Chapter Eight - The Peak

The cellar was four feet by four feet, and the girl didn't fit. She lay on her back, knees bent steeply, the soles of her shoes pressed against the stone wall. Cold seeped up from the floor through her thin nightgown.

She didn't close her eyes.

Overhead, the thump of feet quieted. As the silence condensed, her breathing grew loud. It sounded like something separate, a creature growling and scraping through the dark. Her body started to shake, but she didn't feel afraid.

She felt angry.

That was when the eyes came. Her heart quickened as they blinked open above her, luminous blues and yellows. A breeze wound through the cellar, even though the door was closed and the walls were windowless. The eyes moved closer. Tendrils of red light reached down. One settled on her chest, the other on her forehead. Her heart stilled. A scream gathered in her throat but didn't pass her lips. She closed her eyes—

Hunter J sat bolt upright on her cot.

The jail cell was silent. A night-light burned opposite her bed, its dim glow just enough to delineate the edges of the cell walls. She shivered. The cell wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm, either, and chill penetrated easily through the thin fabric of her prison jumpsuit. The guards had searched her thoroughly the first day, stripping her of every hidden tool, even the minitarized explosives wired into her underclothing. Her best chance to break out had been back in Viridian's sad excuse for a local jail, but the prepubescent gym leader had left his exeggutor guarding her. Each time she'd cracked open her eyes, she'd found herself faced with its dull, unblinking gaze.

Hunter J cocked her head, listening for the sound that had woken her up. She caught the faint noise of claws scraping against metal, as if her nightmare had been summoned into the waking world. But Hunter J was no longer a child. Grimacing, she padded her way to the cell door. Yes, claws on metal. She rapped her fist hard against the door, ignoring the pain that shot through her knuckles.

"Who's there?" she called out.

The scraping stopped.

Instinct drew Hunter J back from the door just before it exploded. Steel and concrete burst outwards as the room blazed white with a hyper-beam. An alarm began to blare. A salamence stepped through the immolated doorway, its head swinging wildly.

Her salamence, in fact.

His left-middle fin was truncated from the time he had inserted himself between her face and a rhydon's horn. She'd called in specialists, but there was nothing to be done. Salamence simply weren't prone to regeneration. At least the injury had never seemed to impact his aerial capabilities much.

Hunter J didn't waste a moment on relief.

The hyper-beam hadn't managed to penetrate the back wall, and charging a second hyper-beam would take too long. She doubted they had more than a minute before the guards converged.

"Use fire blast," she decided, pointing at the back wall. Her first hour in the jail cell, she had pressed her back against each wall and determined that the back wall, the coldest, led outside. "Concentrate it on a single spot."

Salamence was slow to obey. The moment their eyes met, he let out a mewling cry and thrust his face forward, uncomfortably hard into her side. A low, snuffling sound rose from his throat.

"Didn't you hear me?" Hunter J snapped, shoving his head away and angling it towards the wall. Heat gushed from his throat, hot enough that her hands reddened where she grasped his snout. The concrete wall turned from gray to orange. She raised her voice over the alarm. "Now double-edge!"

She withdrew her hands as Salamence's scales calcified. The wall crumbled like dead leaves under a boot, revealing thin gray light. Heat burned through the cheap plastic soles of her shoes as she scrambled over the rubble into the prison yard. The prison fence stood five meters high, but that wouldn't be an issue.

She swung herself onto Salamence's back.

"Up," she commanded. He pushed off the ground unevenly. Still injured, then. Perhaps the double-edge had been a mistake. In peak condition, acceleration to 60mph should have taken the salamence no more than five seconds, but at this rate, they'd barely have enough altitude to clear the fence. "Higher, you dolt, you have to go higher!"

As Salamence cut upward, over the fence, she twisted around. The receding prison yard remained empty; smoke curled up from the cooling wall. Still, Hunter J only began to breathe easy when they had passed into a low-hanging cloud. The overcast day would work in her favor. By the time the guards realized that she'd escaped, her trajectory would be difficult to track.

The Saffron base was closest. Between the salamence's injury and her own impractical attire, she doubted they would make it anywhere else. The crucial thing was to transfer the captures before Interpol cracked her storage system. That way she could at least salvage something from this unmitigated disaster of a trip.

