The past returns, but to haunt or heal?
A/N: You must excuse me...As it's 2:39 a.m. as I begin my newest series of TAA Special Editions. What's that...? You think I'm what...? You think I'm crazy...? Is that so...? Why thank you!
An unusually forceful wind rustled the leaves outside of 213 Lotus Lane in Rose Town, Nanka. The bright summer sun was no where to be seen in the clouded sky of the early day. It was sure to rain, but the Hikoboshi children didn't care. The eldest of the three bolted as his younger cousins bounded along behind him. One was so small, a large Pidgey may have had to look down on her, while the other was a bit taller, maturing fast, as all Hikoboshi boys did. A purple Pokemon tumbled about in the air above their heads, laughing and smiling wide as the trio ran from one side of the road to the other, dodging flying Insect Pokemon as they fooled around.
One solemn drop of cold water drizzled down from a darkening cloud and splashed the youngest on the head. She stopped running behind her brother and cousin and looked upward, getting splashed right in her face. She grumbled something a three year old was not supposed to say.
"Hey! Stop!" a voice totally unlike that of her future self cried out, "It's starting to rain!"
"Ah, who cares?" her brother cracked, "Ya' ain't made a' sugar! Ya' not gonna melt!"
"Snot! I'm telling mommy on you!" she scolded, scowling evilly and bounding back to the front porch.
As she started running, a rumble of thunder sounded and a zap of lightning went off in the distance. She tripped over her own two feet, falling face-first to the asphalt. She cursed again (Naughty little girl.) and stood up, brushing the gravel from her skirt, and looked to her knee. Being only three, the hardly even microscopic drizzle of blood on her leg caused her to let out one, long, high-pitched wail of a scream.
"I'm bleeding!" she bawled, collapsing back to the ground, "I'm gonna die!"
"Girls...Sisters...Ugh..." her brother muttered and stormed over to her, "Stand up! You're fine! It's not even bleeding anymore!"
She examined herself a bit longer, then latched onto him, "Thank you, big brother!" she squeezed with all her might, being the strongest three-year-old around.
He shivered and pushed her off, "Cut that out! Grow up!" harsh words now, but she would come to realize he was right.
"Don't push me!" she shoved him back, sending him toppling over backwards.
Their cousin started laughing hysterically at them, "You guys are funny!" he managed to laugh out.
The older of his two cousins glared at him, "Yeah, well, you're not," he fumed as his sister ran back for the house; their mother called for dinner.
As he started getting up, he realized he was stuck, "Eww!" his cousin cried, "Muk sludge! Gross!"
"Well, what do ya' want from me?!" he snapped, "Not my fault Rose is so close to the Bogs!"
"Come on, kids! Inside!" his mother called again and his cousin ran for the door.
"Hey! What about me?!" he spazzed, pulling against the glue-like substance on his shoe, "Gastly! Help me!" his purple Pokemon looked at him worriedly, "Oh...I forgot...You don't have arms..."
A few moments later, it started pouring. Gallons upon gallons of water fell from the sky, drenching the already wet boy with full force. His mother and father, who thought he was washing up with his sister and cousin, didn't know he was stuck out there. He recalled his Gastly and glared over at the bathroom window, a frown forming on his face as his cousin and sister, whom he now was chosing to call evil, sat in the window, making faces and waving at him. He finally resorted to pulling off his shoe, then pulling that out of the slop seperately. He hopped around and replaced his shoe before running for the door. As he turned, he tripped and fell flat on his face. His cousin and his sister started laughing, but when he didn't get up again and just laid there on the ground, they gasped and ran from the bathroom.
"Mommy! Mommy! Something's wrong with Morty!" Evangelina bounced around her mother worriedly.
"Uncle Greg! Uncle Greg! Morty's sick or somethin'!" Eusine slid to a stop outside the den.
"What?!" both parents buzzed in unison, running from either the TV or the kitchen, depending on which one you were refering to.
"Morty fell outside and he's not getting up again!" Eevy shrieked, pointing to the door.
Her parents pushed past her, spinning her around, and she and her cousin ran out the front door, staring worriedly down the driveway as Eevy and Morty's parents bolted down it, splashes flying from their feet as they rolled Morty over and carried him back inside. Eusine and Eevy looked on worriedly as Morty slowly shivered, unconscious, on the couch as his parents dried him off. His eyes were slightly open, but there was no life in them; like an antique doll. He was pale white with a hint of peach and his lips were near sky blue. Not only was he soaked, but he'd taken a good sized smack on the forehead from the spill on the driveway. Tammy called the doctor while Greg scolded Eevy and Eusine for leaving him. Guess he didn't think they felt bad enough already...
