Adult-FanFiction.org : Anime

Equilibrium	By : jvperric Category: Pokemon > General Views: 12587 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. Nintendo does. I make no claim towards any of the copyrighted intellectual property contained herein. I am making no money from this story in any way.

Chapter List
- 18
- 19
*****Chapter XVIII: Lapses in Judgment*****

Little bird, little bird

Soaring through the clouds

Not a thing can hurt you now

Until you come back down

—Translation, Russian lullaby

*****
Screams and sirens echoed. There was as much blood on the ground as dirt. Flames spread and set the morning sky on fire.
She ran barefoot between the houses, shivering and clutching her brother to her chest. The sound had woken him at dawn, when the planes came and ripped their house apart, but he did not cry. Blood flecked both of their faces; he stared up at her, her tears mixing with the red on her face.
She lost her footing on a mossy rock. Another bomb went off on the side of the island. The flash was as bright as midday. She saw the boats on the shore, listing in the wind.
The house to her right began to collapse. The glass in the windows above her creaked and blew out. She cradled her brother under her bowed head and kept walking, trying to avoid the shards of glass on the ground while ignoring the ones falling and cutting the back of her neck.
A sliver of glass bit into the sole of her foot. She whimpered, worked it out with the toes of her other foot, and kept walking, leaving a trail of bloody footprints. Her brother closed his eyes and grabbed at his blanket.
The boats were closer now. There were fewer than before, with several already in the water, packed with others. Her foot was burned, every step forcing more dirt into her cut. Everything burned. Every breath of cold air she sucked in clawed its way down her throat. Her arms ached from carrying her brother. Sweat soaked her hair, making it cling to her face and get in her eyes.
She moved in a blur. Only a handful of boats remained. The bombs were coming faster now, turning the village to smoke and ash. A neighbor helped her clamber into the last boat as it pushed off into the water. Someone bandaged her foot and neck. She looked around for her parents. They were not there.
The sun rose. The island was gone. She held her brother close and sang him the lullaby their mother sang to her when she had a nightmare.
Her eyes snapped open as the plane hit turbulence. She jumped in her seat and slammed her foot down, wincing at the old pain. The cabin was dark; only a few people had their lights on. Ivan’s head bumped into her as he snored.
Cynthia threw her arms around him, gripping tight and choking back tears. He started awake and felt around in the darkness for whatever was holding him.
“Huh? Thiya?”
She squeezed tighter and slipped back into Russian, slowly rocking back and forth until Ivan returned her hug.

Маленькая птичка, птичка

Парящих в облаках

Ничего не болит теперь

Пока вы не дошли.

