Chapter 11

Lane could think of few things quite so dangerous as going straight to the surface now that she didn't have her companion, but straight to the surface was where Lane intended to go. Of course, there were a few minutes of wandering, given that she knew the layout of Starfall so poorly. But after several minutes of searching, she was able to locate the entrance, hidden in a grate that had been built by human hands.

Flying up that grate was her first challenge, given that from her small perspective it represented an apparent scale of several hundred feet. But somehow she managed, wavering in the air as she flew higher and higher up into the ruins of the ancient city.

Here she felt a little safer, even though in reality, it was probably much more dangerous. She'd heard many wild Pokémon in this area before, and there was no reason to suspect they had gone. Not only that, but there were plenty of entirely natural threats that might kill her. But Lane wasn't about to turn around now. She slowed a little, doing her best to remember her path as she flew outward, but this opening would not make the maze very difficult to navigate.

Korina had chosen a home with an opening to the sky, a window just barely wide enough for her adult form to squeeze through. A human walking along the roof of this ruin, if it were stable enough to do so, would discover only a small opening in the ceiling and never suspect what was down here.

Lane flew up and out, holding her position just above the ceiling of the ruin. It was nighttime now, and the rain had mercifully not returned. With no clouds, she saw a sky full of stars, stretching out in all directions. There must have been something different about her eyes, because they weren't just little white dots of light.

Instead they varied in shade and intensity, blues and golds and reds, subtly different. She landed subconsciously on the stone and stared. Taking it all in, was this what Korina had meant about the stars? Unfortunately for Lane, she wasn't alone in the night there. She felt it more than she saw it though.

Her ears were much sharper than they had ever been in her human body, but even more difficult to ignore than the sound were the thoughts.

Although she wasn't sure her old self would have described them that way. It was more like an unseen pressure on the air, a subtle warning to herself that other creatures were nearby.

There were many of them, dozens of patterns moving through the ruins.

Focusing on one or another allowed her to taste what they were feeling. First, their nervousness, their anxiety, hunger, whatever emotion was dominating the most. I am a psychic-type now, Lane thought. I guess I'm reading emotions already. Maybe one day, I'll be able to read thoughts like Korina does.

Of course, that was assuming she couldn't find a way out of this. Either back to civilization or, even more optimistically, back to her original body. But tonight wouldn't be an escape attempt. She had no intention of giving Korina an excuse to kill her.

Rather, she had a specific destination in mind, and now that she thought about it, she rose back up into the air. She flew high enough that she could see the city clearly and knew where she was going. Though first she took another moment to imprint the location of the opening in her mind. The last thing she wanted was to be trapped up here, unable to find her way down to safety and food.

She flew slowly along the ceiling of ancient buildings, passing over sections of rotting wood and thin stone that certainly never would have held her human weight, but now she didn't even touch them. And even if she had, she had no doubt, they wouldn't have buckled. She could only weigh a few ounces at most.

But past it all, somehow still standing, despite the torrential downpour of rain, her tent was sheltered under a copse of trees. As Lane flew closer, she dropped subconsciously to roughly human head height so that she could look directly through the entrance. Strangely, her tent was not dark and abandoned, but a large propane lamp shown out from inside, eye-searingly bright.

Curious, Lane sped up, flying as fast as she could towards the open tent door. Didn't I shut that? she thought. Someone must've been here.

Her fire had long since burned down and whatever possessions had been left out were gone. Instead, there were several large bags of belongings, a few of which she knew intimately well, because they belonged to Elisa and Dominic. Oh crap. They came looking for me. Elisa had sworn that they would catch the train as soon as it came and ride north again. Clearly that had been

a bluff. Lane's thoughts were interrupted rather cruelly however, as a shape barreled into her from the side, so large that she hadn't noticed it among the shadows. Something gigantic and unyielding wrapped itself around her in a single terrible moment.

She screamed and cried out, but her tiny voice was cut short. She kicked and squirmed as best she could, lifting into the air in impotent flight. But unable to see the ground, she couldn't generate much force. She was helpless.

Lane felt her entire world moving, shifting as a deep voice rumbled from somewhere above her. There was a pressure on the air far more intense than any she'd noticed in the ruins. It was another mind, she realized, one with more complex thoughts and emotions. Somehow the flavor of it was familiar to her.

She was not left to speculate for long, however, as a voice soon rumbled from outside. It was far deeper than she would have expected, but that was probably a product of her strange new body. "I don't care how powerful you think you are, Pokémon," Elisa said. "I don't care that you're some undiscovered mythical creature that Lane spent his whole life looking for.

