"Emotion transmitted, emotion received
Music in the abstract, positively."
-"Chemistry" from Signals by Rush.
While Circ rolled about on the floor, loudly bemoaning his immense, very real pain, Ampaw looked on with frustrated disinterest. After peeking an eye open to gauge Ampaw's reaction, Circ's wails grew even greater in intensity, clutching his paw even tighter to his chest. "Owowowow, it hurts! It hurts!"
Ampaw rubbed his eyes, either at Circ's antics, the early morning, or maybe (probably) both. "Really? It seemed fine yesterday when you went to help Voltail with the pichu." He walked over to nuzzle Circ, a smirk creeping across his face. "It only started hurting after your little talk with Volt."
The boy froze, cries for a moment caught in his throat. "Ah, well I must've-yesterday! I hurt it yesterday!"
Ampaw laughed, sitting next to him to rub at Circ's belly-fur. "Come on, you're fine." After a moment of deliberation, Circ decided the jig was up and matched Ampaw's posture, nervously picking at his paws with droopy ears. "What's wrong? You trained so much, you were so excited to join the guard."
Circ continued to pick at his paws, trying to think up an answer while Ampaw scratched at the back of his head. "But what if I don't?" He wanted to say more, had so much more of a knot tied up in the pit of his stomach, but the rest got caught in his throat. He felt Ampaw wrap an arm around him, pulling him into a light nuzzle.
"You'll be fine. You've trained so much, and you beat an Umbreon!" Ampaw shifted onto his paws, nudging Circ into doing the same. "Let's go! I'll be rooting for you!"
The smile beaming from his dad forced Circ to put on one of his own, even if it was just a facade. "You'll be picking berries!" he chuckled, getting a laugh in response.
"Well I'll still be cheering you on!" After another nudge, the two headed out of the burrow and went their separate ways. With Ampaw gone, Circ only had the growing weight in his gut to keep him company, growing heavier as he went South. He'd only just fully healed, and hadn't had any battle experience since then, now he had to go spar with Volt? A cyclone of doubt spun around his mind, weighing down the pit of his stomach more and more.
As it grew, it slowly began to heat up, charring his insides as it spread through his nerves. He just wanted to go back home, his heartbeat quickened, spreading the burning sensation further, quicker, he just wanted to run, the charring started to burn, he felt his throat tighten—could he breathe?—it started to scorch him from the inside out, he just wanted to run, he was almost there, he couldn't breathe, he glanced up to see Volt waving him over and exploded in panic, bolting away as fast as he could run.
He didn't have any idea how long he'd run or how far, only knew that he found himself curled up against a tree, breathing too quick to process oxygen. Thoughts spun around his head too fast for him to even try to grasp. He shook his head. It didn't help. Despite being so immersed in his own thoughts, he couldn't seem to think at all. He pressed his paws against his eyes and shook his head again, feeling tears soak his fur. "Circ?"
The voice made him jump, fear switching into a split second of panic. He landed ready to attack, immediately flinching once he recognized the source. "V-Voltail?" he stuttered, panic smoldering into angst, "What are you doing here?"
She tilted her head. "I should be asking you that! I wanted to watch your battle with Dad, but then you go and run off." His eyes fell, frantically darting between miscellaneous blades of grass with no particular direction or purpose. "What's wrong?"
He shifted his weight around on his paws, not sure if he wanted to run, scream, or sink into the dirt. "I-I just," he started, waiting for that same blockage in his throat from when he'd tried to talk to Ampaw. But it didn't come. "I got scared." When she walked over to pet his fur, he sat back and fumbled with his forepaws.
Her paws cooled his singing nerves. "Scared? What of?" She scratched lightly behind his ears with her left paw as she sat down next to him.
Breathing suddenly seemed easier. "Well it's just, this battle has a lot riding on it. If I don't do well, then I can't join the guard, and I haven't fought in a while because I've been hurt, and I'm still not used to being a pikachu—I've never fought as one, either—and I mff—" her right paw covered his mouth to stop his rambling, left on the back of his head to keep him from pulling away.
"Stop that!" she demanded. He looked over with a mix of confused frustration, trying again to break free of her hold. "Why say all that?"
She finally released him. With her arms out of the way, he tried pulling his knees into his chest, but quickly found that posture wouldn't work. Why'd I try that? Where'd that pose even come from? "It's just what's going through my head."
If she noticed his attempt at an odd sitting position, she didn't acknowledge it. "Well, stop it." His ears drooped. I can't just "stop." She leaned closer, wrapping an arm around him. "You're a great fighter, evolving didn't change that." Tilting her head, she lightly nuzzled his side. "You're all worked up for nothing."
