Brain cells are a non-renewable resource.
"Sir, we're gonna need you to step out of line."
"We're?" The man asked, swiveling about like a HootHoot, minus the whole one-hundred-eighty degree neck turn.
By no means was the airport empty or was 000 the only cop. But he was the only cop motioning someone out of line and looking for all the world like he'd rather be outside smoking, chin tilted up and a hand over the pack of cigarettes unmistakably boxy in his pocket.
The line inched forward. The man did not. Someone cleared their throat loudly and glared.
"Sir, you're holdin' everyone up."
"I didn't do anything wrong!"
"Yeah, yeah, you're comin' with me, buddy."
"I'm not breaking the law!" He insisted, even as he fell in step behind 000.
Which was true, sure. The man had made it through the metal detectors, put all his pokéballs in the proper basket and had them scanned. Whoop dee freaking doo.
(Let's just say that was a lot more than six pokéballs, especially for an out of region flight.)
They stopped an appropriate distance away, you know, in the Security Officer's room with the desk and the hard plastic chairs and the beige paint. Fun.
"Alright." Said 000.
The man took a seat awkwardly. He perched on the very edge of the chair, legs folded disturbingly similar to a slap bracelet.
000 did not sit. (Because intimidation factor.) He did let out his Absol, who immediately sat on his work shoes, ninety pounds of helpful right on top of shiny leather.
"Pierce," he said, completely professionally and not at all through gritted teeth.
Pierce began licking himself clean, tongue rasping over his puffed out chest and slicking his fur flat.
The man thought about laughing, but Absol claws were, quite frankly, huge and perfect for filleting someone.
"What's your name?"
"Mullins."
"Last name?"
"Mullin."
(Mullins Mullin. Cripes. If that was a lie, it was the worst 000 had ever heard. If it wasn't, then, Arceus have mercy. His chest ached, laughter stuffed in a teeny, tiny box behind his aching ribcage.)
"Okay, Mullins. Why do you have twenty Dratini?"
"I have nineteen!"
000 took a long moment to sigh rather than punch something or someone because playing bad cop when you're the only cop in the room was a no. "Why do you have nineteen Dratini and a Dragonair? Do you even realize how ridiculously suspicious that looks?"
Mullins scratched his arm and looked at the wonderfully beige walls.
"Well?"
"I'm a breeder."
"It's illegal to transport more than six of a species out of the region without a license. Any good breeder would know that."
Mullins continued to scratch his arm.
"Aren't you going to show me your license?"
"What about your badge! How do I even know you're a real cop?!"
000 looked down at his uniform. Because that definitely wasn't a dead give away. "Your breeding license, Mullins."
He went quiet.
"You don't have one."
He nodded.
"Where'd you get those Dratini? Castelia?"
His eyes widened, looking back at the locked door. Such an easy tell. "No."
"I did my research, kid. Now tell me where in Castelia you got them 'fore we have to do this the hard way."
"If...if I tell you where I got them, can I go?"
"That all depends, Mullins. You are trying to break the law."
"I bought them off some guys at a warehouse, the one right across from Chess Grove."
000 made a note of that. Literally. He peeled off a lime colored sticky note and wrote that shit down.
Mullins absolutely did not wince.
"Mind showin' me one of those Dratini 'fore we're done here?"
A pokéball arched in the air, a flash of light and a Dratini sitting in a perfect coil.
Pierce's hackles rose, tail out stiff and straight.
Dratini went for the throat.
"Fuck!"
"Ta-da!" Sweet said, standing in front of the mirror. "We're tourists!"
000 did not look impressed. That being said, he never looked impressed, not as far as Sweet knew, and definitely not as far as Looker knew, but the two of them kept being the world's most unconvincing pair of tourists, and they had the audacity to look offended when all 000 did was shrug and turn on the TV.
Looker continued to half sit on the sink counter and glare. Presumably. It was kind of hard to tell when his "Unovan tourist" disguise consisted of putting on mirrored sunglasses and trading his trench coat for a tweed jacket that he'd "just so happened" to pack.
"You look stupid." 000 said. Pierce, sitting on his trainer's lap, either agreed or really wanted chin scratchies.
"You as in singular or you as in plural?" Looker asked.
"So fucking plural."
"Okay, first of all, rude. Second of all, you wouldn't know fashion if it ate your foot."
