Chapter 17
I stared intensely at the ice cream bowls, trying to figure out what flavor of ice cream I should get. This was probably one of the hardest decisions I had to make whenever my friends and I would go to the ice cream parlor. It was always choosing the flavor of ice cream I wanted to eat!
"I am so glad that there are no lines this time," William said with a sigh. He started to poke my shoulder and asked, "When are you going to choose a flavor?"
"I will in a minute!" I exclaimed, concentrating on each of the bowls. "This is important to me!"
"But you do this every time that we come here! It happens every single time!"
"Well if you know that this happens, then you should not have that attitude!" I saw William glare at me while Melody just laughed.
"I find it funny that you have to pick ice cream flavors," Melody commented. "You always are so focused on finding the right one, then you just use the pencil to pick a flavor." I gasped at her last sentence.
"The pencil!" I said. "Why not let the pencil decide this time?" I took out a pencil from my pocket and then asked, "You guys got a piece of paper on you?"
"Here, use a napkin," William said, taking a napkin from a table and giving it to me. He was probably unamused by what I was doing. So, I gave him a pout face.
"I will use this to my advantage," I said plainly. I wrote down a few flavors that I was interested in and put the napkin on the table. "All right, let us see what I get this time!" I rolled the pencil horizontally on the napkin, and it landed on a flavor. "Ooh, I am getting Rocky Road this time! I do not think I tried it yet."
"At least we did not have to be here forever," William mumbled as the ice cream server got our ice cream orders. "Last time we were here for a whole hour."
"That was because this place had new flavors that I wanted to try!" I protested, throwing the napkin away in the trash. "I could not help it!" All three of us got our ice cream and headed outside of the parlor, talking about what was going on in school and other things. It was a normal, sunny day in Yuina. There was not a cloud in the sky. "Man, this is such a good day!" I mentioned. "It is perfect for sailing!"
"But the water is so cold in our sector," Melody added with a slight sigh. "Why would you still want to go out sailing?"
"There is the sun, the slight breeze in the air, and there are no clouds in the sky. That has to mean a good sign for sailing!"
"If you are down for sailing, then I am up for it!" William said with a grin. I cheered happily and started to dive into my ice cream since I was worried about my treat melting before I would entirely eat it.
"This is so yummy!" I exclaimed, eating my delicious treat. "I bet Lucky would enjoy this too." I grabbed his pokéball from my pocket and threw it into the air, allowing my little friend to come out. Lucky looked at us and waved with one of its tiny legs.
"Shinx!" Lucky said, scratching its ear.
"Hi, Lucky!" Melody said with a little wave. William waved at the small Pokémon too but did not say a greeting. He did not have to say one since he has seen Lucky multiple times.
"Lucky, you want some ice cream?" I asked the little guy, pointing at my dessert. Lucky stared at the ice cream and quickly nodded, jumping up onto my shoulder and licking the ice cream. "Well, that was easy."
"How come Lucky is the one that usually comes with you whenever you go somewhere?" William questioned. "I mean, there are Kiki and Buddy, and they probably would want to come with you too."
"Those two clings to their parents more than Lucky," I explained, rubbing the Shinx's head. "I guess that Lucky is growing up more than his siblings, or that Lucky was born first in the trio of Shinx."
"If Lucky was born first, then that makes more sense as to why he is independent."
"Is he going to evolve soon into a Luxio?" Melody asked. "It did not take too long for Star to become a Luxio."
"That was because there was war and I wanted to train," I replied. "Star just wanted to train with me. But since we are at peace, Lucky does not have to be a Luxio yet if he does not want to. Right, Lucky?"
"Shinx!" Lucky exclaimed with another nod. He started to lick the ice cream again, and we kept walking down the street from the ice cream parlor. "Shinx, Shinx!"
"Yeah, we can play later today," I said to my Shinx. "It is the weekend, so we do not have to worry about school!" Lucky smiled happily and stopped licking the dessert, letting me have some of the ice cream that was left. Suddenly, I felt a slight tug on the lower part of my pants. I turned to my side and found a little girl with golden hair and innocent, blue eyes. I heard her say something, but I could not hear her. "I am sorry, little one, but I did not hear you. What was it that you were saying?" Now the girl spoke up more and said,
"I-I don't know where I am and I cannot find my Mommy and Daddy. Can you help me, please?"
"Of course, we can help you! Right, guys?" My friends and Pokémon agreed to help her out, and the little girl exclaimed happily,
"Thank you so much!"
