Chapter 10 is there! Yay! Being cut off from the computer because of my laptop that died, I rediscovered the amazing power of a pencil, an eraser and sheets of paper. It took me more efforts, but here come the tenth chapter. 10 is an important number, but I'm sure I will be able to reach 20 with ease. Chapter 11 is nearly done as I post this, so I'm on a roll (I'm sure I said that before, but I say it again). Special thanks to Tyler for proofreading and Kirby for being the reviewer of the year. Anyway… here comes my favorite section, response to my faithful reviews. I have so much fun writing them each time.
Foxyjosh: I will tell you what Mr. Libovsky has planned. It's—(The following content have censured because it contains spoilers. Thanks for your understanding.)…and that's everything that will happen to Mr. Libovsky. Other than that, have fun reading chapter 10.
Kirby: Scchh… Oak being Rick's father was supposed to be a secret. Here comes my revenge: Kirby here is Jen's future husband and they will have a daughter named Terra! Ok, enough jokes (though the latter was technically true). About chapter 9 being "deus ex", you are the best placed here to know how Jen thinks, so it shouldn't really be a surprise to you that she reached that kind of conclusion. As for your other review, it was… err… unique. I thought about it, and decided against putting Kagai in as an eevee to please you. We already have Sunny, so another happy-go-lucky creature isn't needed. Anyway, Kagai being Kagai, she wouldn't have the same impact as an eevee, and you know it. So… (stick tongue)
PS: "I" am going out with Darky, so we are even about being with our favorite pokemon. And yes, people here probably understand nothing to our allusions, but that's what makes it funny. (evil laugh)
Tyler: I think you summed up quickly what I think about my characters. (thumbs up) About Jen and Rick/Sparktail sticking together, you should be happy to know that they will probably spent most of the story together. But since I am crazy like Kirby, I may turn around and do something stupid. Be afraid, be very afraid… (more evil laugh) By the way, thanks again for the proofreading.
This concludes my review response, so happy New Year and happy reading and happy "a lot of happy things". DPL out!
Chapter 10: Troubling Sparks
"Can you tell me where your home is?" Jen said, laying a map on the tent's floor. It had taken her some time to get over the surprise of discovering that her pikachu was formerly human. Her suspicions were based on old legends, but there was a huge difference between a believing a legend and actually seeing it. She had seen some strange things in her life, which included one or two events she would never tell anyone about, but this would never cease to amaze her. A human turned pokemon! It opened a whole new world of possibilities, and almost as many questions. There was so much that she wanted to ask him, but, unfortunately, she wouldn't get that much by only asking yes/no questions. His range of communication methods was, unfortunately, too limited for something more efficient. Also, there were more important things to take care of. This former human, whoever he was, had fallen under a curse of some kind (she wouldn't try to guess what it was exactly, as it was unlikely there was a reverse curse), and he was probably missing. She couldn't just keep him as her pokemon. It would be like some kind of kidnapping. Morally, the best she could do was to try to find out where he lived and take him there. Maybe he would end up as a pet, but at least, he would be at home, with his family, assuming he had one to start with.
From the rodent's point of view, showing her where his home was wouldn't help him in getting his humanity back. His plan was working too well to give up now. Instead of pointing toward his hometown, he would point toward Bill's lab, so Jen would lead him there thinking it was his home. Once there, he would get into the lab somehow and turn himself back into a human. Once human, he would invite Jen to that place where humans go to eat food when they didn't want to make it themselves and give her some to thank her for helping him. Then, he would shock… err… punch Bill for being mean with him. As simple as this plan was, there were many flaws that Rick had failed to see. Not only was there no way to get into the lab without a magnetic card he no longer possessed, but there was also no way that the machine would allow his transformation back into a human in its current state. After all, where would it get all the mass needed to build a new human body? Not from his tiny pikachu body, that's for sure. Maybe there would be a replacement solution in a couple of months, with some efforts from Bill, but right now, it was impossible.
