It’s weird how the brain buckles under threat—how it can make an interrogation room look like a pokécentre waiting room, just fluorescent lights and the faint chemical tang of disinfectant, even while Growlithes are sniffing you like you’re luggage with a ticking sound inside. I start counting the stains on the table to keep from unravelling: one, two, three—coffee, ketchup, something I refuse to name.

  “Let’s try this again,” says the first cop, the one with the jaw and the certainty. His badge reads “Lieutenant Jeffries,” and he enunciates like every syllable’s an order: “You’re not in the system, you’re not on any League registry, and you’ve got a Beldum that’s more rare than a refund from the Pokémon Mart. Want to walk me through that?”

  I look him dead in the eye, then at the Growlithe at his feet. The dog’s got a better poker face. “You ever considered the system might be bad at its job?” I say, slow and careful, letting the words hang out there like I’m still thinking on them.

  Jeffries doesn’t blink. “Funny. I get that a lot—from the kinda people who end up in this room.” Next to him, his partner—Officer Sato, lean and silent—scribbles something on a pad so loud it’s like he’s using a chisel. “You want to tell us how you ended up on Route Seven, looking like you went five rounds with a Hitmonchan?”

  I shrug. “Wrong place, wrong time. Walked into a pack of Koffing. Maybe something in the water? You could send an intern to check.”

  The Growlithe nearest me cocks its head, abruptly fascinated, then lets out a single “wuff”—almost a laugh. Sato glances at it, then at me, then back to his notepad.

  Jeffries leans in, elbows on the table. “We had a tip-off,” he says, and the way he says it, you know he’s already sure you’re guilty of something, just doesn’t know what yet. “A ranger reported a runaway from the mountains. Said you knew the area better than most, but not like a local. He also said you might be Plasma.” The word lands like a dropped dumbbell.

  I almost flinch—almost—but I’ve been practicing for this since I woke up alone in that glass tank. “If I’m Plasma,” I say, “I want a refund. All I got was a headache and a second-rate jacket.” I gesture at my sleeves; Luna, still at my feet, noses the hem and gives a low whine in solidarity.

  Jeffries’s gaze flickers to Beldum, hovering just behind my shoulder. “And that?” His voice softens a notch, like he’s talking about a weapon. “How’d you get it?”

  I look at Beldum and let the silence stretch. “Lab accident,” I say, and it even sounds like a joke. “We met in recovery, hit it off. It’s got a taste for minerals and an attitude problem. Not sure what else to tell you.”

  Jeffries is getting bored, or maybe just annoyed that the banter hasn’t made me sweat yet. He slides a blank form across the table, then a pen, then stares me down until the air is heavy and still. “Fill out as much as you can,” he says. “Or I can put you in holding until Immigration gets here. You don’t want Immigration, trust me.”

  I nudge the form with a finger, flipping it over to see if there’s a cheat sheet. There isn’t. “You got a template?” I ask.

  He grins, but it’s like his teeth are on loan. “Let’s try again. Real name. Place of birth. How you got into Unova.” There’s a dare in his voice, but also a promise: mess around, and I’ll make this hard for you.

  I write “N/A” in the name field. The pen skips on the cheap paper, makes it look like I have a tremor. “That’s what the staff called me,” I say. “N slash A. Like Not Applicable.”

  Sato’s pen goes still. The Growlithes both look up at once, ears cocked. Even Luna pauses her low whine to listen.

  Jeffries sifts through that like he’s panning for gold. “Let’s hear it, then. No games. What’s the story?”

  I think about it—about the tanks lined up like caskets, about waking up to a world where even your reflection isn’t yours. About the few scattered days since, running on the next crisis and the next, never with a plan long enough to remember a first name. “I was a lab rat,” I say. “Mountain facility, west end. You ever done a raid out there?”

  He nods, but it’s a careful nod. “We know the place. Shut down, two winters ago.”

  “Not shut down,” I say. “They just changed the locks.”

  Jeffries writes something in the margin of his file. Sato’s pen is back at it, the scribble so fast he might be writing down my vital signs as I bleed them out. I let the silence do the work for a while, keep my face a blank, see if he’s the type to talk into it.

  He is. “Look, you’re in the clear, for now. You got nothing on you but a baby Teddiursa and a Beldum, and questionable origins.” He leans in, drops the voice to a hush like he’s selling bad news at a discount: “I’m not here to bust you for something you didn’t do. I’m trying to find out if you’re a danger to anyone. You can trust me.”

