Part Three

Getting used to the feeling of being teleported around was one thing, but it didn't automatically include getting used to the feeling of having to take in a monumentality different environment from one second to the other. Just a second ago, she had been in a heated, neon enlightened small back room of a greenhouse gym, which spoke length about the temperature in the house. And just like that, she reappeared on a rocky side road in the middle of the mountains, surrounded by deep forests, cliffs, valleys, and, not to mention, snow.

Deep snow. Deep, fresh, icy mountain snow.

J immediately made a bee line to the entrance, feeling her ankles starting to freeze off already. Not being forced to take a cab and driving through the secluded wilderness had its advantages, for sure, like not being forced to pack thick coats or jackets, but it also forced you to endure the forcefulness of mother nature for the moment.

Sabrina barely had time to stop her before she would have crashed the party, likely in more than one sense, as the doors in front of her were, in fact, locked.

Erika followed just a scant bit later. "Wait, Jean. We'll have to make our entrance known, first."

J snickered. That shouldn't prove to be a problem, at all.

Someway, the possibility that this ball might be invitation-only hadn't crossed her mind. Now, as she followed the two gym leaders, it started to make an enormous amount of sense to her. The sheer mass of paparazzi located at the front entrance of the league building was disconcerting even for her, and gave reason to the fact that they had appeared at the closed back door, and were now fiddling with a prominent side entrance that seemingly every gym leader and partner knew about, but was as good as invisible to the paparazzi. She was honestly baffled as to how this could happen, as they were within plain view of the dozens of camera-wielders, and still, all they did was talking to their sound engineers, and occasionally reaching out with their arms as to indicate where the objects of their desires might hide.

Which made it comically amusing, as that was exactly where they were standing and waiting.

"Seems as if Will's been showcasing again…" Erika exclaimed, although not to J in general.

There might have been an indifferent shrug in the way Sabrina's shoulders moved, or else she was simply waving away the coldness in her limbs.

It wasn't as if J was particularly interested in deciphering the next to nonexistent body language of her escort.

In the few seconds that it had taken Sabrina to react, Erika had managed to catch the attention of her own attendance as well. Mostly by wavering and screaming obnoxiously, as if to drive the point home that the paparazzi could neither see nor hear them, result of the showcase of the abilities of yet another psychic. As much as it made up for a fascinating show, J found herself irritated at the various ways these abilities could be utilized in everyday life. It made preparing against them all the more bothersome.

Erika's partner was, haphazardly enough, also a woman. A pretty unfortunate looking hag, J might have said, if she hadn't been in the company of someone who might make her head explode if she adopted the wrong choice of words. Yet honestly, with all the effort Erika had taken into preparing J and Sabrina for the dinner party, it spoke volumes as to how ill-prepared her so called partner was. Her massive crop of hair was bound into two enormous pigtails to the left and right side of her head. Even worse, her hair was the color of badly digested puke, and while that was one thing that was genetically enforced on every individual, it was by no means something that couldn't be changed with a good dose of hair dye and the right choice of color.

As far as that went, J was sure that anything was better than the current color, with the sole exception of going bald. That much, she admitted, she had to give her own host.

And to top that of- as if showcasing that horrible color was not enough of an embarrassment, the woman had apparently dug her dress out of a garbage can and combined it with the ingredients of a well decomposing compost. Given the nature of their gym, it might have been a logical choice, yet it was anything but fitting. In fact, J was sure she had seen at least one video game character walking around in a dress made out of moss green, leaf-shaped patches of clothing.

Not that she played many video games. She just had to make sure that her henchmen played for no longer than three minutes a day.

And not beat her high score while they were at it.

All in all, it might have been for the best, J mused, that the theme of the party forced the girl to wear a peacock-inspired mask which did not only hide her face, but also parts of her unfortunate haircut.

"You look lovely, Heather." Erika exclaimed.

J was amazed at how ruthlessly some people could lie to someone's face.

