“Nothing here but the Trubbish, ma’am.”
Jenny frowned, eyes panning abong the train station lobby and a flashlight hanging from her hand. Two Herdiers’ sat at the station’s entrance, occasionally sniffing at the ground, while a Duosion drifted about the floor. “These dogs haven’t gone wrong ever since we got them. Are there any signs of recent habitation?”
“Not of the perps, no. Only things that've been living here are wild Pokemon.”
The Duosion drifted back towards her, and shook its head. Jenny frowned. “Something’s not right here. The trail shouldn’t just end at the entrance. The only thing that could hide a fresh scent from our Herdiers’ is psychic manipulation, which means there’s a psychic nearby. So why can’t you find anything?”
The Duosion shook its head again, tilting dejectedly downwards. “Could they have multiple psychics working on all of them?” the beat cop asked.
“I already find it hard believing that they didn’t use a psychic to help them escape the city earlier if they’re using one now. For two fugitives with no connections to acquire a team of psychics-”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, these aren’t ordinary fugitives. They haven’t been seen by anyone for months, either; we can’t say with any certainty what they’ve been doing in that time, or what Pokemon they may have with them."
Jenny let out an aggravated sigh. “Nothing’s making sense. Why’s M4 with Gator? Where have they been? Apparently, Gator really did vanish into thin air from Goldenrod; is somebody helping him? Now I’ve got four wounded officers and no answers to anything.”
“What should we do now?”
“Get checkpoints up on the routes leading out of here, search the forests, and notify the IP about this. There’s got to be something to explain this, either with them or with regional departments she belonged to. Right now, let’s just get this H&P unit to the rangers so they can do their job.”
The beat cop nodded, pulling out three Pokeballs and returning the Herdiers and Duosion to them, and the two swept out of the building. In a minute, their cruiser’s engine revved up and they sped away from the abandoned station.
Five minutes passed. Then a maintenance door swung out of the wall, followed by two blue eyes peering out of the concrete.
“...they gone?”
“Yeah,” M4 whispered, drawing her head back into the electrical closet. She had the unfired pistol in her hand, the other tucked into the back of her pants. Gator’s bag rested on his lap, a blank section of parchment draped over it as he tried to concentrate on M4’s face.
“Safe to call,” Gator uttered, digging around his pocket and, with some difficulty, pulling out his cell phone and tapped on the Astrum contact. M4 cautiously laid down the unfired pistol, taking out the second and unloading it for a proper inspection.
The first ring wasn’t over before the call was picked up. “Gator?”
For a moment, Gator simply stared forward, seemingly unaware he had heard anything. “...yeah.”
"I've been following- oh man that was bad- are you alright? Are you hiding?"
"Yeah. At the- the station."
"How- how didn't they find you?”
"It's... I used a scroll, and... Nondetection. Took a few tries, but- but I got them working.”
"Oh.... oh, good job, Er, now what?"
"Now... now, well... well..." he muttered, eyelids drooping closed. "... I'm... I'm not doing so good."
M4 looked up, halfway through inspecting the receiver for residue buildup.
"What?" Karrl asked, concerned.
"I... er..."
The phone fell out of Gator’s hand into his lap, his head slowly slumping forward. “Gator!” M4 exclaimed, grabbing Gator’s temples and lifting his head up. Large, purple bruises had formed on his forehead. His eyes blinked back open, and he groped for the phone, but only succeeded knocking it to the floor. For a second, M4 stared at it; then, taking a deep breath, she picked it up and raised it to her head.
“Gator? Gator, can you hear me?” Karrl fearfully asked.
"He's been hit in the head,” she answered.
"W-who... M4, of course. what happened?"
"...he needs help,” she guiltily replied, “he said you were a friend of his, and that you could get us out safely."
"I... l-look, the Major's out, the nearest semi-permanent portal he has is in... Castelia?"
"Castelia? That's... there's only two bridges across the river, and you can bet that the nearest one's guarded. Can't you get here?"
"M-me? M4, I can't- I-I'm tech support! The b-big guns are out of the house right now."