"That's," 000 paused for dramatic effect + pulling out a cigarette, "not a saying."
Sweet looked self assured in the way only a woman wearing her pet Sylveon as a scarf AND an actual scarf could. "I just said it, so that makes it a saying."
"Oh yeah, definitely. You'll con the con artists into thinking you're tourists and not undercover cops. No doubts in my mind. None whatsoever."
"It's not like you have a better plan."
"Fair."
"Buh-bye, Zeroes!"
"Yes. That. Farewell!"
"Good luck, you two. Don't die."
They left, disguises and all, the door locked behind them.
000 went out on the balcony to smoke.
Between all the shining city lights and fancy cars and falling snowflakes, nobody suspected a thing.
The warehouse was indeed a warehouse as most warehouses were indeed. That was to say there was a lot of corrugated metal, high and dark windows, and garage looking doors chained shut. Not the most inviting place by far, but the sign above the slit of a door tried its best to be cheery, a sunshine yellow with the letters only starting to peel off at the corners.
Paint flaked off the door handle, patchy rust underneath. Looker wiped his hand on his jacket. Because gross. Should have - should've worn gloves.
(It wasn't like his fingers were starting to go numb. Or his face. Nope. Not at all.)
"You're sure about this?" Sweet asked, fluffing up her scarf like it didn't make Sylveon pull back her ears and growl.
The sign across the road, nice and green, definitely said Chess Grove, so that was that.
"Not particularly, no."
"And if things go badly?"
"We hope for the best and make arrests."
"Wow." Sweet said. "I feel immensely reassured."
"You remember the plan?"
She crossed her arms, foot tapping the icy ground. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
"Good! Then you needn't worry!"
"I didn't even say anything."
"Yes, but I believe in your acting skills. And your police-ery skills."
"You believe in the 'pretending to be a couple' cover story, too."
"It is the simplest and most well received in the book!"
She sighed, long and deep. "Go ahead and open it then, honey."
"I - I, um, yes!" He said, grabbing the door handle again and whispering, "I'm still not used to that part of the plan."
"Me either. Now shut up."
He opened the door, rust and hinges scraping like metallic hell.
The cold disappeared behind them. Warmth wasn't exactly a thing the room had, empty and sprawling, nor was an adequate amount of light, but numb body parts started to un-numb themselves, and there were definitely some frosty windows in there somewhere. Probably past the big oak desk with the computer and the soda cans and the person sitting there oh-so professionally.
(Heh. Kind of like Zeroes.)
The man crushed an empty can against his thigh, legs propped up, metal screeching and crunching. It hit the ground like an accordion - folded and not at all musical.
"Fancy," Looker said without saying anything, mostly just stuffing his hands in his pockets and not thinking about the footprints he was leaving in the grime.
"Sugar, stop. Eating. My. Hair." Sweet said also without saying anything, head turned ever so slightly, death glare ever so more than slightly present.
Sugar continued chewing on her hair as all good Sylveon did. (Or maybe silver hair dye tasted good.)
"Well, huh." Said the man, jerking back like someone who hadn't been propping his feet next to a computer. "What can I do for ya?"
Looker straightened himself up. That was not something you wanted to do if you were Looker's height and wanting to seem unthreatening, but the whole mirrored sunglasses and tweed jacket thing had already thrown any hopes of that to the metaphorical fire that he really would've liked have been less metaphorical and more something he could actually stand around. He didn't fix his tie.
Matilda also didn't fix his tie. Because she was still a Croagunk, and he actually wasn't wearing a tie. She did sit on his shoulder though. Because of course she did.
"You sell rare Pokemon?"
"At affordable prices!" The man shot back, like a car dealership commercial. He had the same kind of greasy look about him.
(Not that all car salesmen were greasy. Or that all criminals were literally greasy. Looker just wanted to recommend at least five different brands of shampoo.)
Sweet pushed forward. Her purse - stuffed mostly with stuffed animals for reasons - knocked over something important or glass. Either way, it tinkled on the way down.
"Can I help ya, missy?"
"What kind of rare Pokemon?"
"You name it, we've got it!"
"Like Scyther?"
"Bingo," he said along with finger guns, snapping loudly.
(Looker flinched. Because. Ugh. Matilda gave him a happy little froggy head pat.)
(Sugar gave him a big, fang-showing, Sylveon yawn.)
"Oh, honey," she said, words practically dripping. "You know how I've been wanting a Scyther!"
