(A/N: We're almost there! After this there's another chapter and an epilogue and then we'll be done. I almost can't believe it. Hope you'll enjoy the last bit of the ride!
Thank you for reading, as usual!)
RETURNING HOME
CHAPTER 12
Daisy,
I know you'll be mad and worried when you wake up and realize I'm gone. You can yell at me for a week straight when I come back. But by the time you find this I'll already be too far for you to stop me, so please help me instead. Act like everything is normal. Don't freak out, don't call Brock. Just open the gym and get to work like you would any other day. The longer before anyone else realizes I'm not there the more time I'll have to get where I need to get safely.
And please take care of my pokémon and Pikachu for me, and be careful. Remember what I told you, if you see anyone like the guy from yesterday stay inside and don't go near them. And absolutely DON'T call the police, for any reason. It'll only be for a short while, I promise. Love you, Misty.
—-
"So what's the plan?" James asks as the balloon rises over the rooftops of Cerulean. "Because you do have a plan, right?"
Misty bites her lip and stares down at the city, its lights speckles of yellow and white in the dark. The rough edge of the basket presses into her palms. "I don't," she admits finally, and behind her James pauses for a moment.
"...Yeah. Gimme a sec," he says, adjusting the wheel on the burner. "Must be this thing's noise. Because I thought I just heard you say that you don't have a plan, and that clearly can't be what you actually said, because—"
"I don't," she stops him. "I don't have a plan, fine?"
Another pause. "So wait, let me get this straight. You're making me take you to the Team Rocket headquarters on some... some crazy impromptu one-woman rescue mission and you don't even have a smidgen of an idea what you're going to do once we're there?" She nods. He groans. "That's no good, kid. That's no good at all. You gotta have a plan. That's what we always did, me and Jessie and Meowth."
Misty glances at him. "Your plans were ridiculous. And they failed every time."
"Yeah, exactly! So imagine how much worse things would have gone if we didn't have them."
She shakes her head and turns back to the blanket of lights below. "Have you ever been to the headquarters before?"
"Yeah, a couple times."
"Just a couple times?"
"Yep. You know, the bo—our ex-boss didn't... exactly hold us in the highest regards, as you can probably imagine. He kind of preferred, well, not having to look at us."
A burst of wind picks up the balloon, taking them higher into the night sky. It slips into the neck of her hoodie too and she shivers a little: "Is it far from here?"
"Kind of, yeah. It's probably gonna take at least all of tomorrow to get there."
She tries not to think about what that could mean for Ash. "And what's it like? I mean, the place?"
"Uhh, huge-ass building in the middle of nowhere. Really well guarded. Kinda screams 'come any closer and you'll be shot on sight'."
"Would there be any way to get inside without being seen?"
James sighs. "Yeah, sure, if you can turn invisible or teleport or something like that," he says. "Did you listen to the 'really well guarded' part? There's sentinels at every entrance. You need to identify yourself in order to be let it. It's where the—where Giovanni spends most of his time, so it goes without saying that he doesn't want just anyone to be able to sneak in under his nose."
Misty presses her lips together and doesn't retort. "So hey, if you've changed your mind, there's still plenty of time to turn this thing around and get you back home," he continues. "I sure wouldn't blame you. All you gotta do is say it and—"
"I didn't change my mind," she cuts him off. She breathes: her throat is drier than paper still, squeezed tight. "I'll think of something. Looks like I'm gonna be stuck up here with you for a while, yeah? I'll—" a hitch. "I'll figure something out."
His turn now not to say anything, and for a bit they go on in silence, the only sounds the steady roar of the burner and the wind whistling through the ropes. Below the city keeps unraveling, less bright now that they've left behind the center and are flying over the outskirts. "What does Giovanni do to his prisoners?" she asks after a while. Her lips feel numb: she tells herself it's the cold. James is silent for a second. Then shakes his head.
"Nah. Ain't answering this one. Next question?"
She turns to shoot him an annoyed glare. "I can take it."
"I'm sure. No, really, I mean it." He shows her his palms, seemingly alarmed by her stance; then leans back onto the basket. "But you don't need to, alright? There's nothing you can do about it right now, and I'm pretty sure you've got enough stuff to worry about already. It's not gonna do any good to anyone to torture yourself thinking about that as well." He shrugs. "Besides, your friend's not just any prisoner. Pretty sure it's in Giovanni's best interest to keep him alive and with all of his body parts attached and working."
She considers. "That's... not exceptionally comforting, you know."
"You asked," he reminds her. She sighs and turns back around, pulling her hoodie tight around herself. "Hey," he says after a couple moments, "Are you sure you don't wanna stop in Pewter City and pick up your other friend first? Two people might not be an army but it's still better than one, I guess."
"Uh-uh." She keeps her eyes on the swaying lights. "He'd try to stop me, I'm sure. And I don't want to—risk his life as well."
"'Kay. Anyone else, then? Surely there's plenty of people out there who care enough about the kid to join you on your crazy mission if you asked."