"My, that's nice of you to say, Erika." Of course it was nice. Because saying "You look like you belong into the bio-waste container" took more guts than Erika had.

"Your company is also the most delightful I have ever seen." Which likely meant that Heather had spent the last gym leader balls under a rock.

As "under a rock type gym leader" would certainly clash with her proclaimed sexuality.

It was either that or J was in for something regarding the beaming personalities of the other gym leaders and elite four trainers.

Sabrina gave the slightest hint of a professional nodding to that socially enforced observation, with J mimicking her in delay.

"Shall we go in?" Heather asked, holding out her hand for Erika to take it and beckoning the other women inside into the luxurious house. The question itself, as were most such, was needless, as the gesture itself implied the correct answer and therefore, physical act anyway. Still, it seemed to take her host a moment to register this, as they suddenly found themselves alone in front of the doors, with their company already disappearing fast into the brightly lit corridor.

"It's awfully convenient..." J asked, before finding herself smacking her lip against her gum in an unusual display of uncertainty of wording. She quickly dismissed the lapse into non-professionalism. "…that everyone has to wear a mask today."

She, with all the recent proof in mind, should have known that indirect implications were the last thing her social in adept gym leader would react to. Yet she was still a bit miffed when all she got was a slight nod and the soft sound of foot tapping that indicated Sabrina using a very human way to make her leave. J sighed and followed her, taking note to keep her guard up. Just in case.

Apparently, Erika and her partner had already taken care of the invitation check. J didn't know if she should feel surprised anymore by the fact that the invitations were printed on old-fashioned deckle edge paper, complete with a blood red wax seal and a golden colored cord. It was almost too clichéd to be real.

But then, she was waiting in a hall decorated with heavy, purple brocade drapes and burning torches. She snickered as she noticed the fire-extinguishers prominently hidden behind glass coffins. Hypocrisy was hardly a word the league should utter.

To be honest, there was a tiny, persistent sparklet of anxiety in the middle of her stomach when she overheard the conversation Sabrina was having with the bouncer. A not so tiny part of her was half-expecting special squad forces to break through the expensive, gold-trimmed windows and arrest her on the spot, but the most that happened was the bulky, suit-wearing man taking a double-take when registering Sabrina and J's names, as he apparently couldn't decide what was more baffling this moment: The fact that the Saffron gym leader showed up with an visibly older woman in tow, or that she had shown up at all.

Some mind reader would have taken offense at the fact that he briefly analyzed if J was old and physically resembling her enough to be her mother, but Sabrina had long since forgone all attempts to take offense at any obscure thoughts that were involuntarily thrown at her.

Hadn't she, she would have ended up blowing up the building before even entering the main halls, or alternatively ending the night with a league full of dolls.

Not that she didn't keep that option open, either way.

In the short time that she had been given to prepare, J had promised to herself that she wouldn't let her impressionability show, even, or rather especially if she was made sufficiently speechless at what she was seeing. This moment, though, it was hard to say even for J herself if she was honestly surprised by the inner ward of the league, or taken aback in a more sarcastic way by the crooked dignity that was on plain display here. Maybe she wasn't as much of a true mind reader as Sabrina was, but her métier, so to say, gave her a true insight into what was honesty and what was not.

And no one could tell her that the sound of bell-like giggling that desecrated her ears was actually meant to be faithful.

She had quickly decided for herself that hiding in the shadows and only pretending to be attending at all was the best strategy she could conjure for the time being, only to be thrown off balance when a historically incorrect clothed ninja girl shushed her out of her hiding place which she was currently occupying in order to hide from her boyfriend. Or greatest asshole in the world who had broken her heart on several occasions and who she absolutely had no crush on anymore. Her wording on this matter was not conclusive.

J slowly strolled through the hall, mostly unbothered by anyone while taking in the individuals that could very much become her next victims or enemies. Or clients. She was certain not all of them were above the kind of business she ventured in.

