10. Animal I Have Become

This was…This was…

What was this? It had to be bad, right? I couldn't tell. Did I spontaneously age? No one mentioned this about puberty. Even Poona, who took new things in a confusing stride, was bewildered, not even daring to sniff the tufts. It was a part of Poona's law that nothing was real unless she sniffed it. Therefore, she was probably declaring this appearance to be a part of her imagination as much as I was right now.

On my left arm, the substance was highly visible, while the single blue glove extending up my right arm concealed it nearly perfectly. I was thinking of grabbing another glove to put on my left arm, but instead I wiggled my arms in a panic and tried yanking the substance out. This became increasingly difficult when my hands were suddenly covered by the substance, in addition to the amount that had concealed my arms. Poona could only gape.

"AHHH! AHHAHHAHH—" My screaming attracted more banging and worried cries from the door, mainly from my parents.

"Chelle, come out right now!" Dad ordered. Mom was always the one to take the initiative because Dad never wanted to be the bad guy. Now that it sounded like I was in mortal danger, his panic had placed him in the lead, making Mom act as the cheerleader instead.

"Only if…" I cleared my throat so that I could list my demands properly. "Only if we use Elder Li's mustache as a feather duster!" That loosely translated to: that bastard better not be at the door when I open it.

"Chelle, you are being ridiculous and rude!" Mom cut in sharply. "Come out right now! Elder Li is in the living room! You are safe!" Well, at least she had understood what I was trying to say.

After threatening to rip Elder Li's mustache off using twenty different methods (just to really shoot it in the hoop that I didn't want him to be there), I emerged from my room using Poona as my shield. My parents were standing by my door, but Jacoby, Trevor, and Elder Li had resigned themselves to the living room, as they had said.

With my back pressed against the wall, I slid to the living room, still holding Poona protectively in front of me. She treated it as a ride and stilled cooperatively, solidifying to be the barrier I was imagining her to be. Mom scowled at me but was mutedly restrained by Dad's hand on her shoulder. That hand had saved me from too much, I knew.

I thought Elder Li would have been expectantly waiting for me while my parents had been fishing me out of my room, but he had been sitting on the couch instead, sipping on some warm tea and socializing with Jacoby and Trevor. He didn't even notice when I walked into the room. Keane did though.

"You're looking well, Rochelle," he greeted, and almost seemed to be smiling with his beak.

The blind bird had a sense of humor. Too bad I wasn't laughing.

"You're probably too blind to see that that joke wasn't funny."

This didn't stop him from chuckling a bit. "You're right. This is no time for comedy. I apologize."

I turned slowly to Elder Li, who was just now noticing I walked into the room.

I held up my arms, which exhibited the furry substance. Mom had been glaring me down earlier, but she hadn't noticed it until I pointed it out. She gasped when she saw, while the rest of my family became bug-eyed and speechless. Dad and Trevor gaped, and Jacoby looked as if he was torn from declaring it to be cool or gasping. Chewy appeared as if he wanted to approach me (probably because of Poona) but remained reserved.

I faced Elder Li, my arms still raised. "This is your fault. Fix it."

Elder Li smiled, amused. "I'm sorry, but I did not bring my shears with me. A razor would probably be just as effective, however."

Why was everyone making a joke now of all times? I was one step away from having a meltdown, and they all persisted in ignoring this dire situation. This had to be some fatal disease in which you grew fur all over you until you were completely covered. And then it started growing inside of you and swelled until you suffocated.

I wasn't going to let that happen since suffocation was another thing I feared. Ever since I had choked on a small orange I had tried eating whole for some stupid bet, I feared I would die from some unfortunate slip-up. I still ate truck-sized platters of food, but I chewed hard enough to break my teeth.

I was hoping I could do something threatening with the fur, maybe by reaching forward and tickling him to death or something, but every time I glanced at it I became a little more freaked out.

"The only reason you'd need to cut these off is to get you some hair. Now help me like you said you would before I infect you with this fluff."

Elder Li examined my arms minimally and then shrugged. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

"You are a liar! What are you even doing here if you can't help me out?" I screamed. I wasn't feeling pristine. I was holding a massive grudge over Elder Li's head as if it were his long lost hair.

