Eric: Alright, sorry for this chapter taking ages to come out everyone… really, I should be the one to apologize: Ray had everything done and translated but I got up to my armpits in exams (friends will know exactly what I'm talking about), but it's all good now.
Ray: Almost wished I was the last to translate again, that way my mind wouldn't have gon crazy with… character stuff.
Eric: Heh… Well, anyways, let's not keep you entertained any longer, read the reviews and jump straight into the chapter! So right off the bad, new reviewer, Luchux! Glad to see you're enjoying the fic, and there are many possibilities as to who the Pursuer really is, but… we'll see soon enough.
Eric: JOOOOOOOOOOJOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Ok, in all seriousness, it's amazing to see you again West. And yeah, Dante got the short end of the stick… or did he? Adam is a bastard though, that is confirmed.
Ray: Seemingle non sense scenes… yeah that's me, West… dealing with multiples plots, and almost forgeting about some.
Eric: Breaks? Pffff, what are those? And it's up to Ray to expalin if it's a dream or not.
Ray: What's a dream? What's a Nightmare? I'm still trying to figure it out when a… sleeping experience shows you the both sides of dreaming… Not the case and I'm not making any sense… I'm sleepy! It's fucking Sunday in the morning!
Eric: It is meant to confuse, but there is one thing clear now: one of them is a man/male pokémon, and it is unclear whether it's only one guy with split personalities or if there many of hm, possession… nobody knows!
Eric: And yes, there are hints all over this book and in the first to decipher who he is, and in fact, SOMEONE has figured out who it is! Contragulations, Hjof (btw, missing your reviews over here, feel free to review any time, but don't spoil who it is please). And don't come to me with the typing stuff West! We're long over that, even Alger knows!
Eric: Oh god, that would be like… what, the fifth, sixth time that Nymphe comes back? Nah, I wouldn't do that… or would I?!11
Ray: *put a shadow claw on your chest* Don't. You. Dare.
Anyways. Again sorry for this taking so long, life's a bitch and seems like university is worse… Could I have helped? ...yeah and messed up a few things, you know writing twice the same in two languages… Ok I'm getting out of trak. We hope you enjoy the chapter! See you down! ON WITH IT PEOPLE!
Chapter 12
Gradual Healing
Dark was panting, kneeling down with an aura bone to keep himself up. Dust attacked, swinging his own aura bone downwards towards the Zoroark, who quickly put his on the way and with a slight angle. Having all the strength of the blow going in the same direction, Dark just needed to apply some resistance to parry the blow, swinging his bone quickly afterwards and smashing it into Dust's face, blood jumping from his face and the Zoroark followed by summoning an aura sphere and hitting Dust with it close combat. The Riolu was sent flying backwards and rolled on the ground for a bit until he stopped and then rose slowly with an open cut over one eye. The golden Jackal was as tired as the Zoroark, but the dark type had more bruises than ever. Dust launched an Aura sphere that the dark type fox sent to the sky, just to immediately get kneeled on the gut and be bent over, Dust finished him with an dowards kick to the neck with all his strength, leaving Dark unconscious on the ground, before he himself fell on his knees, panting and then over the other's back, fainted from exhaustion.
They've been training since sunrise. Fighting with everything they had. Dark had finally made progress after the encounter with that stalker, barely two months ago, and it has been the Zoroark's idea to not stop until one of them literally was brought down. The first times there was a clear winner but now it was getting hard to guess. Dust had won because he knew Dark would parry the Aura sphere and took the opportunity to put Eric's instructions to action, taking Dark's opening to kneel him on the stomach and then finishing him with that solid kick to the neck. Was there fear of breaking the other's neck? Yes, but he couldn't hold back.
Meanwhile, Elly watched quietly from the sidelines. She was the only member of Team Star there, and Eric was nowhere to be seen… for obvious reasons, which she didn't want to discuss with anyone. There was a lot on her mind, and it probably showed. At least, Radius could see it on her face. The Jolteon tried to say something, but no words came to him to try and talk to her, so he just approached the unconscious duo and picked his brother over his back, the Riolu's legs almost touching the floor, as well as the arms. With trouble but with some practise, the electric type could carry the other two back home.
Back to the household, Hadrim was putting his cooking abilities to test. The Espeon was slow at it but he managed to get done what he wanted to. He prepared a plate and a glass of oran berry juice, putting it all into a trail that he then carried to his room. "That smells good, dad." Radius said to him and the Espeon smiled.
"Thank you. There's more if you want to take a plate, just be careful to not throw it around." He answered to then continue towards his room. Once inside he found Luca sewing a blanket. She stopped as she saw him and smiled at her mate as he went to her and jumped on the bed while leaving the trail over her lap carefully when she set her work aside.
"You still as sweet as ever, dear." She said to him smiling and reaching out with a paw to the which he rubbed his body against, letting her hug him while he purred.
"Anything for my love." He answered, making her giggle slightly and start eating, and getting very surprised.
"Woah! It's been a lot since last time you cooked something." She said "I had almost forgot how you made the Mac n' Cheese with this intense flavour." She praised him, being the best cook of the household herself and admitting his recipe, learned from experimentation, was better than hers was saying something. "And you didn't even use meat but berries!" She squealed like a cub, making him chuckle now as he lay down by her side. "This is divine!"
"Stop it! You're gonna make me go redder than a Flareon." He said.
"You're already as hot as one so why not?" She teased with a smirk and then both of them laughed slightly.
After some minutes, Hadrim decided to turn on the TV to at least listen to the news report. The TV starting halfway through a new that talked about a regional festivity. Then it gave way to a new that Hadrim put his ears on.
"The authorities had recently revealed that the bomb at Autumn park in the capital city of Meso Island uncovered some installations built underground right beneath the park." Said the anchor woman. "The investigation of the facility revealed a large amount of destroyed computers, a lot of broken investigation material, various quirurgical rooms and some containing rooms packed with cages in some of which they found starved corpses of young pokémon. This had made the social media explode and the Pokémon Rights Defenders had made their indignation clear on the Galvanet with twits like the ones that you are seeing right down here on screen at the moment." Some messages of indignated people and Pokémon are shown at the bottom of the tv screen, one of them even declaring 'This is war!' with a few angry emojis along. At the same time, a footage on the facilities is being shown, the camera even showing the covered corpses of around thirty Pokémon found within that place while the woman kept talking.
"The Sheriff Eustaquio Roma had declared that they'll do everything they can to find out who owned this facility and that this atrocity will not be left unpunished. On another side, Héctor Castillo, owner of the major battle business of the region and the man that founded the construction of this park for human children and young Pokémon to play together, had declared that he never had any knowledge of this installations being under the terrain he bought to build it and had expressed his indignation rather strongly." The footage changes to a man well dressed with dark hair and green eyes walking on the streets until the interviewer asks him about this discovery, that is when he stops and looks at it, rage glowing in his eyes.
"What they have done is utterly disgusting. I placed the funds for the construction of this park, to transform it into one more crossing road where humans and pokémon, young or old, could coexist peacefully… and someone has been using it for their own illegal experiments on pokémon! This is an outrage! Not only towards my person, but to all those who consider them as equals. If needed to I will grant more fundings to aid in this investigation, and you all better be ready… because I shall find who did this… and I will make them pay." The last thing he said was said in such a tone that sent chills down Hadrim's spine as the man walked away in a haste and the interviewer and the camera man stood in place, and then it shifted back to the set.
"It is a real tragedy to know this and we can only hope that the responsible of this is brought to justice soon." The anchorman said before the news passed on to weather and afterwards to sports. Hadrim turned down the volume of the TV after those news.
"What a bunch of fucking pricks." An infuriated an annoyed voice echoed from upstairs, and they both looked up to pinpoint it's exact location. It was Serge, who was laying on the bed in Team Star's room and watching the news alongside Nox and Zed. Both he and the Zorua were still incapacitated, albeit Serge could walk around just fine and move his wings, albeit it still hurt when he bent over or tried to fly. Zed was slowly starting to walk again, but he said it would take a few more weeks before he would finally be able to stand properly again.
"That's so horrible, wow… I don't know who's worse: those guys that put the lab there or the guy that blew it up, killing everyone there and whoever was playing in the park." Zed was the one who pointed this out, since Nox was about to doze off from how boring the news were, asides from that last one.
"Yeah, like hell it's gonna be the guy that blew it up! Can you imagine what it must've felt to be stuck in that place?"
"No, I don't, but I still think that killing so many innocents in the process doesn't render that bomber a hero."
"I didn't say that! I said that they were "a bunch of fucking pricks", so I meant both of them!"
Serge and Zed kept on debating, and Nox eventually grew tired and said he was going for a walk around the house, seeing as this whole thing was going nowhere. On his way out, he almost bumped head first into Lucy.
"Oh, hey, didn't see ya there." The Houndour greeted. "What's up?" His question went unanswered for a bit, and the Houndour looked behind her to see a rather sad looking Eevee, and then looked back to notice the annoyed look on Lucy's face. "Ah… yeah, right. Well, see ya." He walks past her, not wanting to get into whatever dynamic was going on between her and Elly, and so only greeted the Eevee quickly as he walked down the stairs, leaving her to her sulking as she sat down on the steps.
She looked tired, immensely tired, and in fact she was, because for the last month and a half she had been getting as much, or less sleep than Eric had had… And that was very little sleep, considering the Riolu got up to stand guard every single night, for long periods of time, and then went away with either Nox, Jake or both, to train incredibly hard. And it happened day after day, night after night… and each time she tried to talk him out of it he only dismissed her and told her that she was worrying too much, that he just had to do it, or he just plain ignored her pleas and many times refuted them, saying that she should leave him to do what he pleased.
