Last edited on: 7th of June 2019


"What the heck is this… Barry?!"

Indeed, Lucas was shocked — not much to stop his heart — at how Barry looked: scratches and abrasions all over his arms, unkempt hair with twigs and leaves riding on it, a dandelion shirt and beige shorts both dust-filled, and his body face-down on the ground. His right arm was sandwiched between his chest and the ground. He looked to be prostrating at a certain angle. To his relief, no profuse bleeding was anywhere to be seen, and his best friend's left fingers were twitching a bit.

Always making trouble! Lucas looked away from Barry and shut his eyes for a moment with disappointment and worry. At least, he's not that beaten up like last time…

Briefly, Lucas remembered his previous excursion with Barry when they ran around Lake Verity in mud and stirred up some mayhem with the pokémon inside, even some passersby. Luck wasn't with them, however, since two enraged adult bird pokémon chased them off and wrecked Barry so bad that he had to get bed rest for around three to five days. Hospitalisation was the next best option, but Barry refused so. Lucas was spared from harm, though.

Proceeding to help his best friend, he first rolled his body around to check if his front wasn't too damaged in any way.

"Don't even think of jump-scaring me, Barry!" Lucas muttered under his breath while struggling to roll his body over. "Always risking your life for this and that. I know you wanna be an policeman, but… you're just this stu—shoot!"

Lucas quickly shot himself up. To his surprise, an unconscious, dirt-ridden chatot was under the embrace of a blissfully grinning Barry's right arm. Lucas' outburst shot Barry's orange eyes wide open and jolted his body up. Now fully hugging the bird pokémon, Barry shook his head left and right to keep himself up.

"Barry, I'm behind you!" Lucas signalled.

"Psh! I knew that!"

Barry turned around to face Lucas whose face was mixed with concern and shock.

"What the heck's going on? Tell me!" Lucas demanded.

"Nah. Nothing bad happened, honest!"

"So you're telling me to chill when you're obviously jacked up and hugging a dead chatot? Huh?" Lucas' eyes widened out of his emotion complex.

"I'm serious; everything's fine and I'm fine!" Barry raised one hand and waved it down to indicate himself as fine. "And Chat's fainted, not dead!"

"Cut this pretending game!"

"Fine! If you want me to make you believe, then here!"

Barry carefully laid the sleeping bird pokémon down from his hug to his side then quickly stood up in front of Lucas. Looking at his best friend straight in the eye, he clapped his hands in front of him with enough strength he could muster.

Lucas, confused and wary of his actions, asked, "What d'you think you're doing, Barry?"

"Watch me!"

Barry took a step backwards and dusted his shorts and shirt of any leafy mess and muck. This surprised Lucas; studying his friend's knees and legs, it was as if only his arms and some facial parts were filled with visible markings of a fight in contrast to his lower extremities.

Reverting his gaze upon Barry, the latter clapped once more and then began performing a pulling-like action whilst walking in place. Another clap resounded, following a shift to the direction of where he pulled from — this time from the ground, manipulating his foot tapping. He clapped louder, and Barry pointed at Lucas with sharpened eyes and both hands' index fingers while raising his knees higher during his stationary walking.

"Don't believe me yet, huh, Lucas? Well?!"

At his last word, he crossed his arms and posed with a condescending posture. As for Lucas, he didn't know whether to be relieved of Barry's safety or to vomit at his cringe-worthy dancing.

That… That was the cringiest dancing I've ever seen in my entire life, Lucas thought when he bit his lower lip.

"So? So?!" Barry demanded.

"Alright, alright! I believe you, Barry. Sheesh…"

Here it is: the perpetual butt-pull that protects him from harm! Or whatever they say.

"Just as I said: I'm fine!" Barry raised his thumbs up and smiled cheekily. "Takes quite some time before what I say gets drilled into your thick skull, sadly."

"You really have the strength to say that after being beaten up by that pokémon you nearly killed."

