Chapter 38
Lilly awoke with the sun. The house was dark and quiet as she crept out, dressed only in a borrowed light singlet and shorts. She shivered at little at the cold as she slipped her feet across the tiled floor. The kitchen was to be her first stop. She kept to the walls, using them to guide her in the darkness. Human eyes were quite weak, she was finding. She couldn't see in the dark, or see the lights and colours she could when she had been Latias. It was still strange, but she didn't hate it.
She turned into the kitchen, expecting a deserted room. Instead, she found Alphonse. He was sitting at the table without a care in the world as he munched on some cereal.
"Morning," he greeted.
She gave him a nod, smiling. It was nice to be greeted in the morning again.
Then, she glanced at all the cupboards. The only time she had been in the kitchen was during the tour and she hadn't been told were everything was.
"Bowls are in the middle cupboard under the bench and spoons are in the top drawer beside it," Alphonse said, answering her question before she even asked it.
She followed his directions to serve her breakfast and sat across from him at the table. Alphonse chatted with her as they ate, mostly about little things like how she was adjusting and what they thought the others were doing. She was grateful for the routine which she had thought lost with the events of the past few days. Their capture, her transformation and Alphonse's strange attitude towards Dustin.
She was certain that she wasn't imagining it. Alphonse would follow her out of a room, if Dustin was the only one inside it. He seemed to not like leaving her alone with him, but at the same time, he didn't like being in the same room as Dustin.
And when Dustin walked in that morning, greeting them with a smile, Alphonse nodded back and went silent. Even with her human eyes, she could see Dustin was upset by this.
She was upset too. And annoyed.
"I was thinking that we could go shopping today," Dustin said, mostly to her, "I've invited a friend of mine to help us, since I don't know a thing about shopping for women's clothes."
"But I have clothes," Lilly said, pulling at her outfit.
"Those aren't exactly clothes you can go out in," Dustin explained.
"I'll go by myself," Alphonse announced, "since I already know how to buy stuff and I have my own money."
"Alright," Dustin sighed. While saying that, he stood up and gave Lilly a meaningful glance. Then he left.
Lilly glanced over at Alphonse. He had a grumpy frown plastered on his face and hadn't even looked up from his bowl since Dustin had entered.
"So, you're not coming?" she questioned, trying to get the conversation going again.
"I just said that," he replied, "no."
"Why not?"
He sighed, but didn't answer.
"There must be a reason," she pressed.
"I don't like being around him."
"Him?"
"Dustin."
"Oh," she said, "why not?"
"Because," he paused, "you know how he used to be my trainer, back when I was, you know?"
"A Pokémon?"
"Yes."
She nodded.
"Well, I liked being a Pokémon. More than like it, it felt right. The battling and training and the connection I had with the other unowns."
"The what?" She was a little lost at his last point.
"The unown have an unique way of communicating. You can hear the radio waves when you're in the ruins, but to other unown it sounds something like music. I know that as an unown, I could hear it. It was how information was passed between places. All unown could hear it and know what was going on.
"But, even with psychic powers, I couldn't hear it as a human. I could change it so other Pokémon could hear it, but I couldn't hear it myself. As a human I could no longer communicate with the other unown."
He paused for a moment.
"I have very few memories from my time as a Pokémon, mostly impressions and feelings of places and events. That's how I remember the unown communication, as a feeling. The event I have the strongest memory of is when I by-passed my PowerPoints. But, that's mostly it.
"I liked being a Pokémon. I believed I'd live and die as one, unchanging. And then, without my permission, someone went and changed it. Since then, everyone I've met has been trying to get me to change. Change my appearance, the way I feel and the way I act. It's at the point where I can't even tell what my original personality was like. And, everything, all of it, started from Dustin's attempt to revive Alpha," he finished and waited for her reply.
She thought about it for a moment. He had certainly thought about it a lot. However, it was a bit too much to process at once. All she pulled from it was that he had been a Pokémon and he didn't like change. Oh, and all the stuff about unown communication.
Saying, 'I don't get it,' would have been rude, so the silence remained as she tried to think of something to say. 'It sounds like you're holding a grudge?' would have been rude too.
"Don't you like being human?" she finally asked.
He paused, again.
"I don't think I was human before, not even a psychic one, more like something between Pokémon and human."
"And you don't like it?" she asked again.
"Not really. The best way to describe it is; constantly uncomfortable. It's better now."
"Then, what's the problem?"
"I don't know!" he almost yelled his response, "look, I've been angry at Dustin for years now, that doesn't change overnight."
"That doesn't mean you have to act the same as always," she commented.
Alphonse groaned and sighed.
"Are we done counselling me now?"
"What?"
"Hello again!" Dustin called, waving from the door.
"I take back everything I said," Alphonse commented, "he's just annoying."
Dustin laughed.
Zeannah woke up and got her breakfast ready in the small cafe attached to the Pokémon centre. Olivine City was a nice place, with lots to see. Thanks to the port, gym and battle tower, there were lots of trainers in the city and that meant that the Pokémon centre was very well equipped. There was a dining room the size of a large restaurant and a buffet line filled with all kinds of different food. For the Pokémon, there was a small playground with a swimming area and climbing frame, inside the building but through some doors towards the back. There always appeared to be a nurse on duty to watch over the Pokémon.
"This feels just like a resort," Larry complained. He had left his hair out, the length obscuring his face and giving him the impression of being female.
"That's because a lot of trainers come through here," Zeannah told him, "so they get a lot of funding from the Pokémon league to keep running."
"Even with the battle tower so close?"
"The battle tower doesn't allow for overnight stays unless you're in the middle of a battle run, so they need this place for trainers to stay."
Larry mumbled something that she didn't catch, before wandering off. For someone who complained about the services, he was certainly loading his plate up with a lot of food; even if it was mostly fruit and berries.
They ate pretty quickly. Larry was full of nervous energy, some of which was rubbing off on Zeannah. They both knew that they were close to their target. Once they had finished eating, Zeannah checked them out and collected her refreshed Pokémon and they left.
The house the address led them to was small; squashed in-between two other houses with no yard to speak off and only a small garden path leading to the entrance. It was a beach-front property though, with the sands and sea only a few metres down the path, and there was a restaurant only a few buildings away.
Larry didn't even wait for her to announce it, he just ran right up to the door of the building she was looking at and rang the doorbell.
It chimed once, then there was silence.
After waiting only a few seconds, Larry mashed the button down again. And again. And again.
"Stop," Zeannah said, "no one's home."
Larry swore and kicked his foot at the door.
"We are so close!" he pointed out, "so close! And this guy isn't even home! What's his name?"
"Dustin Wiggs," Zeannah said.
"What's he do?"
"They didn't tell us," she informed him, "although they mentioned something about running a store."
Larry changed back into Latios and blasted into the air. He remained in the sky for a few moments before dropping back down and changing back.
"There's what looks like some markets that way," he said, pointing back the way they came.
Zeannah sighed, and followed him down the street. No matter what else he said, she knew that Latios was hoping that he'd find Latias alive. She was also getting her hopes up, even knowing that if Lilly wasn't alive she'd be crushed all over again.
Author's note: Sorry about the lateness on this one. I got sick when I was going to write it and couldn't finish until now. I feel I should probably point out that not all of Alphonse's problems with Dustin have been revealed, there's one big reason which will be mentioned in the next chapter.
Anyway, feel free to tell me what you think and I'll post a new chapter during the next week.