Hayley took an instinctive step back. The moment she did, there was a loud growl, and a Mightyena stepped from a shadow several feet ahead of her. Amaya stopped humming and twisted around to see Hayley.

"Oh," she said, almost casually. "You are not supposed to be here." Her voice was wry, playful, but Hayley couldn't help but detect a threatening edge to it. The Mightyena growled deeper, advancing towards Hayley. Amaya snapped her fingers. "Hold up, Ilta. Let's wait and see if she's dangerous." To Hayley, she said, "Recall your Pokémon, would you? They're making Ilta nervous."

She was making it nervous? Hayley swallowed dryly, eyes fixed on the snarling, black-furred Pokémon. "I don't… I…"

Amaya pulled a Pokéball from her pocket. "Here, what about I recall her, and you recall yours? That's fair, right?"

"I… guess?" Without another word, Amaya recalled her Mightyena and stuffed her ball back in her pocket. Hayley looked down at Barrett and Ceres, who were both staring up at her for direction. "I need to recall the two of you, okay? Just for a second." Barrett huffed in protest, folding his arms. "It's just for a second, okay? I'll bring you right back out." Before he could put up a real fight, Hayley shifted the Meditite to one arm, grabbed his Pokéball, and recalled him, then did the same with Ceres. She'd pay for it later, she was sure, but Barrett being angry was not her biggest problem right now.

"The Meditite too," Amaya said.

Hayley's mouth opened and shut as she scrambled for words. "I—he—he's not mine. I was in the tunnels, and there was a Graveler, and he fought it, but he got hurt, and then we had to run, and I got lost, and he's helping me find my way out, but—he's not mine—"

Amaya cut her off by raising her hand. "Okay, okay, don't put him in a Pokéball then, fine. Jeez, what's got you so nervous?"

"I'm not nervous," Hayley lied. "I just… need to hurry and get out of here. He's really hurt."

She wished she could put him in a Pokéball. But every time the thought had crossed her mind on the way here, it had been interrupted with a white-hot flash of displeasure and scorn, just as it was now. The Meditite didn't want to be captured, even as a convenience. Not without a fight.

"You were going the wrong way," Amaya pointed out. "Why don't you sit down and rest for a minute? I'll tell you how to actually get out."

"It's back the way I came, right? I'll—" Hayley made to take another step back. The moment her foot lifted from the ground, a snarl exploded from behind her. Hayley snapped around and found herself once again staring into the face of a Mightyena. Ilta? But Amaya had recalled—no. This one was different. There was a hairless scar across its snout that Ilta hadn't had. Heart hammering, eyes wide, Hayley turned to Amaya again to demand an explanation. Amaya just shrugged.

"Insurance," she said. "You've still got one Pokémon out, I've got one out. We're even." They were not even. The Mightyena looked capable of tearing out her stomach in a single bite. If it decided to attack, there was nothing she or the Meditite could do to stop it. Why had she recalled Barrett and Ceres? Why—

"Hey, don't look so freaked out, okay? I'm just being careful. Nisha won't hurt you unless you try to hurt us first. Or, well, if you run. She's got that predator instinct on overdrive, and if you run, she might think you're prey."

Hayley's eyes flitted between Amaya and the growling Mightyena. She was trapped. "I need to go," she said again, futile, pleading. "Please."

"I'll let you go in a bit. I just need to finish up here." Amaya smiled in a way that was, conceivably, supposed to be reassuring. It only made Hayley's throat close tighter. "Plus, I want to chat with the two of you. So sit down."

There was no way out of this except to obey. Warily, Hayley sank down onto the rock below her. She crossed her legs, but tensed her thighs, ready to jump up and run at any moment. As if she could outrun the Mightyena. Once she was settled, Amaya stepped closer and crouched down to examine the Meditite, who tilted his head listlessly to stare back. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Hayley—"

"Not you. Him." The Meditite? He didn't have a name. Hayley had already told her she hadn't caught him yet. She opened her mouth to say so once more, but before she could, there was an increasingly familiar prickle at the base of her skull. The Meditite lifted a hand and traced a series of shapes in the air. Amaya watched him intently. "Sen. Is that it?" The Meditite—Sen?—nodded.

