Chapter Seven
To Bee or Not to Bee

The disoriented bug shook itself, the sound of vicious, unyielding vibrations cutting through the peaceful afternoon air. At Paul's feet, Dusty the Shroomish squeaked in fright and burrowed itself into the safety of a nearby bush. Paul froze, kept as still as possible, trying to quell his haggard breathing.

He had never seen a Beedrill in person before. It was hard to be intimidated by a bunch of messy pixels on a screen on the rare occasion he had allowed one to grace whatever game he was playing. But now, with one only a few feet away from him, he was beginning to have second thoughts. The image of its bright, mustard-yellow and coal black danger stripes had burned itself into his brain. The pair of stingers were poised at the front of its segmented body and Paul could only imagine the pain such appendages could unleash.

"Annabelle…" He hissed. "Annabelle!"

Nothing.

"Shit." He cursed. He wanted to run, but knew the sudden movement would only make the bug angrier. His hands started to shake. "Dammit…"

Then he spied Annabelle's Fletchling still perched on a branch of a nearby tree. It was a longshot but it was his only choice.

"Fletchling! Use… Peck! On that Beedrill!"

Even as he uttered the command, the words sounded wrong. Like an untrained tongue trying to coil itself around the unfamiliar nuances of a new language. The command sounded clumsy, ineffective, and the Fletchling only returned him a confused stare.

"Typical…" he muttered. He should have known. Pokemon didn't make a habit of obeying trainers that weren't their own. But the only Pokemon he had was…

His hand slipped slowly down the pocket until his clammy fingers met the cool metal of the Pokeball. He fished it out, hardly daring to breathe. He clung onto some vague some hope that maybe the Beedrill would fly off or Annabelle would come back in time.

But the Beedrill had risen on its wings again. Its beady eyes narrowed and with a movement almost undetectable on Paul's vision, it struck.

Paul threw his arms up to protect himself from the blow. He felt the stingers tear at his arms, ripping open the bare flesh. It was a pain he had never felt the equivalent of. Thin, white-hot, and searing the flesh long after the impact ended. Something warm and wet dripped down his forearms and his grip loosened on the Pokeball. It slipped from his fingers, fell uselessly to the ground…

…and cracked open.

"Leeeeeey!"

Paul opened his eyes. The Ledyba stood a short distance away, blinking and letting out a deep yawn. The Beedrill darted back, startled by the sound of the opening capsule.

What moves did Ledyba know? Annabelle never did tell him what level the tiny thing had achieved. "Ledyba! Comet Punch!"

But the Ledyba only returned Paul a quizzical stare.

No physical moves of that calibre, it seemed. Maybe a status move?

"Try Supersonic!"

The Ledyba remained still. Paul felt his stomach churn unpleasantly. Not even a status move? But those attacks were learned at such low levels? Surely it wasn't that weak?

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." Paul wanted to run but his legs were rooted to the spot, like someone had nailed his feet to the ground. "Ledyba… Tackle?"

"Baah?"

Nothing. No response. The worthless Pokemon didn't have a single attack. Not even the most basic of moves that a Magikarp could handle. And now he was stuck between a Pokemon that couldn't even defend itself, let alone attack, and a murderous Beedrill that looked intent on spilling even more of his blood.

The Beedrill moved. So quickly that Paul couldn't react, with no hope of shouting another desperate command to the Ledyba at his feet. He couldn't help but feel pathetic. Taken out by something as mundane as a Beedrill? He closed his eyes and waited for it.

"Abigail! Peck!"

He felt the rush of wind lift his sticky hair from his forehead. With a screech and a ruffle of feathers, the Fletchling dove from its branch in the tree and bodily slammed itself into the Beedrill. Both Pokemon were brought to the ground in an alarm of buzzing and squawking. Paul saw Annabelle standing a few feet away. She looked out of breath, but her face was the image of calm and fortitude.

"Drive it off with Quick Attack, Abigail!"

It was over. Just like that, with only two attacks, Annabelle had won. The Fletchling struck the Beedrill again right in the centre of its abdomen, sending it barrelling backwards. Abigail cawed triumphantly as the Beedrill, now barely able to stay airborne, crashed into the undergrowth and disappeared. Paul let out a breath he didn't realise he had been holding. Dusty poked his head out from underneath the bushes.

"Shrooom?"

Annabelle rushed over, Abigail balancing on her shoulders. "Are you guys alright?"

Now that they were out of danger, Paul felt a rush of anger and humiliation. He glanced at the Ledyba which was poking at the lace of his shoes and felt the rage shoulder its way in.

"We're fine. No thanks to this stupid thing here…" Paul aimed a kick at the Ledyba.

He felt pain. Found himself flat on his back on the ground, a sizeable welt forming on his right cheek. Annabelle stood over him, her eyes blazing. "What the hell was that for?" he cried, tasting blood.

"Don't you ever, ever try and kick a Pokemon again!" Annabelle hissed, her words dripping with venom. "I swear to Arceus, you try something like that again and I'll do more damage to you than an entire swarm of Beedrill could even hope to!"