"Rochelle, you will treat him with respect! He is here for your benefit!" Mom ordered fiercely. Her tone also meant I was grounded later. I was fine with that, as long as we solved the issue currently known as my arms—although you couldn't even see my arms now with how much fluff was covering them.

"No, Leandra, she has every reason to be angry." Elder Li concealed his hands within his sleeves. Keane followed his example. They were scarily synchronized despite Keane lacking the sight to see that. "But, truly, the solution begins with you, Rochelle."

"…So this is my fault? Is it also my fault that you tried to kill me?"

"I would like to remind you that that scenario occurred while we were engaged in a dream setting," Elder Li said sharply, probably to ease my parents. Jacoby and Trevor still were convinced he was a saint. I could picture Trevor recording his godly tales while Jacoby negotiated with a publisher for the rights to an Elder Li bible. "Therefore, you didn't receive any physical ailments or injuries. I am not giving you the blame, by any means. I am saying that you have the power to repair the situation."

"You traumatized me."

"Perhaps, but the price that was paid was worth the product."

"What? Insanity?"

"No. Responsibility." The statement was critical, and yet I didn't understand what he meant. He finished his tea and then met my gaze softly. "Rochelle, may I ask you a question?"

"Sure, since I'm turning into a fur ball as we speak." I wondered if I could use this stuff to plug my ears, at least so I could ignore whatever he tried to say. If he wasn't going to help me, I wasn't going to listen.

"Does the world seem peaceful to you?"

"It won't be if you don't stop this stuff from spreading."

"Do you believe, then, that the world is peaceful?"

My automatic response would have been 'yes,' but something told me he was expecting a negative answer. "…No."

"Why?"

"…Because…"

"Because?" he prompted.

"…Just because."

"The world is not peaceful because it cannot ever be equal. No one can ever be truly satisfied. We are always craving something more, whether it is power, possessions, or freedom. We are never satisfied with what we have, who we are, or what we have acquired. People seek ways to satisfy any emptiness and take on ambitions they have the will to power but no power to accomplish. And those who do have the power use it corruptively to enforce their beliefs and fulfill their desires without any regard to anyone else's."

He paused, waiting for a response. I made kricketune sounds to fill the silence. He directed a glance at my parents. Mom had sunken from her reprimanding mood and had taken Dad's arms around her. It almost looked like he was holding her up.

"…This is not necessarily my place to explain. Would you like me to leave?" Was he still talking to me? If so, then yes. Go away.

"No, we'd like you to be here," Mom answered quietly. She checked my expression guiltily.

I stared at her suspiciously. I'd heard of making deals with the devil, but was it possible that making deals with monks were the same thing? This was really shady…

"What's going on?"

Mom frowned and released herself from Dad's arms. "…Rochelle, do you know where you were born?"

Well that was an easy question. Why did she make it sound as if it had a hard answer? "Here. Duh."

"No. You were born in New Bark Town, just like Jacoby." She glanced at him as she was speaking.

Jacoby nodded in affirmation. "Yeah. I remember when we first moved."

"After Rochelle had been born, we were approached by Elder Li and Keane." She made eye contact with them, as if the connection was giving her strength to continue talking. "Although Keane was blind, we still trusted his senses. He used to be able to see into the future and past, but now he could only sense it. He could sense something from you, Rochelle. He said you were cursed. We didn't believe them immediately…but Keane's foresight was proof enough."

The word gave me goosebumps, which only seemed to make the fur spread faster. I held my arms away from me, as if that would keep the fur away.

"Cursed?"

"Yes." This time it was Elder Li. He glanced toward Mom, who nodded her permission for him to continue. "Keane had been traveling for quite some time after I had released him and given him his freedom. I had expected him back for some visits here in Violet City, but it was a long time before he came back. When he returned, he was blind and urgently talking about how he could feel a strange presence from New Bark Town.

"We left Violet City in due time to announce to your family that we felt as if you were cursed. Since Keane no longer had the gift of seeing into the future and the past, we had to rely on his keen foresight instead. We asked your family to move here so that we could watch over you and check your progress.

"Our observations didn't offer us a lot of feedback. But Keane did manage to predict something with his sixth sense: you're turning into a pokémon."

I blinked. That explained the fur. Everything else? Not so much.