He had a name? But he was wild. Maybe he'd had a trainer at some point, or—did wild psychics name themselves? Name each other? She couldn't remember learning anything about that. She bit her tongue as her head swam with a mix of confusion and shame.

"Sen. Have you lived in Granite Cave your whole life?" Sen nodded again. "Then I want you to tell me. What do you think of the humans that come around here? The miners. The tourists. The trainers." Another prickle—Sen was looking through her mind. For what? Was he trying to figure out what she thought? Did he want her to say something? Her questions were answered when, after several seconds of searching, Sen lifted his arms and knocked them together at the wrists.

He was searching her mind for words. Just like when he'd signed safe when they encountered the Rhyhorn—he was borrowing her own knowledge to help himself speak. Hayley suppressed a shiver. Somehow this was so much freakier than having him telepathically beam words into their heads, the way that Gallade in Rustboro had.

"You fight them?" Nod. "Why? Just because you want to, or is there another reason?"

The prickling started up again. This time, though, it didn't disappear after a few moments. Instead, it became stronger, sharper, more insistent. Ten seconds passed, then fifteen, as the prickling grew into a stabbing, a burning, a palpable frustration at trying to find something that wasn't there. Hayley gritted her teeth and bit back a cry. It hurt, but she had to endure it. She had to give him what he needed.

Then, all at once, it was gone. Hayley blinked furiously through unfocused, watery eyes, and when they cleared again, she saw Sen directing a series of signs she didn't recognize at Amaya, who was watching him attentively. Hayley realized what had happened—he hadn't found what he'd needed in her own head, so he'd gone into Amaya's instead.

Just like always, Hayley didn't know enough to be useful.

When he was finished, Amaya nodded. "I understand. Thank you for telling me."

"What did he say?" Hayley asked stupidly. Amaya actually scoffed.

"He'll tell you himself, if he really wants to." With that, she stood up and put her back to Hayley once again, returning to her work on the cave wall. Hayley would think she'd been dismissed, if it wasn't for the Mightyena that flattened her ears and growled every time she even thought about moving. She looked down at Sen, but he was watching Amaya now, eyes following her every motion. With a hammer and chisel, Amaya carved away at a gap in the stone, making the same tink, tink, tink sound that had attracted Hayley's attention in the first place. Then, when the hole had been widened enough, she took a block of… of something, and shoved it in. Then she retrieved a little metal device and a spool of wire, and by now, Hayley had enough clues to understand what was happening.

"Are you going to blow this place up?" She hated the way her voice cracked in the middle of the question. Amaya didn't even look at her.

"I'm not going to blow you up, if that's what you're worried about. I'll let you go before I pull the switch. I just don't want you running to the cops before I finish, or it'll screw everything up."

"I won't tell anyone," she choked. "I swear—"

"I want you to tell them. Saves me the trouble of having to call in the tip myself." She finished attaching the detonator, wrapped the wire around it, and then unrolled the spool towards a shadowy network of similar wires that Hayley could now see stretching across the walls and ceiling. "I mean, this is my work. I'm doing it to send a message. And I don't want someone else to take credit."

"But why?"

It was several questions in one, and Amaya didn't answer any of them. Instead, she finished cutting and affixing the wire, then took up her hammer and chisel again and began carving another hole. Tink, tink, tink.

"Do you know where we are?" she finally asked.

"Granite Cave," Hayley answered automatically. Was this a trick question? Apparently so, because Amaya laughed.

"I mean, do you know where we are in the cave? Right now."

"The mining tunnels," Hayley guessed. Still not the right answer, she was sure, but at least Amaya didn't laugh this time.

"We're in a mining tunnel that's being drilled right towards a cluster of Meteonite. You know what that is, don't you?"

