The Other Side of the Coin

It wasn't wise to linger in any one spot to long. The plaza was too open, to exposed, she kept glancing back at the sky and it was driving her crazy. Not to mention giving her a kink in her neck.

She'd planned this escape too long to get grabbed before even breaking city limits. The last thing she needed was some Prying Penny to send a call in to an officer, or a PokéCenter, about the half dead looking girl wheezing in a corner.

Sad as it was, half dead was an improvement.

Gnarled twig-like limbs that showed every vein, every old track mark. Sunken brown, almost black, eyes that remained purple around the skin no matter how much she slept. Greyish brown hair so brittle combing it was a pointless exercise, and more. At least the blanket over her legs, childishly dotted with smiling chibi animalistic Pachirisu, kept people from staring at them.

Humans didn't look like her, not anymore.

At least, she'd never seen one that did.

Her hands laboriously moved to set the wheels in motion again, cursing for the millionth time the ergonomics of this bloody chair. Granted, she'd only lived in the one hospital, Our Lady of Healing Moonlight, but it was the only real hospital in Sinnoh so she felt that was still a pretty representative sample.

And their chairs sucked to use.

Oh sure, there were some hospices located in nice climates, every town generally had a small clinic to deal with childhood illnesses, but for the most part, who needed them? Pokémon Centres were all most thought of when it came to health, a place to get some cough syrup and sleep it off after you tried to deep throat a Rapidash or something. Ever since Inheritance started inheriting people were just more... durable, the fossil record proved it.

Straining at the wheels, a small concrete ramp let her down onto the packed earth of route 204, far from the elevated high speed rails that you used if you actually wanted to get somewhere. Route's were about the journey, not the destination. Currently her journey was finding somewhere to rest again, it had been less than a kilometer since the plaza but the crowd was completely gone, the boundary between city and nature could be so stark, probably shocked the hell out of any Pokemon coming in out of the woods for the first time.

Still, she had to go a bit further, along the whitewashed fence posts to the treeline, get a bit of cover over her head.

As far as she knew, the facts were the same in other regions. Johto, Hoenn, Paldea, they all tended to centralize their healthcare in their largest cities, serviced by special airlift Pokémon. That way you could have all people who ran with scissors, tried to tame a legendary, fell off a building, or had one of the ever rarer genetic conditions or incurable injuries. Made things simple, efficient. Even from her private room on the far end of the East Wing, she'd seen all of them pass through.

Usually they also came with their worried partners, their moms and Poke-Moms, their friends and crushes, sometimes entire competitive teams that often had to be physically forced out before they descended into histrionics.

They were all just passing through.

People watching, it killed a infinitesimal fraction of the infinite monotony.

Finally, she reach the treeline, the shitty caster wheels at the front, only ever designed for smooth tile flooring, felt every divot in the road and made sure she did to. It felt like it had been days, but technically she'd only left the hospital a little under two and a half hours ago. That was important because at two and a half hours would be where it would start to get hairy. She'd had to march to an exacting schedule all her life, it changing on the scale of years, not days or weeks. Of regular appointments separated by nothing. It was crushing, but it was also what made her ‘escape’ theoretically possible.

For some reason of statistics she couldn't get through her mind, Thursdays were the sleepiest day of the week. Everyone was probably saving up their energy to fuck like Lopunny’s on Friday night, there were always new admittances on Saturday. Anyway, Thursdays were quiet, she only had two physical therapy sessions, one before breakfast and the one supposed to start in probably five minutes. She was mostly left alone these days, no attempts at forced socialization like when she was a kid.

No one cared that much, or pretended to, anymore.

Anyway, in four minutes now, like clockwork, a nurse would enter her den. Probably Chōko today, maybe someone else. But you see, today was a very special day, not just because it was a Thursday, but because SHE wasn't working.

Carita was a workaholic but she still took time off, or maybe it was mandated, Hailey had never asked. They were rare, less than a handful a year in the almost seven years she'd been at Moonlight, and since she was oh so perfect, they were all scheduled months in advance. No surprises.

Which was one of two things her escape attempt needed.

The white coated tyrant gone, and the chance that the other doctors and nurses wouldn't think about interrupting one of her rare vacations for what would surely be a short search.

None of them knew her like Carita, none of them were as driven as Carita, and none of them were as capable as Carita.

As much as she hated her, she had to give her that.

