Chapter Text
Aya heard shouting, talking, somewhere on the other side of the planet. Really, it was a miracle she could hear it at all. She couldn't understand it, of course, she couldn't feel her hearing aids in her ears. She must have taken them out before- before-
Before exploding into a form that could reasonably carry a girl taller than her without rousing suspicion or risking getting Melia electrocuted by the train's rails. Granted, she hadn't quite meant to do it that way. Wings probably would have been enough until they'd have needed to smash their way into the room, but Ho-oh had some very latent, very useful psychic abilities so-
Still, this time the death had been pretty necessary considering she'd nearly drowned just before and gotten rained on and she still wasn't well off from that. At least her eevee was well enough to follow orders and keep close.
It was taking way too long to heal. Others were probably in the room, the water was still evaporating in her vicinity and-
Oh, the fucking knife was still in her chest. Would that idiot take it out? No wonder she couldn't move. This was a problem.
Something washed over her and the hard thing stuck finally came free and-
Aya came to on the floor a few minutes later, the carpet beneath her feet ruined by blood and ashes. Aya winced at the sight of it. She was alone, barring eevee again, who needed to be returned so she could actually rest properly now. The pokemon only mewed at her. Blond hair, dark eyes stared at her, trying to be cold, unforgiving, but resolute all at once.
To Aya, stuck between one side of mortality and the other, it only looked old and sad. She still acknowledged it because human emotions needed acknowledging or they -her included of course- got really snippy. But still it was terribly sad.
"I'm guessing from the look on your face, Melia flew the coop." Did that come out human? She hoped it came out human.
She was a bird, she could totally make bird puns.
Judging by the look on Jenner's face, she'd probably not done that. Or spoken human and it been the wrong thing to say. Eevee crawled up her leg and lifted up her bag with its teeth.
"Stronk," she told it and reached into her bag. Like always, her fingers and arm responded easily, like they'd never been hurt at all. She did have to lean a little lower to get it but the case holding her hearing aids, port plug included was in good condition. As good as she could get anyway after all of today's madness. She put them in anyway. It'd be fine, even if they shocked her, she was used to that too.
"Melia left," she heard Jenner saying as she flexed her ankles, bare as the day she was born. He was looking away from her. "She saw-"
"Saw you stab me," Aya finished and cleared her throat in mild alarm. Too much bell in that. "Great, still sound like a church organ. Anyway, you didn't try to explain anything and now she's gone… where?"
Jenner rubbed his eyes and made to reply but the glass door cracked and then proceeded to melt. "Oh now this will definitely not do," came from the other side.
"You're too slow, Madelis," Jenner said with so much apathy and despair for a moment Aya briefly considered believing him. "She's already gone."
There was a pause. "Liar."
"This is a dead end room. Even I wouldn't be reckless enough to put a back door in my daughter's bed room. It would get a lot of questions, wouldn't it? She has a togepi with metronome, do the basic battle strategy."
There was another pause. Then the distinct beep of a communicator. "Zetta. This is Madelis, Melia escaped and is on the run. She's likely headed towards Route 2, head to Amethyst Cave immediately. Inform K. I'm deploying the grunts to waylay her. We have no time to lose."
The rest of the sentence was lost as Jenner turned to Aya. "Get dressed."
Aya resisted the urge to tell him where to shove it and shot back. "My clothes are in the room I was borrowing or burned off now. Or lost in the sea, whichever."
His face shuttered and for a moment, Aya took in the fear as his brain caught up with him. Understandable. He was being pretty rude, despite what should have been common sense. She supposed she couldn't blame him. His daughter had probably abandoned her father or something.
"Melia has some of her old things," he finally said. "I was planning on donating them once she left to be a gym leader. I'll look for them, but for now, grab her pajamas off the bed. They should be clean. They'll do for now."
Aya nodded and did so, pulling them on without much reaction.
"Are all Johto children so relaxed in this state?"
