(A/N: Thank you for reading and for your patience, once again.
I don't actually know a single thing about guns, so for James' "lesson" I trusted google. And an episode of The Walking Dead. It's very likely that I wrote something very wrong, in which case I'm sorry.)
RETURNING HOME
CHAPTER 11
"Do you even know how to use one of these?"
"Yeah, point and shoot, can't be that hard. Give it."
"Point and shoot, sure," James mumbles. He sighs: "Alright, listen up first, I don't wanna have you accidentally shooting your friends or yourself on my conscience. Um, yeah— see this here?" He holds the gun close enough to her face for her to see but still not enough to attempt to snatch it, his thumb on a small button on the side. "That's the magazine release. To load it, you need to take this out..."—he does it—"...and put the bullets in, like this."
He shows her and slides the magazine back in place, tapping it against his palm with a clack. "You got eight. Count 'em or you're gonna pull the trigger at some point and the gun'll be empty and then you'll probably be dead. And, um..." His thumb moves to another button. "This one's the safety. Leave it in until you need to shoot. If you don't you'll shoot yourself in the foot and then it'll be on me. Got all that?"
"Yeah."
"And don't ever point it at anyone you don't want to shoot. Don't point it at your friends or your pokémon or yourself. And especially don't ever point it at me."
She rolls her eyes a little. "Yeah, I wasn't planning to."
James sighs again. "Now," he says, and extends his arm in front of himself, aiming the gun across the empty warehouse: "say you need to shoot. I hope you don't, but you don't always get what you want, am I right? Say the person you wanna shoot is right in front of you." Misty's eyes follow in the same direction and the hair on the back of her neck rises on end a bit, as if expecting someone to really be standing amidst the dusty air. "You take the safety off. You aim—but you still don't touch the trigger. Chances are this is going down real fast. The other person probably has a gun too. You're gonna be scared, trust me, even if you think you won't be, I promise ya, and you're gonna want to pull the trigger as soon as you can. But if you miss you'll be dead." He straightens his arm. The barrel of the gun gives a sharp glint. "You need to wait till it's up to your eye. And hold still. Then you shoot."
His finger contracts slightly on the trigger, like to punctuate his words; but he doesn't pull it. Instead he lowers the gun and turns back to her. "Think you gonna remember all that?"
"Yeah." There's a slight knot in her stomach, though. "Safety, aim, get it up to my eye, shoot. Now give it."
"Patience. Now, if you've never tried, your aim probably needs some work, so this"—he pulls a metallic cylinder out of his pocket and shows it to her—"is a silencer. You can practice here a bit before we leave."
He screws the silencer to the gun, then pauses, nervously pursing his lips. Misty raises her eyebrows and holds out her hand. He lets go another sigh.
"Alright, alright." He flicks the safety back on and flips the gun in his grasp, handing it to her by the barrel. "I'm giving a loaded gun to a thirteen-year-old who by the looks of it hasn't slept in a week. Definitely not something with a lot of potential to end horribly wrong, nuh-uh, nope."
"I'm fourteen," she informs him. Her fingers close around the weapon: it's heavy, the metal cold against her palm. James throws his head back.
"Oh, fourteen. My bad, that clearly makes everything better." He lets go and waves his hands in the air. "Now don't point it. Remember what I just told ya. Wait there."
She watches him half-trot to the other side of the building and pick some stuff out of a bunch of junk piled in a corner. "...Are you still really sure you want to do this?" comes Brock's voice after a few moments. He's been silent as James instructed her, watching, but the drumming of his fingers against his elbow betrays his uneasiness. Misty looks at him and then down at Pikachu, crouched with his ears pricked up at his feet. Sweat lines her palm a little. She shrugs.
"I need something to defend us. I'm not going to risk my pokémon's life again if I can avoid it."
"Maybe I should have it instead."
"No, I want it." Something deep down in her chest quivers. She turns away: "I—I need it. When we find Ash I—need to know I can do something. I need to know I won't just stand there while someone hurts him."
Across from them James's gathered a bunch of bottles and boxes into a straight line. He stands contemplating his work for a moment, then turns and walks back. "...Alright," he says as he reaches her, sounding anything but optimistic. "Let's try this."
He steps behind her and guides her hold of the gun. "Safety's on," he reminds her, and waits for her to flip it off again. "Now, that first bottle. See it? Try to go for that."
Misty draws a small breath. "Where did you even get this?" she asks, her eyes on the designed target. He gives a sort of half-shrug.
"We, um—let's say we know some people too, hehe. Did you ever wonder where we got all that stuff when we were trying to steal Pikachu?"
She glances back at him. "Yeah, I did wonder about that."