"I said no," she insists, even though a tremble's set at the bottom of her chest somewhere and her words come out wavery as well, all crumpled together at odd places. "I'm not going to put anyone else in danger. Just me is enough."
She can hear him let out a sigh. "Yeah," he says. "Listen, kid, it's really brave and noble, what you're doing. I mean wanting to do it all by yourself. But if you die or—or get yourself captured and thrown in a cell somewhere you won't help your friend."
The lights have gone a little swimmy too. She keeps staring, though, trying not to blink, and manages a shrug. "Guess I'll just have to avoid dying or getting captured then."
"Clearly," James groans. But he doesn't add anything else and they go on, cutting silently through the night. After a while the city's barely a twinkle in the dark, the size of her palm; then not even that. She closes her eyes and listens as the wind howls around the balloon, stronger, stronger.
—-
After what can't be longer than a couple hours James's back to fiddling with the burner and the balloon begins to lose height. "What are you doing?" she asks, turning to look at him.
"Landing," he says. She scowls.
"Yeah, I can see that. But why?"
Below them it's all trees, hardly distinguishable in the dark. James keeps lowering the flame. "We've got a few hideouts and storehouses here and there, me and the others," he answers. "Mostly to keep stuff. You know, costumes, weapons, all those things. And there's one—" he leans over the edge of the basket and squints down. Points: "—right there."
She follows the direction of his finger and after a second makes out a small rectangle half-hidden between the treetops. A roof. "And why are we stopping?"
"Just wanna pick up a couple things."
"What things?"
He doesn't answer. Moments later the balloon's scraping against the branches and the basket's hit the forest bed with a thud. "Wait there. I'll be back in a minute," he tells her as he throws one leg over the edge; then pauses and turns back again. "And keep the gun at hand. You never know. Just try not to shoot me when I get back, 'kay?"
She's not left with much of a choice, so she slides one hand into her backpack and closes it around the handle of the gun and waits, watching as her breath fogs shakily into the air. Listening, all of her senses alert and tingly. But she hears nothing save from the familiar rustlings and hootings of the forest at night, and he's back after a handful of minutes as promised, stumbling and cursing under his breath. He's got a sack under each arm and hauls both at her feet, one after the other: "Some more food," he says, "and something that might come in handy later."
He doesn't say more and they leave again, with more scraping noises as they rise back up over the treetops. Soon the small roof's gone from sight, like the city before it, and below it's all a sweep of trees once again, still and silent.
—-
The sack with the pokéballs makes a rattling noise as he tosses it on Giovanni's desk. Unrushed, the man slides a paper knife along the fold of an envelope and then glances down at it: "Ah," he comments, "I see the job went well."
"Yes sir," Ash nods. Giovanni's eyes study him once more.
"Did you encounter any difficulties?"
He swallows. The lab they broke into should have been empty and it wasn't: the moment he let himself in through the window his eyes met those of a researcher working late and for a second she just stared at him, and her eyes were brown and they were huge and she wasn't very old and maybe she wasn't even a researcher, maybe she was just a student or something, and then she tried to run for help and he reached for the pokéballs at his belt and he was so stupid, wasn't he, to hope he'd never have to do that again—
"Nothing I couldn't easily handle," he answers. Giovanni keeps watching him.
"You look aggravated," he comments. He sets the paper knife down and for a moment Ash's glance lingers on it, on the blade maybe sharp enough to cut through skin if thrust with enough force and in the right place. But there's the men still, and Giovanni's Persian, looking lazily up at him from behind the desk. Maybe he'd have enough time to close his fingers around the handle. Maybe to plunge it, too, or to attempt. But then Persian would be on him and the men next, and if the one blow he could maybe-manage wasn't fatal he'd have busted his only chance. He takes his eyes off.
"I'm just tired."
The man gives a "hm" and shifts through the papers inside the envelope before directing his attention back to him. "I know you don't particularly enjoy your duties," he says. Ash shrugs.
"I don't have to enjoy them."
"I'm not finished. I know you don't particularly enjoy your duties," Giovanni reprises, "but if you continue to do well that won't always be your place. As you already know I started out as a simple grunt too, many years ago. Then eventually I was promoted to executive, and now," he lies back into his armchair a little, his lips stretching into an eloquent grin. "The same might still apply to you one day, if you continue to not disappoint me. I'm willing to forgive your past mistakes now that you seem to have come to your senses."
Ash swallows again and says nothing. Giovanni's glance still holds a glint of mistrust, a guarded anticipation.
"Do you want that?" he asks him. He takes a gravelly breath.
"Yes," he says. And then, though it feels like spit: "Father."
The man's eyebrows shoot up a bit. "That's a new one," he comments after a second. "I don't recall you ever calling me that before."
Ash holds his stare and again doesn't speak. The man lets a couple moments pass; then tips his head and returns to his papers. "Very well. You're dismissed. Escort him back to his room."
"Can I—ask you one thing first?"
Giovanni looks back up and signals for the men to wait. He breathes in again.