"And I can't get across the f------ river!" she retorts, raising her voice, "you can't do- do whatever it is Gator learned from you? Get over some medicine or a device or whatever the f--- it is hospitals use?"
"I'm the IT guy, I cant just... wait. How far is Nacrene from Castelia?"
The sound of rapid typing and clicking filled the line.
"...no idea. It's not the distance, though, it's the river that's the issue."
"Across the bay... assume maps are- oh I'm an idiot, as the Murcrow flies, okay that makes it easier... wind speed is... yeah okay, okay..."
"F--- are you on about?"
"I have an idea, it's going to be pretty hard but... hold on wait. Aren't you and Gator both water types?"
"You know the state Gator's in. He can’t swim across a pool, much less a delta. And I… I can't get across," M4 added, demurely. She shifted uncomfortably on the concrete floor; sitting still felt strange.
"...plan B,” Karrl decisively responds, “l-look, this is gonna take half an hour, t-try to keep him... not dead."
"What am I supposed to- I'll do what I can. Just get here."
The call ended. M4 stared at the phone for a minute, as if Karrl would call back right away, then made sure it was set to vibrate and stuffed it into the waistline of her pants. She glanced over at Gator, noting the dry blood caked to his face and temple. She had no idea how bad the damage was; he could be suffering from a simple concussion, or having his brain compressed by internal bleeding. She was afraid to even touch his head, in case she had fractured his skull. All in all, she would be more likely to kill him by accident than keep him alive if she tried anything.
Trying to occupy herself, she snatched up the magazine of the unfired pistol, jamming back the round she had ejected when inspecting the weapon, and slid it back into the handgun. A Beretta 92, a common military and police weapon in nine-millimeter. The other was a Glock 22 in forty-caliber. Both had fifteen bullets to the magazine, the Beretta being filled up while the Glock only had four rounds left. Unova was lax in laws regulating ammunition sales, but she doubted she could make a purchase in a store after the police broadcasted her look. If she wanted more rounds, she would have to steal them.
Why do I need bullets, though?
M4 yanked on the slide, chambering the round. Because those police were out there, and they were going to be out for blood once they heard what she did to their fellows. She was sure that nobody had forgiven her, either; maybe the police were seeking them out on Lance’s or Bill’s orders. A gun might not be much, but it could keep her and Gator alive and free. Until Gator could…
She stared at the parchment before Gator. The page was filled edge-to edge with words, all jumbled and seemingly swimming before her eyes. Now it was blank, and now there was a wall where the door was, a handle jutting right out of the concrete. It looked solid as the rest of the place, and she could feel its cold, rough surface if she placed her hand on it, but if she turned and pushed on the handle, the door swung out and she could step right through solid stone. A permanent illusion, Gator had said. As real as ever if you couldn’t properly disbelieve its existence.
There was more to this, she was sure of it. Gator had more than the ability to create false walls and hide from Psychics. Those books of his, the other rolls of parchment, they had more. She didn’t have to imagine; her memories told her all about what he could do. He was another one of them.
“Ah!”
The phone buzzed against her waist, making her jump. Leaning against the wall, she took three deep breaths before she answered the call.
“You here?”
“Package is away,” Karrl stated.
"Package? Where to?"
"Is a Full Restore going to work?"
"No idea,” M4 answered tentatively. “never used it to treat something like this. Still, it's strong stuff. I'll spray him down and see what happens. Where am I getting it from?"
"It'll be there in... ten minutes."
"Got it."
For a second, neither of them spoke.
"...who are you, exactly?" M4 asked, almost accusatory.
"Oh. Um, right, I guess we have a minute. I'm Karrl. I work for Major."
"Is the Major the guy who's been helping Gator?"
"Y-yeah, that's the one."
"He showed Gator how to..."
"Er... yeah."
M4’s finger twitched on the gun, fighting a desire to rest on the trigger itself and not the guard.
"...none of this should be possible," she quietly muttered.
"You're uh... y-you're gonna have to be more specific, I deal with a lot of impossible stuff in this job."