"I do! And, for the last time, I didn't try to kill Chat! Look," he pointed at the unconscious chatot, "does he look dead to you? Stop overreacting!"

"I said 'nearly', you dolt, and it was a joke!"

Lucas grimaced at what Barry just said. The heck? 'Overreact'? Tell that to yourself, jeez…

"Well, I didn't hear it. You also didn't look like you were joking!"

"Whatever!" Lucas raised his voice then took a deep breath in out of his dwindling patience.

God, even I'm taking in some of his bad habits of yelling and becoming fidgety! Oh man, I'm not sure if it's because I've been playing with him for too long in Verity or something else, Lucas thought.

Surely, he proposed that sticking around Barry and some of his peers partly resulted how he acted right now, habits and attitude. Majority in his view were good and normal in terms of behaviour in his standards, but some were more sporadic in nature to the extent of being 'oddly hyperactive' or extroverted. Barry was one of those 'oddly hyperactive' peers. Regardless, it's been a long time since Lucas fully acknowledged his best friend's possibly unchangeable behaviour, but he still has been worrying that a part of Barry's habits could've diffused into him.

Regaining composure, he sighed and continued, "You're fine, and that's great. Kinda." Lucas rolled his eyes, but in actuality was relieved of Barry's safety.

"Yeah, that's it!" Barry heartily laughed after.

Yup, it's the same, old oblivious Barry who's in top shape. Thank God he's alright, 'cause I don't wanna imagine a Barry-gets-eaten-alive movie sequel to last time! Lucas shuddered at that grotesque image.

"That reminds me, Barry," Lucas started. "Did you already give him or her a nickname?"

"I'm guessing it's a 'he' from how it acted, and yeah, I did. Didn't you hear me a while ago?"

Lucas tried to recall what Barry said but to no avail. He assumed that his emotions drowned him away of any small bits his friend mentioned.

Guess like I was too focused on knowing if he was okay or not…

"Sorry, Barry," Lucas nonchalantly apologised. "I didn't."

"Go clean your ears or some-stuff. Can't believe you didn't catch my words seconds ago. And they call you a future valeh-dick-what-now. Ha ha ha!" Barry brashly joked and laughed.

"Tsk. It's 'valedictorian', and I'll get them cleaned soon if you want it so badly, boss…" Lucas replied with hints of anger.

"Anyways, I named my pokémon 'Chat' 'cause this critter likes to talk a lot, like you! Pretty neat, huh?"

Lucas sighed and brushed off his provoking side-comment. If you think that I talk a lot, then what are you, a machine gun of useless words and 'genius plans'?"

"Ah, so you nicknamed it after how he's originally called too?" Lucas asked.

"How it's originally called? What?"

Are you serious, Barry? Lucas thought and stared at Barry with eyes of disbelief.

"You seriously don't know how this pokémon's kind is generally called by thousands of people?"

"Hey, at least I'm not a boasting smarty-pants like you!"

Oh boy, I should've just answered his question directly. Also, most Sinnoh pokémon should be common knowledge at our age!

Lucas rolled his eyes out of annoyance and answered, "Chatot, Barry. This pokémon's a chatot. This pokémon can repeat what you say, but I think you knew that already."

Didn't he have this god-like memorisation skill like minutes ago? Lucas thought as he pondered about Barry being able to memorise the notice on Lake Verity's entrance sign verbatim. But then again, it does show up if he's really bored or something.

"Woah… So that's what it's called? Then that means, I'm not really original in naming, but who cares?" Barry clenched his hand and pumped it high. "We've got pokémon of our own!"

Barry smiled cheekily as did Lucas.

"Yep! We can finally relate with our schoolmates and friends back home!" Lucas added.

Now I could at least go along with trends and those memes in the internet! Lucas gleefully planned. I hope you're proud of me, Dad!

"Oh yeah. Hey, Barry," Lucas called him out, "I think it's best if you return Chat to your poké ball. Poor guy's done in for the day."