She knew exactly why he was being like that, and each time she thought about it… she could feel her heart sinking just a little more…
He was bloodied and battered, and yet he was slowly recovering his consciousness, having applied so many bandages and whatever she had been given in order to close the wounds and stop the bleeding, all while Shade recovered from having been using all of her energy. Zed and Serge were in the other room, the former now unconscious, but with his wounds now treated, but the other was wide awake, incapable of sleeping just out of sheer worry and anger with himself. He had been so close… yet so far.
The Riolu groaned as he finally woke up, and Elly quickly rushed to him, and began bombarding him with questions about how he felt, if he could talk, if he felt sick… But he answered none of them, and instead only groaned, this time in annoyance as she kept on bothering her. She didn't want to be all over him so soon… she just wanted to make sure he was ok before he went anywhere. Instead, however, the Riolu just looked at himself, then at her, and asked:
"How long until I can stand properly again?"
It had taken him considerably shorter to recover, a week at most, and after that this whole hellish routine of pushing everyone and everything away, only focusing on training and protecting others, had started. Everyone understood why he was doing it, and Serge had sworn to join him after he could fight properly again… but it just wasn't worth it in the Eevee's eyes. He was pushing himself to his limits, she could tell by how he slumped on the bed when he went to bed, how he flashed everyone a confident smile, even herself, as he came back from the three plus hours of training… but the moment he didn't think anyone was looking at him he took on a completely different face: a face of defeat.
Elly had realized long ago that the physical damage that The Pursuer had done was high, but not even close to what he had done to them psychologically: morale was at an all time low, and while most were still ok with eachother in terms of friendship, such as Serge, Zed or Nox, who still got along great with almost everyone, Jake had regressed a lot on his advances towards being emotional, and was being as cold as before and Lucy… she honestly thought Lucy blamed Eric and her for what had happened to Zed. Both of them had gotten into a huge argument a few days after the fight, where the Shinx explicitly stated the former, and Elly tried to defend her mate… and she guessed that must've been the reason her former best friend hated her so much right now,
She felt like crying, if she wanted to be honest with herself, because even though everyone was ok, she felt like she had lost a lot: Eric was in a really poor state, she was convinced that Lucy hated her, Serge and Zed tried to cheer her up, even through their misery, Nox just didn't want to get involved in any of that, and Jake was just ignoring everything and everyone. And that just Team Star, but the situation with the Kaiser was so much worse…
For starters, Eric, she, Lucy and Jake blamed Dark for everything that had happened, and even though that already got them on bad terms with basically everyone else, even though they all agreed that some of the blame was his, things had taken a turn for the worse when Lucy almost got in a fight with Natalie and Shade over how stupid Dark's decisions had been, further breaking apart Elly and the smaller Eevee, and Serge could barely look at Luca, as he still kicked himself and blamed himself for what had happened to her.
And then, to top it all off, two weeks after the fight, she and Eric had been called to talk with Hadrim and Luca… and it had gone extremely poorly.
"We just want to know why didn't you tell us about this foe that is after you. We offered you our home so you'd have a safe place to be, yet you didn't think on warning us of such danger?" Hadrim had asked them, keeping a serious face, just wanting to know why this information was kept from them, while sitting on the floor besides the bed and Luca sitting on it with a pair of pillows behind her back as she tried to look at them both.
"It wasn't our choice to teleport into this household unannounced, if you remember. We took all of the necessary precautions, stood guard all night and tried to defend you as best we could. Had we tried to leave, that thing would've followed us on our tracks, would've eventually found you and your family, and you would all be dead." Eric said coldly, starting to sound like Jake.
"We didn't know what this new enemy was capable of, we-"
"I just asked why didn't you tell us about someone that has forced my mate to be in bed." He interrupted her. "As well as two of your friends." He added.
"Eric was also wounded until a few days ago, Hadrim! We're sorry for what happened!" Elly suddenly noticed how the Riolu besides her was glaring daggers at the Espeon and herself. "We couldn't possibly know what they were capable of because we'd never seen them before! Just once, and we didn't think they'd follow us-"
"You don't have to apologize, Elly… if anyone should apologize it should be Dark! He almost got us all killed, and now here we are, having to deal with these complaints! We offered to keep you safe, but Dark simply ignored everything I said, thinking he was just so much stronger than whatever was out there, and look where he got us: Not a single scratch on him, but the rest of us were heavily wounded because he hid like a coward!" Eric's words were venomous, and his exclamations only served for the argument to escalate further.
Even then, Elly remembered the last words they uttered: "It knows who you are and where you are, so for the time being, unless you want your family to be ripped to shreds, we're staying here."
She had never seen him like this, and she wondered… is this what he had been acting like during that time she had been gone, back home? Was this the Eric that their friends in Treasure Town had told her about? A much more aggressive Riolu, who only focused on getting stronger and trying to achieve a goal, no matter the cost as he travelled down a path of self destruction? Or was there something else? Either way, it was hurting her, it was causing her so much more pain than whatever it was doing to him. And so with a weak cry, which she just couldn't hold back, she bent over and started crying on the stairs, all of the pressure that had been amounting for the last few weeks finally getting to her.
Hadrim came out of the room, carrying the trail to go to the kitchen and leave it there, but he stopped when he heard sobbing. The Espeon let the trail aside and walked to the stairs to see Elly sitting there, crying. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable but he just couldn't see her like that. It was like seeing his daughter cry and not doing anything to help so he approached her, making some noise with his claws on the floor to call her attention before talking. "Elly?" he called with worry as he approached her and sat near her. "What's wrong?" He asked her gently.
"I just… I can't take it anymore Hadrim… this whole situation… it's just tearing me apart. I think that Lucy, my best friend, just plain hates Eric and I after what happened to Zed, Jake's lost whatever progress he made towards being more emotional and the rest… I think they just don't know what to do. I can't even look at Dark straight now with what's happened! I really don't know how to feel towards him anymore, because I know he didn't mean it, but… I also think like Eric, it was stupid, and I can't forgive him for it! And Eric's just… ignoring and neglecting me!" She starts crying now. "I didn't want any of this to happen, and I don't know what to do or tell anyone anymore!" Her cries are loud enough for the two arguing pokémon in the room next door to hear, and Lucy, who was about to go into the next room, but stops upon hearing her name and Zed's being mentioned.
Hadrim looks at her while she's talking and when she breaks down, moment he decides to get to her side and lower his head to her, he felt the need, maybe because of him being a father, to nuzzle or hug her, something to tell her through her crying that he was there if she needed, but stopped himself at first, just to then lean in and hug her, pushing her to him. He had seen what she said as time went by with this tension since after he tried to talk with her and Eric about the creature. He had talked with Dark as well, and even the dark type thought the same of himself. Few things came to his mind that he could tell to her, but… he felt like any of those wouldn't do any good at the moment, so he just stood there, letting her cry as he waited for her to calm down, hugging the Eevee how he could.
Once she calmed down enough he separated a bit from her and looked at her in the eyes. "You feeling better?" He asked and once she answered he talked. "I've seen for myself what you're talking about, Elly. But even then I don't think that Lucy hates you. I mean, she's your best friend, right? Have you talked to her about this?" He asked her gently, laying down on the steps.
She did appreciate the effort he had made, but she understood… there was just nothing he could say that could help her. However, the fact that she had opened up and said all of that was what made Lucy listen to her thoughts, and the Shinx approached. "What are you saying?!" She shouted, approaching the two, the Eevee looking at her friend. "Elly… I don't hate you! Far from it! If there's anyone I hate is myself, for letting Zed go alone to that… whatever the fuck that whole thing was…" She glares at Hadrim, as if daring him to criticize her for swearing at a time like that. He didn't say anything, leaving her to express herself. "And also angry at Zed for… you know, going and getting himself involved like that… But asides from that, it's mainly just annoyance or people I don't really want to talk to." She says as she looks down the stairs to stick her tongue out at Nox who simply turns around and walks away, muttering something.
"So… you're saying that I'm blowing this all way out of proportion?"
"Of course you aren't. It's… it's still been a huge hit for me, to see Zed like this… but he's trying to stay positive and cheer me on, and it's been working as of late… However, when I see you, I do get angry at Eric… He's just been neglecting you, and been a prick all this time… I don't know what's gotten into him." Lucy said, scowling and probably swearing up a storm instead of chatting, since it seemed that only profanities were leaving her mouth.
However, her words really got Elly thinking: Had something else happened that she hadn't realized? She, to some degree, could understand why the Riolu was being so dedicated to training, because she knew him better than anyone: he hated the feeling of being weak, of losing a fight and letting others be hurt because of it. But this reaction was just… completely exaggerated, she didn't know why.
Lucy couldn't care in the slightest. She got up from the ground, now angry. "Alright, I've decided: I'm going to go talk with him myself." Elly looked at her and tried to get up to complain, but the Shinx stopped her. "You're in no condition to go talk with him Elly: you're way too hurt over what he's doing to you, but at the same time, you can't bring yourself to speaking to him in a simple and clear way. So I'll do it, ok?" The electric type seemed determined, and to be honest, Elly just didn't have the strength to try and stand against her.
"Just please… don't worsen things please…" She pleaded, and even though she though her words fell on deaf ears, it wasn't the case. Lucy didn't say anything however, and instead left through the kitchen door and towards the forest. It didn't take her long to reach the clearing where Eric and Jake had been training… or rather she was hearing Eric howling from half a mile away. As she came up to the clearing, she saw what type of training he was subjecting himself to: Jake had set up various ropes, from the which were hanging longs that kept swinging back and forth as the Sneasel commanded, standing behind the tree lines.
