Chapter 33
(Ryan POV)
Jubilife was bigger than I remembered.
Not that I'd really looked last time one delivery run for Henrika, two packages, head down the whole time. In and out before I'd seen anything worth seeing. But now with no schedule and mud in my left boot and the city just kind of being there, it felt different. Wide streets. Buildings that someone had actually thought about. A Magnemite drifting past at rooftop height doing something I couldn't identify and honestly didn't have the energy to figure out.
I found the Pokémon Center on the east side and pushed through the door.
I did not even get the chance to set foot inside for more than a second when someone called my name. I knew that voice.
"Ryan, over here!"
I looked left. Mara was sitting in the corner with two cups of tea in front of her okay, why does she have two cups? Is she expecting someone? Me? How would she even know I was coming today? I walked over anyway.
"Hey Mara, what are you doing in Jubilife?"
She smiled like seeing me here was the most normal thing in the world. "Research for Rowan. There's been stuff happening on the routes outside the city, so I'm here to look into it and report back when I find what he's looking for."
I sat down across from her. Okay. That sounded reasonable. Except why would Rowan concern himself with stuff on routes outside his city? That's not really his thing. He's a Pokémon researcher, not a league official. But whatever. Not my problem.
"How long have you been here?"
"Two days." She pushed one of the cups toward me and leaned back like she'd been waiting all afternoon for someone to talk to. "But enough about me last I heard you beat Roark and were heading to Eterna. Why are you on Route 203?"
How does she know I beat Roark? Rowan probably, just passing things along. That's fine.
"I tried Route 207 but got turned back. Not enough badges so I had to go back through Oreburgh and take Route 203 instead."
She winced. "That's a long way around."
"Yeah." I drank some of the tea. It was actually really good. "How does Rowan even know about the badge?"
"He keeps track." She said it simply. "More than he lets on."
I filed that and moved on. "So what's been happening on the routes?"
"Team Galactic movement mostly. They've been showing up in places they weren't before." She tilted her head. "You haven't run into anything weird have you?"
And there it was. Casual, just the next question.
I thought about Marsh and Tovey stepping out of the grass. About Rhyhorn coming out of her ball on her own. About Deino shaking but stepping forward anyway.
"Nothing we couldn't handle," I said.
She nodded and didn't push it, which I appreciated more than I probably should have. Most people push. Mara just moved on, easy as anything, like the conversation had somewhere better to be.
"Okay but more importantly," she said, already standing up and grabbing her bag, "you haven't eaten have you."
"I had "
"That's a no." She was already heading for the door. "Come on, there's a place near the coordinator hall. Counter spot, no seating, best food in Jubilife. I've been going every day since I got here."
"Every day?"
"It's really good, stop looking at me like that." She pushed the door open. "You have nowhere to be."
She wasn't wrong about that.
The place was exactly what she'd described a counter, a woman behind it who handed you a paper bag, and absolutely nowhere to sit inside. We ended up on a bench across the street because that was the only option and honestly it was fine, the rain had stopped properly now and the city was doing its evening thing around us, people heading home, a Machoke moving something heavy down the street with the focused energy of something that did this all day and had stopped thinking about it.
I unwrapped mine. It smelled incredible.
"What's in this?" I said.
"No idea. I stopped asking after day one." She took a bite. "Better not knowing honestly."
I ate some. She was right. About all of it.
We sat there for a while just eating. Not really talking. A Machoke lumbered past with something heavy and neither of us said anything about it. The city did its thing. We did ours.
I don't know why but I didn't feel like I needed to fill it. Usually when it goes quiet with someone you don't know that well you start doing the mental math of okay what do I say next, what keeps this going. With Mara it just didn't feel like that. She ate her food and watched the street and seemed completely fine with however long the silence lasted.
After a while she said "how's the team holding up?"
"Rhyhorn took a hit two nights ago. She's been grumpy about it ever since."
Mara winced slightly. "How bad?"
"Soft tissue. She's fine, she's just you know how she is."
"I've met her once."
"Then you know how she is."
She laughed a little at that. "Fair. And the others?"