At least, she was unbothered until a young man approached her, a meeting which caused intensive feelings of dread in J stomach.

J thought she recognized the Pewter gym leader even behind the gem adorned mask he was wearing, and cursed inwardly that of all the people that could have bumped into her, the only one that did was one of the very few who could reasonably remember her.

He didn't.

(After all, it was Brock's younger brother Forrest that J bumped into, but for someone who had not been informed about the size of the Harrison family, and the uncanny resemblance of the children among themselves, the mix-up was excusable.)

But that didn't mean that their meeting was comfortable in any way.

Now, Forrest, for some reason, could string together the uncomfortable feeling of caution in the depths of his very focused mind, but that feeling was swiftly overlain by his natural instinct to spread his genes, which clearly ran in the family, after all. Which took on an urgent importance when the woman in question was likely approaching menopause.

As it stands, Forrest came out of this attempt alive and still in full control of his entire body, but sadly, the same cannot be said for his dignity or fertility.

Almost growling by now, but regretting not staying in direct vicinity of the psychic, J scurried off. For all it was worth, it was easy spotting the black-clad woman in-between all these birds of paradise with their fancy costumes and overly long dresses that made it hard not to step on any appendage that fell like a curtain behind them, yet only served well in mopping the floor. In all honesty, she was half-tempted to call off the charade of being a non-smoker and light a cigarette just to be able to burn holes into their fancy polyester capes.

She found the psychic talking to yet another fabulous individual that had mixed up carnival with the masked ball. So much purple on a single person should have been illegal, but if there truly had been a fashion police, she would have needed them to raid the whole hall and still bring in reinforcements, likely.

„…which would make it the last time Clair would have seen her socks, but if you ask me, she just wasn't looking for them in the right places- oh, here your ladyfriend actually is!"

J took a mental note of how it seemed to be physically impossible to surprise any psychic, as they became aware of your presence even if you were still ten feet away from them and facing their back.

"Why don't you introduce me to her, hm, Sabrina?" J decided for herself to walk around him (her? it? It was actually hard to tell in the case of this overgrown eggplant!) and ignore him completely. It wasn't a matter of courtesy, but rather of not having to open her mouth and accidently blow her cover, considering that she was approaching someone who could easily rip open her soul as well. It was an upsetting thought, frightening even, but it wasn't any more negative than the indication of how she had only managed to get past thirty minutes of the whole dinner party so far and still had to survive another two hours.

She came to a halt next to Sabrina, and nodded to the strange individual facing them. He- and J still hoped that she was right with her gender assumption, had short, neatly cut lightly purple hair and similarly colored eyes, a not so ugly, boy-like face and wore a purple-trimmed black mask that sparsely covered the area around his eyes. Strangely, though, one eye patch was covered with a milky, opaque piece of fabric, leaving J to wonder if there was actually an eye behind it. All in all, it was a shame that his sense of fashion was so throughout damaged and dominated by a single, obnoxious color, for he looked somewhat handsome in overall package.

"She's named Jean Hunter." Or rather, she had named herself so, but J wasn't about to let anyone , let alone a pack of two psychics, know that for the moment. "She agreed to accompany me tonight." As if that hadn't been obvious. Then again, there might have been the slight overall chance that she hadn't agreed to that, and Sabrina would have still lugged her in behind her.

There was a pause as Sabrina apparently struggled with the correct sequence of protocol. "Jean, this is William Bender. He's the psychic type first Elite Four of the united Indigo region."

J again nodded, though taken aback when the man in front of her bowed deeply and took her hand for a hint of a kiss. There had been a time in her life when she would have blushed at the display of such fine manners, but that time was long behind her.

Nowadays, her first instinct had been to cut his head off, but that was equally inappropriate for her.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Hunter. Say, how did you make Miss Winter's acquaintance?"

Sabrina, rudely foregoing protocol entirely for a moment, answered for her. "I met her in Saffron's municipal prison."