Eric was standing in the middle of all of it, turning around and punching whatever got close. He was training his reflexes, probably trying to train himself to counter that thing's ability to teleport on the spot… But she had seen it, and she didn't think it was enough.
"With how much you're screaming and howling people could get the wrong idea pretty easily, you know?" She taunted from the edge of the clearing, Eric glancing at her for just a second and then moving lightning quick as he punched the logs away, all of them coming at him at the same time. His fists were like bullets, and ended up breaking the second to last one in half, but the last hit him in the back of the head, knocking him forward. He growled in annoyance, then looked at Jake, who was already approaching to inspect the broken log, then looked at Lucy.
"What do you want? I'm busy." He almost growled. Jake shot him a look, then at Lucy: he knew what she was here to say, and in a surprising turn of events, didn't say anything else, and instead turned around and walked out of sight, leaving the two of them to speak.
"Oh yeah, too busy neglecting Elly." She basically spat on his face.
He didn't know what to answer for a second, then sighed. "Great, now I've got you trying to jump down my throat too… I don't have time for t-"
"You don't have time for Elly, who was crying a few minutes ago?!" He stops and bites his lip, then looks at her, really surprised. "Yeah, you heard me right, you selfish prick. Look, I get it: I'm unbearable when I'm angry, ok? But at least I don't ignore my friends and mate when I'm angry. If I'm angry with someone I'm just angry with them, and that's it, but I don't make others pay the price!"
"You really don't know what you're talking about right now Lucy, just back off… You've got enough on your plate with Zed…"
"And what am I supposed to do?! Stand still as I watch my best friend crying on the steps! Hadrim had to console her because you weren't there! You two are sappy as all hell when you're together, and it's kind of annoying. Ok, but you're doing the entire opposite thing, Eric! And it's weird, and it doesn't make sense, and it's really… and I mean, really getting to Elly." Her voice cracks at the very end. Even though she and Eric didn't get along very well, he was her mate's best friend, and also her best friend's mate… so he was basically like family at that point… then again, they always said that Team Star was a "big family of outcasts".
Eric didn't know what to say, but couldn't bear to look at the Shinx's face. "It's… not just that… I've failed in every possible way."
"Oh, cut the tauroscrap Eric! Zed is being more positive than you are, and he got his god damn front paws cut down to the bone! And it really, really makes me angry when he says this… But he says it was neither your fault nor Dark's."
Eric smirks. "Pche…" He chuckles lightly, shaking his head. "That's Zed… too good and kind for his own good… Dark was the one that dragged us out there and separated us. Had he stayed in home The Pursuer wouldn't have found him, and if it had kept on looking for us and found the Kaiser household, he would've found all seven of us ready to fight, plus whoever from the Kaisers who wanted to join… It was his fault. You and I both agree to disagree with Zed on that, right? Well, I also disagree when he says it wasn't MY fault… I failed to help him from all that…" He remembered the blood curling scream that Zed had made as he was hit, a scream that Lucy also had heard.
However, she also had something to say, walking towards him and yanking his arm forward with her teeth with no care, making him look at it. "Your arms were incredibly fucked up after that fight. You could barely lift a spoon, and Elly had to keep feeding you. I saw that with my own two eyes." Eric huffs and folds his arms again, looking away.
"I was weak…"
"And you're trying to get stronger so that they don't get hurt again, yada yada yada, tell me a story I don't already know from memory, you jackass."
"There's no need for you call me-"
"Jackass, dickhead, goddamn narrow-minded, nim-witted, thick-skulled stupid and downright despicable excuse for a mate, you absolute bastard!" Her stream of insults and swears effectively silenced Eric as she shouted them in his face at high speeds. When she was done she was panting, and the Riolu was speechless.
"Wow…" He could simply muster, a grin sneaking up on the Shinx.
"And I've got even more where those came from… so now tell me something I don't Eric… such as for example, but not exclusively: Why are you ignoring Elly like this?" The Riolu didn't answer for a long time, instead looking back and forth between her and the ground, clearly unsure. "Well?" She pressed on.
He sighed. "Well… I'm not avoiding her because I hate her… it's just that I'm disgusted at myself. I got… way too confident. After Blake, everything that happened and… surviving the Distortion World like I did, I felt like… There was just no fight I could lose, that I could do my job and guarantee that everyone would go back home unscathed even if the mission was incredibly difficult. Our most recent streak with missions had convinced me so, and when The Pursuer showed up for the first time, back in Horn Mountain… I just didn't think much of him. He was dangerous, or at least seemed so, but probably because he had gotten the jump on us, it couldn't happen again… That's why I set up the whole "night guard" thing that Dark and all of the Kaiser hated so much and found unnecessary… And what I feared most ended up happening."
"After the fight I felt… utterly defeated. Even if I had survived the fight, two of my best friends and companions were heavily wounded, the enemy had escaped, and I fainted not too long afterwards. After I woke up, the only thing I could think of was avenging them. That bubble I had been living in had been violently popped, and now I saw that I got way too confident. I wouldn't let that happen again however, and I guess I neglected Elly because of that… she knows, just as well as I do, that I got confident and paid the price, and if I couldn't stand the sight of me… then she probably couldn't either. I wanted to get stronger to prevent her from getting hurt… and I guess I just lost sight of what was really important."
The silence that hung in the air after Eric was done "explaining" himself only lasted fifteen seconds, but eventually Lucy broke it when her fur started crackling with electricity… and blasted him with a bolt of electricity that was quite painful, making him howl. "That one's for being such an idiot!" She blasted him again. "And that's for making Elly and everyone else in the team worry so much about you, including myself!" She stopped for just a few seconds, but then blasted him with another one.
"Aaaagh! What… what was that last one for?!" He questioned, getting tired of being zapped like this., although he admitted that it had been a long time coming.
"I… I don't know! But you deserved it as well!" She screamed, both of them standing still for a few seconds before she finally started chuckling. "Alright… look… you need to go back to Elly… she's probably still sobbing, and… Look, about Zed. He's been drilling the fact that you had nothing to do with it into my head, and you were just as hurt as he was." She put a paw on his shoulder. "You can't carry the weight of the entire team on your shoulders, that's not your job as a leader, you moron… You're supposed to be what brings us all together, and you do that… most of the time, at least." He glared at her, but smiles and sighs.
"Yeah, I guess you're right… but you know how I am… trying to protect everyone because I think I'm invincible… I'm not." He stands up, shaking off some dirt from the former shocking the Shinx had given him. "But… I'm sorry for having put you all through this... I couldn't think straight, and I was scared of the consequences… I apologize." She rolls her eyes, accepting his apology somewhat, and as they were finally getting ready to go back to the house, Jake came out from the trees, clapping.
"Brilliant… That was quite an emotional show, Lucy… You somehow did what I had wanted to do for so long with a much more… emotional language than mine."
His words were truthful, but there was irony in them too, and the Shinx was the quickest to respond. "Alright, of course you'd be the only person that would make a compliment sound like an insult…" She snarled, and Eric rolled his eyes.
"Perhaps… However, instead of discussing this, we should return to the house immediately, if we are to try and solve the rupture that has been created between Eric and Elly." As they started heading back however, Jake felt as if it necessary to point some things out about Eric's apology. "I must say, your words felt… prepared. Have you, per chance, been preparing to apologize?"
"Yeah… If I have you be honest, I noticed that I was ignoring her like this and I knew that sooner or later I would have to apologize… So yeah, some of what I said I had already planned in advance, most I just answered as you were scolding me…" Lucy smirked.
"I guess I also need to apologize… half of the time I was just angry at myself for letting Zed go like that and I made you guys pay for it. I guess that's what really got Elly like that… Man, I need to work on my people skills." Eric chuckled, and Jake couldn't help but smirk the moment he noticed that neither of them were looking at him, but they both went back to being serious as they approach the house, and the Riolu knew that he was going to have to explain his actions.
Back at the house, Hadrim stayed by Elly the whole time, chatting with her and trying to get her to laugh once she seemed calm enough, telling some little anecdotes about himself, Luca or their children. Shade, who had been going up and down, stopped and greeted Elly, worrying for her as she saw the mark of tears on her face until she was told that it was nothing. It was then when Shade sat down by her friend and her father, letting out a deep sigh. "Dark and Dust are really making my Wish be strong." She said and looked at Elly. "Rad told me you were there this morning while they trained, so you know to what point they've taken it, right? Well, it's been like that since that day. At least Dark can… sleep if you can call it that while he's knocked out because during the night he can't even with his pill and spends it down in the garage with… whatever the hell he's doing again in there." The Shiny Eevee said.
