After Jenny came back round, she healed her Pokemon and gave both Sonic and Meowth two large baskets brimming with delicious food.
"I know Team Rocket don't always get as much food as they should sometimes, since I've caught enough of them to become aware of these things, so here. Thank you. You can take all of them, even the salamence." The shadows had lifted from her face and she'd neatened her uniform, as if she was about to make a fresh start. "And here, Meowth, the keys to their cell. The bagon shouldn't be able to escape from the net for more than two days, so I'd hurry if I were you."
"Two days?" Meowth repeated incrediously and gaped "We'll never make it in two days, unless we had a fast wind on our side." He looked crestfallen "I knew we wouldn't be able to do this..."
"Chill out, Meowth." Sonic took the cats food basket "I'll get us there before you know it. Go let them out and I'll take care of the food." He dashed away, arriving at the balloon in seconds. The hedgehog carefully placed the food inside before running back and dragging the bagon in their net, who cursed at him and tried to stop him, but he ignored them. Soon, Team Rocket were helping him and they expertly tied the net to their transport before setting up to leave.
"So, how are you getting us there, exactly?" Meowth muttered to Sonic, who had tied an extravagantly long bit of rope around himself and the basket of the hot air balloon.
"I'll run." He replied, checking over the knots.
"Oh, so you know which way it is?" Meowth raised an eyebrow as Sonic froze, before slowly turning to flash a sheepish smile.
"Not exactly." The hedgehog made a thoughtful noise "Can you hold out a flag or something to direct me?" The cat looked ready to protest, but then he smiled.
"That's not a bad idea, Sonic. Alright, we're going up!" Meowth leapt up to the balloon's fire and turned up the heat so that they began to rise, taking the Pokemon with them. Sonic waited until a makeshift flag appeared, pointing him North, and then he ran.
The wind, the quick blur of the places he soared by, processing them seconds later in an absent minded sort of way. It was just him and speed. He'd missed running, he hadn't done it in days, but it felt good. He felt like he could have gone on forever, he knew that he couldn't. He couldn't even go top speed in case he put too much pressure on the hot air balloon, which was the last thing he needed. He needed to get the bagon to Team Rocket's boss, so that Meowth told him his plan to get him out of there and back to Eggman. He couldn't wait to smash that egghead back down to loser ville, if it wasn't too late for him to do it.
"SONIC!" Meowth called and he looked up "LEFT!" Sonic sighed and slowly changed direction to the left. If he was too sudden, he could break the ties to him and the casket, but he needed Meowth. He couldn't lose that cat, even if he was a criminal and a thief. Sonic wasn't used to getting mixed up with genuinely bad people like this. He could do bad things to do good, like defeating salamence and moving the bagon away from the little town so that no one else was hurt, but actual bad things, that you did for the sake of it, or for your own personal gain, he couldn't do that.
Soon it was dark, but Sonic kept running until Meowth called down to him again and they touched ground gently. The bagon were all too tired to fight them and soon fell asleep. Team Rocket ate and laughed heartily together, thinking of the rewards that they would get when they got to their boss's mansion, but soon they got tired too, and brought out their sleeping bags to rest by the fire.
"You should have seen the fight with that Salamence, Jessie, I was fighting with an arbok, just like the one you had once!" Meowth was purring by the crackling flames as the woman stiffened, as if he'd touched a nerve "He knew ice fang, which must have been super effective-"
