Tyler's Search: Sara - Part 5

    A few days later they came for Sara. She could see it in the white-cloaked Catcher’s eyes, the way they searched for her as soon as he came into view. It was a moment the leafeon had been dreading, and she winced in anticipation as the Catcher pointed his—Sara’s—red-and-white ball at her.

    It didn’t hurt; there was a flash of white, a strange rushing feeling, and then she found herself—outside. In a forest. She looked around, unable to believe it for a moment. Is this a ball? Sara stretched out with her senses. What she found dashed her hopes again. None of it was real. The trees, the grass…none of it had any life. There should have been roots worming through the soil, the slow pulse of water ascending through the trunks and the quiet breathing of air through the leaves. She should have been cocooned in the sense of the grass covering the ground, but this ball offered no such comfort. When she breathed in, she just felt alone.

    Sara spread her leaves to the sunlight, but it wasn’t the same either. It felt a little like a sun should, but the light was a trickle compared to what she was used to. For all the scenery the ball offered, Sara could still tell it was hollow. She was no more free here than she had been in the cell.

    As that realization settled in, it was joined by nervousness. All the pokémon who’d been taken came back with stories of how hard they’d been pushed while the Catchers watched them. Whatever was in store for her, Sara didn’t think she’d enjoy it. As the minutes stretched on, the leafeon started pacing a small circle, wishing Luke was with her, that she wasn’t so alone.

    The ball started pulsing red, making her jump. What’s going on now? Sara started breathing faster and her pulse sped up. She tried to calm herself for a moment, then stopped. Whatever’s coming, I want to be ready. She kept glancing around, watching for any movement. Still nothing.

    The light enveloped her again. When it faded this time, she was in a different cell. This one was even smaller; she could comfortably stretch out her head and tail, but that was all. The walls around her were white, but the floor was black. Above her there was a clear cover she could see the Catchers through, just like Luke had described. The walls and cover were scuffed and scratched, and Sara could almost feel the fear of the pokémon who’d been put in here before her. Trapped. That was what the whole thing screamed to her. She turned halfway around and the floor twitched beneath her. Sara jumped, heart thumping wildly.

    The twitch turned into a slow slide that carried her inexorably toward the wall. Sara stumbled sideways, but it started getting faster, forcing her to turn and start walking away from it. As she started to progress toward the other wall, the floor started to speed up with a droning whir, forcing her to move faster and faster just to stay where she was. She managed a glance up; one of the Catchers was watching her, but the other seemed intent on something off to one side. The speed increased again and she almost fell. Sara had to drop her gaze and focus on moving forward.

    The speed continued its inexorable increase until she was in a flat-out sprint, paws flashing forward and back as she curled and stretched for the next bit of floor, over and over again. In a few moments she was panting for breath, but Sara gave the wall a glare and kept running. She wouldn’t give the Catchers the satisfaction of seeing her give up.

    Despite all the effort she made, Sara started losing ground as the floor started whirring faster than she could run. Her tailtip touched the wall…then more of her tail pushed up against it…then suddenly, mercifully, the scorching pace slowed and let Sara pull forward again. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if she fell.

    When she’d regained the middle of the cell, the floor sped up again slightly, keeping her where she was and forcing her to continue her full-speed sprint. There was no chance to look up, or do anything except try to keep off that wall, and soon Sara’s lungs were burning. She started to flag and felt the wall touch her tail again.

    Instead of slowing down, the floor jerked faster. She tried to match the speed for a moment but couldn’t, and the floor slammed her painfully against the wall. Her paws scuffed against it for a moment, then it stopped. Sara picked herself up with a baleful glare at the Catchers outside, just in time for the movement to start up again. The Catchers kept her at a walk this time, just slow enough to catch her breath, and then it started to speed up again. Sara could tell she still didn’t have her full strength, but this time the floor didn’t go quite as fast. It still took almost everything she had to keep up, but it didn’t seem like the Catchers wanted to hurt her. They wanted her to run.

