Hello folks! I hope you're all doing well/ or did well with your finals. Now that it's summer, my updates should be faster since I'm not as busy. Anyway, Here is the next chapter to the story!
Chapter twenty-nine: "Hard Day's Night"
It's been at least ten minutes. The air is quiet and tense. The only noises I hear are the crickets outside the window. I'm sweating and I'm breathing rapidly because I'm afraid of what Rigel's parents will do to me now that I spoke to them. It felt weird to speak, unworldly even, and I may have just doomed myself.
I'm sitting on the floor with my back against the door. I talk to myself, "They think I'm a freak no doubt. No, I've been a freak since I started being a Pikachu. I need to leave this place and fix this, but I may never get to fix myself. I'll be a world showcase. I'll be an exhibition, a part of a traveling circus and forced to perform tricks to please crowds. Or maybe I'll be taken away by the government to be dissected on in order for them to check my brain and find out why this happened. I'm done for unless I can get out of here."
Suddenly, I hear footsteps outside the room. I move away as the door behind me opens all the way. Rigel's dad is standing there, along with Rigel himself. The father cautiously walks towards me, "Now listen Lucas, I don't want any trouble. I'm not sure if you can understand this but I'm going to take you somewhere I feel is safe for all of us."
I move backwards in fear as I display electricity from my cheeks: he moves backwards as a result.
Rigel rushes towards me and extends his hands in panic, "No Lucas, don't! Listen to my dad, please!"
I narrow my eyes but then I notice Orion standing next to the father. From what I can see the Pikachu is slowly nodding his head at me as if to say I should trust him. Defeated, I sigh as a result. Hopefully I didn't just make another big mistake.
…
I am taken downstairs and assume I will be taken out the front door; however, we suddenly make a left towards a closed door: it's the one I went in not too long ago. The father opens it and ushers Rigel, who's carrying me, inside the library. Just as Orion goes to enter as well, Rigel's dad tells him not to follow and closes the door. The Pikachu's ears droop but his curiosity gets him to place an ear on the closed door.
Inside, Rigel looks confused.
"Dad, you still haven't told me why we were going to bring him here. I thought you said we weren't allowed to come in here, especially with Pokémon."
"Yes well…he's not a Pokémon and this is the only exception."
"So now you believe me?"
"Yes, I had my doubts but then I realized something. I was reminded of the experiments in Verdigris."
Rigel places me on the ground, "What about Verdigris?"
"Well…where do I start? The war twenty-some years ago involved criminal scientists, some of whom were never caught, experimenting on human subjects. The scientists used POW's from Johto as experiments to help the war effort against that region."
Rigel looks down at me, "I see. Maybe the people we saw...used to torture those POW's."
"They were scientists?" His father asks and Rigel shrugs, "They have to have been."
His father continues, "Well obviously, what the militia was doing was illegal and their hideout in Verdigris was exposed. Unfortunately, the town became infested by Beedrill soon after. During a trial, some scientists revealed the methods they used. It seems there was a side effect during their experiments where most of the POW's were turned into mindless Pokémon."
I look down on the ground, nodding my head as a result. Now it makes sense, the criminal scientists during the war must be members of Team Rocket!
"How do you know this?" Rigel asks.
"I was selected to be a part of the jury."
Rigel and I look up with interest. Now I remember seeing a trial when I was young, around the age of eight or so. It was on the news everywhere, but I din't really pay close attention to it, so I didn't really remember what the trial was about. Maybe it was about this?
"The government covered it up. I mind you…this was before trials were televised. Even if I spoke about it in public, it would have sounded absurd to everyone, so I kept my mouth shut after all these years."
I try to say something to him in retaliation, "S…o…th…at's…wh...y...y...ou...?" I stop mid sentence since it's difficult to speak fluently. Speaking to people normally is apparently going to take some time to master again. I decide to keep my sentences as short as possible and to the point: similar to how beginners with new languages do.
Rigel and his father were once again struck with surprise at my ability to speak. The father looks down and raises an eyebrow, "This is amazing…but so strange." I apparently took too much time forming words that he couldn't understand what I wanted to tell him.
He walks back and forth before he turns back towards me, "Please tell me, are you actually human?"
I look up at him. I try to form words again, "y…y…es."
"This is truly daunting." He retorts.
Rigel, who sat down on a chair earlier, stands up and walks toward his father. He now stands beside him while looking down at me, "What are we going to do in the meantime? I promised that I would take him to Bill."
"Bill? Oh I see. You have such crazy ideas Rigel. You do know that Bill is a mad scientist and does a lot of crazy, life-threatening experiments, right? He's not exactly sane."
"He seems to be the only person who can fix this mess!" Rigel retorts.
"He might've been the one responsible for this in the first place."
I shake my head in response, "N…o…not…hi...m!"
"Then who did this to you?"
Before I could answer, Rigel interrupts me by walking towards me, "He told me it was Team Rocket!"
