Chapter Text
It’s easy to plan for the inevitable when you know it’s coming. Alexis had lined the facts up in her head weeks ago, a trick she’d learned to help manage her emotions, and studied them carefully. They’d all pointed her to this conclusion.
Fact 1: Liba James is the best thing that has happened to Alexis Payne in sixteen long years. She’s clever, she doesn’t judge her. She doesn’t mind when Alexis can’t find the right words. She doesn’t judge her lack of pokemon, not even when she found out the reason.
Fact 2: Liba had an ex boyfriend from before she moved to Floaroma Town with her parents about a year ago. She always avoids eye contact and curls in on herself when she talks about him.
Fact 3: Liba’s parents frequently bring said ex boyfriend up and suggest he comes to visit.
Fact 4: Liba’s parents have a lot of money. They’re loaded. They bought the biggest house in town with cash, and it was big enough it had been sitting empty for years because no one who could afford it wanted to live in allergy central when Jubilife City wasn’t even that far away.
Fact 5: Liba never says a single bad thing about her parents or steps out of line where they can see.
Alexis spent about a week running her finger over these facts in her mind, trying to piece them together. Eventually it clicked. There was no dramatic moment, though she did kick the wall and swear loudly. Liba’s parents weren’t good people. Her ex boyfriend probably wasn’t a good person, either.
And Alexis didn’t like or trust any of them. If they got Liba hurt, she’d skin them all alive. She developed a plan, stitched together piece by piece inside her head.
Alexis’s mother keeps pokeballs and a few pieces of emergency supplies in her bedroom, hidden under her bed in a box she thinks Alexis doesn’t know about, because she doesn’t know Alexis had torn through the entire house once when her parents left her there alone with nothing to do for days on end. Maybe it was wrong. But she’d been young, and desperate, and so, so lonely. She’d just wanted to get out of her head.
A quick check had confirmed they were still in the same place. There were a few bottles of repellant, some food for her mother’s Marill, and an old photo of an Aipom that Alexis had hastily shoved under the other items. She even saw two ultra balls amongst the mess.
She hadn’t taken any of it. Her mother would have instantly noticed. But she had brought her bag in and measured the size, and determined she could fit about a week’s worth of supplies in there while still leaving room for food of her own.
She kept those pieces of information secure in her head, and she waited. She spent her days with Liba, wandering the gardens and watching television and playing video games. She almost began to let herself relax.
It’s about three months after she initially formatted the plan when she wakes up, and realizes all the lights in Liba’s house are dark. She hastily stumbles out the front door, still dressed in her pajamas, and finds a sign has popped up declaring the house is for sale.
“Liba’s parents kidnapped her,” she announces as she walks back into the house.
“Excuse me?” Her mother says, looking up from where she’s making breakfast.
“I said Liba’s parents kidnapped her.”
She sighs. “Alexis, they’re her parents. They can’t kidnap her.”
“They’re taking her somewhere bad.”
Her mother sets down the knife she’s holding. “Listen. We all knew you were going to upset, but this is honestly--”
“What do you mean you all knew I’d be upset?”
Her mother freezes. “Now, Alexis--”
“DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?”
“Alexis, remember your breathing exercises.” Her mother backs up a step.
She tries to force air through her nose, but it’s just not happening. Her facts-- where are her facts--
Fact 1: Her mother betrayed her.
Fact 2: Her mother is part of the reason Liba is probably in terrible danger.
Fact 3: Fuck this.
She grabs a plate off the table in the middle of the room and throws it at the wall. Crash. Her mother flinches, then just sighs as she watches the pieces of the plate clatter to the ground.
Alexis storms out of the room, slamming the kitchen door shut behind her. Her father had probably already left for work, which leaves just her and her mother in the house. There was no way her mother was going to help her. Good, she doesn’t want to spend any more time with her than necessary. She’ll be using her secret plan after all.
She opens her bedroom door and slams it shut with all her might. It’s not hard. She’s mad enough the strength comes to her easily, and she’s done it plenty of times before. Her mother will probably come slamming her fist on her door before long, but Alexis won’t be in there. She doubts her mother will bother to check her own room.
She slips into her parents’ room, doing her best to control herself and close the door silently. She pokes her head under the bed and drags out a few pokeballs and other supplies. It fits in her bag on top of the food and supplies for herself she’s kept in it for a couple of weeks now. It’s all food designed to last months, so she isn’t too worried.
She’s not worried about herself, at least. But Liba…
A fresh surge of rage goes through her at knowing Liba is in danger. The police won’t do anything, not with Alexis’s record and the testimony her parents are bound to give. It’s up to her now.
Her parents have a big window, one they keep open on sunny days to let the warmth in. It’s closed now, but it slides open easily enough when Alexis’s long fingers undo the hook, then wrap around the bottom and tug. She slips outside, squishing her mother’s flowers under her feet. She shuts the window and walks off, ducking near the kitchen window to keep her mother from seeing her hastily making her way towards Route 205.
Her anger begins to die down, but it isn’t accompanied by its usual guilt this time. Her mother is part of the reason Liba is in danger. She doesn’t deserve any of her sympathy.
No one bats an eye at her presence as she rushes through town. It’s not unusual for Alexis to get into a fight with her mother first thing in the morning and end up stalking through town. Her heading towards route 205 is unusual, but no one knows that’s the way she’s moving until she actually walks past the sign as opposed to making her way into the flower gardens.
She’s giving off… some kind of presence, she knows that much. She’s always known her anger soaks into the air around her, a feeling that makes people back up and look away. Liba says that if she were a pokemon, her ability would be intimidate. She likes it. It means people leave her alone when she’s pissed off, and right now it’s making the trainers meandering around Route 205 avoid eye contact. No one challenges her. If they did, she’d waste precious time explaining she’s not a trainer. Some particularly well meaning dumbass may even try to stop her in her tracks to keep her safe from Eterna Forest.
Eterna Forest, the perfect place to duck away from civilization and wrestle a pokemon into one of the pokeballs in her bag. And if she ended up battered from the encounter, so be it. She had to save Liba.
Fact 1: Liba is missing.
Fact 2: Her mother, and by extent her father, doesn’t see a problem. They’re not going to help her, and they’re going to dismiss any claims she makes to the authorities.
Fact 3: Liba has glossy blonde hair, and eyes that seem to glow with a pink light.
Fact 4: Alexis Payne cannot, by court order, own or use pokemon of any type or species.
Fact 5: Liba had offered her a hug when she found out, rocking her back and forth as something in Alexis broke and she cried for the first time in nine years.
Fact 6: Nobody, not her parents, not Liba’s parents, not even the champion herself, is going to stop Alexis from saving her.