"…I'm turning into a pokémon?"

"Yes. We don't know if it's permanent, we don't know why it's occurring, we don't know what will happen. But there is none wiser about the culture of pokémon than the monks here in Sprout Tower," Elder Li added, as a horrible way to soothe me.

Genetically speaking, this shouldn't have been possible. Of course, the dream sequence that I had experienced and shared with Elder Li and my brothers not too long ago should not have been possible either. Was this rare phenomenon possible then? How did they know about this?

My heart sped up a little—with it, my breathing. What if the monks had been the ones to inflict this upon me?

"We were not the cause of this curse, if that's what you believe," Keane inputted. "Stranger things have happened, I assure you. While this is very farfetched, we believe this is true based on your growth. Pokemon grow more rapidly than humans do, and as a human you have flourished in an almost unnatural way, reaching incredible height for your age. Your agility is impeccable, and your adaptability is greater than that of a human. Your fears and discomforts are magnified in such a way as to harm your body should you encounter them. You have the same instinctive and rebellious nature as that of a wild pokémon. Lastly, that fur upon your arms should indicate that we were right all along."

I stared at my arms as he mentioned them. The more I did, the more terror bulled up inside me.

"So this is what we believe you must do, Rochelle: you must appease the pokémon world."

"…And how does that work?" The words left my mouth emptily. I was having a hard time processing all of this. I had a lot of questions that I was forcing back, like holding back burps until it would inevitably explode into one giant belch.

I guess he finally realized he was talking to a thirteen-year-old because he started using a tone that only people would use for toddlers. Jerk. "This means in order to stay human, you must treat pokémon as your equals."

"How does that help me?" I shot back loudly. Trevor jumped from the volume of my voice and glared at me crossly. I ignored him.

"It might not."

"What?!"

"What they're trying to say is they have no clue how to help you," Jacoby said flatly.

"What?!"

"At this point, we can only guess," Elder Li acceded. "We believe this would generate the best response, however. After all, if you're turning into a pokémon, this would mean they would be your equals regardless."

I opened my mouth to say something inappropriate, mocking, or all of the above, when the fur showed up in my peripheral vision.

"A-all right, so tell me what I need to do," I said, almost painfully. This guy had tried murdering me in my sleep—literally—and now I needed his help. Not even karma was on my side.

"You cannot be a trainer."

"WHAT?!" That had pulled the trigger for me. I had pegged my whole life on becoming a trainer. I had kept up my grades manageably, but they weren't promising enough for anything else. I didn't want a different career. I wanted to be a trainer, damn it!

"There is a good reason for this," he reassured. "To regard pokémon as equals, you cannot use pokéballs."

"Why not?!"

"You have to regard them as equals," Trevor inputted, loyally sticking to the elder's word choice like the good little minion he was. Note to self: punch Trevor later.

"WHY?!"

"We're not entirely sure, but we fear it has something to do with the imbalance that has been occurring within the environment."

"So that's my fault? Why am I getting punished for that?"

"You must recognize that this doesn't mean that it's your fault," Keane said sharply. "You are not to blame here, Rochelle. You have received an unjust punishment, but that doesn't mean it was your fault. It wasn't. Everyone is to blame here."

In what? I stared at them harshly, lacking the cooperation I had dredged from the deepest corners of my mind. Their answers were vague. Jacoby was right. They didn't know anything.

"There has been a lot of…conflict, lately," Elder Li decided upon, his eyebrows furrowing. "This conflict has manifested from hundreds and hundreds of years of no solutions. There were attempts to solve these issues, notably through the invention of the pokéball, but these contraptions only worsened the situation."

"What situation?" I replied flatly.

"That is a tale for a later time. For now, we must act to remove this from you," Elder Li said calmly, bringing my arms to his face. Couldn't we just cut it off?

"Cutting it would only cause it to grow. We can't resolve anything through irritation," Keane inputted. I begged to differ. I solved practically everything through irritation.

Jacoby was right. They had no idea what to do. Elder Li was examining my arms just to stall for time it seemed. Did he want me to turn into a pokémon? Or was he waiting for me to obtain a massive solution to the problem before time ran out?

I didn't figure out a solution, but I did figure out how to get one.