    At one point she defiantly slowed down, refusing to keep up with the moving floor even as it bumped her against the wall again. It stopped. Then it rushed her forward, sending her hurtling facefirst into the other wall. The leafeon barely managed to turn in time to keep from being hit in the head. The floor resumed its normal pace again; defeated, Sara matched it, ears flat against her head and neck and tears streaming down her face. There’s nothing I can do. If I stop, they’ll just hurt me. They don’t care.

    As Luke had described, the trial went on and on. The moving floor slowed over time, letting her keep up but always pushing her as fast as she could go. The leafeon’s breathing went from labored to pained, each breath tearing at her throat as her muscles screamed. And yet it kept going, even as Sara’s paws started to go numb from the constant pounding.

    Finally she came to a stop, panting with her legs spread and her head down. The floor jerked back again and she lost her balance, collapsing on the ground. It reversed again and pushed her into the other wall; Sara grunted at the impact, but she couldn’t get up. The floor slid her away from the wall again…and finally stopped, the whine dying away. Sara lay in the silence for a few moments, just trying to breathe. There was a creak and she looked up to see the top opening. A hand with a ball reached through and put her inside again.

    This time Sara welcomed the aloneness. At least nothing was happening to her inside the ball. She didn’t try to get up but she did spread her leaves, trying to take any strength she could from the false sunlight.

    After all too short a time the red flashes came again and Sara was deposited on a flat surface somewhere above the ground. One of the white Catchers—a female this time—was right next to her, far too close, closer than the leafeon had ever been to one of them. The Catcher’s hands reached for her; Sara tried to snap at her, but all she managed was a weak jerk of her head. Moving hurt. Everything hurt. As she lay helplessly on her side the Catcher proceeded to feel her all over; Sara set her jaw against the discomfort as she poked and prodded her and squeezed the sore muscles of her legs, stomach, and back. When the Catcher got to her leaves, Sara sharpened them and was rewarded with a blow to the head, making her cry out. After that she let herself go limp while the Catcher finished her examination, peering at her paws and into her ears. At one point the Catcher gathered up all four of her paws and flipped Sara over onto her other side to run her fingers through the fur on the leafeon’s other flank. Too exhausted to move, all Sara could do was protest weakly.

    She pulled something over Sara next, a black-and-white object that emitted strange lights and humming noises. Sara just lay there, tears starting to leak from her eyes again. She looked up into the Catcher’s face, but there was no pity there, no recognition. She doesn’t even see me as a living thing. I don’t matter to her. So why? Why do this?

    After a while Sara ended up in the ball again. Her thoughts went elsewhere now. I hope my children got away. Even Carson going after Kara. I hope he found…some way to save her. None of them should ever have to go through this. She closed her eyes. Tyler, Skylar and Sasha had all gotten away, at least from the clearing where she’d gone down. They had to have made it. Even though she knew all the odds had been stacked against them, Sara clung to that hope.

    The light came again and left her in a small cell. This one resembled the other one Luke had described, and Sara imagined she could make out his scent among the mixed smells of all the pokémon who’d been here before. It comforted her somehow, even though there was no real reason for it. The cell had water and food—real berries this time, not the dry stuff she’d become accustomed to—and the leafeon sighed as she realized she’d been given a reprieve. She pulled herself over and tried to lap at the water, but keeping her head upright was hard. After a moment she gave up and put a paw into the water, soaking it up like it was damp soil. She turned to the berries next and pulled one close so she could take a bite out of it. It was a kind the leafeon knew, though smaller than she was used to. That didn’t matter, though. It was food, and for now that was enough. She chewed and swallowed, every motion deliberate. Sara wasn’t going to lay down and die if she could avoid it.

    The pain slowly faded to a dull ache, and after a while Sara managed to stand and even walk around a little in the small cell, despite the protest from her weary legs. If only there was sun in here…She sighed and picked her way across the cell again, stretching her legs and hoping the soreness wouldn’t set in any worse.

