Chapter Ten
After a few days of resting, I was feeling like my old self again. It was no Pokémon Center, but whatever herbs and skills Amie had been using provided a good enough substitute. The days passed surprisingly quickly, largely because I spent a great deal of time resting, doctor's orders and all. The rest of the time was spent either talking with Amie about what we should do next or engaging in some kind of physical therapy to make sure that my body would heal properly and my muscles and bones were all in working order. Fortunately, Blackjack had not broken anything when he pummeled me, but there were enough bruises and other blemishes to make sure that I did not take my halting progress towards being fighting fit for granted.

What I found more pressing than my health was how to make sure that Amie would be safe. Given that they had been following her for so long already, I became convinced that the trio of Pokémon that had engaged us would likely be back. As much as she disliked talking about it, I was able to tease out more information from my psychic companion about her past experiences with Blackjack, Scimitar, and Club. While I offered shadows of my doubts and reasoning in our discussions, I kept the plan that I was forming to myself for the most part. Once I had all of the components clear in my head, I presented it to Amie after we finished a meal scavenged from the nearby countryside.

"I think I know a way to get you away from those Pokémon that are after you for a long while, if not for good," I said abruptly.

Amie seemed surprised, her blue eyes widening in the light from that which filtered in through the cave entrance where we had eaten our meal, but she maintained her composure and gestured for me to continue.

"Well, from what you've told me," I began, "it's only these three Pokémon that are after you. They have an ability to get around to chase you, but the fact that you've only seen a Hitmonchan, a Scyther, and a Snorlax this whole time – that they haven't assembled some sort of ambush to intercept you or gathered some sort of reinforcements to help with hunting you down – suggests to me that they don't have any kind of infrastructure or support network. So once you lose those three, you should be in the clear."

Amie sat mulling over what I had said. "What about those devices that they wear over their eyes?" she asked. "Doesn't that suggest a benefactor or organization of sorts?"

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully with my paw. "Possibly, but it could also be something they stole or picked up along the way. They can track you to a certain degree, but that they had to resort to asking a Pikachu if he had seen you makes me think that they don't have a very strong or wide network supporting them."

"Beyond their employer," Amie said. "Going back to those tracking devices, how do you plan on getting around them?"

I smiled to myself. "Two ways. First, you're to refrain from using any of your psychic abilities while we travel. Blackjack said that they could track you somewhat from what you emit regularly, but that they were only able to pinpoint your location when you used your psychic powers. Second, we're going to hide you, so that even that your basic trail won't be of much use to them."

"And how will we do that?"

"The city of Saffron!" I said with a dramatic flourish of my paws. "It's home to the largest concentration of psychic humans in the world, and psychic humans like Psychic-type Pokémon, so there's plenty of white noise that should be able to obscure you, even if you are a goddess."

"So that's the plan? To hide me in a city?" She didn't sound disappointed, not at all, but she didn't seem too impressed either. That's when I sprung the next part of my plan.

"Saffron isn't just home to a bunch of telekinetic weirdos," I said. "It's also one of the central hubs for the Magnet Train."

"The what?"

"It's this whole rail system that connects the country, you can get just about anywhere in the Union with it."

"What's a rail system?" Amie asked.

I let out a slightly frustrated exhalation. "The important thing is that this rail system can get you out of Kanto and into Johto."

"Why would some human-made boundary do more to stop those three than the ocean I travelled over?"

"Well," I said, "although Kanto and Johto are part of the same country, they still check all the traffic that goes into and out of their jurisdiction to catch smugglers, terrorists, and the like. They don't pay too close attention to small, harmless Pokémon like Rattata or Pikachu, but three powerful and battle-hardened Pokémon like them will raise a lot of suspicion, especially if they're unaccompanied by a trainer. So we'll be able to buy a lot of time for you to get far away."

Her expression was blank, but her head was bobbing in understanding. I was expecting any of a number of questions about my plan ranging from further explanation of the nitty gritty details to reservations about the scheme as a whole. But instead of many questions, Amie only had one. "Zeke, are you well enough to travel?"

"Yeah, I'm right as rain. Whatever was in those mushrooms did wonders for me," I said, downplaying the small, manageable aches I still was enjoying.

"Since we want to get a head-start on that trio, we should leave as soon as possible," she said. "Today, if we can."

My eyes widened, but I nodded once sharply. "Alright," I said, "we're going to have to go into the city then. I have an old contact who should be able to help us."