As an excuse to avoid eye-contact, he started picking at his paws. "I know, it's just I start thinking like that, and it keeps running and building until it just overloads like a—" he bit down on his tongue, hopefully just in time. His entire body managed to get even tenser than he thought possible. He looked over in abject horror as a look of bemused realization creeped across her face.
Hardly able to keep from laughing, she sputtered out, "Like a short circuit?" before going into a fit of giggles. She pulled her arms to her belly, as if it could fall away during her raucous laughter. He wanted to be mad at her, and knew he had every right to be; he's trying to open up to her and she's laughing at him!
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't twist his mouth into a frown, he couldn't be mad. Hearing her laugh melted his anxiety away, relaxing him to the point that he couldn't help but smile. "Yeah," he chuckled along, "I, Short Circuit, short circuit." She started laughing even harder, and he smiled wider. He had no idea how or why, but no matter what, she could always make him feel better.
That endless font of laughter snickered its way out of her for quite a while, neither really considering how much time had passed: Voltail was obviously far too preoccupied, and Circ was happy to just watch her roll around, but her giggles eventually died off. She sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. "All right, come on. Dad's waiting."
His muscles tensed at the thought, but relaxed when she yanked at his arm. "Okay, okay!" He took his arm back and rolled forward onto his paws, ready to head back when an oran berry bush caught his eye. He'd eaten so many, yet could only vaguely remember seeing where they come from once. It felt a bit surreal to remember they came from anything; he'd almost convinced himself pikachu went to go get them from some magic supply. He went over and pulled one into his paws, examining it closely. If berries came from bushes, where did bushes come from?
He felt the answer gnawing at the edge of his brain, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Circ?" Voltail prodded him in the side, "What're you doing?"
Jerking out of his introspection, he glanced at her a moment before returning his attention to the berry. "Just… thinking," he mumbled. It was right there, so close, somehow both in his hands and out of reach.
So entranced in thought, he barely noticed Voltail smiling at him. "I love that you still have pichu eyes." This finally broke him out of his trance, making him look up, bashfully bewildered. She laughed at his sputtering attempts to respond and plucked the berry out of his paws, holding it in front of his face. "This is an oran berry!" she declared, "You've eaten a bunch of them, even complained about having to, but here you are looking at it like you've never seen it before."
With a nervous chuckle, he scratched at the back of his head. "Th-thanks." His eyes bounced bashfully about the ground until they landed on a patch of dirt next to the bush.
All at once, it came to him, eyes lighting up with realization. He snatched the berry out of her paw and dashed over to the patch of dirt, hurriedly digging a shallow hole with his empty paw. "What are you doing?"
He didn't answer, he needed to finish first, had to grab the idea before he lost it; some urgency he couldn't place took over. He didn't know why, but losing this idea felt tantamount to dying, as if his existence relied on it. He dropped the berry into the small hole and brushed the dirt back into place, leaving a new mound. "Watch," he declared, standing proudly, brushing the dirt from his paws, and waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The little mound of dirt remained completely, entirely, tauntingly still, eroding his proud smirk away. Where was the bush? The berry was supposed to grow into a bush. He'd just bent down to prod at it when Voltail grabbed him by the ear and started dragging him to the colony. "Owow, hey, wait! It's go—"
"Quit stalling." As much as he wanted to argue further, in the interest of keeping his ear attached to his head, he followed close behind her.
Still, he wanted to tell her he hadn't intended to stall. He tried to tug her paw off his ear, whining, "I wasn't trying to stall! It was supposed to grow into another bush!"
She just laughed at the claim, letting go of his ear once she knew he was following. "Yes, I'm sure." He rubbed his throbbing ear, ensuring it remained securely attached. They walked towards the colony, but his mind lingered at the mound. It should have become a bush, it had to. He knew it. He needed it to. Seeing it just sit there, motionless, proving him wrong felt… off. That memory, losing it felt like leaving something so much more behind. He even risked his ear to stop and look back for just a moment. Only a mound of dirt. He turned back around just as Voltail reached back to grab his ear, dragging him the rest of the way back to the colony.
She finally let go once they could see Volt's face contorted into confused concern. He came over to meet them halfway. "What happened? Are you okay? Why'd you run off?" Circ rubbed his ear back into place, certain even the slightest tug would now be enough to take it off, trying to think of a good excuse that spared his pride.
He'd just decided to say he thought he heard a pichu crying for help when, "He got scared."
"N-no!" he denied, growling out a frustrated, "Chuuu," at Voltail. "I just, I uh… heard a thing, or thought I heard… someone," he trailed off, rubbing thoughtfully at his right ear, avoiding eye contact, generally behaving very unconvincingly.