  I can’t help it—my mouth runs ahead of my brain: “Says the man with two first names.” I flick my eyes at his badge: Jeffries, Jeff. “Never trust a guy with two first names.”

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  Sato’s facade cracks. There’s a cough, almost a laugh, but it’s gone before I can use it. Jeffries’s jaw flexes; he’s irritated, but I can see he’s more frustrated than mad—the way a mechanic gets when the engine won’t tell him what’s wrong. “You think you’re clever?”

  “I think you’re bored,” I say. “And you’re hoping I’m Plasma, because then it’s not your paperwork anymore, it’s a League black file. Maybe you get a bonus.”

  Sato stares at me, stony, but I can feel the shift in the room. This is the part where I’m supposed to confess, or beg, or start spinning out. I do none of these.

  Jeffries pushes the file aside, squares it with a knuckle. “You work for them?” he says, like he’s asking if I want fries with that.

  “You want the truth, or the version you can write up for your boss?”

  “Both.”

  I look down at the form. Write “N/A” again in the line for “Trainer Affiliation.” “I worked for whoever was handing out food and not locking the doors. Sometimes that was scientists in lab coats, sometimes it was Plasma. You don’t get to choose your employer when you live in poverty.”

  He studies me for a beat, and I know he’s trying to decide if I’m a genius liar or a very stupid truth-teller. The pen in Sato’s hand stops mid-word, then shreds a new page from the notebook.

  “You know the League classifies you as a Containment Class C? Says here, and I quote, ‘subject exhibits anomalous behaviour and no verifiable background; associates with non-native Pokémon and evades standard processing routines.’” He lets the words settle, then taps the table. “You want to tell me why you’re not in the system?”

  I shrug. “Maybe you should bring in IT.”

  This time, Sato actually laughs—a short, sharp bark—and covers it by flipping the page.

  Jeffries stands up, towering over the form and me. “Enough games. Here’s the deal,” he says, voice gone flat. “You’re under arrest for vagrancy and unlicensed Pokémon possession.” He pronounces it like a math equation.

  Luna’s head snaps up. I see the moment the tension crests: her pupils shrink to pinpoints, hackles rise, and her claws flex on the excuse for carpet. Even the air tastes different— rising energy and burnt hair, the scent of static before a thunderstorm. Jeffries reaches for his belt, casual, but the Growlithes both go rigid, ears up like tuning forks. They know a fight’s about to break the room in half.

  I thread a snap thought at Beldum—escape plan, now—while Jeffries is still talking, probably about my rights to remain silent and my right to a fair trial and my right to get chewed apart by a government issue canine. Beldum pulses a single, hard response through the back of my skull: Initiating.

  On instinct, I swing my left arm up and rip the pen across Sato’s wrist, then kick the table into Jeffries’s knees. The Growlithes spring; one goes for Luna, the other for Beldum, jaws rimmed in a flickering black that makes my stomach drop.

  Luna moves first, somehow reading my panic like gospel. She rears up, plants both paws on the edge of the table, and launches herself straight at the closest Growlithe. The impact is pure cartoon—fur, teeth, and claws raking wild. Luna’s paw slashes low, catching the dog’s lip; it yelps, backs up, then doubles down with a Bite that sinks deep into her shoulder.

  The second Growlithe’s already mid-leap, dark energy coiling around its mouth, but Beldum intercepts—slamming straight into the snout with enough force to send both spinning. The air fills with the smell of burning carpet and I’m on my feet, tripping over the upended chair, when Sato grabs for my arm and yanks me back.

  He expects me to fight. I don’t. I let him think he’s got me, go limp, then twist a knee up into his ribs and break free. Sato staggers but doesn’t let go, clamping down with both hands. He’s strong, but he’s not ready for the full weight of my head snapping back against his nose. There’s a crunch and a hot spray of blood, and Sato howls, dropping me.

  Jeffries, unfazed, draws a baton and cracks it against the table so hard the cheap plastic splinters. “Last warning.” The Growlithe, limping but furious, charges again. Luna’s got blood matting her fur, eyes wild with hurt and pride. She ducks low, fakes left, then lunges in and clamps onto the dog’s foreleg with a snarl that’s twice her size.