"Yes, but -"
"Honeyyy!"
Their hands fit together surprisingly unwell - Looker's far larger than Sweet's and far more attached to a person prone to nervous sweating and not to someone who was wearing soft little gloves. But she held on and swung his arm back just as she brought out the puppy dog eyes and the pooched out bottom lip. Her lipstick and cardigan matched. Somehow.
"Why not something small and cute? One of those Meowth with a beard?"
"A Meowth with," she froze, smile stretched wide and thin, before looking off at all the fun shapes in the murky warehouse corner, "a beard."
"Yes."
She nearly stepped on his foot, whispering into his ear at a not-so whisper volume. "What the hell, Looker?"
"They are kind of cute." He not-so whispered back.
She pulled away. "I want a Sycther."
"Can we not at least look at the Pokemon they have?"
The man stood up from his desk, not quite abruptly but not too subtly either. Kind of like he'd meant to jump but had forgotten how.
"Can we please look at your other types of Pokemon?" Looker asked, looking over the rim of his dumb sunglasses like someone who absolutely did not even want to consider the idea of a bug with knife arms.
"Second floor's closed for cleaning!"
The entire first floor felt entirely jealous and like it was definitely, absolutely, one-hundred-percent being lied to.
"We don't even need to look! I know what I want!"
"Yes, but -"
"You promised me!"
"Yes, but."
But Looker's phone rang.
He snatched it out of his pocket too quickly, in a fumbling sort of way, or like a person with sweaty palms and an embarrassing ringtone.
"That better not be 'work' again!" Sweet said, eyeing the phone every bit as jealously as Sugar was still eyeing her hair.
"I...I have to take this outside." And he backtracked right out the front door and into the frosty air.
Icy needles stabbed his lungs. Maybe because he was breathing funny, having sprinted to the side of the building. The side of the building and its shadows and garbage cans, the next building over leaning in, didn't really seem to mind or ask why he was so out of breath even though he went on regular morning runs.
Winter was just like that, you know?
(And internal screaming. Because. That. Definitely could've gone better.)
Matilda tried to burrow under Looker's jacket. He simply put one hand on her head and kept the other on his cell phone.
"So how'd the plan go?" Asked 000, an absolutely reassuring voice to hear in an alley through tiny phone speakers.
"To suspect us they have not done yet, I think."
"Thanks, Yoda."
"I am going to enter through the fire escape."
"There's a fire escape?"
The skinny, red ladder conveniently bolted beside Looker's head said, "Yes," in a voice like the wind trying to tear bolts out of a wall.
"Yes," Looker said, because fire escapes couldn't actually talk.
"And it leads to the target?"
"Probably?"
"You don't know?!"
"I'm breaking in, regardless."
"Why?!"
"I have a crowbar."
000 hung up, nothing but a click and static in Looker's ear. So Looker went ahead and climbed the fire escape because there was kind of a platform and second story door waiting a few dozen rungs away. Matilda hung on for dear life.
He pulled himself up, back on solid ground that maybe wasn't so solid.
The platform swayed underfoot, always a good sign when about fourteen feet off the ground. The door was solid, rather gray and locked. No matter how many times Looker banged himself against it, it didn't budge. Metal and bone simply shuddered.
(His shoulder did end up sore.)
So he went for the crowbar.
Matilda croaked. Loudly. And held up a fist, poison starting to seep between her curled fingers.
Dripping beneath her fist, the door sizzled, poison coated and melting. The handle fell off. Then it fell another fourteen feet and smooshed itself into a silver puddle, soaking the edges of overflowing trash bags.
They shared a look.
Matilda simply reached in through the new (still growing) hole and flipped the lock with a single click of victory.
The smell hit first. Not the smell of the door melting, acrid tang like bile, like iron and blood.
But the smell of. Sickness. Of things no one wanted to name.
(Beasts aside - Symbiont aside - there was something not at all right.)
Something not right as in rows and rows of cages, cramped little things, bars bent, scorched, beaten but unyielding. Creatures - Pokémon - hunched. Looker walked by, Matilda repositioning herself on his shoulder.
The Pokémon bristled and growled. Some whimpered. Some paced, paced, paced, metal under claws, creaking. One lunged, a figure dark and stooped, shaking the whole cage, almost tipping, fangs jammed against bars.
