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“Pansear, fury swipes!”
“Rocky, use double team!”
The grass-type Pokémon runs towards the Rockruff, ready to deal some lasting damage with its claws. It raises its paw but only hits air, for what it attacked was only a mirage of the rock-type puppy.
The rock-type’s trainer, an eleven-year old girl with long, wavy pink hair and pale blue eyes smiles to herself. “Great job, Rocky! Now, attack with fire fang!”
As sparks appear inside the puppy’s mouth, quickly transforming into a flame that’s small, but burning bright, the girl’s opponent, a boy not older than her grits his teeth while trying to think of his next move. He runs a hair through his short brown hair as he calls his Pansear, “Vine whip!”
A green vine is flung from the grass monkey to the little dog, as the latter is running towards the grass-type, fangs aflame. Fiery teeth meet grassy fur, only for the Rockruff to be squeezed with admirable might. She tries to toughen the pain out, but the type matchup isn’t in its favor, and she succumbs to the fatigue, but not before its attack leaves her opponent not only significantly weakened, but also burnt.
“You did an amazing job, Rocky”, the girl assures her Pokémon as she calls her to her pokeball, and she totally means it; she wasn’t expecting her dog buddy to do so well in a matchup that seemed doomed from the start. But now it’s time for her to show her true power. She pulls a grey and pink pokeball, her final one, from her schoolbag and holds it close to her forehead. You can do this, just like we trained with dad.
“Martin, come out!”
The ball cracks open and out comes a Spoink, furiously bouncing up and down, looking at the Pansear with a furious look, or at least as furious as a look a Spoink can give. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get to quell his thirst for battle, as the grass-type succumbs to the burn and whites out. Visibly upset, the boy calls its Pokémon back, mumbling something along the lines of “Fine”. His annoyance quickly leaves once he pulls his next and also last pokeball from his coat pocket, a black one with a white skull drawn in the middle of it.
“Duskull, lead us to victory!”
A red gleam appears as the ghost Pokémon materializes, giving out a haunting cry. The pink-haired girl’s confidence momentarily fades as she remembers being told that ghost types can learn some rather scary dark-type moves.
“Spoink, use confusion!”
“Duskull, dark pulse!”
A psychic wave hits the Duskull pretty hard, making it wince, before the latter creates a black pool of nothingness, which engulfs the Spoink as it shudders in fear. She wasn’t expecting this so fast. Whatever, she shouldn’t be upset now, for her Pokémon needs her. Don’t be scared, Martin, you can take it.
Encouraged by his trainer’s mental hype-up, Martin puts on his brave face once again and gets through the devastating attack, beaten but still standing. The young boy, confident that his next move will lead to an easy victory, calls for dark pulse again. However, confused, the ghost-type ends up hurting itself instead of attacking the bouncing Pokémon, infuriating its trainer, who clenches his fists and groans loudly.
“Psybeam!”
A pink ray starts forming from the Spoink’s ball. It gets brighter and wider, ultimately targeting and hitting the Duskull. It falls down, staying on the ground for a few seconds before getting up, dizzy and battered, but eager to win.
For a moment, the girl thinks of using psybeam once again; the ghost-type has been significantly weakened, and it won’t take much for it to be taken down. However, she can sense Martin’s distress, and just like her, the Pokémon is pretty ineffective if he’s upset. Besides, the last thing she wants is to cause harm, even indirectly, to her friend.
“Use hex, Duskull!”
Try to dodge it, Martin.
Ignoring its lingering confusion, Duskull appears behind the Spoink, casting its dubious spell. The psychic-type manages to escape the move’s full effect, but not without getting dealt a decent amount of damage. Since her Pokémon is now not only upset, but weakened, the girl decides to play it safe in the next round, commanding it to use protect. The move is deemed useless, since the Duskull, tired and confused, hits itself once again, losing its trainer the battle.