"Left," she called out to Salamence, giving him a kick for emphasis. But the pokemon didn't understand. He continued to pick a path rightward, his flying jerky, but determined.

Was he delirious? If she'd had a shock collar, she could have broken through, but with no equipment, she was locked into whatever direction he picked. Hunter J adjusted her position and squinted through the clouds. It was difficult to work out their course without the aid of a nav. But the peak of Mt. Silver was unmistakable, cutting through the clouds like a knife. She straightened in alarm.

Under other circumstances, she would have been eager to return to the mountain and deal decisively with the red-capped brat, but in her current state . . .

Hunter J had never shied away from reality. In her current state, she'd be as effective as a magikarp.

"Not there!" she shouted, giving Salamence another set of hard kicks. But he was accustomed to steel-toed boots, not canvas shoes. The direction of his flight didn't alter. As they approached the peak, she felt his breathing grow ragged and feared for a moment that his wings would go out mid-flight, sending her to a quick and icy death.

The landing, when it came, was barely more controlled than a crash.

The impact flung Hunter J from the salamence's back. As she pushed herself up from the snow, her gaze flashed across the plateau around her. Deserted. Still, Hunter J dashed for the cover of the trees. The quick contact with the snow had been enough to wet her clothes. She shuddered as a gust of wind snapped by.

Salamence still hadn't risen from the snow. She wondered if the crash had reinjured him past all use, but after a moment he staggered to his feet and made his way over to her. His teeth closed gently around the hem of her shirt, tugging. He lumbered down the slope, snapping low-lying branches as he went.

Hunter J followed at a cautious distance, half-expecting the salamence's noise to draw out the red-capped boy. She didn't notice the cave until they were almost upon it. Bushes camouflaged the opening, which faced out of the prevailing wind. This must be the boy-champion's dwelling.

Salamence didn't hesitate before ducking inside. Hunter J waited. A half-minute later his head poked back out and a low whine rose from his throat.

Not home, then. Hunter J hesitated, but the cold wind decided for her. Shelter was shelter.

Warmth hit her as she stepped inside. The cave had been insulated with thick vegetation. The first cavern was small, almost an antechamber. The next was larger, a fire pit dug out at its center. A few logs were stacked against the nearby wall. Five smaller tunnels rounded off into sleeping areas. She noted a charred area where the charizard must have slept, and a thickly vegetated patch that must have housed the venusaur. Exploring further, she found makeshift vine shelves, emptied of everything except for a few packets of instant noodles. A brief search turned up a handful of berries nestled in forgotten crevices. There were no other supplies or personal belongings.

Her overall impression was of a home that had been quickly abandoned. Perhaps the boy-champion would return. But her chances of surviving the night outside of this shelter were slim to none. It was a risk she would have to take.

While she examined the cavern, the salamence had slunk into the rightmost sleeping chamber and collapsed onto a bramble bed. She shook him back awake long enough to light the central fire. As the cave grew warmer, she stripped off her wet clothes and sat with her back resting against Salamence's broad belly. Her mind was fogged with exhaustion from the sleepless night and early morning flight, but she knew she couldn't rest until she'd appraised her situation.

Against her, the weather.

Against her, the untenably thin prison jumpsuit and shoes.

On her side, shelter.

On her side, limited food provisions and heat.

Against her, there was no telling when the boy-champion would return.

On her side, the salamence . .

Hunter J frowned. The salamence's chest rose and fell against her back. One wing had moved to drape over her. The scales were rough against her skin, but despite that, the wing made for an adequate substitute blanket. Hunter J ran her hands over it, feeling carefully for the bones. No permanent injuries that she could find. When Salamence woke, his mind would be clearer. Then she could navigate off this wretched mountain.

Satisfied, Hunter J gave herself over to sleep.

She woke to a warm tongue dragging through her hair. The sensation was so alien that she lay there for a minute, stiff, as Salamence's tongue worked. Heat radiated off the salamence's body, but the air moving through the cavern was bitterly cold. The fire had burned out while she slept.

"Off," she bit out finally, but she had to push his head away in order to stand. Stepping into the fire-pit room, she found her clothes had dried in the night. She dressed quickly and then returned to Salamence, who met her gaze with unclouded eyes. Sleep seemed to have done him good; some shine had returned to his scales.