"I see…" The father looks down at me, "Do you know anything else? The people's names or where they are?"
I nod and say, "B…art…oli"
"What?" The father tilts his head left.
Rigel goes outside and brings the pen and paper from the kitchen soon afterwards. He sets them on the ground. I write "Bartoli" and offer it back to him. Rigel reads the name which only makes me cringe as he says it.
"Bartoli."
His father nods, "Okay, who else?"
I nod my head. I quickly ask Rigel for the pen and paper back and I write yet another name.
"Giovanni is the leader of Team Rocket." Rigel reads from the paper.
"Okay, now that's absurd, why Giovanni?"
I look down at the floor and try to remember, "N…n...ot…s…u…re."
"Not sure?" He raises an eyebrow, "Well I'm sorry that's not a good reason. Why would a successful gym leader like himself be a part of such a small criminal organization?"
I shake my head and sign. All I know is that I remember his laugh. His mockery of me before my transformation was the prelude to my suffering. My hands tremble as I remember the events that transpired. I hear Rigel speak as I begin to calm down.
"Look, I don't think it matters who's responsible anymore. We just need to fix Lucas. We're out of Team Rocket's grasp, so I think we don't have to worry about them anymore. Besides, we blew up their base."
"Their base?"
"…or at least I hope it was their base. Can we just go to Bill and get this problem solved?" Rigel asks.
"Not now. We're in the middle of a city-wide curfew after all. I'll try and see what we can do with him." He goes to a large bookshelf, climbs a ladder to get a book at the top and hands it to Rigel, "Let him read this." He walks to me and kneels down, "Work on your communication skills, this book should help." I nod.
"Dad." Rigel says, "Does this mean he can stay?"
His father looks back at me, still kneeling down.
"As long as you don't use any electrical appliances, you can stay." He instructs personally to me. He stands up and faces Rigel, and then he fixes his tie, "And, if there's a storm, I want both Orion and Lucas, here, to be outside. Understand?"
Rigel looks at me and I nod in response, "Alright dad, deal."
"Good, now let's get out of here."
Orion continues to have his ear against the door but then jumps away as it opens. We all head to the living room where Rigel's mother is sitting on the couch: waiting for us.
"So?" She asks.
"He'll stay until we can get this solved…and we're going to treat him like one of us."
She looks down at me, "So…you used to be a person?"
I nod, "Y..es…"
"So George was right then, after all these years."
"Fancy that!" George smiles in response.
…
Several minutes later Rigel, Orion and I are now in the young teenager's bedroom. Orion jumps on his bean bed while Rigel ruffles the fur at the top of my head.
"That wasn't so bad right Lucas?"
I nod, for the one-hundredth time. I mind as well get started reading the book.
Rigel rests the book on his nightstand and heads for his computer. I decide to lay next to Orion's bean bag after he stops jumping on it. Soon after, I feel his head on top of mine. I look up and I can see him leering down at me with his arms crossed.
"Lucas, I need help figuring this out: do you find a talking Pokémon weirder than a Pokémon playing Gameboy?" Orion smirks at me, expecting me to answer his question. I roll my eyes and then shake my head which forces him to get off me, "Okay, you got me there. You're right, things do change."
I turn to face him and then smile mischievously in the same fashion as Orion did, "So what kind of parents names his son Rigel and his Pikachu, Orion?"
"Rigel actually named me. I've sometimes wondered about that myself."
"Is his father an astronomer?"
"No, but our mother kind of is."
"Oh really?"
"She's a teacher."
"Ahhh." I say, "For what grade?"
"I don't know, ask Rigel."
"I'll pass."
A moment of silence passes by before I look back at him, "Science teacher?"
"Ask Rigel." Orion says again but with more assertiveness.
"I'll pass."
Yet another moment of silence goes by.
"So how did you learn how to speak the human language?" Orion asks.
"Beats me. It just happened."
"Kind of weird."
"I guess my knowledge of the language made it easier for me to learn again. You, on the other hand, will definitely take longer than me...if ever."
"I might never learn how to speak anyways. Maybe it was just a fluke, or an effect caused by your transformation. I mean…you're not a Pokémon." Orion says in an accent similar to Rigel's father. He obviously heard us from the other side. He smiles, expecting me to respond with a similar 'unique' rejoinder but he instead got a harsh response.
"Damn right I'm not." I say as I turn away. Unbeknownst to me, Orion's expression changes slowly. He looks at me, saddened, by my response.
Then, music starts playing. It starts off slow and majestic and then transforms into a brash, jazzy tune. I remember the melody; it's by Donald Fagen…I.G.Y.
My ears quickly rise up again. I can see my foot tapping to the beat. I try to hide my small tears since I am happy to hear such joyous music again. It feels so long since I've danced to a song, so I get up from the bean bed and I start tapping my feet like crazy. I didn't care if I looked silly; I just wanted to dance again! Orion smiles happily, supposedly forgetting what happened, and joins me. Rigel looks at us and shouts, "Hey, glad you like it!" He taps his foot as well. Eventually, Orion and I dance separately in a 'jitterbug' fashion. It's an awkward and mostly unorganized, and slower, form of the jitterbug but it was a good feeling to dance crazy again. Eventually when the song ended both Orion and I take shallow breaths as Rigel claps, happily cheering for us.
