Pokémon: Exodus (G)

[Kentucky Fried Torchic]

Chapter Seven
It was not until the train reached Tinko City that Katarina and the others could even begin to think about getting washed up, which meant that she and the other were covered in filthy coal dust for hours. The soot soiled everything that they touched, and their lungs were under constant assault by the dust that still lingered in the air of the cramped train car. Even Marion and Wanda, who had avoided the brunt of the smoke and the koffing attack, were subjected to enough of the residual soot that they were scarcely in a better condition than their travel companions.

The motley group of children and pokémon stepped off of their train at one of the three platforms of Tinko City's central train station with an agreed upon set of priorities. First, they would wash up, then they would find somewhere to stay, and then they could get something to eat. Marion in particular had not eaten anything since breakfast and had spent the last half of the eight-hour journey in a foul mood, snapping at Spencer and Katarina, even when the other girl was just trying to make peace.

Fortunately, they disembarked before the antagonism between the Marion and Spencer could boil over into outright violence. But the city itself raised a whole new problem for the group; one of logistics. They hailed a carriage to taxi them to the nearest hotel and set off down the paved streets of the capital. Katarina's neck hurt from craning it upwards to look at the tallest buildings that she had ever seen before, but she couldn't help herself. Tinko City was the capital of the whole region and after the war its architects and city planners had worked to make sure that it lived up to that lofty title. The four- or even five-story buildings closest to the train station were imposing obelisks of dull concrete that lacked much in the way of ornamentation that might hint at what went on behind their unforgiving façades. From what she could glean from the conversation between Marion and the cab driver, Katarina thought that they held businesses whose customers were not ordinary people who might walk in off of the street but men of means and influence, from Kanto and beyond. It was certainly a far cry from the general stores, family-owned specialty shops, and vendors that she had seen thus far on her trip.

As their driver and his emaciated rapidash with its mane of feebly flickering flames took them deeper into the heart of the city, the buildings did not lose any of their height but they became marginally warmer and gave signs of life from flowers kept in windowsills or clothes hanging from lines strung up between buildings. Harried-looking men and women populated the streets along with small pockets of playing children who looked only marginally less dirty than Katarina and the others. Marion did not look pleased by the sights, and she let her running talk with the cab driver fall off so that she could focus her energies more properly on pouting.

The clip-clop of the rapidash's hooves on the cobblestone streets was starting to lull Katarina to sleep, even with the bumps and jolts of the wagon as it traversed the uneven surface of the city, when the group came to a gentle stop. The neighborhood that they disembarked into was of a wealthier character than some of those that they had passed through, much of it embodied by the hotel itself.

It was an impressively tall and wide building, but it lacked the stark utility of the office buildings that blotted out the setting sun and the emerging stars over Tinko City. Instead, the hotel was done up in a garish imitation of the kind of manor in which Marion's family lived. There was not any one thing in particular that set Katarina's teeth on edge, but the combination of the bunting and the font on the sign and more that added up to something false. Its obnoxious advertisement of its own hospitality made Katarina uneasy, but none of the others remarked on it, so she remained silent as well.

Marion hopped off the cab, followed in quick succession by the pokémon and other children, and paid the driver. The man tipped his cap at them all and said thank you, and then he and his plodding rapidash went off in search of their next fare. Marion did not see any of that, for as soon as the money had left her hand, she had turned her attention to the hotel and boldly strode up to its high double-doors and led her companions inside.

The inside of the hotel matched its exterior in its substance and style, right down to the smiling woman at the front desk. She was wearing more makeup than anyone that Katarina had ever seen before, and her fingernails were long and painted a deep red. Her smile split her face when she saw the filth-encrusted assembly approach her desk. "Why, hello there, children!" she cooed. "How can I help you this evening?"

Drawing up to her full height and puffing out her chest, Marion said, "My name is Marion Pryor and I would like to request lodging for myself and my entourage."

When the smiling expression of the woman behind the desk did not shrink, Marion's confidence began to deflate. That concession seemed to signal something to the receptionist, because it was only then that she said, "Of course, I can put you and your little friends up, sweetie, but, ah, are you sure that you have the money for it? Maybe we should wait for your mommy and daddy."