"Yeah." He repositions her arm slightly. "Go on. Try."
It takes all eight bullets and a sore wrist before she actually knocks the bottle down. She rubs it with a slight wince as James takes the gun to reload it, her ears ringing some: it's really not silent, despite the promise of the cylinder at the end of the barrel. Gunsmoke hangs sour in the air.
"Are you really quitting the team?" she questions, eyeing him. James pushes the magazine back into place.
"Yeah." He hands her the weapon and kicks gloomily at the floor, scattering a few pieces of debris. "We discussed it. Let's call it a difference of opinion, shall we? We don't really wanna be a part of that anymore with everything we know."
Misty studies him for a couple seconds. "But you had to know about—the sort of things Giovanni does. At least some of it."
"Yeah, well." James steps behind her again and directs her hand towards the next bottle. "What do you want me to tell you, kid? It's not like we had no idea. We did know about some of that. But it's not like we had much of a choice either, you know? I mean, you know us, complete failures at everything. There just wasn't much else for us to do if we quit. Go on, the second one."
She fires. The bullet hits the side of the bottle and sends it crashing to the wall. "So what are you going to do now?"
He seems to consider the question for a moment; then shrugs. "Well, right now I'm gonna make sure you don't kill anyone you don't mean to kill. I guess we'll see after that."
—-
"I can practice a little longer," she insists maybe an hour later, her eyes lingering on the line of broken glass and toppled boxes along the wall. James shakes his head, though, and takes the gun from her hand to load it one last time.
"Nah, kiddo, I say that's enough for now. You're gonna want to save some bullets for when you really need 'em, yeah? Besides, if we leave now maybe I can get you two home before it's dark."
"It's still early. We have a lot of time," she protests, though she knows they don't: it took over a day to fly from Cerulean to Pallet and Viridian's not much closer. She keeps staring at the broken bottles, at the sunlight shining on them through the narrow windows, and her stomach squeezes, twists. Her nails sink into her palms a little. James taps the gun against his: clack.
"I'm taking you back to Cerulean City, right? That's quite a flight from here. If we put if off much longer we're gonna have to stop somewhere for the night, and I don't know how good an idea that is considering, well, everything."
Misty bites down on her lip. After a couple moments Brock's hand closes around her elbow.
"There's no point in staying here, anyway," he tells her, guessing her thoughts. "There's nothing we can do that we haven't already done."
"Yep," says Jessie. She and Meowth got back from wherever they reaccompanied Mrs. R as she practiced her aim and at one point a particularly lucky shot had Jessie whistling through her teeth. She shuffles her weight from foot to foot now and laces her fingers behind her head, stretching her neck: "Plus you heard the lady. You're gonna be safer at your gyms than here. Can't save your friend if you're dead, right?"
"But if—" Misty starts, then stops, not quite knowing what she was going to follow that if with. If someone finds him, if he needs help; if he needs them and they're all the way to Cerulean and Pewter City, miles away from there. The marks she dug into her palms sting, sting. Brock gives her arm a squeeze.
"I think they're right for this once. We should go."
She swallows and says nothing, her insides all knots. James hands her the gun and more spare bullets with it. "Here, these are yours. Mew, I'm so going to regret this. Try not to make me regret it, 'kay? Pretty please."
She drops both into her backpack along with the pokégear Mrs. R gave her last evening. Together they make a weight, pulling the straps down on her shoulder. She stands back up and breathes, once, twice, feeling that weight lodge against the small of her back. Finally she turns and follows Brock and the others to the door. "Come, Pikachu."
They all step out of the building, but it's only James that walks up to the balloon: Jessie and Meowth stop a few steps before it. Misty glances back at them.
"Aren't you coming?"
"Nah, I don't even know if it'd hold all of us," Jessie answers, nodding her head to the balloon. "We'll stay. You know, just in case someone's needed here, or something."
She shrugs, a no-big-deal kind of shrug, her fingers still laced behind the nape of her neck. Misty stops in her tracks to stare at her, slightly moved. It takes a beat for Jessie to register the pause and look down at her.
"What now?"
She shakes her head a little, a small hint of a smile finding its way to her lips. "You're—good people."
A blink. Then Jessie's back to feigning indifference, though a bit redder around the cheeks. "Yeah, sure. Don't hug me though, that'd be weird."
They leave. Misty grasps the edge of the basket and watches as the asphalt grows farther away from their feet, as the warehouse and Jessie and Meowth become harder to make out, even squinting. As they begin to leave behind the city and him with it. The wind sends her hair flapping on her face: she pushes it away and when she looks again she can no longer tell which of the roofs below was the one they left.