*^~^**^~^*
Morty was sitting up in bed, watching the Flying and Bug Pokemon soar/scurry past/under the window. A white bandage was wrapped around his forehead and his mother had purposely done a special load of wash; all his favorite stuff. She'd washed his Ghost Pokemon bed set, his Gengar PJs, his Haunter doll and his favorite outfit. She'd even made a special trip to the store and bought him Gastly Band-Aids. His pale blue eyes wandered about the room and then examined the ceiling tiles a bit more thoroughly than he had the last twelve times he'd looked up. He'd been unable to train his Gastly, unable to get out of bed, unable to feed himself (As far as his mother was concerned.) and unable to play for the past two days, and he hated it.
Mortimer Michael Hikoboshi was an independant boy, as all Hikoboshi were. He wanted nothing more than to get out of his wretched bed and do something, but his parents and the doctor forbid it. He had a bump the size of a Dugtrio burrow on his head (As far as his mother was concerned.) and he dared not touch his bandage; his mother would kill him.
As he laid back down to doze off, his bedroom door creaked open, "B-Big brother?"
"Hey," Morty snapped, "Mom said to stay out."
Eevy didn't back away; even as a little girl, she stood up for herself and didn't hesitate to speak her mind when she had to. She wandered in slowly, her crimson-pink jumper moving with her and her white shirt slightly dirty. Her mother would go off the deep-end; dirt on that white shirt! Her sandles scuffed darker lines in the rug where they pulled the fabric in the wrong direction as she shuffled in. She stopped and held something in both hands behind her back.
"I only wanted to give you something," she looked at the floor, a bright shining line falling from her face as she brought the Poke'Ball around to her front, "I did this for you. Gastly, please come out for me," she released her brother's Pokemon.
"What're you doing with him?! Put him-" Morty cut himself short as Gastly rolled about in midair, spinning around his sister.
"Go ahead, Gastly. Show him what we did," she pointed to a Pidgey standing in the window.
A deep blue-black beam shot from Gastly's forehead and the Pigeon Pokemon went dizzy, tipsily tilting around before toppling off the windowsill, "Was that...Was that Confuse Ray?" Morty's jaw hung down slightly.
"Yeah," Eevy nodded with a slight smile, "I just wanted to say I was sorry, so I helped Gastly learn Confuse Ray for you," she looked back at him, slightly crying, "Do you forgive me now?" she sniffled.
Morty's gaping mouth turned to a delighted smile, "Yeah!" he shouted suddenly, "Thanks, baby sis!"
Eevy's head cocked to the side, "What?" not once before had Morty ever referred to her as anything other than nasty names and Evangelina.
"Thank you, baby sister," he stretched and hugged her shoulders.
Eevy grinned and returned the gratitude-filled embrace somewhat slowly. Gastly floated around above them, happily repeating his name in a montra. Their mother opened the door and they both snapped apart, Morty quickly laying flat and Eevy staring at Gastly. Their mother laughed, just barely audibly, and put an arm around each other them.
"Don't worry," she whispered to them, "We won't tell anyone."
She let go, patted them on top of their heads, and walked out. Morty and Eevy glanced at each other, then grinned wide. Gastly cried out behind them, a huge smile engulfing his face. Eevy waved and skipped out the door, not having the slightest clue something could go dreadfully wrong with her at any given moment.
*^~^**^~^*
Morty and Eevy's father lifted Morty up onto the cold metal table and his doctor removed the bandage from his forehead, "Not even a bruise already," he turned to their mother, "It must not have been any where near as serious as you portrayed it to be, Mrs. Hikoboshi."
"Ahehe..." their mother smirked and reddened nervously, "My apologies, doctor. A frantic mother worried about her son...Sorry."
Eevy was sitting calmly in a hard plastic chair on the side of the room, swinging her legs in front of her when the doctor turned to her, "Well, hello there, little miss. How have you been?"
"OK," she replied simply, extending her arm; she knew what was coming.
"Lemon-lime. I know," he dropped a lolly-pop into her hand, starting to stand, "Evangelina," he looked concerned suddenly, startling their parents, "Mind if I look at your arm?"
"Nope," she unwrapped her lolly, tossed the wrapper, held it in her right hand and extended her left arm.
"Is something wrong?" her father asked urgently.
The doctor offered no reply, "Doctor, is something wrong?" their mother asked quickly.
The doctor stood, looking overly grim for no apparent reason, and then immediately picked Eevy up, "Hey!" Eevy shrieked as she dropped her lolly, "My candy!"
"What are you doing?!" her father snapped.
