He was aware, more so than the others. In spite of the bodilessness of being trapped within the sphere, the pain was still present, somehow: but, in being without a truly physical form, the pain was more of a stimulant than a distraction. It kept him more focused, in this state, than the others were. He was certain that no one knew of this strange paradox - at least, no one who could do anything about it.
The three humans were walking, as they tended to, always walking. He didn't mind them travelling around, really. It made his life much more interesting than before. The only thing that would make it better would have been if he was allowed to walk on his own more, but that, of course, would mean that the pain would become real, tangible, a cruel reminder of how useless and stupid he was. A horrible curse that kept the one person he truly and deeply cared about from ever returning any measure of the feelings he had for her. She couldn't love him in his awkwardness and stupidity… no, that just couldn't be. She wanted better things than him. She loved the others, the ones she had loved long before he had come into her life. They were strong and agile and everything she could want. All he was, was a burden who couldn't do anything right.
It would change. Soon, it would change. He could feel it. Soon, he could finally be all she could ever want. At last, he would be worth her notice, worth the time to realize how important she was to him, and how important to her he could be.
Soon.
He could hear them, if only in mumbles. Their normal voices were muffled by the thick walls of his sphere. He listened to them, especially to her. He wished it was him that she spoke to, not them. He wished she would talk to him, but he doubted that she realized he was able to hear her.
A silence fell among the three humans, a pause between conversations that extended for awhile. Then, suddenly, there was a vague, jerking motion, which meant his sphere had moved violently. Movement was very relative where he was: if he felt it, it was very strong. He heard her squeal, frightened.
Then he heard her shout in terror for the others.
Not the humans, of course. The others - the ones she had loved before him. The ones she had already grown to love long before she knew of him, before he became hers.
Trouble. She was in trouble.
No!
With all of his will, he broke free. The sphere cracked open, just enough for his essence, his energy, whatever he was in the sphere, to escape. He coalesced into a solid form… and the pain hit him full force.
The pain. It was something he could not ever remember being without, a part of him, a curse from the moment he was born and what he feared would be with him, even when he was strong enough to change. Yet, when he stopped being solid, when he was in the sphere, the pain wasn't quite as real: it spread throughout him, diluted, because there was no place to lodge itself. But, when out of the sphere, when free, the pain all collected and condensed and struck right in the same spot, right where he had known it would go, but the shock… he was never quite prepared for the shock of it, returning so suddenly. He looked around dazedly, the pain clouding his vision and his ability to understand.
It was dark, but he was sure it was close to noon. The humans had been talking about lunch, which usually meant it was somewhere around noon. It was dirty, which was very unusual, because she disliked dirty things. It was a path between buildings, an alley, which was even more unusual, because he usually wasn't allowed to appear before other people, and where there were buildings there were people, many people, people she didn't want to know that he existed.
The pain was his curse. Until he could, at last, prove himself, he was hers. He knew that.
She yelled at him, screamed. Her companion wasn't one he recognized, a stranger who was as dirty and dark as the alley around them. He frowned slightly, trying to understand. This wasn't a very trustworthy-looking human. Why was she yelling at him, why was she angry at him? Or was she angry at him this time? Was she yelling at the stranger?
It took a little too much time to realize that it was a little of both. Time taken because of the pain that screwed up his thoughts and scrambled his memory.
The stranger, he realized at last. She was in trouble because of the stranger.
It wasn't another of his kind she wanted the others to deal with this time. It was this stranger, this very disgusting-looking man.
His eyes narrowed, and he spoke a warning. The stranger looked at him, and laughed harshly. He was no threat to a human, obviously, small and awkward and stupid and scramble-headed as he was.
What he needed was to make the pain greater. He was almost strong enough, he could feel it: all he needed was to increase the pain, increase it until it flooded through him, melting into energy. He needed the pain to grow, to take over, one more time. Just once more, and maybe, just maybe, it would be gone. Forever.
But how? How to get the pain, the pain in its one cancerous center, to become strong enough to become strength?
Of course.
He spoke another warning, louder this time. The stranger ignored him. Baring his pathetic little claws, he attacked.
His claws did nothing on the stranger's leg. It ripped a hole in his pant leg, nothing more. But he kept slapping at the stranger's leg. The point wasn't to hurt him, not really: it was to annoy him. He was good at annoying people.
The stranger's patience level was obviously very low. More quickly than he could have hoped, the stranger turned on him, shooting out one leg to catch him in the stomach.
No! No! He gasped for breath. That wasn't where the pain was. He needed the stranger to aim higher. Again he set on the man's pant leg, tearing it to shreds. He started shouting, just to make noise. Finally, the stranger kicked again. He ducked, taking the blow right in the forehead.
The world spun crazily as the pain intensified… but not enough! The girl was yelling at the stranger, urging him to hit him again. Yes, she knew the plan! But the stranger wasn't listening to her. He took out a sphere of his own.