"We stopping in Pewter City first?" James wants to know. Brock shakes his head.
"No, just take us both to Cerulean. I'll go with her."
—-
The wind is favorable, at least, and in a matter of hours they're flying at full speed over Viridian Forest, over the sea of trees turning orange and red in places and farther still, over the skyscrapers of Celadon City and towards where the sun's starting to set over more treetops. They don't talk much at all. At some point James rummages through a sack at their feet and pulls some cans of food he hands to them, and she swallows the contents of hers mechanically, barely registering the taste. She feels nauseous after.
Mrs. R's pokégear is silent.
It's dark when they finally come close to Cerulean and the city is a cluster of lights in the distance. Tired, she leans against the edge and watches them sway in front of her eyes, growing bigger. Brock takes off his jacket and lays it gently over her shoulders.
The gym is already closed for the night, but there's light coming through some of the windows and the front door is still unlocked as well when she tries the knob. Brock waves a last thank you to James and they walk in. She flips the switch on and blinks a little as light fills the gym's hall: everything is still how she left it, the counter and the aquarium and the plant in the corner. She doesn't know what she expected. But the normalcy of it all is almost crushing, and for a handful of seconds all she can do is stare at them, her fingers wringing the straps of her backpack.
There's footsteps then, and Daisy pokes her head in from the hallway. "Thought I heard something. You're back?" she says and steps into the hall, a bucket of pokémon food in one hand. Her eyes go from her to Brock to Pikachu and back to her and her brow furrows into a frown. "You look, like, terrible. Are you okay? Where's—?"
She stops with his name on her lips, like she's afraid to say it. Misty presses hers together and for a long moment can't muster an answer. "He ran off," is all that comes out of her in the end. "We tried to keep him safe and he—that idiot just—ran off."
Daisy's frown deepens. "It's a long story at this point," Brock puts in with a sigh. Before she can ask more there's another voice, an eager toge-pri coming from the hallway at her back, and Misty's chest flutters as Togepi dodges her sister's legs and flings itself to her. She crouches down to catch it, her backpack sliding from her shoulder and hitting the floor with a muffled thud: "Togepi, oh, shh, I'm sorry, I missed you too, shh."
Daisy sets down the bucket. Slowly, almost hesitant, she walks across the hall and stops in front of her. "Let's... talk, okay?" she says shaking her head a little as Misty looks up, her voice soft with concern. "Tell me what happened."
—-
They sit on the edge of the pool while Brock goes for a shower and she tells Daisy the whole story, starting from the moment she heard knocking on their door in the middle of the night. She knew some of it already from Brock and from her phonecall, but even so it takes probably the better part of the next hour and when she's finally done talking her sister stares at her for a good handful of moments with her eyes huge and her mouth twisted at the corners into a pained crease, processing everything. "So all that time," she says in the end and shakes her head again, her glance wandering towards the pool, "all that time you, like—thought he was dead..."
Misty folds herself around her knees. The water glints blue-white in the moonlight. "He was alive, yeah. And now he's—they'll—"
Her voice cracks. "Oh, sis'," Daisy whispers, and seconds later she's gathered her up in her arms and pulled her into a hug. It's sudden and stiff and they're both unused to it, and her face ends up awkwardly squashed into her sister's hair, but she hadn't realized how much she needed it: her whole body aches. Daisy holds her tight tight for a few moments still, then grabs her by the shoulders to look her in the face. "That's so awful. I'm so so sorry."
"I'm so tired," Misty admits. She reaches for her backpack and rummages through it for Gyarados' pokéball. Her knuckles bump against the handle of the gun and she jumps a little and quickly pushes it it farther down: that she didn't tell Daisy about. Her sister watches her release the pokémon into the pool, kicking her heel against the tiles on the side. Water ripples.
"Can I help?" she wants to know. "Is there, like, anything that I can do?"
Gyarados swims to the bottom and then back to her, a darker shape under the surface. A knot in her throat, Misty leans closer and stretches one hand to touch the blue scales of its crest, expecting anger and mistrust, finding neither. "I'm so sorry," she whispers again, and then: "No. You've—done enough just by listening. I think—I shouldn't even have told you about it. I've probably put you in danger as well just by telling you about all that."
Daisy looks at her for a second. Then at once grabs her ponytail and gives it a light tug. "Hey! What was that for now?!" Misty protests, rubbing her scalp though it didn't really hurt. Daisy crosses her arms.
"I'm your big sister, you don't need to, like, lie to protect me. It should be the other way around."
She starts out disgruntled, but by the end of the sentence she sounds genuinely hurt. Misty turns her eyes back to the water.
"Thanks. But I don't think there's anything you can do, Daisy. I don't even know what else I can do myself."
