High School Union, Chapter 36
EmDrago; Okay, everybody, things at the condo are beginning to come to a close! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is sadly true. Nevertheless, you are probably wondering what is wrong with Mew. Permit me to say that information won't be divulged for a while. Nya nya, can't touch me!
All playing aside, though, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as you've come to enjoy the others. Remember to leave a review afterward!
What Is Going On?
Giratina stood in front of the boy's room, too stunned to do what she had originally planned. She pressed her ear against the door again, just to see if she was crazy. But she wasn't; Mew was still crying, but for what reason she couldn't tell. All she thought she knew about Mew was suddenly out the window with this one clue about him.
Had he been fooling them this entire time? He was hiding something, which had been clear to Giratina since her discussion with him outside of the bathrooms in that campsite. But what exactly he was hiding was a total mystery to her, and while she enjoyed a good mystery (since it often went in hand with horror) she preferred that to stay where it belonged; in books. Now faced with an actual situation, she didn't know too well what she was supposed to do, but she knew at least one thing she was going to do.
She had to speak with Mespirit about him, try to figure out as much as humanly possible. She might as well bring Arceus into this too, since puzzles like these were child's play to him, or at least she hoped that would be the case. She looked at the door one more time, and she felt a momentary flare of discomfort for leaking the fact that he was hiding something. Then again, he had already blatantly shouted it out to them all, so there was no reason to feel guilty. Besides, even if he hadn't, her concern for his well-being was too great to keep a secret such as this.
She carefully, quietly walked back down the stairs. When she got to the living room, everyone looked at her, and she said
"Arceus, Mespirit, I need to talk with you guys on the porch. Now. The rest of you, stay here." Palkia's eyes widened and she said
"Do you really think I'm going to follow whatever you tell me to do?" Giratina faced her with her darkest possible glare, the Fiery Gaze of Death, which would make even the devil obey. After Palkia gulped nervously, Giratina said
"Yes, you will. Arceus. Mespirit. Porch. NOW." Giratina walked out the door and began pacing the length of the porch, and when Arceus and Mespirit arrived, she stopped and looked at them both. Arceus quickly got the message and closed the door, then led Mespirit over to the railing, where they could keep out of reach of prying ears, and Mespirit asked hastily
"Giratina, what's this about?!" Giratina made a hushing motion with her arms, then looked at the window of the house to make sure nobody was trying to listen in. Then she lowered her voice and whispered
"Something's wrong with Mew." Before she had a chance to go on, Arceus said
"That's already fairly obvious, Giratina. He shouted at all of us in a manner quite unlike him." Giratina raised an eyebrow and asked
"Would it be also unlike him to be crying?" Arceus raised both eyebrows and said
"Very." Mespirit gasped and asked
"He was crying?" Giratina nodded and told them
"When I went to give him a piece of my mind and set him straight, I heard a strange sound. Unsure, I pressed my ear against the door and could distinctly hear sobbing. I'm not sure what to make of it." Arceus frowned and asked
"So why did you have us come out here?" Giratina started pacing again and said
"I need to figure this mystery out, and the only ways I could do that is by asking the man behind the mystery himself, or by speaking with the people closest to him. Since I obviously won't be able to speak to Mew directly, I need to talk with whoever knows him best. Arceus, you said you knew Mew first, right?" Arceus nodded and said
"Yes, I knew him just before middle school. Mespirit didn't enter the picture until close to the end of middle school." Giratina looked over at Mespirit and asked
"What's the story there?" Mespirit blushed and hung her head in embarrassment, then said
"Well, it was our last year at our middle school. The school had these periodic dances , and I would sometimes go, not always looking to dance, but just to, you know, hang out. At the time, Mew was a real prankster, and he would often use me as his guinea pig. I was often the first to suffer from a water balloon, or a whoopee cushion, hair pulling, you know, the usual for a third grader."
Giratina nodded and motioned for her to continue.
