Chapter 17

Lane tucked her tail in close, then shot down through the trees, weaving slow enough that she could easily avoid the worst of the branches and spines.

What might've been an annoying thorn when she was human easily could've impaled her now. She probably wouldn't be much use to her friends if she landed in front of them as a corpse.

A few dangerous seconds and she was through, flying lower and lower towards the bridge from one side. The obstruction that had stymied her friends completely was barely an inconvenience to Lane—she just drifted to one side, avoiding the razor wire, then back to the bridge.

Elisa and Dominic weren't even looking in her direction, but someone was. Lopunny took a few tentative steps closer, her eyes getting wider. "Are you the scary one, or are you Lane?" she asked. She reached one paw towards her, then pulled it back as Lane retreated.

"Korina… didn't erase your memory!" Lane beamed, zipping right up to her and briefly touching against her foreleg in the second-closest hug she'd ever shared with a Pokémon. "I'm so glad to see you!"

The Pokémon tensed at her touch, but didn't attack. She held up her paw, so she could meet Lane's eyes. "You're Lane. You sound a little like him.

Why didn't Elisa get me good food?"

Lane lifted off her paw, then smacked herself in the face with her palm.

"Are you even listening…" But even if she was, what did “erasing memories”

even mean to a Pokémon? Lane shook her head slowly. "When the big mew attacked Elisa, she made her forget. That's why she and Dominic came up here—they think they're saving me, even though I was never there."

"I know that part," Lopunny said, her voice wistful. “I keep trying to tell her she's going the wrong way. You said you were in the stone ruin, not up by a waterfall. They're going the wrong way, and now they're trapped."

"Lopunny, do you see something?" Elisa asked, looking back over her shoulder. "Who are you talking…" She trailed off, eyes fixing on Lane. She jerked, barely catching herself on the railing.

Dominic swore, rushing over to help her up. "What happened, Elisa? I told you not to get so close to the edge…"

Lane zipped towards her too, away from Lopunny. She might've learned that interfering with wild Pokémon was stupid, but she knew that humans couldn't jump off cliffs.

But she didn't have to pull Elisa back, because she managed on her own, scrambling to her feet and spinning around. "I swear I saw…" She trailed off, one finger still pointed at Lane. "Mew."

There was a bright flash from Dominic, right in Lane's face. Even his satellite phone had a camera. Lane covered her eyes with both paws, wavering in the air. "Ugh, that was awful." She gestured with one paw, and Dominic swore again. He grasped at the phone in vain as it tumbled away through the air, vanishing over the side of the bridge.

"That wasn't very nice, Mew! I could've deleted the picture if you didn't like it."

Lane gasped. Shit, that was our satellite phone. She backed away, bumping right into Lopunny. The Pokémon showed no more sign of comprehension, just watched her expectantly. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I'm still kinda… clueless about my psychic powers."

"My boyfriend was looking for you," Elisa said, taking a few cautious steps towards her. "He vanished a few days ago, said he was going up to Cresselia Falls. Have you seen him?"

Boyfriend? But of all the things to object to, that didn't even register with Lane. Right, they can't understand me. She had a whole conversation of telepathy to fall back on. It shouldn't be any harder with two instead of one.

"I am Lane," she said, exasperated. "We had this talk already. Mew kidnapped me, locked me in some ruins, threatened me if I tried to run away…"

From the shock on their faces, she guessed it was working. She floated a little closer, lifting herself up to Elisa's eye-level. "Yeah, you heard it right. I'm not Mew, I'm Lane. I guess technically I am a mew now. But it wasn't my choice, so it doesn't count. I'm still human in here." She tapped her chest with both paws, exaggerated enough that she hoped they would see it. Nevermind that I'm sleeping in a nest with a big cat and I'm flying naked through the air.

It wasn't Elisa who recovered first this time. Dominic reached one hand towards Lane, like he was going to feed her some unseen treat. Or maybe just checking to see if she'd bite. She didn't, obviously.

"If you're Lane, why did you trash my phone? That's not cool, bro. Not cool."

She sighed, ears pressed flat to her head and tail curling. "You wanna try to figure out psychic powers in a few days? You should see the way Korina is teaching me. Straight into the dragon's den. 'Don't get squished, Lane! Try not to drown!' I'm doing my best, okay?"

Elisa reached out with one hand, stroking her back delicately with her fingers. Human hands felt rough to the touch, but she could still feel the gentleness that Elisa intended. That was compassion, sympathy. She was trying to calm Lane down.

"You told me to go," she whispered. "I… I remember. You were afraid of what she would do to us." She spun around once, looking between the high fences on both sides. "What are we doing out here? You never went to Cresselia Falls."