“Waylon’s Duskull is unable to battle. Our winner is Irene”. The teacher calls as the students in the trainers’ school start picking up their bags and leaving the schoolyard. “Hey, I didn’t say that you’re dismissed… Anyway, class dismissed, have a safe rest of your day, trainers”.
“That was incredible, Martin!” Irene screams as the Spoink hops into her arms and receives a tight hug before returning to his pokeball. Her opponent doesn’t seem exactly happy with the result, or his performance, but still manages to keep calm and offer some reassuring words to his fainted battle partner. Out of genuine care or because he felt like he had to do so, Irene doesn’t know.
“Trainers, won’t you shake hands?”
Oh yeah, that thing. She’d completely forgotten about this, mainly because she doesn’t really like her fellow trainer. She’s pretty sure she’s not the only one; the stuck up boy doesn’t exactly have many friends, and it seems that most of her class just tolerates him instead of constantly gushing over his Pokémon that his parents bring him. He doesn’t seem to feel the same though, and keeps pestering many students, including her. Everyone sees it, he gets told off, but nothing ever really happens. Irene is pretty sure that this has to do with his mother being the head of the police department (and filthy rich), or at least that’s what she got after mentioning the incidents to them.
Whatever, it’s just a handshake, she thinks to herself and mindlessly gives her hand to her opponent. Waylon hesitates for a few moments before giving her his hand too, resulting in an awkward handshake as both reluctantly congratulate each other. The moment they’re allowed to leave, Waylon leaves in the company of two of the few friends he has, while Irene rushes to meet her best friend, Melez, ready to ramble about her newest favorite video game and listen to her friend’s adventures in the Burnt tower with his dad, whenever the two decide to visit the ghost gym leader’s old home.
“Bye Melez, see you tomorrow!”
The little girl waves goodbye to her friend as his mom has her Alakazam teleport them both, presumably to their house in Celadon. She checks the time at her Gear and notices that it’s already 3:30 pm. Her mother (or father, depending who gets done with work earlier) is to pick her up at 4:00, so she starts heading to the Sprout Tower, their meeting point. As she leans against the wooden wall, the Bellsprout cries echoing from the inside of the tower, she hears a familiar voice:
“Hey!”
She looks around and spots her opponent from a few hours ago, his Pansear walking beside him. She doesn’t feel like talking, especially to him, so she just keeps her head down.
“Why aren’t you talking, you freak?”
She remains silent. It’s not like she hasn’t heard this before from him, but the last thing she wants right now is to fight with someone with two remaining brain cells.
“I’m asking you something, fortune teller”
Don’t speak.
The boy starts getting closer, “Can you read my palm or anything? I’ll give you 50 pokedollars!”
Calm down, he’s going to stop, he always does.
Waylon stops talking and for a moment she thinks he’s actually going to stop, when she realizes she couldn’t be more wrong.
“You know, my mother told me that if you had been born fifty years ago, you wouldn’t even be allowed to leave your house, unless you acted normal”
“What did I ever do to you?” She finally snaps, making a huge effort not to cry.
“To everyone, you mean”. He drops the sarcasm, adopting a more threatening tone. “You’re always stealing during matches-“
“No one said it’s against the rules to communicate with my Pokémon, I just don’t have to talk to some of them”
“Here’s with the mind reading again, that’s not normal, haven’t your parents told that? Oh wait, your dad’s one of them too! How do you feel, having a circus clown as a dad-“
“Stop it!”
“Why, did you get hurt or anything? Man, how I wish what my mother was saying was happening now-“
Her clenched fist meets his cheek with force. He’s knocked back by the hit, but not enough to fall down. Except from the visible surprise on his face, Irene thinks that she can see the trace of a tear on his right eye.
“Pansear,” he calls, “Fury swipes”.
The monkey Pokémon looks around confused, seeing no rival to target his move on.
“On her”.
Pansear looks at its trainer with concern, as if it doesn’t want to harm the girl.
“Pan… Sear…?”
“I said attack her! Now!”