"You are welcome! My name is Lizzy. These are my friends Melody, William, and my Pokémon friend Lucky."
"N-Nice to meet you all," the little girl said shyly, looking up at us. "My name is Hikari."
"That is a pretty name," Melody said to the girl. "Do you remember where your parents were when you last saw them?" Hikari thought for a moment and then shook her head, not remembering where she last saw her parents. I began to think of all the places that a family would be in this part of the sector. Who would leave their kid in an area that she does not even know? Were the parents busy and did the girl just wander off, or did something else happen?
"How about we walk around the shops and see if we can find your family there?" William suggested while I was still thinking of the circumstances. "Maybe they are still here."
"That is a good idea," I said. "What do you think, Hikari?" The little girl nodded at Will's suggestion, and we began to look through the shops in hopes of finding her parents. Although Melody started to get distracted by all the clothes that were in the shops, we were unsuccessful at finding her parents. "Perhaps they left the area already?" I said after we searched through the last shop.
"They could have by now..." William said. It looked like he was thinking for a bit before speaking again. "Where do you live? Are you from this sector?"
"I live in the second sector," Hikari explained.
"Really? Well, what are you doing here? People from the second sector do not usually come here to the lower sectors."
"My aunt and uncle live in this sector. So, we came to visit them."
"Aww, that is very kind of them to visit here," Melody noted with a smile. Hikari nodded and petted Lucky, which she was doing ever since we started to visit the stores. She was growing fond of my little buddy, which I was happy about. Perhaps she knows more about Pokémon than I do!
"Lucky seems to like you a lot," I mentioned, seeing that the Shinx was licking the little girl. "Do you know about Pokémon?"
"Yeah, my uncle has a few!" Hikari exclaimed, giggling a little at Lucky. "He has a Lucario, Pikachu, and Charmeleon."
"...The only Pokémon I know of is Shinx. I do not think I meet any other Pokémon before."
"You can come over to my uncle's house to see them. They are so cool! I do not think I have met a Shinx yet. This one looks so cute! What did you say his name was?"
"His name is Lucky! He has two other siblings, Kiki and Buddy."
"Pokémon can have siblings?"
"Yeah! Those two are with their parents, but maybe you can come to my house so that you can see everyone. I am sure that they will like you!" Hikari looked excited that she would one day meet the little family.
"Is it okay if I play with Lucky for a bit?" the little girl asked me.
"Of course!" I replied. "But stay on this side of the street, okay? We do not want you to wander off again."
"Okay! Come on, Lucky!" Hikari and Lucky went off to play on the sidewalk, leaving us to think about what we could do next.
"Her parents could not have wandered off too far," I said. "Maybe we can still catch them!"
"But we looked everywhere!" Melody stated. "There is no way that we can find them now."
"I could just use my magical radar and scan the area."
"You would be using way too much magic," William said. "You have already used a lot when coming here because of the portal."
"Oh yeah!" I giggled, realizing that as soon as he said it. "I have been using portals lately, just for the fun of it! But Will is right, I should not use that."
"So, what should we do then?"
"I guess we should take her home with any of us, and try to get her back to Sector Two tomorrow. It is already getting to the evening, and I do not know if the police would let us go through the gate at this hour anyway." My friends agreed, and we all sighed together. This was something that we would have to explain to our parents, whoever takes the girl home. I had no idea if Will would want to take her home since he has a younger sister and working mom. Mel might be able to take Hikari, but I am not sure that her parents would allow that in their home. That leaves me, who has a family that welcomes all people into their house. If all else fails, Hikari should come home with me. Suddenly, Melody asked me,
"Where did she go?" I looked around the area and did not see Hikari and Lucky. Oh boy, where did those two go?
"Maybe we should split up to find those two?" I suggested.
"They should still be on this street!" William argued. "They could not have gotten far, so let's just stick together for now."
"Okay then. Are you up for that, Mel?" Melody nodded at me and the three of us headed down the street, looking for our two friends. "Of course, Lucky would want to show her around the area since she is new," I said with a soft sigh. "I should not have let Lucky go off like that to play with her."
"Do not worry about it," Melody said. "You had no idea that Lucky would just run off to show Hikari some stuff."
"Yeah, but this is Lucky we are talking about here! He likes to run and do his own thing. Now he probably thinks that he can show Hikari everything in town, which he really cannot do without me around!"
