The downpour is freezing, seeping into your worn boots. You and Robin are hunkered down beneath the collapsed section of a narrow bridge. The lights of Saffron City—with its heavy police presence—are barely a mile away.

You watch Robin. She's shivering, but it's not just the cold. She's restless, the guilt of their past actions pressing down on her. That guilt is a liability you can't afford.

"We have to move soon," Robin whispers, her eyes locked on the road. "If we wait until dark, the Saffron guards will assume anyone traveling this late is a suspect."

"And if we move now, soaking wet and exhausted, we'll be too slow to outrun them if we hit a patrol," you counter, your voice flat. "We wait until the patrols shift. You learned what happens when you rush things."

A frantic, weak screeching sound cuts through the rain, coming from a drain pipe near the road. It sounds like a Pokémon, terrified and trapped.

Robin immediately reaches for a Pokéball. "I can't just leave it, especially if it's hurt. We can't keep pretending we're heartless."