It wasn't that easy! Forcing himself to focus, in spite of the terrible, urgent agony, he threw all the strength he had into tearing that man's pant leg to smithereens. One of his dull little claws somehow penetrated the skin. A trickle of blood appeared. Angrily, the stranger tried to kick him away a third time. The kick was too low; it hit him in the chin. It jarred his head back, increasing the pain, but only slightly. He needed a real blow. He needed something much better aimed.
He looked at the girl. Would she do it? She always threatened to hurt him - but would she? He got closer, lunging for the stranger's other pant leg, which was much closer to her own suspended feet. Could she do it? Would she? Did she realize that he wanted her to kick him as hard as she could, just as she had threatened so many times?
One more kick. It would just take one more kick.
The stranger shouted at him angrily. A fourth time, the human shot out a foot. He jumped backwards, as if to avoid it.
Instead, he was perfecting the aim.
The pain shot all through him, absolute and complete. He felt it streaming all through every cell in his body, liquid agony. Then, the fluid pain seemed to solidify, to coalesce, even as he had coalesced from the sphere, to concentrate into pure energy.
At last, it was time.
The energy burned through him, an icy fire that surged to every part of him. He felt it changing him, warping him into what he truly was meant to be. He felt it melting his awkwardness into power, his clumsiness into agility, his pain…
The pain was still energy, that much he could feel. The same, electrified feeling he received whenever the pain became strong enough to evolve beyond pain was there.
As he felt the icy fire leave him, the energized pain did not.
It would never leave him again.
It would never be pain again.
His curse had become his greatest strength.
The girl gasped out his name… but it wasn't his name anymore, was it? He smiled grimly to himself as he faced the stranger again, now much closer to the stranger's eye level. His smile grew bigger. The stranger, now afraid of him - afraid? Why should he be afraid, now, of what he had laughed at not so long ago? - tried to kick him yet again, but he didn't need a kick this time. This time, he grabbed the foot with his longer fingers, fingers meant both for swimming and grasping, not like his other fingers, not like the fingers that he'd so often pressed to his temples in a feeble attempt to control the pain. No, he didn't need those weak little stumps anymore.
He grabbed the leg aimed for his neck, and he pulled.
The stranger, caught off-balance, slipped backwards, falling heavily on his stomach. The stranger's hands had been holding the girl against the wall; now, as he was lying uselessly on the ground, she fell, too, but only because she'd been held half a foot off the ground.
He stared spitefully down at the weak little stranger lying facedown in the dirty alley. He growled out a warning, his once dumb, shrill voice as changed as he was - now, it, too, contained the energy that had once been pain. Now it was a true voice, a voice that spoke stern commands, not dumb questions. He leaned down to look the stranger in the eyes, and showed the human, right up close, his new claws - not the puny little stubs he'd ripped up his pant legs with, oh, no. Those were gone with his old voice and old body and old pain. Now, with his new strength and energy and power, he had claws that could rip right through the stranger's leg, forget his pants. He wanted the stranger to know. He wanted the stranger to think about it.
The stranger figured it out. The stranger thought about it.
The stranger jumped to his feet and ran as fast as he could.
He breathed a sigh of relief. New power and claws or not, he was still himself. He may now have the claws for taking off legs, but that didn't make him want to.
He just wanted the girl, the only one who mattered, to be safe.
Slowly, his mouth set in a grim line, he turned to look at her, as if for the first time.
*
Misty stared at the blue-skinned figure before her, too shocked by too much happening in too little time.
She'd been lagging behind Ash and Brock. She'd twisted her ankle the day before, and it was bugging her. She hadn't expected to suddenly get tugged into a dark alley and pushed against a wall, her feet suspended in the air. She hadn't planned on some smelly, evil-looking stranger demanding her money and pokéballs.
She kind of realized now that shouting for her human friends would have been a better idea, but instead her first thought was to defending herself with the weapons she had on hand. She shouted for Starmie and Staryu, but, just as it usually was when she really needed them, a certain pain in the neck beat them out of their pokéballs.
It struck her as strange that he kept attacking the mugger's legs, but now she realized that he'd been doing it on purpose. He'd wanted to get hurt. He'd wanted to be kicked in order to…
…to what?
… to evolve?
… or…
… or to save her?
"Psyduck?" she whispered, crouching down more to his new, higher eye level. "You did it for me, didn't you?" she asked softly, tears stinging her eyes. "After all I've done to you, after all I've said… you did it for me." She hiccuped, trying to suppress her tears. "After all I've put you through, you did it for me."
She looked into his eyes - but they weren't his eyes, were they? Their stare was piercing, sullen, strong, not the stupid, silly stare she'd taken for granted, the naïve eyes that she would never see again.
"You did it for me," she whispered again.
He stared at her for awhile, then stepped closer. She was surprised when he wrapped his new, strong arms around her neck, and pressed his head to her chest. Her tears escaped as she hugged him back.
"After all I've done to you," she whispered, "how could you do it for me?"
He merely held her tighter.
"Golduck," he replied.