"Deino's in his ball, too many people out here for him." I unwrapped the last bit of mine. "Prinplup's fine, she's just "
"Sorry." Mara looked at me. "Prinplup?"
"Oh." I'd forgotten she didn't know. "Piplup evolved. Few weeks ago on Route 203."
She stared at me for a second. "Already?"
"During a fight. Just happened."
"Of course it did." She shook her head but she was smiling. "Can I see her?"
I released Prinplup. She materialized, clocked Mara in about half a second, did her thing, found her adequate.
Mara looked at her for a long moment. Something moved across her face that wasn't just surprise something quieter underneath it, something I couldn't quite read. "She's beautiful," she said. Then to Prinplup directly: "You've grown."
Prinplup looked at her. "Prin." Flat but not unfriendly. High praise honestly.
"She's already working on Whirlpool," I said. "Just started."
Mara looked at me. "Already." Not a question this time. Just absorbing it. "You two move fast."
I didn't know if she meant me or Prinplup. Probably both.
She stood up, folded her empty bag into a neat square out of some kind of habit, put it in her pocket. "You're good with them you know."
"They do most of the work."
"That's not what I mean." She said it simply, not making a thing of it. "Just not everyone has that. With their Pokémon." She nodded toward the street. "Come on. I want to show you something on the way back."
We were walking back when we passed the news screen outside the TV station. I wasn't really paying attention trade figures, weather, the usual until it changed.
DAY 6 — VALLEY WINDWORKS. Team Galactic presence ongoing. League response units deployed. Trainers advised to avoid Route 205 northern stretch until further notice.
Six days.
I stopped without meaning to. Six days isn't two guys in blue uniforms blocking a path. Six days is something they planned, something they're holding, something they want badly enough to stay for. I knew what they were after or I thought I did, from the game. But the game and a real news screen in a real city six days in felt nothing like each other.
The screen cycled.
ROUTE 203 INCIDENT — One suspect apprehended by League authorities. Second suspect remains at large. Investigation ongoing.
Okay. Marsh still out there, that I knew. But Tovey was caught. That was
BREAKING — Suspect apprehended in Route 203 incident has escaped League custody. Both suspects now at large. Public advised to remain vigilant.
Both.
The screen moved on. Trade figures again. Just like that.
I was still standing there looking at where the words had been when Mara said my name.
"They both got out," I said.
She didn't answer right away. I looked at her and there was that expression again there and gone before I could get a proper read on it.
"Come on," she said quietly. "You need sleep."
We split at the Pokémon Center entrance. She had a lodge two streets over.
"Safe travels," she said. "Through all of it."
"Yeah."
She looked at me. Not the easy social look. The real one. "Be careful. Not because you can't handle it." A pause. "Just be careful."
Then she was gone.
I found my room, dropped my bag, sat on the edge of the bed.
Okay.
Both of them free. That was the thing I kept coming back to. Both. Tovey was supposed to be done, that was supposed to be the part where at least one thing was handled, at least one thing was finished and off the list. And now he wasn't. Now it was both of them out there, somewhere, and I didn't know where and neither did the league apparently because it had been all of one day and they'd already lost him.
Marsh I expected. Marsh felt like the kind of person who doesn't get caught. But Tovey —
I lay back and looked at the ceiling.
Okay. Think. They'd been following Deino since Sandgem but they didn't know where I was now. I could've gone anywhere from the pokemon center. They'd lost me for now, that was something, that was actually something worth holding onto.
Except they knew about Deino. And anyone who knew about Deino and wanted him badly enough to follow me for weeks wasn't just going to give up because they'd lost the trail for a few days.
They'd find it again.
Mara had. Two cups of tea on a table before I'd walked through the door.
That one kept coming back too.
Mara's research. Rowan wanting field data. Routes outside the city. It all made sense, it was all reasonable, there was no actual reason to think anything of it.
Probably ordered two by accident.
I stared at the ceiling for a while longer. The room was quiet. Jubilife outside doing its thing, distant and indifferent. Deino on my belt on the chair by the door, Rhyhorn, Prinplup, all of them in their balls and fine and that was what mattered, that was the thing to hold onto.
They were fine. We were fine.
I closed my eyes.
Both of them free though.