Hayley's eyes widened. "Mega stones? I mean, they use it to make—to make mega stones." The rangers had been right.

"Yeah. So I'm making sure they don't get their hands on it. Not without having to spend a lot more time and money, at least."

"Why?" Hayley asked again. She felt like a five year old, asking why the sky was blue, why leaves on the trees changed color, why she had to go to school, and in the silence that ensued, she was sure Amaya was seeing her that way too.

When she spoke again, she said, "Which one did you start with?"

"What?"

"You had a Slowpoke and a Magby with you. Which one did you start with?"

"I… I started with Barrett. The Magby." Why was she asking her this? Sick scenarios flashed through Hayley's mind where Amaya made her pick which one of them got to live, and the panic only heightened when Amaya asked her next question:

"What would you do if someone took Barrett from you?"

Hayley's throat burned and closed in on itself. Her pulse vibrated in her ears, and she gripped Sen so tightly that he grunted and pushed her hands away. She opened her mouth to say don't take him, but all that came out of her was a croak. It was like a nightmare where she couldn't speak, no matter how hard she tried. She licked her lips and swallowed over and over, trying to get enough control to make a single sound. In the end, all she managed was to whisper, "Don't. Please."

Amaya spared her a glance over her shoulder, and upon seeing the state she was in, let out a sigh. "I told you, I'm not going to hurt you or your Pokémon. Unless, you know, you really make me. This is all hypothetical, for now. I just want you to tell me what you'd do if someone told you that you weren't allowed to have Barrett anymore, and that you had to give them up."

"Why would they say that?"

"I don't know. Maybe for something that was your fault, maybe for something that wasn't. Maybe you do something that gets your license pulled, and they have to take your Pokémon away. Maybe Barrett does something that makes them decide they're too dangerous for you to keep around. Either way, the scenario is this: you're minding your own business when one day, some League official walks up to you and says, 'you can't have Barrett anymore. Hand them over.' What would you do?"

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"I—" Hayley's voice faltered again. "I couldn't…"

"They're the League. You can't tell them no. It's against the law." Amaya's hammer hit the chisel with an especially loud tink, and the rock split and crumbled away underneath it. "So what do you do?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, you better make up your mind fast, because every second you spend not handing Barrett over is a second they're using to call in reinforcements and add charges to your record." Finally, she turned from the wall again and stared down at Hayley with cold, hard eyes. "I'll tell you what you'll do, because I know how it goes for people like you. You'll hand Barrett over because you'll have every belief you're going to get them back. The officials that came for you might even tell you that you'll get them back. They're allowed to lie to you, did you know that? They'll tell you that you're a good kid, and that this is all some kind of misunderstanding, and they're just going to hold on to Barrett for a little while so they can clear everything up. But then a week will go by, and then a month, then a year, and every time you ask they'll tell you it's going to be just a little longer, that their investigation has just one more step. But even if you're naïve, you're not an idiot. Eventually you'll realize." She tore her eyes from Hayley and drove her chisel into the wall again. "You will never." Tink. "Ever." Tink. "Get them back."

Tink. Crack. The hole Amaya had been drilling opened up, shattering from a narrow crevice to a fist-size indent. Amaya stepped back, visibly startled, and then gave a unnatural laugh. "You know, I'm starting to think I might have used too much C4. Wouldn't that be funny? I tell you you can go, I give you a head start, and then the whole cave collapses and everyone dies."

It wouldn't be funny. But the mood had changed, the tension shifted, and despite her words, Amaya somehow looked far less deadly than she had ten seconds ago. Hayley scrambled for purchase like a fish gasping in the air. "Then—are you—are you done? Can I go?"

"Yeah. I think so." She drew a Pokéball from her pocket, and Hayley tensed, then wilted when the Mightyena beside her disappeared into red light. "Anyway, I went off on a tangent there, so I'll get to the point. When the cops ask you why I did it, you can tell them it's because I've got a grudge against the League." She put her hands on her hips, looked over her work, then looked down the tunnel Hayley had come from. "I'll give us both… I don't know… ten minutes, to get out of here? That's probably enough. Then I'm hitting the button that blows this place up. So you'd better hurry."