  Beldum doesn’t hesitate. It rockets upward, smashing into the ceiling like a cannonball. The prefab roof splits along a seam, tiles and insulation raining down in a stinking, fibrous blizzard. I’m already moving, scooping Luna into my arm by the scruff—she goes limp, instincts ancient and unimpeachable—and then I’m running, head low, sprinting as the two Growlithes go from “enforcement” to “arson” in the span of a heartbeat. One’s fur ignites in a flash of orange flame; the table it bounds over catches immediately, fire chasing the resin finish to the far wall. My boots slip, almost sending me face-first into the floor, but I push off, ducking the next dog as it leaps for my throat.

  The office is chaos: Lin’s shouting from the hallway, the supervisor’s already moving, shoulder-slamming the door open while Sato and Jeffries try to herd me toward the back, their Growlithes barking and snapping with real, wild panic now that smoke is pouring into the room. Luna, whips around in my arms and latches onto my sleeve, her baby teeth punching through the fabric as she tries to get a grip on reality.

  I see the hole in the ceiling, the afternoon light bleeding down through splinters, and know there’s only one way out. Beldum’s silhouette hovers at the edge, fragments of insulation drifting around it. I don’t even have to think—the plan is already pulsing along the connection Beldum and I share. I grab the edge of a knocked-over chair, vault onto the table, and in the same motion, throw myself up at the ragged gap.

  Beldum’s magnetism hits me like a ripcord. For a fraction of a second I hang in the dead space above the burning office, suspended by the a psychic hold. Then my ribs slam into the edge of the roof, and I’m scrabbling through the gap, Luna still anchored to my shirt by her teeth. Below, the Growlithes howl, frustrated and furious, and I can smell the plastics burning, the stink of smouldering carpet and the copper tang of blood from whoever’s still fighting over the interview room.

  Beldum drags me clear, hauling me up by the collar with a force that nearly yanks my spine out. I tumble hard onto the gravel-and-tar roof, roll to a stop, and for a second just stare at the sky. It’s flat and white, the kind of sky that never promises anything except more trouble. I cough, lungs scorched, and taste the cold clarity of freedom.

  Below, fire alarms are howling. I crawl to the edge, Luna still glued to my side, and peer down: Lin and the supervisor are already outside, shoving each other in urgent, terrified confusion as they try to rally half a dozen rangers and not get set on fire by the expanding chaos inside. Sato and Jeffries burst through the door a moment later, both covered in soot, one clutching a nose that’s gone sideways and pouring blood into the parking lot. The Growlithes barrel out after them, yelping in confusion, but I’m already crawling for the high ground. Luna’s frantic pulse pounds through her small body, but it’s the slick, weirdly cold bleed from her shoulder that shuts out everything else. Dark-type wounds don’t clot right; the book I read once—some battered League pamphlet with more warnings than diagrams—said the energy gets into the blood, keeps it hostile, like a chemical feud that never quits. I fumble at my belt, find the Poké Ball, and thumb the button. The world shrinks her down to a red pulse and then nothing, zeroing out the pain until I can breathe again.

  Beldum’s signals come hot and fast, mapped out in crisp, mathematical packets. Run. Run now. It drags me upright with a Psychic tug that leaves my teeth aching, and I stagger into a sprint with the roof peeling away under my boots. Down below, rangers are circling, barking orders, pointing at the growing spiral of smoke as if naming the problem will solve it. I leap across the first gap—a two-metre throat of blacktop and frozen air—and for a split second, I think I’m going to eat it and bounce off the hood of a ranger truck. Instead, Beldum angles under my ribs and brings up a cushion of force, a weird, soft punch that floats me just enough to clear the gap.

  The second roof is lower, tar paper bubbling and patched with plastic skylights. I slide on the landing, knees burning through denim, and look back just in time to see the first Growlithe make the jump after me. It misses, claws at the ledge, and falls back in a tangle of fur and frustration. The trainers—new ones, not the ones from the office—are already calling up water type Pokemon to contain the blaze. Shouts echo off the walls; someone’s blowing a whistle like it’s going to summon the cavalry.

  Beldum pulses, nudges me toward the next rooftop. I dig deep, lungs tearing at the cold, and run. Now it’s game theory: every jump calculated, every footstep a test of whether the roof will hold or drop me straight into a locker room full of angry League lifers. Up ahead, the city centre sprawls. I guess that’s where we’re headed.