    The Catchers came again with the ball, and Sara soon found herself in the cell with the moving floor. This time she was only able to keep up a slow walk, stumbling a little as she pushed to keep up with the floor. There was no punishment this time when she couldn’t keep up; once she was against the wall the Catchers stopped the floor and returned her to the ball again.

    The sun in the ball was sinking toward the horizon. Sara just watched it dully until the sky went red again and the Catcher let her out. This time, thankfully, she was back in the large cell with the other pokémon.

    “Are you all right?” Luke rushed to her side. Sara gave him a tired nod, leaning across the mass of soft fur on his shoulders with a relieved sigh. “Come here.” Luke led her across to the other side of the cell, where there was a space between an azumarill and a graveler. “You look exhausted.” Sara picked up the ache in Luke’s voice as she lowered herself to the ground, laying with her back against her mate’s warm flank.

    “I’ll be all right,” she reassured him tiredly. “It was like you said—they made me run.”

    “You were gone for a long time. I was worried.”

    At the mention of the time, Sara looked instinctively across to the hole in the cell wall, hoping to see sunlight there, but it was too late. Only a little light filtered through, and it wasn’t direct. She sighed again, wishing she could take it in and get some of her strength back.

    The Catcher lights dimmed a little while later. Before she let herself fall asleep, Sara went to the water basin and drank. Luke was never more than a step away from her, watching in case she fell. “You don’t have to do that,” she chided gently.

    Luke gave her a blank stare. “Yes, I do.” He closed the distance and gave her a lick behind her ear. “There’s not much I can do, but I’m going to do everything I can, all right?”

    Sara didn’t protest any further. In truth, she didn’t want to. As hard as life might be now that the Catchers had them, she couldn’t imagine having to endure it without Luke. “I love you,” she whispered as they lay down again. It wasn’t something the leafeon said much. She didn’t usually feel like she needed to, but sometimes Luke’s dedication caught her off guard, even when she was expecting it. Even when there’s nothing he can do, somehow he still does all of it.

    It took a few days before Sara felt like herself again. Pokemon kept being taken for the day, kept coming back exhausted and sometimes bruised. They would occasionally take Sara and Luke too; the tests—that was what they had to be—were always different. Sometimes it would be running, sometimes dodging swinging objects, sometimes swimming, sometimes trying to maneuver with an unnatural wind whipping dust all around her. Each time though, one thing stayed the same: There would be a Catcher watching, staring down at her from some higher spot and glancing down at a rectangle they held to scratch at it. What kept Sara going was a mixture of determination, comfort from her mate, and mingled hope and fear for her children—hope that they were all right, fear that they were out in some unknown place being put through this same torturous experience. Sometimes Sara felt like she might snap and attack the Catchers, but they were always out of reach of anything she could do. Other pokémon had tried anyway, she knew, and it had gone badly for them.

    Then there came a day when the Catchers didn’t come. Confusion and speculation swirled around their large cell; they dreaded every time a Catcher walked by, but none of the humans paid any attention to the captured pokémon, going to other cells or some unknown business instead. The leafeon and her mate decided to just take the reprieve for what it was and gather their strength. Living in a bare, stony cell had taken its toll on Sara, leaving rough calluses on her paws and leaving her somewhat depressed, but as Luke said, they couldn’t give up. We’ll get through it. Together. Sara couldn’t count the number of times she’d murmured those words into his ear too, when he came back exhausted from one test or another.

    But all that day, there was no attention paid to them except for the food, which came rattling through the ceiling like it normally did, always at the same times each day. They were left alone the next day too, and Sara almost wondered if they had been forgotten. Then it happened: that evening, the last Catcher to come through stopped and looked directly at them for a few seconds, his gaze sweeping over the huddled pokémon before he turned away and moved on. Sara barely slept that night, instead staring restlessly up at the tiny patch of stars visible through the high window. Sometime in the early morning, she snuggled her head into Luke’s thick mane and fell asleep listening to the slow rise and fall of his breath.