"This girl's been stung by a Beedril," the doctor put Eevy over his shoulder, "The poison could be spreading as we speak. She could very well have been dead by now. We need to get her an antidote," he hauled her out the door, kicking and screaming.
"Put me down!" she kicked and pounded his back with her fists, "Let me go! Morty! Help me!"
"Eva!" Morty started to stand, but his stunned father shakily put a stop to it, stretching his arm out in front of him, "Evangelina!"
"Morty!" Eevy started crying, a high-pitched shriek of a wail that sent shivers down everyone's spines, "Mommy! Daddy!"
Morty stood, behind his father's arm, staring along the long white hall as the doctor carried Eevy down it. She flailed and wailed and bawled and hit, but it didn't do her any good. When training her brother's Gastly in the backyard, a Beedrill had dive-bombed her. That was when Gastly had learned Confuse Ray; to chase away the oncoming danger. Eevy didn't even think it had gotten her, but it obviously had. She'd been sitting around all day after that, bored because her brother was sick and her cousin was back in Celadon. Being still kept the poison from spreading as fast as it could have. As she squirmed, she could literally feel her energy and ambision draining away, slow but sure. She started getting sleepy and her eyelids started closing. The doctor felt her stop kicking and bounded into the only open room he could get to, carting her with him. He laid her out on a bed, feeling the faintest of pulses and the weakest of heartbeats. She started to turn even paler than Morty had, every bit of color draining from every bit of skin.
"Get me Beedril antidote now!" he pointed to a nurse (Not named Joy.) and looked back to Eevy, "Come on, sweetheart. Wake up," he started pounding on her chest as her heartbeat got fainter and fainter.
Her mother, father and Morty slid to a stop outside, looking in the window only to see Eevy getting whiter and whiter. Her mother collapsed and her father tried desperately to wake her. Morty just stared, right at his sister, his mouth slightly hanging open. Why was his sister so pale? Why wasn't she moving? Could it be...? Could she possibly...? No! Not his sister!
"Evangelina!" he stepped up on the bench beside him and screamed into the glass, "Wake up, Eva! Wake up!" his fist met the glass three or four times before his father caught both his wrists and pulled him away, "Eva! Evangelina! Let me go!" he cried, screaming nearly as shrill as Eevy had, "Eva! Wake up, Eva!" his father pulled him down the hall and into a private waiting room.
"Morty! Stop!" his mother caught his hands and pushed him into a chair, standing over him, "Your sister's sick. Let her...rest."
"I want to see my baby sister!" he cracked, incredibly deep for his age, "Let me see my baby sister!"
"Stop it!" his father thundered, sending him flying back to his seat faster than his monsterous voice could finish echoing, "Sit down and be still, Mortimer!"
"But...What about Eva?" Morty asked worriedly, reaching behind his back and pulling Gastly's Poke'Ball forward to stare at it.
*^~^**^~^*
Eevy was still laying flat on the bed, now with an oxygen mask over her mouth. It nearly covered her entire face, as she was so young. She was still too pale to be immediately recognized, and the antidote was just being administered for a third time when the door slowly opened. The doctor and nurse turned, seeing a shadow in the door.
"Morty," the doctor sounded a bit surprised, "Shouldn't you be in the waiting room with your parents?"
"Please," Morty said in a voice just over a mumble, "I want to see my sister."
The doctor half gasped/half grinned. Was this the Hikoboshi boy, the one everyone said was to be a leader all his life, asking to see the Hikoboshi girl, the one everyone said was to lead the leaders? It was a miracle! Go with it! The doctor stepped away, surprising the nurse by his willingness to step aside. Morty trudged over slowly and looked up at his sister. Her arms were laying at her sides, her entire body a pale whitish-bluish-peach.
"Eva," her brother murmured, "I'm real sorry for staying mad at you. I didn't mean it. I really do love you, baby sis. And I want to be able to finish that game we started with Eusine. We'll beat him, sis, but only if you're helping me. Please, Eva," he started crying, "Wake up. You've just got to be OK."
The nurse cringed and looked away, "Poor boy," she thought, "He doesn't know what's wrong with his baby sister..."
"Morty," the doctor put a hand on his shoulder, "She can't hear you."
"Sh-She can't?" his eyes started flooding and he looked to the floor, "She can't..."
"Yes I can," came the somewhat muffled voice of a little girl, followed by two coughs.
The nurse immediately turned back to them at that. Eevy's eyelids shook slightly and slowly opened, showing chilling shades of blue and green. Her eyes fell to her left, then her whole head tipped toward the doctor and her brother. Morty jumped over and stared her dead in the eyes. The doctor and nurse gaped behind them, staring blankly. She'd woken up, but not for them. For her worried big brother who was upset for being angry with her.