Technical problems aside, there was something even more important that he hadn't thought about. It became obvious as Jen set the map on the ground for him to check it. He looked at it, squinted his eyes to understand it, but, alas, there was no way for him to read the names of the towns on the map. Like with the computer, they looked like unknown symbols to him, though, this time, he didn't even recognize them as being letters. To him, they were only part of the drawing on the map. It was a pretty drawing, though. Somewhat colorless and complex-looking, but pretty nonetheless. It was this prettiness he was staring at instead of the towns while in his confused state. He could have gotten angry at the fact he wasn't able to read, but he already knew that. If anything, he could have shocked himself for forgetting about what the letters meant, but staring at the map was funnier and it kept the frustration away from his mind.
He wasn't the only one who was enjoying staring at the map. The small fiery fox was looking at it too, enjoying the sight. She had never seen something like this before. It was big like a sleeping ground, but it was too thin to be comfortable. It had some kind of pattern with many colors on it. Most of it was like leaves, but some was like ground, and there was a lot of the sky in the middle and around it. Seeing that mysterious thing had been just what she needed to remove any remaining bad feelings about what had happened. Scared at first by how mean Sparktail had been when he hurt their human and confused by the things he had said, she now felt sad when she saw how her human only wanted to play this "ask pokemon a lot of things" game with Sparktail. She would have liked to have played that game too, but her human wouldn't let her, or even pay attention to her. It made her so sad that she ate all the berries that were left on the ground instead. The berries tasted good, but this new game with the strange sleeping floor seemed even better. Since Sparktail had pointed at a lot of places on the colorful floor, she put her paw on one of those spots randomly, glancing curiously at the pikachu. "There?"
Thrown out of his daydreaming by Sunny's annoying, high-pitched voice, Rick glanced at where she was pointing. From the look of it, it seemed to be town with water near it. "Water… oh! There was water near where the human I know lived! Maybe it's there!" he said excitingly, putting his paw on the same spot.
Jen sighed. It had taken some time, but her pikachu had finally given her something. For a moment, she feared that he wasn't able to read a map. "So… you lived in Vermilion? Ironic... I heard the forests around there are famous for their pikachu population." She told him, giggling a little at her observation. Not that Rick cared.
It wasn't funny at all. He had heard of that town, but it wasn't the right one! His town had a different name. Something ending with the "ulean" sounds, or something similar to it. Moving Sunny's paw away from the town, he shook his head at Jen, before turning his head back to the map. Where could that town be? He looked at every corner of the map, but nothing seemed familiar. He knew it was a map of Kanto, but yet, it was a total blank in his mind. "Where is it?" he spurted out angrily, his tail becoming tensed and raised, and his ears flattened. Slowly, his thoughts shifted to how he would shock whoever made that map for putting names on it instead of little pictures he would have been able to understand.
"Alright…" Jen quickly replied, noticing how tensed Sparktail was becoming. Something was bothering him about that map. He hadn't pointed to his town yet and was looking at it like if it was some kind of enemy. She had to help him somehow. "…you chose the wrong town. Don't worry, it happens. Everybody makes mistakes. Hum… I've got a better idea. I'll say the name of the major towns and cities in Kanto, and you stop me when I say the name of the closest one to your home. Okay? Alright…Pallet, Cinnabar…"
Naming towns? This was a pretty good idea. Finally something the former human was able to do without putting his entire mind to it. All he had to do was sit there and listen as she said the names touching different points on the map as she spoke. Saffron, Viridian, Cerulean, Pew… "Wait… Cerulean?" he asked himself. That name sounded the same as the one in his mind. It could very well mean that it was the same town!
Hopping back on two paws, he pointed at the map, looking at it as if it were an apple. "That's Cerulean! It's where I need to go! Lead me there! I would be so happy!" For the first time since he was turned into a pikachu, he truly felt happy about something. It wasn't the primitive happiness of eating food or sleeping well, but rather the one of getting closer to the only thing that mattered to him. After all, Sunny could disappear for no reason or Jen could be injured, but as long he got turned back into a human, he could care less about them. His humanity and life were on the line here, not theirs.
What he didn't know, was that this burst of exaggerated happiness and excessive primitive reactions were mostly caused by his metabolism. Since he had been deprived of happiness often lately, it took this opportunity to get some. It was a known fact that Pikachu are naturally happy and caring creatures. It was one of the reasons they were so popular as pets. What was less known, was that they needed a daily dose of endorphins, created by happiness, to stimulate the production of chemicals in their electric sacs This was true for every electrical rodent, and Rick was no exception. Once again, he felt his humanity about to leave his brain to be replaced by blissful innocence.
