Replacement
"You have got to be kidding."
As I stared the sleek-furred Sneasel down, I felt my legs shake in fear, about to give way. With its black coat, which made it appear no more than another shadow in the darkness, and its long silver claws gleaming in the light of the streetlamp, the catlike Pokémon proved a formidable sight indeed. The Sneasel's glittering ruby eyes crinkled in amusement as I turned uneasily away, its expression made all the more ominous by the long scars that slashed over its eyelids.
"I'm not kidding," I answered, gulping. As the Sneasel shifted position, its sharp claws flashed in the light of the lamp. "Just…just do it!" I cried hurriedly. "Please, just hit me! Once. I need to know…what it feels like."
"To have your head sliced in half like an overripe tomato?" The Sneasel stared at me out of its bright red eyes, not blinking once.
The blow made contact before I even saw it coming. I was lying in the snow, only faintly aware of a pounding pain in my head, too stunned to even yell out in surprise.
"Stupid Clefairy," I thought I heard the Sneasel mutter as it stalked off.
Rubbing my head gingerly as I sat up, I felt a flood of tears pressing at the backs of my eyes. I had been wandering the sidewalks and streets for what seemed like hours, and my feet, now nearly frozen, ached from the night's long journey.
Over and over again, I had challenged various Wild Pokémon to battle me. Some simply laughed this request off, while others complied with a rough Tackle or a stinging Scratch attack. Always, I was too slow, or too clumsy, to fend off my opponent's attack, and I had all the bruises and scrapes to show for my efforts.
Each time I took an especially hard hit from another Pokémon, I wiggled my fingers in faint hope. But true battle experience, and the attack skills I coveted along with it, did not come so easily. Getting beaten up repeatedly by different Pokémon would get me nowhere. I had to actually start winning battles for my plan to work, which seemed like an impossibly unobtainable task!
"Excuse me!" I called out to a passing Pidgey. "I need your help."
Five minutes later, I was lying on the sidewalk, red peck marks dotting my body. Frustrated with my own inability to win even one battle, I shook hot tears from my matted pink fur. Shoulders slumped, and face wet, I started wearily down the road I had come. Back home to Kim, with her spite and criticisms and perpetual scowl.
The morning sun was well into the grey sky as I neared the house at last. Head still bowed, I came to the end of the footprint trail I had left in the snow last night.
"Why did I think I could ever become a battler?" I muttered, squeezing my body through the fence. "Kim was right when she I was too stupid…too weak…too…" But these moans and groans and bouts of self-pity would ultimately get me nowhere. Battling was definitely not my forte. But if I couldn't battle, then what could I do to please Kim?
Looking about the yard, I saw a pair of small bootprints marking the snow, paired with the long tracks left by a sled. Kim had gone sledding today. Not, then, caring enough to go searching for me. Should I have expected any better? I gave myself a mental slap, disgusted at myself for being so pathetic. Disgusted at myself for wanting to give up so easily.
The faces of all the Pokémon I had met and fought the night before danced in front of my eyes, taunting me with their burning clarity. They were so clear in my mind's eye, in fact, that a nearby snowdrift reminded me of the plump Pidgey I had battled last. If it only had the same beady eyes, I mused to myself, they might have been nearly identical to one another.
"I'm really losing it," I thought as I used the tip of my paw to poke a pair of eyes into the mound of snow. Absentmindedly, I went on to carve a pointed beak, then a pair of stubby wings. By the time I had finished with a ruffled bunch of tail feathers, I was certain that the last of my sanity had disappeared, along with all the feeling in my fingers.
But, I thought as I stepped back to admire the lifelike quality of my snow sculpture. It's not all that bad. It really isn't all that bad!
Excitement welled up in my chest, making me clap my paws together in delight. Kim had always complained about how her parents would never let her onto the streets to see all the different kinds of Pokémon for herself. And if she couldn't see them out there, I could be the one to "bring" them to her own front yard!
Quickly, I set my eyes on a second snowdrift. With a few precise jabs and pats, it was transformed into a sparkling white Meowth, licking its paw with a small tongue. The neighboring pile of snow became a scruffy-furred Raticate. Giggling, I took several balls of snow in my paws, patting them together to make the round head of a Sneasel.
On and on I went, sculpting Grimer, Mankey, and many more in profusion. A shimmering ivory Growlithe took its place atop the house doorstep, a duo of stout Jynx flanking its sides. I even hung a flock of snowy sleeping Zubat from the fine icicles that had frozen onto the nearby bushes.
As the house yard was slowly transformed into a menagerie of snow-Pokémon, I smiled contentedly to myself. Kim would be sure to notice what I'd done. And when she did, maybe she would understand at last.
To seal my message, I made a small girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of the yard, a Clefairy in her lap. Both were wearing wide grins of joy.
I was waiting nervously when I saw Kim approaching, towing a small pink sled in one mittened hand. As she unlocked the gate and stepped into the yard, her jaw dropped down in surprise.
"What the…?" she managed, eyes darting about from one statue to another. Finally, they came to the sculpture of the girl and the Clefairy, the sculpture that I was seated anxiously in front of.