Scared, the Pansear reluctantly prepares its claws, quickly jumps, and delivers two hits. One of them misses, but the other manages to scratch the girl’s left cheek, from the middle of her nose all the way down to her chin. Her expression blanks as the boy laughs awkwardly, preparing to command his Pokémon to attack again.
“What are you doing here?”
The boy turns its head to identify the source of the voice that’s laced with fury. He almost comes face to face with Violet City’s gym leader himself, Falkner.
“What did you just tell your Pokémon to do? Come back right now!”
The angry words fall on deaf ears as Waylon runs away, his Pansear desperately trying to follow him. Meanwhile, the girl has knelt down, her hands over her wound.
“Irene? Who was that? What did he do to you?”
“Mr. Falkner… He, he had…”
“His Pokémon attack you, I saw that”
“I hit him first… but he wouldn’t stop calling me a freak…”
“Arceus… are you hurt? Are you bleeding?”
Irene slowly removes her hands from her face, revealing three bleeding scratches.
“Please go to the gym, Janine and the twins are there, she’ll help you with your wound… Who’s picking you up today?”
“Whoever is done first, I don’t know”
“Fine, whoever it is, I’ll talk to them, now please go to the gym”
She nods and starts dragging her feet, her head hanging down in sadness. And the battle had gone so well…
The living room behind the gym hall is cozy and warm, the embers in the fireplace burning. Janine and Falkner’s twins (They must be what, four now? Irene thinks in an attempt to distract herself from the incident) seem engrossed with watching that Growlithe cartoon, Reddy, as their mother is taking care of the girl’s wounds.
“I know it stings, but it has to be done, you don’t want any pesky bacteria to start living there”, Janine says as she applies some iodine on the scratch. Irene tries to smile, without much success. “Falkner told me he saw the boy, was it the son of that cop bit- I mean lady?”
“Yes, it was him, I’m one of his favorite targets it seems”
The gym leader clenches her teeth, sharply exhaling, “I don’t like police officers, most of them just want to harass people and get away with it”.
Realizing that maybe what she just said was too much since the girl is already pretty sad, she tries to divert the conversation “Did you know that Falkner wanted to be a police officer too? He even trained for some time and worked as an investigator”
“Oh, for real?” Irene asks, slightly intrigued.
“Yeah, thankfully he dropped the idea when he himself saw what was happening there… “, she lets out a mild laugh before going on, “Anyway, I think I’ve said a bit much…”
“Don’t worry, mom and dad don’t exactly like them either, in fact I think mom hates them even more than both you and dad”
“I’m not surprised”, Janine concludes as she’s done with treating the wound, “Alright, I think you’re good”
“Will it leave a mark, miss Janine?”
“Trust me sweetie, I’ve had Ariados stings and Crobat bites that went much deeper than these scratches, and they didn’t really persist, so don’t worry”.
I can see it in your mind that you don’t think so, at least it might look cool.
As the poison type leader is done with bandaging, there’s a knock on the door. It opens seconds later as the Violet City gym leader enters the door, his toddler son and daughter running to hug him as he lowers his body to hug and pick them up, smiling at them while attempting to look calm before the person he was talking to appears at the doorstep.
“Will, come in”.
Any hope that Irene had about her mother coming to pick her up vanishes instantly as a mask-wearing man rushes into the house.
“Irene? Are you alright?”
The girl lowers her gaze, refusing to look at her father, “No”
He gets closer to his daughter, his eyes trying to meet hers, “I sensed that something was wrong while on my way home, then Falkner called-” the psychic stops abruptly, his voice strained with concern, “What happened?”. He places two fingers under the girl’s chin, slowly lifting her face up as she still averts her gaze. Within mere seconds he notices the newly obtained scar on her left cheek and side of the mouth.
“Who did this to you?”
He receives no response. Irene still refuses to look him in the eye as she tries to shake her tears off. “Come on, please tell me…” he pauses in order to calm down a bit, “If you’re still upset, you know I can-“
“No dad, you really don’t have to, I’ll tell you everything”.