"Why couldn't we have been like that?" the doctor asked the nurse.
"Maybe because you were an snot and you still are," the nurse cracked back.
"Yeah, well, you're still not made of sugar," he snickered as they left the room, "Ow!"
"When I get through with you, you'll need to be your own patient," she fumed.
"Morty?" their mother leaned in the door, "Eva!" she and her father bounded to their side, "My baby."
They both started buzzing around her. But...This was unusual. Eevy didn't seem to care they were even there; she was only looking to Morty.
*^~^**^~^*
Once Eevy's mother and father had successfully been evactuated from the room, Morty stood at the foot of Eevy's bed. He stared at her. Just stood there and...Stared at her. She stared right back for a second before putting on a quizzical look and questioning his problem.
"What?" she asked with her right eyebrow up.
"Nothing," he shrugged, fingering the pure white sheet, "Just...Ya' know...Sorry," the last word was mumbled to the floor as he looked down.
"You're sorry?" she questioned in total disbelief, "Really?"
"Yeah," he kicked the leg of a chair to his side, "I didn't mean to snap at you like that, but it was just...You were being such a baby about it. Sorry, Eva."
Eevy's head fell to the side as her brother's eyes remained downcast, "OK. But I'm sorry too."
He gaped a bit and looked up blankly, "Why?" was all he could manage to cough out.
"For pushing you and for leaving you outside in the rain," she bit her bottom lip, "And for being such a baby."
Morty smirked, "But you are a baby. You're my baby sister," he snickered as she glared at him ever so slightly, "And you always will be."
His sister pondered this momentarily, "OK."
*^~^**^~^*
The next morning, their parents awoke to find, again, no Morty where they'd told him to stay. Upon going out into the hall and questioning the nurse that had been with Eevy, she told him he'd again gone down the hall to his sister's room. Both parents jumped down the hall and slowly opened the door, finding, to their surprise and utter astonishment, that Morty was sprawled at Eevy's feet, snoring away. As was she. They woke him slowly, accidentally waking Eevy. The siblings looked at each other with red faces, but just got pats on the heads and an announcement from the doctor that Eevy could go home.
*^~^**^~^*
"Morty! Eva! Eusine is here!" their mother called from the front room.
"Just a minute!" they both called back.
Their father leaned in the door, figuring the delay in going to meet their cousin was because they were fighting. But, when he looked in on them, the only thing fighting were their Duel Monsters decks, which they were sitting on the floor playing with. He tilted an eyebrow, then shrugged it off, figuring it better not to interfere with such an amazing flow of cooperation between the two. At least, if nothing else, the hostility when Eevy beat Morty's brains out at their game would be toned down a degree or two.
Eusine came bouncing in Morty's bedroom door, "Wow! You two actually aren't fighting! Are you still sick or somethin'?"
"Shut up, Eusine. You're not funny," both Eevy and Morty said in unison, then glanced at each other, grinning.
"That was creepy," Eusine shuttered and jumped up on Morty's bed, "Can I play?"
"No," they said together.
"Why not?"
"Because we said so."
"You're twice as mean now as you were when you used to fight all the time."
"Yep."
"You're twice as weird too."
"Thank you."
Eusine puffed, then frowned, and fell backwards onto his cousin's pillow. He pouted for a few minutes before spotting a cousin at either side of the bed. He looked left at Eevy, then right at Morty, then left, right, left, right, left...His eyes kept moving faster and faster to the point at which he was nearly getting dizzy. He whimpered as his cousins smirked at each other, then gave him an evil smile. He started to sit up, but they both jumped him. He screamed as they started furiously tickling him. Eevy went for his weakness. She wet her fingers and jammed them in his ears. He wailed and kicked so hard all three Hikoboshi went rolling off the bed and onto the floor. They landed right on Eevy and Morty's card game, sending the cards flying around the room as Eusine flailed helplessly. One card in particular flew the farthest, fluttering down to a stop on the windowsill. The Change Of Heart card sat there in the window, a Pidgey gliding slowly overhead and a Weedle wobbling by.
*^~^*End*^~^*
Coming Soon
: Jeweled By Day #2: Diamond WishesA/N: So what'd you think? It's weird and pretty stupid toward the end, but ya' know. Me and stupid...We get along really well. So...I'll shut up now and go and continue my weirdness elsewhere. Brahaha!
*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*
You're trying to tell me I own Pokemon? Heh! Yeah right! I never have, nor will I ever, own Pokemon. Heh, I don't own Duel Monsters, The Change Of Heart Card, or anything in relation to Yu-Gi-Oh! King Of Games! either.