cold blood.

But he's got all the training Giovanni put him through. He's fast. He's good.

He takes another step and another. The man's grin stretches.

Ash hurls himself at him. He wasn't expecting it—his eyes widen, pupils contracting on gray-blue irises, and in the half-second it takes him to react Ash grabs his wrist and twists, wrenches it backwards using his whole weight as leverage. A shot explodes towards the ceiling and it's loud, enough to deafen him, enough to swallow all sounds after in a muffled blur, and then the surprise advantage is over and the man tries to shake him off—but he holds on tight and uses the momentum to bounce back onto him. He's good: he's quick. He takes a blow to the stomach, dodges another. He hits back. He lets all the instincts Giovanni planted into him kick in; lets them take over.

(do you want to know what I find most interesting?)

Another blow takes him in the jaw and there's stars flying across his vision, red rimming his sight. Voices, coming faint and faraway like through cotton. They both crash to the ground. He strikes. Cartilage pops under his fist and blood squirts from the man's nostrils—fingers grab Ash's shoulder and slam him against the floor. But pain is just pain and he's used to it, he's used to so much more of it. So he kicks, scratches; hits. Heaves himself back to his knees. The man's below him again and Ash thinks of the bang, that loud terrible BANG and the silence after and goes for the face, goes for where it's already red and smashed and bloody, goes for where it hurts and hits; hits, hits.

(I didn't make you capable of this.)

Then there's arms grabbing him by the waist, pulling him back. He grunts and tries to free himself from the hold, and his elbows slams into something soft and there's a noise, a sound like air pushed out of lungs in a huff of pain. But the arms don't let go.

"Ash." Misty's voice tears through the blur, shaking. His ears are ringing still. "Ash. Stop. It's enough, stop."

She holds him. The arms are her arms. Her breath's a warm frantic flutter against his neck, and Ash blinks and looks at the man again: he's lying motionless on the floor, his face a bloody mess. Ash's hands are bloody as well, red around the knuckles, and trembling, trembling so bad. He pulls away from Misty, his breath coming in uneven gasps that don't seem to fill his chest at all. The realization sinks into his gut like ice.

She saw it. Brock, too, and Pikachu. They all saw it, saw what Giovanni turned him into, what he's capable of doing, and now they'll be disgusted just like he said they'd be, they'll—

But Misty's hands are all over him again after a moment instead, closing around his shoulder, his face. "Ash," she says again, trying to turn him towards her. Her fingers press right where the man hit him and it hurts, silver sparks of pain flaring up in front of his eye. "Ash. Look at me."

He doesn't. He can't take his eyes off the man and the blood, not even when something nudges his leg and Pikachu calls him too, tugging at the fabric of his pants. "We need to leave," comes Brock's voice. "You knocked him out alright, but we'd better not be here when he wakes up. We need to get out. Come on."

He swallows and forces his feet to move. Brock's got their backpacks hooked over one arm, the pokéball Misty dropped in the other hand. He keeps looking at that, at his hands and the backpacks and the pokéball, not at his eyes. Not at any of their eyes.

Misty's fingers close around his elbow, pulling him towards the door. "Come on, we need to go," Brock says again, and somewhere at the back of his mind Ash thinks: go? Go where?

The staircase rattles under their feet. At the top Ash holds his breath, expecting to see Abbie's body lying somewhere in a pool of blood—but when Brock pushes the door open there's nothing. No body and no blood, just the near-dark basement and the van. Brock makes it to the shutter door first, slams his hand over the panel on the wall trying to open it.

"Stop where you are."

They turn. Abbie is standing next to the van, her gun unsheathed and pointed straight at them.