His daughter’s voice comes off harshly and hoarse, as if she’s holding back some kind of not just anger, but bitterness.
“But please, can we go first?”
After thanking the couple and wishing them a good day, the father and daughter duo step outside, welcomed by the autumn sun and wind. Will commands his Xatu to leave the pokeball, so she can teleport the pair back to their home. The girl wants to protest, but realizes she’s too tired to walk home, so she puts up with the mystic Pokémon taking them back.
As Will opens the door to the living room heated by the inverter, he’s greeted by his partner and her beloved Houndoom.
“Little mochi? Who hurt you?” Karen asks as she runs to her daughter, who hugs her tightly.
Once Irene leaves her mother’s embrace, she starts retelling her story: How she basically got paired up with the brat who bullies everyone, but is worryingly good at battling. How she used her powers to connect with her Spoink and beat him. She notices her father smile upon hearing this particular detail, but deliberately ignores him. How she was just waiting to be picked up after having fun with her friend, but got insulted by her sore loser opponent out of the blue.
“He started telling me all this fortune telling garbage… I wouldn’t have paid attention, but then…”
“Then what?”
“He said that ‘we’ wouldn’t be able to leave the house, if ‘we’ didn’t act normal, like it was many years ago… He called me a cheater, then he said all these bad things about you”, she points at her father, “I hit him”
Karen interrupts her, “Did you two fight?”
“No, that Weedle had his Pansear use fury swipes on me”.
The couple stays silent, processing what they just heard. Karen’s jaw drops as she slowly shakes her head, wrapping the girl in her arms again. Will remains frozen in his seat, trying to put all his emotions into words.
“Irene, sweetie-“
“I don’t want to hear you”
The psychic is taken aback by the scorn in his daughter’s voice as his partner just looks at the girl surprised.
“It’s your fault this happened!”
“You’re not thinking clearly-“
“If you weren’t, you know, like this, this, and so much more, wouldn’t have happened!”
“Irene, don’t talk to your dad like this, he loves you-“
“I hate you”.
The girl storms off to her bedroom, slamming the door, leaving her parents in shock. Will feels a lump rising in his throat and a huge pit opening in his stomach. His eyes well up as he lets out a heavy sigh. He fixates his gaze on the floor, head hanging low in sadness, as his Xatu leaves her pokeball out of the blue to comfort him. She nuzzles him with her beak, only to be ignored as he’s still trying to stomach what he heard a few moments ago.
“She hates me… Even our little one…”
Karen intervenes, “She doesn’t, and you know it well”
“But-“
“Will, she just experienced a hate crime, how do you expect her to be calm?”, Karen lets out a breath she’s been holding, “Look, I’ll talk to her, she needs someone to vent to…”
Will turns his face to the ceiling, as if trying to fight back tears, “I think I have to open up a certain topic”
Karen’s eyes slightly widen, “You mean… your mother?”
“Exactly”.
She exhales softly and sits closer to him, placing her hands around his waist, “It’s high time you did… Anyway, I’m going to talk to our little one, I’ll be back soon, I’m sure she’ll want to listen to you once she’s calm, don’t worry”.
She lays a soft kiss on his lips, gives him an encouraging look, and heads to the bedroom.
“It’s just not fair!”
The pillow on the girl’s bed starts floating out of the blue. Such a sight would frighten someone unexperienced, but Karen knows that her daughter means no harm; this has been happening a lot, and she knows it will keep happening until Irene learns to master her powers. If she chooses to keep going with it, she worriedly thinks to herself.
“Why are people so mean to me? I didn’t even harm anyone! Well, I did read these children’s minds a few times, but they treat everyone so bad, they had it coming!”
Karen manages to hide her laughter after hearing the last sentence, then resumes her serious composure before getting closer, “It’s not your fault, it never was”. She says, putting an arm around the girl.