We spent little time in the cave after that conversation, just enough to finish our food and for me to refuse another round of treatments from Amie's fungi. We covered the entrance to the cave with a few nearby ferns, but I convinced my companion to leave the entrance just visible enough to anyone dead-set on finding it. I hoped that would mean Blackjack and his posse would waste valuable time searching the cave. When we were satisfied with our handiwork, Mew took me to the river's edge that served as an unofficial border between the city of Cerulean and the still somewhat untamed wilds. The river was wide, a sparkling blue surface that hardly betrayed the speed that caused rapids closer to Mount Moon. On the other side were a few houses, shacks really, piled on top of and crushed next to one another so that precious room could be devoted to aquatic-based industries that helped sustain the city. The morning sun's position in the sky meant that the dockworkers and fishermen that worked hard to sustain their families' poverty-line existences were gone, their children were most likely in the overcrowded Cerulean public schools, and their wives were out running errands. In other words, it was the perfect time for a daring river crossing undertaken by a legendary Pokémon in the broad daylight.

Amie spent a few minutes looking at the river and what lay beyond, her mouth silently moving in what I assumed was a running dialogue of calculation and inspiration. Finally, she spoke, "I have a plan."

I grinned at her. "As long as you're not planning on giving me a psychic heave-ho across, I'm all ears." I gave my black-tipped appendages a slight twitch as emphasis.

She smiled at that, and it was wonderful to see that smile spread across her pink-furred face. "Not quite," she said. "We agreed that I should try to downplay my psychic abilities for a while, but that doesn't mean I don't have other skills."

"I don't think being nice works on bodies of water, Amie."

She shook her head, but did not say a word, instead floating toward the edge of the water. Then, she lowered towards the ground until she was almost hidden among the reeds that swayed along the river's edge. Her form began to distort and shrink below the pitiful canopy of reeds, but before I could approach her to see if everything was alright, a new shape emerged from among the plants. Slowly, but powerfully, a blue head erupted from the cover, perched on a long, elegant neck and topped with a horn that seemed more gentle than violent. The neck was connected to a body covered with a thick gray shell, upon which numerous spikes were spread, but again this feature seemed to be less threatening in nature than it should be in theory. The protrusions were spaced far-enough apart that even a few humans could likely all find themselves a perch on this graceful creature's back. This Pokémon began to move into the water of the river, dragging herself along on thick flippers. Then the Lapras turned its neck toward me and chirped, "Hop on!"

"Amie," I whispered, "this is incredible." I walked up to her new form and placed my hand on one of the spikes of her shell, but did not pull myself up yet, preferring instead to let my eyes roam over this majestic being.

"Count yourself lucky you're the servant of such an awe-inspiring goddess!" she laughed.

"Oh hush, you're just a glorified psychic Ditto," I said as I pulled myself onto her back and set about finding a comfortable and safe place to stand for the trip across the water. "Although you're a lot cuter than a Ditto," I said absentmindedly.

Neither of us said anything for the rest of the trek across the river. Amie pulled herself into the water and, after testing out her unfamiliar form, powered across the river, spooking the vividly orange Magikarp in the water with her speed and total disregard for the wishes of the current. I almost wished that the river had been longer, or even a larger body of water altogether, so that I would have the chance to really see what this form could do, but that would have meant an extension of the heavy silence that had settled over us, so I was thankful that the crossing was mercifully brief. After I had disembarked onto a rickety wooden dock that looked like it had not seen better days for at least a decade, Amie transformed back into her Mew form.

Her pink form hovered over to be next to me with a curious look on her face. "It's much bigger than I remembered," she said, and as much as I wanted to make a joke about her long lifespan, the fact was that I felt the same way. I had not been this far from the Viridian Forest since journeying with my trainer. In my disconnected and fading memories, the city of Cerulean was just a few homes, a Pokémon Center, a store, a Pokémon League gym, and a few other landmarks. What I could see before me through the opening provided by an alleyway between two of the countless ramshackle tenements was a city in every sense of the word. Away beyond these slums lay a network of glass and steel buildings honeycombed so densely that you could hardly tell where one building ended and the next began. I had thought it would be easy to quickly find my contact and then get out before Amie's pursuers could close too much of the gap between us and them. Now, looking at this veritable maze, I was not so confident.

I was snapped out of my revelry by a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a female Pikachu looking at me expectantly. "Are you ready to go?" Amie asked.

Seeing the hope in her eyes, undeterred by any mere physical transformation, filled me with a kind of determination that was not there before. "Yeah," I said, turning my attention back to the challenge before us, "just follow me." Then the two of us set off through the alleyway before us into the heart of Cerulean proper.