This is merely an alternate telling of how Lawrence met Julie, capturing her rather than being sold her, as happens in "Sacrifice of a Lugia (SoL)." The rest of SoL holds.
Yes it's a love story and yes it's clichéd, but it's my story and I wanted to write it.
Captivated.
No sooner had Julie gained her freedom, then she was suddenly in danger of losing it again. She had no idea that the machine in the sky would start firing force-fields at her, and no matter how fast she flew or how sharp she turned, she couldn't shake the force-fields off..
They had another advantage over her. Being non-living, they didn't get tired.
The same was not true of Julie. She was flagging. Within a minute, they were on her.
Bands of energy flashed between the frames, forcing her tail, wings, and feet inside their confines. She flailed out, but nothing could break through. As the linked frames carried her towards the machine, a strange drowsiness overcame her.
The force-field's sleep-inducing field had her under by the time her force-fields came to rest atop a small platform in the main hall of the machine.
A blonde figure watched as she was settled. He wasn't sure just what he'd caught, but he had checked that it wasn't Articuno before he'd deployed the force-field frames.. It-no, it was undeniably female, she-was so beautiful! So unusual! Enough like Articuno to satisfy his craving for rarity, but un-alike enough that the world was not endangered.
Lawrence the Third was a collector, but one who demanded the best. Just rarity was not enough for him. He collected items not just of rarity, but of beauty. He wasn't sure just what he'd caught, but he'd never heard of her like before. There was a possibility that she was not just rare, but unique. As for the beautiful part, there was no doubt in his eyes of that.
She had the wings and the silky-looking fifteen-foot long ribbon-like tail of Articuno, and the fluffy oval of soft-looking white feathers on her chest. She was clad down her back and sides and the tops of her legs in blue feathers, and smaller feathers of the same hue covered her head from neck to crest. The crest was present, and below that were her eyes, which, as the fields had induced her to sleep, were closed. They looked to be huge, and were set above a structure that seemed to be more than just a nose, but was not a beak. Below this odd nose was a very human-looking pair of lips. Except for the crest and the large nose, and the fact that the skin on the face was a pale blue, the face was almost human.
Below the waist, the blue feathers ended halfway down her thighs, and the legs, again blue and in places having the scaliness of a bird's legs, were remarkably human shaped, and the knees bent forwards like a human's. They tapered down to slightly thick ankles, which then spread into four very long toes, one pointing backwards and the other three forwards in a configuration and manner that was one hundred per cent bird.
He shook his head, and went back to his chair, which sat in the centre of the room. He sat back down, depressing the button which would take him backup to his control tower, so he could continue his journey to Shamouti Island. She was exquisite! He had had to promise the Islanders that he would not capture any of the Legendary Birds before they had given him permission to land, but his bird-girl wasn't Articuno, so he didn't think she counted.
He found his thoughts wandering back to her. He couldn't get her out of his mind. Her face, delicate and beautiful, was disturbingly human, and the blue hue, far from being off-putting, gave her features an exotic, alien, almost mystical quality. He visualised her face in his mind, wondering what she would look like with her eyes open. Were her eyes red like Articuno's, or were they another thing that would make her different from Articuno? What colour were those huge eyes set in that delicate face?
He blinked, and set the computer to auto-pilot. It could approach and land without his supervision: he had paid enough for it! He pressed the switch to take him back down to the Exhibition Hall. The only way he could stop his mind throwing up these questions was to get the answers. He watched her as soon as she came into view as his chair smoothly descended and brought him back down into his main hall. She hung, supported by invisible lines of force, upright but tilted slightly forwards, legs half drawn up, wings half-spread, head tipped forwards as she slept.
He stood, and flipped the switch to cut off the sleep-inducing field. He had set it on so she wouldn't panic or wear herself out, but to see her eyes, he needed her awake. If she panicked and flailed, he could go back and turning it back on. He walked slowly around the frames restraining her, observing her as she woke.
She tensed as awareness came to her, briefly strained against the force-field, and relaxed again. Her feet twitched, her wings flexed, and her head began to come up. Her eyelids twitched, and then fluttered. By the time she opened her eyes, Lawrence had completed his circuit of her prison, and was stood facing her.
Lawrence was speechless as he found himself gazing into jewel-like green eyes that shone with moisture. Her eyes suited her delicate features, which only served, in Lawrence's eyes, to make her more desirable. He shook his head. '
'Get a grip, she's a Pokémon!' he mentally told himself. When he looked at her eyes again, he recognised the moist gleam of her eyes for what it was.