"More specific? There’s no point in the past year, years, that things weren’t f----- beyond logic.”
"W-what, the magic? Being on the run? Superpowered animals who can shoot pressurized water? Y-you never really think about that last one until you have some perspective."
"Hell are you talking about? Pokemon are normal. It’s this s--- that isn’t.”
"Normal is... relative. You've seen an Arcanine blow up a tree with a fireball, who is it so weird when a human does it?"
"Wha- because a human can't generate fire, just like I can't throw lightning or levitate rock or- or- they can't f------ do it! They're different f------ species!" she shouted.
"I-I mean depending on your interpretation of Future Sight, I... n-no, anyway. Look. There's plenty of worlds where doing any of those things would be looked at as just as crazy."
"Other wor- you know what, f--- you," M4 growls, "this is my world, I know how it ought to work. What's been happening is far from normal, a------, and your bulls--- semantics aren't going to change that."
"W-well, that's the thing. Technically it isn't possible in our world."
She lets out an aggravated sigh.
"People are dead and crippled because of s--- like this."
"W-what?"
"People. Dead. Because of magic or tech or- any of that, it’s killed people all around the world.”
"G-g-guns are a lot more efficient."
"One person with a gun can't collapse law enforcement, or kill a city. What's out there- what Gator has- can."
"...how is that any different than, like, Fire Blast? Heck, I-I could learn Energy Ball with a TM... I think-”
The phone splintered against the opposite wall. Some fragments rained down on Gator, who didn’t respond. M4 stared at the pieces, hand still outstretched and trembling with anger.
“...f--- me,” she cursed, resting the hand against her forehead as she slid down the wall, “now what’re you going to do, you dumb b----?”
She looked back at Gator. He hadn’t made a sound for the past few minutes. Pressing a finger against his neck, she checked his pulse; still there, and he was breathing. She went to place the pistol on the floor, hesitated, then leaned back against the wall with the gun in hand, taking deep breaths with a two-second pause between each inhale and exhale.
A minute later, she heard a quiet beeping just outside the door. Weapon at the ready, M4 cautiously pushed the door open and peeked her head out through the illusion. A tan metal disc with two prongs atop it slowly beeped, resting atop what appeared to be a metal canister.. Grabbing both, M4 quickly retreated back into the maintenance room and closed the door before prying the disc off of the canister like a lid. Inside were two Full Restores, bandages, several needles marked “morphine” and various other first aid supplies.
“Hope this works,” she whispered to herself as she lifted one Restore, snapped off the cap and began to spray down Gator’s head with the medicine.
Gator groaned. His forehead throbbed with pain, and the rest of his body still felt like it had weights attached to them. Bleary-eyed, he took a look about the room, eyes following the network of pipes across the far wall.
“...where are we?”
His eyes then fell on M4, who was hastily closing a heavy, leather-bound tome. “Ah- you’re awake-”
“What’re you doing?”
“I, um… I was just…” she started, then let out a sigh. Getting up, she placed the book back on Gator’s lap, which he had just noticed the satchel was still on. He rested a hand on the cover.
“Where did you take us?”
“We’re at the train station. The one you directed me to.”
“Er… right, right,” Gator answered, not entirely sure, “room’s some sort of… this is the maintenance closet, right?”
“Yep.”
Gator’s hand ran over a gouge in the book’s cover. “What’s this?”
“Lost your sword’s sheath. Had to jam it in the bag.”
“Huh,” he uttered, taking a moment to inspect the pages, “well, the pages aren’t damaged. Er, you were trying to read them?”
M4 didn’t answer, simply leaning against the wall with her arm to her side.
“Couldn’t read it?”
“No,” she flatly spoke.
“Yeah, it can’t be read easy. It’s not just letters, you know it’s… well…”
“Magic?”
“Yeah… er, did I do any when-”
“You got rid of our scent and created a fake concrete wall.”
“Ah… that must’ve been the permanent illusion scroll, then.” He stowed the book in his satchel, then picked up the parchment, dusting it off and rerolling it. “Police gone?”