"Back to yourself, then?" Hunter J asked.

At once she felt annoyed. What a completely unnecessary question. But Salamence let out a content rumble that she took for an affirmative.

"Then there's no time to waste."

She tossed him the berries she'd found and forced herself to swallow some package noodles dry. They crunched unpleasantly in her mouth, tasting of wheat and oil. She felt horribly fatigued, even though by the height of the sun she'd slept until nearly mid-day. Altitude sickness, most likely. Last time she'd been up here, she'd been acclimated. No matter. Soon the mountain would not be of any concern.

The peak was only a five minute walk, but by the time she reached it the snow had already begun to seep through her shoes and sting her skin. Hastily, she mounted the salamence and gave him a kick.

"Time to go."

Nothing. His wings didn't even stir.

"I said, time to go. Fly. We need to get out of here."

When these words triggered no reaction, Hunter J swung off his back, stepped around, and grabbed his snout with both of her hands. Salamence blinked slowly down at her.

"What is the matter with you?" Hunter J hissed. In the fifteen years she'd had this salamence, he had never once hesitated to obey her. This non-responsiveness was as uncharacteristic as it was unnerving.

As a last resort, she tried reason.

"Fly me out of here or we'll starve. If we don't freeze first."

Draconid species couldn't stand the cold, and despite the extensive resistance training he'd undergone, Hunter J knew her salamence wasn't fond of it either. Basic self-preservation should be sufficient motivation. This reluctance to fly made no sense. In fact, it made no sense that he'd returned here in the first place.

Here, to the site of her first defeat.

As the thought crossed her mind, Hunter J understood. Of course. She had been defeated and humiliated by a mere child here, and Salamence had witnessed it. Who would obey the commands of a master like that? Only the strong were worth following, and Hunter J had shown herself to be weak.

Her hands fisted tightly.

Yes, weak.

Her breath begin to speed, but Hunter J quashed the old panic before it could take her over. It didn't add up. If Salamence perceived her too weak to obey, why had he returned at all?

As she puzzled it through, the picture became clearer. He'd brought her here for a second confrontation—to redeem her initial failure.

For a moment, Hunter J felt almost touched by the pokemon's faith.

But certain facts had to be faced. Unarmed and aided only by an injured salamence, she could not defeat the boy-champion if he returned. At fifty-eight, she was not strong enough to intimidate the salamence in any physical confrontation, nor did she have access to any tools, nothing she could fashion into a crude electric whip.

The salamence was not an option, then. She'd have to get off this mountain on her own.

Grimly, Hunter J set her jaw. The odds were long, but that hardly mattered. Given the option of a slow death by starvation and a quick death by exposure, Hunter J knew her choice.

"Very well," she told the salamence, ignoring his confused whine as she turned away. Returning to the cave, she set to work quickly, stuffing her loafers with moss. The sun was almost at its peak. She would have to keep up a fast pace if she wanted to escape the mountain before it set.

Her preparations only took a few minutes. She didn't look back when she set off, but she heard the crunch of snow behind her. Salamence was following.

How odd.

The cold wasn't so bad, at first. The sun beat down strongly, and her quick pace brought heat rushing through her blood. The biggest issue was her shoes. Despite her crudely-fashioned insulation, the snow was seeping in through the sides, sending shudders of cold up her body with every step. At least she'd managed to find the remnants of a path, where the snow lay thinner. Probably some pokemon's hunting route. It was less direct, but worth the extra distance to avoid immersing her legs in the foot-high snow elsewhere. At some point the path would give out. Hunter J decided she would deal with that when it happened.

It happened sooner than she would have liked.

The landscape changed. Tall trees gave way to toppled ones. If a storm had caused it, the storm had been an extraordinarily localized one. Then she noticed the scorch marks on their trunks. A battle, perhaps. Or, considering the path, perhaps a training spot used by the boy-champion.

The path brought her to the mouth of a cave. Hunter J slowed her pace, wondering if the boy-champion had two hideouts. As she craned her ears for any signs of life, the salamence stepped out from behind her. He approached the cave slowly, hesitated, and passed inside.

A thick silence fell. Then Salamence cried out.