Calmer, but still frustrated, Irene finally asks the question she wanted answered the most, “Then whose is it? Why do they avoid me, even when I mean no harm?”
The elite takes a deep breath and lets it out quickly as she turns to face her daughter. “You see, as you’ve probably understood yourself, there are people who don’t exactly like anyone being different-“
“Mom, I know that, you’ve told me this before”
“You’re right, but I think I can tell you some more details, now that you’re older”
The girl slightly cocks her head in mild intrigue, “What do you mean?”
“These people feel fear, the feel threatened, and what do you do when you feel you’re in danger?”
“… You try to avoid it, maybe fight...?”
“Exactly. And when such a person has influence over others, they will try and make the others share their fear, feel the threat too”
“Just like Waylon and his mom”
Karen nods her head in agreement, “Correct once again”. She softens up, trying to smile, “You’re a smart one, have we told you that?”
Hearing her mother’s compliment, Irene slightly smiles for a second or two before she returns to her initial state. However, her anger has almost completely subsided and sadness falls upon her face.
“I know you got scared and angry, and rightfully so-“
“I didn’t get scared, he’s a wimp anyway”
“Scared or not, you shouldn’t have talked to your daddy like this” her mother lightly but sternly scolds her.
Irene turns her gaze from her mother to the floor, anger giving its place to a meek whisper, “I… I don’t hate him…” she tries to collect herself, not very successfully, “It’s just…”
“If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t have powers, and you wouldn’t have to worry”
“Exactly”, the girl nods, still looking down, as if feeling intense guilt from admitting her life would be easier this way.
“But you love using your powers, my little mochi”.
Instead of receiving a reply, Karen sees her daughter keep her eyes shut for a few moments, then blink rapidly, “It’s true…”
She holds her daughter in her arms as silence falls.
“Do you want me to leave you alone maybe?”
“Yes… But can I ask you something?”
Karen turns her head as she’s about to leave the room, “What is it?”
“Can you please tell dad to come here in five minutes?”
“Sure thing”.
He knew this was bound to happen.
He knew it was a possibility when he found out he was going to be a father, and when he first held his baby girl in his arms. His suspicions grew when he noticed how quickly she bonded with him, and were confirmed two or three years later, when he noticed that little Irene liked to make things float out of the blue.
He approached the subject with caution at first, but he dropped his careful act when he realized how much his little one loved playing around with her newly found skill. He became her guide, helping her control and evolve her powers as she was growing up. And when she was old enough to catch Pokémon, she expressed interest in catching a psychic type, so they can “mind-talk” together, as she liked to call it. After all, doing this with his Xatu was incredibly fun to her.
So, when the family traveled to Sinnoh to visit Lucian, Shauntal and little Simon, Will took his daughter to the Spoink swarm in route 214, where she caught her beloved ever-hopping buddy. The bouncing Pokémon soon found company in a rock type, a Rockruff caught during a family vacation in Alola. The reasoning behind that was that Irene, much like her mother, adored dog Pokémon, and claimed she couldn’t do without one on her team. How could she not love them, considering that Karen’s Houndoom has loved her since the day she was born?
Being a psychic is not easy, especially in Johto, and he found out the hard way. The frequent breakdowns which often result in things flying around (at best) and the headaches are no easy feat, yet it’s not the worst; despite at least thirty years having passed since he was a child himself, things have not changed, or at least as much as he’d like them to, and the earlier incident proves it.
It’s not like the family hasn’t faced similar situations before. However, the perpetrators were kind enough (he laughs bitterly upon realizing the irony and remembering the toll it took on them) to mainly target the couple instead of their daughter, and when the latter happened it was mainly some mean comments from fellow children. Irene mainly considered them annoying, but she was never affected too much, until this very day.
What Karen had said earlier was right: the attack was basically a hate crime. Dark clouds enter his mind the weight of the incident hits him. He’s scared for his baby girl, even he didn’t experience something like this at that young of an age. And as his fear starts conquering him, what was maybe his darkest thought crawls out of the deepest corner of his mind.