(Sores. Red welts along a muzzle, above teeth, teeth, teeth, a frothing foam of spit, eyes nothing but white, pupils rolled back, wild.)
Matilda growled. Really, it was a croak, long and low, the poison sac in her throat inflated like a small balloon - or for all intents and purposes, like a puffed up cat.
The rattling paused to make way for another flurry of lunges.
Looker did not sprint. Of course he didn't. How could you see an alien abomination if you were sprinting like your dear life depended on it, colors blurring, trip, scrabbling, almost face down on the cold ground?
"Let us think, Matilda." He said, tilting his head against her squishy cheek. "Surely they would not be so dumb as to simply…"
She smacked him. She smacked him so hard his stupid sunglasses fell off, clattering at his feet.
Clattering at a mess of bars and locks.
At a mess of floating tentacles, the faintest blue-white ghostly pale blobs, dangling ribbons of neuro-poison covered flesh bulging against bars, the gaps too criss-crossingly small. Nothing grabbed him by the back of the neck. Nothing smacked him across the face. Nothing flung him to the floor. Nothing happened except for him tucking his sunglasses away, stupid things too dark for half blown lights in a windowless room.
Nothing happened except for undulating, pulsing. Bells chimed, rang, screamed.
Nothing killed him.
(All by the very small miracle of, "Someone else learned the hard way.")
He stared. Matilda growled - as much so as a frog could.
"They are not smart at all." He said, at the very same moment Symbiont screamed, invisible glass gargled in a nonexistent throat.
Poison splashed, leaking, something runny and pale, pale blue. It sizzled on concrete. Black smoke curled and stank.
Looker stepped back. He stepped back again. He stepped back a few dozen more times, boxed in by junk and living things howling.
Metal started to melt.
Looker found that to be entirely and utterly stupid that they would put Symbiont in something poison corrodable. Heck, even he had poison resistant furniture!
What self-respecting idiot didn't?
(And here Looker had grown up thinking himself the most respective idiot he knew.)
Symbiont watched the gap grow, or at least tilted itself down, tentacles wriggling in delight. Delight as in, "its tentacles wriggled themselves through the gap, ripping it wide open with a sound exactly like metal squealing in ear-rending terror."
An entire panel tore in half and fell with a clang.
Symbiont floated out.
Looker had a gun.
Symbiont slithered - slithered through air.
Screams came from below, muffled, shouts and shouts, arguing, voices rising in pitch. Sweet's honey sweet (ha) voice turned cold, words lost to concrete. Concrete and footsteps pouding up metal stairs.
Clang-clang. Clang. Clang-clang.
Something, or someone, ker-funked and screamed.
Symbiont lashed empty air.
Looker had a gun.
He had it in the way someone watching TV had a soda, half gripped in an absentminded hand, half remembered, cold and thirst as the only reminding factors.
The cold hit him first, the bite of the metal. And then the thirst as in, "I would kill for a drink right about now," with a quick pause before, "I'm about to be killed. I'm about to be killed. Arceus above, if I don't do something, I'm going to die."
He pulled the trigger.
Symbiont hit the wall.
And the ceiling.
And the floor.
Gray-blue-white chunks dripped. They sparkled, and they dripped, stuck to fluorescent lights that buzzed, gooey on empty metal, slick like oil on cold concrete.
The door opened.
"I heard gunshots!" Sweet shouted - in an entirely un-police like manner.
"Because I fired."
Slick, glistening flesh peeled off the wall and splattered.
Sweet stopped talking. She didn't pause. She just swallowed hard, forced it down past the bile in her throat, and she shut up.
A gun cocked again, a loud and deadly click.
Looker did not have a gun in hand. It hung heavy at his hip.
"Run."
"What?!"
"Run." He repeated.
Footsteps clanged louder.
"You killed -"
"We need to run."
"YOU -"
"I. Said. Run."
And he ran.
He grabbed her by the arm - grabbed as in he took her arm and did not let go, grabbed as in I can and will yank this out of socket - and he ran. Through the lines of cages. Out the fire escape.
Still had her arm. Dropped it. A pokeball thrown - and there went the Interpol Assigned Natu on the railing, sitting there, round and green, and glowing, and glowing, and -
A park bench.
There was no metal under their feet. There was no city staring.
There was cold and air and blue sky and ragged breath clouds.