She watches as Gyarados slowly circles the pool, its back rising for a moment above the surface and shimmering the same. Daisy is silent for a bit.
"You'll find him," she says then. She can't hold back a wince.
"Yeah, everyone always says that. You don't know."
"But I do," Daisy retorts. Misty scoffs. "I know you, sis'. And I know you get real scary when you're angry—"
"Yeah, well, you know, this is a bit more serious than—Lily forgetting her turn to do the dishes for three days in a row or—"
"—and I also know you wouldn't let anyone stop you when it comes to the ones you care for. So I know you'll find him. I just, like, do. And you're not allowed to disagree."
That earns her a small twitch of her lips, an almost, not-quite smile. Daisy lowers her arms at her sides. "How about we get to bed now? You know, I wasn't kidding before, you look like you haven't slept in a month."
"You're not too far off," Misty sighs. Then shakes her head. "I wanna go for a swim first. I need to clear my mind."
Gyarados' fin emerges again from the water. It catches the moonlight in an opalescent glow. "Okay," says Daisy, then adds: "I'm gonna go see if Brock is done with the shower. I'll get a warm bath ready for when you're done, how about that? Don't take too long."
With that she gives her shoulder a squeeze and walks away, leaving her in an empty gym. Misty stares at the pool for a bit still. She stands then, and "Keep an eye on Togepi for me, will you? It'll only be a couple minutes, promise," she tells Pikachu. The pokémon nods.
She grabs a swimsuit from the dressing room and climbs to the top of the diving board. She breathes: once, twice. Outside the window she can see James' balloon. She stretches her arms above her head and jumps.
The familiar shock of the water closing in around her is like a whiplash to her senses. She swims to the bottom, to where the light reaches muffled and quiet, past Gyarados' coils. To where the only sound is that of her thoughts.
You'll find him. I know you, sis'.
She wraps her arms around her knees.
Please be alright, she thinks, for what must be at least the millionth time since Pikachu woke her up. Just let me find you. Please. Please.
—-
please be—
—-
"Alright," comes Giovanni's voice, and the kicking stops, finally. "I say that's enough of a punishment for now. I hope this time around you've learned your lesson."
He spits bloody spit on the floor and tries to catch his breath as his vision unfogs. The men's hands claw at his arms and pull him to his feet and pain rips through him again, a wave of blinding white. He grits his teeth, though, and somehow musters the strength to lift his head and look up.
Giovanni stands on the door. Tall, so tall his eyes are out of sight. "Say it again now," he tells him. "I want to see that you're really sincere."
I'll kill you, is all that goes in Ash's dazed mind. But he swallows, his stomach twisting at the metallic taste sliding down his throat, and forces himself to say, "You—were right. I don't—belong out there. This is my place. I—I see it now."
A silence. "Very well," Giovanni considers then, though still with a guarded edge of suspicion in his words. He steps back: "Basta così. You can escort him to his room."
They drag him towards the door and through the hallway and he does his best to keep his feet, despite the pain threatening to buckle his knees every other step. It's just pain. He's had worse; he can take this. The numbers on the elevators he's pushed into flash. Up: they're not taking him underground to the cells, and even through the fog still clogging his head he feels a wave of relief rush over him. The doors open and there's more dragging and pushing and finally he's shoved into a room, and he staggers forwards and his legs do give, sending him slamming knees and elbows on the floor. The door bangs shut as he attempts to right himself, leaving him in the dark. A latch snaps into place. Silence.
He gathers himself up (tries) and looks around. It's not so dark once his eyes begin to adjust from the stark neon light in the hallway, and he recognizes the familiar, sterile room he was let into once he started obeying Giovanni's orders and he started treating him slightly less like a prisoner in return. On a corner of the bed is a Team Rocket uniform, neatly folded.
He wipes the blood from his nose and chin with the back of his hand and stands. Careful, he peels off his shirt and looks down, examining the damage: there's a constellation of fresh bruises blooming on his ribs. They hurt to touch, but he didn't feel anything crack this time, at least.
(It's just pain. He can take this.)
He takes off the rest of his clothes as well and slips into the uniform. He doesn't look at himself anymore after that—instead he sits on the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest like he did on the helicopter ride taking them back to the base. He tucks his head into them and shuts his eyes and tries to imagine Pikachu's weight on his shoulder. Misty's fingers stroking his arm, gently; not hurting, not hitting. They still believed in him, somehow, despite everything. And maybe he can no longer save himself, but he needs to believe that he can at least still do one good thing. That he can still save them.
—-
"You can, like, take the day off and get some rest if you want. I can take care of the gym for today as well," Daisy tells her in the morning. Misty shakes her head.