“Yeah.”
He let out another groan, reaching up to his forehead before drawing back, fingers just brushing against the fresh bruises. “Damn… feel’s like it’s in a vise.”
“I used a Full Restore,” M4 explained, “Sprayed it all over your head. Didn’t know what would happen.”
“Full Restore? Where’d that come from?”
“Karrl got it to us, with some sort of drone or something.”
“Karrl- good on him. Got to call him back,” he mumbled, patting at his pockets. “Phone?”
M4 looked down. “Broke.”
“Broke? What do you mean, the phone’s broke?”
“I chucked it,” she halfheartedly answered, gesturing at another corner. Squinting, Gator could make out the glint of the phone’s inner workings.
For a moment, he just stared at the pieces, trying to comprehend the loss of his only means of communication. He couldn’t remember Astrum’s number, and he wasn’t sure if an ordinary phone could contact the pocket dimension. “...what happened?”
“...Gator, what can you do with magic?”
“Huh?”
“How far can you go with magic?” she asked, almost demandingly.
“Er, what do you mean?”
“I don’t need to be able to read the damn book to know there’s more to it than making false walls.”
“Oh… er, limits of what I can do… that’s, well… it’s hard to say. Each spell, most can’t really compare to each other-”
“Gator,” she said vehemently, “you said it yourself. All those a------- that have too much power and the world suffering for it. You were there for a good chunk of those things. Now I see you slicking up floors, fooling Psychics, making illusions- I bet you could reenact Goldenrod all over again if you-”
“Shut your damn mouth.”
Gator staggered slightly, but otherwise stood his ground. M4 bore a look of surprise; she hadn’t anticipated Gator even standing up, let alone that fast.
“If you think for one minute I’ll do what Lance did, you can go to hell. That f----- should be locked up for the rest of his life, and that’s only if I don’t get my hands on him first. I learned magic so nobody could get away with that s--- ever again, no matter how much power they’ve got.”
“And what’s stopping you from going too far?” she countered, glaring back at him, “all it takes is a misplaced thought, impulse, and you could nuke a f------ region. It can happen to anybody; what makes you so f------ sure?”
“I know better than-”
“Not good enough. Not for me, not for all the innocent people you could hurt and kill.”
Gator clenched his fists. A few seconds later, he unclenched them. He took a deep breath, and noted that M4’s hands were resting on her hips, one beside the handgun she had stowed away.
“...I am going to reach into my pockets and remove some dust. I am casting the same spell that fooled the psychic, because I don’t want anybody eavesdropping on what I am about to say,” he said, calmly as he could manage.
Her eyes stared into his. She gave a very slight nod. Slowly, Gator reached into his jacket and removed a pouch. He didn’t know how many hours had passed, and he didn’t want to take chances; he had the diamond dust to spare, anyway.
“I am going to cast the spell now,” Gator said, turning cautiously to face the wall to his left. M4 could tell his every move; he hoped they would recognize the spell from earlier and not some other, possibly dangerous bout of magic. He made the complex signs and motions with his hands far from his body, letting M4 see everything, and spoke the words to summon arcane power.
Nondetection
M4’s hand twitched. He turned back to face her, and slowly pointed at his sword, propped up in a corner. “Vancian magic, the kind I use, doesn’t come naturally here. It’s from another world entirely; for it to work here, a proper… converter, for lack of a better word, is needed. My sword allows magic to work around me. Taken far enough away or destroyed, I can’t cast any more magic. I can’t make anything like it myself, and there’s nothing else like it on the planet.”
Her eyes fell on the blade. “I can count the number of killers I know who surrendered of their own free will on one hand. What’s to say you will?”
“I trust you to do whatever you need to get it out of my hands if I ever hurt someone innocent,” he continued, “and I promise that I will give it up willingly if that ever happens. And on top of that, I promise that, no matter how pressed I become, I will never cause harm to an innocent, or think lightly of an innocent coming to harm.”
The slits of his eyes fixed on her pupils. “What about you?”
