The S.S. Anne is a luxury cruiser with all the facilities. It has pools—yes, plural—and gyms—also plural—and spas… and a lot of other things that are also in plural.
And Pokémon battle courts.
Jack steers away from those very quickly, but the rest of the place doesn't better his mood. Everyone is walking around with Pokémon, and even fusions, while Jack is all alone because he – because they—
He opens yet another door and finally finds himself alone.
He's pretty sure he's somewhere passengers are not supposed to be at, judging by the small size of this balcony, and how close to the waterline it is, and the pipes and everything, but…
But Jack doesn't want any kind of company now. Not with all the noise that's already in his head.
His hand reaches automatically for his belt, for Archer's patience, Iguana's jolly outlook of life, Jaekel's unfailing distractions, Halzska's worst-case scenarios that devolve into the craziest plans, Toporok's comfortable silences, Snapper's curiosity—
But they aren't here anymore. There are no more Poké Balls. No more friends kept in tiny prisons at his beck and call.
Jack's breath hitches as the thought finally makes it through the maelstrom of his mind, and he immediately curls over the railing to hide his face in his arms.
How could he be this stupid?! Even if he doesn't believe Archer's theory of humans being just another kind of Pokémon – he still considered them friends, yet he never thought twice about their complete and absolute lack of choice!
Jack wouldn't want to be kept in a ball all day long, so why did he do it to them? Why does anyone do that? How can he… How can he call himself anyone's friend?
He holds back the first sob, but the moment he remembers where he is, he lets the second one go.
There's no one here. Jack is all alone.
"Jack? Is that you?"
… Or not.
Jack almost jumps out of his curl, bristling at the sudden appearance of the owner of that voice, but he has to stop and swipe a hand over his eyes to clear the blurriness—
"Alex? What are you…?"
"Hiding here for?" Alex finishes the sentence for him, giving him a rueful grin that does nothing to hide the pallor of his skin. "I could ask you the same," he huffs before he leans back – and disappears behind the huge dorade box that comes out of the deck.
"I wasn't going to say 'hiding'," Jack retorts softly, approaching with a confused frown after he wipes his face again.
He feels the turmoil in his chest, the anger at their last meeting, how Alex simply walked away without telling him about Edwardina's fate, even if he did leave Jaekel's Kabuto half behind.
But he's more worried about Alex's word choice than the grief he left behind thanks to his team and Jaekel himself.
When he finally sees Alex curled with a battered Forrebusken, any hint of anger that was left behind vanishes.
"Are you both alright? What happened?" he asks softly, crouching by Alex's side, who stiffens as he turns to him.
He looks into his eyes intently, as if he's trying to judge how honest Jack's worry is. He must have seen something there, or in the way Jack leans back to give him some space, because Alex eventually relaxes with a sigh and looks away.
"… Nothing. I wandered too far. Got into a fight I couldn't win," Alex whispers back with a shrug that tries to be nonchalant, but that doesn't fit at all with the Alex Oak whom Jack met at the Professor's lab.
He keeps an arm around Forrebusken, unbothered by the way its quill-feathers, though smoother after the evolution, snag at his clothes, but his hand is gentle as it rubs soothing circles on his Pokémon's shoulder.
… His Pokémon. There Jack's brain goes, tugging him back to the whole issue about—
"What about your other – What about the rest of your team?" Jack asks as he realizes there is just one Pokémon outside the Poké Ball—as is polite and proper in enclosed spaces, of course, but if they were all this badly hurt, Alex wouldn't keep them locked up, would he?
Alex stills, his hand clenching tighter around Forrebusken's shoulder for a second, before he sags against the dorade box.
