Hayley unhooked Barrett's ball and tried to recall him, but he lurched out of the path of the beam. Hayley bit her tongue and rolled her eyes, then lunged toward him and scooped him under one arm like a football. He hadn't seen that coming, and for a moment, he was too surprised to even struggle. She pulled herself back to the floor with her free arm, banging her knees as she emerged. Miriam was shifting her weight from one foot to another, making a hurry-up gesture with her hand. They were the last two people here.

"Come on!" Miriam shouted, and took off. Hayley scrambled to her feet and stumbled after her. There was a flash of movement behind them, followed by a chorus of barking and a shout of "Stay where you are!" Hayley glanced over her shoulder, but Miriam grabbed her by the front of her shirt and jerked her forward so hard she almost fell.

Maybe if they explained they hadn't meant to break the law, the police would go easy on them—? No, battling in a city outside approved areas was an automatic point on your license, and combine that with the trespassing… This was bad. Barrett had recovered from the shock of being snatched up, and now he was trying to fight his way free. His needle-sharp claws dug into Hayley's skin anywhere they could reach, and his scales were starting to glow red-hot. Hayley wrenched herself away from Miriam and shrugged out of her open button-down shirt, then wrapped it around Barrett to truss him like an uncooperative Meowth about to get a nail trim. That, of course, only made him angrier, and she barely avoided an ember to the face as she shifted him into the crook of her arm.

"I was going to recall you," she muttered. "This is your own fault." It was too late to recall him now. She wasn't sure how close their pursuers were, but the red light would bounce everywhere off the glass windows and be a dead giveaway to their position.

"We have to hide," Miriam said, as somewhere behind them, there was a shouted order to split up.

"Hide where? They have Growlithe with them, they'll find us!"

"Here." Miriam turned—and led them straight into a dead-end corridor flanked by two bathrooms. They were trapped. Hayley braced to start running again, but Miriam instead went straight for an inconspicuous steel door set into the back wall. She tugged on the handle, and, miraculously, it opened. Miriam slipped through without waiting to see if Hayley would follow. Hayley didn't see how being stuck in a storage closet would help them, but lacking any better options, she went in too and pulled the door shut behind her.

Inside, it was pitch-black. Miriam held up her phone and switched on the flashlight, and Hayley gasped. They weren't in a storage closet. They were in another hallway. This one was lined with grimy white cinderblock walls instead of tiles and glass, and the ceiling was obscured with racks of pipes, conduits, and wires. Hayley fumbled one-handedly for her own phone as Miriam snapped the deadbolt on the door shut, grabbed a stray folding chair, and wedged it under the handle.

"What is this place?" Hayley whispered.

"Service hallways," Miriam answered matter-of-factly. "For like, bringing in deliveries, unloading dumpsters, that sort of thing."

"How did you know it would be here?"

Miriam's mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. "I—I saw it in one of the Tatsugiri's Mansion games. Curse of Cinccino Isle. And—shut up, okay?" she snapped, as Hayley let out a small, disbelieving snort. "I just saved both of our asses. So shut up."

She couldn't see it in the near-total darkness, but she was sure that Miriam was blushing.

They ran for a while longer, but when no voices or footsteps came from behind, they slowed to a jog, then a fast-paced walk. Hayley put down Barrett and unwrapped him from her shirt, which by now was giving off a noxious smoke. She sighed. "Barrett. Can I talk to you?"

Barrett huffed, and Miriam turned around briefly before shaking her head and looking forward again. The embers at the corners of his beak stood out like signal flares in the blackness.

"I just want to let you know," she said, staring straight ahead as she spoke. "If you want to go with Melinda, you can. I'm not going to stop you. But before you decide, I want to let you know that you could have won against her Bagon." Barrett scoffed, and so did Miriam. Hayley ignored both of them. "I'm telling the truth. Her Bagon is stronger than you are, but if you'd fought smart, you would have had a chance. You know how the battlefield was sunken down into the floor? That's why I told you to use smog. If you filled the arena with smog, then Taro wouldn't have had anywhere to go to escape it. He would've been stuck breathing it in. And that move he was using, rage? It meant he got stronger every time you hit him, but it also meant he could only hit you with close-range attacks. And you're faster than him, Barrett. If you'd kept your distance, I know you could have dodged, especially if you had a smog cloud to hide in. All you would have had to do is hit him with long-range embers and wait for him to go down."