Hunter J knew what Salamence sounded like when he was injured in battle. The texture of this sound was different. If Hunter J had been forced to put a name to it, she would have called it agonized.

She frowned. Cautiously, she padded forward. The overhang cut off most of the daylight, but enough penetrated to dimly light the cave. As her eyes adjusted, she made out the gray outline of the salamence, his head bent down. He was nudging a much larger shape.

A tyranitar.

Hunter J froze. Even as time seemed to slow, her mind raced. She cataloged the tyranitar's slumped posture, its total lack of reaction to the salamence's prodding, and the smell of rotting berries that pervaded the cave.

Dead.

Relief brought a slight smile to Hunter J's face. She strode further into the cave. Depending on how long the tyranitar had been dead, its horns and claws might be brittle. If she could break one off, she'd have a weapon, albeit a primitive one.

Idly, she wondered how it had died. A territorial fight, perhaps? But while the trees outside were devastated, the cave itself had not been touched. When Hunter J got closer, she found no obvious wounds on the tyranitar's body.

Salamence was snuffling again. Distracted for a moment, Hunter J grabbed his snout and searched for eye mucus or dulled scales, indicators of a cold. He looked fine.

She turned her attention back to the dead tyranitar. No, there were no marks on it. A piece of tyranitar trivia came back to her: specialists in the field claimed tyranitar that lost their mates would die soon after. She'd never seen proof of that one way or the other—sticking around after making captures wasn't good for anything except getting caught. Apparently, there was something to it.

Hunter J stared down at the corpse. She found, abruptly, that she was furious.

How absurd. How insulting, for a pokemon with such power, a pokemon capable of reshaping mountains at a whim, to lay down and die from something as simple, as pointless as grief.

"What a waste," she said aloud.

She found she had no interest in staying in this cave a moment longer. Besides, the body looked too fresh for her to easily detach a claw.

Hunter J pressed on. This time, there was no path and no avoiding the snow, which soon rose to her knees. To navigate properly by foot, she needed snowshoes. If she'd had even a thin panel of wood, she might have been able to fashion makeshift ones, but the firewood in the boy-champion's cave had been too thick.

Something like an hour passed. Maybe longer. The time was hard to track. Each step came colder and more exhausting than the next. Her legs sank deep into the snow. With effort, she pushed through, and sank again.

At some point, the salamence had caught up with her. She tried stopping once, to see if he would go ahead. It would be far easier to walk in a path cleared by his bulk. But as soon as she stopped, the salamence did too. She had ceased to try and make sense of his motives. Her head felt fuzzy, and the bright sky seemed to flash with reds and blacks. At some point, her body had begun to shake and hadn't stopped.

She drew on her anger. It was always there for her, a fuel that never ran dry.

"A pokemon like that—" She spoke, not to the salamence and not to herself. She wasn't conscious of speaking. "So strong. It didn't need anyone. Anything. It made a mistake."

She misjudged the depth of the drift and fell. The smack of the snow against her face was sharp and bright, like the flat of a blade. The salamence bent over her, extending its snout, but she ignored it.

"The mistake is relying. As soon as you rely, that's it. You're finished."

After the initial chill, this drift of snow was strangely warm. Hunter J felt a powerful urge to sleep. Just a short rest, to quiet the ringing in her head. Anyway, her limbs felt too heavy to lift.

Something rough and warm rasped across her face. The salamence was licking her again. She opened her eyes, just now realizing that she had closed them. The salamence mewled and knelt in a mounting position.

Hunter J laughed.

"You stupid pokemon," she whispered. "Now you want to fly? Fly, then. Go. Go! What are you waiting for? Why are you here? You don't need anyone."

Pokemon, people. None of them seemed to understand the lesson that Hunter J had learned young. The strongest ones were the ones who had no one to rely on.

Who had no one . . .

Somewhere in the depths of her mind, Hunter J recognized that she was lying prone in the snow and had been for several minutes. She needed to stand. She needed to move. If the sun set before she reached the mountain's base, she would die.

A flicker of clarity came to her. I'm dying now.

She felt like laughing again, but it seemed like too much effort. Dying in the snow because of a red-capped boy and a stupid salamence. How unbearably pathetic.