Marion's blue eyes flashed, but she kept her voice even and even deferential as she produced a wad of bills, slapped it on the counter, and said, "I assume that this will more than cover our lodging."

"Well, yes," said the woman hesitantly as her eyes eagerly took in the raw display of wealth, "I believe that we can do business with you, young lady."

"Excellent, now, as my parents," she stressed the word, "are not accompanying me on this trip, we shall only require," Marion paused and looked over at Katarina and the others who had been standing there silently watching her work, "two rooms for the night."

The woman in the heavy makeup picked up a pen done up in faux-gold and scratched away at the ledger in front of her. "Two rooms, one night, very good." Then, she looked up at Marion and asked, "I'm sorry, sweetie, what did you say your name was again?"

"Marion Pryor."

Marion turned around to smile proudly at the suitably impressed Katarina and the less-enthralled Spencer, but was forced to spin around indignantly when the receptionist asked, "Pryor, now, how do you spell that, sweetie?"

A few minutes later, the group was trudging up the stairs. Since Marion had the keys to their rooms, she was in the lead, but her strides were shorter and her head was down in contrast to the swagger of when she had first walked into the hotel, and not only from the strain of lugging her heavy trunk behind her.

Katarina tried to lift the other girl's spirits by saying, "Thank you for getting us these rooms, Marion. It was really impressive how you convinced that woman that you were someone important."

"Not really," said Spencer from his spot in the rear of their party. "In a big city like this, money talks. If you think that flashing some graybacks is anything impressive, you have a lot to learn. I bet that I could have gotten us these rooms for half the price you ended up paying for them, Red."

"Is that so?" snapped Marion over her shoulder. "Then why didn't you offer to help?"

Spencer smiled an unkind smile and replied, "Because you didn't ask. Besides," he aimed this next comment at Katarina, "I've got my money now, and I don't see why I should be so willing to part with it." But if he was expecting approval or even a laugh from Katarina, Spencer was sorely disappointed. So, he tried another tack, saying, "And don't think that you can fool us, Red. I know why you only got two rooms for the six of us. You think that you and your pokémon can have a room all to yourselves while us 'peasants' pile into the other one."

"You don't know anything," hissed Marion before Katarina could intervene in this latest spat. "Katarina and I will be sharing a room. You might have decided for yourself that I am an elitist and a snob, but I would never dream of forcing a girl to share a room with you."

By then, they were at the two rooms that they had been assigned, 304 and 305, and Marion violently turned the key in the lock and wrenched one of the doors open. Katarina gave Spencer a look, the meaning of which was indecipherable, even to her, and followed Marion alongside Wanda and Exo.

Inside of the room, Marion was breathing in and out audibly and looked very much like she wanted to slam the door that Katarina instead closed without a fuss. Her voice was still hard, but Marion made an effort and managed to be civil as she said to the others, "Here we are," and gestured to the room around them.

It was a perfectly functional, albeit sparsely furnished, room, with a bed, desk, and washing basin filled with steaming water. Katarina might have even found it somewhat welcoming, but only if someone else had chosen the room's decorations. The ancillary components of the room appeared to have been decided by the same person who had shaped the rest of the hotel. On the bedside table, there was a vase of flowers that Katarina recognized as being native to the part of Tinko where she lived, but here, in the wetter climate on the coast, they were drooping instead of standing up straight as they should have been. Over the bed there was a painting of a bowl of fruit, a perfectly inoffensive image, but also one that failed to stir the heart to a fraction of the extent that any of the artwork in Marion's manor did. The overall effect of the room was not welcoming, but rather morose.

Marion had started towards the bath but stopped halfway and appeared to be studying Katarina and her heavy coating of coal dust instead. "Would you like to wash up first?"

"Yes, thank you," answered Katarina and soon she was scrubbing herself clean and turning the wash water black. She and Marion both realized at the same time that they would need more water if the latter girl did not want to end up less clean after her bath than she had been when it began. So, Marion went down with Wanda to the front desk to request more hot water and was back a few minutes before Katarina was finished.