She had seen the Zoroark's routine a few times and it never changed. Train with Dust all morning, eat at lunch with barely any appetite and from there spend the rest of the day closed in the garage. Last night she could hear Natalie and him arguing about this, it ended with the younger Eevee left alone crying on the bed while he went back down. Radius this time spent the night with her. "Dust says… he's seen a shadow in Dark's aura since that day. He says that shadow is how guilty Dark feels. Last night I heard him say to Nat something about not being able to look at anyone in the eyes anymore after what happened. That he came out without a scratch and it felt like he had a wound in the chest… He said that if my mother hadn't had to push him she could have gotten away from that thing, so it was his fault she ended like that, that they had to go out for him. I think we all share that it was his fault to go out that night." She stopped at this point and sighed, not wanting to get into that topic again. "It's the first time I see him leaving Natalie to cry alone. Rad had to console her and when I went to Dark to confront him, he was plain out pathetic and broken. I managed to talk to him but he just wouldn't look at me for more than a second as we talked. He said that he's sorry but that an apology wouldn't cut it, he kept blaming himself for everything that happened that night, to Zed, to Serge, to my mother and to Eric. Basically he thinks all that's happened since then is his fault. He's been trying to get stronger so if there is a next time he can actually help, or so he told me. Then again that kind of training is too much in my opinion." Shade ended. She really needed to get that out of her, and her father being there helped her do it, since she wanted to tell it to Elly or someone from the Team. The Eevee was starting to cry as well, Hadrim leant to her and nuzzled his daughter to then lick the tears off of her face, something he didn't dare to do with Elly since it might have been pushing her trust towards him maybe a bit too much. "And Natalie… they only have each other as family here and after seeing them so close together for months, now this has them almost turning on each other... It hurts." She said.
"Radius has been down as well." This time it was Luna the one to talk. The Vulpix had been listening for a time around the corner of the stairway, hearing almost everything, now showing herself. "Partially because of Dark seems to be closing up to everyone and because of Natalie being so sad, and on the other side he's worried for Luca even if she's getting better. But you know what I mean, right? Natalie hasn't move from the couch at the living room all day and since he came back with Dark and Dust, and he's been going to and fro to check on his crush and his mother and up and down to check on Zed and Serge and Dark and Dust." She dared to add that joke about Nat being the Jolteon's crush to try and lighten the mood, tho it wasn't the best place to put one.
Elly nodded with all that she was told, all of this information weighting down on her heavily: this was the result of that fight, a fight that they may have survived physically but lost psychologically. Jake had been picking up any type of information from those who had fought it to build a psychological profile, as well as adapt to it's fighting style, one of the many reasons why this enemy was so intimidating. However, her thoughts were interrupted as she heard Lucy's rather distinguishable voice booming from downstairs, and Eric soon followed after, running after the Shinx and coming up the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the Eevee, and the normal type looking down at him.
There was a moment of silence in the house, not a soul daring to say anything, and Eric felt everyone's eyes falling directly on him. He was being judged. And heavily, he might add. "Hello… Everyone…" He simply greeted, not daring to take a step up those stairs and towards Elly. "I… know I have a lot of things to explain and apologize for… So I'm going to try to come out clean on this: I really don't know what the hell I was doing. When I woke up, the only thing I could think of was how much of an idiot I was, but getting so overconfident in my abilities. I should've been more careful…" He looked at Hadrim. "I should've properly warned you of what was coming… but I didn't, because I thought we could take him on easily… and I was wrong."
"I know that you all have lost some faith or trust in me… it's only natural… and some of you might not even like me anymore, but… I just want to apologize for having been ignoring you all and focusing on training alone when I realized that… I should be training with everyone and getting you all ready for what's to come, and not thinking that this is my responsibility… So I'm sorry for doubting you and trying to cast you aside in a selfish attempt to keep you safe, and yet at the same time endangering my life…" This comment was obviously aimed to all members of Team Star, the entirety of the team watching him from either the bottom of the stairs or from the door to a room. "And hiding the truth from you all and considering you not companions and friends, but instead either defenseless pokémon... or a burden." He bowed, having finally spoken his heart out, then looks at Elly, who is looking at him with teary eyes.
"I remember someone saying, and I quote: 'Apologizing doesn't undo what you did, imbecile!'. You males and your stupid pride." Luna said simply and looked away from him letting out a "humpf" as she did. She knew who she was talking about and to whom those words went. Hadrim on other side just stood looking at them all for a moment, Shade was looking at Eric with a different look.
"We might be weak, but everyone can improve, you know?" She said to him, for once talking with a firm tone.
"Hey bro. On my case don't worry about it, not much hard feelings. But try to think that others can also pull their weight most of the time." Surprisingly, Dust talked from the bottom of the stairs, looking up at them, the cut over his eye patched and with his almost trademark careless smile plastered on his muzzle.
"Just… I'm sorry, ok? I didn't know how to handle that situation and it got out of control for me. Just being defeated like that triggered something in me, and I wanted to do anything possible to prevent this from ever happening. I'm sorry." He apologized again, though this time he was just looking at Elly, who was slowly stepping down towards him.
"I… It's ok… I know that you mean to do well, but please… Next time to try to consider all of us as friends and allies, not as burdens. We're your friends, and all of us are together in this, and what to help you and defeat that… thing, as much as you do." Elly reminded him, voicing everyone's opinions, and the fighting type nods, getting teary eyed, before trying to wrap his arms around her… but she shot him a look that stopped him on his feet.
"I'm sorry I ignored you like this… It must've been horrible, and I didn't realize… God, what kind of mate am I…"
"The one that I have and that I'm happy with. You've got your faults, like everyone else. I know you meant well, I told you… so from this point onward I want you to help everyone improve, and they, in turn, will help you improve." She knowingly said, and the Riolu nods in her embrace. There's a few minutes of silence, before Serge coughs.
"So then, Eric's back to being normal and not an asshole?" The Pidgeot asked, and the Riolu gave him an amused look and nods. Immediately afterwards, him, Nox and Zed broke into cheering… really loudly. "Finally! I was getting sick of this climate of consternation and dissatisfaction! Good grief!" Nox nodded besides him.
"You can't believe how tense it was starting to get guys… Glad that's finally over at the very least, though now I want a break from all of this action and shit." The Houndour swore, and everyone pointed it out to him, Emily chiming in with her trademark "Swear jar!" comment.
"I agree with both… we may be physically recovered, but many of us are psychologically spent and exhausted. We need to find a way to unwind and relax without having the threat of this… Pursuer breathing down our necks." Zed points out, and there's an unanimous agreement from everyone in the household, including Eric, who also admits that he had quite a headache, but also felt like a weight had been lifted.
"Now if all is settled, why don't we all go have something to eat? I've made something today that I hope you like." Hadrim said to them all as he stood from where he was laying down. As he suggested, Eric leaned in closer to Elly and whispers something into her ear, then pointed upwards, and the Eevee looked at him and nods, said something, and they parted ways: The Eevee going up the stairs and the Riolu to the kitchen.
"Hey, Had, can you give me two bowls? Elly and I are going to eat somewhere else." He asks once he's in the kitchen, grabbing on the table so that at least his head is visible from the slightly taller table.
Hadrim filled two bowls and handled them to him with his psychic. "Here you go. I hope you like it." He says. The Riolu thanked him and smieds, feeling much better than before, and came across his companions. "I'm telling you, I'll finish up faster than any of you!" Nox proclaims as he, Serge, Zed, Lucy and Luna go into the kitchen.
"Pffft, yeah right… I'm the fastest one in the team, Nox! Remember?" Lucy responds, smiling and giving him a superior smirk.
"How do you expect to not crush a female when you mount her if you eat so much? Oh wait! You won't get a female if you keep thinking with what hangs between your back legs." Luna said to the Houndour, and her snark was followed by "Ooooooh!" and "Savage!" sounds from Serge and Zed, who, since he was among friends and wasn't the centre of attention, felt free to laugh.
"Damn straight, sister!" The Shinx raised a paw, the Vulpix answered the same way and high pawed the Shinx, to Nox's dismay and annoyance, continuing the discussion and swearing he'd eat the whole pot while Serge started teasing Zed about the "savage" comment. Finally, they all stopped shouting and screaming as Jake and Hadirm call for some peace and quiet, and the conversation topics swiftly changed.
"Hey, Eric, where you going?" The Pidgeot casually asked as he breezed by with two food bowls in his paws.
"The roof. Elly's waiting for me there." Zed couldn't help but look at him weird, but shrugged.
"Alright, you two have fun up there… we're just going to eat in the kitchen like normal pokémon do…" Eric laughs and let the limping Zorua go into the kitchen, followed by Lucy's complaints about him walking around, Eric already picturing poor Zed becoming a ball of black fur as he was brought into the spotlight by the irate Shinx.
Hadrim before putting anything for himself, after everyone was served, put some food into a bowl and went to the living room. Clara was watching her serie while enjoying a plate of the mac n' cheese and Ichiro was sitting besides Nat. Seeing the Espeon, the human boy rose and went to the kitchen, waving at everyone with a smile and getting food for himself. Meanwhile, Hadrim approached the pet bed to try and talk with the little Eevee. "Hey… Are you okay?" He asked her.
Natalie looked at him with a tired face, with recently cleaned tear trails coming from her eyes. The Eevee didn't say anything and curled a bit more. He sighed patiently and sat by her. "Come on, we've been in this situation before, Nat, you know I'll listen." He said calmly and warmly. He didn't need to press much to make her pour it all out, with a surprisingly controlled voice. He stood there and listened to her worries and what's been upsetting her. It was what he thought. He waited patiently for her and listened everything. He offered to talk with Dark when he woke up and if needed smash some sense into that thick skull of his. That for some reason made her laugh slightly and also put her slightly at ease, a least, enough for her stomach to ask for the food she was smelling. Had took Nat to the kitchen and left her plate on a free spot by Shade, who greeted the smaller Eevee and nuzzled her a bit seeing her up and hungry. Nat smiled more for this. "Sorry for being so down lately." She said to the shiny Eevee.
"Don't be. We were all on edge." The Shiny said. "Now dig in before it gets cold!" She said and dived back to her bowl, Natalie giggling and doing that, much more calmly than the silver furred.