"Oh… Pewter… that town's not too far away. We should get there in no time… sadly." Jen said reluctantly, looking at the excited pikachu. He seemed happy to go back home. To tell the truth, she wanted to spend more time with him. Maybe she had hoped that he had no family. Then she could keep him. These were selfish thoughts and she felt bad for having them, but Sparktail was too unique to be let go of so quickly. There were so many questions she had to ask him, and so little time. But more than that, she would lose a potentially good friend. Sure, he was a former human in the body of an electric mouse, but it didn't make him any lower than anybody else. If anything, it made him someone braver, as she doubted that this transformation had been intentional, nor did she think it had been easy for him.
While Jen was busy with her internal musing, Rick stopped moving, her words reaching him, with a very different effect than expected. "Pewter?!?" he said, abruptly escaping from the tightening grip of his pikachu side. "What the…? It was Cerulean! Cerulean! Not Pewter! I screamed it at least…" he tried to say something, but the last ten seconds seemed clouded in his head. It took a good half-second of thinking to get those memories back. "Err… at least two times! Are you deaf? Err… oh… stupid pikachu language!"
His sudden irregular movements and the louder tone of his voice got to Jen, who looked at him again, confused. What was he trying to say now and why on this angry tone? There was nothing in what she said to make him angry. Everything she said had been good, unless she had missed something. "Is something wrong? You're happy to go home to Pewter, right?" she asked him, almost wishing for a no.
Rick shook his head, looking around for a way to show her. He was pathetic. He couldn't write, he couldn't read, he couldn't… "The map! She pointed the town! Which is…" he said, trying to remember the exact spot. "Hum… there!" he shouted, moving his paw to point at the seaside town of Cerulean.
He also tried to move there to make his point stronger, but Sunny was quicker. Thinking it was still part of the game, the happy vixen ran there as soon Rick had designated the area, putting her paw on the town. "I won! I got there first! I won!"
Rick might have lost whatever game Sunny thought they were playing, but he won understanding from Jen, whose face shined in realization. "Oh! Did you mean Cerulean?", she asked, waiting for Sparktail's nod before continuing. "I'm sorry, I thought you meant Pewter. This changes everything. First of all, it means it will take longer to get there. At least a week, if not a week and a half. It will depend on weather. However…" she said a bit nervously, putting her finger on a heavily forested area south of Mt Moon. "To make it quicker, we'll have to go through those woods. I would have gone anyway, but I only want to warn you that it might be a hard trip. That forest is one of the most dangerous in the country. You might not like it, but you are too inexperienced with your electric attacks to go there. So, I'll give you a choice. You can safely spend the whole time there in your pokeball, or, you can train with me today until you're at least able to throw a bolt without shocking yourself. Then, I'd allow you to stay outside your ball."
After she had finished her speech, both pokemon were looking at her with a half-scared, half-surprised expression. They were used to seeing her being so soft and nice. It was something completely new to see her talk to Sparktail like she would to a human. She had said her thoughts freely, without hiding anything. Moreover, the tone of her voice was so cold, emotionless and dominating that it made them almost doubt that she had been nice in the first place. All of this, however, was gone only a moment later, as she took a nice and comforting voice again, probably to persuade Sparktail of making the choice she wanted him to make. "I know training might not be a fun thing, but will you train with me? I'll make it easy for you, if you listen to me. It could be a lot of fun for both of us!"
Rick blinked a few times, stunned. This girl had worse mood swings than he did. He wasn't entirely sure if he was impressed or scared, not that it mattered much. Understanding the opposite gender was not exactly his first priority right now. She had threatened to send him back into his pokeball if he didn't train. This was the real threat. It was so much of a dilemma that he had to sit on the map to think about it. While going back in that awful place was absolutely out of the question, training didn't seem that appealing either. It could take many tries before he successfully launched an attack. He would probably get hurt a lot. However, he was able to control his electricity in the pokeball, but that meant meeting Psywave again. He hated that thing so much that he wasn't about to fall into its claws on purpose.