She bobbed a little lower in the air, drooping under the weight of their attention. It wasn't like she couldn't answer. But somehow it all felt like her fault. If only she'd ignored Elisa completely, she would've moved right on through Atico without noticing them. Korina probably wouldn't have even seen her.

"She kinda sorta… manipulated you. She doesn't think that humans can have real feelings. That y—we're like… inferior forms of life or something. I don't get it either, so don’t ask. But what it means is that she threatened to erase our memories, so we never met. You and me both."

"A Pokémon can really do that?" Dominic asked. "You realize how complex it would be. At that point, you're almost rewriting someone's entire past. What have we been doing for the last few years if we never met? The True-Myth Club was never formed, our Pokéventures Online guild never existed… some real chaos theory unraveling there."

"I've heard of powerful psychic-types having powers that weren't easily explained before. It's why trainers usually avoid Sabrina's gym in Saffron if they can. They might be able to."

She reached into her bag for a moment, removing a flat piece of beat-up plastic. Her ancient pokedex, probably dating to her early years as a trainer.

Before her hopes came crashing down to a more realistic level.

"Mew, the New Species Pokémon," it said, in an ancient speech synthesizer. "Apparently, it appears only to those people who are pure of heart and have a strong desire to see it."

Lane giggled in spite of herself. She wasn't sure what pure of heart meant, but that second part was certainly true. Did I accidentally figure out the missing piece that those university teams never did? They didn't want to meet mew badly enough.

"That doesn't actually answer the question," Dominic said, nodding gently towards her. "The real mew erased some memories, she doesn't want us to know each other anymore. But why are we out here in the jungle, getting ourselves arrested or maybe eaten alive or worse?"

"Because that was the test she had for you." Lane glanced nervously between them, her thoughts getting faster and faster. She could only hope they would still be able to understand her, because she wasn't getting any less shy. "If you made it to the waterfall, she would let us keep our memories. If not, she'd erase them. She tricked you into coming up here."

"Oh." Dominic dropped to one knee, then flopped onto his butt, staring up at the fence. "So you're saying we're putting our lives at risk because some legendary Pokémon is playing a game with us. Over whether we're allowed to remember you or not?"

Lane nodded. "If you want, I can call her. Err… I think I can. I'm not actually sure, she might be listening now. But if you'd rather just… not take the risk, I'll understand. It's a lot of risk for something that's not all that important.

I don't matter, really. I didn't feel right making the choice for you, but if you'd like to go, then it won't be me making the choice."

Dominic didn't say anything. Lane could feel his thoughts churning, mixing freely with confusion, relief, guilt… a slurry of overlapping emotions that made it impossible to draw a single clear conclusion.

"Not a chance, Lane." Elisa marched right up to her, scooping her up in both hands in a rush of motion. She squirmed and wiggled to escape, but Elisa's grip was too strong. She couldn't break free without possibly hurting her with her powers, and Lane wouldn't take the chance.

"Not now. Not ever, but not now especially. We're gonna finish that legendary’s dumb trial, then we'll march right up to her and make her change you back."

That's not gonna work any better than it did before. But still, the optimism was enough that she didn't want to argue. A second later and Elisa let her go. She didn't drift very far, hanging between the two of them. At least neither of her friends had noticed she wasn't male anymore. At her size, it would be hard to tell.

"We can't march anywhere, Elisa," Dominic said weakly. "Not that I don't share your… perspective. To me it doesn't seem possible to cut out something as important as a best friend without doing serious damage otherwise. I'm not gonna risk turning into a vegetable. The physical danger is bad, but at least it's temporary. If we get out, then we're free. But we're… not out."

"Oh, that's easy!" Lane floated away, in the direction she guessed they'd been walking. The gate was shut in front of them, with a complex spring-loaded locking mechanism. She could see the lock on the other side of the razor wire.

Inaccessible to a human, but she didn't have to climb to get it.

Lane gestured, groaning with sudden focus. The lock clicked open, and the gate began to lift, glowing bright pink along with her body. It was enormously heavy… but easier than fighting a dragon. "If you guys wanna, uh…

maybe hurry up, that would be great."

They shared a look, then scrambled towards the exit. Lopunny followed, bounding with the same athleticism as ever along with apparent relief to be moving again. They crossed through the gate, and Lane followed, only letting it crash down as soon as they were on the other side.

"I don't see any electronics in that thing. I think it's just a… trap?"

"That doesn't seem like the conservation agency," Dominic muttered, staring back at the bridge. "We could've starved on that thing. There has to be some sensors around here somewhere. Which… probably means we should get moving. They know we're here. They might even know you're here, mew.

They could've called to warn us to surrender, but then you threw my phone off a bridge."