"Did you know I was in Viridian City? Is that why you were there?"
Giovanni looks somewhat amused by his question. "In all earnest, I did not," he answers. "I knew where you weren't: at your house nor at any of your friends' places. I was in Viridian to take care of some unrelated matters, so you can imagine my surprise when I walked into my office to find you there. Perhaps it was meant to be."
Ash blinks a little. He wasn't expecting him to admit to not knowing something. He wasn't expecting him to not know something, to be honest.
"Perhaps," he says with a slight shrug. One of the men's gloved hand closes around his elbow, steering him towards the door.
—-
In the morning they're flying over trees still, now north of Celadon City. In the distance she can see the pale shape of Mt. Moon, shrouded by fog. Daisy's probably realized that she's gone by now.
"Where are we going exactly?" she asks at some point. The wind blows into her hair, pushing it on her face like a curtain.
"To the mountain area in the northern part of the region," James answers. "That's where the main base is. Kinda hard to find."
She purses her lips. Below them roll greens and yellows and oranges; the brown of a dirt patch or a path here and there. A shiny silvery ribbon: a creek. "Giovanni," she says after a while, not taking her eyes off. "What's he like?"
James appears to think about it. "He's, well, a lot of things. What do you want to know?"
"If—" The words jumble together a little in her mind. She takes a breath. "If Ash hadn't told you that he's his father, would you ever have guessed it?"
"Um. No, that's—no. No, definitely no. Can't think of a single thing they have in common. Um, they both have dark hair? That's it. Plenty of people do, though."
She turns. "So they're nothing alike? I mean their personality. Aren't they similar at all?"
"Nah." James rubs his chin. "I mean, I might not know your friend super well, and I've certainly never been the boss's confidant, but from what I know of both? Nah. Your friend's a good kid. A little stupid maybe. Sorry. But hell, I've seen him jump in the way of something extremely dangerous to defend his pokémon or you or some random stranger so many times that it's a true wonder he even lived long enough for Giovanni to kidnap him and fake his death—"
"Tell me about it."
He leans back against the basket. "Yeah, well," he says. "Giovanni, he's pretty much as far from that as you can get. Would sacrifice anyone if it served his purpose. Save for his Persian, maybe, but I wouldn't bet money on it. He'd definitely never move a finger to help someone unless he could gain something from it, and even then he'd make someone else do it. They're like day and night if you ask me. Which, why were you asking, anyway?"
Misty sighs and turns back around. "Somehow he's got Ash convinced that he's just like him."
"Yeah, he would. He's good at getting into your head. Can't even imagine what a whole year of him doing that could do to someone."
She keeps staring down in silence for a bit. "How did he get to where he is?"
"Huh?"
"I mean—Giovanni, I know he wasn't always the head of the team. Do you know how he joined it? Maybe there was a time when—he didn't want to and he was forced, like—"
She stops. Behind her James sighs. "I dunno, kid, sorry. He was already there when we joined. But listen... Giovanni's the kind of person who enjoys sitting back and watching others suffer, okay? Pretty sure you don't just turn like that if you ain't already got something wrong with your head from the start. Yeah, he might have done a fine job at manipulating your friend, but I don't think he's going to turn into... Giovanni 2.0 if that's what you're worrying about."
Misty thinks of the way Ash flinched away from her after she saw him hurt someone. Of the tremble in his hands: thinks of the photo she kept on her mirror, of that smile as he pulled her towards who-knows-what, bright, bright. Of a glimmer of that same light still afire at the bottom of his eyes, not gone, not done with. She shakes her head.
"I'm not worried about that."
They fly over a burnt barren patch; over a steep spread of rocks, all peaks and spires, over more green. After a while she closes her eyes, listening to the wind and the spluttering of the burner. She drives her fingernails into the straw of the basket and remembers something she said once, almost in another lifetime: Ash is never really alone. He's got me.
"Hey, can I ask you one thing now?" comes James' voice. She opens her eyes, slightly startled, and glances at him.
"Yeah?"
James smushes his lips together. "Huh, you and the kid—I mean, are you two...?"
It takes a moment for his half-babbled question to sink in. She turns away again, a heat crawling up to her cheeks: "No."
"No?"
"No."
"Not even a little bit? Because we, me and the others, I mean back before this all happened, we kinda had a bet placed on whether—"
She hides her face against her palm. "Oh Arceus. Shut up."
"So it's a yes?"
She doesn't answer. After a few moment she takes her hand off and breathes, her face still burning a little. She can feel James' eyes still on her back and keeps hers obstinately on the line of clouds along the horizon, biting down on the inside of her cheek until it hurts. The sun's hanging higher into the sky. She wonders what Daisy is doing.
They don't talk for a while.
—-
(She saved him from the sea that once. Found him and dragged him back to shore, in the water so cold she could barely breathe or move. She'll find him this once, too. She has to. She has to.
Ash is never really alone. He's got me.)