Time drifted. She was chopping onions, and her world was white and silver. One, then the next, only a few seconds each. Her eyes had stopped stinging a long time ago.

A hand settled on her shoulder, and she stopped.

"Very good, Joon," the matron said. "Very fast. There are good jobs in the kitchens, you know."

She stared up at the matron, watching the small smile that wrinkled her face, the abstract satisfaction that flashed through her eyes: a problem, solved.

The kitchens? she thought. Fury sang through her body. She wondered how none of them noticed; she thought she must be glowing with it. She felt the weight of the chopper in her hand, the smooth curve of the wooden handle, the clean, sharp edge of the blade. She said nothing, did nothing. One day, she thought. Some day . . .

A growl jerked her back to the present. She'd been closing her eyes again. A sneasel stood framed by the trees, watching her thoughtfully. Salamence had interposed himself between them, his wings spread wide in threat. Even healthy, it would have been a risky match-up. Salamence were bulky; sneasel moved fast. These thoughts didn't particularly bother Hunter J. She watched the confrontation with detached interest.

The sneasel began by sharpening its claws. Clever little thing. It realized that Salamence couldn't make the first move without leaving her body unguarded. He should begin with Scary Face, cut the speed before the sneasel got moving.

A freezing wind whipped up. Too late. Salamence shuddered as the icy wind battered him. The sneasel lunged forward for a slash, and Salamence countered with a sputter of flame—a failed fire-blast. Unsurprising, in this cold. And he'd never fully gotten the knack of it. She should have replaced him long ago, with a faster salamence, one less dependent on physical attacks. Why hadn't she?

Laziness, she supposed. Complacency. He had always been . . . reliable.

The sneasel moved too fast for her eye to track. When she found it again, a black streak was slashing at Salamence's back. He stumbled at the blows, and then began to shake his body frantically. No use. The sneasel had lodged itself firmly between his wingblades.

Fly. Twist. Drop.

That should have been the first instinct of any winged creature, but the salamence was resisting it. Bellowing, he continued to shake, as the sneasel dug its claws deeper into his back.

Hunter J wondered, for the first time, if both of them would die here. That would be . . . pointless. It would be wasteful.

"You dolt," she said softly. And louder, the words slurring: "Fly. Charge a double-edge. When it falls, use—" She was gasping; there was no breath in her for words. "Dragon claw."

Salamence shot upwards, his skin turning pearly white, and hot. Too hot for the sneasel's comfort. It let go and Salamence followed, nailing it with a dragon claw as it tumbled down. Before it could move, he lashed out with another. The sneasel made a private calculation. As the next blow fell, it twisted to the right and took off between the trees.

The mountain grew quiet again, except for Salamence's panting breath. He came back to her side and began to nose along her body, checking for injuries.

"I'm dying, you dolt," she hissed, or tried to. The snow was so warm. She turned her cheek into it, feeling her eyes fall shut again. "Leave me alone," she mumbled. "Leave me—"

The darkness wrapped her up like a blanket.

She woke, shivering, in the dark.

Moonlight slid in between white window slats. From its faint light, Hunter J made out the shadowy outlines of a small room, mostly taken up with the bed she was lying on. Her right arm lay above the blankets, hooked up to a bag of fluid.

She was in either a hospital or a pokemon center. And she had no idea how she had gotten here.

Another fit of shivering took her, even though the room was not cold. She needed to—the thought trailed off into nothing. The room grew dark again.

When she next woke, it was daylight coming in through the shades. A chansey watched her with unblinking eyes. As their gazes met, it chirped and waddled off through the door.

By the time the chansey returned, Hunter J had managed to sit upright in bed. A nurse joy followed it—a familiar nurse joy. Hunter J swallowed a curse. She was at the Mt. Silver pokemon center, then. There was no chance that the nurse wouldn't recognize her, and only the slimmest of chances that she wouldn't know her true identity by now. On the tails of this thought came another: she was dressed in hospital scrubs. Changing her, the nurse must have seen her prison jumpsuit.

"You're awake," the nurse said in the same determinedly cheery voice that Hunter J remembered detesting. "How do you feel?"

Hunter J debated the relative merits of answering. "Cold," she said finally, disconcerted by the groggy way the word came out. "Tired. It's hard to move."