"It was at the last dance for the year, about a couple weeks before the end of school. I was just hanging out at the back with my friends and Azelf, and he came up to me and asked me to dance…"
Flashback/ two and a half years ago…
Mespirit and Azelf were just hanging around with their friends, May, Joy, and Mary. They were having a grand old time gossiping and staring at the humiliation of all the boys who were being forced to dance right now. Mespirit felt she was safe, but here she would be wrong.
"Hey, look who it is" Mary said, pointing into the crowd. Mespirit followed the direction of her finger and gasped in horror.
"Oh no, what could he be doing here?" she whined pitifully. Mew seemed to be looking for something, and Mespirit dived behind her sister, begging
"Hide me!" Azelf rolled her eyes and said
"Look, I don't think he's going to pull anything here." Mespirit scoffed and asked sarcastically
"And what could possibly make you believe that he's suddenly become a guardian angel?" Azelf looked back and said
"Well, for one thing, he's speaking to people without actually doing anything to them." Mespirit rolled her eyes and replied
"It's just an act, I'm telling you. He's waiting for me to drop my guard, then he'll drop another water balloon on me again. I'm tired of it!" Mary smirked and observed
"He's coming this way."
"Eep!" was Mespirit's only response as she curled up as small as she could possibly get to avoid detection. Of course, the chairs the school provided weren't necessarily designed for this purpose. Nevertheless, Mew was one to play games, so when he arrived, he asked genially
"Pardon me ladies, but have you seen Mespirit anywhere? I wish to speak with her for a moment." The girls giggled, and Azelf winked at the other three. Then she looked up at Mew and said slyly
"Well Mew, I know you like magic tricks, so watch me pull Mespirit out of thin air!" She reached behind the chair and grabbed Mespirit by the back of her jacket. When she was pulled backward, landing on her butt, she squealed. Mew's eyes lit up and he began laughing, saying
"Quite a trick, Azelf! Perhaps you should try out for the talent show!" As the rest of them laughed at Mespirit's expense, she stood up and rubbed the small of her back, trying to dispel the slight pain as she responded, her voice dripping with sarcasm
"Haha, very funny. Remind me to kill you later," she said, gesturing at her sister, then at her friends "and punish you later." She focused her attention on Mew, her expression becoming one of wariness and loathing.
"And what do you want?" Mespirit asked Mew, emphasizing her hatred of him in that one "you". Mew pretended to be hurt, saying
"Can't I ask a beautiful girl to a simple dance?" Her friends and sister giggled madly while Mespirit blushed. Then she shook it out and said
"No thanks. I've had enough of your pranks, Mew." Mew frowned a moment and said nonchalantly
"It's just harmless fun. Can't you take a joke?" Mespirit growled, making her friends and sister laugh at her again, which only made her angrier. Then Azelf pushed her into Mew, who caught her. Mespirit looked at her sister and spat
"What are you doing?!" Azelf gave her a stern gaze and said
"Stop being such a priss and give the poor guy a chance. He's only asking for a dance."
"But I don't know what he could pull on me!" Mespirit whined, sounding desperate . Mew turned her to face him, much to her displeasure, but surprised her when he asked
"What if I promise not to pull anything on you tonight?" Mespirit frowned and asked suspiciously
"How do I know you'll keep your promise?" Mew hesitated, then said
"Well, you might not know it, but whatever promise I make, I keep." Mespirit scoffed, then asked Azelf
"Can you believe this guy? After all he's done to me, and he expects me to believe him?"