—-
They're still nowhere close to their destination come dusk, and the forest's only just starting to give way to the barrening foothills of the mountains. "You said we'd be there by now," she accuses him, tense, though she knows it's not exactly so. James sighs a bit.
"I said probably," he retorts, beginning to lower the flame. She stares.
"Why are we stopping?"
"I need to sleep, kid, or else I'm gonna crash us into one of these rocks. And you need sleep too. Better stop here while there's still some trees to hide us."
"I'm fine," she grumbles, but that's not entirely true either: her eyes are starting to feel heavy, filled with sand. She rubs them with her fingertips and hears a soft scoff.
"Yeah, sure. Hear me out, if I were about to attempt something as stupid as trying to infiltrate into the secret base of a giant criminal organization on my own I'd like to think I'd at least have the sense to do it on a few hours of sleep."
The basket thuds against the ground, raising a puff of dust. James steps out and secures the balloon; gathers a few branches to lit a small fire. They sit across from each other and eat more canned food while the sky turns a deep veined purple. After he tells her that she can sleep first if she wants, and he'll stand watch and wake her up in a few hour so they can switch places: "There should be a blanket in there somewhere. Yep, that one."
So she pulls the raggedy blanket around herself and for a while stares up at the sky, at its thickening darkness and its blooming stars. Sleep doesn't come easily despite the weariness still weighing on her bones, her mind spinning too quickly for that: she thinks of her sister, wondering how she reacted to finding her bed empty and her note under the door, wondering if she did what she asked and trusted her to come back alive. She thinks of what expects her tomorrow and her stomach is a stone in her belly, heavy and cold. She thinks of him.
Hold on. Please, you stupid idiot. Above the stars twinkle against the dark. I'll get you out of there. I don't know how yet but I will.
Her eyes drift closed and she sleeps, finally. She doesn't dream.
—-
It takes another few hours of flight before the headquarters come into sight. At first it's just a mirror glint among the rocks, and James rummages again into one of the sacks at their feet and hands her a pair of binoculars: "There, look."
She looks. They're still too far away to see very clearly, but she can still make out the mountain peaks giving way to a flatter terrain and at its center a tall, large steel building glaring in the sun. She swallows, her throat suddenly tight. Around it it's just nothingness, no roads, no other buildings, nothing that could make a good hiding place save for the sparser rocky spires. "Best if we stop here and continue on foot," James says after a couple minutes. "This thing ain't hard to spot. If we can see them it won't be long before they can see us."
They land again. This time he deflates the balloon, after securing the basket. She keeps looking through the binoculars as he does: she can see a bit more now, a cluster of communication antennae at the top and the unmistakable red shape of an R looming over what must be the entrance. Her breath hitches a little. James hauls one of the sacks to the ground.
"So," he wants to know, "your plan?"
Misty presses her lips together. She watches for a few moments still; then lowers the binoculars and stares at the glinting metal square, stares, until the sunglare burns into her eyes. "What if—" she starts, then stops and swallows again, her mouth drier than the rocky landscape around them. "What if you snuck me in pretending I'm a prisoner? I know I'm asking a lot," she quickly adds, before he gets a chance to answer. "You'd just have to get me inside. You can leave then. I'll—I'll figure out what I'm going to do next once I'm there."
He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, no," he says. "But not because of how much you're asking. Hello? I can't really walk inside freely either at this point. I've been carrying you kids around for, what, 'bout a week now? If they've been watching your gym they've seen us coming and going too. They know we're with you. The moment I identify myself as agent James Rochester you can bet Giovanni's gonna be alerted."
Her teeth sink into her lip. She hadn't really stopped to consider the extent to which her actions would affect him, or Jessie or Meowth, and "I'm sorry," comes out of her now, her glance falling to the dirt at her feet. James shrugs.
"For what?"
"For—this." She gestures to their surroundings, shaking her head. "I was thinking—that once you got me here you could just... leave, and that'd be it. But you can't really do that anymore, can you? I mean, even if you do leave—the three of you are going to be in just as much danger as the rest of us. Maybe worse since you betrayed Giovanni."
Her eyes sting a little. There was some guy who tried to betray the team once while I was there, she remembers Ash telling her. She remembers the rest, too, and kicks her foot to the ground, not looking up. He clicks his tongue.
"Come on, kid, now's not the time for regrets. And honestly," he exhales a slight huff of a nervous laugh, "if we really didn't want to help ya don't you think we would have taken the first chance to bail out? I brought you all the way here, I knew what I was getting into. Consider it payback for all the times we pestered you for Pikachu if you want."
She says nothing. "Now," James picks up, "I take you're still short of anything resembling a plan, yeah? Let's at least—" he crouches down to the sack at his feet "—try to stand out a bit less while you think about it."
He hands her a bundle of black fabric. "It's Jessie's. We had 'em in case we needed to disguise ourselves as regular grunts. It'll be a little big on you, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess."
She unfolds it to find herself staring at a Team Rocket uniform. For a few seconds she just stares at it, the muscles in her jaw tightening; then sighs.
