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- #21
{16} a little birdhouse in your soul
“You know,” said Casey bitterly, “finding this place would be a lot easier of we knew where it was.”
“I told you,” replied Sheridan. “The building has been vacated since I last entered – the Gym must be somewhere else in the city now. I can’t help you on that count. We’ll have to ask someone in the street where it went.” She looked around, apparently searching for someone who looked enough like a Trainer or an in-the-know native to point them in the appropriate direction.
Instead of finding a useful source of information, though, her eyes lit up almost immediately and she began to walk. The other three, still confused about just what she was going towards, looked around until they found Sheridan’s assumed destination. It didn’t look good for their goal of dealing with Stathis by the end of the day.
“That is not the Gym,” said Grant.
“No, doesn’t look like it…” Casey remarked in utter confusion, listening to the unmistakable squealing of a woman who has just found something absolutely wonderful at a bargain price.
“Did she catch sight of some sort of Shiny?” wondered Caro. “Hey, Sheridan, what’re you doing?” Not bothering to discuss Sheridan’s (or his own) odd behavior with the others, Caro set off at a brisk walk, slipping past members of the current throng in order to find out what Sheridan was actually squealing about. Once he had gotten within arm’s reach of her he tapped her on the shoulder softly. This was considerably easier than it had been; Sheridan had stopped walking and had joined an especially large crowd around some sort of caged Pokémon.
Casey and Grant watched in awe as Sheridan swiveled around and immediately began gushing about something. They couldn’t hear what she was saying over the muttering of the rest of the crowd, but Caro had put his hands on his hips and was now shaking his head in disbelief.
Sheridan then proceeded to… oh dear.
“I think she’s… pleading.” Grant turned to Casey worriedly.
“This won’t end well, will it?”
“Probably not.”
The two descended into conversation.
Meanwhile, amidst the mass of people and after a lengthy discussion of the group’s funding, Sheridan cuddled an Ultra Ball affectionately and practically pranced over to the other side of the corridor of Pokémon stands. Caro followed behind, not wanting to say anything for fear of his head being bitten off. After all business there had been taken care of, Sheridan actually did prance back over to the other two. Caro remained in his spot of walking behind Sheridan, separated a few feet so as not to give off the impression that he actually knew this crazy woman.
“Casey!” she chirped as soon as he was in earshot. “I’ve got some thiiiiings~!”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I can… I can see that, Sheridan. What have you got?”
“Oh, just a few things.” Sheridan was beaming from ear to ear. “Only two. One for you, and one I’ll show you all later!” She held out two Pokéballs, an Ultra Ball and a Great Ball, and handed the latter to Casey. “Consider it a… late expression of gratitude for inviting me on your quest, okay?”
“Um, sure.” All of the other members of the Groupie Galaxy were feeling nervous and embarrassed to varying degrees, ranging from Rotom’s curiosity to find out what’s wrong with Sheridan to the flush of red now spreading across Casey’s face. “So… what’s in it?”
“Well, considering it’s in a Pokéball, I think it might be a Pokémon. Why don’t you just release the thing and find out?” Sheridan placed the Ultra Ball in her jacket pocket and smiled.
“Release it!” said Caro enthusiastically. “Yeah! When someone gives you a Pokémon, you ought to use it! …Usually,” he added on, recalling the Taillow and Sentret that Casey had received at the beginning of his adventure.
“We should go somewhere less crowded,” said Casey. “The Pokémon might freak out if there are too many people around, right?”
“That’s true too,” said Caro. “Should we go to some sort of park? It probably won’t be so busy again for a few hours. Come on!” And without another word he swiveled on his heel (once again, Casey noticed, with perfect balance) and began walking back towards the red-roofed building. It was now Caro’s turn to have someone trail around in his wake.
Grant and Casey shared a confused glance before Sheridan called for them to hurry up.