Paul staggered to his feet. "Well if you had given me a Pokemon that actually had, you know, a single move, that might have been helpful! The stupid thing doesn't even know something as easy as Tackle!"

"You absolute moron!" Annabelle retorted. "This isn't like your precious games! Pokemon just don't spontaneously learn attacks! You can't not know something and then suddenly know how to do it five seconds later! It takes time for Pokemon to develop their attacks!"

"Well, that's just perfect, isn't it?! Useless Pokemon, useless stats! Probably from a useless breeder as well!"

Annabelle was trembling all over. "In case you didn't notice, you ungrateful little shit, I was the one who fought off that Beedrill! I'm the one who knows how to control a Pokemon! And if you would take ten minutes to sit down with that Ledyba and maybe make some sort of a bond with him, he might actually surprise you!"

"I didn't sign up for this! No-one told me that Pokemon needed to be pampered and indulged and wrapped up in cotton wool! What other secrets have you kept from me about this?"

"You wanna know a secret? Huh? You wanna know a secret? Here's a secret for you, wise ass. You are the most selfish, ungrateful, arrogant bastard I have ever had the misfortune of meeting!" she grabbed the Ledyba that was nosing around in a patch of earth. "I can't even stand to be around you right now!"

She was gone within moments. Dusty and Abigail followed their trainer, leaving Paul standing in the aftermath of his mistake.

.-.-.

Paul didn't know how long to let her stew for. When his sisters and mother had bad days, they would take to their beds for hours on end and refuse to interact with anyone or anything. Paul remembered one infamous time when he collected an impressive five failing grades at an end of year report and his mother went to bed for a week.

He wasted half an hour by delving through Annabelle's supplies and clumsily bandaging his injured arm. The bandages were slack and the wound reopened every time he moved too quickly but at least it was somewhat protected.

Annabelle still hadn't returned nearly an hour later. He reasoned he couldn't stay, hanging around like a sitting target, for much longer. Perhaps he had been lucky and Annabelle had gotten herself eaten by a Tyranitar or something. The thought amused him until he remembered that Tyranitar were rarely found in the wild, much less on the outskirts of Cherrygrove. He reluctantly shouldered his and Annabelle's bags and started to wander in the vague direction she had gone.

It didn't take him long to find her. She was sat at the water's edge of a tiny pond tucked about ten minutes away. Her feet were dipped into the ripples and Dusty was curled up in her lap. Abigail and the Ledyba were asleep by her side. As Paul approached, he could hear her snuffling.

He paused, uncertain of what he could say to get her attention. But, noticing the crunch of leaves underfoot, Annabelle sniffed one last time, drew her hand across her face and stiffened her stance.

"What?"

"I just came… to see where you'd gotten to." He finished lamely.

"I see."

"I noticed…you're upset…"

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm not upset because of you."

"Then why?"

"The poor Ledyba." Her voice caught and she scrubbed at her face again. "What kind of life will he have with a trainer who'll kick him for absolutely no reason?"

Paul felt a skelf of shame pierce his insides. Yet he found he couldn't say anything – not to defend, nor to justify what he did.

"I can't stand people who abuse Pokemon." Annabelle continued. "Sure, I knew getting you to warm up to something so 'pathetic' wouldn't be an easy job, but I didn't think it would turn into this. I'm really… disappointed in you."

Paul's shame burned.

"And I don't know what to do…" she squeezed Dusty a little too tightly and the Pokemon uttered a noise that sounded like an irate honk. "I have to get my breeder's license back and I need you for that, but… I can't in good conscience let you keep this Pokemon if I think you're going to abuse him."

"What if I promise never to do it again?"

"Then you're lying." Annabelle buried her face into Dusty. "There's always a next time…"

"…then I'm sorry."

His apology surprised both him and Annabelle, who twitched and tightened her grip on Dusty again. "It's not me you should be apologising to."

Paul looked at the sleeping Ledyba. He knelt down by Annabelle, trying to ignore Dusty's steely glare. He couldn't quite bring himself to touch it.

"You know I didn't actually kick it. Right?"

"Doesn't matter. You still meant to."

Paul wanted to argue but found that he couldn't. Annabelle had gone quiet. She kept staring at him, and Paul half-expected her harsh words to start up again. How the hell could you treat a Pokemon like that? Why should I even let you near the Ledyba again? How do you intend to make this up to him? Paul waited, but Annabelle only watched him with a heavy, expectant glare.

The Ledyba seemed much smaller now. Paul could probably have easily fit most of it in just one of his hands. He could feel Annabelle's eyes boring into him. Pick him up, she willed. Go on, just pick him up.

His hands eventually closed around the Ledyba's body and he pulled it haphazardly against his chest. The Pokemon woke, and frightened, began flitting its tiny wings as if trying to escape his clutches. From instinct, Paul gripped tighter and the Pokemon began squeaking and thrashing around.

"Not so tight! Not so tight!" Annabelle cried.

"Okay, okay, don't fuss!" Paul said, still struggling to maintain a grip on the Ledyba.

"Talk to him. Try and calm him down."

"Does it even understand me though?"

"Oh don't be so ridiculous. Of course he does! Try and calm him down. Like how you would soothe a child."