"Turn."
James complies. She takes off her hoodie and the rest of her clothes and quickly slips into the uniform, shivering a bit: the fabric sags around her chest and hips, indeed at least a couple sizes too large. She straightens the creases under her palms as best as she can and buckles the belt and pulls on the gloves, and the boots he fished out of the sack next, tucking her socks into the tips to make them fit. James waits, not-so-patiently whistling through his teeth. She closes her eyes and lets out another sigh.
"You can look."
He does. For a moment he studies her, his lips pursed: "You make a decent grunt," he decides then. "A little scrawny, maybe. Wait—"
"That's not really a compliment, you know," she grumbles as he bends again over the sack. He hands her a beret.
"The last touch. Now, if you'll do me the same courtesy..."
He begins to peel off his shirt before she has the time to. She blinks and spins on her heels, her face slightly afire: "What are you doing?!"
"Changing into something more situation-appropriate, like you just did."
"You don't have to come. I can do it alone."
"Come on, you didn't really think I'd let you try to get in there all by yourself, did you? Like you'd last five minutes."
She doesn't retort. Her eyes have fallen back on the building and her throat's again squeezed shut, her words stuck inside. She watches it for another few seconds, her mouth all dust; then takes a breath and undoes her ponytail, to tuck her hair under the beret. She reaches for her backpack and takes out the gun, and slips it into the back of her belt, pulling her shirt down to cover it. Her hands shake a little throughout.
"...Hey, kid," comes James' voice after a few moments. He's slipping on a pair of gray gloves, much like the ones she's wearing herself. "We can still go back if you want. Last chance."
Her insides are all crumpled tight, but she shakes her head. "No. I—I want to do it. I have to."
"As you wish," he sighs. He steps closer and picks up the binoculars she left on the ground. "If you want my advice, I'd wait till it's dark before doing anything. That way we'll have more chances to at least get closer without being seen."
Misty presses her lips together. "That's another six or seven hours for Giovanni to torture him."
"Yeah, well. Better than a lifetime because you got shot and died before even getting a good look at the place."
A gust of wind rises. James squints at the headquarters through the binoculars, his brow furrowing into a frown. "Can't tell how well guarded it is from here. But every other time I've been here there's been sentinels at every door."
"Do you think there's any way we could distract some of them and—"
There's a shrill sound and they both jump. It takes her a couple seconds to identify the source: the pokégear in her backpack, the one she got from Mrs. R. James exhales a breath as she pulls it out, bringing a hand to his chest.
"Mew, kid, next time please turn that off. Wait, is that...?"
"Yeah." She bites her lip. "Crap. Do I answer? She—kinda told me not to do anything stupid."
He sighs. "Figures. Yeah, I'd answer. Worst case scenario she's gonna be real pissed, but it's not like she can do anything about it at this point. And maybe she's got something important to tell you."
She braces herself. Then flips the device open, remembering after a second to yank the beret off her head.
"Where are you, stupid girl?!" sure enough blares from the speakers before the image's even come into focus. Misty flinches: Mrs. R's face is all a scowl when the static clears, her eyes molten iron behind the lens of her glasses. She bites her lip again.
"I'm," she breathes, "in front of the Team Rocket headquarters."
The woman raises a hand to her forehead. "And to think I told you—and you!" She takes the hand off and her eyes run to James. "She's a child, I suppose one can only expect so much, but you! I thought you had at least an ounce of sense in that head of yours, but evidently I was wrong."
"Yeah, huh," James rubs the back of his neck. "She... had some really compelling arguments—"
Mrs. R presses her face into her palm again. "How did you know I wasn't at the gym anymore?" Misty asks. She earns another glare.
"What do you think? Your friend called Jessie, who called me—"
"...Dammit, I told Daisy not to tell him anything—"
"—because apparently it's now my job to clean up after whatever mess you kids make." The woman takes a deep breath. "Alright, alright. Tell me no one's seen you yet at least."
"We just got here."
"Oh, good. Now listen to me. You will both get back on that stupid balloon and return to Cerulean City. Immediately."
Misty closes her eyes. Breathes, again, in and out. "I won't."
"You're not thinking straight, girl. You cannot succeed with this. You will get yourself imprisoned or killed, and probably that knucklehead there with you as well. You need to get—"
"I won't!" she stops her. "And you can't make me. I'll get in there and find Ash. I don't care what you think of it."
"You will die if you try," the woman insists. "And if you don't you'll wish you had. James, please, get her back on that balloon. Use force if you must."
"Try and I'll break your bones," Misty warns him. She turns back to the screen then; and rolls the words around on her tongue, careful, weighing them.
"Your contact," she says finally. "The—the one inside the base. The one who gave you the info about the search parties and all that. Could he let us in?"
Mrs. R blinks slowly. "Have you been listening to a single word of what I said? Give me one—just one good reason why I should aid you in cutting your life short."