As the other girl was drying off and stepping out of the wooden tub, Marion asked, "Are you feeling hungry, Katarina? While I do not know this area of the city very well, I'm certain that there is an restaurant nearby."

"I am hungry," said Katarina as she dressed in the last pair of clean clothing that she had packed for her trip, "but not as much as you are, I imagine. After all, you didn't have anything for lunch."

"Oh, yes, I'm afraid that I'm quite famished," admitted Marion with a modest smile. "Is there any kind of food in particular that you prefer?"

The two girls talked about that elementary topic, with additional comments by Exo and Wanda garnishing the conversation. When the hot water that Marion had sent for arrived, she insisted on first scrubbing Wanda's long scaly body clean before she would even consider taking her own bath. Katarina tried to offer to do the same for Exo, but the cubone quickly shook his head. "I can take care of myself," he said gruffly.

Marion was almost done with her washing when Katarina blurted out, "Are you going to be alright if we eat with Spencer?"

"Hm?"

"Well, I was only thinking that the two of you don't really seem to be getting along and he and Ace could probably take care of themselves fairly well. After all it wouldn't be the first time for them, getting food on their own, I'm sure."

Mercifully, Marion cut off the other girl's babbling by making an audible sign that she was thinking. It was not until she was finished wringing out her long red hair that Marion finally said, "No, I believe that won't be necessary. He might be an ass, but he's your friend and I can be civil to him."

It sounded as though there she was leaving something unsaid, but when Katarina did not inquire about it, Marion was content to let the conversation taper off. She dried herself and got dressed and then broke the silence with a good-natured sigh and said, "I suppose it best that we check in on that malcontent and his bird."

They went over to Spencer's room and knocked. Through the door they could hear him approach, but it did not open right away.

"What's he doing?" asked Katarina.

Marion smiled and shook her head. Quietly, she answered, "He wants for us to think that he's busy with something important and that we're interrupting him."

Katarina did not understand that, but, sure enough, when Spencer opened the door he looked somewhat putout and said curtly, "What do you want? I was about to-"

Waving away whatever story that he had prepared, Marion said simply, "We're going to find some dinner. Would you two care to join us?"

"I'm not sure," said Spencer, but Ace flapped past him and over Marion's head to perch on Katarina's shoulder.

"Let's go, Spence, I'm starving!"

"All right, all right, just let me get my coat."

The six of them descended the staircase that was in the center of the hotel in a better mood than they had been in when they had ascended it. Outside, the sun had set, but it was not as dark as Katarina had expected it to be. The reason for that was the streetlights, heavy iron poles topped by a single glass orb each. Inside of that transparent sphere was a small, strange-looking pokémon with a single eye that looked artificial in origin. In any case, the little creatures in the street lights were spinning rapidly and producing a surge of electricity that superheated the wire that made up the metal latticework on the inside of each orb and bathed the streets of Tinko City with light.

Katarina, Spencer, and even Marion gawked at the streetlights and the pokémon powering them. None of them had seen anything like it. Ace and Wanda were also interested, but Exo did his best to ignore them.

"This is the future," Spencer said reverently as he put his hand against the metal pole nearest to them.

"They already have them in Kanto and overseas," said Marion, but her tone was just as deferential as Spencer's. "My father is hoping to get some of these 'electric lights' at our home as soon as he can find someone capable of installing them."

They all lingered outside of the hotel for a few minutes, none of them feeling self-conscious in the slightest for the children were still young enough that wonder and awe could exert a significant hold on their hearts. But they were also old enough that it could not last forever, and Spencer was the first to break off from the rest of the pack. He strode down the cobblestone-paved street with his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, whistling, and let the others catch up to him.

None of the children or pokémon knew exactly where they were going, but they were not overly concerned by that fact. Ace flew up above the buildings lining the street on either side of them to see if he could get an idea of where they should be headed, but when the spearow came back down to roost on Spencer's shoulder, he could only say, "I've got nothing, Spence. Everything looks the same from up there!"

