Broken Souls

Kicking It Into High Gear

It's hard to bury her.

For one thing, Fang's psychic powers refuse to trigger, so we'll have to move the body ourselves, physically, no matter what we decide to do.

For another, the trainer flees the scene. He's gone by the time Minerva runs around the corpse to give him a piece of her mind, and I'm half glad she wasn't able to. Whatever great wrong has been accomplished tonight, adding 'manslaughter' to it would make things worse.

Minerva is very, very lucky she wasn't born a Gyarados, or anything on that evolutionary line. She doesn't have that kind of self control.

There's a river nearby but we can't throw the corpse in, nor do we have the strength, so for a while we wait there in total shock.

Fang is completely past the point of rational thought at this time, as he's trying to dig her a grave with his paws. We'd be here well into the next century at the rate he's doing it, but he keeps going until his pads are numb. I feel my fingers go numb with his pain.

Even Minerva's trademark grin is gone, replaced by a morbid forwards glare.

Without a word, I withdraw them.

Ten raises one wing and his eyes glow a frightening purple. Trees curve up and out of the way, rent from the earth, and a massive mound of earth flies skywards. With his other wing, he rolls the body, sloshing water and blood around it, and deposits Pisces into the earth. She falls as if sleeping, entirely limp, but her eyes are still wide in fear. I want to go close them but I can't bring myself to touch her. To doing so seems to confirm her death.

Reginae, Ten, and I don't need words anymore, not after this. I can sense their every thought and the way it pulls at Ten's mulling over his new powers in shock, and Reginae's thinking about Red's warning from a few days back. Both of them have turned to the future not out of coldness or a lack of empathy, but rather necessity.

I withdraw them as well, which leaves me alone beneath the glare of Cerulean's lights. This city is closer to the ground than Saffron or Vermillion, with more of a suburban feel to it, but the streetlights are still enough to blot the stars. I look upwards again, feeling the silence of the early morning like an anesthetic. The world stretches into a blur of noise and color, sound and sensation, and the second my face touches cold fabric I pass out.

***

My years on the road have adjusted me to waking up in new places. There's no shock when I wake up in a aqua-colored hotel room. My mind thinks 'Wow, we're in a hotel? It must be a day that ends in 'y',' and leaves it at that.

The real anomaly, the thing that gets me first, is that I'm completely alone. There are no other sighing breaths or other bodies to warm the room, it's just me, alone and more than a little cold. This is in part because someone's left the window open, and the chill is awful. The drapes billow out on occasion, flailing only to come to rest again. Oddly, even though we're miles from the ocean, I can smell the sea. I don't know if it's the reek from Pisces's body and bloody brine or my mind acting up, but it's distinct and gone almost instantly.

I reach for my bag and find it slung across the floor, with the Pokedex and Pokegear sitting alongside it. I almost get out the fifth Poke Ball but the memories flood back as I find it lighter than usual. I know that this is in my own mind- catching a Pokemon doesn't make them any heavier- but I know this one's hers, and it feels it this morning. I tuck it back away.

The team is less than thrilled to see me.

"What now?" I ask them.

Reginae breaks the silence first: "We need to add a new team member. We're lucky we had a catch beforehand-"