"Do you remember my Polinja?" he asks, and Jack finds himself startled when he recalls the Poliwhirl and Shedinja fusion from their first encounter after the lab, when he'd thought the match lost but refused to back down and won because of sheer dumb luck. "I unfused it. It happens sometimes. The fusion doesn't settle, or something, and you need to split the Pokémon and try a new fusion," he explains, and with the image of a thrashing Buff in his mind, Jack nods. "Polihoot was a good fusion. A great fusion. And I lost it. Lost Poliwhirl and Hoothoot both."
"Oh," Jack whispers, and sits on the deck. "I… I'm sorry. Is there… Is there anything I can do to – Oh, I'm an idiot!" Jack exclaims, suddenly remembering that he has his bag.
Not his travel bag, that one is back at the hotel, but a smaller one just big enough to carry his rod, some Poké Balls, and Potions.
Alex is looking at him again, startled but not defensive, and his eyes blow wide the moment Jack tugs the bag open between them and offers him what little healing items he brought along.
It was supposed to be a fishing trip, not a grinding session. He didn't bring much.
Judging by his huge grin and the eagerness with which he accepts the Potions, Alex doesn't care about that.
He goes through his Pokémon almost too fast, though Jack knows it only seems so because of his much-improved mood. He uses the Potions as ointment for the worst wounds, disinfecting and wrapping them, instead of the quick energy boost that Potions are usually relegated to in battle, and that care tells him more than enough.
Jack helps as best as he can, since Alex's team are either unconscious or too injured to do much to assist, and by the end, Forrebusken is curled against his chest while Alex wraps a nasty burn on its leg.
"You really had a tough fight…" he muses out loud, and Alex's grin trembles before he finally drops it, though he doesn't look up from his starter's injury.
"Not really. I wasn't paying attention and… they got distracted too."
Jack's eyebrows shoot to his hairline, before they slowly furrow into a frown.
"You never get distracted in battles," he tells Alex, reminds him, but Alex simply shrugs, still not meeting his eyes. "What happened?"
"Where are you keeping your Pokémon at, anyway? I thought you liked to have a walking buddy," Alex asks him instead, and now it's Jack's turn to stiffen and look away.
Forrebusken must have noticed too, because it trills curiously as it shifts in Jack's arms.
Jack swallows the knot threatening to block his throat, and gently shifts the Pokémon in his arms to return it to Alex.
"I… Archer is convinced human are Pokémon," he blurts out the moment Forrebusken is back in Alex's arms. "But that can't be, right? If we're Pokémon too, then that means…"
"You are a weirdo," Alex hums, and Jack feels his face grow hot even as he glares up at Alex, who lifts a hand placatingly. "Okay, sure, let's go with that. Your Remosis thinks you are a Pokémon too. All Pokémon do that with their trainers, you know? Forrebusken, Larvidra, Kecew… Every one of them thinks I'm a part of their pack, flock, whatever. It's what happens when you live together. What's so weird about it?"
Jack steams for a second longer before he glares at the metal floor under them, tightening his grip on his bag.
"It isn't just me. He thinks every single human is a Pokémon. That 'human' is just another kind of Pokémon. But that means I've been treating them like…"
"Ah, I get it," Alex huffs, and this time, Jack looks at him in confusion as he grins. "The Poké Ball and battling thing. There was a mess in Unova about that, a few years back."
"Yeah, I heard," Jack grumbles, because being treated like an ignorant doesn't exactly sit well with him.
"So, you know how it ended, right? Some people really did let their Pokémon go. And the funny thing is that they came back. Not all of them, and not all at once, but they did."
"Yes, I know. And someone said that fighting is natural for them too because, regardless of how social they are, they are still wild and have instincts, which lead them to battle," Jack parrots back at Alex, whose amusem*nt only seems to grow, and so Jack looks away again, hunching into himself. "But I never realized how… how human Pokémon actually are. I wouldn't put a human friend in a Poké Ball, so why do I do it with my Pokémon friends? Why do I think sending them to fight is alright when I know the risks they face? What makes it alright?"