"Nope." She tightened the drawstring. "Most children aren't used to dying over and over though. I got tired of feeling humiliated and ashamed of something I couldn't control. I usually have spares for it but I had to wash them." A pause as the sound of clacking stilettos faded away. "I am an idol's daughter. I have to have a few things wrong with me."
Jenner nodded, picking up the messy room, scooping the rug into the laundry basket. "Not a scar remained."
"It doesn't anymore, not physically anyway." All dressed once again, she thought of Tesla, who had watched her hide under the covers in shame and guilt. This was different. Jenner wanted her for something he had already made clear. She had nothing to hide that he knew about.
"Do you ever feel doubt?" he asked suddenly. "Don't you want to give up what you're doing? Don't you worry you're doing the wrong thing?"
Aya made a face, helping him clean now. "Nope. Because I'll get it done. I'll make this right." Aya repositioned the bag on her shoulder. "I'm immortal. There's no excuse, and a life with the rest is worth every bloody murder, every rainstorm, everything. Don't you feel the same about your daughter? Isn't that why you're using me? Or is it to make up for the awful things you've done? I don't care much either way, but that's the line you gave me, so if I'm being lied to it's better to get it out of the way now. I don't kill liars. I kill cowards and unsavory folks and extremists."
"You're twelve," he said, as if that meant something
"Gotta start somewhere. At least now I can take responsibility." She shook her head. "I want to do whatever it takes and whatever is in your lab will help wonders."
Because this wasn't about Melia. It could never be about Melia. Whatever happened to her, Aya would try to fix. She had made the vow after all. But she needed what Jenner had, she needed his resources, his stuff. She needed to be anonymous again.
Even if now, it wouldn't last much longer.
"You're going after her," he said after a moment of silence, almost of mourning.
"Of course."
"Good."
The door slid open with disgusting creaking sounds and pieces of glass tinkling to the ground. "Professor!" Ren shouted. "There was an announcement. There are Xen grunts everywhere. They-" He stopped and held out a shattered ball from button to lid. "They killed my murkrow!" he blurted out.
Jenner examined the ball, eyes narrowing with concern. "We may be able to save him, Ren," he said mildly, like all Ren had told him in the past few minutes was that it was raining outside. "It's just the release mechanism. The cracks are superficial. Leave him with me. I'll get the tool kit and take care of it. In the meantime, I need you to take Aya to Route Two. Melia's had a moment of panic and I need to talk to her but she's run off."
"Melia's run off? Again?" Ren's face fell. "She said she was fine."
"Runs off a lot?"
Ren glanced at Aya and paled. "Why are you wearing her clothes?" Why have you shrunk?
"It's temporary." She blinked at him. "She runs off a lot then."
Ren swallowed and nodded. "She gets anxious pretty easily and all and so… yeah. But usually she doesn't hop a train to another town or something. She's probably heading straight for Sheridan. What… what happened?"
"Long story," Aya replied. "We can talk on the way." So she could come up with a feasible lie that had nothing to do with fire. "I gotta get my pokemon to the healer asap though, we got in a nasty battle. Red's not doing so hot." None of her pokemon really were but she wasn't going to say that within earshot of Ren, who was looking at her with so much suspicion, it was taking all of her self-control not to breathe fire on him right there.
Ren nodded, looking back with a twitch at his murkrow's ball. "Could the ball emporium fix him faster?"
"It's possible," Jenner agreed, having risen to his feet now and was rummaging through her drawers. "But pricey. They'd likely just tell you to go catch another one since this is a common pokeball."
The noise Ren made in response to that sentence almost made Aya's respect of him rise a few jots. Almost.
"That's why it will be faster if I do it," he continued, making to leave the room.
"Honestly," drawled a soft voice that seemed to be simultaneously coming from the ceiling, walls and floor and all without an echo. That was… That was some good telepathy skill right there. The user must have practiced. "I think you have done enough, Jenner."
He snapped up straight, looking about the room. He didn't look afraid, exactly. "Who's there?"