Maybe mother was right all along.
If I had prohibited her from using her powers, this wouldn’t have happened.
He feels disgusted with himself for merely making such a thought. All his life he swore he’d never become like the person who tried so hard to strip him off of his identity. He doesn’t know if he wants to admit it, but, in this regard, Irene is just like him; the joy she feels whenever he has her train with him he can’t describe with words. He’s sure she must have been incredibly excited when she won the battle after connecting with her Spoink buddy, and thinking about how her bully stole that joy away from her…
He momentarily loses control, and the TV starts slightly moving. In fear of trashing the living room, he quickly heads to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water. He takes a few deep breaths after he drinks it, and he feels sort of calmer. He stays seated for a few minutes, scrolling on his Gear, when he hears a familiar voice:
“Will?”
“In the kitchen”.
He turns his head to the door as Karen enters the room, “How did everything go?”
“She’s kind of better, she said she wanted you to go, but in about five minutes or so”
Alright, I’ll wait… Do you think she’s ready to hear about her grandmother?”
“You know this better than me, Will”.
Finally gaining some of his usual confidence, he declares, “It’s time”.
After softly knocking on the door and hearing a faint “come in”, Will sets foot in his daughter’s room. The first thing he notices is that the pillows are scattered all over the place, as well as her pokedolls, a sign of her losing control over her feelings and therefore powers. The only plush doll that hasn’t been flung away is the Natu plush she’s had ever since she was born, a gift from her grandfather. She’s holding it tightly as she still seems to be fighting back her tears.
“Hello, dad” she calls, voice hoarse and weak.
“May I sit beside you?”
“Yes, please”
“How are you feeling?”
“Mom kind of helped, I have to admit it, but I still feel bad”
“I can see why”. He takes a few moments to mentally prepare himself, “I think I have some kind of, let’s say, a story for you that may clear some things out”
Relaxing a little bit, the girl looks at her father, eyes full of intrigue, “What is it?”
“Well… Have I ever talked to you about your late grandmother?”
Irene tries to remember, “Few things… I recall you saying that she wasn’t exactly a good person, especially to you and uncle Lucian… But you never told me why, and I thought it was better not to ask”
“And that’s what I will talk to you about now” he tells her softly. “So, as you know, psychic powers are mostly inherited, from parent to child, in fact”
“Just like you and me, and Melez and his mom… But why didn’t the same happen with Simon?”
“Because it doesn’t happen in all circumstances, plus your cousin can detect auras and talk to ghost Pokémon, like his mom, and it works the same way… But that’s a discussion for another day”. He tries to smile, then goes on, “Who do you think I got my powers from?”
“Grandpa doesn’t have any powers that I know of, so… grandma?”
He nods slowly, “Exactly”. He deeply inhales, preparing himself, then quickly lets out the breath, “She was the one who gave me my gift, but wanted to prevent me from ever using it”
The girl looks at her father confused, “Why?”
“Well… As I’ve told you, we psychics may have it kind of bad today, but it was much worse some decades ago. So, your grandma realized that, if she wanted to live better, and maybe be successful, she had to hide”
Her eyes widen, “I… had no idea…”
“And when she found out how many doors would open for her, she erased that part of hers completely”
“What do you mean?”
“Some years before your uncle was born, she managed to get a really good job, working at the Johto department of Devon Corporation, and she wouldn’t let that go”
“But Mr. Steven is so kind, and his dad is cool too, they wouldn’t do such a thing!”
“It was not that much about getting hired there, Steven’s father wasn’t the kind of person who would fire someone upon this, it was the prestige that came with the job, it wouldn’t be ‘appropriate’ for such a person to hold such an important profession”.
The girl remains in deep thought, pondering the flux of information she just received while hugging and patting her plush.