Volt just rolled his eyes at the lie, or the attempt at one, and turned, waving one beckoning paw, "Follow me," and heading further South. When both started after him, he stopped. "Just Circ."
"What?" she whined, grumbling complaints and objections under her breath, but Volt stayed firm, so she nuzzled Circ goodbye. "Good luck!" After sticking her tongue out at her dad, she left the other two chus to head South.
With her gone, Circ felt his nerves return, but not to the same degree. He tried to find some distraction, speeding up to walk next to Volt instead of behind him, trying to think up some conversation topic. So busy looking for one, he almost didn't hear Volt start one for him. "Back to running off?"
If only he'd thought faster. At least he didn't have to focus on avoiding eye contact since they were walking next to each other. "I, uh, no," running off must have looked like another escape attempt, "I just got nervous."
"You can't join the guard if I have to worry about you running away."
Circ gulped. A familiar stone of guilt took root in his stomach. Running off so many times had caused so much grief and he couldn't even remember why he'd done it. Plenty of pikachu risked their lives to drag him back to the colony, and he didn't even have a reason for it. That he'd forgotten bothered him almost as much. He rolled onto his hindlegs so he could rub his paws. "I-I'm really sorry about that, running away. I won't try it again, I don't even know why I used to do it."
Volt looked at him curiously. "Really?" He stood up to match Circ's posture, rubbing his chin. "Hm, if I remember, Voltail told me about some… human friends you missed?" Circ scratched at the back of his head. He remembered a human family, and there was the one that… understood him? That didn't make any sense, humans can't understand pokémon. Even though the memories were vague, he definitely felt a bit of longing. He couldn't deny that he did kind of want to see them again. "Was it a trainer?"
"Trainer?" That made enough sense, at least for—what was his name? He knew he'd seen the human use one of those ball things, but he couldn't remember what he'd captured. Whatever it was, it meant the guy was definitely a trainer. "Yeah, there was a trainer and a family." The trainer and the family, that seemed right. But it didn't explain why he still felt so attached to them.
Volt glanced Circ's way after a prolonged silence. "You still miss them, don't you?" Circ flinched, fiddling with his paws for a bit before reluctantly nodding. Maybe admitting it was a mistake, but he sucked at lying, and flinching at the question hadn't done him any favors. As if to assuage his worries, Volt placed a paw on his shoulder. "I know how you feel."
Circ tilted his head and looked at Volt with skepticism. "How?" A bit of bite had crept its way into his voice; the claim itself for some reason insulted him, as if anyone sharing in his suffering was a direct offense. For no particular reason, he assumed the raichu had just said it to make him feel better, not because of any actual shared experience.
If Volt noticed the tone, he didn't seem to mind, keeping a shallow smile. "I used to have a trainer."
Circ's eyes bulged open, and he stopped to check they'd remained in his head. "What? No way! You've been at the colony for… forever! As long as I can remember!"
Volt laughed, stopping and turning to face the bewildered pikachu. "The colony's older than me!" Circ held his head in astonishment. Imagining the colony without Volt was like imagining a tree without bark! A chu without a tail! He'd just assumed Volt had always run the colony. Volt continued giggling at the little existential crisis, surveying the area a moment before taking a seat in front of Circ. "Yep, he caught me when I was a pichu, too." Volt used to be a pichu. At least this realization was more fun than existentially threatening. What was Volt like as a pichu?
Volt looked up, nostalgic eyes examining some distant nothing. "He raised me, trained me, fed me, even got me a thunderstone. We battled like no one else! We'd never lose!"
Circ listened intently, getting excited himself, but Volt's smile dipped. Why? That sounded awesome! "That's so cool!"
"It was." Volt's eyes shifted down, glancing along the ground until they rested on a pebble next to him. He picked it up, rolling it around in his paws. "But it didn't last." He tossed up the pebble, shocking it out of the air, and it fell smoldering to the ground. "After a while, we stopped battling, he sent the rest of his team away, and we stayed in one of those human colonies with all those burrows." Sorrow overtook his nostalgia. "He'd feed me, take care of me, I had anything I needed to survive."
Circ furrowed his brow; Volt spoke with a level of disdain that didn't fit with what he described. "What's so bad about that?"
Volt twisted his mouth in thought. "I… don't know. I had everything I needed, but… nothing to want?" Shrugging, he looked up to smile at Circ. "I guess I just got bored. So, some day while he was out, I left. But, even after so many seasons, I still miss battling with him and his team."