Barrett said nothing. In the darkness, she couldn't see his face. She tried one more time: "I know you think I'm useless, and that all I do is to stop you from fighting the way you want to fight. But it's my job as a trainer to see things you don't, and to help you fight better. That's all I want to do—to help you fight better, and get stronger. And, I'm sorry if I haven't been doing that."

Still no answer. She supposed that was that.

They walked further in silence for another minute, and then Miriam said, "There's light."

"What?"

"Light. Over there." She pointed towards a door, then turned the beam of her phone's flashlight away. Sure enough, a crack of dim, warm light shone through at the edges. Hayley stared at it.

"Should we… open it?"

"Why?" Miriam asked, as though that was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard.

"I mean, if it's lit up—maybe it's important? Maybe it leads out of the tunnels."

"Yeah, maybe. Or maybe there's a crazy axe murderer living in there who'll chop off our heads the second we walk through."

That gave Hayley pause, but she finally retorted with, "If there actually is a crazy axe murderer living here, would you rather run into him in a lit-up room, or have him sneak up behind us in the darkness?" Miriam scowled, but couldn't come up with a counterargument.

"Fine. You first."

Hayley approached cautiously and put her hand on the knob. Barrett crept up beside her, ready for a fight. Summoning all her courage, Hayley twisted the knob and pulled.

This time, it really was a storage closet. It was a big one, though, lined with rusted shelves and old wooden crates. The light was coming from a lantern placed awkwardly on a cardboard box in the center of the room. It was bright enough to see by, but just barely. Hayley flipped off her phone's flashlight and let her eyes adjust.

"Hayley." Hayley and Barrett both spun in unison towards Miriam. Her own flashlight was still turned on, and she was aiming it at something. In the corner near the door—Hayley had walked right past it—there was a cage sitting on a rickety card table. And inside the cage was something fleshy and pink.

Hayley rushed up to take a better look. It was a Pokémon. A Slowpoke. It stared at her, through her, with unfocused eyes, mouth curled up in a grin. There wasn't much for it to smile about, though. Hayley had never seen a Slowpoke in person, but she knew this one was in bad shape. Its skin was loose and sagging, and in the harsh beam of Miriam's flashlight, Hayley could see the peaks and shadows of its ribcage. There were two bowls in its cage that might have one held food and water, but both were empty. And its tail was gone. All that was left of it was a one-inch stump with a gory, scabbed-over end.

"Oh my god." Hayley put a hand to her mouth as nausea overtook her. "Who did this? Why would they…?"

"The—the tails sell for a lot." Miriam sounded as though she was once again trying to be matter-of-fact, but this time, she failed badly. "There's a black market for them in Kanto and Johto, and I guess they'd be even more valuable here?" She grimaced and swallowed before continuing. "The tail grows back. And—it's not supposed to hurt them that much. Slowpoke don't feel pain as much as other Pokémon do. But it's still—what are you doing?"

As Miriam spoke, Hayley had reached out to the cage and undone the latch, and now she swung the front open. The Slowpoke didn't move a muscle, even when the front went too far on its hinges and crashed into the side with a metallic clang. She stared into its eyes, despite the fact that it didn't seem to see her. "Slowpoke. I'm getting you out, okay?"

"You're taking it?" Miriam sounded equal parts scandalized and impressed. At Hayley's feet, Barrett snorted. "I'm pretty sure it belongs to someone."

"Well, they're not taking good care of it." It wasn't stealing. It was rescuing. Hayley hadn't brought her backpack with her, and didn't have her last remaining Pokéball. The Slowpoke didn't look like it was going to move anytime soon—it didn't look like it had even noticed that the cage door was open—so there was only one way to do this. She reached into the cage, wrapped her arms around the Slowpoke's midsection, and pulled—

Only to realize that Slowpoke were heavy. Without its tail, this one was about twice the size of Barrett, but it weighed at least three times as much. Hayley grunted and strained, trying to lift it a bit so she wouldn't have to drag it directly across the cage bottom, but the angle was too awkward. After about thirty seconds of fruitless struggle, the Slowpoke's eyes gradually fixed on her. But instead of standing up, it just opened its mouth and let out a huge yawn. A wave of exhaustion crashed over Hayley, and she staggered back. "Slowpoke, don't—" She was cut off by a massive, jaw-popping yawn of her own. "I'm trying to help you."