Casey shrugged at the Great Ball and set off at a run with the last remaining members of the Groupie Galaxy – Rotom and Grant – in hot pursuit. They both weaved through the complaining crowd, squirming into the smallest holes they could find in order to catch up to Sheridan and Caro. And although the concept wasn’t on Casey’s mind at the time, what with the whole plowing through a crowd of people thing, there was a small part of him that did want to know what this new Pokémon was going to be. And though he didn’t linger upon (or indeed consider) the matter, he honestly wanted to see a Pokémon.
For the first time in Casey’s life, he wanted to see a Pokémon. And had Casey somehow been reading this and have realized that he honestly did want to see a Pokémon, he would have shrugged it off, once again for the first time.
There was definitely a shifting of position in Casey Blair’s brain. Watching him through the magical computer screen on the Dea Procol Machina, I realized this, and a satisfied grin spread across my face. Goodness knows why he was sent on this prophetic quest of peril and not, say, some aspiring young man in Kanto, but there was no doubt in the world that it was doing the boy some good.
And when a good queen’s subjects are happy, she’s happy, too.
Whoever came up with the concept of Trainer-and-Pokémon bonding clearly had never met the newest addition to Casey’s team.
It had been agreed upon soon after the small brown Pokémon was released into the open that it had the cutest little scowl ever, but unfortunately that was all Larvitar had going for it. Oh, sure, at first he looked acceptable (if a little rowdy) – no taller than two feet, with about a fourth of that height courtesy of the large spike that stuck up from his head, the new arrival was a small green dinosaur with a tail like a pinecone and two hollow holes on either side of its torso. There was a red diamond-shaped pattern on his stomach, in between the holes (which were now beginning to trickle sand out onto the ground).
“Imported directly from Sinnoh,” said Sheridan with obvious pride in her voice.
“Hmm,” said Casey, fishing out his JAWS from the pack slung over his shoulder. “Let’s see what you do.”
“Larvitar, the Rock Skin Pokémon,” said the JAWS flatly, while Casey blinked. He hadn’t realized that the thing actually talked. “They feed on soil, and must eat their way out of nests underground. After eating, they usually fall asleep.” Information about this particular Larvitar flashed on the JAWS’ screen.
Larvitar coughed and stared up at Casey with small, beady eyes. Before the boy could react, Rotom had zoomed out of Sheridan’s arms and right up into Larvitar’s face, grinning. His mouth was open, ready to be filled with hyperactive greetings.
Instead, it was filled with Larvitar’s fist.
“Mmph!” yelled Rotom, backing away at once and cowering against his owner’s chest. In the same moment Larvitar scowled at his hand, which was now covered with glowing blue plasma, and wiped it off on the grass. Casey closed his arms around the small Ghost-type and fixed a disapproving stare at Larvitar.
“That,” he said firmly, “was uncalled for.”
Larvitar rolled his eyes.
Casey’s glowering slid to Sheridan, whose pleased expression had quickly deteriorated to one of heavy consideration.
Larvitar crossed his stubby arms, now completely free of Rotom’s glowing gunk, and began to speak. “Lar. Larvitar, tar, lar-vi-lar-tarrrrr. Lar, lar, lar-vi-tar!” The small Pokémon continued to ramble – his body movements made it quite apparent that he was trying to lay out ground rules for how he was to be treated and exactly what sort of pain was going to ensue of they weren’t followed.
Caro’s expression got steadily more irritated as Larvitar continued.
Larvitar didn’t seem to notice, but instead went right ahead with his demands until Caro silently excused himself from the group to slam his head against a tree. Brushing the debris out of his hair as he returned, Caro said flatly, “Casey, do you intend to keep this Pokémon safe and comfortable at all times?”
“Yeah.”
“And do you intend to feed it twice a day?”
“Don’t Pokémon not need feeding while they’re in their Pokéballs?”
“Do you also intend to keep Larvitar out of his Pokéball so that he can truly see the rest of the world in full, living color? And to make sure that whenever he is too tired to walk, he will be carried? And see to it that he will not be used more than your other Pokémon just because he’s already out? And ensure that he will be remembered at all times, and never, ever, EVER deposited into the PC?”