Hayley scrambled to her feet. Her legs were filled with pins and needles and almost dropped her again, forcing her to grab the wall for support. Sen, still in her arms, didn't move a muscle. She hobbled, and then, as her legs grew steadier, she began to run. She ran back the way she came, as fast as she could. She turned on her flashlight when the lights disappeared behind her, but her hands shook so much that its beam was useless, bobbing erratically ahead of her in the dark. She ran, and ran, straight along the minecart tracks, not stopping for anything around her. She didn't stop until she burst out into the daylight, standing at the bottom of the ugly quarry, human and Pokémon workers turning to stare at her. And then, from the tunnels behind her, there was the sound of an explosion.

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"And you don't know where she went?"

"I told you, I don't. I just ran and I didn't see her again."

"Could she have gone the same way as you and taken a side path into the cave?"

"I don't know! She told me to run and I did, okay? I don't know what she did after that."

Thanks to Merle's discretion in Rustboro, Hayley had avoided falling under the eyes of the police. But there was no avoiding it this time—everyone had seen her leave the tunnel just before it collapsed. Even if she'd been bold enough to try and slip away in the chaos and confusion, it had been less than a minute before officers teleported onto the scene, and when they did, all fingers pointed at her. Now she was stuck in a dingy back room of the Dewford City police station answering the same questions over and over again.

What had she been doing that morning? What had she been doing the day before, the week before? Was there anyone who could back her up on that? What had been her purpose in going to Granite Cave? Why had she gone in so deep? Why had she kept going deeper, instead of waiting for rescue? How had she wound up in the mining tunnels? Had she ever met that Meditite before? Had she ever spoken to Amaya before? What had Amaya been doing? What had she been wearing? What had the two of them talked about? They made her go through all the questions half a dozen times, and when it seemed like they might finally be done, they brought in more people and made her start from the beginning all over again.

They told her she had the right to call her mother, or a lawyer, if she wanted. She didn't. She just wanted this all to be over, and they said that if she brought in anyone else, it was going to take longer. "You're not in trouble; we just want you to tell us everything that happened." It sure felt like she was in trouble. Barrett and Ceres and Sen had all been taken from her. Supposedly they were being questioned, with psychic help, at the Pokémon Center. Supposedly she'd get to see them again as soon as this was done, but hearing that only made Amaya's warning ring loud in her ears. "They're allowed to lie to you. You will never, ever get them back."

The police didn't use psychics to pull things from human heads. She would have let them do it, if they'd asked to. She was innocent, and somehow, nothing she said seemed to be enough to prove that. But she kept trying. She talked and talked until her throat went raw and everything around her turned blurry and unfocused. Did she have any involvement with—here, they rattled off a long list of organizations she'd never heard of. She said no to each one. At some point, though, she let it slip that she'd accidentally gotten caught up in the protest at Rustboro Gym, and that started a whole new barrage of questions. Had she known they were going to try and storm the gym that day? No. Had she gone to any other protests? No—which was a lie, kind of, since she'd watched at least one other, but letting them know that was only going to make things worse. Did she know someone going by the code name Ennis? No—

"Wait. Yes." It tumbled out before she could think about what it would mean. From the way every head in the room snapped to attention and every eye focused on her, she knew it was a mistake. She tried desperately to backtrack. "I don't know him. I just ran into him, by accident, in Rustboro. A c—" She clamped her mouth shut, choking on the words she knew would damn her. A couple times. She covered it up by saying, "I don't know who he is. Is he important?"

There was a moment of silence as everyone visibly studied her and what she'd said. Eventually, the officer sitting directly in front of her said, "He's been causing a lot of trouble over the past year. Disturbances of the peace, mostly. But if you were at the Rustboro Gym protest like you said you were, you would already know that."