Circ nodded along, trying to relate, but he just couldn't. "But you have memories, you can remember him. I hardly remember them at all, and I still miss them. It's…" he felt his throat tighten, "it's like I'm missing something super important, but I barely know what it is, or why it's important, and when I try to remember it just gets worse! I think I lose more! I'm grabbing for nothing and throwing away—"
"Circ, it's all ri—"
"No! It's not!" He'd started shaking, "But I don't know why! Something's wrong, but" —he started squeezing his paws— "I can't fix it because I don't know what it is, and" —his claws started piercing his skin— "whenever I try, I just make it—"
Volt yanked Circ into a hug, pressing the now crying pikachu's face into his belly. "It's all right! It's okay!" Now unable to speak, Circ just cried wordlessly, wrapping his arms around Volt and squeezing as hard as possible. No matter how many times Volt repeated, "It's okay, it's all right," he still felt that burning emptiness. But with nothing to want, he only had a void to fill with tears.
Where had all this come from? He'd barely thought about the humans since he'd evolved, but the moment he did, this torrent of emotion came. Volt rubbed his back, lightly scratching, patting, squeezing out the sobs, calming him down. Volt constantly repeating, "It's all right, it's okay," finally started to connect. They started to quiet down, Circ's cries and Volt's comforts. "If it's that important, it'll come back to you." Circ hoped he was right.
They kept a silent embrace for a while, waiting for Circ's tears to stop. Volt broke the silence first. "Can you feel my charge?"
What a ridiculous question. Circ pulled his muzzle out of Volt's fur to look up, not quite ready to break the embrace. "Yeah, of course."
Volt smiled down at him. "I don't just mean feel that it's there." Circ tilted his head. "Since you evolved, you should be a lot more sensitive to electricity. Try to really feel its flow, strength, direction, like how you feel your own."
Circ nodded along, not willing to admit he'd never really sensed his own charge like that. Sure, he felt it, at least he assumed he did, but he'd never really paid attention to it. Nevertheless, he closed his eyes to try and focus on it. He felt the charge already, being so close, and he sensed its strength almost immediately. Obviously, it was more than his, but it didn't dwarf his near as much as he'd expected. It seemed to flow… more? No, faster. And it pulsed through him: patch, through the body, round to the other patch and back again. It came surprisingly easy to him.
"Feel it?" Circ nodded. "Good, now," Volt wrapped his tail around Circ's, "Try to match it. I'm gonna start sending some your way." Clenching his teeth, Circ tried exactly that. He tried altering his flow, speeding it up to accommodate the electricity coming in through his tail. It made him a bit dizzy, and his heart started racing, but he managed. "All right, now try to feel the electricity around us. There's always some latent static in the environment."
Circ groaned. He already had a lot to focus on. Too much. He tried to feel for the electricity around them but focusing less on his flow caused a number of shocks. Volt gave him a reassuring pat. "It's all right, you can do this." He tapped Circ's clenched jaw. "Relax." Circ nodded, took a deep breath, and let go of the tension. His flow became easier to manage, and he started to notice the surrounding static. It was… accumulating around them? No, Volt. "Remember how this feels." Circ assumed he meant the electricity around them before he heard the low, "Raiiii," realizing just moments too late to late to avoid the massive bolt of lightning accompanied by an explosive, "CHU!"
All at once, a burst of electricity smashed through his system, bulldozing any semblance of control over the lightning blasting through his system. Scorched fur singed out its scent as he launched himself away, panting in breath while his heart beat its way out of his chest. "Ka… pika," he wheezed, barely able to manage a syllable, "Wh-why… did you…." A buzzing and a ringing competed to reign supreme in his ears. He could decide if he was exhausted or energized enough to never sleep again.
Volt took a step forward, stopping when Circ flinched back. "You're okay. I didn't expect you to just absorb it like that. I'm surprised you could." Okay? He just got hit by lightning! He'd absorbed a lightning strike! That should fry his circuits! Burst his cheeks! He took a breath. No way he could take a blast like that and survive!
Wait. But he had. He did survive. His circuits were adjusting to the influx of energy. His cheeks weren't even full. His eyes burst from terror to astonished elation. "I just absorbed your attack!"
Volt Chuckled, looking rather surprised himself. "I only tried this because of your impressive capacity, but I assumed even you would have to start conducting." He took another step forward and planted his paws on the ground, raising his tail to the sky. The surrounding static started accumulating around him again. "This time, try to accept the bolt with your tail and conduct it into the ground."
"Th-this—wait!" But Volt showed no sign of stopping. Panicked, Circ threw up his tail just in time to meet the bolt crashing down. It coursed through his system once again, and while he shot as much as he could into the ground, he could only pump so much through his cheeks. He gasped for air. The surrounding area reeked of ozone.