There was an extremely uncomfortable silence that ensued.
Caro’s arms were crossed, and Casey realized with some concern that this was the most bemused facial expression that he had ever seen his friend and semi-mentor pull. “You might want to talk it over with him on that.” Caro ignored Larvitar’s irritated protests.
The distinct lack of noise didn’t just surround the Groupie Galaxy – it seemed like the entire park had stopped making noise, people and Pokémon alike. (Well, they were still making noise, but everyone’s brains were too busy trying to analyze what had just gone down to notice.) And then Caro said, “Just thought you’d need to know if you wanted to keep him. And since Larvitar here doesn’t seem to realize that you’ve got no stinking idea what he’s trying to say, I took it upon myself to translate.”
Larvitar looked up at him with a shocked and angry expression. “Lar-lar?!?”
“How did I do that?” he replied, looking downwards. “Oh, you know. I’ve done it all my life, the talking to Pokémon thing. Remember when I said that growing up I was around Pokémon literally all the time?” He looked back up at Casey. “I meant it.”
Grant’s head was the first one to crack under the pressure. “Wait. Wait… so you can talk to them?”
“Of course I can talk to them,” Caro replied with a shrug. “And since nobody else could and I didn’t think Casey was going to oblige to Larvitar’s commands without him knowing what he was doing, I was just trying to save us from any further pain – physical pain, I might add, Larvitar went into detail on that – down the road.”
“You, sir,” said Sheridan, “have some explaining to do.”
“Not now,” replied Caro. “Right now we need to get this Larvitar situated with our ground rules, am I right?”
“No,” said Casey. “You’ve gotta explain first.”
“What’s more important – making sure your Pokémon doesn’t beat you up or playing Let’s Learn About Caro?” he asked. “I’ll get to that part later on, I promise. But right now we need to get some training done, and the only place to do that is in the plentiful amount of forest right over there.” Caro pointed to a large wooden arch, under which seemed to be a path into the forest. “There’s about a million entrances and exits to Holon Forest, and the different areas are blocked off. Good place to spend some time training if you ask me.”
“So what about Stathis?” asked Sheridan.
“He’s got a Rotom, a Poliwag, and a foul-mouthed Honchkrow,” said Caro flatly. “The Gym will be crawling with Electric-types, won’t it? He’ll get squashed.”
“You have a point…” muttered Grant. “…but why are you being so testy about it?”
Caro pointed to Larvitar, who seemed to have recently found a deep hatred for the boy and was now snarling ferociously at him.
“Oh,” said Grant. “I see.”
Larvitar objected. Loudly.
“You were the one who started pushing things on us!” Caro protested back.
“Larvi-vi-tar! Tarlarlar!”
“Wh—what do you mean, I started it by buying you? I didn’t do it!”
“Lar lar,” said Larvitar firmly, crossing is stubby arms.
“What did you say?” Caro hissed back.
Indeed, Larvitar’s attitude and mere presence did seem to make Caro feel a lot worse. Casey wisely decided to simply recall the little thing before a scuffle broke out and somebody lost an eye.
“Your point has been made,” he said to Caro, returning Larvitar’s Pokéball to his backpack. “But you’re gonna have to deal with him later once we get into the forest and wild Pokémon start popping up. Let’s go.” Sheridan, upon recognizing the highly unpleasant edge to his voice, nodded silently and followed. Caro snorted in contempt and started walking, until Grant was left standing alone with The Pipe slung over his shoulder.
“What’s with you all today?” he wondered out loud.
The Pokémon count, contrary to the Groupie Galaxy’s popular belief, had been remarkably low. Sure, there had been plenty of Ratattas and Weedles squirming around (and even the odd Slakoth), but after they passed a certain point all of the Pokémon activity just… stopped. The wildlife all suddenly ceased to exist. Everything went silent. This unsettled the group immensely…
“Where did the Pokémon go?” wondered Sheridan, looking around at the suspicious lack of fauna.