“So, she couldn’t let others know that a kind of powerful person had such a, as she thought of it, ‘problem’”, her father pulls her back into the real world, trying to hide his unease, “She’d grown to be ashamed of that part of hers, and hating yourself means you can’t easily accept others, especially when they remind you of yourself”
“So, you’re saying….”
“She wanted us, your uncle and I, to do the same as well”
Irene looks at her father, frowning in concern, “Did she forbid you to use your powers?”
He sighs deeply, “Pretty much, she’d either tells us we shouldn’t do it in public, or when she was at her better days, she’d say that we were too good and smart for this”
“Is this why you ran away from home when you got older?”
She can see his eyes getting slightly wet, “Yeah… And then the whole ‘bad guy dad’ story happened and all that, you know all this”, he tries to laugh it off, without being particularly successful, “We didn’t really talk after that, until after I got accepted into the Elite Four”
“Had she been worried about you? How did it go?”
“She was really happy that I had become an elite, until she found out I used my powers, a lot in fact”
“And then you stopped talking?”
“We should have, but no”, he feels a lump rising in his throat, “Long story short, she attempted to isolate me from my friends and your mother, said that they don’t really care for a person like me…”, his voice almost cracks, “So I left and never looked back, until she died, around two years before you were born”.
Her heart heavy with emotion, Irene remains silent for what is roughly a minute, then turns to her dad once again, “Okay, now I know why she wasn’t a good person, and I understand that she wouldn’t like me much if she knew me, but why did you tell me all this?”
This is going to be rough, he knows it, but such things should not be left unsaid. ”To show you what repressing yourself or having someone do this to you can lead to”. He coughs, looking away for a second, then diverts his full attention to his daughter, holding her hand, “I know, I’ve seen it, that you love using your gift, just like I did”
She opens her mouth to protest, then realizes that lying is futile, “Yes, it’s true, I like it a lot”
“How would you feel if you were made to stop using it?”
She doesn’t even have to think for this one, “I’d hate it”
“Just like I did…. Look, I’m not saying things will be easier from now on-“
“I think I found this out today”
“Anyway, as I was saying, it won’t be easy, but whatever happens, I’ll be here, your mother will be here, you’ll see-“
His monologue is cut short as Irene flings herself onto his arms and wraps her own tightly around him. Not a second later, she starts bawling. Tears fall down her face, staining his jacket as he holds her tight. She does cry from time to time, she feels emotions too strongly sometimes anyway. However, she can tell, this time it’s different. As she, not very gently, weeps, it’s not just sadness and anger that fuel her cries; her tears are also those of determination, to never allow herself to become the person that scarred her own family. To keep training, to spite all those who want her hidden.
Upon thinking that, her crying becomes stronger, causing her Spoink to escape its pokeball. The psychic Pokémon attempts to approach her, but hops back the moment Will looks at him in a serious, yet still soft way. Wait a little, she’ll come to you soon. Martin moves over as the girl’s sniffles become less loud and her breathing starts to even out, He’s not playing any attention to this, longing for her, but, although he’s silent, her father’s eyes are wet too, as he carefully pats his little girl’s head.
She eventually stops weeping, eyes dry and throat sore. It’s now Will’s turn to hold her tight as he slightly chokes on his tears. Having stayed embraced for a full minute, the pair now sit opposite each other once again, looking at each other with bleary eyes and smiles on their lips.
“I’m so proud of you, my little one, you and your fighter spirit”
“Fighter?”
“Your thoughts were very, very loud”
“Oh”
“Even your Spoink heard them”.
Irene follows the familiar bouncing sound and her gaze meets Martin, who’s been hopping on one of the fallen pillows, trying to be less noisy, without much success.
“Martin! Com- no”. She doesn’t need words for this.
Come here, Martin.
Following his trainer’s thoughts, Martin happily leaps towards her trainer, bouncing on her side as she looks at him with a big grin on her face.
We’re friends, Martin. I love you.
This is enough for the Pokémon to go and snuggle with his trainer, well as much as he can do that without stopping moving all the time.