*****
Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep.
Jason pawed at his Pokénav until it stopped making noise. He scrunched up his face and rolled over, turning away from the light shining through the tent. His head went back down towards his pillow, met empty air, and hit the floor of the tent.
“Huh?”
He sat up, blinking and squinting. His pillow was indeed gone. It took only a moment to find the culprit; Kirlia had snatched it in the night and curled her body around it. Her skirt was turned up, and her hair stuck out every which way.
Jason backed out of his sleeping bag, shaking his head. “No, no no no no…”
He ran his hand through his hair and started hyperventilating. “Clearly, better judgment could have been exercised here.”
Jason’s heart jumped out of his chest when he heard Mira. He looked over at her, staring blankly back at him from outside the tent flap, zipped open just enough for her to look inside.
“How long have you been there?” he asked, chest pounding.
“I was up and ready to go at dawn, like you said you wanted to,” Mira said, unzipping the tent flap. “I went through my morning routine, broke down my tent and made breakfast while you slept. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Why indeed,” she said. She spoke in calm, measured tones. Combined with her utter lack of facial expression and body language, he had no way of knowing what she was thinking.
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“Of course you didn’t. Do you think we couldn’t hear you from my tent?”
Jason grimaced. Kirlia stirred.
“Look, Mira—”
“I’m really not interested. I had a crash course in your psyche last night after we went to our tents. Let’s just go find your things. If you still feel like mustering up some defense once we’ve gotten Lucario and Rufflet back, feel free. Your breakfast is out here.”
Mira recalled Kirlia before she woke up and walked away. Jason shook his head, rolled up his sleeping bag, dressed himself and crawled out of the tent. The campsite had been broken down, except for the neat stack of unused firewood beside one of the fallen logs where Gardevoir was sitting, staring dejectedly at him. Jason wanted to say something, but not words came. He recalled himself while Jason took down his tent.
Mira sat across from him while he ate, looking intently at her Pokénav while running her fingers along her jawline. Jason found he had little appetite. He wrapped up more than half of his breakfast and shouldered his bag.
“Let’s get going,” he said, fastening his Pokénav on his wrist.
“Any change in the signal?”
“Same position. Someone’s sleeping in.”
Mira released Staravia, but he looked markedly different, larger and with a long red feather on the crown of his head. “Did you get some training in this morning?” Jason asked.
“We got up early. Staraptor, take a look ahead of us and come back if you see anyone lying around. You remember what Jason's backpack looks like, don't you?”
Staraptor screeched and took off, rocketing upward until he was only a small pinprick against the cloudy sky.
“Should we wait for him?” Jason asked.
“He'll find us eventually. Let's work on honing in on that signal for now.”
They took one last look around their camp to make sure they had remembered everything, and then started southwest. Every so often Jason would catch Mira giving him sidelong smirks before becoming very interested in the sky or the trees around them.
“You should take a picture and smirk at that, it'd never notice you.”
She grinned, rolling Kirlia's Pokéball between her fingers. “Oh, I caught you, just admit it. I think I've earned a little smirking.”
“Your face will get stuck if you make that face too long. And you didn't catch me doing anything.”
“Right, you fell asleep with your pants around your ankles because you were showing Kirlia that birthmark on your thigh. If you're going to lie, you should do it convincingly.”
“Shut up.”
“It's not like I care, you know. Believe me, I don't. But you could've at least asked me. Kirlia is my Pokémon. I mean, if anyone should get primae noctis...”
Jason quickened his pace and began humming to himself. Mira caught up with him.
“Okay, okay, Mr. Sensitive. I won't mention it anymore. Just answer me this, and I’ll drop the whole issue: what's so fucking special about them? Or so special about fucking them? Heh.”
She had a good laugh at her own cleverness while Jason walked in silence, his head bowed slightly, checking his Pokénav every so often.
“Well?”
“I don't know,” he said.
“Oh, that's not nearly good enough.”
“It's all I have.”
“Think about it, then. I'll ask again later. Probably at some inopportune time.”
He grimaced and kept walking.

*****
“Sir?”
Richard looked at his monitor. Dr. Curtis was at the door, holding a large, unfolded map. He unlocked the door.
Curtis entered and glanced around the dark office. His hackles rose; his own office was simple but warm. Richard's office was huge, cold, and sterile. Large white leather furniture sat against high, glossy black walls with thin white accent lines running in a wide grid. The coffee table in the middle was all glass, polished to near-invisibility save for the glare from the lights on the ceiling. Other recessed lights on the walls were turned off. Another door to a private room was only an outline on the far side, flush against the wall. Erica sat on a couch, working on her laptop, never looking up to acknowledge his presence. Richard sat at his desk, a huge rectangle carved out of a single piece of mahogany and burnished almost to reflection. Behind him, the far wall was one large window, looking out on a gray sky and rough waters.
“Yes?”
“One of our contacts in the Department of Energy sent this over,” Curtis said, approaching the desk. It was a long walk. “The mining sites that you were looking for.”
Richard moved his paperwork to the side and spread the map out. He traced it with his finger, moving between the marked spots before settling on one near the middle of the map.
“What about here?”
“Excavation Site Eleven. I can have the techs try and see how much ore is left there.”
“Over six tons,” Erica said, typing furiously.
“Good enough,” Richard said, tapping the map. “Put a team together and get what we need.”
Curtis shook his head. “Our NBC team is still mopping up the Szilard lab. They’ll be a few more days.”
“Get them there as soon as possible. Take the Razorback team with you, they can assemble on site and deploy immediately.”
He nodded and went to take the map back, then paused. “And...Kodia is still the target, sir?”
“It's where the protests are. It will have maximum effectiveness there and we'll be more than insulated.”
“Yes, sir.”
Curtis took his map back and left. He started back towards his office, slipping his phone from his pocket as he did.
“Ah, voicemail...Nadira, it’s Latif. You have to leave Kodia, now. Don't ask why, don't call me back. They'll be listening. Just leave. Don't tell anyone why or where you're going. I love you.”

