The man seemed pale... introspective... his breathing was increasingly ragged. Were there internal injuries Jethro had missed? He uttered out a warning about needing to escape. The way he worded it implied he himself would not be coming. Before Jethro could reply anything to the man's grim warning, his train of thought was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. THe doctor stood up and hesitantly walked to open. Maybe... maybe this guy was just some hobo in need of a high through some convoluted plan...

He opened the door, and the one on the other side quite literally fell in. The telltale uniform of the shadow division was worn by the man. However, he was anything but treathening. Bruised, battered, and slipping out of conciousness. "Hey... stay with me!" The doctor shouted, dragging the man inside. Had he been a less moral man, he would have just left this second stranger there and called the police. But damn it! he was a doctor, and it was obvious this guy wasn't gonna make it unless he did something.

"When the lights go out... It's time to go" A now somewhat familiar voice choked out behind Jethro. He looked behind him to see the stranger... no... his patient, slipping off his seat. By the time Jethro was there, he could only confirm what was already made apparant by the mournful howl of the houndoom. Jethro did not take pause... there was someone he could still help. He closed his front door and quickly examined the man, and the houndour he found besides the man... Two stab wounds with swollen tissue around them... A poisonous bite of some sort most likely. Again, Jethro went to his medicine closet. This time, he just empied the whole closet into a washing tub he took with him on the way. Searching through his equipment, he found himself lacking in sterile needles... that wouldn't do, especially with a poisoned patient. He slowly turned to the houndoom standing over its still friend. "I need sterile needles to help these guys... the quickest way is to heat them... A.C. can't create the amount of heat needed... I need your help."

Jethro gulped for a moment, Pokemon such as houndoom were generally quite temperamental and unpredictable to people 'outside their own pack'. The black hound came closer... and carefully blew a jet of flame on jethro's syringe... The doctor nodded in thanks. He measured out a dosage of general purpose antidote... For the houndour, and then for the man. He might not know exactly what he was doing to help humans, but pokemon he most definitely knew how to help. The medicine would supress the worst of the poison. It was the best he could do for them until he knew what pokemon the poison originated from.

Then, just as things seemed to finally calm down. There was more knocking on the door. "This is the police! we have reason to believe you are harboring dissidents! Open up! We have a warrant to enter by force if necesarry."

Thoughts rushed through Jethro's head... He could open the door and let the police in... let them deal with the home invader and the poisoned stranger... It was more than possibel for him to play the innocent bystander here... So why was he dragging the poisoned man with him towards the fire escape? "A.C., get the houndour!"

As the porygon latched some of its blocky appendages on the small black dog, Jethro was wrestling open the window. Perhaps it was the dead man's words ringing in his head... "They'll kill you just for talking to me." He had warned him... And with how insane things had been these last few moments, he was inclined to believe this warning.

There was also the mather of condemning another man... He might survive, but the regime wouldn't spare what was likely a member of the resistance... As attractive as it sounded to go back to the daily grind after this experience... Jethro just couldn't bring himself to do such a thing.

A makuhita pushed the door off its hinges. Quickly, a squad of police officers in full combat gear rushed in. Their pokemon spearheading for them. They found only a dead man and an open window leading to a fire escape. "Sweep the area! they can't be far!" the largest man of the lot shouted. Jethro could hear the man shouting from where he was, just jumping off the bottom of the fire escape. The houndoom had followed him and helped him support the poisoned man... Still, there was no way he was outrunning these guys, not with the stranger weighing him down like that... But he had to try. He was not going to leave anyone to their deaths if he could help it.

[@The Grey Dust]