"That, dear professor, is none of your business." Something pink and black shimmered into existence, a woman that stood eye to nose with Ren at the least. Then Aya blinked and rubbed her eyes. No, not a woman, a pokemon. A… gothitelle? Someone had had one in Castelia. It sneered at them, like it had forgotten how to smile. "You've done enough damage with what you already know. What you're planning to do… what you have done… the fact that you sent Aya into that hellscape on its own was enough and here you are trying to make it worse."
Ren glanced at Aya, who merely shrugged. She had no idea.
"Sending children to fix your mistakes is just like a pokemon professor." The voice paused. "Do not worry, Gothitelle here is merely my companion, an ally. You will meet me when I so choose and no sooner. At any rate, little ones, I'm going to put an end to this now, before he makes things any worse." The voice turned sickly sweet.
Then the world lurched beneath their feet. A gust of wind blew through the room, setting off Melia's papers and letters as her mirror, then her closet, opened up a smooth circle that seemed to suck in anything in its view. And within seconds that was starting to include Jenner.
He looked at both Ren and Aya with wide, desperate eyes. Ren's pokeball neared the floor before Aya dove and caught it.
Neither seemed to notice. "Save Melia…" Jenner croaked, before his grip on the table gave way and he was gone.
The voice scoffed and the gothitelle laughed. "Let me give you kids some advice. Don't save her. She's better off that way."
And then the room was silent, the gothitelle gone.
"What the fuck was that?" Ren asked no one in particular.
Aya scooped herself up and handed him his broken pokeball. "No idea, but I'm not inclined to listen to people that don't bother to show their face. that's too much like religion to me, and I've already got one. I don't need another." She examined the ball. "He's right, this is repairable. But you're even better off transferring Cocorin to a fresh ball before he corrupts rather than repair this one. You don't want a glitchmon or a ditto." She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a spare pokeball. Then she pressed it to where the button had been. Both pokeballs dinged and Aya handed Ren the second one. "Cheers."
Ren gaped at her. "How did you-"
"My cousin studied pokeball making with Mister Kurt. I snuck around because I'm a busybody." Aya picked up her bag and her eevee. "Anyway, I'm going after Melia in the morning. I need to get my team fixed and a nap. I've done enough Xen fighting today and if I keep on, I'm going to hurt something that doesn't deserve it again. Get to Venam and let her know what happened. Hopefully you guys will beat me to it and she'll be all right."
She had promised Jenner she'd look after Melia. She didn't intend to be stupid about it. Glancing about the room, she saw a gleaming silver device, yellow bulbs gently off. Without much thought, she snatched it up as she went.
Aya stalked out of the room, leaving Ren staring and her body aching.
"Keep it together, Aya," she told herself. "We gotta keep it together."
"Your fomantis is going to need a while to recover," the nurse continued, handing back most of her pokeballs. "The ice fang was weak for a gyarados, but fomantis aren't meant to take hits like that. Be leery of critical hits, they could do permanent damage to little ones like this that not even evolution can fix."
Aya nodded, chewing on her lip and biting the acid back in her throat. It wasn't like she had meant to run into a psycho gyarados. She stroked eevee's fur, who merely chirruped into her armpit. Like a weirdo. He was so damn weird.
Still, at least she hadn't noticed the distinct lack of height and how baggy her clothes were.
"All of your pokemon are exhausted," the nurse finished. "Whatever you were fighting, you should have fled."
Bitter annoyance burned up her throat and again the urge came out, coiling like a dragon and wishing to roast and let her carcass stink up the entire god damn lab.
Aya swallowed the fire dragon whole with nary a twitch no matter how much her throat ached from it. No, she didn't do that. People didn't do that, humans didn't do that. They… humans made up reasons, came up with excuses, danced a game in front of other humans to get away with it. She for a moment, didn't care if she got away with it. But she also wouldn't kill just because she was annoyed. That wasn't her. That was Ho-oh, who did things on a whim. Not her.