Elly was staring out into the forest and the blue sky while she waited for Eric to arrive, and sure enough, a few minutes after she got up on the roof, he came out of the window and climbed up carefully, showing her the bowls and the spoons so she grabbed them. "This place is pretty… and we're all alone here. This was a great idea." She said, handing him a bowl and a spoon once he was up there.
He grabbed them and sat down right besides her. "Glad you like it" He kisses her cheek. "I knew that sitting like this would make you happy… staying home all day just feels so wrong, doesn't it?"
"You are always saying that, even at home, you workaholic." Elly giggleed when she sees Eric rolled his eyes at this remark.
"Alright, alright, I guess you're right about that one… Anyways, it's nice to eat out in the open for once, doesn't it? Reminds me of when we're on a mission and we make a stop at a cliff or something…"
"And I have to pull out our cooking stuff and cook up something because you're a disaster in the kitchen"
He elbowed her with a smile. "Hey, at least I can cook pasta."
She gasped. "Because pasta is the simplest thing you can do!"
"Hey, at least I'm not as horrible as Lucy is." They both laugh in edunison, their laughter resonating in the air as they leaned on eachother to support themselves. "Remember that one time she pulled out the noodles and they just fell apart because she had overcooked them?" They roared with laughter.
"Oh yeah… I even remember the face she made: it was incredible." She imitated it best she could from memory: a mixture of disgust as she saw how the overcooked spaguetti writhed on the water like a pack of worms and surprise, because she actually thought that keeping the noodles in the boiling water for fifty minutes straight was acceptable. "And that one time she put too much black pepper in the stew and we were all running around from his spicy it was?"
"Oh gosh that one wasn't fun at all. I had a massive stomach ache after that… In fact we all did, including her!" They laughed. "That was the last time she ever cooked… and the world's been a better world ever since."
She playfully punched his elbow, and made him scream as he almost lost grip of his food. "True enough… Though you know she did with good intentions and didn't mean it. Now let's see here…" Elly opened her mouth and took a spoonful of Hadrim's cooking. "Mmmmhh! This is quite good! I like the mix of the cheese and the berries! We have to get the recipe for this." She said, and Eric tried it too.
"Oh yeah, that's the good stuff… But I think the cheese is too strong, I'd rather taste the berries more than the cheese…"
"No way, this is perfect. Besides, it's Mac and Cheese, from what he said, not 'Mac and Berries with some cheese', you dummy." He smiled and they both ate in relative peace, exchanging a few comments and remarks every so often, laughing or chuckling together while observing the sky. Once they were done, they left the bowls aside and laid down next to eachother, looking at the clouds and their shapes.
They go for a few minutes without saying anything, just enjoying the peace and quiet, until Eric sighed and broke the silence. "I really can't take it like this… It just doesn't feel right that I was ignoring you so much two hours ago and here we are, as if nothing had happened."
Elly got up and frowned. "Well… what did you expect? For me to be angry at you? I told you that I understood, to some extent, why you did it… and you weren't constantly ignoring me for a whole month, really, you paid attention to me and came to my side whenever I called you. It's just that today it all came crashing down on me and couldn't do anything to stop it. You admitted to being wrong about what you were doing and how you were doing it, and as long as you don't do it again, I won't get mad, because I trust that you'll learn from your mistakes. Getting mad at you would've simply elongated the problem, and besides, you know I'm not a drama queen." She laid back down on her side, looking at him.
He sighed as she gave her reasonings. "I know, but it still feels wrong…" She turned to face away from him
"Just… drop it, ok? Stop thinking about it and let's continue on with our lives. I'm not exactly thrilled either really… to be honest I still don't feel ok. I feel sad, and kind of angry, because you still hurt me, and you knew you were doing so. If anything, I'm just… frustrated with you, but you've showed me time and time again that you can learn from your wrong doings, so I'm willing to relax a bit and give you another chance without blowing up in your face-"
"Because we didn't want to continue this conversation in front of everyone, did we?"
"Basically…" She sighed and gets up. "Ok, since we're both being bothered by this, let's just talk this out: I'm not ok with what you did Eric, not at all. The reaction you had was completely illogical, shutting yourself away like that… As I said, it was mostly annoyance and frustation what I felt, because… after all we have gone through, you still just felt inclined to do everything on your own. And that, that, was what hurt me so much and made me so angry. " He opens his mouth to reply, but she shakes her head. "Not even going to listen to you, because you know I'm right: It's just stupid, Eric. You were being a moron by doing things this way. I can already guess that you felt inclined to do it like this because you're the leader of the team, and you feel the necessity to protect us… but we already know how to protect ourselves, and you can't do everything on your own. I just… don't want to see you crashing down like this again." This last phrase she managed to stutter out, the Riolu silently looking at her and nodding when she said something he agreed with… which so far, had been everything.
"And lastly… Why? What were you hoping to achieve by shoving all of us away? Just so that in case you died we wouldn't feel as horrible or something?" He looks at her, and that single look tells him all she needs to know, groaning. "For the love of… Eric!" Now she was just getting angry. "Do you really not have any better ideas?! What were you thinking?!"
"I don't know, ok?! I was in a panic… it was the first time in almost a year since we had come across someone like that… and I told you all, I beat Blake, and I got cocky… Honestly, I didn't know how to react, and I guess I just did the first thing that came to mind, training. I noticed that it was a bad idea the second day, maybe the third, but at that point I guess I was just… scared of the retribution for all of that."
"And so you kept going with it because you were scared that I was going to shout at you? Well.. I am now, either way! I wasn't expecting something so… cowardly from you, Eric." This last comment hit home extremely hard, and Elly saw it in his eyes.
"Yes… it's true… But… there's another thing. And it's something that I hadn't realized up until this moment. And it has to do with the Pursuer: I think… I've met him before." Elly looked at him, extremely confused.
"What do you mean? Where and when?"
"I… I didn't remember it before." He bit his lip. "But… You know the nightmare I keep having?"
Elly's ears flopped down, sticking to the sides of her head as she thought for a bit. "The… one with the vortex?"
"Yes, the one from the Distortion world, where I am always looking into it as the world is being destroyed…" His body trembled, and Elly could see the look in his eyes, like an innocent kid who had found themselves in the middle of a massacre.
"Yeah, I know which one you mean… I remember you waking up in a cold sweat the first days after you came back to me… Do you still have it?" She asked, slightly concerned.
"A better question is if I'll ever stop having it... But anyways, after the fight, I had it again… and I remembered something: Right before I was cornered by Blake and had to… you know." He trailed off, letting Elly piece it together, which she does and signifies him with a nod. "Right before that, I remembered seeing someone there as well." Her eyes widen.
"Wait… what? Are you sure?"
"Absolutely… they even turned around, to face me… but I couldn't see their face because they were covered by this black as coal cloak that hid them completely... " He falls silent as he looks gravely at Elly, and she gasps as she connects the dots.
"Just like The Pursuer's! You think that…"
"It's the same guy. Yeah. And he somehow survived that chaos too… That's why I was so nervous: He's been there this whole time, and now he's back to kill us.. for some reason."
Elly sits on the roof and crosses her front paws in front of her, sort of mimicking the way Jake sat down to think, which Eric found sort of cute. "He may have come to finish the job…"
"I don't think so: He could've killed me right then and there, in that place, since I was all alone… but even then, he saved my life in the end: he told me that Blake was approaching from behind and basically saved me from being backstabbed." That last revelation makes all of Elly's theories crumble.
"Then I don't get it. At all." She sentences, and they both stay silent for a couple minutes.
"I know this still doesn't change anything, but… I just thought you should know why I freaked out so badly. It's not the most important reason, but it's one of them." His explanations make Elly sigh.
"Yeah you're right, it doesn't excuse anything, but… Eric, look… Just don't do it ever again, and think with you head, and I'm pretty sure we'll all just forget about this eventually, including me." He smiles, but she remains stern. "Ah, no no no, don't try to convince me with one your lovely smiles: you still messed up, mister, and I'm still angry with you… But much less than before." She said, and the Riolu looks at her and spreads his arms, looking at her expectantly. She sighs, rolls her eyes, and then smirks and falls into his arms. "Cheer up… You've got all of us to fall back on if you need help."
"I know… And I appreciate you all for it. I love you, Elly."
"Oh, I know that already, silly…" She giggles and they both stay there like that for a while, simply enjoying the breeze on their fur, feeling a lot better with eachtother. And after a bit, they decided to lay down on the roof and rest a little, and eventually fell asleep, Eric lying on his side while Elly was curled a little and facing him, both of them looking peaceful.
Ichiro was outside, enjoying Hadrim's food at the same time he took in some fresh air. At some point, the human looked up, seeing them there and couldn't help but smile. Fishing in his pocket he took his pokenav, turned on the camera, aimed, played a bit with the zoom and snapped a photo of them both, it was just too nice to let it pass, and it was one more photo for his growing gallery of Pokémon photography.
Back in the kitchen, most of them had finished eating and where having some calm chat. Dust worrying about Serge's and Zed's state while Luna asked Nat how was she feeling. When she was about to answer, Dark came into the kitchen, without saying anything, few did see him but seeing him they didn't say anything just waved and he waved back as he went for a bit of water and got some food for himself.
Dust looked at the Zoroark. For some reason his fur seemed darker than usual, but he blamed it on his imagination and tried to ignore the feelings he was getting from the still downed Zoroark. Only one greeted him out loud, and he answered by waving again and a simple "Hey." And he went back to eating. In the end, he finished quickly and washed his things to then go out. He stopped as he stepped down the steps to the backyard and looked as his claws. Sighing, he just looked around. He couldn't stand it, not being able to look at his friends and sister in the eyes. He held back, putting his back straight and looking at the sky as he gasped a bit. The bags under his eyes betrayed the little rest he's been getting all this time.