"Nothing, I guess," Alex answers, but despite his shrug, he's serious as he adjusts Forrebusken so it can rest more comfortably against his chest. "I just know Forrebusken would hurt me if I didn't let it fight every now and again. And who am I to tell him he can't? It isn't like he's going after—"
Jack looks up again, tugging his bag away, when Alex cuts himself. His hold on Forrebusken is tighter now and he's curling around the Pokémon, almost as if Jack would try to hurt either of them.
"Alex? Are you alright?"
"My parents are in Sinnoh, working on 'the evolution of Pokémon evolution', if that mouthful makes sense to you. It's all about how different Pokémon species changed types and won or lost evolutions depending on region or even circ*mstances. They believe some of the Sinnohan old stories about, oh, Rock Type Arcanine are about now-extinct Pokémon, if you can believe that," Alex blurts out, not meeting Jack's eyes even as he tries to put one of his nonchalant grins on his face. "It's pretty interesting, actually. If it wasn't for the whole see you in who knows how many months thing, I probably would like it better, but I think you would. Did you know about—"
The door to the balcony opens, and Alex snaps his mouth closed with a flinch, immediately turning towards it.
He's still hidden by the dorade box. Jack isn't.
Two men come out of the door, dressed like the sailors Jack had crossed paths with while in the corridors. One of them pulls out a box of cigarettes while the other continues whatever tirade he had started on before their exit.
"—fast as a goddamn Furret! Can you believe that, Stefan? That was the finest piece of a—"
His buddy, Stefan, coughs loudly as his eyes meet Jack's, and the other sailor cuts himself before he finishes the sentence.
Not that it isn't necessary. Jack's sixteen, not blind.
And it is that very same not-blindness thing that has him standing up and tugging his bag on his shoulder without looking at Alex's curled up form.
They are in a restricted area. Alex is Professor Oak's grandson. If his rule-breaking got out, no matter how minor the offence, he could be in trouble.
So, Jack steps away from the dorade box with a sheepish grin.
"Hi! And sorry. I'm not supposed to be here, am I? I got a bit lost, so I decided to sit out for a bit and see if I could get my bearings," he tells the sailors as he approaches them, before he rubs the back of his neck with an embarrassment he doesn't need to fake. "Could you help me find my way to the quarterdeck?"
The sailors exchange a look before the cigarettes are put away.
"No Pokémon, kid?" one asks as he gestures at his waist, and Jack's smile wobbles and falls.
"No. I set them free."
"And then you boarded a battle cruise?" the second questions, leaning against the wall by the door, and Jack can't help his embarrassed flush this time.
"I had the ticket and I wanted to relax. I didn't know this was that much of a battle cruise," he huffs with a shrug, looking away from the sailors' grins. "Anyway, could you help me? Pretty please? I could do with a bathroom on the tour, too," he adds, for good measure, because that always seems to spur people on.
"Yeah, sure thing, kid. Where are your parents? Group? Partner?"
"I'm alone, thank you very much. This is embarrassing enough already," Jack huffs, glaring at the sailor by the door, whose grin only seems to widen. "And stop calling me kid. I'm sixteen."
Seriously, what is it with people's obsession to see him as a child? Sure, he's not the tallest of the bunch, but that is just ridiculous.
"Feisty! I like you," the door sailor chuckles, and at Jack's back, his friend huffs tiredly. "Don't you like him too, Stefan?"
"For all that's… Can't you keep it in in your pants for once, John? I just wanted a cigarette."
Keep it in your—
Jack whirls around to face Stefan, his wide eyes searching for the joke, the punchline, the laughter when they realize where his stupidly hormonal teenage mind has gone down to—
John's unfairly big hand lands on his shoulder, and Jack flinches as if it was a Dustox instead.
"Hey, ease up, kid! We don't bite," John chuckles, hands held up, but Jack can't help the feeling of his skin trying to crawl off his bones.