"I'm standing right here you know" Mew said, not quite feigning the hurt in his voice this time. Azelf frowned at her sister and said
"Look, one dance won't kill ya, and if he pulls anything we'll go straight to the principal. Okay?" Mespirit thought it over, then looked at Mew and asked
"Would that be enough to keep you in line?" Mew smirked and made an X over his chest, then made a sloppy salute and said
"Scout's honor!" Mary and Joy giggled while Mespirit rolled her eyes. Then she got in his face and said
"I warn you… one thing, and you're a dead man." Mew gulped, then said
"You have my word. Shall we?" he motioned for her to move ahead, which she did reluctantly. When they found their own space on the dance floor, Mespirit steeled herself and allowed Mew to lay his hands on her. What surprised her, though, was the fact that his touch was gentle, not in any way lewd, as she was expecting. She looked up at him in shock for a moment, to which he asked
"What?" Mespirit blushed and shook her head. After a moment, Mew and Mespirit settled into the dance, and after a while Mespirit lost herself in the music. She was broken out of her reverie, however, when Mew said
"I'm sorry." Mespirit looked up at him in shock and asked
"Excuse me?" Mew took a deep breath and repeated
"I'm sorry. I didn't know I was hurting you with all the pranks. I thought they were harmless enough." Mespirit thought this over, then asked
"What brought this up? I've complained many times, but you never offered an apology before without someone having to tell you to do it. Why is this any different?" Mew thought for a moment, then said
"Because I thought it was just innocent fun. It's hard to kill somebody with a water balloon, you know."
Mespirit was floundering in her head, unable to understand what was going on. As the music was coming to a close, Mew led her toward the door, and she asked
"Why were you doing all of that anyway? You prank other people, but you always prank me at least three to five times a week! Why?" Mew hesitated again, then said
"You know that rumor about kids pickin' on the opposite gender that they like?" Mespirit was so confused, she didn't really register his meaning. She simply nodded, and Mew told her
"'Nuff said." He released her and walked out the door, leaving her in utter confusion.
Present
Giratina regarded Mespirit with a mixture of shock and sympathy. Then she shook her head and asked
"How long did it take for you to understand what he meant?" Mespirit blushed and answered
"About a week. After that I confronted him about it, and he told me that he liked me. He also wanted to hang out with me more, and I decided I would let him, but only if he stopped pranking." Giratina smirked and asked
"What did he say?" Mespirit smiled and said
"Well, he thought about it for a few seconds, then asked me 'What if I just stop pranking you?'" Giratina laughed over that, Mespirit and Arceus joining in a moment later. Then Giratina paused and began to pace the porch again, thinking hard.
"Okay, so he was a real prankster, but he was willing to stop for you. That could definitely mean something, but for now it's just another puzzle piece. Arceus, do you have anything to contribute?" she asked him, pausing in her pacing. Arceus smirked and asked
"Do you have any specific guidelines you want me to follow?" Giratina frowned in thought, then asked
"Do you have any idea where he lives?" Arceus' smirk faded into a frown, and he replied seriously
"Actually, none of us does." Giratina frowned in confusion, then asked
"Then how did Dialga know where to pick him up?" Arceus replied
"Dialga picked him up at the park. Mew does that every time we make plans to go anywhere that requires carpooling." Giratina raised an eyebrow and asked
"And you don't find that suspicious in any way?" Arceus raised his own eyebrow and answered
"Well, I did in the beginning, but as time passed we grew used to it." Giratina went back to pacing and thought to herself
"So, nobody knows where he lives. Is he ashamed of where he lives, or how? Or even both?"
"Hmm… What kinds of grades does he get?" Arceus thought for a moment, then said
"Well, no one has actually seen his grades, but he keeps joking that they're so terrible." Giratina raised her eyebrow again and asked
"Well, you didn't believe him, did you?" Arceus paused before asking
"Why?" Giratina scoffed and said
"Well, if his grades were really so bad, don't you think the school would have done something about it? Namely kicking him out?" Arceus pondered her idea, then said
"Maybe. But I never believed he was failing. I thought he was just scraping passing but making it look worse than it actually was. Beyond that, I couldn't glean anything else. Now that I stop and think about it, Mew is actually quite secretive. That happy-go-lucky façade he's had for as long as I can remember has pretty well kept others off his tail. Now I'm beginning to wonder who Mew really is."
Giratina had resumed pacing, thinking again.
"So he wasn't always a practical joker? That's the implication, anyway. I suppose it's possible. And I don't see how anyone who was truly as childish as that could have come up with such a brilliant scheme. Certainly it's kept him protected until tonight. What if I look more into what has caught my attention about him so far?"