He thought on what to do. He couldn't go to the town alone. Not again. But he just couldn't bring himself to ask anyone to go with him. Dust wanted to spend the afternoon with Emily for once, Radius was taking care of his mother with his father, Shade was making Natalie company along with Luna, and Natalie herself was upset with him.
The Zoroark started to walk around, picking up a basketball ball from the floor and starting bouncing it to keep occupied. After some bounces he looked for the basket and threw it. As usual, he missed and hit the wall, even then, he went for the ball and quickly threw it again. He did it a few times, trotting for the ball and throwing as fast as he picked it up, he missed all his throws, but it kept him busy and that's what he wanted. He didn't feel like training, nor battling, he just wanted to relax and this was helping him a lot on that.
In one of the throws he managed to make it, but by that point he was panting, even then it hasn't been very long since he started either. However, the ball stopped mid air after passing the ring and then floated towards Hadrim, who was sitting there, watching him. "I'd say you are having fun." He said to the Zoroark.
"Not much, just… trying to relax." Answered the dark fox, his tone more animated thanks to the exercise but he still couldn't look at him, at least until the Espeon called "Catch!" And almost hit him in the face with the ball.
"Dust had told me about your training. It's efficient but don't you think you are taking it too hard?" He asked. The dark type sighed and threw once more, failing this time. Hadrim jumping and catching the ball himself with his tail, and tried it himself, bouncing the ball near the basket and Dark catching it and bouncing it.
"I wasn't improving at all the other way. You… saw how that ended." He said, remembering Luca's state after that fight. Clara had to call a doctor to come and help the Lucario with her wounds. He threw again, and again missed, Hadrim running to catch it.
"If you are talking about the others being wounded. As far as I know, Luca doesn't blame you for her wounds. More so, she asked about you when she woke up. She got scared when I told her you were passed out until I could tell her it was only because you've been training with Dust." he said to him and threw. "I can't tell about the others. Why don't you ask them?"
Dark catches and throws quickly. "I can't even look at them straight to the eyes, let alone get words to apology to them. Not that that would mean anything at this point. Doesn't matter how sorry I am, an apology won't undo anything and would mean nothing." He said.
They took turns to talk by who got the ball with each throwing, if one of them didn't want to talk they just threw the ball in silence. "You should try and talk with them, it might take a weight off of you." Hadrim said, but then looked at Dark as the Zoroark stood still, not going for the ball. "Dark?" He called. The Zoroark however, didn't hear him, he had a paw on one of his ears as he felt them ringing, his vision started to get blurry and filled with coloured spots. Hadrim approached him, calling his name with worry as he saw the dark fox stumble forwards a bit. His body felt heavy and the younger Pokémon couldn't hold himself standing and fell down. There was no pain, he just fell and only an instant before, his eyes closed and he lost consciousness.
"Damnit!" The Espeon cursed as he checked him out. His breathing was slow and his pulse sounded weak. Had kept cursing but tried to keep calm. Even then he called for help to at least get him back to his room.
"Come on guys. Pick what you want. I got enough Poké for everyone, but think of the others." Ichiro said as he went into the sweets store and approached the ice cream fridge, leaving Dust, Radius, Elly and Lucy to go pick whatever sweets they wanted as he searched what he'd like to get. The human boy had decided to go buy some sweets for the house with some of them after Zed said that Dark had fainted out of tiredness, surely because of the intense training he and Dust kept and having barely, if any sleep at all, and Dust had been told that the training was over for the time being. The golden Riolu accepted without a word of protest. It was like taking a bit of fresh air for the human, and meanwhile, get a treat for everyone as well.
After Ichiro said those words, Dust immediately went towards the hard candies and started to pick them, filling a little plastic bag with them. Radius on his side decided to pick some black and white chocolate balls and some licorice of various flavours. Elly pondered about the red licorice, if anything for Eric, who had eaten all of them last time they'd both gotten sweets, and added some to the growing bag of gummies, chocolates and other types of sweets for the rest of the Team Star members. She looks at Ichiro. "Hope we managed to get enough money for everyone…"
The human stopped looking for a moment to look at her and took his wallet, counting a bit his money, and trying not to seem like a weirdo that talks alone in the cashier's eyes. "I've got like five hundred Poké. Even if you pick up ten kilograms I'll be able to pay it with these prices." He thought while lifting his eyes from his money to look at the Eevee in the eyes, hoping she heard him.
She giggles, but then falls silent and starts shaking her head. "Alright, everyone, please not all at once!" She shouts out loud, surprising basically everyone in the shop, then looks at Ichiro and gives him a sheepish smile. "Sorry, everyone's trying to tell me what they want through telepathy… Anyways, it's the least Eric and I could do after taking away that bag… Spend it wisely though!" She says, and returns to picking up more sweets.
"Don't worry about that. At least you ate it all and nothing went to waste." He chuckles as if he was recalling a funny joke.
"Excuse me. If your Eevee is going to throw another tantrum, I would have to ask you to make it wait outside." The Cashier woman said to him, and Ichiro scratched the back of his head for the scold.
"Sorry. She'll behave, right?" He said to Elly the last part, half joking but with a serious tone, if only to make the cashier think that he was scolding her for real.
She looks at the ground, but can't help but glare daggers at the cashier woman, not enjoying her rather despective tone.
"Well look at what you've done now, the cashier and basically everyone in the shop is looking at me weird."
"Why?" Eric asked through telepathy, hearing Lucy chuckle through telepathy, but the deadly glare that Elly shot her was very much real, and so was the giggling that followed it.
"Cuz she probably shouted out loud when we all started talking at the same time."
"Jeez, how'd you know, Nox? Maybe you're better than I am with psychic powers."
"Let's be honest here, if Nox had psychic powers he'd probably use them for some shady shit, like looking underneath every girl's tails." Serge chimes in, and immediately the conversation devolves into shouting.
"Would not!"
"Yep."
"Yeah."
"Hell yeah he would."
"Affirmative."
"... I hate you all." The discussion kept going, but Elly sighed and cut it off there and kept picking sweets, until she comes across a machine with some sort of bended plastic or glass, which gives her quite a weird reflection of herself, her face being elongated, with the top looking thinner than the bottom. She stares at it for a couple seconds, moving her head up and down, giggling to herself.
"Hey, Lucy, come check this out!" She calls her best friend, and the Shinx dashes to her, kicking up some wind and looking at the same thing… and soon enough, they're both giggling as they're looking at their dumb reflections, having a blast.
"What's gotten into you two with the slush machine?" Dust asks them as their giggling has called his and Rad's attention, while Ichiro has decided on what ice cream he'll pick and now just waits for them to finish with their sweets.
"Leave them to have fun. I think is cute when they look like little kits, finding fun in every new things they find." Radius says, holding back some chuckles but smiling a bit, while Dust had to cover his sniggers with a paw.
Elly looks at them, blushing. "We've never seen something like this where we come from… it just looked funny."
"And don't call us kits! We're both older than you, so show some respect!"
"We know, Lucy. No need to let your electricity get all riled up and shock us." The Jolteon said approaching the machine and tilting his head a bit. "First time we came we spent an hour doing faces in front of this. Got out without sweets, tho." He chuckles and does one, opening his mouth as much as he can and letting his tongue fall while seeking a point where his reflexión would stretch his mouth in a way that it reaches the floor.
"However… that was when we were kits." Dust follows up, and the brothers chuckle to themselves, to the females' dismay and slight annoyance.
"Come on guys. If you are done, then come here so the cashier miss can weigh it." Ichiro calls them as he smiles seeing this scene. Radius going to him and, when Dust is alone, he puts a paw on his nose and pulls back, showing his fangs as his nose is scrunched up as a pig's as he bends towards the slush machine, making a face and chuckling to himself as he stops doing it and goes to the counter, barely missing the devious looks that Elly and Lucy were giving him. He left his sweets on top of the counter, the Cashier woman picks the bag up and weighs it, doing the same with everything and giving Ichiro a price, the human paying and then picking up a ten liters cup of vanilla and chocolate ice cream and taking it to the counter, asking for a bag to carry it as well. The human spent three hundred Poké on everything and as he carried the ice cream cup, Radius took the sweets bag in his mouth by the handlers.
Before they went out of the store, the Cashier stopped Ichiro and handled him some little cartoonish-looking cards. "This is a promotion. For every fifty poké you spent here you get an attempt at our "Lucky Seven's" game. With three Seven's you get a price of five thousand Poké, with all six Seven you get a fully paid vacation for you and all your family, including your Pokémon, in a hotel. You can exchange your prices in our web, just scan the QR code if you get something." She explains as Ichiro picks the six cards. "I wish you good luck." She says bowing slightly, offering a smile afterwards.
"Thank you." The human boy says to then go out with the four pokémon behind him. "You think we'll be lucky?" He asks them.
"Maybe. You never know." Dust answered putting his hands behind his head. They only had two bags to carry and Ichiro and Radius where carrying one each. As they were going back, Elly and Lucy just felt it was a necessity to get some payback on the two males.
"You know… looking back to that sweet store and the whole reflection thing… We saw a certain Riolu looking reaaaally dumb while he thought nobody was looking…" Elly seemingly points out, like dropping a random fact for no reason whatsoever.