"That felt good." I say between my breaths as both Orion and I have our backs against each other, "I'm glad to be free."
"Agreed."
…
After having a conversational dinner downstairs with Rigel's parents, we followed Rigel to his room. Orion jumps on Rigel's bed and rolls over it continuously. Rigel, however, places his phone on the nightstand, changes into his pajamas, and turns off the lights in the room. He jumps on his bed in a similar fashion as Orion. I stare at his phone for several seconds before I hear Orion's voice above me.
"What?" I ask.
"I said, how's the bed?"
"Oh, it's, ah, good. Thank you Orion."
I stretch my limbs on the bean bed and then sigh deeply since I'm obviously exhausted from today's experience.
The room is quiet for a minute until I hear the Pikachu speak to me again, but this time he speaks in a softer voice, "Lucas."
"Hmm?"
"Remember when I insulted you when we first met…I'm sorry that I did. You're the best Pikachu I've ever met." Orion compliments me.
I cross my arms in the dark and think to myself.
You had good reasons to insult me, I'm no ordinary Pikachu.
"Thanks Orion, that means a lot to me." I simply say, "I'm sorry Orion, I'm tired."
"I understand. We can do a lot more tomorrow now that we're safe. Goodnight Lucas."
"Goodnight Orion."
Silence envelops the dark room again and persists. I try to stay awake in order to get Rigel's phone while he's asleep but my exhaustion eventually wins and I close my eyes.
After an indefinite amount of time has passed by, I wake up with noticeable trepidation. I'm so frightened that my hands are trembling, and my breathing is shallow and I'm sweating. It looks as though I have not disturbed the duo's sleep in any way. I grab my arm and check to see if there are needle marks but they have long since disappeared. I sigh with relief. After I calm down, I look back where the phone is and I quietly stand up to get it. I carefully jump on Rigel's chair and then on his desk. Finally, I reach to grab the phone and I almost fail to do so. Afterwards, I quietly leave through the half-open door to head downstairs. Rigel's parents are nowhere to be seen presumably because they are now asleep.
I reach the living room and I try to call the person who has been on my mind for so long…Jennifer.
I gulp nervously as I look to see if anyone's coming…and then I hear her voice.
"This is Jennifer Jenson. Unfortunately, I can't come to the phone right now, so leave a text, bye!"
I call her again, and even texted to her that it's me, but I can't seem to contact her. It's strange because she always has her phone on her ready to use at any time of the day. Now I start to wonder if she's okay. I start to cry as I continue with my feeble attempts. I then fall on the floor and drop the phone on the ground…and then I hear someone behind me.
"You just have to be so melo-dramatic all the time, right?" Orion asks, putting his 'knuckles' on his hips. I quickly wipe the tears off my eyes and cheeks and then stand up. He smiles, "Just kidding bud. Trying to call your folks?"
"A friend."
"Ah, so you're trying to call this person, Jen, right?"
"How do you know her?" I am so astounded by this revelation that my mouth is open widely.
"You sometimes say her name in your sleep." He answers coolly.
My astonishment quickly fades to embarrassment as I look away, "Her and me…have a thing together."
"Like love?" Orion says.
"That's right." I quickly change the subject, "Did I wake you up?"
"Pretty much. I just wanted to see if everything was okay."
"Thank you, I appreciate it."
"So? Is everything okay?"
"Not everything."
"I see."
"I had a nightmare."
"Me too." Orion says.
"Really?" I look at him with interest.
He shrugs, "I've been having nightmares about our time inside the cages, and I also dream about the Spider robot. And now I'm having nightmares about Rigel."
"I see."
"How about you Lucas?" He asks me.
"I heard laughs…I sometimes do…but this time I heard Giovanni's laugh as well…I couldn't stop hearing his laugh! I keep seeing giant needles…and cages…and Bartoli…" I cover my face with my hands, "If there is such a thing as hell, it's not this. This is something worse than hell."
Orion retorts, "Don't worry. I have the same dreams too minus Giovanni."
I slowly look toward Orion as I bring my hand down from my face with similar speed. I then turn around to face the window outside, where the moon can be seen high in the sky.
Orion walks toward the phone and picks it up. He looks up at me and smiles, "Come on Lucas, let's head back to the bedroom."
"I think I'll stay here for a while." I simply say.
"You sure?" He asks.
"Yes."
"Okay, want the phone back?"
"It's fine." I continue to stare outside.
"Lucas, tomorrow will be a better day, you'll see. We need to try and forget about all this."
The smaller Pikachu heads for the grand staircase as I continue to stare, "Please…hear me out…Jennifer….my friends and I will fix this mess…just wait a while longer.