"You've never met a Slowpoke, have you? She's too stupid to understand what you're saying." Hayley jumped, the fatigue leaving her in an instant. There was a man standing at the door. Miriam's flashlight landed on him, and Hayley was first relieved, then terrified, to see that he wasn't a police officer. He wore jeans, sneakers, and a stretched-out long-sleeved shirt. His hair was long and dark, and his eyes glittered coldly in the light. Every fiber of Hayley's instinct, every lesson from her trainer safety courses, screamed to tell her that this man was a threat.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"We were just leaving," Miriam started to say, but before she could stop herself, Hayley interrupted.

"No, we're not." Hayley's body was trembling, but her voice was strong. "I'm not leaving without this Slowpoke."

The man chuckled. Miriam grabbed Hayley's shoulder, digging her nails in tight enough to draw blood. "Hayley. Don't. This guy is—what if he has a gun?" The look on her face was the same as it had been during the Vigoroth attack in the woods. Miriam was afraid. Why didn't Hayley feel afraid?

"The Slowpoke is mine," the man said. "What makes you think you can steal her?"

"I'm not stealing her. I'm rescuing her." Hayley repeated the same logic she'd used on herself, and suddenly she realized that her hands were shaking from anger, not fear. She was too angry to be afraid.

Or so she thought. But then the man withdrew a Pokéball and opened it to reveal the most fearsome Zangoose she had ever seen. It was tall enough that its eyes were level with her chest, and its body was all muscle. Patches of fur were missing in several places where raised, pink scars ran across its skin. Its claws were every inch as long as the Vigoroth's had been, and just as sharp. Hayley's righteous anger left her like air escaping from a balloon, and in its place—there. That was fear.

"Zee, this kids are trying to take our property. Scare them off, yeah?" The Zangoose shrieked and bent down. Its claws shimmered, and a moment later, there were inch-deep gouges carved into the concrete floor. Miriam swore and leapt back, and Hayley stumbled after her. She wanted to run, but the man and his Zangoose were still in front of the door.

What came next, Hayley should have anticipated. There was a ridiculously strong Pokémon issuing a challenge, and Barrett was out of his ball to see it. Of course Barrett would answer it with a challenge of his own. Of course Barrett would charge in, embers flying, ready to test his strength. Hayley screamed. "Barrett, no!"

But, once again, Barrett didn't listen.

The first flurry of embers caught the Zangoose by surprise. It lifted its head and growled, leering down at the Magby that was a fraction of its size and power. Its trainer was momentarily shocked too, but then he shrugged. "All right. Take care of it."

"Don't!" Hayley shouted. She took out Barrett's ball and aimed, but her hands were shaking harder now, and the recall laser missed. Barrett huffed and hopped back as the Zangoose swung at him. He spat a clump of embers at its snout, and they found their mark, but the hit only made the Zangoose angrier. It snarled and swiped at Barrett again, and once again, Barrett moved back—only to find his back against the wall. Two claws, each as long as the Magby's forearm, dug into Barrett's stomach, drawing blood. The hit had been shallow, but now the Zangoose roared and flung Barrett away from the wall, onto the ground. Barrett started to stand, but the Zangoose pounced and pinned him under one arm. Its free hand, it raised for the kill. Time seemed to slow, and—Barrett locked eyes with Hayley. In that moment, he wasn't a vicious little terror, wasn't the bully that had been making the past month of her life a living hell. He was a baby Pokémon who'd just realized that he'd gotten in over his head, and he was scared. He was looking to her for help.

She couldn't recall him in time. What she could do was something far more stupid. Hayley launched forward and tackled the Zangoose. The Zangoose was as heavy as she was, and far more muscular, but she had the element of surprise, and she knocked it away from Barrett just before its claws made contact. The two of them rolled on the ground, and then the Zangoose burst free and sprang to its feet. Hayley followed suit, standing between it and Barrett and spreading her arms. The Zangoose hissed and slashed at her; Hayley pulled back, but the claws dug into the soft flesh of her upper arm. From the door, the man shouted "No! Not her! We don't want a dead trainer on our hands."

