Breaking the Ice

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

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These trees could not come fast enough. The police spotted us by the window after the explosion, so we ran into the woods. Ran anywhere but there. After a while I noticed the rustling of the fall leaves behind me had disappeared. At some point, I had lost Monique in the chaos.

Here I am, alone again. Accompanied only by the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze and the faint orange glow above the trees from the direction I came: the shattered remnants of my life. Everything happened so fast, one moment I was talking with my parents and the next I am shunned yet again, for different reasons, by different people, but still unable to return. Another plan ruined, leaving me with no idea where to go.

Well, finding Monique might be a start. Then I could yell at her for ruining this plan too. I never imagined Monique would have had her own agenda this whole time. I thought she was as lost as I was. She kept so many secrets from me, but ones I never could have guessed. Even now, how many more does she have with her, waiting until the time is right to bring them up and change our plans? Have I trusted her too much from the start?

During my thinking, a quiet rustling from the fallen leaves starts to approach from the direction I came. I instinctively grabbed Glaceon's pokéball and threw it. It hit the ground and bounced a couple of times then rolled into a pile of leaves uneventfully. What? Then I remembered: I let Glaceon out of her pokéball. Which meant that she needs rescued too.

The rustling sounds like the tree just to my right is all that is in between, there is no way a tree that size could hide a person behind that. As I guessed, Glaceon came walking from behind the tree, oddly glad to see me. As soon as her eyes turned my direction she immediately pounced into my arms, a puff of snow joining her from my surprise.

At least it's only snow. A couple of weeks ago and half this forest would be frozen solid.

Even with Glaceon in my hands, there were still rustling leaves, but further away. Was it Monique? Did I want to find out? Without thinking I found myself running the other way.

The line between person I would rather not see right now between police and Monique is much more blurred than I thought, but after everything that just happened, I might need some space, from her, from everyone. I thought I needed to meet my family again, show them what I have done, but...

"Glac- Glaceon!" She yelped suddenly, and with it a matching fireball to whiz past my head and collide in an explosive ball with an unfortunate tree. I turned around and gasped, ducking to narrowly avoid a Charizard flying directly at me. It smashed into the same tree as its fireball, knocking the poor thing over, the Charizard needing to recover after the impact. Following the Charizard is an overweight hiker, trying to chase it, but clearly unable to match its speed or even compete. He spotted me and froze, probably not expecting anyone else out here. Glaceon shot a beam of ice behind us at the Charizard's wing, obviously the more important of the two, preventing it from executing another attack it was preparing.

With the extra moment, I focused on the hiker, and recognized him -after a moment of disbelief- as Hickory. Ugh, I can never seem catch a break. He gave me a thumbs-up and smiled, either crazy or he genuinely forgot he has that Charizard with him.

Probably both.

It's likely that the Charizard is Orange's if Hickory is with it, meaning Orange must be here somewhere, there's no way he would trust Hickory with that responsibility. Maybe Orange had Charizard watching Hickory. That seems more likely.

I told Glaceon shoot another ice beam at Charizard, freezing his left leg to the stump of the tree, allowing us time to run. Glaceon, however, created and launched a couple of ice shards at Charizard as we ran deeper into the woods. "Good girl," I remarked, half agreeing that we should fight Charizard, without a real trainer it would be easy to beat, but extra time we spent would give more time for Orange to find us, so more forest it was.

I ran for a while, eventually finding a fallen log and decided to rest, no longer able to see the burning glow in the sky. I set Glaceon down, letting her stretch from the cramped position I carried her in so I could run. I opened my other two pokéballs and let the occupants out to walk around. Taking in the surroundings, we were definitely a sizable distance away from where we started. There was some water not too much further away, likely where we will camp for the night, and the trees here were changing to the likes of pine and spruce. That means we were getting higher? Lower? I could never remember. The water nearby looked like it was pretty big, so we must be almost at sea level.

A couple of hours later, I had set up camp for the night. Me and my sleeping bag off to one side, Glaceon comfortably by the fire, Sewaddle in a tree nearby wrapped up in a cocoon with Panpour under the same tree, having a quiet conversation with Sewaddle. A calm, relaxing evening in a stark contrast to the rest of today. The dim fire in the center of us, beginning to fade away into the darkness enveloping the world this evening, and with it the shadows of the trees and the sounds of other pokémon as they too settle for the night. I look to the side and remember the one thing missing from this calming evening, Monique.

Even under the circumstances her absence was physically felt, especially to Panpour. I had not seen just how important each of us were to him. We had saved his life, and who were likely his friends. Even with it being only a couple of hours, anyone could see he was more sullen and withdrawn. We all ate by the fire, except Panpour, leaning against a tree looking over the water from a distance. I can't blame him for not wanting to be by a fire, but he had no interest in being with us during that time at all. I felt sorry for him, but there wasn't anything I could say. 'She isn't who you thought she was' lacks any kind of inspiration.

There was a lot of information to take in, frankly too much for one day. My best friend has been lying about everything, for what is supposedly "good," but aren't we the good ones, fighting for what is right? My family both want me back in their chokehold and I have no clue what happened to them, and Orange was back for round three, or four, or whatever it is now. As I faded off into sleep with the final embers of the fire, I could only wonder what happened to everyone, and hope that none of them found me while I slept.

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Well, that was the first bit of good luck I had come across. I woke up still in one piece, with no one looming over me ready to pounce. Well, with the exception of Glaceon. There is nothing better than waking up and being tackled by a freezing cold ball of excited pokémon. Except, you know, anything else. I mumbled random babble at her and shot a ball of snow, impacting just below her nose. A surprised yelp marked my hit, followed by the disappearance of weight as she fumbled to the side, wiping the snow from her maw. I smiled victoriously and got up to perform a very uncoordinated victory dance, but as far as Panpour and Sewaddle could tell from their tree, I might have been having a stroke. I was never one for dancing, especially not this early in the morning.

We all packed up and I decided to leave everyone out of their pokéball for now, Panpour to cope and Sewaddle so he was not the only one put inside. Next came the difficult question: Where to next? I could head back to town, but I could be sure there would be police waiting for me, as well as Orange and Hickory. Other that, what options were there? Forest to the north, ocean to the east and south. Well, land to the west but it would be too far away without going through Mt. Silver, and there was absolutely no way that was going to happen. Maybe this is why I met Monique in the middle of the woods by herself, she was being hunted and had no where else to go. And now here I was, in the same case.

A look in both directions of possible routes brought something to my attention I couldn't see when the sun was setting and after it had set: the land to the west was closer than I thought. If I used my ice travel method, we could get over there pretty quick...

Without much debate from any other members of the group, the decision was made, and off we headed into the unknown, another tragedy waiting just over the horizon.