In the end, it was his hate of Psywave that forced him to nod, which was immediately followed by a strong reaction from Sunny. "Yay!" she screamed, running close to Sparktail. "Will you train with me too? I'm good! It will be fun!"
Rick forced a smile at first and then chuckled at the whole strange situation he was in. A fox wanting to train a mouse; this set a new record on the scale of absolute awkwardness. "Well, Sunny, I'm sure you are good, but I'm not. I'm just a weak little pikachu. Unless you want to be the target for my training, I don't see how you could help me. If your idea of training is battling, then, I admit it; you've already won the battle. You can watch me train though. That will be fun too." His answer was followed by a smile, one of those smiles he knew would melt her heart and make her stop bothering him, which it did.
The fox pokemon smiled back, happy both about his smile and the fact that she was stronger than him. It made her day. "Oh! I'm stronger? Yay! Now I'm so strong that beating Leafty will be easy! Maybe I will get more food for beating her. Mmm… food!"
While Sunny was happily running around, screaming about how strong she was; Jen gave Sparktail more berries, seeing as they were all gone, for obvious reasons. Then, while Sparktail was eating them, she tried to teach Sunny about sharing food, but the fire pokemon wasn't really listening. She did succeed in trading the vixen's smile for a more or less guilty face, but that only lasted as long as it took Sunny to lick Jen. The trainer just faked a smile and petted the fox pokemon. She wasn't really in the mood for arguing with her new pokemon anyway. She had a mouse to train, and it wasn't going to be easy, knowing that there was a human hiding behind it. True, she wasn't actually sure about Sparktail being 100 human, but being technical, she felt like she would be training someone in the army, especially since Sparktail was so inexperienced. She would try to throw those feelings away, as they were only human instincts. After all, she had helped pokemon who were worse than him.
After Sparktail was done with his berries, Jen went outside, her pokemon in tow. Walking slowly in the early morning light, she led them to a small clearing. It was only a little place with low grass that featured a large rock in the middle of it, but it would be ideal for their training. Making sure she was still being followed, Jen went to the rock and climbed on top of it, then looked at her pokemon below. The size of the rock and its steep slanted surface prevented them from climbing, at least from that side. "Ok, since this training session is your first, and you don't seem to know anything about battling, your target won't be anything living or even moving. Instead…"
While she was talking, she opened her bag and took out a small rubber ball. "…we will use this ball. It's electricity-proof, heat-proof and protected against many other kind of attacks. That's why it's perfect for this, but, since I only have one, I will make sure nobody leaves with it." She said in low tone, glancing at Sunny. The last thing she needed was to have the vulpix thinking that it was a toy (even if she usually used it as such) and playing keep-away with it away. Looking around her, she found a small piece of rock, the perfect diversion, and showed it to Sunny. "So, I thought that you might like to play with this toy instead. You can do anything you want with it… as long you get it first!" she added, with a sly smile.
Making sure she had the vixen's attention, which was nearly a given, the girl threw the rock in the grass behind her. Tricked by the appealing opportunity to get a toy all to herself, Sunny took off as soon the rock left her trainer's hand. "It will be mine, Sparktail!" Rick obviously didn't follow her, seeing as this was only a trap to make her go away. It had been tempting, though. That rock did look like a sweet toy that could be kicked around, but he knew that he had to resist and do whatever training Jen had in mind for him. Probably something involving shocking that ball, he guessed.
"Alright, now that Sunny is playing, our training can begin." She stated, taking the ball in her hand and throwing it in front of Sparktail, who stepped back a little, scared of being hit. "The first thing you need to do is to stop staring at that ball, since you won't be shocking it yet."
Rick raised an ear in confusion. He wouldn't be shocking the ball? This was unexpected, to say the least. Why taunt him with it if he wasn't going to train with it? If anything, it made him curious about what she had actually planned. As soon he looked back at her, she spoke again, intent on clearing up some of that confusion displayed on his muzzle. "You don't see anyone riding a Lapras without knowing how the Lapras will react, do you? So it would be pretty stupid of me to let you shock things without you knowing how to, don't you think? Before you seriously attempt anything, you need to feel the pikachu sleeping inside you. You need to get in touch with those abilities of yours. Just sit down, relax and feel your body talking to you. Like this."