"Thanks, but I've had enough of sitting around. I need to do something, so—let me do this at least."
So she feeds the pokémon and scrubs the aquariums clean, and when a challenger shows up she plows through his team with more force than necessary. "...You know gym leaders aren't supposed to be impossible to beat, right?" Brock reminds her once the trainer leaves. She kicks her heel to the floor with a sigh.
"Yeah. I think I got a little carried away."
The morning is halfway done when Mrs. R's pokégear rings. Misty freezes in place, her hands going white-knuckled around the mop she was wiping water from the floor with; and less than a second later she's dropped it in the bucket and she's sprinting towards the bleachers where she left her backpack and rummaging through it until her finger close around the buzzing device. She pulls it out and flips it open with shaky hands, her heart in her temples. Brock and Pikachu crowd at her sides to look.
The small screen lights up and Mrs. R's face appears on it, slightly flickery at the edges. She squints at them through her glasses.
"Are you back in Cerulean City?"
Misty only musters a nod, the words caught somewhere along her throat. "Yeah, we took your advice," Brock answers for both of them. "I—I'll get back to Pewter soon enough, I just wanted to make sure Misty got here safe first."
The woman nods back, but she stalls then, pursing her lips and lowering her glance a little, and Misty's stomach crumples to a fist. Finally she exhales her breath in a sort-of sigh. "Listen," she says. The speakers crackle. "You're not going to like the news I have for you, so if you're not already sitting perhaps you should."
Misty shakes her head at the screen. She doesn't want to sit; she wants to know. "Just tell us," she manages to say, and at the back of her mind another image cruelly bubbles up: Delia looking at her from across the room and holding a cellphone, her face paler than chalk, looking at her and not talking. Mrs. R sighs again.
"Alright. I heard from my contact at the headquarters," she tells them. "He told me that some of Giovanni's tracking parties have returned to the base overnight. Giovanni's personal helicopter also did."
Her knees feel like water. "So they found him?" she hears herself ask, somewhere far away, and after a second Brock's hand closes tight around her arm as if to steady her. The woman gives another grim nod.
"Quite likely, aye. At the very least located him, but I think at this point it's safe enough to assume that even if Giovanni doesn't have him as we speak he will soon."
Misty's breath hitches in her chest and she shakes her head again, her fingers clamped around the pokégear. "Then we need to do something. We need—"
"To act with caution, that's what we need to do," the woman stops her. "It's not as simple as breaking into the headquarters and taking him back or whatever it is you're thinking. Something of that sort might as well be a suicide mission, not to mention we don't even know if he is indeed there yet. We need more information before we can even consider a course of action."
"Your contact—he didn't see him?"
"No, but he wouldn't necessarily. The headquarters are big, and someone brought in as a prisoner likely wouldn't be made a big show of."
She feels her eyes burn. "So—what, we should just—sit here and do nothing while who even knows what happens to him?"
"Aye, for now, that's exactly what you should do," Mrs. R says, firm. "I will get in touch again once I have more to tell you. In the meantime you should absolutely stay in your gym, or gyms, and not even think about doing anything reckless."
In the meantime. In the meantime could mean that Giovanni will have days, maybe weeks even, to hurt him again, brainwash him again, break what little there's left to be broken, and she wants to scream, wants to slam the pokégear to the floor and hear it snap in two. She does neither. On the screen the woman lowers her glance again and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, letting out another brief sigh. "I understand your concern," she says then and looks back up, locking her eyes into Misty's. "But don't forget that in opposing Giovanni you're facing someone who could crush you with a flick of his hand if he so chose. You cannot face him upfront. So for your good, and for that of your friend, you will stay put and wait until I get back to you."
The screen goes black. Misty stares at it for a moment still, blinking at her reflection; then pushes a sob back down her throat and flips the device closed. "She said—maybe they just located him. Maybe—they don't have him yet," Brock tries, but his voice is stretched thin and faltering. She drops the pokégear into her backpack and turns away.
"Don't. Please."
"Maybe—"
"Just—don't."
She dodges his eyes and Pikachu's and walks back to the mop. As she picks it up there's the slight creak of the door opening and Daisy sticks her head in: "Hey sis', there's—" she starts, then pauses, frowning. "Is everything okay?"
Misty presses her lips together for a second. "Did you need something?"
"Yeah, there's—I think there's another challenger at the door, but if it's not a good moment I can, like, tell him to come back later or—"
"No." She rubs the back of her hand quickly over her eyes and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, setting the mop back into the bucket. "It's fine. Send him in."