A curse rose in her throat. Why were they trying to trap her? She hadn't done anything wrong; they had to know that. "I do know—I was there, and I saw him—but there were a lot of people there, and I didn't know if he was more important than the rest of them, okay?"

"And was that the only time you encountered him?"

Something in Hayley's head—the same thing that had gone on alert when she'd encountered Amaya in the cave, when that man had confronted her with his Zangoose underneath Rustboro City—screamed at her. Lie, it said. Lie, or you will not get out of this alive.

The police were all still staring at her. And suddenly, the whole thing felt so, so stupid. They were going to treat her like a liar no matter what she said. So why not lie and make it easier for herself?

In her flat, exhausted voice, Hayley said, "That was the only time I saw him."

"Where did you learn his name?"

"One of the other protesters said it."

She'd expected it to be hard to lie to the police. She'd expected her voice to shake, her eyes to dart around and give her away. But somehow, she wasn't even nervous. She was just tired. She was tired, and she wanted to go home.

"Do you know anything else about him? His associates, or…"

"I don't." She lifted her head and stared, exhausted, into the eyes of her interrogator. "Please, can I just go? I can come back in tomorrow or something, but my—my Magby is going to think I abandoned him, and my Slowpoke is going to be so confused, and I don't even know if the Meditite I rescued is still alive or not. I need to see them. Please."

In the end, they let her go. But it was the same way that Amaya had "let her go." She felt their stares on her all the way out the building, the same way she'd felt the threat of Ilta and Nisha nipping at her heels.

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The walk back to the Pokémon Center was… disorienting. The streets and sun and buildings rising around her felt like illusions, as though she was still trapped in that tiny room and this was all one giant trick. The Pokémon Center itself was just as unreal, and she didn't take in any part of the lobby around her as she made her way to the counter. She didn't see Howie coming up to her. When he grabbed her shoulder, she would have screamed, if any part of her body had still had the energy left to do that. Instead, she only flinched.

"Hayley! Are you okay? They wouldn't tell us what happened—"

"I'm fine," she whispered. Another lie, meant to get an interrogation over with as quickly as possible. No, that wasn't fair—Howie wasn't interrogating her. He'd been worried about her. She could tell from the stress and fear that was carved as deeply into his face as it had been into hers.

"They followed your tracks and it led them to a room that was collapsed, and I thought—" Howie's breath hitched, but he inhaled deeply and stumbled on. "They called in Leigh and his Shedinja, and they couldn't find a body or anything, but they couldn't move the rocks without risking a bigger cave-in, so they weren't sure…" He trailed off, eyes blinking rapidly behind his glasses.

"I'm sorry," Hayley said. "I'm really sorry. It was stupid, and I shouldn't have—you were right."

That wasn't a lie, at least.

Past Howie, Hayley saw Miriam sitting on a bench against the wall. Her arms were folded tight across her chest, and her face was ghostly pale. She was staring at Hayley, but the moment Hayley looked back, she ducked her head and turned away, hair falling forward to veil her face.

"They brought us all back to the ranger station while they looked for you. But then there was this—this noise like an explosion, and the police came and started asking all these questions about you, and I thought it was because you'd—they'd—" He took another deep breath, but this time it didn't work—a sob broke through. And then Howie was crying in the middle of a Pokémon Center lobby, and it was all Hayley's fault.

"I'm sorry," she said again, because it was all she could say. "I'm sorry."

In this situation, Connie probably would have given one or both of them a hug, and things would have felt okay, even if it was just for a second. But Hayley didn't know how to do something like that. So she stood there awkwardly, arms at her sides, as Howie collected himself again.

They'd thought she was dead. For how long? And—the rangers hadn't known she was alive, but the police did. Why hadn't they told them? Did they think it would make questioning Howie and Miriam easier, if they both thought she was never coming back?

Howie sniffed and wiped his eyes. "Sorry," he said, voice thick. "I didn't mean to—you know."