She was on the verge of tears.
Julie, for her part, noticed the way her captor was regarding her, the admiring looks he was directing at her. However, it was not in the way that a man admires a pretty woman, but with a possessive, covetous look. He regarded her as though she was an item, an object, a possession. "You are rare, and beautiful indeed." He murmured. He reached a hand out towards where she was suspended, stopping short of the restraining field. "My beautiful Articuno-girl."
His emphasis on the possessive word angered Julie, who was already uncomfortable with the impersonal regard. She summoned up enough strength to reply angrily.
"I am not your anything! Let me go!" she retorted. Two tears, one from each eye, rolled down her cheeks. However the emotion visible in her eyes was not sadness, but anger.
Lawrence recoiled, snatching back his hand as if it had been struck. He gazed at her in shock for two seconds, then turned and walked back to his chair. He switched back on the sleep-inducing field, then stabbed at the ascent button on his control panel. As he rose, he heard her voice, already slurring with sleep, cry out "No, please!"
Once his chair had risen to the control tower level, Lawrence didn't move for some time. She had startled and shocked him, not with what she had said, but the fact that she had spoken at all.
Of all the things he had been expecting her to do, speaking had not been one of them.
Ten minutes later, he was back down in the Exhibition Hall. Switching off the sleep-inducing field, he walked until he was in front of her again. This time, when she began to wake, she lifted her head and opened her eyes almost immediately.
"You don't own me. Release me!" she said. Her commanding tone piqued him, and his face went hard as his anger flared. He glared at her, and drew himself up to his full height, crossing his arms.
"I am Lawrence the Third. You are in my machine, in my force-fields. To all intents and purposes, you are mine, and I can do whatever I please to you, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!" he snapped at her.
Julie drew back as much as the restraining field would allow, and began to shake. She turned her head to one side, and her face crumpled, and she began to cry silently.
'Nothing…except that.' He thought, hating himself. He hadn't meant to scare her that badly. He uncrossed his arms and tried to relax his stance.
"But I'm not going to." He said softly. "Please, I came here to talk to you. You're obviously intelligent and I want to ask you what happened. Who or what are you?" he asked.
She opened one big green eye to look at him. The small downy feathers around it that covered most of her face were wetted with her tears. Then she opened the other eye to look straight at him.
"My name is Julie." she said in a small voice. "I was born as a fully human person. I went to apply for a job in Violet City last year and didn't know that I'd end up looking like this. It wasn't part of the job description."
"What happened? How?" he asked.
"He had visited Shamouti Island earlier and had picked up an Articuno feather. He cloned skin off it, broke into Bill's cottage and put me and the cloned material through the teleporter until he had me exactly the way he wanted-which was like this. He said he'd only changed the internal arrangement of me in ways needed to enable me to fly. My digestion and everything else hasn't been changed." She told him.
"Why did he do it?" he asked.
"That is a very long story I'd prefer to leave for another time." She said. "Part of it was for the science, though-just to see if he could."
(A/N to hear this story, read "sacrifice of a Lugia." This story is just an alternative version of how Lawrence met Julie.)
"So, just how much Articuno are you?" he asked.
"Fifty-three per cent." she said. "So I suppose technically I'm more Pokémon than human, but I feel more like a human." She closed her eyes again, and Lawrence could tell that she was trying to forestall more tears. Without success, for he saw the tears run down the tracks on her face that the first had created.
"However, I guess that technically, that does make me yours, as well as the well-known expression that possession is nine-tenths of the law." She said, still not looking at him. "So, I'm to live most or all of my life in your captivity. How long I'll live, I don't know, but I guess I can tell you that long story at some time when you've got time to kill, whenever that may be." She said.
"I'd like to get to know you." He said.
"Plenty of time to do that." She said. "A lifetime can be a very long time."
Lawrence turned and walked back to his chair. He sought for and pressed a button, to slowly relax the positioning and confining fields. He walked back over to her, and said "I'd like to see what you're like as a person on an equal footing, not as a captive terrified by the unknown whims of her master."
As the fields relaxed, it became harder for Julie to stay upright and keep her balance, and as the field finally released her, she missed her footing and fell. Lawrence instinctively stepped forward, catching her in his arms rather awkwardly. He deftly and quickly moved his grip, sweeping her into his arms. She began to struggle.
