Angels Fall First.
Chapter 3: Past
Redwood looked like he was about to answer, when one of the other teachers yelled out, "Shit, there he is!"
Both Kira and Bleak tensed, expecting some kind of villainous man to come running out with a knife or something, but what they saw was shocking…
Literally shocking… All that stood there was a little Pichu, its cheeks sparking brightly in the semi-darkness.
"That's the problem?" Kira asked disbelievingly, glancing at Bleak who seemed to share her doubt.
"Don't make any sudden moves…" Professor Redwood murmured softly, and everyone in the room froze. "It might not look like much but it took down Pete here with one thundershock. It obviously has an abnormally high voltage."
As they watched the Pichu sized them up and seemed to decide they weren't really a threat. He hopped happily over to an empty plug socket and shoved his little paw into one of the holes.
Since the electricity was off, nothing happened and he seemed upset, quickly tugging the plug from the next socket and repeating the process.
"What's it doing?" Kira asked quietly, watching the tiny mouse move around the room.
"We had to shut the academy's power off… He's been doing that for hours. He is somehow drawing power from the sockets instead of just getting fried like he should have been." One of the professors spoke up. The P.E teacher groaned from his place on the floor as he slowly regained consciousness.
"We think it might have the volt absorb ability… but that seems highly unlikely since this species normally have static. Although it paralysed two of our pokémon on contact, so it probably does have static." Redwood trailed off, obviously confused.
"Is it possible for a pokémon to have two abilities?" Kira asked unsurely. She'd never heard of it before.
"This would appear to be living proof for that theory." Someone muttered grumpily.
Giving up on the sockets, the Pichu pouted and turned to face his audience.
"We have to get it out of here, it's not safe for the students," the Maths teacher pointed out as she crept closer to the little pokémon. It apparently panicked and let loose a burst of electricity which caused the woman to fall to the floor before twitching and laying still.
"We'll have to call the RSPCP. (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Pokémon ;D) They deal with things like this all the time. I'm sure they can catch it and have it humanely put down."
Kira's eyes widened slightly. "You've got to be joking. You can't just kill it because it's too powerful!"
"Unfortunately Kira, it has too much power to be around people. It's an unnecessary danger, especially in a school." Redwood sighed, also not too happy with the prospect, but he knew it was for the best.
Kira had vowed never to own an electric pokémon, since she despised and feared them with a passion. But even so, she couldn't bear the thought of him dying for no real reason. So she spoke up.
"What if I were to capture it? I could keep it away from people… and once it's inside a pokéball it's no longer a threat, right?" she suggested, not sure if she wanted them to agree or not.
They discussed this for a few minutes, keeping a wary eye upon the pokémon in question, who seemed amused by the larger animals who kept pointing at him.
Eventually it was agreed that it was worth a try and everyone moved back to give Kira a little more room.
Bleak edged slowly closer to the sparking pokémon, not really sure if he wanted his temporary trainer to own something this dangerous.
"Okay, Bleak. Now remember that physical attacks will most likely just get you paralyzed. So let's try an ember!" Kira urged, a little nervously. Bleak immediately shot a burst of small flames at the startled pokémon, catching it somewhat off guard.
The Pichu whimpered and sat down to promptly start crying. It had scorch marks on its fur in places but didn't seem too badly hurt. The more it cried, the more his cheeks were letting out electricity, greatly unnerving everyone present.
"Just throw a ball!" Someone instructed, and Kira nodded, clutching the red and white contraption in her hand. She lobbed it at the Pichu and it bounced off his head, opened and pulled him inside.
Everyone watched with bated breath as the ball shook a few times, the red indicator refusing to go out. It suddenly went still but the indicator seemed to get brighter instead of dimming. Sparks started jumping around the pokéball and with a high pitched whining noise the contraption exploded violently!
Shards of the pokéball ricocheted off the walls as everyone covered their eyes. Kira was aware of a piece cutting her cheek, but was focusing more on the now rather dazed looking Pichu who was wobbling in the middle of the room.
"Kira!" Professor Redwood called, and tossed her an ultraball. Usually she would have never accepted one of the expensive devices from someone, but now really wasn't the time for politeness.
Once again, she threw the ball at the pokémon, but this time it only shook twice before the light went out.
There was a collective sigh of relief, and then everyone started talking at once. Kira and Bleak ignored them and walked over to their newly captured team mate. Kira lightly touched the ultraball with the steel tipped toe of her combat boot, before picking it up, satisfied that it wasn't going to explode.
"Well that was dramatic." Bleak muttered, glancing up at Kira. "Hey, you're bleeding a little." He stood up on his hind legs, leaning his paws against her knees so he could see the cut on her face a little better.
She absently pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped the drizzle of blood from her cheek. "It's nothing, see? Just a scratch from that exploding pokéball."
"Kira, well done for catching it." Professor Redwood congratulated her as he came over to where they were standing. The rest of the teachers seemed to remember that they had classfulls of students who were probably running wild right about now and quickly departed to deal with them.