J forced herself not to raise an eyebrow. Was this going to become some sort of running gag? Either way, Will took this much easier than Erika did, as his sole reaction was the hint that his eyebrow might have raised behind his mask. "I see…."

He coughed politely and excused himself to find his own partner, just the moment when someone else decided to take center stage. Sabrina, certainly not any more interested in the upcoming speech than J was, still took her hand and led her to the front of the hall, where a podium extended itself over the whole length of the room, allowing the presenter to make himself known to everyone in the unfortunate vicinity and beyond.

Even though J knew enough about the dragon type champion to recognize his face, she still was baffled at his appearance. If she hadn't known and hoped any better, she would have expected him to announce his coronation any moment. Whatever it was that he was wearing, it looked like the bastard cross between a cloak and a bathrobe. All in the brightest of reds and whites and golds that one could find. It was, perhaps, both upsetting and disappointing that he hadn't opted for running amok with the theme anyway and wear a jewel adorned crown, but J supposed that that might have been, forgive the bluntness, cocky. Even for him, the self-declared dictator of Indigo if not for old Charles.

All things considered, it was probably for the best that it was only his old, Venetian-style mask that seemed to be made out of some kind of metal, though real gold was certainly not included in it.

He spoke at length about the unity of the league, about its achievements and its importance, and how they, together, were the greatest nightmare of injustice and crime.

The unity of the league. Not his speech. That was only the greatest daydream of otologists.

"That's the same speech he has been rehashing every year." J heard someone complaining to her left. She glanced aside and noticed that it was a red-haired girl in her early teens who stood next to the unfortunate leech she had scared off. She was, strangely enough, wearing something that was likely supposed to make her look like a beautiful mermaid, but, in truth, only made her look like a retarded fish out of the water in the way she had to literally drag her feet across the floor.

Lance took a deep breath. "I am also glad to announce that the league has managed to accomplish an important blow to organized Pokemon trafficking this year. "

"That's new!" The girl exclaimed next to her, honestly baffled at this change of course. J, though, had just stopped listening to the teen, as what she was fearing was slowly becoming hardened truth.

"In fact, just recently, with the help of one of our Kanton gym leaders, we managed to get hold of one of the most feared criminals of Sinnoh." Lance glanced around the room. J wondered if his eyes lingered, a fact, a little longer on her face, but she was fairly sure it was just her imagination. It had to be her imagination, anything else meant certain death.

For her or the sum of the gym leaders lingering around her.

"We have captured the ruthless Hunter J, known for stealing and selling hundreds, if not thousands of Pokemon."

"Two thousand, eight hundred and forty-four." J whispered, a bit miffed at getting underestimated.

"Please, Sabrina, grace us and come up here, would you?" Lance offered to the psychic gym leader. J quickly sidestepped her in order to drive as much attention away from herself as she could, while Sabrina's face stayed unreadable. It was hard to say what was going on in the head of someone who was just congratulated for imprisoning a criminal she had, not much later, freed herself.

And brought along, almost for emphasize.

J, for all her part, was caught between bursting into laughter at the sheer implausibility of the situation, or staying as quiet and invisible as she could. Her sanity was almost taken over by the insanity of the moment, but she held herself together firmly.

She was also impressed by how easily Sabrina played her cards and hid the truth, the plain truth standing no twenty feet away from her from the public. She didn't speak much, but if one had actually listened to her and not closed up their ears at the first sign of Lance speaking up, they might have actually believed that Sabrina took in the glory of overcoming J's modern technology and cunningness herself and getting her behind prison bars for a long time. While, all in all, it hadn't even been a week, and Sabina had ensured that J got out without a scratch.

All the time, she never even did so much as glance in J's direction, as if she was aware of the irony that was almost tangible in the room. Not almost, in truth. The irony was standing a few feet away from her, wearing a shoulder-less gravel-colored dress and empty cigarette-holder. J supposed that if anyone had known that she was here, in the middle of them, standing with crossed arms and a fake-champagne glass in one hand that was actually filled with bottled water, they would have fled the hall in panic before Sabrina even had the chance of descending from the podium.