"I tried to," she said instead, and gently took Red's ball. "Don't worry, ma'am. I'm gonna swap out my team and give most of them a rest. Don't you worry."
The woman smiled, clearly mollified. "It must have been out of your control." She tutted. "All these Xen fools, demanding I heal their pokemon. Please! They lost that free healing ages ago."
"Did they?" Aya asked, fiddling with everyone else, who looked as tired as she did despite them all getting a three hour nap.
She made a face. "Of course. Their trainer cards are invalid now, we couldn't accept them even if we wanted to. They just have to use the gold star pillars in the wild areas. They're environmental scanners you know, to make sure the ecology is perserved. Didn't they do that where you're from?"
"Former Rockets officially were required to submit to a rehabilitation program, ending with a six month internship with a gym or professional laboratory after which point they have the option of choosing where to pursue a career alongside their pokemon, who is given similar rehabilitation," Aya recited in the most bored tone she could muster. "Unofficially, those who were unwilling to submit to this were sent to a different region for rehabilitation anyway and their pokemon were healed followed by release or sent to new trainers. There's no benefit to taking away their futures when they are under the impression those were stolen from them anyway."
The nurse stared at her a moment. Aya stared back, then bowed. "Thank you for looking after my pokemon. And she turned and left.
"Johtoans," she heard behind her back.
Aya laughed and kept walking. Was she supposed to be insulted?
Still, she supposed the nurse was right. Her pokemon were in pretty worn out shape. Eevee was fine, but she was a shadow type so she'd be fine even if the world collapsed under her paws. Isaiah had also gotten very little activity so he was fine. Pich was too stubborn to not come along, Trinity was exhausted from the water, Cheshire's ball shook stubbornly as she lowered it to the PC's station. Settled that then. Thankfully, Red went without a fuss because unlike the rest, he was smart. Sadie barked at her in the ball and refused. So, Aya, hesitatingly, held out Puff's ball. She wasn't hers, she was there temporarily and she missed her trainer and…
Aya couldn't look after her. She just couldn't, and keeping her when she could raise someone else was ridiculous. It was her fault her trainer was…
Drowned.
Aya tapped it to the machine and began searching for new ones. There wasn't much here that she could train up quickly, or that she felt comfy doing so with that she hadn't already got. The litleo would do and she'd catch something on the way. At least she'd grabbed that exp thingie off of Melia's desk. It'd count as payment for saving her ass or whatever.
She yawned and stepped back towards the area with the waterfall. Releasing Pan, who yawned at her, she grinned.
"Burn the grass."
It helped that she had some aggression to work off too.
Not even thirty minutes later, she had found herself a squeaking, hungry budew who waddled at top speed away from the whole thing and into her lap. She couldn't really disagree with that, except having to dodge away from her eager stabby bits.
"And it's not even noon," she grumbled, but got to her feet anyway to set off towards the train station.
As she did however, her red eyes met brown, heavy, and downtrodden. "Venam," she said by way of greeting. "I'd thought you'd have gone by now."
Venam grunted. "Mum made me stay home to rest after all the grunts. Said with Melia's sense of direction it'd take us longer to find them than the bad guys. Why're you still here?"
"Training," she replied, looking her up and down. "Did you sleep?"
"I'll sleep on the train."
"Mm."
Venam regarded her. "You're gonna need the Golden Hammer to pass through the next route."
Aya raised an eyebrow. So it wasn't a HM or something. "Is it made of real gold?" Cause at this point she could sell it and break shit with her fists.
"Heck if I know. It's got badge alloy and that's all I care about." Venam ran her fingers agitatedly through her hair. "Anyway, Karrina's the one you get it from. She was by my factory earlier looking like she saw something gross."
"Got it. I'll check with her then meet up with you guys."
Aya hoisted herself up, Ai the budew wiggling with annoyance as she did. She caught Venam's eyes again, intent and heavy on her. "What?" she asked, biting down the irritable fire urge again.
"Do you really want to save Melia?"
Aya blinked. Hadn't seen that coming. "What?"