"Hey, let me take you somewhere you can sit till you get your balance back." He said, carrying her over to his chair. Sitting down with her on his lap, he used one arm to hold her to him while he used the other to operate his control panel, instructing the chair to rise to the top level, where four sets of stairs led away from the top control area.
(A/N: This is canon. You look when he goes up top: there is a red ring around the chair with four sets of stairs leading off.)
Getting up, he went down one of these sets of stairs, taking Julie into a room, furnished with the rarest and loveliest furniture Lawrence has found: more of his collection. He gently placed her onto a large soft sofa upholstered in a brilliant green silk, and he himself sat the other end of the sofa, careful not to crowd or touch her, although deep in his heart all he really wanted to do was gather that softly-feathered body back into his arms, drown in her great green eyes, and kiss away the tears she had shed.
"Now, I didn't introduce myself in a very good way earlier, so I shall try again. My name is Lawrence. My middle name is Jirarudan-Jiri for short-, and my surname has so many barrels that you'd never remember it." He smiled at her, and slowly reached for the tip of her wing. She watched him, wary, but did not pull away when he took the tip of her wing, drew it towards his face, and lightly kissed it. He smiled up at her as she blinked in surprise.
"Well, now it's your turn."
"I'm Julie Ruth Phelps-Truman." She said. "My father's surname was Phelps, my mother's was Truman, neither of them wanted to give their name up, so they just double-barrelled it." Her voice gave on the last word, and she swallowed. Lawrence jumped to his feet.
"I've been remiss in my duties as a host." He said. "Is water okay?"
"W-well-yes, thank you." She said. As he left, she bowed her head. He would probably bring it in a bowl, as her lack of hands was glaringly obvious, and she would have to slurp it from the bowl. She felt embarrassed.
Lawrence returned bearing a beautiful dark blue cut glass jug and two wine glasses with clear bowls and deep blue stems, cut to the same pattern as the jug and edged with gold. Putting the tray down on a small but beautifully-carved occasional table, he poured two glasses, and approached her with one.
"I'm sorry, but I noticed your lack of hands and I don't know how well you can use your feet. Do you mind if I help you drink by holding the glass for you?"
She nodded enthusiastically, and he refilled her glass when she emptied the first one.
"Thank you." she said once she'd drunk her fill.
"You're welcome." He told her.
Reaching over to the tray again, he brought out a tray of sandwiches, and offered them to her.
"Pre-packaged in Ecruteak before I left, I'm afraid." He told her as he held them for her to eat, sitting down next to her.
"That's not a problem." She said. "Thank you." She was obviously feeling more confident, for she suddenly leaned in and gave him a light kiss on the lips.
Then fear darkened her eyes and she pulled back so suddenly that she ended up on her back on the sofa. Drawing up her legs and spreading her wings, crossing them over her face in fear.
"I'm sorry! Please forgive me!" she said. He leaned over, stroking her wings and sides, reassuring her.
"You're sorry?" he asked. She lowered her wings and nodded frantically.
"That's a shame." He said.. "Because I'm not sorry at all. In fact, I would like you to do that again-only if you really want to, though."
She stared at him, then quickly leaned in to lightly kiss his lips again. She looked up, and he nodded and smiled in approval. He leaned closer, and this time he reached out his arms to her, and gently pulled her towards him, ready to release her if she resisted, but she didn't resist. He kissed her on the lips, at first very gently, but then more firmly, stroking the feathers on her head and back.
Julie responded to the kisses and caresses, realising that this man was gentle and kind. She had fallen for his looks from the moment she'd seen him, but had thought that he wasn't interested in her as more than a collectible. He didn't seem to be put off by her feathers, and she pulled away, worried he wasn't serious.
"Please, I have to know, do I really mean anything to you?" she asked.
"Lady, if you would do me the honour of becoming my wife, I would take your name in favour of mine. Even I can't remember all the barrels."
"You really feel like that about me?" she asked. He smiled.
"You've become a collector without even realising it, haven't you?" he asked.
She looked at him, confused.
"I have?" she asked, thrown by the sudden change of subject.
"Why yes, my lady Julie. "The first item you've gained is one brand-new, never used heart, but it is very fragile and it can be broken by careless handling." He indicated himself. "This body, this man, come free with it,." He laughed.
"It sounds ridiculous, I know, but in this case, the collector has become the collected. I just hope you don't collect any more hearts because they're usually strictly one at a time items."
She leaned in to kiss him.
"No risk of that." She said. "My first will be my last."