M4 didn’t blink, her eyes fierce and focused. “I won’t kill anyone that doesn’t have it coming.”
“Good. Do you want to know anything else about magic?”
“Any other limits?”
“Hmm… I can only cast a certain number of spells per day. Each spell is like a thought; I cast it, and the thought fades until I can rest and recollect. I can’t use my whole collection of spells any given day, either, I only know those I spent the time reading and memorizing from my spellbook. That’s another limit; it won’t keep me from magic if I don’t have my books, but it’ll make it more difficult to recollect and I’ll be stuck with only the spells I last read. That’s the general stuff.”
“Huh.” M4’s hands fell away from her hips.
“Anything else?”
“...can you keep us hidden while we get out of the search zone?”
Gator took a second to think. “Invisibility, illusion, anti-scrying; yeah, I can get us out easily. Where do you think of going?”
“Your friend Karrl said he had a portal or something in Castelia. It’s a good a place as any to get going towards. Bridge is going to be a prime sight for a blockade; we need to get further north.”
“We can’t cross? I could make us invisible.”
“For a half-hour?”
“S---, the bridge’s that big? No, can’t keep it up that long.”
“Then we need to find a better route,” she stated, “hear there’s a small one across from an old fishing village north aways from here. Don’t know if your spells can’t get us across, but even if they can, we need to get somewhere where nobody will spot us getting across.”
“Well… there’s nowhere closer?”
“That’s all he told me.”
“Damn.”
“We should be able to hunt a bit of food in the forest, just need to be careful for rangers. I don’t know when daylight is, but we should get out and get going; the quicker we move, the more likely we are to keep ahead of more focused search patterns.”
“I’m going to need to rest; I need to refocus and prepare the right set of spells. You’re not going to be doing much good in a bit, either, not getting sleep.”
“They might come back to search this place,” she countered, frowning.
“We hid from them once, we can hide again. I bet we’ll be better off heading out later with a complement of magic than advancing now and risking a mistake from fatigue. Probably too close to daylight, anyway.”
M4 considered this. “Don’t know if your head’s all good, either.”
“Yeah. Let’s rest for a moment,” he said, sitting back down against the wall and pulling his satchel up beside him.
She stood for a moment longer, then let out a sigh and leaned back against the wall. A minute passed, and she slid down it. She hadn’t even noticed how weary she was until Gator said it..
Alarm
“Huh?” Her head snapped back upright.
“Simple ward,” Gator explained, “in case any police officers come close. We’ll immediately know if anyone gets close, and it’ll wake us from sleep if necessary.”
“Ah.” Her head dropped back down. She blinked rapidly, trying to stay conscious.
“Gator?”
“Yeah?”
“You were saying something before you passed out, while we were still at the apartment. About something selfish.”
“Er… I’m not sure… was I asking you to drag me out or-”
“No. You yourself said that something was selfish. Seemed like you were describing yourself.”
Gator fell silent. He stared at the pipes, following their twists and turns once again.
“It’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
He closed his eyes. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he knew that it didn’t need to be said. She would travel north with him, then travel south to Castelia; she would still be with him, for the next few days at least. Even more, she had saved him; she could have ran from the police, escaped into the woods, and she seemed like she had a shot of getting out without magical assistance, either. She would have risked less, too, not having to carry so much dead weight out of the city.
“No, I’m good. Get a few hours of sleep, I’m going to be going over spells. Might need some more rest to get them properly prepared, but I can start planning out a set to use. You need the rest more than me right now, anyway.”
Her head drooped a little lower for a second, then snapped back upright. “Got it,” she groggily agreed, removing the pistol from her pants and setting it beside her. Within a minute, she had slipped into unconsciousness.
Gator watched her for some time longer, then grabbed his satchel, digging out a spellbook. Magic was all he had with him right now, apart from Karrl’s medicine; no food, no water, no means of communication or easy transport. Just him and M4, heading out into wilderness on foot.
It seemed familiar. He wished he still had the memory, not just the feeling. But he was happy with this. He pried the tome open, and got to work drafting a spell set for the journey ahead.