Venam shrugged. "You only helped me out because I asked. And Jenner asked you in the lab Ren said. You're just helping because people ask. Do you actually wanna help Melia?"
Aya regarded her with a singular raised eyebrow. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
Venam's lips pursed. "I'm not. I'm just sayin' there's a difference between choosing to do something and someone choosing to do it for you. It ain't help if someone's making you do it. That's all. If you don't wanna help I don't blame you. But if you do, I'll see you at Amethyst Cave. It's at the end of the path on Route 2." She waved a hand and left, leaving Aya staring after her back.
When she was gone, the sky began to pour once more. Aya looked up at it and laughed.
"Choosing to do something and someone choosing to do it for you." She held out her hand and didn't wince at the burn of the raindrops on her palm. "I made my choice a long time ago. I haven't changed my mind so far."
She went to look for Karrina.
As it turned out, Venam hadn't been talking out of her ass. Karrina was around, and as it turned out, she needed help.
Of course because Aya knew her life was cursed, she needed help in the opposite direction of the train station she had to take. If she knew Karrina any better, she'd swear the woman had done it on purpose.
"So…" she said, slightly out of breath. "This is the factory. We've been getting reports of screaming and crazy laughter, and this is also the source of some power blips we've had in the underground. So… you'll help me investigate and you get the hammer. Sound good?"
Aya nodded once and followed her in. Because it was better than punching rocks with her fists. People thought you were weird... or a Black Belt.
There wasn't any maniacal laughter, but instead someone shrieked. "Jenkel! You asshole, you were supposed to lock the door!"
"Hehe, sorry I forgot!" The second voice didn't sound sorry at all, laughing now in a high-pitched, shrieking sort of way.
"Well distract them!" shouted the first. "I can't be seen here!"
"Yes, yes, of course!" There was a clacking of shoes on tile. "This little girl needs a test run."
"What the fuck is that?" Karrina breathed as they reached the back of the room. A musharna floated over a machine decorated in flora, its purple and pink body now blue and red and decorated in flowers. From what Aya could see, they didn't seem to be in any pain. Instead they were leaking quite a lot of blue dream mist. Which… could be painful? She wasn't sure. But musharna tended to sleep a lot so maybe it was fine?
Karrina, eyes wide, didn't seem to think so. "What are you doing to that poor pokemon?"
Jenkel blinked at her over his glasses. "Helping," he said, cackling at the end of his sentence. "Wanna look?"
"I want to get that off of it, that's what I wanna do!" Karrina glanced at Aya. "Or, rather, I want you to do it?"
Aya grimaced. "Moocher!" But she sent out her pokemon anyway. The budew in her arms let out a happy chirp.
Sadie barked at her in greeting, running circles around the stationary Isaiah. Aya sighed and pointed at the two munna now floating and slowly circling around the machine. "Them," she ordered. "Isaiah, slow down the musharna." Whatever was being done to it, it could only be helped by going slower. "Chew the munna up and spit 'em out Sadie!"
Her pup barked and obeyed, happily at that. Was it Aya's imagination or was her baby pup's fur turning orange? She hoped that didn't mean she was getting sick or something.
Still, the munna were weak enough, and budew had started to waddle about, looking for something to do.
The scientist, Jenkel, or whatever, only seemed to grin wider. "What fun! hehe, now let's see what you can do with this. Pulse plus Musharna, mist ball!" He waved his arms wildly about, which made Aya think of broken windmills, at best.
Except that mist ball hit hard and sent Isaiah bouncing. With an irritable bark, he flung himself forward in an aqua jet. It almost bounced off but instead there was a satisfying crunch against the back of the weird machine.
"Aawawaaaaaa!" The man yelped, finally something other than clownishly annoying. "Don't break it! We worked hard on that machine!"
"Then maybe strangers aren't a good test run!" Aya shot back. "Get her!"
Was there more to this battle? Sure, but Aya didn't feel like doing anything beyond blocking it out of her memory.