"That's to be expected," the nurse said. "You were suffering from severe hypothermia when you got here. We've been warming you gradually over the night and supplying you with warmed saline to get your core temperature back to normal."

Hunter J's mind snagged on one phrase. "When I . . . got here?" she repeated.

Nurse Joy's lips pursed. "When your salamence brought you here. Not, I might add, in the best condition himself."

Hunter J wanted to scoff at the implicit reprimand in the nurse's tone. She restrained herself.

She said, "How bad?"

The nurse's expression thawed somewhat. "He needs a great deal of rest, and should refrain from any intensive flying for at least two weeks. But otherwise, he'll be just fine. I'll make sure that he's taken care of, after—"

She faltered, like she'd committed a faux pas.

"After the police come," Hunter J finished for her, flatly. "Why . . . the wait?"

The nurse didn't answer. She busied herself for a few minutes, taking Hunter J's temperature, testing her blood flow and reflexes. Hunter J began to doze off again. When the nurse spoke up, it took Hunter J a moment to focus on the words.

"I'm a healer. It's my job to make people better, regardless of what they've done or who they've hurt. What you need right now is uninterrupted rest."

"Well," Hunter J said, unable to keep the scorn out of her voice, "that's very noble of you."

The nurse went still, her hands clenching. When Hunter J looked at her, she was surprised to find a recognizable emotion in her eyes.

Fury.

"After I heard, I went up the mountain," the nurse said. "I found . . . homes shattered. Mates torn apart. Children taken. Lives that will never be the same. Does it trouble your conscience, ever? Ever, even for the smallest moment? Taking, destroying. Dealing out hurts that will never, ever heal. Does it matter to you? Or do you just not care?"

Hunter J kept her expression blank. Her thoughts were sluggish this morning, disordered. We're all alone, she wanted to say. Some find out early, some find out late. If there's anyone to be pitied, it's the ones that haven't found out yet.

The nurse dropped her gaze, disgusted.

"I'm a healer. I'll make you as well as I can, in body. But, may Mew forgive me, I hope that you suffer for the rest of your life. In your mind and, if you have one, in your soul."

Hunter J was surprised into a hoarse laugh. "I think that's the first human thing you've said to me since I met you."

The nurse shook her head. The chansey re-entered the room—Hunter J hadn't noticed it leaving. It set down a tray on the bed-side table: hot porridge and hot water.

"Eat," the nurse said, turning to leave.

"Wait. Can I . . . see my salamence?"

"You might think I look like an idiot," the nurse said, "but I'm not one. Your salamence will be fine—more fine than he would have been, staying with you."

With this parting shot, she exited the room. The chansey remained, staring, as Hunter J explored the food. She didn't think she was hungry, but after the first bite of rice porridge, her stomach woke up and she found that she was ravenous. The food's heat settled pleasantly in her stomach. She could finally think.

The police would be here soon. The good nurse's forbearance would not last long; for all Hunter J knew, she was calling them at this moment. The tray was thin plastic, as were the cup and utensils. There were no obvious weapons, sharp or blunt. The chansey was also a problem. Hunter J had no doubt it was under orders to keep her from leaving the room. Chansey weren't aggressive pokemon but they had a certain immovable quality.

Hunter J looked around the room. This time, her gaze lingered on the landline in the corner. This was an old pokecenter and probably an underfunded one—they'd never completed the transition to vidphones.

She caught the chansey's eye and raised her empty cup.

"I'm thirsty. Understand? Thirsty."

Placidly, the chansey came forward, accepted the cup, and left the room.

She had to be quick.

There were a few patches of gauze on the bed-side table. Hunter J tucked all but one under her pillow. In a single tug, she pulled out the IV and pressed the remaining gauze patch firmly against her skin. She pulled back the blankets and drew in a breath. Then she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Instantly, her legs protested; the bottoms of her feet screamed. Her vision swam.

Weak, she castigated herself. A bit of cold and now you can't stand?

She took a tottering step forward. Then another, until she'd reached the small table that housed the phone. The plug was almost floor level. She wouldn't be able to pull it out from here.

Slowly, she knelt, feeling the world beginning to slosh at the edges. The plug didn't budge. She tugged at it again, harder, and this time it came loose.