Paul knew Annabelle's advice had been well-intended but it was just as useless as the suggestion to calm it down. Paul had never been one for young children. Too noisy and messy and… sticky for his liking. He only ever tolerated the kids he hung about with because they respected his accomplishments and were easy fodder in card games. And as for babies, he had held a baby a grand total of once – the first of a cousin's rapidly expanding brood – and all it had done was cry, sleep and shit. Paul suspected possibly even at the same time.

"This is ridiculous…" he muttered, under his breath. "Look, calm down, okay?" he directed the instruction at the surroundings rather than the wriggling Pokemon in his lap. "Easy. I'm not gonna hurt you."

He felt the Pokemon still under his hands. Was it actually working? "It's alright." He repeated. "I won't hurt you. Promise."

His voice lacked the warmth he knew good breeders had perfected and poised over years of training. Or perhaps he just didn't have that natural affinity for comfort. Yet the Ledyba had calmed in his arms and even Annabelle was looking at him with different eyes.

"Not bad." She finally said.

"No-one's as surprised as me," he admitted, holding the Ledyba out at arm's length. The Pokemon looked at him with a wide innocent stare. "Uhh… how do I put it back in the Pokeball?"

"Le!" The Pokemon protested.

"What?"

"Le! Le! Le!"

"What the hell does it want?!" Paul hissed at Annabelle.

"Well considering he's been stuck inside a Pokeball for a day and hasn't eaten or had any exercise all that time, your guess is as good as mine."

Paul grumbled to himself. "How do I feed it?"

"There's food pellets in the front pouch of my bag."

Paul half-expected and anticipated the Ledyba to take off the second he put it down to retrieve the food from Annabelle's bag. But it stayed where Paul set it down, wings flitting occasionally and eyes unblinking.

He put the food pellets down and the Ledyba fell upon them. They were gone within seconds.

"Is that normal?"

"He's a baby. Babies eat a lot."

The Ledyba made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a large belch. A snort of laughter escaped Paul and he surprised himself by the strength of his amusement.

"Yeah, they do that too. Be glad it's not the other end."

It was the first time Annabelle had laughed in quite some time. Paul was strangely glad of it.

"With any luck, the food will tire him out, and he'll just go to sleep." Annabelle's voice was grand, the easy authority of a knowledge Paul did not possess. "…he doesn't seem to have been adversely affected by what you did. Luckily for you."

"Meaning?" Paul asked, as the Ledyba clambered onto his knees.

"Meaning, Pokemon are just like people. They have feelings and make memories just like you and I do. I don't know, maybe the little one is still too small to properly understand, but I'm just glad he seems okay. Pokemon who get beaten up or abused can sometimes be irreparably damaged by it. They're no different from people in that respect."

The Ledyba was pawing at the denim of Paul's jeans. He put his hand on the Ledyba's head and stroked it clumsily.

"And if I didn't know better, I'd say he even liked you." Annabelle chuckled. "Which, let's face it, is more than you deserve."

"It is."

There was no hesitation behind the words. Paul sat quietly in the aftermath of them, feeling the gentle rise and fall of the Ledyba's chest. It was strangely hypnotic, the sound of the Pokemon's gentle breathing merging with the breath of the wind.

"So, what's the verdict then?"

"Huh?" Paul snapped back into the present, wondering if there had been some conversation that he had missed.

"That Ledyba. Being a trainer that isn't a gigantic asshat. Reckon you could give it a shot?" Annabelle's voice sounded cautious and hopeful.

Paul thought about it. He felt the weight of the Ledyba in his lap. Every now and again it squeaked in its sleep.

Before he could answer, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He extracted it with some difficulty, finding he was reluctant to disturb the sleeping Ledyba. It was a text from Dest. He groaned, remembering he had forgotten to reply to the last message he had sent.

"Paul," it started. "You are never gonna believe this, dude. I just cleared Ilex Forest, right? Guess what I found in Route 34? A Ditto. A freaking Ditto!"

He didn't need to read any more. Dest had a Ditto. One of the rarest and most useful Pokemon around. It didn't even matter if it was 'flawless' or 'ideal' or any of those stupid buzzwords that got tossed around. It was a Ditto. It was automatically better than anything Paul could even hope to produce, perfect or otherwise. His grip tightened around the phone until he felt his knuckles threaten to burst right from under the skin.

"Paul?" Annabelle was still looking for an answer.

Paul shoved his phone into the bottom of his pocket, wishing he could bury the bubbling anger he felt in the pit of his stomach just as easily. "What?"

"Training the Ledyba? Being a good trainer?" Her voice was easy and light, like she was teasing him. It made him tremble with the effort of keeping his temper. "Reckon you can do it?"

The Ledyba snuffled in its sleep and Paul choked out a single sentence.

"We'll see."


Author's Note

Hi guys!

Sorry for the delay with this one. I've been busy with helping my friend with his Pokemon Go themed fic and bugging him to update so I've not had so much time to devote to this chapter.

That, and I found it quite hard to write. But anyway.

I'm back to work on Wednesday next week so I should hopefully have at least one new chapter for you by then.

Once again, thanks to all of you who read and reviewed - you really make my day.

See you on the next one.