Stefan pushes off the railing. John shuffles a step to the side, coincidentally blocking Jack's access to the door. They look amused at Jack's reaction, rather than angry. Jack still takes a step away, suddenly unnerved.
"Come on, let's help you find that bathroom. But if you have no Pokémon, the quarterdeck isn't for you. I'll show you someplace you can have a good time," John winks at him, really winks, and Jack shudders visibly before he can stop himself.
Stefan rolls his eyes, as if too used to his friend's innuendo, and Jack shakes his head and makes a monumental effort to push his stupid and hormonal imaginings away.
"Ah, sure. Thanks?"
"Atta boy," John whispers, grinning like a Cacturne—
"Leave him alone."
Alex steps out from the behind the dorade box, bristling like Forrebusken is doing at his side, though unlike his injured Pokémon, who is leaning heavily against him, Alex stands strong and…
His fists are white-knuckled and shaking. Hs eyes are burning, and for the first time since they met, there's a snarl on his pasty white face.
For some reason, John's Cacturne grin ranks higher in Jack's fear-o-meter than Alex's snarl.
Of course, that's when a huge hand returns to Jack's shoulder and doesn't let go, and Jack realizes whatever Ranking of Scary Things he was trying to keep in his head has suddenly become insignificant.
"Ah, there's our scaredy Furret."
Very and terrifyingly insignificant.
"Hey, let go! Whatever beef you've got with each other—"
"Beef?" Stefan repeats in an almost bored drawl, pulling Jack off-balance as he grabs onto his free shoulder, and Jack pales at the Poké Balls suddenly in their hands. "The kid lost and didn't pay up. You are not supposed to do that."
"That is not what happened!" Alex shouts, which somehow makes Jack jump when his eyes seem to light up even more with renewed anger.
"We told you it would be an exciting game, little Furret. Nothing too big for a feisty kid, right? You could take us both easily, you said, ain't that right?" John leers, going as far as to lick his disturbingly large grin—
Jack twists in the sailors' grip and bites on John's hand.
The man howls, as startled as his buddy, and Jack tastes blood – and there's suddenly an arm the size of a Slaking's around his throat, cutting off his airway in a way that has him gasp like a beached Feebas—
John's grin seems to widen even beyond his face as he looks at the bloody wound on his hand.
"Feisty. I like that."
"Ember!"
Fire flies at them, and both sailors throw themselves to the ground, cursing, while Jack grabs tighter onto the arm around his throat as the world twists around him—
And when it comes back, there's chaos all around him, his ears are ringing, and Jack can't breathe.
He hacks and scratches at his throat, rolling onto his side to spit red foam, but he still can't take in any air, his limbs are barely responding, his chest starts to burn—
There's a sailor on the ground, screaming his lungs out as he tries to claw the ice off his leg, and a second one lying unmoving with a Warchan standing threateningly over him, reinforced gauntlets coated in red.
There's a Remosis hovering overhead, some kind of Poké Ball necklace around its neck, while the liquid inside its bottle-body boils in the same rage that has set its eyes aglow.
There's a teenager, human, grabbing onto Jack with a pale face and a terrified grimace and a voice that keeps shouting and shouting the same thing, over and over and over.
But the darkness crawls closer, hiding more and more even as the Warchan and Remosis converge on him, the boy scrambling around for something while Jack tries to make his limbs rip off whatever is wrapped around his throat.
He can't feel his fingers, his arms, his anything. Darkness swallows him, beckons him, to somewhere quieter, peaceful, where there's no ringing nor need to breathe—
And a sharp stab at the base of his neck brings him back to pain and fear and blurred faces hovering over him and limbs that try to help him breathe again when he can't, he can only hack more of that stupid red foam, even when he's rolled onto his side, and the darkness is still there, still calling…
With one last cough, Jack finally manages to get in a raspy breath. It triggers more coughing, more foam, but when his eyes close this time, no one tries to wrestle him free from the darkness.
