- Heart
& Soul -
Part 3: There's No 'I' in Team!
"Is it just me, or
does this just smack of that film?"
"…expand." Brock shifted and absently scratched the side of his face. There was a
quick flash of sadness within him, as he noted that his cheek felt warm and
well…living, but the absence of the stubble that surely would have grown by
now, reassured him that he was indeed dead. And working with Tracey Sketchitt.
On some bizarre mission set by some half-dressed babe with wings, who seriously
couldn't make up her mind what hair colour suited her.
"Well," Brock started. "That one
with the blonde chick…about the angels…she dies at the end." Tracey
looked up at him, giving him a pathetic look.
"Gee thanks, that wasn't vague at all, and
oh-so-cheering." Brock glowered at his bandana-ed companion, and
tilted his head back to look at the black and grey sky. His attention was
diverted by a lone leaf twirling by, on what looked like a strong wind, but
Brock couldn't feel it, and his hair and clothes remained stationary. The whole
of Pewter lay at his feet, and he looked down sorrowfully at the square shaped
building that had once been his Gym.
"So what have you learnt at Misty's?" Brock
asked the other teenager, grumpily.
"Nothing much," Tracey answered, stretching
out on the roof of the Pewter museum. "She's cut his face out of all
her pictures, she still lives in the Gym, she has a psychopathic Eevee that
keeps trying to pee on me, and oh, the other day I saw your funeral card. And
mine. It was a lovely experience," he said bitterly, tossing back a
layer of ear length dark green hair moodily.
"Stop grumbling," snapped an angry
female voice. Brock and Tracey whirled around in shock to see no one. They
looked at each other warily. The voice laughed, echoing in their heads. "In
here," it mocked. "Don't tell me you've forgotten me
already!"
"C-catalia?" asked Tracey warily, slowly reaching up to his temple with his
fingers.
"No, Santa," mocked the voice. "Of
course it's me. How many voices *are* there in your head?"
"Well-" began Brock, but he was silenced by a glare from
Tracey.
"What do you want Catalia?" he asked, half
irritably, half respectfully.
"Did I mention that you guys have a time limit
on this little job?" Catalia asked sweetly. The boys groaned.
"No." Tracey rubbed his face with his
hands in exasperation before pushing them back over his hair. "How
long?"
"Probably anything from two weeks to…fifteen
days?" she said, almost
apologetically. The boys groaned again.
"How come Pokémon can sense us?" Tracey
asked suddenly. Catalia laughed.
"Sense? Haven't you figured it out yet? You can
probably communicate with some of them. The smarter ones. Don't even try on a
Psyduck or Slowking, you're wasting your time."
"Eevee?"
"Pikachu?" the two boys asked. There was a
small silence.
"Pikachu…probably. Especially if it spent a lot
of time with you when you were alive. But…I've never heard of an angelic
messenger being able to communicate with an Eevee…" she answered. "Maybe
it's a special case? Anyway, that's all I can give you for now, good luck! Ja
né! Um…have a…groovy time guys!"
Then the patch in their heads that had felt
unusually warm was gone, and the boys were left with nothing but headaches and
a horrible feeling of being totally violated. Brock quirked an eyebrow at
Tracey.
"Groovy time? When was the last time she
came to Earth??" he laughed. Tracey didn't respond; he was staring
down at the considerable drop from the roof to the grassy ground below. "W-what
are you thinking about Trace?" asked Brock warily.
"I'm just wondering…whether we should try jumping
down…" murmured Tracey, turning his dark, dark green eyes onto Brock. "I
mean…it's not exactly gonna hurt us is it? I mean, we're dead. Doesn't get any
worse than this does it?" Brock nodded, then smiled.
"As long as you try it first!" Tracey made
a face.
"Oh brave Gym Leader, your courage shines
through," he murmured sarcastically as he sized up the drop again,
before taking a deep breath. "Okay, here we go…"
Tracey walked slowly to the ridge edge, before halting,
sweatdropping.
"How do I do this? Do I run off? Jump? Walk
off?" Brock shrugged.
"I dunno, I don't really jump off museum roofs for
fun Tracey." Tracey took another deep breath, and fidgeted with his
feet, as half of them were hanging over the edge, and his heels were safely on
the roof itself. Gritting his teeth, Tracey simply let himself teeter off the
edge. He felt nothing. Slowly he opened his eyes, and screamed as he saw the
ground coming at him very fast, even though he couldn't feel any breeze on his
face at all.
Then…everything froze. The ground stopped coming towards
him, and the roaring in his ears and Brock's panicked voice stopped. Nervously,
Tracey spun himself around, so his feet were pointing to the ground rather than
his head.
"Idiot," came an accusing voice.
"Catalia help me!" he yelled, panicked. "What's
going on!?"
"Listen, just because you're dead doesn't mean
you can't feel pain," Catalia
said softly. "It's how you can feel cold when you pass through
something biological, or how you have sad feelings when you think about the
fact that you're dead. You still have feelings."
Tracey started hyperventilating.
"So I'm gonna hit this ground, and feel it exactly
like I would if I was alive?" he asked, incredulously.
"No, not exactly," Catalia
answered. "It would only hurt for a few minutes, like a Beedrill
sting, but it would still hurt."
"Help!" Tracey repeated again, helplessly, unable to keep
his eyes off the ground below him.
"Open your wings silly," Catalia
yawned. "You're an angel, use your wings!"
"What wings??" Tracey yelled, indicating his flat back. There was
silence for a minute, then a weird itching sensation on his back, right
underneath where his shoulder blades stuck out.
"Those wings…ja!" The sensation
in his head was gone, and the world began moving slowly again.
"Help!!"
screeched Tracey. "How do
I turn these things on??" Slowly, two dusty pink coloured feathers
slipped through his skin, and tee shirt without making a mark. These were
followed by another pair, and another until Tracey had a set of shimmery,
transparent pink feather-wings, and glided to the ground, where he met a pale
Brock, who had run down the stairs.
"What just ha-" Brock began, before taking
note of his companion's rather feminine wings, and sniggered.
"Oh I hope yours are yellow," Tracey said
bitterly, before turning his attention to these bizarre new extensions to his
body. They remained still, ruffling slightly in the wind; the only part of him
that did. "I'm flying back to Cerulean then," he said smugly. "Guess
you're walking Brock!"
"I'd rather walk from Olivine Port to Lavender Town
than fly on those things!" laughed
Brock. "I swear I've seen a pair of girly knickers that look
exactly like them!" he chuckled.
"Well I very much doubt you've seen any
girly knickers at all, apart from the ones in your wardrobe that you wear on
Saturday nights," cut back Tracey, glowering as he was strangely proud
of his wings.
"Cuh, forget you," Brock said in a
disgusted voice. "I'm off back to Pallet."
Tracey
grunted, and turned his back on the taller, spiky-haired boy. Before he knew
it, he was left alone in the garden of the Pewter City Science Museum.
Hesitantly, he reached out and brushed his finger tip against one of the
feathers. It felt smooth under his finger, and it sent little waves of impulse
down to his nerves - it was part of his body alright.
Tracey sighed, and his shoulders shuddered, the feathers
making rustling noises as they rubbed against each other.
"Now…" he murmured. "…How do I
flap these things?" Suddenly, his back felt like it was on fire, and
the feathers slipped back into his back, making him yelp, and leaving him with
a serious backache, and a long way to walk.