"Because I will do it." Her voice falters a little. She tries to steady it, keeping her eyes fixed into the woman's. "I will do it with or without your help. You can't do anything to stop me. But with your help maybe—I'll have a slightly bigger chance to make it out alive."
There's a silence. Wind rises again, blowing tendrils of hair on her face. "James," the woman pleads. "Please."
"Yeah, I kinda... like my bones," he says. "Sorry."
On the small screen the woman's hand rises again to her temples. Presses. "Wait there," she says next, a powerless wrath vibrating under her words. "Listen to me on this at least. Do no move a muscle until I call back."
A brief flashing sparkle and the screen goes dark. "...Wow," James comments after a second. "Nicely played, kid, you got us a way in. I take it back, you're too smart to be a grunt."
She doesn't reply. She closes the pokégear and sets it down atop her backpack. Her stomach is in knots: she sits down on the ground and curls up around it, waiting, her fingers digging into the fabric of Jessie's uniform. Her knuckles turn white. In the distance the headquarters building is still glaring in the sun.
—-
("My contact will pick you up in an hour with a supply van," Mrs. R tells them.)
James taps her elbow and points: there's a dust cloud coming towards them, too far away still to see anything else. She jumps to her feet all the same, her heart suddenly in her throat, bringing her hand to her back to check that the gun is still there. Next to her James rises more slowly and gets a last look through the binoculars before setting them down.
"Stay behind me, 'kay? Just for now," he says. He keeps one hand on the pokéballs at his belt, his lips pursed. Misty stares at the cloud and her pulse is a drum, so loud it almost drowns out the engine's roar.
She makes out the shape of a black van next. Then the splashes of red at its sides.
("He will ask for a password. It's—")
"Sunflower," James tells the man at the wheel. He's young, with a short brown beard peppering his jaw and broad shoulders under a black uniform matching the ones they're wearing. He nods to the back of the van:
"Get in."
They do. It's packed full with bags of rice and jerky and she has to press her back to the flank to let the doors close, the handle of the gun digging into her spine. Then they're in the dark and the engine coughs under their feet and seconds later they're moving, bumping over every ridge and furrow of the uneven terrain; and maybe it's just because of that that her stomach is crumpled so tight and her knees feel like gelatin. Her palms are slippery under her gloves.
"Hey—once we're inside," James says. She can hear him lick his lips, tense. "If anyone says anything to us, you keep your mouth shut and let me speak, fine? If you blow our cover we're done."
She scowls in his general direction. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you don't know the place and you ain't got any training! So shut up and let me do the talking unless you want someone to notice."
He's right, probably, and she forces herself to swallow down her resentment. Her throat feels like sand still. "Fine."
The van hits a hole in the ground, slamming her shoulder blades against the wall. "Great," James sighs. "And don't act weird. There's sentinels and security cams 'round every corner, so just pretend like you know your business and walk. Once we're in we should be able to move around pretty freely as long as they believe we're two of them, but if we raise suspicions it's over."
They turn to the left. The van slows down: there's the muffled sound of a shutter closing. The blade of sunlight filtering from under the doors turns into the dimmer glow of artificial light.
("He'll get you inside and then opt out of the operation. I'll have no further responsibility in this.")
"Thanks, mate," James says to the driver as they get off, adjusting the beret on his head. The man keeps his eyes on the wall.
"I never saw you."
Misty looks around. They're in what seems to be a large storage room, filled with rows and rows of shelves of food and supplies stretching all the way to the beamed ceiling. Her footsteps echo a little, followed by the clang of James sliding the van door closed, and her breath catches in her throat and comes out in shaky puffs: they're inside. There's no going back now, no changing her mind, and she squeezes her hands into fists and tries desperately to push back the panic swelling in her gut. James stops next to her.
"You alright, kid? Hope you didn't have a last-minute change of heart. It's a little too late for that at this point, I'm afraid."
"No, I'm—" Her hand runs again to the gun. "I'm fine. I'm alright."
She says it a couple more times in her mind, to be sure. Then turns to look at him. "Where would they keep a prisoner?"
He ponders about it for a moment. Nods his chin to the rows of shelves next. "Start walking. I don't see cameras in here, but if there are we'll draw less attention if we move," he says, then answers as they go: "There's cells in the undergrounds, I think."
"You think?"
"Yeah. Never actually seen 'em. It's more the sort of thing that gets whispered about, you know? Screw this one up and you'll get thrown in the undergrounds."
She swallows. "Can you get me there?"
"Only one way to find out."
—-
Her heart's a rabbit's run in her temples as they make their way through a sterile maze of corridors. "Just keep walking," James tells her in a breath as she half-freezes hearing footsteps; and the man who turns the corner passes them without giving them a second look. The blank eyes of the security cameras follow them around with a slight whirring noise.
"Do you actually know where we're going?" she whispers after a while. More footsteps: a man and a woman in black come from around another corner and again her insides go to ice, but once again they cross paths without incidents. He waits until they're gone.
"Yeah, well, kind of."
"Kind of?"
"Keep your voice down. I told ya, I haven been here all that often. I'm trying to orient myself."
