With the boss out of the picture for now, Havoc the Houndoom laid back down and continued to keep an eye on me and the other cages. Hawg, for his part, went into one of the tents before coming back with a metal tin. Ineffectually stroke the smoldering campfire to try and get it going again, he turned a pleading look towards the Houndoom.

“Havoc, would you mind?”

The dog-like Pokémon pretended not to notice, though from my position I could see a flash of irritation in its eyes.

“C’mon Havoc, please? I’ll give you some of this food.”

The Houndoom huffed, then got up and turned towards the fire. Opening its mouth, Havoc took a deep breath and exhaled fire.

My eyes went wide at the sight and I instinctively scootched away from the flames coming out of the Pokémon’s mouth. It wasn’t a big flame, but it still set the logs alight.

“Finally.”

Havoc huffed again, and settled back down as Hawg put the tin next to the fire to heat up.

“That was… amazing.” I said despite myself.

“What, that? That was just Ember.” Hawg said. “Do you not have Ember on whatever little island you come from?”

“Er, no we do, but I’ve just never seen a Pokémon like this before.” The lies were coming a bit easier now that I didn’t have to convince Kane. “What is Havoc?”

“It’s a Houndoom, idiot. Jeez, you must really not have any normal Pokémon where you come from if you can’t recognize even a Houndoom. Wonder what the boss sees in you.”

The Houndoom in question looked irritated at Hawg’s words, though it didn’t do anything but blow out a little smoke from its nose.

“What do you do anyways?” I asked leadingly. “I mean, if you wanted to catch Pokémon, why not use Poké Balls?”

Hawg rolled his eyes theatrically. “Jeez, now I’m really wondering if you’re fit for our crew. We’re poachers, you idiot. If we use a Poké Ball, then it’d be harder to sell them now wouldn’t it?”

We were quiet for a few minutes while I digested that bit of info, until the other man decided that his meal was ready. Carefully he reached over and picked up the tin, yelping a little as his fingers touched the hot metal. Hawg blew on his fingers and cursed at how hot it was, while I was merely impressed at how quickly it had gotten warm. Ember must really be something if it could make a campfire that hot. From where I was sitting the inside of the tin looked almost like a bento box, with some rice, some kind of fish, and some vegetables.

Havoc perked up at the smell of the food, and Hawg grimaced.

“I guess I did say you could have some.” He muttered, and scooped out a handful of rice and tossed it to the ground in front of Havoc.

The Houndoom glared at him, but got up and prowled over to the rice, gracefully eating it despite the insult. I wasn’t a dog expert by any means, but I’d had a golden retriever as a kid and knew that while dogs could eat rice, it wasn’t particularly nutritious for them. We only fed it to our dog when she was feeling sick for instance, and couldn’t eat normal food. If Havoc was being fed rice regularly, well it could explain why it wasn’t looking very good.

“Can I have some?” I asked, and the big man looked at me as if I had just insulted his family or something.

“Can- can you have some? Why on Arceus’ green earth would I give you some of my food?”

I gestured at Havoc, who was still eating some of the rice. “Havoc got some.”

“Havoc got some rice because he got the fire going. You on the other hand, have done nothing but sit in a cage. Now shut up before I get angry.”

“Hawg.” Kane’s voice called out from the tent, and the big man jumped as if he had been stung.

“Yes boss?”

“Give the kid some food.”

“But-“

“It doesn’t have to be your food, idiot. Just give her some bread.”

“I… fine.”

“Fine?”

“I mean, yes boss.”

The big man got up with a frustrated frown and went into the smaller tent again, emerging a moment later with a half-loaf of crusty bread. He tossed it into my cage with a grimace before sitting down and continuing to angrily eat his bento box. The fact that Kane could hear our conversation was a little worrying to me, but I didn’t think I had given away any important information during my chat with Hawg.

Grabbing the bread, I was about to take a big bite of it when I saw the Eevee looking at me. Giving it a small smile, I tore about half of the bread off and put it in the cage next to me. The Eevee eagerly grabbed the bread and started to eat it, and I was about to eat the other piece when I saw Havoc staring at me with half-lidded eyes. The Houndoom had finished it’s small meal of rice already, and with a small sigh I tossed the rest of the bread towards it.