"Thank you for your wise words." Lance nodded, taken the microphone back from the reluctant psychic. Wise words that carried along as many philosophical lore as a cooking book.

"Thanks for speaking at all." Someone to J's left whispered in a not so well hidden sarcastic voice. It was, apparently, well known that it was highly unusual for Sabrina to show up at all. Something that Lance, of course, had to lampshade.

"I must admit, I am very happy that you're attending this year's winter's ball, Sabrina. It is a pleasure to see you this elegant and social today."

Yes, J was getting surer and surer that the entire league was made out of highly dangerous individuals who could lie to your face without betraying the smallest kind of dishonesty.

"Now, allow me the question- and I'm sure everyone here is just as curious as I am, if not even more, but who have you brought along for today's ball?" Lance winked.

J half expected Sabrina to repeat her story from before. After all, third time's the charm, eh?

She wasn't sure if she would actually survive being put in the spotlight this way. It was fairly likely that her nightmare of the special police squads crashing the party would come true that way. And the party would finally end in an epic clash between the forces of good and evil, which would likely make it the most rememberable winter's ball ever since Jasmine had accidently poured red wine over Clair's dress, calling the wrath of the dragon clan upon her.

Yet, Sabrina surprised her with an astonishingly dry answer that was hardly an answer and yet, would have to suffice for everyone. "I'm here with a recent acquaintance of mine."

And that, dears, wasn't even a lie, J mused with the slightest bit of a smile.

Sabrina simply refused to say any more on the matter, and emphasized it by walking down the stage without so much as a second glance in Lance's direction, who had only time to blink before he had registered her leaving. The psychic joined the other leaders and J back in front of the stage, carefully enough not to avoid J's presence, and yet, staying away from her for a while so as not to draw attention to their unusual connection.

Once Lance had finished talking more and more nonsense that no one would remember coming the next two minutes, though, J found the distance between her and Sabrina strangely melting away, until they were standing side by side again.

„Not badly done there", J whispered, taking the chance to put her gratefulness in as few words as she could. Again, Sabrina nodded in a way that made it seem her neck was not in the possession of any strong muscles and rather made out of inflexible metal that only made the tiniest of movements possible.

General bustling began, as Lance announced the dinner gala to be opened. Which, in the dozens of pairs of ears all around them only meant one thing: Food. And free food on top of that!

Individuals representing the elite of the country suddenly turned into ravenous animals as soon as their deepest survival instincts were triggered. Not to procreate, that came later.

J mused that there was a certain irony to the fact of being presented with lobster and caviar when, if it hadn't been for this miraculous turn of event, the most that she could have hoped for at this moment were mashed potatoes made from packet powder, cold hamburgers, meat not included and artificially colored vegetables that were only one genome away from learning how to speak.

Which, given that she didn't have any kind of exquisite taste either way, wouldn't have bothered her.

"I must say, I'm surprised…"

J looked up. Across from her, the little mermaid with her bright red hair was seated, though unlike her fictional counterpart, she did have a voice very much. Though, if she would have been able to enchant any man with her singing, that was an entirely different question.

The girl coughed politely, apparently having difficulty arranging her lobster correctly, or either having a hard time eating sea food in general. If it had been just her costume, one could have come to the conclusion that she was currently cutting through her childhood friends. "I mean, I'm quite surprised…" She nodded to Sabrina, fish fork pointing threateningly in her general direction, as her common sense had gotten ahead of her and went down the drain. "I did not know you had a girlfriend…" Her voice trailed off. Apparently, word had gotten around that J was, after all, Sabrina's accompany, as much as both loathed realizing that. It meant that they had to play their charade even more honestly if only for a few more hours.