There were others on the streets of Tinko City, but none of them paid any mind to the strangers in their midst. Each man, woman, or pokémon that Katarina and the rest passed appeared to be fixated on their own errands and thoughts. Katarina watched each of them go by, occasionally falling behind the others, but always catching up after her observations were completed. After turning a corner a few blocks from the hotel and starting down another street, Katarina realized what was missing in the mass of people swirling around the arteries of the city. She had not seen any families walking together, and that made her frown, although she did not notice that she was doing it.

It was the group's good fortune that the boulevard that they were now strolling along was lined with a series of small tables and chairs marking the presence of little cafes that offered a wide variety of options for meals. A small disagreement almost broke out between Spencer and Marion about which restaurant they should patronize, but Marion bit her tongue before things could get too heated and asked Katarina to make a decision. She in turn asked the pokémon for their input. Finally, with everyone's input, they decided upon a café that specialized in sausages made up in the Saffron style, passing over a number of other options that promised different dishes from Tinko, but from all appearances would have fallen far short from the real thing.

After they had sat down and studied the menu, Marion crooked her finger and motioned for Ace to come over to her side of the table. The spearow hesitated, but then hopped off of Spencer's shoulder and, with a few flaps of his wings, was close enough to Marion that she could lower her head and whisper something in his ear. She talked quickly and when she was finished Ace said, "You got it," and took off into the sky to places unknown except to him and Marion.

Spencer drummed his fingers on the edge of the table and said casually, "What was all that about, Red?"

"Oh, I was just asking your pokémon for a little favor," answered Marion lightly. "I wanted to get some shopping done tomorrow and asked Ace if he could find anywhere nearby that is up to my standards."

"As long as you know what's important," said Spencer with a shrug, and then he thought to add, "and as long as you're paying Ace for the favor."

Marion smiled indulgently and said, "Of course, I offered to buy him a basket of rolls in exchange."

Ace was back in time for the group to place their orders with the café's waiter and everyone settled in for a nice, if simple, dinner. Katarina was the center of discussion for at least part of it, since the others were peppering her with questions about her meeting with Professor Oak tomorrow.

"Do you know what you're going to say to him?" asked Marion before immediately offering her unsolicited advice on the etiquette and protocol that she would use when talking to the pokémon expert.

"Do you even know where he is, or how to find him?" was Spencer's first question, and he and Ace did not hesitate to offer their help in locating Oak.

Katarina was a little overwhelmed by the attention, but she was also happy for the help in planning for tomorrow. Since she had set out on her journey, she had been so preoccupied with getting to Tinko City that she had hardly given thought to what would happen when she finally got there outside of the broad strokes of meeting Professor Oak and getting a pokémon. The conversations flowed easily and there was an amicable feeling around the table, fueled in no small part by the surprisingly good food. It was only threatened when the waiter returned with the bill for the table.

Spencer stared at the thin piece of paper and the prodigious sum scrawled at the bottom of it, but he did not move to take it from its place on the edge of the table. Neither Marion nor Katarina reached for it either. Instead, Marion just smiled at Spencer.

"What?"

Marion nodded towards the bill. "You were making a big talk about how you could have saved us money on our lodgings, Spencer, so I want to see it for myself." The boy was biting his lip, trying to come up with the right combination of words to get himself out of the challenge, but his struggling only encouraged Marion to twist the knife further. "Just as I thought," she said and gave Katarina a look of feigned exasperation.

That did the trick, and Spencer snatched up the bill and marched into the café. Marion and Katarina shared some laughter at his expense, but tried to tamp it down when they realized that they could catch snippets of the talk Spencer was having with the restaurant's management. The girls and the pokémon could not catch even half of what was being said, but it was clearly evident that things were not going in Spencer's favor.

When he emerged, he looked chastised and Marion and Katarina did their best to look like they had not been listening in, but since they had failed to come up with another topic of conversation their attempt to play innocent failed under the weight of their silence.