Daisy stares at her another couple moments, then lets the door swing shut. Still not turning to look at Brock or Pikachu, Misty steps to the edge of the pool and tries to steady her breath, reaching for the pokéballs in her pocket. Tries to push what she just learned at the back of her mind.
But Daisy comes back alone. "Weird," she says with a shrug. Misty looks questioningly at her.
"What's weird?"
"There was some guy, like, standing a few steps from the door, just looking in. I thought he was a challenger. But when I went back he was gone."
Misty frowns a bit. "What did he look like?" comes Brock's voice.
"I don't know," says Daisy. "Some hunky guy. Tall, all in black. Maybe with like, some sort of red logo on his shirt? I didn't get a very good look."
It doesn't register straight away—most times she's seen Team Rocket uniforms it was Jessie and James' and those were white, not black. But as she's about to brush it off with a shrug she remembers seeing others, a few times: the men on the St. Anne. Butch and Cassidy. Ash was wearing black when she opened the door.
All in black, maybe with like, some sort of red logo on his shirt.
A chill runs down her spine.
She turns to Brock to find the same petrified look on his face. "What?" Daisy wants to know. "Why are you guys making those faces now? Do you know who that was?"
"Close the door, Daisy," she tells her. "And if you see someone dressed like that again don't go near them. Don't talk to them. And especially don't let them in."
"Why, what's going—oh! What, you think, like—that might have been—?"
Her voice rises to a slightly panicked pitch. "Go close the door," Misty says again. Her throat is dry. Her sister looks at her wide-eyed for a moment still and then obliges, hurrying back to the hall.
She turns back to Brock. "You thought the same thing, right? That sounded like—"
"Yeah." She can see him swallow all the way from there. "It did."
Her eyes instinctively run to Togepi, still on the bleachers where it fell asleep a couple hours ago. Safe, she would add, but she's suddenly not sure anymore. "Do you think—they've been watching us since we got back here?"
Brock's hand rises to stroke the hair at the back of his head. "Well, I guess—it's not surprising, all things considered," he says. He takes a breath. "As long as they're just watching we should be—safe, I think." He stumbles a little before that word, though. "At least if we don't do anything. Remember what Mrs. R said, Giovanni probably wouldn't want to risk ending up in the spotlight for having a gym leader killed unless he had to."
"Unless he had to," Misty repeats. It falls between them like a stone in the water. He doesn't pick it up.
Not saying anything else, she walks again to the bleachers and grabs her backpack. Not for the pokégear this time; for the other thing. She slips the straps on her shoulders and the gun jabs again at her spine.
She goes back to cleaning the floor. The silence presses down on them, heavy, heavy.
—-
James's parked the balloon near the trees behind the gym, trying to hide it discreetly. As discreetly as you can hide a hot air balloon shaped like a giant Meowth head. A couple hours later they walk up to it, looking cautiously around: wind rustles the tree branches, rolling her flesh up into goosebumps.
James didn't notice anyone. "Do you want to come inside?" Misty offers. He shrugs.
"Nah, 's'fine. It's quite comfortable on here. I'll keep an eye out for weird people in black while I'm at it."
When they go back Brock sits on the bleachers and searches his backpack for his own pokégear. "I should really call my family," he sighs. "I've been away a lot longer than I expected and I haven't really spoken to them since I left save for a few texts."
She fetches Pikachu and Togepi's lunches while he dials the number. Pikachu sniffs the bowl she places in front of him and barely touches it before curling back down on the floor. She wishes she had something to say to him, but she doesn't, not any more than she has anything to say to herself; so she sits down with a sigh and sets to feeding Togepi. It seems to be in an okay mood enough to eat, at least.
He thoughts wander away after a couple minutes and she absentmindedly catches bits of Brock's phonecall. "...yeah, I just told you, everything's fine here," Forrest is telling him from the pokégear's speakers. "Well, I mean, mom and Cindy are still freaking out a bit but aside from that there's no—"
"Wait—mom and Cindy are freaking out about what?" Brock stops him. There's silence for a second. Then:
"Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention it. It's nothing to worry about, really, it's just that Cindy thinks she's seen some weird guy around the gym and she got scared and told mom, and now mom's scared as well."
Misty lifts her head, startled. A few steps from her Brock stares at the screen.
"This weird guy," he says after a moment, "did she mention what he looked like?"
She sets Togepi down and stands, dusting crumbs of pokémon food off her fingers. "I don't really remember," Forrest answers as she walks a little closer. "Why does it matter? It was probably just some guy walking by."
"It matters because I say so. Go ask Cindy what he looked like, Forrest, please."