She had to stand now.

Her body seemed to be made of heavy ore. An impassable chasm separated the thought of standing from the action of it.

She wasn't sure how long she knelt there, unable to move. Suddenly, she stiffened. Were those footsteps coming down the hall?

Panic lent her strength. With a wild burst of energy, Hunter J stood, grabbed the phone and cord and sped back towards the bed. She had only just made it between the covers when the chansey entered the room, a steaming cup in its hand.

Steaming. She could use that.

"I need the nurse," Hunter J said loudly. "The nurse. See?"

She pointed at the loose IV. The chansey's blobby face turned worried. It bustled out of the room with considerably more speed than last time.

Hunter J closed her eyes. Every muscle in her body demanded that she rest now. But she couldn't, not yet. And there would only be one chance.

"What's wrong now—oh." Nurse Joy spotted the hanging IV as soon as she stepped into the room. "Now why did you do that?"

"It hurt," Hunter J grunted.

"Hurt?" Nurse Joy frowned. "It shouldn't hurt. Let me see your arm. Oh, and Chansey, get me some gauze, quick."

Hunter J stared up at the nurse. She was in her mid-thirties, and to scale the mountain routinely, she must be reasonably fit.

"Your arm," the nurse repeated impatiently.

The chansey would be out of hearing by now, Hunter J decided.

She raised her right arm from under the blankets and, before the nurse could take it, she picked up the cup of hot water and splashed it in the nurse's face. As the nurse's hands flew upwards, Hunter J grabbed the front of her uniform and yanked. The nurse toppled forward.

With her other arm, Hunter J smacked the landline down on the nurse's head. She wound the phone cord around her neck. Gripping both ends of the phone, she nudged the nurse off the bed—gravity squeezed the cord tight.

"Cha, chansey!"

The chansey stood gaping in the doorway.

"Move and she dies," Hunter J said calmly. Tone was important at times like this. The right tone—disinterested and certain—commanded more compliance than the loudest shout.

The nurse's eyes had fluttered shut. Hunter J loosened the cord slightly. She wasn't here to earn a murder charge, if she could help it. The chansey watched, paralyzed, as she maneuvered herself off the bed. Clipped to the side of the nurse's uniform, Hunter J found a pokeball.

"Yours?" she demanded sharply.

The chansey gave a trembly nod.

"Get inside. You'll stay inside, or she suffers the consequences. Understand me?"

She clicked the ball and the chansey vanished in a burst of white light. Pokeball in hand, Hunter J made for the door. As she hoped, it was lockable from the outside. A quick search of the nurse turned up a set of keys.

Out of immediate danger, she felt her adrenaline beginning to ebb, and her strength with it. But there was no time to rest. The police might already be on their way.

At least she knew the layout of this pokemon center. As the thought crossed her mind, Hunter J froze. How had it not occurred to her before? When she'd left this pokemon center last, she'd been planning to return. If the nurse hadn't gotten rid of them, her spare clothes would still be here—and her back-up abra!

Pace quickening, she followed the corridor out of the hospital wing. The door to the guest room she had stayed in was unlocked. And—yes! Her clothing was still in the bottom drawer, her pack still nestled under the bed.

The relief was almost enough to bring her to her knees. She stripped off the hospital scrubs and pulled on her usual flight-suit. After days of prison clothing, the touch of the warm, sturdy fabric against her skin felt divine. In her pack, she found a hand stun-gun and then, there, nudged into a corner pocket—a minimized pokeball.

Hunter J grinned in triumph.

As she maximized the pokeball, it occurred to her to wonder what Nurse Joy had done with her salamence. If the police didn't put him down, they would at least lock him up somewhere where he could never fight again.

It would serve him right, too. Damn pokemon had nearly gotten her killed.

But he was also the only reason she was here, free, rather than in a prison cell.

No sign of the police yet, and with an abra in hand she'd only need a few seconds. She could afford the time.

Hunter J attached the stun-gun to her hip and set off towards the pokemon wing. The first private room was locked—the fifth key on Nurse Joy's key-ring opened it. Inside, her salamence lay on a hospital bed, snoring loudly.

She clapped her hands, and Salamence shot awake.