    The Catchers showed up early that morning after they’d eaten. There were several of them, and they started taking pokémon immediately, fingers of white light lancing into the cell to take one after another. Sara’s heart started thumping faster as the cell started to empty, until a ball took her. The last thing she saw in the cell was Luke’s fearful stare as she met his eyes.

    Sara was used to the ball by now, and the silence almost reassured her. Almost. Anything new was something to fear, because it meant the Catchers had something else in mind. All the leafeon could do now was wait and hope it wouldn’t be too painful. Why are they taking all of us, though? Do they plan to make us fight? Sara had seen too many pokémon used by Catchers. Mostly to attack wild pokémon, but once or twice she’d been in the area when two Catchers and their pokémon faced off against each other. She’d privately feared when she’d been captured that that would be her fate, but it had receded in the face of the lonely, seemingly endless testing. Now it came back again. Sara didn’t want to fight. She especially didn’t want to fight pokémon who had no choice—or worse yet, be used as a tool to capture more of her wild cousins. I won’t do that. I don’t care what they do to me, I won’t be part of ripping more families apart.

    What if they had to fight each other, though? Catchers seemed to do that a lot too. An image swam into her mind of being released from her ball opposite Luke, and she shook it away. He was immediately replaced by Sasha, and Sara closed her eyes. She couldn’t stand that. I wouldn’t fight…but if I tried to do anything else, they’d take me away from my daughter again. I know they would. Would she attack her children, at least a little, just for the chance to speak to them, to hear their voices again? I…I don’t know anymore. A pang of loneliness hit her as she thought about the five missing eevee. Not knowing where or how they were was the worst part, because it meant her imagination could have free rein. Sara could tell the images no, but she didn’t know if she meant it. Luke knew; every time she got like this the leafeon would be surprised by a comforting lick. She could tell when he was thinking about their children too. Those were the times when the flareon’s expression would harden and he’d start talking again about finding a way out of their cell.

    There weren’t any. None that they’d been able to find or make in over two moons, as far as Sara could estimate time when she only saw it once in a while. The rock was strong, and there weren’t any pokémon in their cell who could do anything to it. The grate had been the same. It had to open like Luke had said, because occasionally they would be put in balls in the evening and find the cell clean, but they’d never actually seen it happen.

    Sara’s mind came back to the present. This was different. They’d never all been taken like this during the day, and she knew instinctively that this wasn’t to clean their cell. Not knowing what it was was still the worst.

    Time passed without anything happening. Nothing changed in the ball except that the sun kept getting higher, so Sara waited in the silence. Eventually the ball lit up with red flashes. Sara took a deep breath as white enveloped her.

    It was the sound that hit her first, the almost forgotten mix of noises that meant outside. Her eyes confirmed that she wasn’t imagining it. There were Catchers around, but she was surrounded by sun and trees and wind too. Sara gasped, and the gasp brought smells: trees, and stone, and grass, and Catchers—but Sara ignored their smells for now. Caught up in the moment, a voice in her head whispered, Run!

    This might be her only chance. Without pausing to think, the leafeon broke into a sprint, paws pounding across uneven stone, her muscles trained and strengthened by the Catchers’ forced testing. There were exclamations of surprise from the Catchers around her, and Sara knew it would buy her a few seconds before they came after her. She had a chance.

    Then the ball sucked her back in. By the time the false forest had formed around her, Sara was already slowing to a walk, shaking her head. It had been too good to be true. I should have known. With barely a pause, the ball flashed once and she was released again, in the same spot as before. Breathing hard, she looked around this time, taking in the scene around her.

