"Smooth Criminal IV- Will You Be There"

A/N: Final piece of my series and a little Christmas surprise to my readers (it IS Christmas already, where I live). Takes place after the Galactic arc.

In a horrifying, ironic way the sudden silence around her was a nice contrast to the distressing hollering of her crew men that had blasted her ears just minutes prior. She supposed she could understand that being located on a sinking ship, in the middle of an inexplicable water tornado created in the middle of a cut-off lake, with everything around you either breaking, exploding, shattering, or a mix of the above, a little bit of panic was appropriate.

Still, Jean Hunter, or Hunter J, as she preferred to have that title engraved on her epitaph, couldn't stand her henchmen acting out of order even when they, she herself and the ship they were standing on were in every sense of the word doomed. It just wouldn't do, panic, that pesky thing. Although, even J couldn't argue against the striking logic that when you were about to die, panic was probably the most natural reaction.

As for herself, she couldn't even fathom the notion of freaking out. It just wasn't within her repertoire of constable reactions. She wasn't capable of losing her mind. It had saved her life many times. And despite all evidence, she couldn't believe that this time, she was actually out of luck.

She didn't even panic when she was hit by stray metal parts, and her cheeks started to feel wet. Neither could she really react when that wetness reached her legs, calves, and her hips. She was then swept away from her feet, staggering against some electronic device that promptly did what it did best, that was, shocking her.

She crashed into the waves that splashed through the ship in a mockery of its nature, and groaned when she found that it was too difficult to even think of reaching up to her feet again. Something dark and heavy came crushing down on her just as she looked up at what she supposed was the ceiling of her ship, and something within her told her that even her ship had nothing against the strength of pressure water could have. And that was when the otherwise so fluid and tranquil substance bashed into her face and almost managed to knock her out.

She spit against it, angry that this simple substance could betray her, when she realized that it was useless. Her little drop of spit wouldn't make much of a difference when her whole face was surrounded by water already. In fact, she found her mouth quickly flooded, and half-gulped, half-hissed at the bracky lake water with it's mushy, foul taste engulfing her tongue. Seconds later, she realized the grave mistake she had made, and this was when the tiniest amount of panic settled into her bones, and she waved her arms around, reaching for a surface that was no longer there.

It didn't take long for her lungs to scream, demanding what usually went into them, but was nowhere to be found in this murky place below all humanity she had been sunk to. Something within J realized that she was done for, and the greater part of her accepted this without much of a fuss, having known that her end would come this way or another, anyway, while a small, persistent and no less annoying part screamed, begged, whimpered for survival. She shushed that part away, knowing it to be a useless notion anyway, and yet, if the abundance of water hadn't contained its own part of irony, she would have cried at that, for she didn't want to die. Who did, she asked herself with snide sarcasm that slowly turned into tranquil fury, as lack of oxygen made her mind fuzzy and soft. Things suddenly took on a more peaceful look, which J recognized as what it was, that was, death by asphyxiation approaching her fast, and while the bigger part of her seemed to look forward to meeting Miya again, ironically, the smaller part of her knew what kind of faulty logic it was, and true to her persona, she supposed that using up what little precious moments she had left to snark at life was good enough as a farewell flip of the figural bird to the world.

She didn't realize she was crying for a death that...never came.

J didn't even notice the light that broke through the blackness around her at first. Light had become a concept so abstract to her in the few minutes spend surrounded by water and darkness that she wouldn't have recognized the phenomenon for what it was, and even less how it was not supposed to occur where she was currently placed.

Neither did the fresh, cold air that blew around her wet body softly make any sense to her, but then, her blue-tinted lips did not make any attempt at taking much needed air in, so she could be excused for not thinking straight at all.

She did hear someone calling out to her, and something touching her face and chest, and before she knew it, reality crashed back to her with the velocity of an incoming train, or else, that of someone breaking her rip bones and fairly well trying to chew off her lips in her imagination.

"What the hell…!" She exclaimed, or at least she thought she did. Thoughts were faster than words, and her mind healed faster than her body, at least in sharpness.

"Thank Arceus, damnit, sister, you scared the hell out of me...not to mention how I crapped my pants when your girlfriend teleported in…"

There were things one was pretty cheerful to be woken up to. And there was her brother.

"Zero, loser, get the hell out of my face!" She was pretty sure she had fully formulated all words this time, and got the message across actually, as the mass of white, unkempt hair and stinky space suits designed without proper pants disappeared out of her field of vision. Making way for a picture she was almost joyful over to see, but similarly confused.

"The freak…" She mumbled, trying to stand up, but finding that her equilibrium organ was not yet online again.

"Be careful. You are still weak." The voice she heard was remarkable serious, and devoid of all underlying tones of playfulness she had come to known with the psychic.

"Okay, got it…" J fell back into the...what was it, actually? She turned her head, almost losing her balance, to realize she was laying on a couch of sickly yellow, in a similar colored room with walls made out of marble. She tried to shake her head, but all that would happen was that her eyes rolled from one side to another, making her feel sick.

"What happened? Where am I?" She asked the obvious, when thinking wasn't automatically the predecessor to vomiting anymore. Not that it would have mattered, with these walls and the floor.

"Your ship got attacked by the lake spirits. You almost drowned."

"Yupp, and your girlfriend here saved you! This is her gym, actually."

"Zero, get out of my face, if you don't want to drown in your own blood!"

She couldn't see him, but she could hear his, actually frightened, giggling. "Got it, sis."

A moment of silence followed, which J would have used to mourn her crew and ship, had she been anyone else. This way, though, she only mourned the incoming headache. And the sudden flutter within her chest.

"You saved me."

"Yes." J finally found her eyes to be focussing well enough to read the psychic's expression. She was just as tired as she was, dripping wet from toe to head, and shaking slightly. Drips of blood ran in light streams over her hands. J did not know that Sabrina had never been forced to teleport into a sinking ship, and doing so had weakened her greatly simply by being the difficult task it proved to be. J didn't know that the gym leader had been hit by debris as well, very well risking her own life down there. She didn't know that a certain lake trio wasn't all that happy about her interference.

All of that didn't matter right now.

"Why did you do this? Why did you save a poor, useless criminal like me?"

Sabrina shifted on her seat. "You know why."

"You lo…"

"The next winter's ball of the league is coming up, and I desperately need someone to accompany me."

End