There's a perplexed silence and then muffled footsteps and the chattering and whispers of several different voices. "Um, yeah," Forrest comes back after a minute or so. "She said he was big and wearing what looked like a black uniform. Black gloves, boots, that sort of thing. Brock, what's this about? You look really pale all of a sudden."
She can see Brock's profile tighten. He forces a smile on his lip, though, and shakes his head at the screen. "Nothing, I must—I think I've caught some bug along the way. You're right, it was probably just someone walking by. Just to be sure, though, why—don't you all stay close for the rest of today? Help mom and dad with the gym. Arceus knows they need a hand, right? The more hands the better."
They talk a bit longer after that and Forrest asks a couple times if he's sure everything's alright, unconvinced. Brock nods and keeps the smile up; but his voice wavers slightly and as soon as the call is over he drops his hands and the pokégear into his lap and his shoulders fall. He stares at the floor for several moments, then turns to her.
"They're watching your gym too," she whispers. He shakes his head. For the first time since it all started he really seems to be at a loss about what to say or do.
"Was I wrong saying that? I didn't—I didn't want them to panic, is all. They still don't know anything about this whole story and to explain it on the phone, with—"
"I think you said the right thing," she tells him. She sits down by his side. Brock flips the pokégear over and over in his hands and she can see they're not quite firm.
"She said it," he tries to rationalize. "Mrs. R, I mean, she said it. That our families would end up pulled into this as well."
Misty bites down on her lip and lets a few moments pass. "I think—maybe you should go home," she says finally. Brock looks at her.
"It's your family," she adds. She musters a slight shrug. "I think you should be with them. You should have gone back to Pewter City anyway after all."
He taps the pokégear to his knee. Presses his lips together; turns to the floor again. "Will you be okay if I go?" he asks in the end.
"Yeah," she promises. "I can sit here doing nothing just as good by myself. And I mean, just in case, I have—"
She shows him her backpack. Brock tap-tap-taps the pokégear again and releases a breath in a sigh. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. They need you more than I do right now. And I won't be alone anyway, my sister's here. And Pikachu, and all of my pokémon."
"At least Arianne is still in Sinnoh. That's far enough from here, I hope," he considers. He's silent for a few moments, his glance wandering towards the pool. "I'll see if there's a blimp leaving for Pewter. That way James can stay here with you as well."
She pulls her lips into a small smile. "See, I'll have lots of people here with me. I'm all covered. You should go."
"I'll call as soon as I'm there."
"I'll be okay," she promises again. Brock still looks anything but convinced. But he nods, after staring at the water for a bit still, and stands gathering up his backpack and the rest of his belongings.
He pulls her into a quick one-armed hug before leaving. "Be very careful, okay?" he tells her. "I don't think I can deal with being worried out of my mind for both of you at once."
"I will," she says. And she means it. It's only hours later, when she's sitting again on the edge of the pool with nothing but the splashing noises rising from it to muffle her thoughts, that the idea that had been lurking at the back of her mind since she watched him walk away pops into shape. She gulps down a lump and something else as well, something that's almost a sob, or a whimper; and pulls her knees close. The water ripples under the lights, throwing shimmering blue patterns on the walls.
—-
Giovanni has him summoned to his office in the afternoon. "I hope you're feeling better," he says, tossing a distracted glance in his direction from above a bunch of papers. "I kept my promise. Your punishment wasn't as harsh as it could have been."
Ash swallows. His fingers twitch, do it do it do it, but the glare of the two men standing behind him prickles on his neck reminding him that they're not alone and so he clenches them into fists and answers, through a throat so dry the words barely come out: "I'm fine." Giovanni nods his head.
"Good to know. Because I have a job for you," he says. He sets the papers down and studies him more thoroughly, the corners of his mouth folding into a grin. "I assume you'll have no issue getting back to work straight away, seeing how you've seemingly figured out that this is where you belong, yes?"
He's got no choice. "Of course."
"Very well," Giovanni comments. He flicks his hand in the air, beckoning him to come closer, and reaches with the other for something in the drawer of his desk. First, though, in a motion casual in appearance but too slow not to be deliberate, he runs his palm over the papers he was just holding. The edges splay a little, just enough for him to see.
Ash's blood runs cold.
Clipped to one of the pages there's pictures. Misty and Brock and Pikachu are in them, getting off the trio's balloon, walking towards the Cerulean City gym. His throat turns into sandpaper. "What's that?" he manages to ask.
"Oh, nothing of your concern for now," says Giovanni. He pulls a folder from his drawer and sets it atop the photos. "Now, about your—"
"You said you wouldn't do anything to them," Ash stops him. The man raises one eyebrow at his impertinence and his immediate instinct is to recoil, and he doesn't know how he manages not to: how he manages to keep his head up and hold his glance.