"I don't." Something that Sabrina was quite successful about, obviously.

J took in a deep breath. She was nearing the point where all of this became just one big game to her, yet without a clear mark of how points were distributed, and the lines between winner and loser were shimmering away in a display of joyful insignificance of the sheer absurdity of all of it.

"I don't, either", she interrupted the two gym leaders nonchalantly. "There is a merely a temporal arrangement, made out of necessaries and accords."

"Indeed." Sabrina chimed her agreement. "As soon as the league's ball is over, we will go our separate ways."

The younger gym leader's face fell, if only for a moment. "That's sad", she muttered. "You look actually cute together, you know?"

J was graceful for the occasion of having just put a piece of the lobster into her mouth she could convincingly choke on. Sabrina, though, didn't have this advantage, and even if she had had, it was uncertain if she would have used it at all. It remained equally unsure if she had actually intended to show any reaction at all.

"That is a polite observation, Misty, yet it has no factual basis. Let it be emphasized that we have no attraction to each other, sexual or otherwise." And with that, she glanced at J, as if to encourage her to show her approval. Which J would have done, had she not actually been in the process of removing a stubborn piece of shell from her throat.

"Hm…" Misty, as the girl was apparently called (and from the naming requirements of the gym leaders and from her costume, as J waged a guess, a water type gym leader) put a finger to her chin and appeared deep in thought. "Speaking of observations, I couldn't help but notice that your face seems familiar…Jean, wasn't it?"

J nodded, her neck having become just as stiff as Sabrina's had been before, without the help of any muscle-related poison save for the internal venom of dread.

Again, Misty taped her finger against her chin. "You wouldn't happen to…ah, I do not know, have been around Kanto before, you know?"

J tried to hide the knife as imperceptible as she could beneath the table. If worst came to worst, she still had some way of defense on her, and maybe, it wouldn't have to come to that if she could cut through the girl's throat before, maybe in an unnoticed moment in the women's restroom.

She did catch Sabrina's disapproving nod, though. In a psychic's repertoire, there were less bloody ways of disposing of someone. Ways she wasn't adverse to.

"No, not as far as I know." She lied, scratching the tip of her nose as she did so. And again, it was even per se a lie, she hadn't done many businesses in Kanto yet. Not enough to be publicly known as a menace here, anyway.

"Hm…" Still, Misty didn't let the topic go, urging both Sabrina and J into irritation. "I was just, ah you know…" Misty began to giggle uncomfortably. "Your face…it reminded me of the wanted posters that have been all around the train stations, you know, of that criminal that has been arrested recently, what was her name again…"

J opened her mouth, half expecting either herself or Sabrina to comically slip out of role her and announce her temporary name anyway, but somehow, both of them managed to catch their tongues in time, even if it looked like she had choked on asparagus, in Sabrina's case.

J, though, decided after a moment of strategic thinking to throw all caution out of the window and be as straight as she could be without declaring herself outright stupid and with the fct lingering behind her that she was on a sort of date with another woman. Which she probably still was, but ah, it was better to rush the attack in case one was ambushed instead of delaying the inevitable, right?

"Oh, of course. That's no coincidence, I think. After all, I am that woman, who has been bailed out of prison by her own captor and now, I am attending the gym leader's ball, right in the middle of all of you unsuspecting fools, planning my revenge by stealing and selling all of your Pokemon into cheap Orrean brothels." She took a short sip of champagne, waiting for the impact. "Ridiculous, isn't it?"

There was another pause at the opposite site of the table, before it was broken by a light, girlish giggle. "Of course…ridiculous it is, really. I should have known, sorry for offending you, Jean. You have a great sense of humor, you know?"

"Oh, no, you're overselling me, Misty." J grinned. "Life has a great sense of humor. I am merely the vessel to comment on it occasionally."

She glanced at her side, and this time J was sure she wasn't imagining the cheeky smile on the psychic's face.