There was snow, piles of snow. Fluffy mounds, no grass poking through. Looker and Sweet huddled on a cold, damp bench, the world under a frozen, white blanket, completely and utterly soaking wet, 000 right beside them and looking not at all surprised that people had started appearing out of thin air.
"Ya kill it?" He asked, not turning his head or opening his eyes. Just content to half-doze, all leaned back and relaxed.
Looker nodded dumbly.
Sweet shook. Not shook as in she shook her head. Shook as in shaking. As in the kind of thing people in shock did, except all her blood was pretty intact this time, and really, she needed to pay more attention to Sugar licking her face and wrapping those pretty pink ribbon feelers around her neck.
(Her scarf was gone. Unfortunately. Spent like 500 poké on that in a thrift store.)
"Then we're good to go." Said 000.
"Good?" Said Sweet.
"I am feeling sick."
000 stood up, stretching. "Beast's dead, isn't it?"
Looker nodded dumbly some more, head on his knees, ears covered, covered, covered.
"Good?!" Sweet shouted. Shrieked. Her voice sounded like snapped chalk.
"Cripes! What's the problem?"
"He killed it!" She pointed at Looker the way a dramatic movie victim pointed at the criminal in a line-up. "Those people - those Pokémon - they're - they're still - they're STILL IN THERE!"
"Not for long."
"He. Killed. It."
"Castelia Police Department should be making arrests right about," 000's phone dinged a little, dark flip-phone ding, "now."
"It exploded."
"Got Supernatural agents on clean-up already."
"I - "
"Let's go for a drink." 000 said.
"He…"
000 walked away, not looking back. He crunched through the snow. He crunched onto the sidewalk.
He crunched his way downtown.
Sweet got up. Sweet paced. Sweet punched a statue of an Emolga - iron and brass fashioned atop a concrete pedestal at the perfect level for Sweet punches.
Looker almost threw up. But didn't.
The snow fell.
Between the sirens screaming and flashing red-blue, red-blue, red-blue blinding, the snow never stopped falling. (And still, no one suspected a thing.)
Agent Shrub said thanks.
That was it. Didn't even say it to the whole team.
Sweet power walked - read as: tried not to sprint and scream and hide and kick, hit, hurt - right past the warehouse, all the metal and the cold and the doors busted wide open, and the police cars line, line, lined up, flash, flash, flashing like the world's most vocal strobe lights. Power walked right into Agent Shrub, who nodded, a swish of pin-straight hair, and said, "Thanks."
Wow.
Sugar trotted at a very un-Sylveon-like speed, ribbons wrapped around Sweet's ankle, soft and delicate and tugging apparently not hard enough at all. Snow and grit and thick clumps of salt flew, kicked by soggy boots.
(The pedestrians did not appreciate that.)
(Looker did not appreciate Sweet running away while he still very much could feel his breakfast climbing its way up his throat -inch-by-inch and almost gagging. Because absolutely no one ever enjoyed an egg sandwich doing that. Seriously.)
The door to the bar opened.
The door to the bar (nearly) slammed on Looker's foot.
He kicked-stumbled inside and collapsed himself on a vinyl booth, slumped back against spider web cracked and peeling wallpaper, a cluster of tiny, painted grapes faded away to nothing but a strip of paper unraveled. The vinyl crackled - cracked.
Foam, yellow and spongy - maybe a little moldy - peaked out from broken seams. A sharp metal spring waited for escape, creaking in anticipation. He stared at that. Not at Sweet. Sweet was a frizzing, fists shaking, jaw set bomb. You did not stare at bombs when you knew they would kill you if you did.
(Let the bomb diffusers handle that.)
Glasses, tall, thick glass mugs hit the table. 000's tired body hit the booth. The mugs thunked. Beer sloshed, foam bubbling.
Everyone took one.
000 threw his back, one quick motion, a gulp and an eye roll - mouth pinched, slightest shake of his head. He did it again.
Looker did not.
Sweet stared at hers.
Dingy, buzzing lights shone on everything, yellow-brown beer looking and smelling every single bit like Rapidash pee. People, loud, drinking people, looked shady. Stools creaked and slid, scraping the floor, TV announcing things that other people re-announced back and forth.
The mugs hit the table again, glassy clinks on knife-gouged wood, half empty.
(Or half full, if you wanted to be like that.)
"Hey." Sweet said.
Looker stared at the wall. The grape wallpaper stared back, yellowed corners flapping.
"Hey."
