Author's Note:
… No comments (aside from my profuse apologies, both for the short chapter and the long wait). Here be shout-outs, instead!
Thank you again, calicat197, follow, as well as joycewu333 for the Favorite and especially that second Review. "Raising cities to the ground"? Heh. Sounds rather contradictory, don'cha think? I've fixed that little error, so, again, many thanks.
Disclaimer:
Pokémon and any other referential materials found in this story do not belong to me. They belong to their respective owners and subsidiaries, and I claim no ownership of them.
Of Children, Men, and Monsters
Chapter Eight: Assurance
A filling dinner was ate an hour and a half after the Guardia family's not-so-little talk. Marza eventually asked her parents why they had not punished her for her secrecy, and their response was really quite simple:
"We don't think that you did anything truly wrong. Heck, if the situation were reversed, with us finding Oscura first rather than you, we're fairly certain that we would've attempted to keep her a secret from you, as well."
"… Well, still, I suppose that I must thank you for not punishing me regardless of that fact."
The two waved it off, with Erise saying, "If you really do want a punishment, I think that keeping Oscura occupied, nourished, and hidden from others all simultaneously ought to count as one. Speaking of nourishment, I think that she's asking for food…"
And indeed she was. The Larvitar was gazing up at Marza with a pair of startlingly large puppy eyes, as if begging for attention; or, in this case, sustenance. Marza gasped for three reasons: her forgetfulness that Oscura had apparently been doing quite a lot of running as of late; her additional forgetfulness, as she had not been given food since this morning; and, of course, the raw, unadulterated cuteness that was Oscura, especially at that particular moment.
"Alright, alright! I'll go get your food! No need to knock me unconscious with that face of yours!" Julius and Erise chuckled mildly as she got up end exited the house, and she returned a few moments later, the rocks in her pockets and hands being deposited onto a plastic plate for Oscura to consume.
And consume she did, and with an amount of gusto that bordered on unreal. The raven-haired girl's parents watched on in fascination as the alien tyke tore into her food, clearing several pounds' worth of stones in just over a minute.
"Woah! Oscura must have one wacky digestive system to handle all of that food at such a rapid rate, and to even process that stuff to begin with!" Julius said, voice filled with incredulity. Marza couldn't help but chuckle at this.
"One can only begin to imagine what other kinds of creatures Arceus' world hosts, especially considering the fact that Oscura is apparently quite small." Said Pokémon shifted her gaze from the now-empty plate to the direction of the three humans.
All things considered, Oscura could have quite the scary face when she wanted. The three humans couldn't help but be unexplainably frozen stiff at it.
"Geez, Oscura, I was just kidding! I'm not sure how you're making yourself look so frightening, but please stop!" Marza said, thoroughly unnerved by the Rock Skin Pokémon's glare. Oscura finally let up on her gaze, turning her head away a bit guiltily. Julius and Erise sighed in relief at the release of the inexplicable pressure from Oscura, though Marza did so for an entirely different reason.
"Sorry, Oscura, just… don't do that again, okay?" She nodded, once again guiltily. A second sigh left the lass' mouth. "Well, I think that we're done here. Oscura and I are going to go upstairs and relax." She got up from her seat and deposited her dirtied dishes, as well as Oscura's, into the sink before doing just that.
A few minutes later, Marza was on her bed, Oscura lying next to her, going over on the spelling of various words. "No, no, it's spelled with a T, then an H! There's not an S in there, either!" Marza was beginning to feel a bit frustrated; she know that English was one of the trickiest languages in the world to master, but Oscura was already familiar enough with it enough to understand it! 'Surely, learning its written counterpart shouldn't be too hard as a result!'
… Was what she was thinking as they started, but by this point, she was more than certain that this would be significantly more difficult than she had first thought. Marza let out another sigh. "I think that we'll be stopping here for now. I guess that I should probably start you off with more basic words than the ones you're attempting right now, huh?"
Oscura huffed before letting out a small "Lar…" of agreement. Marza put the letters away in their box before instead retrieving the collection of letters it hosted, laying them out as flat as possible on the bed. Age had not been kind to the thin plastic objects; they were bent awkwardly in some places, and had these smudges on them that remained no matter how much they were cleansed. They were still definitely recognizable as numbers, however, and they thusly remained usable.