So, if everything came together she had maybe a day and a half to make it to Floroma, perhaps more if they bought into the fake trails.

After that, well, Carita wasn't literally psychic but... staying outdoors, out of cover, would be almost impossible.

She wasn't going back, not… not before she finally did it, yeah.

This was her one chance to actually live.

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Rustling around in one of the bags, she pulled out a bottle of Verity brand water, pulled from the hospital vending machines like most of her stash, she tried to keep her mind on her goal but it was proving hard.

Nature was so... weird.

She wasn't a total hermit of course, she'd been outside before. Just not very much, and always in strictly controlled circumstances. Some nurse, or more often Carita in more recent years would bundle her into a chair, load her down with so many blankets she could barely see over the top of them, and take her out for a "walk". Never when it was "too hot" or "too cold" out, and never for "too long". They always avoided crowds and other busy areas, didn't want her catching anything, and never anywhere near the boundaries of the city.

Here, sitting under a tree, drinking a overpriced bottle of lukewarm water, it was weird. The breeze just never stopped but it wasn't even consistent like the air conditioner, kept threatening to rip her blanket off and even then, she could feel the bite through it, maybe she should have actually brought more blankets. When the wind stopped though, the sun got so warm it was like when a nurse had left her napping in a sunbeam and she'd woken up burned.

The trees were so green it almost hurt her eyes, so used to the dull and inoffensive palettes of hospital pain. It was all so painfully vibrant, and no one seemed to notice it but her.

204 wasn't empty of course, even if the routes weren't used for bulk transportation they still got good amounts of traffic. How else would people and Pokémon meet? This close to the city, and in the middle of the day, things were pretty tame. A class of what were probably 9 year olds had passed her earlier, out on a field trip. They were a hundred or so meters further down the route, all crowded around some wild berry tree while their teacher talked at them. Hailey couldn't tell what kind it was, Oran or Rawst maybe, she only ever saw them in mush form after all. Would have been good to know though, for a snack, she hadn't even thought to try and get a identification guide, wasn't like there were going to be vending machines just out in the woods after all.

The class weren't the only ones out.

A rusty haired woman walked hand in hand with a frighteningly buff purple skinned woman with yellow crests on her head, yet she was obviously holding her partners hand with the most focused tenderness possible. Further down, near one of the many ponds that dotted the route, two teams seemed to be practicing the combat part of their training, though judging by the looks on all but the combatants faces, they'd probably get to the other fun part of battles once they'd worked out enough.

And the kids were gone, Rangers were as famous for their lectures as their battle prowess, and definitely more feared.

It was actually kinda fascinating to watch an actual battle in the flesh, and jeez was there a lot of flesh on display that SD broadcasts seen from across a room didn’t convey. Flesh impacting, smashing, and slapping all over itself. Even focusing fully on the physicality they couldn't help but let some moans or whines slip out. Bloody Pokémon, couldn’t help themselves.

On one side, another purple (what was it with purple today?) lady with... Five? Yes five, her vision wasn't blurring again, hands had gotten a shy looking girl with only one visible red eye in a pretty effortless arm bar. Was hard to tell cause the second figure was bound up almost like a mummy, but with white silk instead of actual bandages.

She really should get moving again, but watching was just so interesting. She couldn't hear the Trainer’s calls beyond an indistinct rumble under the wind, but it didn't look like anyone was coming to help the red eyed girl. How were pure combat battles supposed to work anyway? There wasn't a ref, was she going to tap out or... wait, something was happening. The five handed girl (how did she keep track of them all?) had been teasing her captive. Nothing much as she forced silk ladies head down into the dirt, trailing her tail hand along her face, a slap to the thigh or back here or there, stuff you could still get away with in an all ages broadcast.

Then, she over balanced, toppled completely over, and Hailey couldn't see why. One of the trainers had her head in her hands while the other seemed to be laughing. It was only as the silken lady pulled herself up (and that seemed like a chore given how bound up her legs were) that she saw it, a telltale trickle of purple dripping from a spike that was slowly fading into her back.

There were so many poisons out there, some even had medical uses, but she doubted any of those were flowing into Ms Purples body with the way she was twitching on the ground? Did that feel... good? Or like a swarm of tiny bugs was biting you? Probably best not to find out, she was mobility impaired enough already.

Plus the trainers had started making out, time to go.