“My, will Rocky feel jealous”
Will laughs, partially due to the whole scene he just witnessed, partially due to what he just heard, “Come on Irene, both your Pokémon know you love them equally, no matter the psychic chit-chat with Martin, you and Rocky share another bond, like the one your mom has with her Houndoom”
Her eyes light up, “Really?”
“Absolutely”. Cheered up, he continues clasping his hands together, “So, what do you want to do? You’ve had a pretty difficult day today, do you want to relax?”
She ponders for a few seconds before putting on her most innocent face, “Well, since I’m kind of older now, and since today was, as you said, very hard, can I please play mom’s game?”
“Which one? You mean Fear and Starvation?”
“That one”
His jaw clenches in shock and disgust, “Yeah, I think we should keep you away from this for some more years…” he says, shuddering as the game’s scenes play in his mind.
The girl protests, but not without laughing, “Oh come on!”
Will places his index finger in his chin, rubbing his stubble for a few moments, “Let’s see… How about, when you’re done with your studying, we get your mom to play a game from that guy from Kalos that she hates? You’ll get to play too!”
Her eyes widen in joy, “I finally get to play these? I’ve been waiting for this!”
“So, it’s a plan”.
The night finds the psychic/dark couple laying together on their living room couch, watching some Pokeflix series, but not any kind of series; It’s the TV adaptation of the game they’d played with their daughter roughly two hours ago, Beyond: Two Lives. Normally Karen hates everything this guy from Kalos puts out, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t love seeing Irene’s reactions every time something stupid happens, or even better when the elite herself comments on everything happening on the screen. It’s when she realizes, one again, how similar her daughter’s humor is to hers, and this fills her with joy.
“Why make a series? The game is already basically a playable cutscene anyway”
“For you and I to spend quality time, Master Psychic”.
He gives a playful nudge to his partner, “And to put the kiddo to sleep, I guess”
“You’re right, I wasn’t expecting her to be turned off so easily”
“Pretty sure she just didn’t wanna see the same thing again”.
Karen sighs as she hugs him tighter, “She was so happy after you talked”
Will looks at the ground meekly, “You think so?”
“I know it”, She lays a kiss on his lips, “You’re a great dad, so you know”
“You’re not too bad of a mom either, my diva”
“I really hope so”. Momentarily becoming more serious, Karen goes on, “I have to go to the school tomorrow, the little shit’s parents won’t get away that easily”
“You mean we have, we’re a team, don’t forget that”, he says, kissing her forehead, “We have to look strong, the kid’s mom is in the police”
Karen lets out an abnormally vivacious laugh, “Will, tell me, when were we ever afraid of cops?”
He joins her in laughing as her wraps her into his arms. Having calmed down, she nuzzles his chest, “That cop fuck is gonna get so dragged”
He chuckles, kissing her once again, “You haven’t changed at all, you’re the same twenty-something edgy girl I fell in love with”
“Says the person who’s been the same tricky, quirky teenager for the last twenty years or so”
“But you love this person”
She exhales dramatically, her hands toying with his hair,“How could I not?”
“Ew”.
The couple look for the source of the noise, which proves itself to be no one other but their little girl. Kind of flabbergasted, her father decides to speak up, “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“Oh, so it’s a crime to get thirsty in the middle of the night? I’d say this is closer to a crime-“
“Yeah yeah, whatever you say, boss, now go to bed”
“Yeah, as if I was going to stay here, looking at you doing all this…”
“Good night then, see you tomorrow”
“Good night, I guess”.
As Irene walks away, Karen exhlaes, making her confession, “I love her, but sometimes you just can’t have nice things-“
“I heard that”
“Weren’t you going to bed?”
“Fine… But I’ll be watching you…”
“Not if I do it first!”
Will observes his daughter chuckle and then head to her bedroom, glass of water in hand. He watches her close the door and smiles to himself, knowing that even though days may get dark, the sun will never set.
Never change, little one.