The Houndoom’s eyes lit up, and it eagerly tore into the bread. Despite the fact that my stomach was rumbling, I couldn’t help but smile sadly. The poor thing had been obviously mistreated if it was so excited about some free bread, and if I had to go a little bit without food in exchange for Havoc to have some? I supposed that was a good enough trade.

“So you’re one of them.” Hawg said with a sneer, quickly erasing my good mood.

“One of who?”

“Pokémon lovers. Fools who think that a Pokémon is as good as a regular person.”

“You don’t?”

“Ha! Why would I? If Pokémon are supposed to be so smart, why aren’t they in charge instead of us?”

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from snapping at the man and getting myself in more trouble than I was already in. Then again, I was already in a cage…

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Well, I’m not so sure about that.” I said, casually. “I hear that a lot of Pokémon are very smart. I mean, aren’t Alakazam supposed to be super-geniuses?”

“Yeah right, and what do they do with all those smarts? They sit around and bend spoons all day. That takes a lot of brainpower I’m sure. No, most Pokémon are like Havoc here, all they’re good for is following their master’s orders.”

Said Houndoom was still facing away from the man, but I could see the anger in its eyes. I met it’s gaze, although I was still projecting my voice towards Hawg.

“At least Havoc here can get a fire going.”

The big man exploded from his seat, tossing his tin aside. “Why you little-!”

“Hawg!”

Kane was standing at the entrance to his tent, face furious.

“Boss! Did you hear what she was-“

“I heard. And she has a point, you brainless moron, but that doesn’t mean you can beat her up over it. At least not until we’re sure who she is.”

Hawg continued to glower at me. “She’s too lippy, I should at least punch her again to shut her up.”

The boss sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t do that. Just… sit back down and cool off for a minute. And you, Alina, Hawg does have a point. I thought I liked you because of your attitude, most trainers don’t have a spine anymore, but I’m starting to rethink that. Now both of you, keep it down out here before I actually get angry.”

Kane turned and headed back into his tent, and Hawg began to sit back down.

“Yeah Hawg.” I said, mustering up all of my courage.

Even if this would go according to plan, it was still really going to hurt. “Follow your master’s orders. Sit.”

Hawg’s face screwed up in fury, and he let out a bellow of rage. Stomping over to my cell, he pulled out what looked like a hotel key card and pressed it against the side of the box on the cage door. It beeped green and he shoved the key card into his pocket before yanking the door open.

“Hawg!” Kane called, but the big man wasn’t listening anymore.

He grabbed my overly-large shirt with both hands and hauled me out of the cage, bringing me up to eye level with the man. My arms flailed around, ineffectually batting at the bigger man.

“You’re going to regret saying that.” He growled.

“I think I already am.” I said honestly, earning a vicious smile from him.

“Well tough break – it’s just going to get worse.”

His muscles flexed and he threw me to the ground, driving all of the breath from my lungs. As I laid there and tried to get my breath back, the big man slammed a foot into my stomach, making it even harder for me to breath. I finally got a gulp of air in, before I was kicked again, this time in the head. Stars spun in front of my eyes, and the next minute seemed to pass by without me realizing it.

By the time Kane had hauled Hawg off of me I was in so much pain I could barely feel my body. He must have really laid into me, but I couldn’t even focus on anything in particular, the world just swam in and out of focus.

“You’re a fool Hawg!” Kane was shouting. “Go take a walk and cool off! I don’t need you going crazy on me when we’re this close to a pay day!”

Hawg growled something unintelligible, but stalked off into the woods. Kane turned angry eyes on me, but the effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that there were four of him. Although there were four of everything at the moment, so maybe it wasn’t his fault.

“You really are an idiot.” Kane said. “Come on, back in the cage.”

He grabbed my shirt and hauled me to my feet, before shoving me back into the cage and locking it with a key card he had pulled out from around his neck.

“Maybe I was wrong about you.” Kane said before he turned away. “Maybe it would be better for everybody if you just… disappeared.”

He vanished back into the tent and I was left alone, except for Havoc looking stunned, and the small Eevee staring at me.

“Hey little one.” I said before slumping to the ground with a pained grunt. “Don’t worry about me, I’m okay.”

The Eevee looked scared and confused, and I tried to give it my best reassuring smile. “Trust me, I’ll be fine.”

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back until it hit the metal bars. That was a mistake, and pain flashed through my head again.

“We’ll all be fine.”