    As she’d noticed before, she was outside, in some kind of Catcher place. There were trees and forest out ahead—so tantalizingly close, but still forever away. She was surrounded by Catcher dens and their stone paths, though there were patches of grass and even flowers here and there. Sara turned around to see the white-clothed Catcher behind her, watching her with the ball still pointed warningly at her. He was closer than ever too…Attack crossed Sara’s mind, but with that ball ready she couldn’t do anything. After a moment, the Catcher shifted his gaze upward a little, though the ball didn’t move. He was saying something in their language, addressing himself to another Catcher who stood on the other side. Sara could understand a little of the Catchers’ talk by now, but there was too much, too fast for her to make anything out. This Catcher was much younger-looking, with dark unkempt hair. He looked somehow friendlier than the ones she was used to. The Catchers conversed back and forth for a minute, with the new one glancing down at her frequently. Then the conversation paused and the young Catcher slowly dropped to his haunches in front of her. Sara made out other balls around his waist as he did. He spoke softly, “Hey there,” and reached out for her. The leafeon instinctively shied away from his touch, watching him warily. The Catcher’s face fell and he withdrew his hand, standing up again. There was another short conversation and then Sara found herself inside the ball again.

    The scene repeated itself several more times that day with different Catchers. A few times Sara saw other pokémon from her cell off to the sides. Never Luke though. As the sun dipped lower in the sky until the next time Sara was released, it was back into the cell with the others.

    She waited anxiously as the Catchers continued releasing pokémon into the cell until one ball discharged her mate. Before she could approach, he caught her eye and ran to her, looking her up and down.

    “You’re all right. Thank Arceus, you’re all right.”

    Sara nodded absently into his mane. “I’m fine. What about you?”

    The flareon shrugged. “They didn’t do anything today except show me to other Catchers.”

    “Me, too. Any idea why?”

    “I don’t know for sure, but…I got this feeling, once or twice, that they might want to take me away.”

    “That wouldn’t be so bad,” Sara murmured. “Anything would be better than here, right?” She started second-guessing her words as soon as they left her mouth. Other Catchers might not treat them this way, but they would probably expect them to fight. Luke could do that, but not her—she still didn’t want to. And what about when it came to catching other pokémon?

    “I don’t want to go,” Luke whispered. Sara caught a flash of fear in his voice, which surprised her. “It’s what I’ve worried about this whole time—that one day things will change, and then I’ll never see you again either.” The flareon exhaled—a long, shaky sigh. “The truth is…if I didn’t know you’d be here waiting for me, I don’t know how I’d get through the days here. I need you, Sara.”

    The leafeon blinked her green eyes. Luke never opened up like this. He never admitted what he was afraid of, almost like he worried it would find a way to break him if he said it out loud. If he’s saying this now…he must have been out of his mind all day worrying about it. Maybe longer. “I know what you mean,” she began. “But…I don’t have room to worry about me. Remember I’m not the only one you need to be strong for. Our children are out there somewhere. If we ever get separated, you can’t give up. You have to go on for them. Break out. Find them.” Sara knew she was rambling. I don’t really know what to do, but he can’t give up. I know that much.

    “There isn’t any way out of here.” The flareon’s eyes were fixed on the floor.

    Sara took a breath. “Maybe not here. But they take us out all the time. We were outside today. Outside in the sun, for the first time in moons. Things change. And you have to accept that, Luke. Maybe we’ll…” Sara broke off and gathered herself again before continuing. “Maybe we’ll get separated.” There. I said it. “But that isn’t the end. It can’t be.” Tears leaking from her eyes, Sara put a paw on Luke’s orange shoulder, and he looked up at her again. “I was wrong before. The Catchers may have us, but they don’t own us. Not unless we let them. They don’t deserve you, Luke.”

    The flareon started to cry a little too. “They don’t deserve you either, Sara. You don’t know how many times…I’ve wanted to give up.” Yes, I do. It breaks my heart every time I watch you go through that. “You’ve kept me going in this…place. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

    “I hope you never have to find out,” Sara told him. “But I’ll always love you, no matter where you are. I mated with a flareon who said he’d never stop fighting to keep his family safe.” She paused. “Don’t.”

    The leafeon dreamed of her children that night, watching her three youngest run away from the Catchers into the deep forest. In her dream, though, her mind followed them and watched them grow bigger and stronger. Sometimes she saw them in a Catcher’s ball, but at other moments she saw them free, becoming the eons they were born to be. She hoped with all her heart that it was real.