Outrunning Karma

Kaira nodded, pulling her short hair up into a small ponytail. Dante hunkered down onto the forest floor, and she strapped their bag to his neck. It wasn’t much, clothes for a few days, a little bit of food, and all the money Kaira could spare.

“Okay, big guy,” she said, coming over to help him, “Let’s get you up on Dante so we can get moving. We’ll get ourselves a good, proper meal when we get to the next town.”

Barnaby let himself be helped, too tired to try and fight it. He was always a little nervous and more aware the closer he got to Dante. Like he thought one wrong move would get him burned to a crisp. 

“Yeah, it should be. I only have enough money to maybe get a hotel room for a few nights and some supplies to tide us over.”

It would be more than enough if it were just one of them, but feeding two people took a little more. Not that it bothered her, a server job should be easy enough to pick up and if one of them could get, say, a bartending job, they could float themselves pretty easily.

She also went for her change of clothes, piling her Rocket uniform in a small pile with Barnaby’s. Once it was all piled together, Dante would get to work burning it, then burying it.

“If you want to rest a little longer, Dante can fly us to the next town. We can take a proper rest once we reach the PokeCenter there.”

Barnaby didn’t want to admit that he needed more rest. But he knew that being stubborn in this case could lead to more problems down the road. Especially if they got cornered. Yes, he was sure Dante could hold his own in battle, but if they were surrounded, Barnaby might need to have enough energy to join in the fray.

“That’s right, no one is ever going to call you by that terrible designation ever again.” And no one will ever learn it, since they would be the only two to know it where they were going. She carefully watched him drink, quietly realizing that there were habits she’d developed that would take a while to unlearn. She’d probably always be overly cautious about his health, but that probably wasn’t a bad thing.

“We’re several cities over now,” she explained, pulling out her phone. This one, thankfully, wasn’t a Team issued one. She’d left that one in the building to be found. This one was all hers, which she’d stashed away for her own personal use, “We need to ditch our mission clothes here and change into our other clothes, then we’ll go one more town over and buy whatever supplies we need.”

“It’ll probably take us a few days to get to the region we’re going to. It’s out of Team Rocket’s planned reach, so hopefully we never run into anybody that we know.”

She pulled out a map of a region called ‘Galar’, and held it out for him to look at.

Barnaby on the other hand, still didn’t realize that there were habits that he’d have to unlearn. He thought it would be easy to blend in and be with other people and Kaira normally. He actually thought his relationship with Kaira was ‘normal’ as it was.

Barnaby nodded as he took in the information. He was still pretty exhausted, but he would at least try to seem like he was doing a lot better. After taking a look at the map, it seemed like an interesting place at least, he pushed himself up slowly into a standing position. He had to wait a moment, to make sure he wouldn’t fall over before he went for his change of clothes.

“It did, but hold on, before we talk anymore about that, I have to make sure you’re okay,” Kaira said. It was routine, back there, to make sure nothing ‘broke’ when Barnaby did his tests or missions, “Do you have any numbness or sharp pains? Can you see me clearly? Do you remember your name and what day it is?”

She brushed his hair back gently, checking his temperature, a little high, but that was normal. It would start to go down as soon as he got something to drink, which Dante was pulling out of his pack. She held the cool bottle to Barnaby’s cheek, “Here, drink and then we’ll talk about the plan.”

“Always taking care of me,”He huffed out a laugh. He fell into the routine with her,”No numbness, the only pain of any kind is my left shoulder.” In his inexpert medical opinion, it was probably just bruised from landing on it,”I can see you clearly, I am D-Barnaby Baker. Ha! I’m Barnaby Baker now~” That little outburst cost him most of his energy, and he mumbled out the correct date afterwards. 

It didn’t matter that he was exhausted, or his shoulder hurt, or that they were on the run from a massive multiregional criminal organization...He could be Barnaby Baker. He could go where ever he wanted. Do whatever he wanted. And he didn’t have to give out an excuse to do so.

Damn, this was what she was worried about. The explosion went off without a hitch, the smoke and dust from the debris easily covering the entire block. But now Barnaby was down. Kaira could hear the other grunts that had been assigned to her yelling in the earpiece. She motioned to Dante, who blew up another large plume of smoke, which pushed the grunts away from the scene.

“Dante, let’s go!” Kaira called out, throwing Barnaby’s arm over her shoulders. She thanked the stars that she’d gotten so used to picking him up after so many missions and experiments. Dante let out another plume for good measure, before scooping them both up and jetting as quickly as he could down the alleys and into the woods.

It would be another hour or so before Kaira felt like they were far away enough to stop moving. Dante set them down, keeping them well off the path. Kaira set Barnaby to the ground and began to work on waking him up, “Barnaby, wake up. I’m sorry I left you unconscious for so long…”

Kaira could feel her heart pounding as well. Her gloved hands clenched together as they looked down at their target. Dante chuffed beside them. He was ready, he was beyond ready to take his trainer (and this man, he supposed) as far from here as possible.

“It’ll be easy,” she murmured, clicking her earpiece off, “We just have to hold onto Dante until we reach the forest. We need to stay as close together as possible.”

She looked to him for reassurance, and offered him a soft smile, “We can do this.”