*****
They had been walking for most of the morning when Staraptor shot down at them. He slowed to a stop in front of Mira and hovered there, waiting for her to put her arm out. When she did he perched there, his talons digging slightly into her forearm. His beak was full.
“Did you find anything?” Mira asked, holding out a treat. Staraptor bent down to pluck it out of her palm, depositing the contents of his mouth in its place. She looked at it; it was a patch of durable, dark green fabric with rough edges, as if torn suddenly from a larger source.
“It's the right color,” Jason said, looking over at it. Mira handed it to him. “Right material, too.”
“Too many coincidences for me. Lead the way.”
Mira held out her arm and Staraptor took wing again, correcting their heading slightly and staying at a height where they could see him. He tried to fly slowly, but his slowest cruising speed was well above a jog and bordering on full running for them, so he paused and doubled back frequently.
“So what are we doing, exactly?” Mira asked between gasps of breath.
Jason released Mightyena and she came out bounding beside him, fur rustling and fangs bared. “A little intimidation.”
“And if that doesn't work?”
“A bit of the old ultra violence.”
Every so often Jason would steady his wrist long enough to look at his Pokénav. The signal was getting closer and closer until it nearly converged with their own and they broke out of the tree line, emerging on a small footpath that ran parallel to the main road south of the desert. Staraptor screeched again and banked hard to the right, descending enough to scrape the ground with his talons. Mightyena followed close behind, leaving Jason and Mira to catch up.
“Fuck, he’s fast,” Jason said, watching the Pokémon bolt ahead, weaving left and right with the twists of the path.
Mira nodded. “Fastest birds in the country. Heads up!”
Jason looked forward and saw a large root pushing out of the ground in front of him. He jumped and cleared it with ease while Mira darted around the tree it linked to. The path straightened out, and Mightyena and Staraptor were nowhere to be seen.
“Where’d they go?” Jason asked, slowing to a jog.
“Hold on. Listen.”
They both stopped and stood in silence for a moment until they heard loud, throaty barking ahead of them, and then started forward again. Not long after, they found their Pokémon, Mightyena hunched over a shape on the ground and Staraptor hovering above.
Gardevoir and Regirock came out of their Pokéballs and followed their Trainers. Mightyena had her paws on a young man with a dark green backpack with a small piece torn off the top.
“Looks like the right backpack,” Mira said.
“Help me!” the boy said, trying to wrench himself away. Gardevoir pinned his hands and feet in place while Regirock lumbered up to him. All the color drained from his face. “W-what the hell is that?”
“Let’s see if they’re in there,” Jason said, tapping through menus on his Pokénav. The signal went out, and there came a faint buzzing from the backpack. Rufflet and Lucario burst forth in a flash of light. Rufflet dipped and bobbed through the air while Lucario took a moment to reacclimate himself.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Mira said.
The bot managed to push Mightyena aside, only for Lucario to pick him up by the collar and pull Jason’s backpack from his shoulders before shoving him against a tree, snarling.
Jason shouldered his old bag beside the new one. “Let’s get back. Don’t try to follow us.”
Lucario snapped at the boy before shoving him to the ground and walking off with the others. He grasped at his neck where Lucario’s arm had pressed him against the tree. Once he had caught his breath he picked up a handful of rocks on the side of the path and threw them after Jason before running the other way.
“Everything there?” Mira asked, recalling Regirock.
“Looks like it. Guess he was too dumb to take the stuff—”
A sharp rock to the back of the head made him turn around, prompting the others to do the same. Rufflet turned in mid-air and took another rock on the head, forcing him down until a harsh white light burst from his feathers.
Everything was bright under the shaded path for a moment, and then Braviary took off from a dead stop on the ground, not bothering to wait for an order. He shot down the path and easily caught the boy, his newly elongated talons shredding his jacket at the shoulders and knocking him to the ground. Braviary pecked and clawed at him until his back and side were thoroughly bloodied, and then he retreated, rejoining the group and perching on Mightyena’s back.
“Hey, not so hard,” she said, shaking from side to side. “Those hurt.”
“I guess I don’t know my own strength yet.”
Jason scratched his head, eliciting a low coo. “I guess that’s everyone for evolving, huh?”
“Not Athene,” Mira said, smirking.
Jason nodded curtly and recalled his Pokémon. Mira did the same. They walked in silence to the highway and caught a ride back to Darsky City.
- 18
- 19
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Equilibrium