Bells chimed as the front door opened, a gust of cold air and someone who 000 quietly muttered about.
"Hey!" She said again, up and lunging across the table,
fists knotted in the front of Looker's sweater vest. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
(Looker was staring. He was staring at the bomb, and the bomb's hair was silver dyed fire, aglow like death.)
"Hey now, kid! Listen. Let's not be too - "
"SHUT UP!"
000 put his hands up. Slowly. He shrugged, and he put his hands up, and then, he folded them behind his head.
The diamond pattern on Looker's sweater vest cried out in fear, wrinkled and stretched. Their cries sounded a lot like the strangled noises stuck in Looker's throat.
Sweater vest fabric choked back sobs.
"Now that I have everyone's attention." She uncurled her fist and sat down.
People were staring. Way more than a few, but definitely not everyone. The Rattata scuttling through sawdust and peanut shells definitely wasn't paying any attention, sniffing with little, pink nose twitches and little claws click-crunching.
Everyone was an overstatement.
"We murdered an Arceus-damn alien?!"
And then it was only 000 and Looker paying attention because when you started screaming about aliens in a bar, you were almost certainly, very, very, very drunk. You were drunk, and you needed to go home.
"Alien. Beast. Yeah." 000 said.
Looker slumped over. Table met face. Beer glass, cold and sweating, met a cheek. Because that was a beautiful decision and not one that involved scratchy, cedar smelling shavings - somehow - that fluttered around as he said, oh-so quickly and quietly, "Beast zero-one. Symbiont."
"You killed it."
"It kills people. You read the case files, yes? You saw - "
"You killed a living creature."
"It - "
"Shot it. Point blank."
"Well, actually, point blank is far more - "
"It was still wriggling."
" - efficient." Looker said, curling in on himself at, "Wriggling."
(Jell-o tentacles shimmered faintly with scales, flopping, viscous puddles splashing, running like ink-blue putty. Clawing. Bell chimes wheezed and screamed.)
"We were supposed to 'subdue' the target!"
"It's pretty damn subdued if you ask me." 000 said. (No one was asking.)
"I think -"
"I think you should shut up and listen, rookie."
Sweet took a swig of beer and did not think about spitting it out. That was not what her face meant.
"We found you in the woods half dead."
(She did not remember that. The "not going to spit beer out" face drooped like an unwatered flower.)
"You know how you got there?"
"I was unconscious."
"Because a Symbiont ripped you open."
(Like a piñata, reminded the stitches in her stomach, tight, little, black lines pulling at her flesh, itching and itching as they held in her candy guts.)
(She did not remember Symbiont. Not that one. Just milky blue blood dripping, still moving.)
"Symbiont did that?!"
"And pumped you full of neurotoxins."
Her heat hammered. Exactly like a hammer. Loud and strong and pretty close to stopping because surely the job was done.
Her heart did not hammer like poisoned adrenaline was running laps around her veins.
"I - "
"And put you in a two-week coma."
She slammed her hands down. Hidden metal bits rattled. Clattered. Shook.
"I don't remember any of that!"
"Of course ya don't. You nearly died."
"I...don't. I really - "
"He is telling the truth." Said Looker after a hard swallow of, well, the hard stuff.
"You know what it can do to someone. Anyone. Imagine what would happen if it was loose in a city like this."
The people sitting at their tables did not look. They sat, wool hats and scarves and grins and laughter. They sat with words in their unsuspecting mouths, being their unsuspecting selves. The Rattata nibbled bread crumbs.
The snow fell, frosted windows speckled white.
Shadows rose and fell.
Sweet's chest rose and fell, air running right out her lungs. Then froze. No air in. No air out.
Finally, her head fell. She breathed. She breathed and said:
"We had to kill it."
000 nodded, not smiling, not anything. "I'm sorry. Honestly. That ya...had to learn. Like this."
She nodded back.
Looker went for a comforting shoulder touch. Then he didn't. Then he sat on his hands and turned around in a spine-popping way to "watch" TV.
Sweet breathed. And she breathed. And she breathed.
(In and out a conscious effort - still alive, still alive, still alive.)
"Is there another way?"
They shared a look, the whole little team. It wasn't very nice.
"Nope."
"And if there is?"
"Well," 000 said, standing up, grubby poké coins slapped where the drinks once were, not at all shining. "We'd hafta live with that on our consciences, wouldn't we?"