Looking at Barry's chatot, it appeared not to move besides its breathing.

"Shoot! I forgot," Barry immediately rummaged his pockets, "that I didn't capture Chat yet! Thanks for reminding me, Lucas!"

That's his head, alright. He forgot to do the simplest yet most important thing to do." Lucas sighed. It's understandable, in some way though. He did pick a fight with his chatot. Still, it's kinda hard to believe that he forgot about it… I'll ask him about what really happened during their fight later. I have a feeling that he encountered some other pokémon.

He quaked with nervous anticipation, thinking that maybe his chatot and Barry teamed up after coming into terms. Which, in some sense, explained why Barry appeared to be hugging Chat when he found him earlier.

Though, I think 'defend' is the better term than 'hug' in this case.

Moments passed after Barry went through his pockets without any mercy, and Barry finally extracted a shrunken poké ball from his pocket with a disappointed face.

"This sucks, though," Barry commented and pouted.

"Which one?"

"I just lost my other poké ball, dang it!" Barry snapped his fingers. "I think it's somewhere out there in the woods. Hang on a sec, Lucas, I'll go get it."

"Nope! You're not going there yet."

As Barry prepared to return where he previously dashed to, Lucas immediately held one of his scratched arms tightly.

"Yeowch!"

"Woah!" Lucas suddenly released his firm grasp.

Barry snarled. "What the heck, man!"

"Barry, I thought you said everything's fine!"

"Okay, I lied. I'm 99% fine, happy?"

"Yeah, okay. I'm sorry for hurting you, boss…" Lucas sarcastically apologised.

In an attempt to alleviate the pain, Barry blew his arm.

"And why are you stopping me? I'm just gonna get my other poké ball!"

"Don't be stupid by just leaving your pokémon alone, Barry! It might run off. You said you didn't capture it yet."

"Hey, I—" Barry cut his line and paused, taking in what his best friend had just said. He continued, "think you're right."

Lucas mentally cheered. Heck yeah! I just proved him wrong, eat that!

"Fine, you win! I was gonna do it before you said so anyways." Barry furrowed his brows at Lucas.

Liar!

Scooting towards his sleeping pokémon, Barry knelt down and clicked his poké ball, enlarging it. He positioned the button in front of the chatot's head.

"I think it goes something like… this!"

He gingerly pressed the button to the dark head of his pokémon. The poké ball flew open, and Chat dematerialised into a shimmering, red image before being absorbed into Barry's poké ball. Like Lucas' experience, the poké ball didn't wiggle or twitch; it simply clicked.

"Phew!" Barry and Lucas gasped after crossing their fingers.

"Heck YES!" Barry screamed in pure delight and raised his poké ball. Laughing, he voiced out, "I caught a chatot! I'm the best!"

Lucas chuckled at his friend and slowly clapped his hands. "Congrats, Barry!"

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Barry shrunk his poké ball and hid it in his pocket, "I have to execute order 'retrieve my gift'. Later, Lucas!"

Barry impatiently ran towards the area he previously escaped to.

"Hey, don't fight any wild pokémon, you hear me?" Lucas warned and waved him off.

"Hah! You think I would…?" With that, he was gone.

"I definitely think you would, my dear Barry," Lucas jokingly answered, falling on deaf ears.

"And it's just me again now…"

Sighing at his aloneness, he exited the area behind the bushes and walked towards the nearest lake bank.

He quietly watched the clear waters of Lake Verity and spotted a small school of magikarp swimming about aimlessly, which made Lucas chuckle. The afternoon summer sun shone on him when the soft breeze that flew past him complemented the heat from it. The magikarps swimming created some ripples to slush by the banks, creating a faint sound which was harmonious to the soft rustling of the leaves. All this relaxed Lucas as he closed his eyes to savour the moment. Without the loud, incessant bleating from his friend, he could enjoy almost anything he wanted to. This countered the lonesomeness he currently felt.