"And I won't, in fact." Again stressing that I in the same way as the other night. "I keep my promises, as you well know. Now," he markedly picks up from where he interrupted him, "about your assignment."
He flips the folder open and Ash stares down at the pictures of more people he's supposed to hurt, take from. His stomach squeezes shut. But he has to. He has to, if he wants Giovanni to ever trust him enough to have a chance. Now more than ever with the subtle threat of those photos.
"Can you do it?" Giovanni wants to know. And he feels something inside him crumble to dust as he nods, but he does it anyway.
"Yes, sir."
—-
Come the night Misty slips into bed like she's supposed to. She lets both Pikachu and Togepi snuggle under her blanket and waves a goodnight to Daisy when she stops on her door to check that she's alright. Then she waits, her eyes open wide in the dark, her heart a drum in her neck. Fingers grasped tight on her pillow, she waits until she's sure both pokémon are asleep. Until her sister in the other room probably is as well.
She tiptoes out of bed and puts her clothes back on, as quietly as she can. At her desk she scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, stumbling a bit because her hands are shaking. She throws on a hoodie and picks up the note and her backpack. She gets to the door and there she stops; and with a swooping breath she turns to get a last look at the room, at the pokémon huddled under her comforter.
Keep an eye on Togepi for me, will you?
She turns away with a weight in her chest. As she passes her sister's door she stops again, to slip her note in the crack under it.
She leaves her pokémon. She's not going to risk their lives as well.
She makes it to the back door before her motivation falters a little. Mrs. R's voice echoes in her mind: something of that sort might as well be a suicide mission. Her fingers around the knob, she closes her eyes and breathes in, slowly, slowly. Go back, a voice at the back of her head urges her; go back, you're still in time, don't open the door. Her heart is so loud in the silent hallway that she's almost afraid someone else will hear it.
I'll take care of him, Mrs. Ketchum, she said. I won't let anything happen to him this time. I promise.
She turns the knob.
It's cold outside. Pulling her hoodie tighter around herself, she takes a few uncertain steps and runs her eyes over the trees lining the yard: she sees no one, no shadows hidden in the dark, no quick movements out of the corner of her eye. She lingers there for a moment, grasping the straps of her backpack. Swallows.
You'll find him. I know you, sis'.
James is dozing asleep and he's startled to hear her approach the balloon. "Kid," he says, rubbing his hand over one eye. "What are you doing out here this late?"
Misty takes a breath and lets it go. It puffs white in the brisk night air. "Do you know where the Team Rocket headquarters are?"
He blinks at her. "Wha—?" he says, and then: "...Why do I get the feeling that I shouldn't answer?"
"Just say it," she presses. He lets his head fall back on his neck.
"Yeah, I know where the Team Rocket headquarters are. But if I'm guessing your next question right the answer is no."
"I need you to take me there," she says anyway. James groans.
"I hate being right. Nope, nu-uh, definitely no." He looks back at her. "Where's your friend? Huh"—he motions with his hand—"...tall twerp?"
"Brock," she scowls. "He had to go home. He doesn't know what I'm doing. And I need you to take me to the headquarters. They have Ash."
Probably, the same voice at the back of her mind reminds her, but even probably is enough. James sighs and crosses his arms over the edge of the basket.
"Yeah, no. I'm not doing that, kid. No way."
Misty swallows again. Her throat clicks. "You taught me how to use a gun," she reminds him. He arches his eyebrows:
"Yeah, and?"
A breath. "I—I have it in my backpack right now."
James stares at her for a second still before it sinks in. "Huh—what, are you threatening me now or what?"
"I'm not." She kicks at the grass under her shoe. "I'm just telling you that I could, if—if you leave me with no other choice."
"Ooh, yeah, so you're threatening to threaten me. You're right, that's... that's another thing entirely."
"I'm asking." It sounds almost like a sob. "I don't want to do that. But they have him and I can't—" She pauses and forces herself to breathe, trying to still the tremble in her chest. "Listen. Imagine if—if this was Jessie, okay? I don't know what you guys are, I don't even care, but I'm not wrong to think you do care about her, am I? Imagine that—right now, as we waste time arguing in my backyard and—and risking being seen and blowing what could be your only chance to save her, imagine that someone is hurting her. And that they'll hurt her again tomorrow, and the day after that, until—it won't even be Jessie anymore. What would you do then?"
James looks at her, his mouth wavering into a downturned bow. Misty tightens her fists. He lowers his head then, and brings a hand to his temples, slowly. He wrings it into his hair.
"Mew," he wails. "I am so going to regret this." And then: "Fine, kid. Hop on."