“Beats me,” replied Caro with his hands in his pockets. “But if it keeps that thing in its Pokéball they can stay where they are.”
Casey rolled his eyes. “Can’t you just get along?”
“No.” Caro looked away. “But… the sky is getting dark. Are we just going to camp out in the dark or what?”
“If we don’t get out, we’ll work on that,” said Casey. “Besides, I’m sure we can find some sort of shelter somewhere in this forest… even if it’s just a big tree.”
“Or a cave,” remarked Sheridan with a shrug.
“Or a spontaneously-abandoned campsite,” suggested Caro.
“Or a creepy, dark house,” piped up Grant.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” snorted Sheridan with her hands on her hips. “Where did you come up with something like that?”
“From up there.” Grant pointed with one gloved finger through the trees and to a few window-shaped, faint pinpricks of light. On the spot above them, smoke from a fire chimney billowed up into the moonlit night.
“Point taken,” said Sheridan, amazed.
Casey began walking towards the house, in a very different direction than they had been moving previously. When Sheridan raised her voice to object, he turned back around with eyebrows raised.
“It’s worth a shot, right?” asked Casey. “I mean, whoever lives in the middle of the forest must be used to Trainers losing their bearings and running to their house for a place to sleep the night… just like us.” He turned to face the others – their expressions didn’t show any dislike towards the idea, but nobody was particularly happy about it either. “Come on, you guys. I’m sure it happens to the owner all the time.”
“Well, yeah, but would he take four people?” wondered Grant, swinging his unarmed hand in an arc to reference the quartet.
“Maybe,” Casey replied over his shoulder. “But at least we can say that we tried… besides, who’s the one heading the quest here?”
“You are,” came the grumbled (but unanimous) reply.
Caro banged on a heavy wooden door.
“Coming!” yowled a distinctly female voice from inside, seemingly ignoring the cacophony of Pokémon trying to tell her that someone was on the front steps (but had done so a little too late). A few minutes later, the door creaked open to reveal a woman with long, dark hair that fell into clumps near the tips.
“Can I help you?” she asked, pulling the waist strings on her bathrobe.
“Sorry to bother you so late,” said Casey, “but we got sort of lost in the forest and…”
“Oh, you all are travelling Trainers? Don’t worry; living here I’ve heard the story plenty of times before. Come on in, and do your best not to tread on too many tail feathers.” She chuckled to herself as the door swung open completely to let the group in.
She wasn’t kidding about the tail feathers. Lurking in the rafters was an unnaturally high number of Murkrows, red eyes glinting in the light given off from bare-bulb lamps. These same lamps illuminated the old wooden walls and floor – despite their obvious age and the amount of Pokémon who seemed to inhabit the house, they seemed to be in good condition. “I’m sorry about the dinginess of the place,” the woman continued. “I don’t go for elaborate stuff… and besides, the other residents up there would have it ripped up in an instant.” She pointed upwards.
Casey was the first one to speak. “Thank you,” he said politely, looking around.
“No problem, no problem. The guest rooms are up the stairs and all along the right hallway; let me get into some proper clothing before I do anything else. It’s nearly supper.” Nobody felt like reminding her that it was about seven PM.
There was a general mumbling in the direction of ‘yes’ as the foursome scaled the staircase across the room. There was, indeed, a long hallway at the top, with doors all along both sides. Caro dove for the nearest available room on the right. Sheridan watched him sprint with great amusement before entering the next bedroom, letting Grant and Casey occupy the last two.
They weren’t, noticed Casey, very elaborately decorated – neat, yes, but not heavily furnished. There was just a bed, a set of drawers, and a table lamp on a nightstand to designate the windowed room as anything more than unused storage space. Casey placed his three Pokéballs on the table and turned to Rotom, who had settled himself by snuggling on the bed’s comforter.
“Don’t destroy anything,” he warned.
Casey left the room to the high-pitched affirmative of Rotom.