J was sure that she wouldn't be able to move, much less dance after the seven course menu that had stuffed her up to the point where she felt like a bowl of granite. She wasn't sure how her acquaintance managed to still practically float through the room, but she seemed much less impaired by the food digestion than nearly everyone else was.

It was, therefore, the greatest idea in the history of league related ideas that Lance decided to open the dance just this moment. As much as members of the league could be false friends, as holey could be their memory, it seemed.

A nervous shuffle went through the hall as everyone scurried off to find their respective dancing partner, with a few hopeless souls attempting to snag a more preferable companion for the first dance as long as their designated escort did not watch. That general confusion was utilized by Sabrina and J to make a dash for it and hide behind the huge marble pillars, for neither had any desire to fulfill the dancing request of the champion, neither with each other nor with any other attendee.

Sadly, their plans were quickly shot down.

"Ah, here you are!" Both Sabrina and J, who had just made themselves comfortable in strangely similar, arm-crossed postures, looked up to see the psychic elite four walking up to them with a wide grin and arms open nearly as wide, as if he wanted to give them the biggest, and deadliest hug of his life. "I was looking for you."

J was very content with just ignoring him for the moment, but that was, given his obnoxious presence, simply not possible. "I was hoping to see you two during the opening dance." He nearly bowed before them, but in the end, it made him just look as if he had a particular bad backache, or, as they were all just coming from the dinner, his point of gravity having shifted forwards gravely.

"We're not going to dance." J answered for the two of them, finding no objection.

Will blinked, momentarily taken back in his enthusiasm, for one could get the impression that he had actually been looking forward to ask either of the young ladies for a dance himself. "You can't!" He exclaimed.

"And why is that so?" J answered dryly.

Will shook his head. "That would be just too sad! "

It needs no mention that neither woman found that to be a satisfying argument, as neither woman's connection to emotions in general was fine enough to detect them as suitable anchors in discussion.

"Too bad…" J grinned, and raised her glass of champagne to him while grinning.

Seconds later, that grin was stolen from her face harshly.

"You know what would be too bad?" Will's voice had changed volumes and intention faster than some of the women around them had changed from their high heels into more dance fitting flat shoes. Yet another blinking sign of alarm was the fact that Sabrina had detached herself from the wall she had been leaning against, and was gazing Will straight in the face with an expression that could only be called "cold, emotionless stare of death".

And yet, unfortunately, he did not fall over trembling with a sudden heart attack.

Will leaned forward and tried to whisper into J's ear, but was interrupted by Sabrina leaning in as well, effectively killing at least the atmosphere, if she wasn't able to kill the intruder himself. Still, the elite four sighed and continued. "It would be too bad if someone found out who you really are and, ah, accidently reveals it to the league champion, no, wouldn't that be just too sad?"

To J's defense, no one could later tell if she had truly poured her glass into his face or if she had been tripped by Sabrina into doing it.

"Asshole!" J cursed, though once she had managed to twist her mouth into the right position to formulate mature words, Will had long since been gone, standing dangerously close to Lance and smirking in their direction from time to time.

"How did he know?" she asked, in truth, no one in particular, but she still got her answer from the nearest possible answering machine.

"He's psychic. He likely knew from the beginning by reading your mind."

J wanted to curse again, but found that she just didn't have the right ensemble of swearwords on hand to truly characterize him. Psychics! Damned psychics and their out-of-the-world mind tricks! Not only did they have to ruin her business, now they had to ruin an evening that had been running perfectly well for her so far! "Why does he want us to dance? Is he some kind of pervert?"

Sabrina shook her head. "I think he has a wicked sense of humor."

"Bloody right he has…" J grumbled, before straightening herself. "So what do we do now?"

Killing him was still an open option, wasn't it? It didn't have to be of supernatural origins, as was at least sure that every living thing that possessed a brain would be stone-dead If said brain was whisked into rosy mush.

Sabrina seemed to shrug, but with her physically resembling a statue, it was hard to tell. "Dance, I would guess."