Misty bites the inside of her cheek, listening as their own steps echo along the halls. "When we find him—how do we get him out?"
He raises his eyebrows. "Asking the big questions there. I dunno, kid. First let's figure out where they're keeping him."
They come to an elevator door after a few more twists and turns, and "There, that way," James rejoices under his breath, heading towards it. His thumb hits the call button. The floor numbers at the top flash on, each accompanied by a soft ding.
The moment the doors open she comes eye to eye with a tall woman in a gray uniform. For a second there's silence, bright and cold like a blade. Then James nods his head.
"Ma'am," he says, stepping aside to let her pass. The woman nods back almost imperceptibly and walks past them, followed by the clicking of her heels against the marble floor. James quickly nudges her into the elevator.
"Phew," he exhales as the doors close again. "An officer, judging by the uniform. You don't wanna mess with those. Hey, looks like you do make a convincing grunt. Who'd have thought."
Misty leans back against the wall, her knees all wobbly. "Now what?"
He studies the keypad for a couple seconds and pushes another button. "Now let's hope this is actually the right way."
The elevator rattles and starts descending, and she allows herself a couple last shaky intakes of breath before righting herself, her fingers tightening back into fists. A few moments still and they hit the lower level. The doors part with a hiss.
They're faced with another stretch of corridor and at the end of it a man stands at attention by another door, watchful, arms stiff at his sides. Misty's stomach lurches a bit. James throws her a swift look as he steps out: walk, it says. Let me speak.
She complies. The lights are dimmer than above, flickery as they walk under the neon tubes. A row of monitors lines one of the walls; she only dares to give the screens a passing glance, but she still glimpses the grainy, black and white image of bars under her pale-faced reflection. Ahead of her James stops and clears his voice.
"We've got orders to question a prisoner."
The man looks at them and Misty sees the bulk of his muscles under the uniform, sees the gun sticking out of the holster at his belt and for a second she's sure he'll see straight through their stupid disguises and reach for it—wonders if she'd be able to grab hers just as fast. But he nods then, and presses for them a button on the wall. The door opens right away, revealing another elevator.
They step in. Another hiss and once again they go down, and her pulse hikes to a furious nauseating throb. It's too easy, the voice at the back of her mind nags her; too easy, something's got to be wrong. James takes a nervous breath.
"Listen, kid," he whispers. "If your friend's there—you keep it together and don't do anything for now, alright? Even if he's hurt or something, I don't care. We'll probably be watched, you seen those screens up there? We need to figure out how to get him out without drawing attention first of all."
She nods.
(too easy too easy too—)
The elevator hits the ground again. Another slight ding and the doors slide open.
The smell hits her before anything: strikes her face like a slap and her stomach turns over, its contents threatening to climb their way back up her throat. The stench of stale air and under that of blood, of sweat; of pain. She never thought pain could smell of something but this, this has got to be it. Only after a few moments she takes in the darkness, too, and how the light coming from inside the elevator pours into a puddle at their feet and then stops, barely outlining the shape of metal bars. Her eyes water without so much as a warning.
He kept me locked in a cell, she remembers Ash saying.
I held on for... I dunno, maybe a month.
"I can see why this place gets the bad rap it gets," says James. He finds a switch on the wall and flips it on and more neon tubes light up one after the other, illuminating a long corridor flanked by bars at both sides. "Well, let's find out if your friend's here."
It takes her a few seconds to convince her legs to move. She blinks back her tears as best as she can and follows, her nails pressing into her palms through the gloves. Some of the cells are empty. Some aren't, but the prisoners don't look at them or shrink away at the sound of their footsteps, and for some there's the rattling of chains and she can't—she can't. She stops, her chest full of a dense swelling ache. James notices after a couple steps and turns to look at her.
"Kid? I know this is rough, but—"
"No, I—I—" She closes her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to breathe. She can feel them hot. "...fine. I'm fine."
Ash didn't get the luxury of backing out. He didn't get to decide whether he was strong enough to take it all.
They go on. She looks into each of the cells and none of the prisoners are him, none of the scarred, wasting bodies are his and she doesn't know what she's hoping for each time she turns her eyes towards the next. But he's still not there when they come to the end of the corridor and she stops again, staring at the wall in front of them like she could will it out of existence; turning to look back into the last empty cell like she could somehow have missed him. She only finds herself looking at another musty wall.
Probably, the voice reminds her. Her teeth sink into her lip.
"Looks like we came down here for nothing," says James. She shakes her head.
"Where else could he be? Is there some other place where they keep prisoners?"
"I dunno. Maybe Giovanni wants his special prisoner in some special cell or something."
"Or maybe he's not even here."
He stares. "Wait—what? You mean you're not sure?"
"I—" She bites her lip harder. "Thought so."
"You thought so?"
Her stomach is a heavy stone. "Mrs. R told us that Giovanni called back the tracking parties he'd sent out to look for him. She—we thought it meant that they found him."