So, he wouldn't kill her. At least not on purpose. That was good to know.

Hayley's fear was being edged out by adrenaline. The Zangoose's claws had cut deep, and blood was flowing freely from her arm. She took her shirt—the same shirt she'd trapped Barrett in just a little while ago—and wrapped it around the wound, pulling it as tight as she could with her other hand. The Zangoose lunged again, trying to get around her to hit Barrett. Hayley sidestepped and blocked its path.

"Just leave," said the man. "This isn't worth it." But now he'd shown his hand. He didn't want to kill them—a dead trainer drew more attention than a dead Pokémon.

"Miriam, take Barrett and go. I'll get Slowpoke."

It was a mistake—a bad one. The man stalked towards Hayley on long legs, grabbed her by the throat, and pushed her against the wall. He wouldn't kill her, she told herself as his fingers crushed down on her neck. He wouldn't kill her. "If you think I'm going to let you walk out of here with my property, you're delusional."

He wouldn't kill her. All the same, her vision started going black at the edges. Maybe she'd been wrong.

There was a hollow, metallic smack, and the man jerked back, releasing his grip on Hayley with a curse. He turned towards Miriam, but before he could say or do anything, Xena materialized at his feet. Miriam had hit the man with her Pokéball, Hayley realized, sagging to the floor.

"Xena, thunder wave that fucker!" She was pointing at the man, not his Zangoose. All the same, Xena didn't hesitate. She swiveled her arms around and around, building up a spark. The man snarled and kicked the Elekid away before the attack could finish. His Zangoose charged in on all fours, ready to strike Xena, but suddenly Barrett disappeared in a cloud of acrid, sulfuric smoke. He re-emerged in front of Xena and executed a cross chop right to the Zangoose's snout. Feint attack. Had he learned from watching Rigby's Sneasel…?

Hayley was growing more and more lightheaded—she was still bleeding. She clamped a hand over the cut on her arm, gritting her teeth as the pain surged. The man was still standing in front of her, but he was looking away from her, watching the battle. Summoning the last of her strength, Hayley kicked him in the back of his knee. He shouted as his leg collapsed under him, and Hayley yelled, "Miriam, get his Pokéball!"

A flash of understanding crossed both Miriam's and the Zangoose's faces at the same time. The Zangoose moved to stop her, but Barrett and Xena hit it with twin embers and thundershocks that drew its attention back. The man, struggling to rise from one knee, reached to a holster on his ankle and pulled out a knife, but Miriam was faster. She kicked him in the face, and he went down. Then she kicked him again for good measure.

"The Pokéball," Hayley said. Miriam scoffed, reached into the man's pocket, and pulled out the Zangoose's ball. The Zangoose yowled and raced towards her, claws readied, but Miriam triggered the recall just in time. Right before it raked across her stomach, it dematerialized into red light.

The man on the ground was still. He was unconscious, possibly worse. Blows to the head were… Hayley didn't want to think about it. She clambered to her feet, and immediately swooned. Miriam caught her.

"You're an idiot," she snapped, shouting as though Hayley's face wasn't two inches from hers. "You nearly got us all killed!"

"I know," said Hayley. "I'm sorry." She glanced back over to the cage. The Slowpoke was still there, still watching them with a blank expression. She hadn't moved an inch the entire fight. Hayley laughed softly as the reality of everything that had happened began slowly sinking in. "Uh. I can't—I can't carry her, with my arm like this. Do you think you can help?"

----------------------------------------

"TASTY"

Slowpoke | Female | Level 6

Age: 3 years 4 months

Registered techniques:

n/a

Registered to ZZAZZ on DATE MISSING (OT, Current)

"…'Tasty'?" Hayley stared at the Pokémon Center computer screen with mild disbelief. The neat line of stitches marching up her tricep was keeping her from losing any more blood, but she still felt light-headed. "Why 'Tasty'?"

"Probably on account of the tail," the nurse responded. Hayley scrunched her nose.