"Time for some mathematics next. Figure this equation out first, Oscura…"
Another hour passed, at the end of which Marza put the box itself, as well as its contents, back on the shelf. A solid two minutes of comfortable silence reigned until Marza ended it, wherein she asked of Oscrua: "Want to pick up where we left off on your learning of the computer?" The little Larvitar nodded. 'Not like there's much else to do in this house to begin with…' she thought, a tad despondently.
A tutorial on the differences of the functions of the left and right mouse buttons and the importance of turning the PC off when done with it later, and the two decided to call it a night. Once they snuggled in to sleep, Marza reached over to the night light on her night stand, turning it off. A number of minutes later, and Oscura was sound asleep – or, at least, she would be, were it not for the little grunts and sniffles she was making.
'Hmm…?' The girl flipped the covers off of her and Oscura, and was shocked to find her clinging to her stomach, small tears streaming from her eyes. 'Is she… crying?' She realized the likely cause in mere moments. 'It's probably a nightmare… Probably about her alternate self… Maybe I should've sent her away before explaining my dream to Mom and Dad…' She gently grabbed the Rock Skin Pokémon, letting her nuzzle into her sternum for comfort. Oscura shuddered a few more times before falling still, a content exhale leaving her a second or two afterwards. Marza, too, fell into a peaceful slumber, a smile not too dissimilar to the one now on Oscura's features gracing her face…
Cue music – Xenoblade Chronicles soundtrack – Uneasiness
"Milord Arceus! I bring important news!"
Arceus opened its eyes, a small amount of irritation entering its systems at the interruption of its (hopefully daily) meditation. "Speak, then, Palkia. What might the matter be this time? Has another issue cropped up with Oscura?"
The Spatial Pokémon's brows rose. "… Oscura, Arcues? Who is it that you speak of?"
"Ah, apologies. You see, the egg that we sent to that other dimension thatched into a Larvitar. It – or, rather, she – has since come into contact with a young human girl by the name of Marza. Marza bestowed upon the Larvitar the name "Oscura" the morning they first truly met."
"But, Milord! Are you certain that a human can simply be trusted like that, especially in a circumstance such as this!?"
The creator of the Pokémon World's eyes flashed for a moment in anger. "Fie, Palkia! Must your prejudice of the humans affect your every move involving them!? Those humans from long ago may have sealed me here, but that hardly means that they as a species are all evil, let alone that a child from an alternate dimension is, as well!"
The pink-on-white Pokémon hung his head in shame at his master's declaration. "I suppose not… But that issue is beside my point, at least for the moment. Something is attempting to breach the dimensional barrier of this world."
"Oh? Pray tell what you can make of it," he requested, sounding concerned of this apparent anomaly.
"Like with my sibling's visions, I can only tell so much from the few times I have been able to sense it. What I can discern, however, is that it is a dark and mighty force, especially so on that second point, seeing as how it is capable of crossing dimensions. Something feels… off about it, however." Arceus' brows raised, prompting him to elaborate. "It's almost as if it is attempting to cross into our plane of existence with no real purpose in mind. Even with constant re-enforcements of the barrier from me, I feel as if it would be able to come here with little issue. For all I know, it could've been back in our actual world at this very moment, and yet it has refrained from doing so for some unknown reason."
Arceus hummed in curiosity at this. "I can sense that this entity is intentionally being sluggish in its journey, and making its entry point as small as possible, as if attempting to keep the damage resulting from the dimensional rupture as minimalistic as possible. Mayhaps this being is attempting to lie low and keep itself out of our sights by being as inconspicuous as possible?"
Arceus shook its head at Palkia's guess. "I do not believe that to be the case, my child. If it is so dark of presence, then why would it take this seemingly pointless course of actions? An evil so powerful to be capable of crossing the barriers between the dimensions would likely not feel the need to be conspicuous if it could likely take down anything it could come across, so why…?" Another head shake.
"But, alas, it is as you have said. If you cannot discern much, than I cannot, either. There is nothing to be done at the moment but to continue to monitor it, and I request that you would do so with the utmost amount of caution. No one knows what it is truly capable of or what its intents are, so avoid direct contact if possible."
Palkia bowed, putting an arm over his chest. "Your will shall be done, Milord. If you would allow my leave, I shall resume my watch over this anomaly." A nod from his lord later, and he left to do his master's bidding.
When it was certain that his child had left, the god-like Pokémon resumed its meditation, though its thoughts were now plagued with worry. 'I simply hope that this new situation does not get out of hand, or result in a cataclysm like the earlier one may have…'