Not daring to look at him, she takes a couple steps towards the cell and closes her fingers around one of the bars. It's cold, even through the fabric of her glove: the whole place is. On the other side she sees rust stains on the floor, lingering deep into the crevices between tiles. Her chin quivers.
(His men would beat me. ... Every day, until I did what he wanted.)
James lets out a long sigh. "Well, no use crying over spilled milk now," he says after a moment. "We're here. Might as well continue looking. Maybe he really is somewhere else. I don't see many other reasons why Giovanni would stop looking."
She gulps down the tearful lump in her throat and forces herself to take her eyes off. You'll find him, Daisy told her; I know you. She turns:
"So—where do we look next?"
Before he can answer there's the ding of the elevator reaching the floor and they both freeze, startled. The door opens: the man from before steps out, one hand raised to his hip. Misty's heart jumps in her throat.
"What are you two really doing down here?" he questions with a frown. His voice echoes between the narrow walls. "I've been watching you. You haven't been questioning any prisoners."
She swallows and quickly looks to James, but he's silent as well, the muscles in his jaw tightened and sharp. The man steps forward.
"I'm gonna ask one more time, in case you didn't hear. I'm going to need you to identify yourselves and clarify your intents." His hand lingers for a moment on the weapon at his belt—skips it and stops on the next object. A radio, she realizes with cold, distinct clarity as he unhooks it. "Or perhaps I can check directly with the boss if you've really been given that order. Hm?"
She holds her breath. Slowly, slowly, she reaches for the gun.
—-
This time Giovanni sets down his papers more readily when he walks into his office. "Come closer," he says; his hand beckons him, in a flicker of gemstones and gold.
He obeys. Giovanni laces his fingers and sets his chin atop them, and for a long moment he studies him, not talking. "I'm still unclear as to what prompted your sudden change of heart," he tells him finally. Ash gives a slight shrug. His right shoulder protests a little, sore from a scuffle during last night's job that added a couple more bruises to his collection.
"I told you. I've figured out this is my place."
"Yes, yes. I heard you," the man nods. "What I want to know is why. You clearly didn't feel that way when you ran away from me. What's changed?"
"I—" He takes a breath. He's not stupid: he expected him to not be satisfied with what he told him. Yet his fingers twitch nervously, and he has to ball them into fists to still them. "I saw my friends, and my—and my mother. Until I did I still didn't want to believe everything you told me. But the more time I spent with them, the more—I saw it was all true." He breathes in again. "I'm not like them. I don't belong there. And they wouldn't want me either, if they knew—what I am really. They'd be disgusted just like you always told me. I saw you were always right. That's what's changed."
The words are heavy in his mouth. And heavier still the bitter, lingering hunch that maybe they're not lies, that they would really think that if they saw how easily he slipped back into the role Giovanni crafted for him; that they would be right. But he needs to hold onto that facade with all of the strength he's got if he wants a last chance to prove that it's not all he is.
Giovanni's eyes keep studying him. He straightens his back then, and once again pulls open the drawer of his desk to pick out a folder. He lays it in front of him:
"Open it."
He complies, again. As he lifts the cover his throat fills with sand: lying in front of his eyes are the photos he saw two nights ago, of Misty and Brock and Pikachu. "What's this?" he manages to ask, his voice a hoarse rasp of a sound.
Giovanni lies back into his armchair. "The missions I've been sending you on for the past two nights," he says. "They were a test. I didn't especially need those pokémon, or those badges. What I really wanted was to see if you really were willing to do anything I asked from you again, and I'm quite pleased to say that so far you've proved yourself. I wish there was more time for that, but it seems that we're going to have to speed things up a little."
He shakes his head. "What things? What does this have to do with my friends?"
"I was getting there." Persian nudges Giovanni's leg and he lowers one hand to stroke his fur. "You see, I'd love to be able to say that now that you're back everything is in its rightful place, but it's not quite so. You've shaken things up some by letting your friends and your mother know that you aren't dead. And unfortunately it looks like your friends are shaping up to be a nuisance. Nothing that can't be taken care of, of course, but, well," a grin flashes on his lips "someone's going to have to do that."
"You said you wouldn't do anything to them." He can feel the panic blistering under his voice, a hand wrenching, wrenching. "You said—"
"I said I wouldn't unless they forced me to, if my memory serves me right. As I believe it does," Giovanni stops him. He touches his fingertips to one of the photos, a blurry night shot of the trio's balloon taking flight. "Your friend, the Cerulean City gym leader, has been sighted while leaving the gym overnight. Accompanied by one of my agents no less." He glances up at him. "Looking for you, no doubt. Stubborn, isn't she? And to think I would have been willing to let things slide had she not persevered. Her whereabouts aren't known at the moment, but she'll be located soon and after that, well, someone is going to have to take care of that before the situation gets out of hand. As you'll surely understand."
He only manages to shake his head again. The hand squeezes; claws. "You said you wouldn't do it."
Giovanni's grin widens.
"And I won't, in fact." He slides the folder towards him. "You will."