Pushing her bag aside, Jen laid down on the rock, her eyes now closed, and began to breathe slowly. It was just barely loud enough for Rick to hear it. It was obvious that she was doing this only to persuade him to do the same, but he found the whole idea ridiculous. He didn't see how relaxing in the grass would make him better at fighting. Sure, he had relaxed before, when he had been near that wall in the cage, and yes, it made him feel closer to the sensations felt by his body, but it hadn't made him more able to use his electric attacks. He knew, however, that failing to fulfill her request would mean that he would be spending some quality time in his pokeball. Resigned, he calmly lay on his belly in the grass and closed his eyes, waiting for the 'magical' power of relaxation to come into play.
Like the last time he closed his eyes to relax, his four other senses seemed to improve by the absence of sight. He smelt the delicate aroma of flowers nearby, he was tickled by the comfortable bed of grass he was laying on, he tasted the wet air and he heard Sunny running not too far away. As exciting as it was to feel all of those, there was apparently more to learn if he gave the sensations coming from inside of him a chance to be felt. Eliminating the external signals, he set his mind on those closest to him. At first, he heard the sounds of his own breathing, then the pulsing of his heart. Then, he felt the sensation of blood being pumped away from the same heart at a steady rate. As he relaxed more, he felt the electrostatic substances move inside his cheeks. His cheeks… the heart of the whole problem, those mysterious organs about which a better understanding was required. As soon he turned his attention to them, a strange new wave of sensations came to him.
They weren't sensations he was able to describe using the five senses he knew, but yet, he was feeling something. It wasn't something that was mysterious to his Pikachu side, though. His eyes were closed, but he was able to 'see' movement close to him. It wasn't the wind moving grass or leaves, but rather the movement of millions of microscopic negative particles known as electrons. He was feeling their constant movements and the faint electrical waves they inherently created. They were moving in great number in his cheeks, inside his body and in smaller quantity in the air around him. Amazed by this surprising sixth sense that he had ignored for so long, a wild idea came into his mind: if he was able to feel electricity, maybe he could attract and manipulate it.
Thinking strongly about attracting electric charges to him, he felt the substance in his cheeks activating, flows of electrons from all sides slowly floating toward them. This was when something weirder happened, something even his pikachu side didn't understand. For some unknown reason, a sensation much more complex than feeling electrons entered his mind. It felt like his head was being bombarded by silent wordless voices. This lack of words didn't prevent a part of his brain from giving them a meaning. Many of those voices expressed, in their simplest forms, feelings of joy, innocence and fear, but one of them was different. This one was more complex and messed up. In a powerful wave was randomly mixed joy and happiness, but also a tiny bit of sadness and jealousy. He had a faint idea what this voice was, but he needed to analyze it more carefully, to have its secrets revealed.
Unfortunately, those mysterious wordless voices became louder with time, taking up an increasing portion of Rick's mind. He was so concentrated on trying to understand why those voices were there, and where they came from, that he failed to notice the real reason they were getting louder. As he was listening to them, his cheeks were still accumulating electrical charges, showing no sign of stopping. His body was now an inert magnet, attracting any free electron to build up an electric attack.
Though it was silent at first, there were eventually enough negative particles for a loud spark to be made between his cheeks, then another, then two more, their number increasing rapidly. Rick heard the sounds, he knew what they were, but he refused to stop. Partly because he still needed to know more about the voices, but also because he was curious about how much he could accumulate and how he could use that charge. That's why he let the charge grow, and grow, and grow, until he thought there was enough of a charge for his experiment.
When it came to releasing it, however, he saw the flaw in his plan: he had put so much effort into listening that there wasn't any energy left to control the release of electrons. The solution, which was to stop listening, seemed simple, but it wasn't at all. Since the voices came when he started to attract electrons, Rick figured that he would need to stop attracting them for the voices to stop. But if he did, wouldn't the electricity leave his body? He still needed to control where it would go, but without being able to feel them, he would be like a blind guy throwing knives in random directions. He couldn't let that happen, but he didn't have a lot of time to make a choice. His charge was already powerful, much bigger than anything he had ever produced before, and it was getting stronger. He had to release it somehow!