In my hand, I clutched the key card I had grabbed from Hawg’s pocket.

Soon. I thought. Soon.

/^\

Hawg stomped back to camp a few minutes later, obviously still furious judging by the glare he shot me as he collected the remnants of his food tin. As soon as he had left and Kane had gone back inside Havoc had gobbled up the food that had spilled on the ground, and my heart broke a little at how hungry the poor Pokémon must be. Havoc, of course, was also on the receiving end of Hawg’s glare, although the Pokémon didn’t seem to mind that much.

If looks could kill. I thought. Although, I guess they might actually be able to kill somebody if you used the right move.

I was still a little dazed after the beating I had received, but the world had eventually stopped spinning so much and the number of double images settled down into one cohesive picture. Credit where credit was due – Hawg was good at beating people up. Probably why Kane kept him around.

After putting the remnants of the bento box away, Hawg went around to all of the crates to check them out, starting at the far end away from me and working his way down. It wasn’t until he came to the cage with the Eevee and the still-unconscious Elekid that I could finally see what he was doing. Hawg was pulling on all of the doors to the cages, making sure they were secured, then flipped up some tabs with a hole in the middle on the top of the cage. It took me a second to realize what they were – the tabs would be meant for looping straps through to secure the cage from moving around too much.

When he got to my crate he angrily checked on the door, and when it was still locked the smile evilly and kicked the cage. It was petty and didn’t do much to actually rattle me, but I knew that he was going to be a problem when I eventually broke out of here. Maybe I had angered him too much, but I had to get the key if I wanted to escape.

“Boss.” He called when he was done. “The cages are ready to go.”

“Good.” Kane said, emerging from the tent. “Well, I just got off the line with those Plasma weirdos in Unova. They haven’t heard of any nearby islands, but after some pushing they admitted that there could be some distant ones that could match this “Massachusetts” place. Otherwise, this girl is still a complete mystery.”

“So what are we going to do with her?”

Kane sighed and looked at me. “I’ll admit, I’m of two minds about it. On one hand you’ve got some spunk Alina, I like that kind of attitude. On the other, you seem like a problem waiting to happen, and the fewer problems I have the better I sleep. So what’s it going to be kid, are you going to be a problem, or do you want to make some money?”

I looked between Kane, Havoc, and the rest of the caged Pokémon, and shook my head.

“I don’t think I want to work with anybody who treats Pokémon as poorly as you do. I think I’d rather be a problem.”

Kane shook his head. “Ah well, it’s your loss I suppose.”

He took out my wallet, phone, keys, and headphones, tossing the lot onto the remnants of the fire.

“Havoc, burn.”

The Houndoom slowly got up, shooting me an uncertain look before turning and using Ember again. A thick, noxious cloud of smoke billowed up from the campsite, and a moment later the entirety of my possessions besides the clothes on my back were reduced to little more than a slagged lump of molten plastic and metal.

“So what are we going to do with her?” Hawg asked, a malicious gleam in his eyes as he stared daggers at me.

“Well, I figure that if she likes Pokémon so much, we should leave her alone with them. Once Greer gets back, and we load up the rest of the cages, we’ll tie her up and leave her for the beasts. She’ll get to see how she really appreciates Pokémon when a hungry Luxray comes across her.”

Hawg’s face split into a wicked smile, and he chuckled. “Good one boss.”

“I know. Now start packing up the rest of the campsite, I want to get out of Sinnoh as quickly as I can, I hate how cold this place is.”

The big man nodded and started going around and pulling out boxes from the tents, packing various bits of camping materials into them. After a few minutes the sound of the truck’s engine returned, and a big flat-bed truck backed into the clearing. I was impressed that they were able to maneuver the big truck through the woods as well as they had, but I guessed when you hunt Pokémon illegally they would get good at driving in bad locations.

Greer hopped out of the truck and met with Kane. “Boat’s all good to go boss.”

“Good. There was a bit of a delay, help out Hawg pack up the rest of the campsite while I finish up on the computer.”

“Delay? What about the new girl?”

Kane snorted. “She decided she would rather play with the wild Pokémon than us.”

“Ahh, gotcha.” Greer chuckled, then moved away to help Hawg take down one of the tents.

Kane, for his part, disappeared back into his big tent to do… whatever it was he did in there. After a minute of waiting to make sure the two goons were fully invested in taking down the tent, I made my move.