Amber streamed through the air, her sleek aerodynamic body cutting through the atmosphere like a hot knife through butter. The wind whistled around her, almost drowning out all other sound.
Almost.
A roar sounded behind her, and she momentarily turned her head slightly to aim one eye to her rear. Her pursuers, two humans riding a Salamance and a Pidgeot, were steadily becoming closer and closer.
How? She should have been able to outspeed them easily. Yet no sonic boom had sounded as she cruised over the cityscape.
And how had they found her? For weeks she had hid in the city in her human form. There had been no suspicion toward her. So how did they two know she was a Pokemon?
If she continued like this, she would be caught. And Amber knew full well what happened to those who fall into the hands of poachers. All too well, in vivid detail from the perspective of the victim.
She dove into the city, hoping to evade her pursuers by agility rather than speed. Weaving between buildings, she did her best to set up a route that the devil himself couldn't follow.
A mere half a minute of trying told her it was no good. Instead of following her into the city as she had hoped, they merely cruised above the rooftops, more than able to keep a bird's eye view on her.
So what then? Perhaps it was time to give up and surrender. They all had to die someday. No, she reminded herself. They all had to die, but she wouldn't go down without a fight. But what could she do about it? Scanning the ground, she spotted a manhole. A lightbulb flickered on above her head.
Opening her mouth and letting out a cry, she aimed a Hyper Beam at the manhole. The ray of destruction blew through the road, causing several cars to swerve. But she had accomplished her objective. A gaping hole now existed in the road large enough for her to fly through. And fly through she did, straight into the sewer system. Slowing down considerably due to the tight space, she weaved through the sewers. After a few minutes, she decided to wait and see if she had lost her pursuers. Settling down against the side of the sewer wall, she closed her eyes and rested. The rank smell of the waste of thousands of humans almost erased all thought from her mind, but she managed to block it out, partially.
For a long time, she waited. Just when she was about to decide that her little plot was successful, she heard footsteps, and voices, not too far away, echoes bouncing around within the sewer.
"Look, she went this way," said a small, tinny voice.
"Yeah, I can see. I have eyes too, you know. Not blind," sounded the other, an older, gruffer tone.
Her veins froze. How had they followed her? Opening her eyes, she looked down at her body for the first time since the chase had began, and instantly understood why.
A large crater, an empty pocket where there had once been flesh, existed in her side. The blood that was streaming out was no small amount. She had laid a trail for the poachers, a trail of her own blood. But when had she received the wound? Try as she might, she couldn't remember.
Willing herself to be silent, she covered the wound with one paw, the best she could manage, since the other one couldn't reach that far. Cruising through the undercity, she looked around for something, anything, that could help her. She didn't know what she was looking for, but she knew she would know it when she saw it.
Perhaps Fem Fortune was on her side at last. She spotted box floating through the sewer, filled with what looked like bottles of dye. And one of those was red, from what she could see in the dim light. She took it, used her telekinetic psychic powers to unscrew the cap, and tossed it into the sewer as far as she could. She took a wad of crumbled paper, also in the box, and stuffed it into her wound, ignoring the sharp shriek of pain that shot through her nerves. Praying that they would fall for the deception, she streamed off in the direction opposite to that which she had thrown the bottle.
She doubled back to the hole in the ground she had come through, although taking a different path. Emerging from the sewers, she willed her feathers to bend as to refract the light around her, effectively making herself invisible. She cruised just above the heads of the people walking through the streets. The wad of paper had done a good job of keeping her from dripping blood, but now it was throughout saturated, she had to get rid of it. She ducked into an alley and tossed it into a dumpster. Blood once against streamed from her wound.
Hovering in the air, she suddenly felt tired. Beyond tired, she was completely exhausted, all the energy sucked from her body. Perhaps part of it was the blood loss. She fell from the air and collapsed onto the ground, and her feathers returned to their normal position, making herself fully visible again. She could barely muster the strength to drag herself behind the dumpster, out of sight, and prop herself against the wall, sitting with her back to the cold, lonely brick.
Sitting against the side of the building, she looked up at the sky. The smokey, polluted, smog-filled sky. Oh, what humans have done to this world...
A sound bounced from her mouth, a tiny sliver open, just barely agape. She began to sing, quietly and softly to herself.
Notice me...
Take my hand...
Why carry on without me?
She was completely drained of energy. She could no longer fight or run. All she could do is hide. And if those poachers found her now, then there was nothing she could do to prolong her life.
Every time I try to fly
I fall without my wings
I feel so small
But perhaps that was for the best. What had she ever done for anyone? What had she done to be deserving of life? Her entire family was dead. Perhaps it was destiny that she would share that fate. Maybe it was meant to be, that a poacher would walk down this alley, point a shotgun at her head, and pull the trigger, splattering her brains against the cold, dark asphalt and the uncaring brick.
And every time I see
you in my dreams
I see your face
your haunting me
She closed her eyes and turned her head downwards to the ground. A trickle of liquid flowed down from her right eye. A single drop rolled down her face. She felt the tear's pressure against every single feather it touched. It reached the tip of her nose, and fell off.
It was the first of many.
I make believe
that you are here
It's the only way
I see clearly
Oh, Jacen, she thought. The gaping void in her heart, where her brother had been, had always been, as everpresent as the sun and the Earth, as reassuring and solid as the strongest rock, seemed to swallow her entire existence. It was a wound that pained her far more than any physical hurt ever could.
I may have made it rain
please forgive me
My weakness caused you pain
and this song's my sorry
She closed her mouth. Sleep would come, or not at all.