"I have to admit, I'm intensely curious about that little guy. If he truly has two abilities then he may be a great discovery. I'm thrilled he won't have to be put down." He said, looking excited at the prospect of digging deeper into this. "Would you mind terribly if I kept him in the lab for a couple of days? I'd love to run some tests on his abilities, as well as try and get a solid reading on his voltage…"
He looked so hopeful that there was no way she could have said no if she wanted to.
"Eh, sure. Just be careful. You saw what it can do, and I'm sure you don't want to get fried." She smirked, passing the ball to her teacher as he grinned back.
"Will do, Kira my girl. You are looking at one extremely cautious professor."
Later that day Kira was sitting on her bed tugging off her boots, when she realised that she now had two pokémon. So when Bleak left her, she'd still have that Pichu.
She shifted uncomfortably at the thought of that. How was she going to deal with raising an electric type when she was terrified of them?
She and Bleak never really spoke about when he was going to leave her. They both knew the time would come eventually, but it wasn't something they discussed in depth. At first it had seemed easy. But now they'd actually become friends. She didn't want to loose him but she would do what was right. Sometimes it sucked having morals.
Speaking of Bleak… She grabbed the nicely coloured repeat ball that was on the bed next to her and held it up, releasing her pokémon in a flash of light. And green sparkles.
He stretched languidly before smiling at her. "Thanks."
She winked at him as she stood up, glancing in the mirror on her way. She paused to look at her reflection, surprised at how much more confident she appeared now that she was a trainer of sorts.
Her grey-green eyes seemed to sparkle more than she remembered them ever doing before. Maybe it was because she felt like she had a real friend now because of Bleak.
She glanced at her hair and sighed softly. It always reminded her of her parents. Kira's hair was mostly jet black, but the front couple of inches were a beautiful forest green colour. Her mother had had hair that was the exact shade of green, and her father had sported black hair himself. It was unusual to get such a mixture of colours, and something Kira had been teased about at school, but she rather liked the look regardless.
Bleak, ever observant, had picked up on her wistful expression. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly.
She looked round at him, finding him sitting in the space on her bed that she'd just vacated.
"It's nothing really." She assured him, sitting on the computer chair. "I was just thinking about my parents."
He knew she didn't have any family, but he'd never asked why. He didn't like to pry into peoples lives too much, but he thought maybe now she was ready to talk to him about it.
"What happened to them?" he asked gently, mildly surprised that he actually cared enough to ask.
Kira hesitated, and looked down at the floor, her delicate hands curling into fists.
"They were murdered." She sighed and met Bleak's gaze, smiling weakly at him. "It happened when I was four years old. These men broke into our home and just killed them."
Bleak felt the need to say something, but stayed quiet knowing she probably needed to say this all at once.
Her voice held a far away tone, and her eyes seemed to be staring at something only she could see.
"I remember it so clearly. Which is kind of weird considering I was so young. There were five of them. I was drawing pictures with my dad at the table whilst my mom was singing and dusting the shelves. We were so happy." She took a deep breath, not wanting to cry, but it was so hard talking about all this.
"They burst in through the front door and shot my dad in the head." She could clearly remember the blood splattering across the picture she had been drawing and shuddered visibly. "My mom was screaming and trying to protect me but they just shot her too. I remember her screams suddenly stopping after the gunshot and everything was so quiet."
She was crying now, the tears slipping miserably from her eyes. Bleak hopped down off the bed and jumped onto her lap to soothingly lick the tears from her face in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in the fur on his neck, his presence giving her the strength to continue.
"It was so quiet, the men weren't speaking and I hid under the table. I thought they were going to kill me too and I just wanted my dad to get up and make them go away. They didn't kill me, obviously. There was some discussion, maybe they didn't expect a kid to be there or something, I can't remember. Anyway, they dragged me out of there kicking and screaming, and shoved me into the back of a van."
Her fingers tightened in Bleak's fur.
"I found out later that it was Team Rocket. They kept me there as a slave, making me sort out their pokémon's food and run errands and take messages back and forth. When I was eight they started taking me out on pokémon catching sessions, getting me and a couple of the other slaves they had there to carry the sacks of pokéballs and bait 'n' stuff.
"It was when I was ten and they got me my first Rocket uniform that I decided I had to get away no matter what. I knew what sort of grisly tasks the full blown Rocket's had to do, and I didn't want to live my life that way.
"It took a lot of failed attempts and punishments before I managed to escape, but I did it. I spent about six months on the street after that, too afraid to go to the police. Eventually I was caught stealing and then I had no choice but to tell the cops everything. They found the base I was talking about shut it down. I knew it was only one of many though. They sent me out here and I started school.
"Not many people know about all this, just the woman who runs this place, my head teacher and Professor Redwood. And now you." She finished softly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and looking at Bleak for a reaction.
He looked sympathetic and also a little angry that all this had happened to her. "I'm glad you told me. And I'm sorry… I had no idea you'd been through so much."
Kira placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, feeling something of a weight lifted from her heart at sharing her past with him.
That night he curled up next to her on her bed to sleep and she had the first truly peaceful night in a long time.
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