Slowly, as if in a trance, Kim took a step towards that statue. Her hood fell back as she did, revealing her rosy-cheeked face.
"Cle'fair?" I said with a hopeful smile as Kim came to stand in front of me. "Fair'air ree."
Before I had time to react, I was flying backwards in a shower of snow. As I struggled to my feet, amid the remains of my snow sculpture, I caught a glimpse of Kim's booted foot kicking in one snow Pokémon after another, sending shimmering white sprays of snow cascading through the air. Her red face was flushed not from the cold, as I had first thought, but from a savage anger.
"Why do you have to do this to me!" she screamed, stabbing at the snow and sending my Raticate's head flying. "Tell me! Why!"
"I'm sorry!" I cried out as Kim turned on me. "I didn't know…I was only trying to…"
Kim, of course, couldn't understand a word I said. "I'll make you pay for this!" she cried. Her next kick sent me crashing into the side of the fence.
I looked up in time to see Kim pull a small ball from her pocket. The object's round shape wove in and out of my swimming vision, elongating and shortening as I struggled to focus my eyes.
"Get over here!" Kim shouted at me. "Get over here, you horrible Pokémon!"
As my head cleared, I realized what she was brandishing in my direction. It was a PokéBall, was so shiny and new that Kim must have spent the last of her allowance to buy it just today. I took a step backwards, all my resolution dissolving. I had heard too many stories about the horrors of being trapped inside a PokéBall to keep up any semblance of courage.
"You tried to leave before, didn't you?" Kim cried, even as I shook my head in protest. "I saw you sneak out through the fence last night!" Her brown hair, held back in twin braids with ribbons, slapped against her bony shoulders as she ran forward to throw the PokéBall blindly in my direction. I ducked as it hit the fence with a loud crack and rebounded.
"Why couldn't you just stay out there where you'd gone!" Kim screamed, scooping the ball out of the snow. "Why did you have to come back and make me suffer all over again!"
"I don't understand!" I cried, leaping away as the PokéBall came again. "I never wanted you to suffer, never! That's the last thing I ever wanted, don't you see! Please don't put me in there! Please don't!"
The PokéBall bounced off the fence again, to Kim's extreme fury. "Get in the PokéBall where you belong!" she yelled. "You stupid, stupid Clefairy! It's your turn to suffer now, and you know you deserve it!"
"Please, I don't know what you're talking about! All I've ever done was try to make you happy!"
Though she could not understand a single word, my pleading tone was enough to give Kim the gist of what I was saying. "Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about!" the little girl screeched. "Everything you've done, trying to take Aimee's place! Well, I won't have any of it! Not when you're the reason Aimee had to die!"
As Kim grabbed the PokéBall and flung it once again, I was too shocked to duck. The next thing I knew, the ball was opening and my paws were bursting into a flash of red before my eyes. Before I had a chance to resist, darkness surrounded my bruised body and drew me in.
Kim's fingers were freezing as she stomped into the hall and yanked off her mittens. Shaking flakes of snow from her braids, and blowing on her hands for warmth, she hung up her coat and headed into the kitchen.
"Did you have a good time sledding at the park, Kimmie?" Kim's mother called from by the stove, handing Kim a mug of hot chocolate as the little girl passed by. "You were gone for so long I was beginning to worry."
"I went back again after I came home the first time," Kim admitted, downing the hot liquid thirstily. "I took that new Clefairy with me."
Kim's mother smiled in relief. "It's nice to see that you and your Clefairy are finally starting to get along," she said, beaming. "Ever since Aimee died, I was afraid you might not welcome another Pokémon."
"The Clefairy ran away," Kim said with a shrug. "It was making these ugly snowmen and I knocked one down by accident and it got all mad and ran away. I don't think it'll be back."
Her mother's brow creased in alarm. "Don't worry, honey," she said quickly. "We can go back to the park and look for your Pokémon, or make some posters to put up around town."
"No!" Kim said, with a vehemence that surprised her mother. "I mean, the Clefairy obviously hates it here. There's no point in bringing it back. It'll just get mad and run away again."
"But, honey, it's the middle of winter. What if the poor thing freezes to death?"
Not bothering to answer her mother's question, Kim bolted up from the table and ran off to her room, slamming the door closed behind her. Sinking back onto her bed, she lay there for several moments before straightening and walking over to her dresser drawers.
A framed picture stand stood at the very center of the dresser's surface. Bending forward, Kim took this picture stand in her small hands and gazed down at the old photograph it contained.
In Kim's photo, a little brown-haired girl was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the grass, face illuminated by an exuberant smile. And in her lap was perched an elderly Clefairy. Despite its shrunken body and wasted limbs, the Clefairy's black eyes were sparkling in sheer joy.
"Aimee," Kim whispered, touching the Clefairy in the photograph with one finger. "Aimee, you'd be glad to know I got rid of that nasty new Clefairy at last. Stupid Pokémon, thinking that it could just waltz in here and be half as great as you."