Dust looks at them out of the corner of his eyes as his ears go straight up in a moment, not saying anything. "What was this Riolu doing?" Ichiro asked, if only to have some fun himself. Elly looks at Ichiro and smirks, before trying to replicate the face was doing as they caught him as best she could. It was a faithful replication, and it made Lucy laugh.
"Oh! The piggy face?" Ichiro chuckles a bit, as Dust starts to blush. "You know? I know of a Shiny Riolu that loves to do that face a lot, and sometimes asked me to come here just so he could laugh at his own piggy face." He says, the jackal taking his arms down as he hears this. "One time I got scolded for not buying anything and just go there to play. But he never loses the opportunity to do it."
"Shut it bro! There's no need for you to tell that!" Dust jumps, embarrassed upon remembering that day and the scolding he got from his parents afterwards. While Radius laughed as he could without letting go of the bag he was carrying. After a bit more time with teasing Dust about his faces, the females also finally came up with a way to tease Radius.
"And you…. you can't be that far off! He's your brother! C'mon Ichi, tell us something that Radius did!" The Eevee says, pleading for more embarrassment, Lucy looking at the Jolteon with a wide smirk, giving off the fact that it had been her idea.
"Radi?" The human asks as he thinks. Radius quickly going to him and pushing his leg as if asking him to not say anything. Ichiro looking at him with a smirk that said that he wasn't getting out of this. "Sometimes, he used to think that his own reflection was another Pokémon. He had a few months only. It was fun and cute seeing him arguing with himself about how rude it was to talk at the same time and saying the same thing that he was saying it." Ichiro said, making the Jolteon whine and push him again, now begging. "And then there was this time when we had to buy a new TV when he tried to "free the trapped people and pokémon" inside the box, thinking back to it now it was hilarious seeing him digging and asking for them… even if our money says otherwise." At this Radius desisted trying to ask the human to shut up, both young males embarrassed into silence and just walking, wanting the earth to swallow them, wishing to reach home already so they could hide in a hole and never come back out, while Elly and Lucy were too busy giggling or straight up laughing, getting so much dirt on the two males…
"Emily would love to get this info on Dust!" The bigger Eevee, said, her smile way too big for her not to feel some discomfort.
However, the Shinx's was actually bigger. "You know who would pay even more for this info on Rad though? Starts with an N~"
At that, Rad's ears perked up and he looked at her with a bit of a stare, not knowing why they had gotten to say that he likes Nat lately, and he simply doesn't ask, thinking they were just imagining things. However, his reaction said it all, and they both start giggling madly and screaming simultaneously, having way too much fun.
"I swear, bro. Imma get you back for this." Dust said to the human with a grumpy tone.
"You say that, then I invite you to something and there'll be no hard feelings, like ever." He chuckled.
Dust growled slightly but then sighed, the human knew him too well. "Meh. Whatever. You can't make us more embarrassed." He desisted, defeated.
"Is that a challenge?" Ichir chuckles.
"No!" Dust said quickly, shaking his arms and head. "Let's just… how much left 'til we get home!?" The Riolu asks.
"Just a bit more." The human answered while holding back his laugh.
Even then, the teasing didn't end there, and the both of them had to endure it until they reached the household. Ichiro having laughing heartily as he opened the door. "We're back!" he called as they got inside. Radius hurrying to leave the bag on the kitchen and then going upstairs, while Dust went to his room.
"Hey, champ. How was it?" Daniel asked as he was drinking a coffee and saw his son get into the kitchen and put the ice cream into the freezer.
"It went great. Got six "Lucky Sevens" cards as well to try our luck and see if we got paid vacations this summer." Ichiro said to then show the cards to him. "¨Here have one. We both know I shouldn't play this things." The boy adds, giving one to the older human and then giving four to Elly and Lucy. "Here one for each and the other two give them to whomever you want. You know how to play with these "scratch and win" cards, right?" He asked them.
Elly looks at him, looking at him weird. "I'm guessing it consists on us scratching the spaces and hoping we get lucky?"
"Heh, yeah. Sorry if I offended you." He says, standing up. "Well, good luck." He said to them with a smile as he went on check on Luca, while carrying the bag of sweets and the last card to give it to her so she could give it a try.
"Yeah, sure… we never win any of these anyways." As Elly said this, Eric brushed past her and swooped down to steal a kiss from her cheek. She blushed and looked at him, returning the affection with a nuzzle and then they chatted.
"How'd it go? Did you bring the licorice?"
"Yeees, we did. You'll get it later, thinking on taking a bath… want to join me?" There was a certain tone in her voice he couldn't deny, but he could tell it wasn't for that.
"Oh, you can count me in…"
The sound of someone gagging came from behind them, more specifically Lucy, and they both blushed. "Oh! Yeah, they gave us these tickets in the shop. Scratch 'n win, they called them. You might as well check this one…" He nodded, kissed her forehead and told her he'd be in the room with the others, then ran upstairs. Unbeknownst to them however, Elly had dropped another of the tickets.
"Oh, you came back already." From behind them comes Zed's voice, who is trying his hardest to walk around.
"Zed! What are you doing?!" Lucy suddenly screams, and the Eevee turns around to look at Zed, who was trying to walk around the lower level of the house to get his bearings again, and the Zorua had noticed the small ticket, leaned forward and picked it up with his maw, being careful to not hurt his legs in the process. "God damn it, don't do that, you're not healed up yet!"
Elly walked over to Zed and grabbed the missing card with her powers, thanking Zed. "I'm trying to get myself back on my feet again Lucy, don't worry… I know my own limits better than anyone, so I won't do anything rash." He assured her, but the Shinx was already angry with him, and the Eevee decided to leave and give the card to someone else, seeing as none of them would have any good use for it… There are constant screams from upstairs from three males, and then it was followed by one laughing and another complaining. She walked over to the stairs and looked for someone else, and on her way there she found Eric, who was walking around with the card she had given them.
"God damn cards! Now I have to give my berries to Jake!" Eric gave Elly the already scratched card. - Effing games… Does it really have to be Oran berries too?!"
"Yes, Oran berries!" The door opened and Jake came out. "Otherwise it will not be a true loss, right?" He pointed a finger at Eric menacingly. "When you make a bet, you're expected to risk something you care about a tiny bit, otherwise the bet truly holds no meaning!" He explained, and then turned to face inside of the room, his face going back to his normal expressionless form. "Is that how you wanted me to say it, Serge?"
"Yes! That's exactly it!" The Pidgeot was roaring with laughter for some reason, and nobody understood what those two were talking about, but Eric just groaned and walked down the stairs, flipping them off while scratching the side of his head, telling Elly he'd come back up with some Pecha berries for her too, which immediately brightens her mood. She headed to their room, but just before she got there, she passed by another room, where she could hear pokémon talking, and inside she saw Natalie and Luna chatting alone.
"Hey, how are you two doing?" Elly asks as she comes in, showing them the card. "Ichiro gave me one of these… but I really don't care about this sort of stuff, and Eric doesn't want to see one of these anytime soon… I think…" She wasn't sure about that last part, but given how annoyed the Riolu looked, proposing to make him scratch another of those was not an option, and she didn't trust Serge one bit, Jake probably wouldn't care and Nox was nowhere to be seen.
Both females turned to look at the incoming Eevee and greet her as well with smiles, thought Natalie's, if still sincere, took her a bit more of work to muster. "You know, here trying to relax about… everything really." Natalie said to the first part.
"Why not? Might as well get surprised." Luna said to the second and took the card and started to scratch it.
"What about you? Are you spreading the sweets or plan on having them all only for you and Eric?" Nat dares to make a joke, if only to have a bit more of a laugh herself. "Ok, jokes aside. Did anything funny happened?" She asked. Elly thinks about it for a second, and decides to retell the story Ichiro had told them about Rad.
Luna couldn't help but break out laughing for that. "My Arceus that's so stupid!" She let out, laughing hard, Natalie giggling for the story.
"Well, he was a kit. And I find it cute." She says with a smile fixed on her muzzle after having laugh so hard herself.
"Oooohohohoho. You hear that, Elly? I think someone has a crush on a certain orange Jolteon." Luna teases, and Natalie immediately goes scarlet red on the face.
"What are you saying? Of course I don't have a crush on Radius!" The youngest Eevee answers, leaving almost no time for Elly to answer Luna first, the Vulpix smirking at her since she didn't say any name, thought it was clear who she was talking about.
"You know, if I was Lucy or Nox… or Serge, even though he's creepy like that… but anyways, if I was any of the above… Or Eric if he's in a playful mood… Oh, you know what: if I was someone else with this information I'd be teasing you so bad that your cheeks would look like Luna's fur. However, I'm someone who was respect for others' privacy, but I'm still going to say it: you're head over heels for him, and no amount of self convincing arguments is going to fix that." She gave her the facts straight, having seen, and regretfully lived through a situation like this when she and Eric first realized their feelings for eachother… an occasion neither of them looked back to for… very good reason. Just thinking of that game of cat and mice that had been their first nervous attempts at romance was enough to make her internally cringe, getting a taste of how the rest of the team felt each time they talked sweetly in front of everyone.
"Why is everyone lately saying that!?" Nat groaned, still blushing hard. "You've been trying to tease Rad with that a lot and now you try with me! What's making you all think that either he or I have a crush on each other?" She asked.