Arceus interrupted her thoughts by asking
"What's on your mind?" Giratina frowned and asked them both
"What about his song choice?"
"Huh?" they both asked, confused. Giratina pushed forward.
"The song, the song he chose during the karaoke night. Down In The Boondocks. What if that reveals more of his character?" Arceus eyed her skeptically and asked
"Are you really going to base a suspicion on a song that Mew chose to sing?" Giratina frowned and said
"I was expecting him to choose something far more upbeat than what he did. For his typical characteristic, that song was just downright depressing. Latias said it had to be a choice that reflected the singer and their partner. Pretty much everybody did that, so why would we expect it to be different for Mew? Especially given his choice in song."
Arceus paused for a moment, then asked
"So.. are you going to try and dissect the song and see what applies to Mew and what doesn't?" Giratina frowned and said
"Well, that would be hard to do, considering we don't know where he lives, I'm not convinced he could hold down a job, and we have no idea about what he plans for the future. That's pretty much what comprises the song, none of which we can properly apply to Mew."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Giratina crossed her arms and asked Mespirit
"First off, do you know if he has a job or not?" Mespirit shook her head and replied
"No, he doesn't say anything about his personal life, now that I think about it. How did I never catch that before?" Giratina shook her head and said
"None of us caught that before. We were too distracted by his nonsense to see anything underneath it. If we can keep that out of the equation, we just might learn who the real Mew is."
Arceus shook his head and said
"I doubt he'd let us do that. He'll just try to go back to normal, or what has been normal for him for so many years." Giratina stopped at that, knowing he was right, but saying
"Regardless of whether or not he wants to return to that sense of normalcy, he's already blown his cover. And I know the others aren't going to stop pestering him until he gives, however long that would take." Arceus sighed deeply and ran a hand through his white hair. Then he said
"Well, we'll have to pack up and leave tomorrow, so the chances of that are pretty slim. Though they might pester him over the radio. I wonder how he'd react to that?" Giratina sighed and replied
"Like you said, he'll probably try to return to a state of normalcy, so he might answer in riddles or jokes. If things get bad, he just might not answer at all." Arceus grunted, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair again, saying
"We might as well get some sleep while we can. Tomorrow we return, and I have to take you to your parents for Christmas." Giratina was about to say he didn't, but he held up a hand to stop her and said
"Yes I do; don't argue with it." Giratina shook her head sadly, making Arceus chuckle. Then the trio went back inside, refusing to tell the others what they had been discussing, Arceus taking over with the news of having to leave. Everybody complained, but eventually they all agreed to the arrangement. The boys ambled up to the second room since Mew had locked himself in the first, while the girls adjourned to their room. All the while, they were heckling Mespirit and Giratina about what they had discussed, but they weren't forthcoming.
The Next Day…
It was around noon, and all the things were packed in the cars, ready to go. Mew had tried acting nonchalantly when he decided to finally come out of seclusion, and since then the gang had been bothering him to spill it. But he ostentatiously refused.
The next four and a half hours were actually filled with a measure of uncomfortable silence, but no one was willing to break it, not even Mew. Eventually, everybody was dropped off at their respective areas, including Mew and his park. As Giratina watched him while they left, she turned to Arceus and asked
"You don't think he lives under the bridge, do you?" Arceus laughed and shook his head, and Giratina mumbled
"Guess not…" They continued, dropping the twins off at their house, then Uxie at his. Finally, Arceus took Giratina back, promising he would come back in the morning to take her to her parents' house. The two shared a kiss and Giratina went inside to get her things ready for the next day.
Okay, I'm going to end things there. I'm sorry if this seems a bit rushed to you, but I want to get to the next leg of the drama. That's right, it doesn't end there! Anyway, remember to review. A little side note on that, though; I want everyone to take a look at the reviews that BoomShroom sends me. THAT'S the kind of review I'm looking for; one that gives insight on what you thought, how you really felt about the chapter. BoomShroom, if you're reading this, know that I appreciate ya! See you all later!