It was only a matter of days until he would resume school, so he had to live the remaining days of his vacation to the fullest — which included his goal of a silent solitude. His number one plan was to finally make use of his gifted poké balls to gain a new partner for life, hopefully. Yet again, following a series of attack waves from wild pokémon and meeting the very Being of Emotion wasn't under his power. The latter truly shook him in both a good and unnerving way, however. Ultimately, Lucas achieved his goal and smiled at it.

However, he knew that he would die of boredom if he just stood there and waited for his friend.

That was when Lucas decided to pass time by revisiting a certain creature he newly befriended. Anyway, he thought that Barry would most likely take a lifetime to find his lost ball.

I think I should go pay Mes a visit while waiting for Barry. We did promise to meet up once in a while. I gotta apologise for Barry also, ugh…

But of course, Lucas felt that maybe Mesprit might have been enraged from that previous ordeal with Barry. He planned to apologise to her in place of his best friend.

For some reason, I get this nagging feeling not to approach Mes… I think she might be mad because of what Barry did.

Giving it some ponderation, he dismissed the possibility of an enraged Mesprit.

Nah, it's just me; she's a jokester from what I could tell, so she'll be okay with us!

Lucas proceeded to return to the flower bed where he crashed at some time ago. He gazed upon Lake Verity as he walked towards his destination; it was a few metres away from where he last stood after all. Crossing through some bushes, he reached the flower bed area. It showed some signs that someone had been there just now, such as the tall grass adjacent to it being disturbed and some patches of grass that appeared to be sat on. Not that it bothered him in any way.

He took in a deep breath of clean air to cool his head off the hectic day and waited for Mesprit to appear. Afterwards, Lucas planned to sleep earlier than his regular schedule and binge-eat in order to be at his fullest tomorrow. His mother's cooking was simply the best!

Amidst his thoughts, the breeze around him blew a wee stronger, and a familiar voice resounded close by.

"Kyauun…"

This voice cut Lucas' trance and caused his eyes to fly open. He knew whom the voice belonged to and suddenly felt a twinge of joy within him. Scanning left and right, he failed to see any sign of her physical appearance.

"Oh, Mes! What's up?"

"'What's up'?"

"Yeah, 'what's up'! It's kinda like 'how are—"

"You dare greet me, the Being of Emotion, with a 'what's up'?"Just then, her usual giddy voice turned more stiff and stern. The wind also heightened its pace. "Have you no respect towards me, human? Do you take me lightly?"

"H-huh?"

"You forget your place. You should have known better when you set foot into this spot."

This scared Lucas and made his heart race. His sudden twinge of joy did a complete 180° turn. He studied his surroundings out of fright and saw strange waves and distortions seemingly boxing the flower bed area.

Lucas came to conclusion that he was inside some sort of field covered by Mesprit's psychic powers. This looks like Trick Room, but…

"M-Mes? H-hey, quit messing around. Why are you—"

"And you even have the nerve to address me casually. Such impudence!" Lucas swore that she heard her scoff with scorn."Also, use your thoughts when we are communicating!"

"I… that is…"

"Your thoughts. Now."

Yes, Mes—Miss Mesprit!

"How could you? How dare you mock my status? Insolent child…"

Lucas couldn't believe it. Confusion danced around his head; why was she doing this? Has he done anything bad to her? If ever, all he did was unwittingly prank her. Plus, it was her fault for snatching the spicy chocolate away from him. He collected that Mesprit didn't appear to be joking through her tone at all; she was truly serious. Giving it a hard thought, that was when it occurred to him: Barry's stupid act.

"It appears that you finally got it."

Shoot! I forgot she can read my mind too!

"Indeed, I can. There is no escape when you are around me, human," she clarified."Conceal your thoughts, and I will invade your mind. Run away, and I will hunt you down to the ends of the world."

I t-thought that—

"Let me finish, human."

All Lucas could do was gulped in the face of certain doom.