"Liz, relax," William said. "He is just a little Shinx, after all. He is getting used to life in Yuina. Remember that it took Star a while for her to get adjusted to life in your home?"
"Yeah, you do have a point," I said after some thinking. "It has only been a year, but I thought that Lucky would be adjusted by now. Perhaps it is different for each Shinx that is out there, and he is the most outgoing that I have had to deal with." We kept talking about this for a while as we walked around, trying to find Lucky and Hikari. Finally, we found those two at the inner part of the sector, playing on a swing set in the park. I sighed in relief and exclaimed, "Lucky, why did you go this far in the first place? I thought you were going to stay near us!"
"Shinx, Shinx!" Lucky protested, dashing up to me.
"I know that this is more fun, but we were worried sick about you and Hikari! Can you try not to do that again, please?" Lucky looked down and nodded sadly. I frowned a little, knowing that he just wanted to have some fun with his new friend. I picked him up and said, "Hey how about the next time you want to places, I can come with you so that we can have fun together? Would you like that?" My Shinx smiled at me and exclaimed,
"Shinx!"
"Yes, it would be lots of fun!" Lucky nuzzled my cheek, and I glanced over at Hikari, watching us from afar as she played on the swings. I walked over to her and asked if she was okay.
"Yes, I am okay," Hikari replied with a grin. "Lucky was showing me how to get to the park here. It is really nice here!"
"Yeah, it is pretty nostalgic," William said, looking around the area with its green grass and the playground that held two swing sets. "I remember playing here a lot when I was a kid."
"Cool!" I smiled. I then turned to Hikari and Lucky and asked, "You guys want to play here for a little bit longer or should we just head over to my place?"
"Shinx!" the little Pokémon cried, wagging its star-shaped tail.
"Okay, how about you, Hikari?"
"I am starting to get hungry," the little girl said, rubbing her stomach a little.
"Then let's go and get some food!" I announced. "The easiest way to get home is if we just walk a few blocks into the neighborhood. After dinner, we can start figuring out where your parents are as of now, Hikari."
"Okay!" We all began to walk towards a sidewalk on the other side of the park, talking with Hikari about what her family did for a living so that we can get a better picture of who we were looking out for. It turned out that her father worked on the use of teleportation and mechanical portals, which our island used to create so that people can go to different places on the island. He was starting to test out how to use portals to get to different areas of the known world. It could have included New Domino City, but I did not mention that to the little girl. I did not think she would know what that place is or how to get there. As we walked, I noticed that a car was speedily coming towards us, even though that there was a red light on the four-way street.
"Everyone, get the other side of the street quickly!" I yelled after seeing that the car was not going to slow down for us. I saw William, Melody, and Lucky race to the other side, but Hikari was doing her best to keep up with us. I bit my lip tight, running back onto the street to get the little girl and pushing her towards my three friends. I heard a scream before the car hit me, and I was out in a flash...
Lizzy woke up from her memory dream with a sudden gasp and a cold sweat. She panted heavily, remembering the dream as if it happened yesterday. "I got hit by a car," she told herself. "I got hit by a car! That was the accident that landed me in the hospital...with no memory. I must have damaged my head so hard." Then in an instant, more memories that were not a part of her memory dreams came back to her like a river flowing into her brain. All of the little things she could not remember came back to her mind, and she was in shock. "I remember, I remember!" she thought. "I remember everything!" Even though it was the middle of the night, she got out of bed and ran out of her bedroom. "Jarod, James!" she cried out, banging on their bedroom doors. "I remember my entire past! I remember everything!" Jarod stumbled out of his room and yawned loudly.
"Sis, it is two in the morning," he said. "What is going on with you?"
"I got my memory back!" Lizzy announced, shaking her brother's shoulder happily. "I got it back! I'm so happy right now!"
"Wait, you actually got it back? All of your memories?!"
"Yes!"
"Okay, who decided to scream in the middle of the night?" James asked, getting out of his room. "You do realize we have school tomorrow, right?" Lizzy ran over to James and started shaking his shoulders wildly.
"I got all of my memories back!" the girl cried. James got ahold of Lizzy and asked Jarod,
"Is she going crazy?"
"No, I think she is telling the truth!" Jarod admitted. "The only time that she has actually woken us up in the middle of the night was to tell us something important."
"Good point."