"How did it go?" asked Katarina tentatively

"Not well," grunted Spencer and he set off back down the street the same way that they had come.

Marion waved and yelled for Spencer to come back, but he was either ignoring her or failed to hear her. Fortunately, Katarina's piercing whistle got his attention and Spencer turned around and sullenly said, "What?"

"We have to take a different way back," said Marion. "There's a shop that I want to check out, remember?"

Spencer muttered something about wishing he had any money left to think about shopping with, but he dutifully rejoined the others as they set off following Marion who was herself following Ace and the spearow's directions.

"Just past this corner," said Ace after ten minutes of walking, and his words were true as the children and pokémon stepped out of a side alley and into a wider avenue that played host to a dizzying array of boutique and other clothing stores. Just as the restaurants had advertised their wares with visual and olfactory aids, so too did these shops attempt to entice customers to come inside with huge storefront windows displaying the latest styles on slender, blank-faced mannequins. For Katarina, who had never had a piece of clothing that she had not been mended by herself or her mother at least twice, it was a totally new experience. Marion saw the awe on the younger girl's face and was more than happy to grab Katarina by the hand and start taking her from shop to shop and asking her opinion on every piece of clothing in sight.

Spencer watched them with a wry smile and said to the pokémon, "Girls and clothes, huh?"

"I believe you meant to say, 'humans and clothes,’" suggested Wanda and the other pokémon nodded sagely in agreement.

"I think that you would look really good in that one," said Marion excitedly, pointing to a bright pink dress that was covered in a ribbons and bows.

Katarina shook her head and said, "I don't think so," but that only encouraged Marion to wheel around and bolt to another storefront and another dress. But before Marion could make her case, Katarina had slipped out of her grip and was staring at a dress in the window of the store next to one they had just been in front of. It was more of a practical dress than some of the others, but still not one that could be worn any old day. The dress was a dark green color that Katarina could lose herself in. It seemed richer, realer, than any of the green sights that she had encountered thus far in her travels across the Tinko region. The only one that had even come close was the thick, foreboding forest where she had first met Exo. The fabric was unadorned with any patterns, and the only accessory to it was the wide band of a leather belt cinched tightly around the mannequin's waist. When Katarina looked up, she swore that she could catch a glimpse of her own reflection on the featureless white face of the figure wearing the dress and she could imagine a day in the not-so-distant future when she would no longer be a child.

All of that passed through Katarina's mind without any words passing from her lips besides, "I like this one," but Marion smiled just as brightly as if Katarina had said every word she had been thinking aloud.

Spencer made a big show of yawning and, when that did not pull the girls away from the storefront, he said loudly, "Well, we ought to be getting back. You have a busy day tomorrow, after all."

"Yes, I do," murmured Marion.

"I wasn't talking to you, Red," groaned Spencer. "I was talking to Kat."

"Oh, of course," said Marion quickly and she reluctantly pulled herself away from the dress in the window, although not before glancing around and memorizing the location of the boutique.

It was even more difficult to pull Katarina away, and when Marion and Exo finally succeeded in doing so, the girl walked with a dreamy smile on her face. She was talking with the pokémon, Wanda especially, since she had some further questions for Katarina about how most children received their pokémon. With all of the talk of Katarina's grand quest, the dratini was seeking reassurances that Marion's father buying her did not in some way jeopardize Marion's dream of becoming a famous pokémon trainer.

Katarina reassured Wanda that this was not the case, and even Ace and Exo provided their own views on the subject, but the spearow seemed to be only half-heartedly invested in the discussion. He was trying to listen in on the conference that Spencer and Marion were holding behind them with their heads together and their voices low.

The twin tracks of conversation could not remain parallel forever and by the time that the group was on the street of their hotel, Spencer and Marion had rejoined the others, and they were chatting amicably about the day to come.

Out in the streets, illuminated as they were by the pokémon sealed inside of the streetlamps, it was easy to forget how late that it was, but once they were inside of the building and then their respective rooms, sleep came quickly to the exhausted children and pokémon even as outside of their windows Tinko City persevered through the night.