"You, along with your dense friend, have been amassing chaos into my domain through the years till now. Chaos! Do you think that I would just turn a blind eye towards that?"

Please let me explain! It wasn't my fault. It was that stupid—

"Quiet!" The boy froze and was paralysed."I need no explanation for this. Your foolish friend attempted summon me through unmannerly methods. Shouting my name? Holding a hostage in an attempt to draw me out of my dwelling? How foolish! The only way out of this is to feel the wrath of my judgement!"

No! Please! I swear, this is just a huge misunder—

"Enough!"the voice boomed in his mind.

Lucas' pupils dilated, and his feet felt frozen. He finally yielded his arguments to Mesprit's anger. She was definitelyserious about the punishment. He felt his cold sweat tickling every part of his body and his courage slipping away, but he clung to the smallest bits of hope and strength left, although dwindling.

He tried to survey his surroundings for Mesprit, but the fright within him overwhelmed his sense of movement. He deeply wanted Barry to experience the same misfortune, if ever Lucas faced such wrath.

"Give it up. Yield your struggles to me. You will not find me. It is useless."

He wanted to cry and bawl out his feelings. Then he remembered that that was what weak people do: succumb to their defeat. Even at his young age, he chose not to fall for his defeat; he had already grown out of his pants!

Mesprit harrumphed. "Earlier you stated that you were not afraid of me. But from what I can tell, you feel otherwise."

Lucas mind was completely blank besides Mesprit's sharp rebuke. One thing for sure was that he was listening to her attentively, while grasping the last bits of his fortitude.

"Very good. You are giving your undivided attention to me — something your friend lacks, but I digress,"Mesprit commented.

"Now, as part of my judgement, I require you to answer me truthfully, human. If I catch you lying or adding unnecessary comments to your words, I shall see a punishment that fits you well. Am I clear, human?"

Yes, Miss Mesprit, Lucas replied with enough bravery he could gather.

He knew that in spite of the choking stress around his neck and the face of doom in arm's reach, a strong person mustn't show any signs of weaknesses. This was something he picked up from his parents and video games.

"Excellent. Onto my question:

Are you still afraid of me?

I am giving you a minute and a half to think. If you are brave enough to answer before your time is up, then be my guest. I will not judge your thoughts and ideas during that time span,"the voice stated.

In an instant, Lucas was strangely released from his momentary paralysis and landed on the ground on his knees and hands. He quickly shot back up and dusted his hands.

There. At least I could think straight now… Wait, what am I relaxing for? I'm on a dang trial! Crud-crud-crud-crud…! Lucas shrugged and slapped his cheeks lightly.

Okay, chill Lucas. Chill… He puffed out some air to relieve his tension momentarily. Now think this over well…

Though saying a straight-up 'yes' seemed to be the wisest thing to do, he would be labelled as a coward for completely taking back his words. On the other hand, answering with a 'no' meant that Lucas would be caught in the act of lying. Groaning in fear, he cursed the dilemma he was put in.

The only courses of actions he could take was either to lie and then get punished, or to answer truthfully but then be labelled as a coward and be stuck with the guilt and shame for taking his words back from a legendary pokémon.

No-no-no-no-no-no-no… Not calming at all! Argh! He grabbed his hair with both hands and knelt down, entertaining the idea of defeat.

So if I choose either 'yes' or 'no', I'll lose by being a life-long coward or through Miss Mesprit's punishment?

"Grah!" the boy angrily groaned.

This sucks! This sucks! This stupid 'test' sucks!

He hammered the ground with his fist while cursing at the 'test' he was faced with. And that was when it pinged in him.

T-'test'? Test, test, test, test… Lucas repeatedly mumbled those words in his mind.

Test, test, test, test…

Test…?

Test!

Lucas immediately shoot up in revelation to his idea. "Ah! That's it!"

I think… it might just be the answer!