As soon as he saw her, he jumped off the bed and pressed his snout into her side. She gave him a once-over of her own. Nurse Joy hadn't lied about his condition—the scratches from the sneasel attack were shallow and already scabbing over. He'd recover.

"We're going home," she said shortly. The abra materialized with a flick of her wrist. "Take us to the Saffron Base."

The world squeezed tight and then re-expanded. Hunter J's feet hit asphalt. She bent over, clutching her stomach. Teleportation was unpleasant at the best of times, and this was not that. Fighting back nausea, she straightened to face the anonymous gray warehouse that served as her Kanto base of operations.

More than a week had passed since she'd been captured. Rumors of her arrest must have reached her henchmen, and she wouldn't be surprised if one of them had gotten the bright idea to stage a mutiny. There'd been rumblings, lately. That she was not as young as she once was. That her time was past.

Hunter J's expression darkened.

"Come on," she said. She recalled the abra, set her shoulders, and stalked towards the doors.

A few steps in, she realized something was wrong. Salamence wasn't following.

Turning back, she crossed her arms. "What is it now?"

She really didn't know what to make of the salamence. He'd disobeyed her, and that should have been the end of the story. Yet, he had broken her out from prison. When she passed out on the mountain, he had flown her to the safety of the pokemon center. He wasn't obedient, but he was . . . loyal.

Hunter J hadn't had cause to use that word before.

"Whatever it is, it can wait. We're back now. I have work to do. Come on."

The salamence stared at her with wide eyes. He didn't move.

As Hunter J met the salamence's gaze, she felt the exhaustion pouring back. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she'd been prepared to die. She'd told him to leave her then, and he hadn't.

"Why didn't you go?" she asked, finding that she genuinely wanted to know.

Salamence eyed her for a long time. Then he extended his neck and, cautiously, closed his jaw around her arm. Hunter J flinched and raised her stun-gun, but Salamence didn't bite down.

And she remembered. He hadn't been the biggest of the bagon at the nursery that day. He certainly hadn't been the breeder's pick. But he had been the only one to keep his grip, even when she turned the shock up to its highest setting. She'd admired that tenacity. Genetics, she'd explained to the terrified breeders, were nothing without personality. It was will that made the difference—her will, that had lifted her out of the orphanage and made her into what she was today. Nothing given, everything taken.

She knew why she'd chosen him that day. She'd thought she understood why he'd chosen her. Everyone wanted to become more than they were, to become strong. Why then, had he stayed when her strength failed? Why, at her lowest—

Salamence released her arm. He took a step back and sank into the mounting position.

"You want me to come with you," Hunter J realized. "Where?"

His wings slumped into a shrug.

"You want me to—" Words failed her. "Everything I've built. You expect me to abandon that for you?"

If a pokemon could look resigned, Salamence looked resigned.

Hunter J began to laugh. The laugh started quiet but it grew—everything from the last week went into it. When she finished, she hardly had any air left.

"How dare you," she said softly. "How dare you make me ultimatums. You're nothing. A mount. A tool. As replaceable as a cog or a wheel. And you demand everything?"

Everything. For—for something less tangible than a thought.

A strong wind kicked up, pushing the clouds across the sun. The area outside the warehouse grew still and dark. She thought of a girl in a cellar, waiting.

He'd come back for her. No one else ever had.

Slowly, Salamence began to retreat, until he stood at the edge of the asphalt. He crouched again.

Waiting, Hunter J thought incredulously. As if there really were a choice to be made. As if any world existed in which she would—

The sky continued to darken. Thunderclouds rolled in, and with them, rain, spattering down in wide, blotchy drops. The salamence's head drooped.

It occurred to Hunter J that he couldn't possibly expect any answer other than the one she was going to give. Why ask, then? Why wait?

Why was she still waiting here, letting the rain streak down her face?

The salamence spoke: a quiet rumble, but there was a finality to it. His wings flexed once, twice. It wasn't good weather for flying, but he would manage. He had always managed.

Good riddance, Hunter J thought furiously.

She watched as Salamence lowered his neck and angled his wings to catch the next updraft. The rain was coming down hard now, blurring her vision.

For the rest of her life, Hunter J would never fully understand why she did what she did next.

a/n: An epilogue will follow shortly.