At this point, Jen had stopped relaxing and was sitting up on the rock, keeping herself ungrounded. She hadn't missed the sounds of the sparks and was now looking at the rodent worriedly. Those sparks didn't seem intentional this time. Sparktail was still laying on the ground, eyes closed, like she had ordered him to, but his face was torn by signs of incredible effort, sparks going between his cheeks at an alarming rate. Unlike Rick, she knew what was going on. He had tried to charge his cheeks, but, for a reason she had yet to understand, he hadn't stopped; either that or he was unable to. This was not good. Pikachu might not be as powerful as Raichu, but they could still accumulate incredible amounts of electricity. If he didn't stop soon, his cheeks would overload. They would burn with electricity and two outcomes were possible, neither being good. The power was released everywhere, probably creating a forest fire or… his electrical sacs would explode from the enormous amount of electricity he was storing and Sparktail would be badly injured… or worse. "Sparktail! Stop it! You'll hurt yourself! Please, stop!"
The mouse heard the girl's pleading, but it wasn't strong enough to get to him. What did was a new wave of voices, expressing painful sorrows, worries and sadness. It was very strong and went right to his heart. The voices were scared of something, and he knew what it was: him. Not only was he making sparks fly everywhere, but something was also wrong with his mind. He could hear a part of him scream to him that it was not normal to hear those. He had to let it go, for now. And since he had no way to safely release his charge into the air, he would have to use himself as a conductor for it to be safe for everyone… except him.
His cheeks now burning from having too much energy, he rose to a sitting position, opening his eyes. Immediately, the voices died and electrons stopped coming, now wanting to leave. Holding it the best he could until he was ready, he began to place himself in order to route it to the ground. He dug his paws and his tail in the dirt, leaving only his left back paw hovering over the ground. This way, it would limit the amount of electricity going through his heart. Bracing himself for the pain, he let it go in one shot. "CHUUUUUUUU!!!!"
If his previous attempt in the tent had hurt him, this was killing him in pain. He might have split his power between four different points, and he might have an anatomy designed to manipulate large amounts of electricity, but it still hurt like if a train had squashed him. It wasn't so much that his body was in pain, but, at the moment the electricity went through it, he felt a great pain inside his head, like if a bomb had exploded inside it. When all the electricity was gone, his vision was blurred and his movements were shaky. He barely had time to notice Jen running toward him before he collapsed.
----
"Tracking team reports signal lost, general." quipped the sure-toned adjutant in a clipped voice. She was at his desk, trying her best to keep calm. This was news to roll heads; she could at least cushion it with a measure of impartiality. The imposing man of about forty years gave her a stern, reproving look, obviously not taking things very well. "Care to explain?" he asked, in a voice that meant "Thoroughly".
Having memorized and annotated the meager-sized report she held in her arms, she stoically passed it to him. "Of course, general." she said as genuinely as militarily possible. "At 07:43 this morning, the transmitter detected an abnormally strong static field that rapidly intensified. At 07:44, transmissions ceased. It's seems very likely that the transmitter was destroyed by electricity actually passing through the target's body. Automatic repair sequences would have been terminated. However, there's reason to believe the targets are still heading in the same straight line GPS was following them on. They're still heading towards Cerulean."
The general smiled meekly in his heart. His adjutant was right and their prey's idiot simple-mindedness would be their destruction. Springing his trap on time would be difficult without the tracking equipment, but at least he could be fairly certain where he needed his pawns to be. "Good. Recall the intercept and have them wait. Inform brigadier general Stalhelm I need his regiment prepped for deployment in five days. That's all."
When the girl had bowed, and made her exit, the turgid commander began once again to study his maps. Often the key to any victory was being able to choose the battlefield, forcing the enemy to fight at a disadvantage. A pikachu on the move would be much easier to spot then one settled in a colony. And there was a lot of open grassland between his prey and their safety.
((This last scene was rewritten by Kazundo Advocate at my request. His rants about my story actually helped me to get the motivation to prove him wrong and to complete it. It might never have gone this far without him, so he deserves it. There might another person I will honor at a later point.))