She returned to her bed, still clutching the photograph. "You'll always be the best, Aimee, no matter what," Kim said, gazing at the Clefairy in the picture. "Mom and Dad never understood that. 'Wouldn't you like a new Pokémon?' they always asked me. 'Aimee's getting old now, Kimmie, wouldn't a nice, young Clefairy be better for you?' And I always told them no!"
Tears sprang to Kim's eyes as she went on, hugging the picture to her chest. "When Mom and Dad told me you'd been put to sleep, Aimee, it was the saddest day in my entire life," she murmured. "They said you were getting too old and sick, and just living was too much of a struggle for you. They said it was the charitable thing to do, putting you to sleep!"
Kim's eyes flared, and the tears burned her round cheeks. "But I know better than that!" she cried. "Mom and Dad, they thought getting a new Pokémon would be better for me. They never once thought about you. You liked living, didn't you, Aimee? I liked you living, too! We were together since the day I was born! And that new Pokémon just had to come and ruin it for the both of us!"
With shaking hands, Kim took the picture frame and set it gently back onto the dresser. "But I fixed things right," she told the old Clefairy in the photograph happily. "I made sure that horrible new Clefairy got what it deserved for coming here and trying to take your place."
A smile lighting up her small face, Kim thought of that PokéBall, now hidden beneath layers and layers of snow in the park. The PokéBall that wouldn't be found until spring, when all the snow had melted. Kim had dug through piles and piles of snow for nearly an hour in order to bury the ball good and deep. Though her fingers seemed frozen enough to shatter, Kim's leaden heart was warming at last.
"That Pokémon got what it deserved, alright," Kim said in satisfaction. Her angelically radiant smile bore surprisingly no rust from its many months of disuse. "If you were still here, you'd be proud of me, wouldn't you, Aimee?" Kim went on, her voice sure and strong. "I did exactly the right thing, didn't I?"
Despite its bright-eyed smile, the old Clefairy in the photo could not answer her.
In a PokéBall, deep underneath the snow…
It was cold there, in the darkness. Strange really, seeing as how I had no bones for the chill to seep into, no paws or ears to grow numb. The many particles that had once made up my body drifted separately about now, bobbing aimlessly within the PokéBall's confines.
This isn't so bad, I told myself half-heartedly as I floated inside the PokéBall. I no longer had any aching feet or stinging cuts. Indeed, I had nothing left of my old body, save for my own consciousness.
But even as I drifted there in the dark, I still felt inexplicably cold.
Kim had that said I was the reason Aimee had to die, I remembered with a hollow ache. Kim had loved Aimee with all her heart. I had once thought that she had lavished so much of her love on Aimee that there had not been any left over for me.
But now, I wasn't so sure. Am I a murderer? I wondered to myself, soul trembling at the very thought. The cold seemed to swell, wrapping my dispersed particles in its icy embrace. My mind drew in protectively, retreating into the blackness.
No one will ever have any love for a murderer, I thought numbly, weakly. Has that been my fate all along? Have I spent so long reaching for something that could never be mine?
Maybe it's finally time to let go. I honestly don't think I have the strength to go on any longer.
And as I sunk deeper and deeper into the endless darkness of the PokéBall, a prick of light appeared far overhead. To my amazement, the light was growing, growing into a streaming shaft of radiance that descended towards me in a soft, muted glow.
With a brisk snap, my scattered particles jumped back together, reforming my old body. I held my arms in front of me in amazement. All the bruises and scrapes that once marred my skin had vanished completely, and all the coldness I'd felt had been dispelled by a surge of pleasant, gentle warmth. Awed, I looked up into the light that had healed me.
A weathered old Clefairy was suspended in the middle of that miraculous light, its fluid, graceful movements belying its grotesquely withered limbs. "Minna," it said in a soft voice as it glided serenely forward. "Minna, I've been wanting to meet you for the longest time."
"Who…who are you?"
The old Clefairy smiled benevolently. "My name is Aimee, Minna."
"Aimee!" My mind gave a mental cry of distress, accompanied by a burst of surprise upon meeting Kim's old Pokémon at last. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…that is, I never knew I…"
"Hush now, Minna," the old Clefairy whispered, putting a paw to its mouth. "You have done nothing to be ashamed of. I hold none of what Kim has said against you."
"Thank you," I replied numbly. "But wait, you can't be…aren't you…?"
Shaking its head from side to side to quiet me, Aimee extended a shimmering paw in my direction. "Would you like to come with me, Minna?" the withered Clefairy asked gently. "I can take you to a wonderful place. A beautiful place with all kinds of Pokémon and people. Pokémon and people that would love to meet you."
"I would like that very much, Aimee. Very, very much."
Nodding, the shining Clefairy took my paw, leading me out of the darkness and into the blindingly glorious light.
My thanks goes to the nameless reviewer, Moonlit Shadow, and Eika for their kind encouragement! This fic was originally inspired by the arrival of Advanced Generation/Houen League. Sure, there's going to be things I'll miss, but from what I've seen, Season 6 looks like it'll be rather interesting in it's own right! ^_^