When I let you out of here, you're going to show me exactly where you put him. Arceus help you if you hurt him.”

Lane blinked, barely able to process what she was hearing.

Elisa's voice was as furious as her mind tasted. There was certainly no deception in her threats. She felt motion from outside her prison of cloth as Elisa moved, and heard the zipper that was almost certainly the tent door shutting again.

"Let me out!" she squeaked, though she wasn't sure Elisa would be able to hear her from so far away.

She was trapped somewhere, dark and pink, and even that much she could only tell because of the light shining through the fabric. Yet the primate stench of it was so strong! She hacked and gagged as it went pouring into her nose and mouth.

Somehow the smell conveyed almost as much information as the pressure of the mind above. The smell was male, desperate, and afraid. Is that me I'm smelling? This is my jacket. A second later and she went flying, landing with a bruising impact as the one holding her bundled jacket finally let go.

Without the force holding her down, Lane surged forward towards a single sliver of light and emerged out the hood, lifting back to human head height.

The inside of Lane's tent had been completely torn apart, with her possessions scattered across the floor seemingly at random. It looked as

though a thorough search had taken place, one that obviously hadn't found her.

Of course, she wasn't alone in the tent. Elisa loomed large, so big that Lane's ears pressed against her head and she cowered back in fear. How can anything be so big? she thought, desperate and confused.

Nor was Elisa the only one. Her familiar lopunny stood beside her, arms folded and glaring. Somehow the Pokémon seemed far less threatening than the human, though of course Lane knew better. Lopunny was a powerful fighter in her own right, strong enough to save their group from more than a few scrapes over the years. Yet now those eyes were fixed on her, angry and suspicious.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" Elisa asked. She reached down to her belt, removing something that Lane had almost never seen her use. A small pokéball that grew to full size in her hand. She tossed it up and down in the air, grinning wickedly. "I told you, tell me what you did with Lane.

If you don't tell me here, I'll bring you somewhere less friendly."

The terrifying presence of her friend was so overwhelming that Lane could barely speak. Her anger was thick on the air, like a fire of old tires. Strong enough to make her eyes water. "I didn't do anything with Lane!" she argued, as loud as she could. "I'm Lane!"

The other occupants of Lane's tent reacted in near opposite ways. Elisa's expression hardened and her knuckles went white around the pokéball. "You can't play dumb with me," she hissed. "I know how smart you're supposed to be. I met a trainer who had a shaymin once, and she could talk, don't even try this shit."

Lopunny reacted in the exact opposite way. Her eyes went wide, and her limbs fell limply. She advanced towards Lane, no longer looking threatening at all. "What did you say?" the Pokémon asked, apparently in perfectly intelligible English.

That was all it took for Lane to put the pieces together. Oh crap. Elisa can't understand me.

She thought back to her own meeting with mew that first terrible night.

The Pokémon hadn't spoken out loud until after she had been changed. Before that, it had been like another voice in her mind whispering things. Lane had always imagined that mew could do it, but just because Lane knew the real Pokémon could do it didn't mean that she could.

Lane drooped in the air, her tail hanging limp. She looked desperately towards Lopunny. Of course, the normal type could do only so much to help.

After all, her trainer wouldn't be able to understand her words either. "I said that I'm Lane," she declared. "Mew did kidnap me, but it's worse than that.

She did this." She extended all four limbs, waving them about wildly. "She trapped me underground in a secret ruin." It no longer even occurred to Lane that Korina would probably consider this some sort of betrayal. Just now she couldn't bring herself to care.

"What do you think Lopunny?" Elisa asked through gritted teeth. "Do you think we should battle this Pokémon until she talks?" Though Elisa was never much of a trainer around Lane, he'd never seen her Pokémon shy away from a battle.

Now she spun, stepping between Elisa and Lane and spreading out her paws. "No!" she argued. "Don't make me do that! Your mate is right in front of you!"

That gave Elisa pause, as she evidently realized the same thing that Lane had. She deflated a little, her grip relaxing on the pokéball. "What's wrong Lopunny?" she asked. "Did the psychic-type use some mind move on you?" She moved to the side, grabbing one of Lane's pillows off the ground. "She wasn't that strong before. I can probably take care of her.”

"Please, no!" Lane begged, retreating backwards towards the fabric. Her voice grew shriller and more desperate by the moment. "Don't hurt me, Elisa!

It's me!" She screamed so loudly in that moment that she thought her eardrums might burst.

Yet Elisa reacted. She froze, eyes going wide and dropping the pillow.

"You can talk."