I Wanna Go Home

After an adrenaline pumping assault by the PCU that was diverted by Plush and Kibou, the three all attempt to catch their breath, well aware of the threat that the PCU could return at any moment. The three all crowd onto the couch, seemingly on edge. Any little sound that's heard in the house makes them all snap towards the direction it came from, fearing the worst.

Emma holds Plush on her lap while Kibou sits on the arm of the couch. Normally, Emma wouldn't allow this but since it seems to be keeping him calm, she doesn't care about it this time.

Plush looks up at her and talks. "D-do you think they'll leave us alone now?"

She shrugs. "I can't say yes or no. If it's Kibou they're after, then they'll be back for sure. We have to prepare for the next attempt."

Plush looks at Kibou who is twiddling his thumbs. He's starting to resent him a bit. he has everything he could ever want, a nice home, a good person to look after him, and all the love in the world. Kibou being there makes all of this worthless if they're constantly being attacked by the PCU. Even so, he's the only one that could really put the hurt on them if things went south and he were to be caught, so he swallows down his slight resent and accepts it.

Emma notices that Kibou is a bit uneasy. "Kibou, are you alright? You seem real… nervous for no reason."

He looks at her and quietly responds. "I-I don't like all this fighting… why do they keep making me fight?"

She doesn't quite understand him. "They're not forcing you to fight, you're fighting to survive and-"

He cuts her off. "No! But my mom and dad sad that fighting is bad no matter what… Those men don't know anything but to fight and it's not right. Those Pokemon they have… why would they ever listen to such evil people!?"

Emma is at a loss for words. He has a point, no Pokemon would willingly allow someone to use them to do evil deeds, especially in this day and age considering human-Pokemon relations are at an all time low.

Plush decides to throw in an idea. "Maybe those Pokemon aren't able to make their own choices… what if it's some sort of mind control?"

"... But why capture Pokemon if you can just mind control them? The PCU is catching Pokemon for some reason, Plush, and they use their own Pokemon to do it. If they wanted to make it easy, they would mind control them if that's the case." says Emma.

He realizes that's true. "I guess that's not it then…"

Kibou begins to sniffle and wipe his nose with his right paw. "I-I don't want to be here anymore…"

Emma asks. "What do you mean?"

"I… I wanna go home… where it's safe…" he says.

She misunderstands him. "But you're already at a home, my home."

A few tears drop from his eyes. "N-no… I mean home home… like, you know…"

She gets it. "Oooh… I… I see."

Plush speaks before she asks the question. "He can't go home, he tried to at the hospital and wasn't able to. Something's preventing him from doing that."

This makes Kibou let loose more tears. Plush and Emma look at him. Emma can understand how much stress the last few encounters with the PCU had possibly put him through, especially since he said he dislikes fighting. Considering she found him wounded in her yard, it's also likely that he had his own solo run-in with the PCU at some point before all of this so it would make sense.

To Plush, however, this is a really babyish reaction and doesn't really phase him, but seeing as how Kibou looks to be ready to go into a full blown cry, he tries to think of something that will cheer him up. "Hey, don't cry… we're gonna be leaving soon, right mommy?" he looks up at her for confirmation.

"I-uh… well you… uhmm… you see…" she's totally caught off guard by this. Yes they're going to be leaving Sinnoh eventually, but she doesn't know if it would even be possible without getting caught so she doesn't have a definitive answer.

Plush sighs. "You know what, don't worry about it then…"

Emma shakes her head. "N-no… you're right. We have to leave, I'm just scared that they'll be stopping cars to check for Pokemon being smuggled out of the region. Think of it, if people don't want to obey laws, they'll do whatever they have to do to get whatever it is that the law is stopping them from getting."

Plush frowns. "So, what you're saying is that if you're caught, we won't ever have another chance?"

She nods. He doesn't know what to think and instead goes silent. Kibou on the other hand is crying. He emits a very high pitched whine that's very quiet luckily otherwise it might be ear piercing.

He utters out nearly unintelligible words. "Bai wann gwo bwack homeee…. I hate thwis pwaceee!"

Emma opens her mouth but no words come out. She wants to try and help him but she isn't sure how to go about doing it. Before she can figure anything out, Kibou floats up into the air.

"I'm gwunna leave! I don't wanna fwight again! Those bad pweople make me swaddd!" he cries.

Emma does some quick thinking. "If you leave, they'll find you! I don't want them to catch you so please don't go."

He shakes his head, scattering tears all over. A few of them land on Plush which aggravates him slightly. "Watch where you're spilling your tears man!"

He doesn't care and stomps onto the arm of the couch a few times. "NO! NO! NO! I don't wanna fight! I don't wanna fight! I hate fighting… nothing gets solved and everyone gets hurt and I don't want that to happen…"

Emma sighs. "We won't fight them again, don't worry. You'll be alright."

He starts to yell now. "They'll come baaack! They want mee and I don't want to be with them! They're evil and nasty and want to hurt meeeeeeeee! Stay away from me!"

Plush begins to get very upset, he's thinking about hitting him with a "Shadow Ball" to shut him up but he decides it would be best to just stay quiet. Attacking him will probably only make things worse, he's being a big enough baby as it is and he doesn't want more crying and screaming.

Emma tries to be as understanding as she can. "They won't come back. They do want you but they've seen that they can't get you so they won't come again. Please… try to quiet down a little bit, I think Plush is getting annoyed by your crying." she says as she looks down at him and takes note of his annoyed expression.

He calms down a little, but not much. He sniffles and looks at the ground. "...I want to go home. Home doesn't have these bad humans… just a few Pokemon that aren't so nice but at least they don't try to hurt me… I just want to sleep and play my games."

"I want to work on my Pokemon adoption center project… but with the PCU doing bad things I can't… we have to just make it through this and once I'm able to, we're gonna leave Sinnoh together, okay?"

Kibou's crying subsides, but he still doesn't wanna be in a place that harbors violence and hostile visitors. He thinks about it for a second and then makes his decision to leave. "I'm leaving. I don't want to be here. I'd rather try to run from them all the time then have to fight them."

He floats up into the air. Emma stands up. "Wait! Don't go! You'll be found faster than if you were to stay here!"

He shakes his head and then teleports himself outside to the park he was in when they first found the PCU. He hopes that being alone for a little while in the park would allow him to calm down and get his mind off the violence.

An interesting way of dealing with his problems for sure, but there will be one day where he won't be able to run away from a fight and he'll have no choice but to defend himself… and quite possibly defend the ones he's close to. He might be able to run away from his current problems now, but that doesn't mean he'll be able to keep running from them forever…

PD: Hey! This story is finally being updated after almost 4 months of nothing! If you follow one of my other stories, Reunion At The Hall, you may realize that it's much bigger than this story. We worked on that for the longest time and only a few weeks ago did we finally finish up the rewrite and reformatting. This story is also getting reformatted, hence the different format style in this chapter but it won't affect new chapter uploads nor will the story get taken down to be rewritten (There's no need). Anyway, this chapter was on the shorter side and there's much more to come. I hope that for those of you that've been waiting all this time for an upload are happy to see things moving along. Anyway, Seeya in the next chapter!