"Yeah."

They were both silent for another moment, and then Howie glanced over to the counter. "I need to check on my Pokémon. I'll tell them to bring out yours, too. Your—the Meditite's doing okay, by the way. He's hurt, but… stable." Then, in a lower voice, he added, "You should talk to Miriam. She's probably not going to say anything, but she got, uh. Pretty messed up about all this."

"I will," Hayley said. "Thanks. For—for everything."

Talking to Miriam was possibly the last thing Hayley wanted to do. She wasn't sure yet whether she blamed her for this, or whether she felt sorry for her, or what. But they shared a dorm room; they were going to have to talk eventually. Might as well get it over with. So Hayley walked over to where Miriam was sitting, hunched and miserable, on the bench.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," Miriam muttered back. She didn't look at her.

Agonizing seconds stretched on between them. Hayley tried again. "So… How long did it take for the rangers to find you?"

"They didn't have to find me," Miriam said to the floor. "I caught the Mawile and came back. But you were already gone."

"Oh." So going after her had been doubly useless, then. Hayley really should have listened to Howie. But then her brain processed the rest of what Miriam had said, and she did a double take. "You caught it?"

"Yeah."

"To—to give it to the rangers? Or—?"

"No. She's on my team now. At least until she wins enough battles to get me back for my Gameboy." Miriam grunted. "I'm naming her Yuna."

"Yuna? Why 'Yuna'?"

"Because the Pokédex wouldn't let me name her 'Asshole,' so I had to think of something else."

Hayley laughed a little at that. It wasn't a big laugh, but it still felt good. She'd take what she could get. Miriam's lips, though, stayed stubbornly frozen in a frown. "Uh. Congratulations, I guess. I'm glad you didn't get lost like I did."

It wasn't meant as a barb, but from the way Miriam flinched, she took it as one. She glared at Hayley out of the corners of her eyes. "I didn't ask you to go after me, you know."

Hayley bristled. Was Miriam really going to pick a fight with her now? "I know."

"And you shouldn't have, because…" Miriam broke her oblique eye contact to stare at the far wall, and gestured one hand vaguely. "If you'd gotten… killed."

Hayley waited for Miriam to continue. She didn't. "What?" she prompted.

"You know," Miriam said.

"I don't."

"Ugh." Miriam gritted her teeth, sat up straight, and finally turned her head to look at Hayley. "I don't want you to die, okay? Especially if it's because of something I did. You don't deserve it, and—you've got all these friends and stuff. If I got you killed, I'd have to tell all of them it was my fault, and I don't know how I would do that. Like 'yeah, whoops, I ran into a cave like an idiot, and she—'" She cut off then, because Hayley was laughing. Or, she was trying not to laugh. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, stifling hysteric giggles that threatened to burst out of her throat. "What? What's so funny?"

"I'm not laughing at you," Hayley said, even as her shoulders shook and tears welled up in her eyes. "It's not even funny, it's just—" A half-laugh, half-snort came free before she could stop it. "That's the same reason I went after you in the first place. I was thinking that if I let you die, I wouldn't know what to say to your mother."

"Oh," Miriam said. There was another uncomfortable pause as Hayley tried to calm herself down. It really wasn't funny. Why was she laughing? "Well, if it happens again, you can just tell her it's her own stupid fault, not yours. She's the only reason I'm out here at all."

"Yeah. Okay." Hayley smiled, and it actually felt sincere. "Instead of that, though, maybe we can just agree to stop getting ourselves or each other almost killed?"

"I guess we can try," Miriam said. "But if I die anyway, I want you to promise you'll tell my mom to suck it."

"Sure." Why not? If they were both careful, and lucky, it would never come to that. Hayley shifted her body towards Miriam and held out a hand. "Let's shake on it. To not dying."

Miriam raised an eyebrow, but after a moment of hesitation, she lifted her own hand and put it in Hayley's. "All right. To not dying."