My fingers were curved around Marill's Poké Ball. No starlight shone in the night sky above to distract from the unnerving blackness—the only thing that lit me were the sparse light posts, with nothing that casted light upon the black waters that sloshed continuously below me.
I sat at the dock at the brink of Olivine, not dressed in my weird overalls for once. Instead I had on a navy blue jacket, a black tank top, and dark jeans. Black boots were on my feet. I am aware that my outfit almost has "PIKACHU BOY!" scribbled all over it (almost, because there was no strawberry yogurt stains), but at the same time I don't give a damn. It was the first thing I found at the closest clothing shop, and the place was running out of business too.
I absentmindedly squeezed a fingernail in between the white and red of Marill's Poké Ball. The surface was hard, cold. The circle that connected the white and the red parts of the ball together was cracked. I felt that now as my other fingers smoothed over it, the chipped plastic cutting into my skin.
I paused, my hand suspended. A small microchip under the circle came in contact with my index finger. Carefully, I pinched out the chip, my fingers touching its wet, filthy sides. I rubbed it clean with the ends of my jacket, then looked at it, bringing it up to the blaze of the light post. The text of the weathered sticker on it was still unreadable.
I stared at it for a few moments, my hand lowering from the light. I hesitated, the microchip clutched in one hand, my feet dangling over the dark water underneath. Miranda slept behind me, her head tucked in to her stomach. A gentle breeze caressed our faces, playing with my hair's brown strands. The sounds of people was absent.
Impulsively I turned for my Pokédex. I flipped it over on its back, pushing at the microchip that was contained in one of its slots. The microchip sprang up, sliding into my palm. In that microchip's place, I inserted Marill's chip. Then, flipping back to the Pokédex's front, I pushed the power button.
I waited, the other microchip clutched in my other hand. An artificial white glow started to reflect on my hand. On the screen itself, letters began to appear.
Dex No.: 132
Name: Marill
Type: Water
This is what I was looking for.
I expected to see Ethan's name as the OT—the original Trainer. But the name there wasn't his. It was Kris's.
Kris's.
My breath felt heavy as I lowered the Pokédex, gazing out to the swirling black waters below. The pulling and pushing of the ocean roared in my ears.
Okay, I thought. Okay.
I turned off the Pokédex and took out the microchip, reinserting it into the Poké Ball.
Okay.
I barely looked at the Pokédex as I flicked it, dejectedly, into the depths of the jungle that I refer to as my bag.
Marill, his Ethan's favorite, most treasured Pokémon, slept in his Poké Ball. In a dash of madness, I wondered if he, too, wished I was more like Kris. She was the one that everyone loved, Ethan perhaps more than most. I was his...and hers, I thought grimly, of my mother...I was their disappointment.
"It doesn't matter," I said out loud.
It happened to begin raining.
"Miranda, it's not that bad," I said as Miranda lifted her head like it was the heaviest thing since the Titanic.
I faked a sigh of exasperation before looking back at Marill's Poké Ball, watching the droplets that gathered on the smooth plastic surface. Besides the small tints of red and white, the only thing that the droplets reflected was that pure black sky.
Upon carefully placing Marill's Poké Ball into a pocket in my even wetter bag, I rose from the dock. Miranda was nudged gently with my foot.
"C'mon, Miranda," I said as she sleepily looked up at me. "I need to give Ethan his Marill back." I walked past her, the wood creaking under my feet. "It's a few minutes past nine already."
After switching back the microchips I went back to that dratted Pokémon Center, only I snuck out at the shadows like the fugitive I am. Thankfully, Ethan also had such fugitive thoughts, and he lurked not much further from where I was.
He must have been deep in thought, though, because when I tapped his shoulder he screamed bloody murder and tried to beat me with his hastily sewn bag. However, the bag was in a mess of destruction in not two seconds later, so he was forced pretty early on to realize that it was me.
"I—Lyra!" he gasped. "I'm so sorry!"
I shrugged. "It's okay. I'm fine, although your bag isn't." I gave a pointed look at the aforementioned bag. It looked like a stuffed animal had died in that spot.
Ethan winced as he kneeled down to his tattered bag. "Sorry, sorry..." He shot me a quick look. "You look like a completely different person without pigtails."
"Yeah, whatever." I got down next to Ethan, trying to sort out the bag's guts out, one fluffy fluff at a time.
"Um..." For a few minutes, Ethan ignored me as we gathered up the remains of his own bag. Suddenly, however, he paused and squinted at me. "Wait...uh, no offense, Lyra, but when did you start wearing normal clothing?"
"Since I realized that I had enough money to buy some. Believe or not, I actually have a fairly normal teenaged fashion sense."
Ethan stared at me in deep suspicion. Okay, so he does not believe it.
I smirked evilly, wondering how the rest of the world would react to my new choice of clothing...revolt, probably. One Pikachu Trainer at a time.
"Anyway," Ethan said awkwardly, stuffing a bunch of random things into his bag, "you have Marill, right?"
My amazing Lyra smirk disappeared from my face.
"Yes."
I rustled through my bag before grasping the Poké Ball. Hesitating for a spilt second, I tossed it to Ethan. Ethan smiled as he caught it with one hand, ejecting the ball almost immediately. Marill appeared next to him, beaming as always.
I tried to act like Marill wasn't even there, but this plan promptly backfired when Marill came and tried to hug me. (I had no idea it was coming because I was so intent in ignoring it.)
I admit that I came out of the struggle unharmed, but just barely, my friends, just barely. I was on the ground spitting out dirt when the evil creature took mercy on me. When I got back upright, shaking with disgust, I only narrowly kept myself from shouting at it.
Then it tried to hug Miranda.
I admit that both Ethan and I looked very badly as Pokémon Trainers from that one. I looked like a crazed maniac who consistently forgets to feed their Pokémon, which is not true, and Ethan looked like the Trainer of a friendly future murderer. It took both of us terrible Pokémon Trainers to wrestle our Pokémon away from each other.
When that necessary form of torture was at last over, Ethan stumbled back onto his feet and began a hasty farewell. I was about to reply, but suddenly I hesitated.
Ethan's eyebrows furrowed. "What's wrong?"
I shook my head. "Nothing."
Ethan nodded, trudging his terribly wounded messenger bag along. "See ya, Lyra."
"You really should train your Marill better," I said. Even if Marill will never be on the brink of being kicked out of Ethan's family, Marill still acts pretty downright shameful at times in a degree that's too extreme.
I think Ethan looked sort of pissed with that comment (pissed for Ethan, I mean), but he decided not to say anything. Nice guy. He could've gotten angry at me and snapped, but he didn't.
All things considered, there really are thousands of other reasons for which he would act less than entirely kind towards me. However, I am too bored and hungry to state them right now.
I decided, as I walked on the street, that I was going to eat an apple pie. I would attempt to share it with my Pokémon, but if they didn't want it, I wouldn't be the least offended.
Because of those distracting thoughts, I had already went around the corner when I suddenly realized that Ethan has been wearing a yellow tracksuit the entire time. It might've had matched with his hat, sure. But it definitely didn't look good on him.