“Rodger,”Barnaby responded. He walked forward to give himself space to work. He closed his eyes, trying to feel for the shadows inside the building. It should be empty right now, according to the brief, so the lights should all be off. He used the darkness inside to attack the roof and walls of the building. While he could hear the clattering of crates and things inside, nothing much happened at first. That’s the problem with buildings...A lot of them were made to withstand Pokemon attacks. He was growing tired with the strain of using his powers so much. With a growl he pushed forward, determined to break something before his powers gave out on him.

She nodded vigorously into his chest. There was no way she could get very far right now, every part of her body was aching, “We need to take as little as possible. I have a bunch of money in my room, we can take that and my Pokemon.”

“Dante… Dante can fly faster and farther than any other Pokemon the Team has…” she muttered, quickly losing the fight to stay conscious. She sighed softly and held onto him as he shoulders started to go slack, “…Barnaby… will you stay with me…?”

“It shouldn’t be hard for me to pack light,”Barnaby joked, hoping to lighten the mood a little bit. “You should rest for now. There’s nothing that can’t wait until morning.” 

“I know what I said,” she gasped out, curling up on his bed and into him, “I… I know what I said…”

“I just… I couldn’t let you get in trouble,” she murmured, “I know Hatsu, he loves to make trouble but I just didn’t want him to go blabbing about you to the higher ups. But I think he’s still going to. I think he’s going to tell an Executive that you spoke up against him.”

“I… I want to leave, Barnaby.” She held tighter to him, “I want get away from here and I want you to come with me.”

He lightly wrapped his arms around her, afraid of hurting her further since he didn’t know what all was done to her. “I would rather get in trouble than see you hurt.”

She wanted leave? And more importantly, she wanted him to go with her? That was dangerous. This entire situation had no ‘least painful’ way out. But if she thought that leaving was for the best, he would be by her side. “Then we’ll leave.”

One hour passed. Two… it would feel like an eternity of anguish. When he finally let her go, more shaken than she had expected to be, she barely heard him speaking as she stumbled out of his room. Barnaby. His name was the only thing that kept her going, kept her moving. The hallway spun around her. Her legs threatened to toss her to the ground and leave her there. It was only when she vaguely saw the numbers of his room that she felt any sort of relief.

“B…Barnaby…” she cried out, sobbed rushing forward as she clapped her hand to the door, “Barnaby!”

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Barnaby actually had the forethought to turn on the light sometime before she got back. And since he had been waiting he was still in uniform. He had been waiting by the door after he turned on the light, pacing, but only ever getting a couple steps away. As soon as she cried out he flung open the door and let her in. She was a mess. An absolute mess. He heard himself growl, though it wasn’t at her, but at the man who dragged her away. He shut the door, and led her to his bed, barely touching her.

He didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know what to say or do. She had come to his room a mess before. But never like this. “You said you would be okay...”

“Ba-”

“D-13, stop! Do not approach! That’s an order!” Kaira yelped, the fear in her eyes betraying her command. No, he could not come any closer. He was already pushing the boundaries by yelling like that. She could see the shadows moving, well aware of his powers, but she was not afraid of Barnaby, just what could happen to him.

Hatsu’s grin curled maliciously.

“T-tell the grunts that… that I’ll be there when I have time.” She continued as Hatsu dragged her away. She looked over her shoulder pitifully and mouthed, “I’ll be okay… I promise.”

Barnaby froze at the order. The shadows hovered where they were for a moment longer, before they fell back in place. He knew better than to disobey a command. But the fear in her eyes and that bastard smile worried him more than he would admit. 

So smart, her Barnaby. Kaira could barely hold in the sigh of relief that wanted to rush out of her mouth. She was already turning away from Hatsu, hoping that this ‘business’ was enough to deflate his little attempt.

“Of course, I’ll be right th- oof!” Suddenly, Hatsu had her by the arm and was wrenching her back, “Hey!”

“You take requests from your little pet now?” He growled, knuckles going white around her arm, “Tell them you’ll be there when you have time, you have other things to attend to.”

“H-Hatsu?! L-let go! You’re hurting me?!”

“Or would you rather I tell them that you let the science fair experiment just wander around freely?” He snarled.

@sidestorybbb​ is blasting off again!

It had been nearly a year and Kaira Blackmore, the little Team Rocket ‘treat’, went from being just a little snarky and bratty to full-blown belligerent. She focused her energies on caring for her ‘test subject’. D-13 was her excuse for everything. She ate lunch with him, went on missions with him, and refused to attend to the men of her building because she had to care for him.

And it was finally coming to a head.

“You’re staying with me tonight,” she said, “If I try to take you back to your room, you might get sick all over again. And… I have to keep an eye on you.”

She didn’t want to talk about the mission, or work, but what else was there to say? Her gaze slowly lifted and it was then that she realized that he was still shirtless. Damn it.

He thought about lying to her. About playing it safe, and saying that he was loyal to Team Rocket. But he knew she hated this organization, and he’s agreed with her before, so what was the point.

“It’s because I’m smart...that I don’t try to run,”Barnaby explained.

Please, Arceus, stop with these thoughts!

“He tries,” Kaira said from the closet. She fished out a pair of simple grey sweatpants, the likes of which probably hadn’t seen day in weeks. She came back to the chair and carefully slipped him into them. This time around, she was a little more hasty and accidentally ran her hands partially up his thighs. Oops.