"No, Circ, you have to relax." Only a lack of oxygen kept Circ from yelling at the raichu. Relax? In this onslaught? "Don't use the electricity, just let it pass through." The look in Volt's eyes left no room for discussion. "Slow your breathing, calm down."
"Calm down? Stop attacking me!" A silent smile told Circ Volt wasn't going to stop. Disgruntled, he tried to force his breath to slow. In, out, in, out, trying to make each exhale longer than the last. The electricity began to accumulate again, so he put his tail back up, trying to relax as best he could.
"Focus on feeling, not doing." Every fiber of his being wanted Circ to grit his teeth. What did that even mean? Nevertheless, he tried to just feel. Feel the electricity flow around him, accumulating around Volt, growing and growing until all at once it surrounded Circ and crashed up—up? —straight through him. Relaxing actually worked. At least, made it better. It still dizzied him to have all that energy pulse through him, but since it didn't stay in his system, it didn't disrupt his charge as much. "Yes! Yes! Great job!"
Before Circ could react, Volt was right next to him. He couldn't even flinch, he still needed to get his head on straight again. "I, yeah." Breath eluded him. Volt finally gave him an opportunity to rest, so he rolled back and sat, cradling his head that had begun to throb from the constant concussive blasts. He was absolutely certain that his stomach had flipped itself upside down. That would explain why the last bolt felt like it changed direction. No, that still didn't seem right. "Did… did that last one go up?"
Volt smacked him on the back, making him clutch his stomach with one paw while the other covered his mouth. "Yes! Exactly!" Was he going to vomit? He didn't want to, but his stomach definitely did. "Lightning's just another circuit! It connects a charge on the ground to another in the sky!" His queasiness was right on the edge, but it stopped right before going over. "Now you can try!"
Circ's eyes shot open, some invisible force keeping them in his skull. "You want me to call lightning?" Volt just nodded with a grin. Was he oblivious to Circ's suffering, or did he just not care? "I'm—I—that's impossible!" At least the astonishment seemed to be calming his nausea.
Volt rubbed Circ's neck. "You know how it works—more importantly—you know how it feels. And if you feel a move, you can do it." Circ felt his head shake. This all seemed so fast. No way he could manage this. Could pikachu even learn to do this? How was he gonna manage? He only just evolved! "Feel how strong your charge is right now." Volt must have seen the doubt on his face.
Well, he could at least manage that. Deep breath in, long breath out. He started to just focus on feeling his electricity and could barely believe it. It felt stronger than it ever had! It even rivaled Volt's! Of course, Volt wasn't anywhere near his limit and Circ felt a few amps away from bursting. But still! When had his capacity grown so much? "You're strong."
A smile spread its way across Circ's face, creasing deep into his cheeks. He shook off Volt's paw and dropped to all fours. He could do it. He raised his tail, took deep breaths, and felt the environment. Felt the electricity. Felt his own. He moved his flow to match the charges around him, bringing nearby static to him. He kept feeling, kept pulling, getting the surrounding static to match his charge. Relax. He released the tension in his muscles. Then, all at once he launched all the electricity he'd mustered up into the air, feeling it connect to the sky with a massive, concussive boom.
All his queasiness, the headache, every discomfort disappeared. He did it. He hopped up in the air, pumping his paws to the skies, shouting random arrangements of pi, ka, and chu without giving any thought to meaning, far too excited to even try speaking intelligibly. Getting the feeling out was enough.
Volt jumped to join in the exuberance. "I told you! Great job!" Circ stopped hopping to beam his proud smile at Volt. "You'll have no trouble in the guard."
Circ's smile grew far too big to keep his mouth closed. "You—does that mean?" Volt nodded, and Circ threw his arms around him. "Thank you!" Circ only gave Volt a moment to return the hug before hopping back. "How's it work? What do I do? When do I start?"
Volt chuckled, ruffling the elated pikachu's headfur. "It's simple. For now, you'll just stand watch on the North side of the colony until another 'chu comes to take your place. When you get back to your burrow, there'll be berries and such for you. And, of course, you'll need to keep training to make sure you can still protect the colony."
Circ nodded happily along but tilted his head halfway through. Didn't Ampaw help with the guard? But he always brought food home himself. "Dad's in the guard, though. Why does he have to go out and get us food?"
Volt bit his lip, regret in his eyes. "Circ," he seemed hesitant to speak for the first time in Circ's memory, "When he went to go find you, he didn't tell any of us. He just left. After that, we couldn't trust him to keep watch. He's not in the guard anymore."