"Oh."

The nurse was the same dour, dark-eyed man who had removed Barrett's cast a few weeks back, and Hayley had finally learned that his name was Merle. He'd also been the one to give Hayley her stitches; Pokémon Center nurses were trained in human medicine, too. Hayley had given him an extremely abbreviated version of the night's events, not mentioning breaking into an abandoned mall or battling outside of a licensed arena or what had happened to the man who'd come after her. She just said that she'd found the Slowpoke, tried to rescue her, and then there had been a fight. Merle was probably supposed to push for more details, maybe call in the police to make a report right then and there, but he didn't, and Hayley felt eternally indebted to him for that.

Merle sighed and put down the handheld scanner. "So, like I suspected, her chip's linked to a dummy account. There's no record of who her trainer actually is—and even if there was, we wouldn't be returning her to them. It's a clear case of abuse and neglect. You did the right thing by taking her, although," he eyed her bandaged arm meaningfully, "you probably should have been more careful."

The brief surge of pride Hayley felt at having done the right thing was extinguished as she looked back at the Slowpoke's vacant, smiling face. She might have been imagining things, but under the bright Pokémon Center lights, she thought the smile looked almost sad. "What's going to happen to her?" she asked. "Since she doesn't have a trainer to go back to?"

"It's…difficult to say," Merle said, though his expression suggested it was difficult not because he didn't know, but because he didn't want to know. "Once a Slowpoke is taken from the wild, it usually can't go back. They forget that they have to fish to feed themselves, or that they have to hide from aggressive Pokémon, and so they'll just sit wherever you release them until they starve or get picked off." He shook his head. "There are sanctuaries in Kanto and Johto dedicated to rehabilitating Slowpoke, but—they've been full for years. We'll probably wind up putting her in stasis until a spot opens up."

Hayley blanched. "That's—that's not fair." She looked at the Slowpoke again, and she was sure of it now; her smile was sad. Lonely. "She's been through so much—someone should take care of her."

"It's the best we can do," Merle said. "Unfortunately, this isn't really uncommon—Slowpoke get taken in tail trade busts all the time, and there aren't enough homes for all of them."

"What if I take her?" Hayley blurted out. Merle looked her up and down, examining her like she'd grown a second head.

"I'm not saying you can't take her," he finally said. "She does already seem to like you. But if you're looking for a Pokémon that'll get you an easy win against Roxanne, I have to warn you that Slowpoke usually don't make great fighters. Plenty of them never manage to figure out what a battle even is."

"Oh," Hayley said again. She hadn't been thinking about Roxanne. She'd been thinking about the Slowpoke's sad, sad eyes. She shook her head. "I just… I don't want to leave her here. I don't want her to be alone."

Merle ran a hand through his hair. "She does need physical rehabilitation," he muttered, almost to himself. "A basic training routine could be good for her." Then, looking at Hayley, he said, "Are you sure you know what you're getting into? I don't want her winding up abandoned again if you find out she can't battle. Like you said, she's been through enough already."

"I won't abandon her," Hayley insisted. "I—even if she doesn't end up fighting, one more Pokémon isn't that hard to take care of. And you said she likes me, right?"

A Pokémon that liked her. It was almost too much to think about.

Merle gave one final sigh. "All right. She might be harder to care for than you imagine—you'll need to pay special attention to her nutrition and exercise until she's healthy again. You'll have to bring her in for checkups each day, and if any of this is too much for you to handle, we will take her back and put her under our care again. Do you understand?"

"I understand," she said. So it was going to be tough. So what? Barrett was already tough, and she'd survived him so far. She could do this.

"In that case, congratulations on your new Slowpoke. I'll get the registration paperwork started."

Hayley looked once more into the eyes of the Slowpoke, then again at the screen. Level six. She might not be a fighter—but then again, she might be. There was no way to tell for sure until they tried. And even if she wasn't a fighter, she could be a friend. These past few weeks, Hayley had desperately needed a friend.

"Welcome to the team, Slowpoke," she said. Then she glanced back at the screen and winced. Tasty. "Um. I think I'm going to give you a new name, though. Is that all right?"

Slowpoke—her Slowpoke—opened her mouth and gave a long, loud yawn.