Lucas now realised that the question could just be a test from Mesprit — another test, he assumed. He also thought that maybe this 'test' was to show that there could be another way to answer her question! It was a long shot, but what other choices did he have? Also, time was his enemy now. Whether or not the 'yes-or-no' choice was a just bait to mislead him, Lucas didn't have enough time to ascertain it.

So she thinks she can just joke around and push me around like that? Well, watch out, Mes! Lucas mentally gloated.

"Your time is up!"Mesprit's voice bellowed within Lucas. "Judging by your look, it appears that you have finally come up with your answer — a solid one if I were to comment."

Lucas could only do so much to keep a straight face amidst his ever-growing fright. This time, however, he was determined.

"I am done waiting. Answer my question, human."

Inhaling a deep breath first, he readied himself to answer. Facing towards the centre of the lake through the distorted barrier, he answered,

"Mesprit…

This is just one, big, stupid baloney of a test."

Until this point, Lucas maintained his determination. "Right?" Lucas shamefully replied and weakly chuckled.

Despite his best attempt to act cool and collected, he failed to do so at his last word. He cheekily smiled and scratched his head out of embarrassment. Deep inside, however, he accepted the fact that he was — for lack of a better word — fucked.

CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-CRUD-I'M-SCREWED-THAT-WASN'T-SUPPOSED-TO-HAPPEN-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!

Lucas was now sweating bullets that could fill up an entire dam in various countries.

A tense, solemn silence swept past the boy for a few seconds before Mesprit decided to speak up.

"Is that your answer, human?"Her voice asked, neither faltering nor changing in tone since a while ago.

With fear fully enveloping the boy, he could only do as much as stutter. "I-I-I mean t-t-t-that I t-t-t-think—"

"Is. That. Your. Answer?"

"Y-yes, i-it's my—"

"Thoughts, human."

Y-yes…

"Answer me firmly!"

Lucas shut his eyes. YES! Okay?! That's my answer, jeez… Go ahead and punish me already… he yelled in his mind.

"No."

Opening his eyes, he looked to the centre of lake through the psychic barrier with a befuddled face. Wait, wha—

"When I saw your determined face, I decided to be more lenient in my anger. But this?"

Uh oh.

"Yes, 'uh oh'. I was really expecting a solid answer from a determined human. But this is just asinine and disrespectful."

Um, a-su-nine, Miss Mesprit?

"Very, very stupid, like what you did."

Lucas gulped loudly and wiped his forehead of sweat. His palms were now open taps. I'm… sorry, Miss Mesprit?

"You think you could escape my wrath with just a simple 'sorry'? Do you really think it's that easy?"

Her composed voice only made things more awkward and scarier for Lucas. So, he just completely zipped his mouth.

"My, my. How completely wrong you are, you know?"

His tears started welling up in his eyes, but he used his remaining strength to fight them back and sat on the ground on his buttocks. He desperately looked around for the origin of the voice, to no avail. If one were to see Lucas' current disposition, they would immediately dismiss him as an insane person.

Where… Where is she?! WHERE?

The voice seemed to ignore Lucas' rapacious actions and pressed on."I did say that I would punish you, but I figured that this form of disrespect deserves something worse — worse than at least sending you back home, or giving a sermon for a few minutes, or even make you water all the berries around here, and I am giving you a detailed, marked map and a watering can for that."

Aw shoot! I just had to push my luck! No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-NO!

"NO!" Lucas suddenly shouted. "B-but, I r-refuse!" he retorted with stutters.

"Saying no in the face of sure defeat? Such pride and bravery. Commendable, really, but that will not change anything."

"I-I… I'm… s-s-suh-s-sorry—y… Muh… M-Miss M-M-Mespri—it…"

Lucas was about to break down from the pressure and tense atmosphere. His eyes were evidently on the verge of blasting its tears, and with just a single flick, the whole landmass of Lake Verity would be submerged.

"Unfortunately, for such disrespectful act,"the wind unnaturally froze around him,

"I shall have to take your memories and emotions away."