"Yeah, saying something important was the only time I would wake you guys up at this hour," Lizzy said, thinking about the situation. "Like that one time we were figuring out that puzzle from a Zelda game and could not, so we ended our run for the night. Then I figured it out while I was trying to sleep and woke you all up for it!" James and Jarod stared at their sister in surprise. They remembered that time, but they had no idea that Lizzy would recall that incident. She finally remembered, and they were as happy as she was when she woke them up initially.
"You did it!" Jarod announced, picking up his younger sister and twirling her around for a bit. "I knew you could do it!"
"Hey, don't forget about me!" James said, hugging the group. "I knew she would do it too." Jarod put Lizzy down so that they could all do a group hug.
"I knew too," a voice said. The three turned to the voice, and Divine Grace Northwemko stood before them with a smile on her face.
"Northy!" Lizzy exclaimed in surprise. "When did you come out from your card?"
"I came out as soon as you got out of your room. The other Duel Monsters and I knew that one day you would remember everything, and it has finally come."
"I know! Want to join in on the hug? There is always room for one more person."
"Well, I suppose that it would not hurt to join in." The Duel Monster joined the hug, and soon the Shinx family showed up from all the commotion that was going on.
"Hello, my little family!" Lizzy said, noticing the three Shinx and their parents. "Come and join us! We are having a little hug party!"
"This is a huge party?" James said, kind of confused as to what Lizzy said.
"This might as well be a huge party," Jarod laughed. "But how are we all going to fit in the hug?"
"We will make it fit!" Lizzy proclaimed. "If people want to come into the hug, then we will make room for them! No one gets left out!" She motioned for the Pokémon family to join the hug and they did so, squeezing in tight as the people were trying to keep themselves in the embrace.
"How long are we going to be in the hug?" James asked. "It is a little tight."
"Okay, we can let go now," Lizzy smiled. "But I am still happy!" Everyone let go, and the three Shinx began to play near the staircase. Star and Sparky watched over them so that the little ones would not get hurt, and James and Jarod decided to go back into their rooms to go back to sleep. "Buddy, Kiki, Lucky," the girl began, "you guys need to go back to bed now. It is the middle of the night." The three looked at her briefly and headed down the stairs with their parents following behind them. "Goodnight, everyone!" She walked over to her bedroom with Northwemko, getting her memory journal from her desk and a pencil.
"You are going to write in your book now?" Northwemko asked. "But it is the middle of the night!"
"I know," Lizzy smiled. "I really want to write this journal entry before I go to sleep. I know that I will remember tonight, but this is something that I want to do."
"Very well, I will not stop you from doing this. Goodnight to you, my Mistress."
"Goodnight, Northy!" Northwemko went back inside her card and Lizzy began to write in her journal.
Finally...finally, I remember everything! All of the questions that I had before, all of the pondering that I wanted to do for my lost memory, it is all clear now! The memory dream that triggered this was when Melody, William, and I found a girl named Hikari. We were wondering where her parents were at, so we tried to look for them but did not have any success. So, we decided to take her back to my home and find out how to get her back to her house. Lucky decided to go off to show Hikari what is around town, and that made me and the others worried for a while. But it is Lucky that we were dealing with, he likes to roam around and do his own thing, which is opposite of what his siblings would do.
Anyway, we found them at a playground and told them the game plan of what we were going to do with the little girl, and we went off to the house. Everything was going well until that car came out of nowhere! It was a four-way intersection with stop lights, and the car was not going to stop! Almost everyone got to the other side of the street except for Hikari, who was small and not that fast. I was not worried about Lucky because he is quick for his size, but I went back out onto the street to grab the girl. She made it to the other side in time, but I did not make it. I do not know what happened afterward since I was knocked out, but I wonder how that girl is doing now.
Since I have all of my memories back, I can finally push forward and perhaps fix some of the mistakes I made in the past. The past is the past, but the future brings a lot of possibilities for my friends and me. What should I do now?
Lizzy put down the journal on the side of her bed and began to think about the last sentence she wrote, which was something she seemed to do often. "What can I do now that could fix something I did?" she said softly. The girl glanced around the room to see if there was anything that could help her think and found her Duel Monster cards on her desk. She thought back to the time that made her not want to duel competitively again. "That boy," she thought. "I never heard from him again, didn't I? I wonder what he is up to, ever since that day. I have managed to see everyone from my memory dreams except for him, Hikari, and Oliver. Now that I think about it, the behavior I had that day was not fair for that boy." She sighed softly to herself and decided to sleep, thinking that hopefully, she would have an idea the next day. "What can I do to reach him?" she thought before falling asleep. "Could I even reach?"