"Well… I'm going to channel my inner Jake, as Nox likes to put it: the reactions you have when you talk about this topic are completely unnatural and exaggerated, you blush every single time he talks to you and shy away or look down whenever he's near, you stutter when trying to talk with him and become a mess of nervousness and sooner or later the conversation topic with any other female are reduced to Radius or what our own experiences were and some loose tips that you try to get out of us, more experienced members of the same gender, while you think to yourself that we were born yesterday and can't see the signs." Elly finishes her long stream of words and deductions… feeling fairly accomplished with herself. Jake was efficient and all, but he just got on everyone's nerves from time to time.
"That and come on, you really find cute instead of funny and ridiculous what our Jake's reflected image in female Eevee form friend told us? Come on, sis, you were smiling like… um… You had the biggest stupid smile I've ever seen the whole time!" Luna added. "Also, Elly. It's very creepy when you imitate Jake since at least I can't tell the difference except voice and gender." She said, directed to the older Eevee.
"She did have a big smile through all that too… Also, thanks for the compliment, Luna." She gives her a big, menacing toothy grin ala Jake, which sends shivers down Luna's spine. She had it down to a tee.
Natalie was now cowering her face with her ears to hid her red face, while with her paws she tried to get rid of the smile in her muzzle that came from her thinking about the Jolteon with all this situation.
"One question, Elly. What do I get if I scratch three sevens?" Luna asks her before she goes.
"Basically, if you uncover all the spaces and it's a row of sevens, hence the "seven sevens", sorry for the redundancy… If you unseven the sevens you will seven the seven the seven and thus be sevently sevented for seven millions of sevens…" She trails off, a funny look on her face, then shakes it, as if she was snapping out of a trance. "Sorry, too many numbers." She smiles.
"Someone seems to be in a joking mood this afternoon. That or you fell asleep talking. Either way I like it more than a lumping furball looming around the house." Luna commented.
"That, or I'm really good at faking it…" It was actually a mix of both: she felt much better than earlier, but she wasn't perfectly fine still, but she hid all of that behind some giggling, and she'd deal with her emotions later with a certain Riolu, who was at fault. "Anyways, so the point is that if you get three sevens in a single row, be it horizontal, diagonal or vertical, you win five thousand poké… but Eric grabbed one of them and scratched all the spaces and showed me that there wasn't a single seven on the thing, so it was rigged, probably the same with this one.
"So if I got six then I got ten thousand Poké?" She asks looking at her, the card she was scratching getting the big jackpot as all six spots had a seven in them. Natalie looking at it stunned out of words, still as a statue. However, neither of the females paid attention to her for the time being, as Elly was too distracted explaining it to Luna.
"No, listen: three sevens is five thousand, four is ten thousand, five is twenty thousand… and I think six sevens is like… a vacation trip?" She wasn't too sure about that last one.
"Well. I see… Six sevens here." The Vulpix said, pushing the card towards the blue eyed Eevee.
Elly stared at her funny, then went around and went to check the card. Then she checked it again. And again. And each time she checked her face shifted from mild amusement, to shock, then glee, then confusion, and then happiness as she rode a full rollercoaster of emotions, and a single realization dawned on her, and everything, somehow, made sense in her mind.
This was the card that Zed had touched.
Zed's luck was absurd.
"Um… you okay, Elly?" Natalie found her voice to ask seeing the faces the other was doing. Elly responded with a high pitched scream as she grabbed the card with her psychic powers and rushed out to the hallway, and then leaned over the railing of the stairs and shouted, waving the card around.
"We hit the jackpoooot!" She announced to everyone in the household, making Eric, who had just passed in front of the door, jump out of his skin, all of the berries flying up and scattering in the air as he expertly caught all of them on the plate once more and one last in his mouth, munching on it while he raises an eyebrow along with Nox, Serge and Jake, all three of which lean out of their room, organized in that order from top to bottom, and then Lucy, whose head snaps behind her to look at the Eevee. Meanwhile, Zed feels a cold sweat running down his back, and he knows, that back when he had picked up that card, he had made a fatal mistake.
Even Dust heard it from all the way down in the basement, Radius and Shade coming out of Ichiro's room as Natalie and Luna walked out of the room, the youngest Eevee closing the door so the last one inside can keep calmly sleeping. The Eevee repeated the message again, and Jake approached her to investigate… His eyes went wide open. "Impossible!"
That single exclamation was all everyone else needed to mob the Eevee, all of them getting a try at touching and looking at the winning ticket, and their reactions changed depending on her relationship with the Eevee: Nox pounced the Eevee and looked at the ticket from on top of her, Serge pushed the Houndour off and looked at it himself, almost crushing the poor normal type, Lucy dashed up the stairs and tackled her best friend, hugging her and wagging her tail, and Eric finally grabbed her from underneath them all then tossed her up in the air, celebrating it as she picked her up and then threw her up again and again, making her scream and shout in a mixture of fear and also excitement, before kissing her deeply on the lips.
"Everyone! Calm down! If we should thank someone, it should be Zed!" She announces, and the poor Zorua was already trying to crawl away downstairs, Clara giving the poor dark type some weird looks as he looked at her with pleading eyes.
From below, came the voice of the woman. "What's with the noise?" She asked, looking upwards. Her response was the mob of pokémon going downstairs and surrounding Zed, all of them having a go at the poor Zorua: hugging, kissing, nuzzling, patting, whispering, shouting, roaring, laughing, sobbing… And somehow they didn't break Zed's legs any further than they already were, probably because by the time they had gotten to him he had already crumpled up into a tiny ball of black fur, shivering and just taking in all of the affection and stimulation.
Clara let out some giggles for the situation and crouched down. "Come on, guys, let him breath." She said attempting to pick the poor ball of nerves and shyness up to try and save him from the mob of "fans" that was assaulting him. It works, as she somehow works her hands through that mess of feathers, fur, claws and paws as she pulls out the Zorua from that poképile, Lucy getting on top of Serge and trying to reach him. "You can pamper him all you want when you have calmed down a bit, ok?"She said to everyone, offering her arm to pick up Lucy too since she knows what's between this two. "Now what's all the fuss about?" She asks, holding him in her arms, being careful with his front legs.
Elly comes over to her, and carefully, extremely carefully, makes her way past everyone else on the ground and raises the ticket high enough so that both Clara and Zed could see it. Clara took the card carefully and read it, finding the prices and her face grew a big smile. "Well, would you see this? We've got fully paid vacations for this summer! Who bought this?" She asked them.
"It was me." Ichiro said peering out of Luca's and Hadrim's room with a licorice hanging from his muzzle that he quickly took away. "Actually, Elly, Lucy, Dust, Radius and I got six of those at the sweet store." The human boy said.
"And it was me who scratched it!" Luna said, pouting from above, sticking her head through the railing with a pout. "I can have my own luck, you know? It doesn't have to be his." She added, piecing it together and thinking they were praising him because of those jokes they usually made about his luck.
"What are you talking about?" Shade asked the Vulpix, but the fire type didn't answer.
"Zed has ridiculous luck. Every time we try and play anything that is purely based on chance and luck, he gets extremely lucky… but we never thought it could be to this degree!" Eric explains
"I don't deserve it… this luck… I hate my luck because I don't deserve it, I really don't! I hate all kinds of luck based things because they're just that, luck!" Everyone fell silent as he explains his reasoning. "Everyone has equal chances, but for some reason I always get lucky! I hate it! It makes me feel horrible, like I'm taking someone else's chances away!"
"Well it doesn't have to be your luck only. Besides if that was true you gave your chances to Elly, who in turn, gave them to Luna, who actually scratched the card." Natalie said from above. "But as Luna said it could have been her own luck." The youngest Eevee said calmly. Everyone stayed silent for a bit until Serge opened his beak.
"Whelp, if that's the case, I'll just cut this here…" He says, reaching for the ticket with his wing. There was an unanimous "No!", and then the bird burst out in laughter, even though he actually had some attacks and fangs aimed directly at his face. His laughter got nervous. "Please don't put me in the oven, it was just a joke."
Clara got the ticket away from the wing upon seeing this. And Ichiro whistled at the reaction he saw. "I think I'm going to scan this before anything happens to it." He said, taking the card from his mother and got his Poke-nav, going back into the room. "Oh yeah, Elly, Eric. Here." He says and pass them the bag of sweets. "Could you spread the sweets for everyone?" He asked them, with basically all the household as witness that there was a big bag full of sweets for everyone. Even if they knew before, now it was reminded to them and the two wouldn't be able to sneak it away for themselves again. They looked at eachother and chuckled, and then decided to spread the sweets with everyone else in the house, as some sort of celebration for this incredible stroke of luck. It had been quite a crazy day for everyone… but they could all agree that it had ended better than they all expected, feeling those wounds that had been opened slowly healing.
Eric: Yaaaay, everything's back to normal now! And relaxation times ahead! What could possibly go wrong?!
Ray: Don't jinx it bro… And not all is back to normal, sadly… But most of it is back that's true. We hope you enjoyed this, people, even if there weren't much moments for laughs and was more of a drama chapter… Seems I'm quite the drama queen huh?
Eric: Hey, I'm the one that interrupted that moment between Eric and Elly briefly for even more discussions.
Ray: I'm the one that has Dark still depressed over what happened and closing up on everyone.
Whatever. There are still tensions to solve and healing to do, but hey! At least they do get a real break. Who wouldn't love to go on fully paid vacations to a hotel? Pool, beach, going out for nice walks, bowling, recreatives… dates… or plain out staying at the room lazing around! So much options!
Everyone: *dreamy smile thinking on their vacations*
Ray: hehehe. What can I say… think about it yourselves and enjoy imagination!
Eric: Anyways… we'll see how these vacations go in the next chapter. See you all then!
Ray: Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!