J sighed. She wasn't spared any kind of embarrassment, now was she?

"Can you dance, at all?"

"No."

No, she really wasn't spared that kind of embarrassment.

She supposed that, in the end, not stepping on each other's feet was an accomplishment, as was not blushing furiously when having to touch the other's body. There must have been a strange attraction to seeing two very stiff and uncomfortable women whose heights did not even match dancing together, otherwise, she really couldn't explain why half of the hall applauded them. There might have been the general attraction that were two women doing anything even remotely resembling erotic action, but she was fairly sure this wasn't the case here, because they weren't . As was the fake, haughty approval of same-sex relationships that all too often only went one direction anyway.

Either way, by the end of the song, she was very glad that it was over, and the rest of the hall should have been thankful that it had gone over them without so much as a single drop of blood being shed and no toes that she knew of being broken. J was very sure that while she was still composing the best way to slaughter the damned chauvy of elite psychic with the knife hidden under the dinner table, her dancing partner was just as much contemplating if she should erase the memories of everyone that had seen even the slightest glance of them dancing together. Before or after making their brains implode, that was.

In one way or another, that was the end of the night for both of them, anyway, as Sabrina didn't want to take any more risks and explained, in the most polite voice she managed that also wasn't an implication of wanting to tear his throat out to Lance, that both of them were indisposed and would leave for home right away. Which was more of a formality than anything, since officially, the ball was over as soon as the last note of the first song had faded away. Everything else was just an uncoordinated mess of getting drunk and trying to score for the night, attended by the more risky folks. Or, alternatively, the ones drunk enough to forego the risks anyway.

J still regretted not shoving a fork down the other psychic's ass as he grinned in their direction during their farewell. It wouldn't matter, though, J resumed, because she had just decided who would be the first victim after her ship had gotten the new supernatural repellent upgrade. Plus, it seemed time for her to finally study the nature of psychic Pokemon in general. Know your enemy, and all that stuff.

All of that only left one thing to do, that was, getting home. And knowing her new acquaintance, that meant getting ready for yet another stomach stirring teleport, right after filling it up right to bursting. Surprisingly, though, she led her outside at first, exposing them once again to the chilly cold of the Indigo mountains.

J had the slightest feeling of what was to come, so she waved it aside before Sabrina had even time to open her mouth. "Don't fret that, it was an okay night, even with that freak ruining it. No need to thank me." After all, if everything, she had to thank the psychic for letting her free despite the less obvious effects it might have had, or still have, on her own career. Not that J really cared. Live and let live, wasn't it? In the end, she wasn't the lonesome freak unable to get a date, was she?

A blink. "Yet I still want to thank you nevertheless. I would have been at a disadvantage if I hadn't been able to bring someone along."

J tried not to make it obvious that she rolled her eyes. She still could have picked up some hobo from the streets, if she had been that desperate and willing to show up at all, couldn't she?

"Okay. Got it. Ah, just…next time, give me a bit more time to prepare, though, huh?" J froze. Wait, had she actually said that? Out loud? Right here? Next time? Who had said anything about a second time?

She herself, apparently.

Apparently, Sabrina had noticed her slip up as well, and managed what J would soon come to dub her Mona-Lisa smile, for there was no other explanation for a smile to look so subtle you were imagining it half the time. "I see. I will make sure of that." And with that, she leaned forward, giving a throughout baffled J a short kiss on the cheek. Immediately afterwards, the villain found herself teleported back onto her ship, hotness and moisture still lingering on her cheek, still in her dinner clothes, which prompted flabbergasted looks and giggles caught stiff in the throats of her henchman.

"One word, and half of you will find themselves fired, and the other half will find themselves fired from the back hatch." That did have its usual effect, for the men apologized hurriedly and scurried of to their respective posts.

J allowed herself to slip into her seat and grin. It was, for once, nice to have things back to normality.