Attached
A Pokémon Persona Crossover Fanfiction
by Three Black Noises
Chapter 5
Even before crystal opened the doors, I could tell that the car was... really nice; provided it was being driven by a giant Marill.
as she unlocked the doors, I reached for my Poké balls, just in case I needed to put some Pokémon away during the trip.
"How many Pokémon do you have? Just six?" Crystal asked me.
"Just what you se around me." I replied; knowing that all my Pokémon were gathered vary close to me.
"If that's the case, we can make this work." Crystal said as she helped me find the front passenger side.
As I climbed into the car, I noticed that even the front seat was one of those long bench seats.
Crystal opened the driver's door; or at least I thought it was Crystal, until liz slid over near me.
Crystal did climb in directly after, and proceeded to put her keys into the ignition.
as christina opened the back driver's side door, crystal turned the key in the ignition, and I heard the car make several strange noises; almost like vary quiet steam-driven machinery, but no anoying alarms went off.
It seemed like Christina knew what she was doing, because she and the others were talking about how everybody was going to fit comfortably in the back seat as I put on my seatbelt.
Robin also seemed to know his way around a car, because it was him who finally decided that he'd hold Trey, chris would hold Hope, and christina would hold Sarah.
after everybody got situated, some quiet moments passed before crystal asked, "Robin?"
"Just give us a second. Trey, just push" Robin began before their was a click.
"Well we're green across the board." Crystal said after she buckled herself in.
"So, Crystal," I began, how old are you anyway?"
"I hope for your sake that this is the first time you've asked a girl that question." Crystal warned while typing on some kind of keyboard.
"It's not. he asked me that same question this morning, but for a vary constructive reason." liz supplied.
"Oh really. and would their be a constructive reason here to?" crystal asked; putting a bit of laughter into her voice.
"Yes. I want to get an idea of how long Marill live for." I replied smoothly.
Crystal considered my words for several seconds, then said, "Seeing as it's for informative purposes, I'm eleven years old, closer toward the front end of that year, not the latter."
"And how old do Marill usually get?" Liz askde.
"Mid twenties to somewhere around thirty, health permitting of course." crystal answered promptly.
"I see. and, one last thing?" I asked.
"Yes?" Crystal offered as the car beeped.
"If you were a human, how old would you say you were now?"
"If I were a normal Marill, I'd say closer to my actual age than not. However, I believe even you can tell that's not the case. with my enhanced intelligence factor, I'd have to put myself, somewhere in my mid twenties, maybe even thirty."
crystal paused for a time, then finally said, "That's the best answer I can give." before turning the; extremely quiet; engine over.
I took that as my cue and changed the subject as we pulled onto the road.
"So does making computers give you enough money to afford things like this nice car?
"Not exactly. I'm actually debugging the computer in this thing, and once the changes are finished, provided I give accurate and timely reports, the car's mine free and clear."
I didn't quite know how to react to that statement beyond being amazed, so nothing was said for a little bit, until Sarah made to speak.
"Hay Crystal?"
"Yeah what's up."
"I was just wondering how long it took you to learn your different water moves."
"About a year." Crystal said easily."
"But you'll have one of us with you at all times so it might not take that long for you." I said quickly before Sarah could start feeling bad.
"I know. I just wondered." she answered.
"That doesn't mean you have to rush things. It might take longer for you, perhaps not, but if you take the time you need to learn the techniques the propper way the first time, it'll save you a hole lot of trouble later on." Crystal added.
sarah didn't say anything in reply, and I didn't see a need to add anything, as Crystal had just given Sarah a lot of food for thought; as it were.
So it was that we were silent for a time as Crystal navigated trafic.
Finally, Robin spoke up.
"I don't know if you'd even remember me, but we've interacted before."
He paused to let Crystal respond.
"Oh yes I do remember you. after all, how could I forget a Pidgeot with such good manners and diction?" she asked.
"Good what?" Sarah asked.
"Diction. It's the way a person chooses what words to use." I answered.
"Just so." crystal complimented.
"I wanted to ask you a question, but time and circumstance forbade me from doing it before, so, what made a water creature like yourself start thinking about numbers and code and stuff instead of simple things like..." robin began.
"Like playing in the water and enjoying nature? Things like that?" Crystal interjected with a laugh.
"Yeah, but how did you know that's what I was going to ask?" Robin asked; amazed.
"Easy. everyone askes that question at some point, but they usually get stuck at the part where they try to supply things I'd think about." Crystal replied.
"And your usual answer is?" Liz prompted.
"It changes depending on who's asking, but generally I tell them something along the lines of,
I'm a green tailess giant Marill who's no longer excepted by her people because of her unusual size and high intelligence.
that, and no humans would want to train me so I had to find a way to rise above my status.
I love interacting with others, and I found my existing talent with numbers along with my increased brain power made me able to understand computers and such, and people need their PCs fixed now and again"
"So what comes after that?" asked Hope.
"Not much really. I guess the simplest things would be that, I got, vary, vary good at fixing PCs and tablets, and people put up with me for a time, and eventualy I found I could make a small bit of money for every job I did, and before I knew it I'd tought myself programming, and things just went from there. Believe me you can learn something really fast when you're bord out of your mind."
"That's kind of strange, picking programming of all things." I said.
Crystal sighed long and low before continuing. "I wanted to help people in some way, and programming wasn't really my first choice. It was remote enough that I could help out from a distance, or so I thought at the start."
She paused as we stopped at a sign or a light.
"The first thing I tried was life garding." she said during the interval.
"I'm surprised that didn't work out with you being almost perfect for that sort of thing." Chris supplied.
"As far as the skill set, I was great. They do actually train azumarill for that sort of thing you know."
"Hence his point. So what happened?" Trey asked.
"Just a little thing called prejudice." Crystal answered evenly.
"she saved someone, and things went down hill." Christina said.
"Why?" Sarah asked.
"The parents of the little boy I'd saved, well, let's just say, they wern't to happy that a giant shiny Marill did the saving. One complaint lead to another, and eventually I decided I needed to find something else to do; despite first trying to move to other locations where I could still do life garding." Crystal explained.
"So, what really lead to programming?" I asked as I filed the knowledge that shiny Pokémon did exist in this version of the Pokémon world away for later.
"Well" Crystal started before pressing her horn.
"Right turn on read!" she said to some driver in her path.
"What?" Liz asked.
"It's okay to turn right during a red light so long as you're in the turning lane." Crystal explained as we got moving again.
"So anyway, you know how everyone's always talking to someone in cyberspace on those tablits and phones?"
"Tell me about it." I muttered.
"Well you see lots of people doing that sort of thing at pools and such when they aren't swimming.
And, one day, I started wondering what most of the younger people would do if those devices or the networks that were used to run them ever stopped working. And that lead me to wonder how said devices worked in the first place."
"And then every thing went from there." Trey finished.
"more or less." Crystal answered.
"Because you were already good with numbers right?" I asked.
"Yes, but we Marill aren't what you'd call, technologically minded. I was way better at counting and measuring and dividing shairs of food and such than my siblings or even my parents, but I wasn't anything close to genius material until the transformation."
"Did you ever think about doing translation related stuff?" Chris asked after it was clear that Crystal was done with her answer, and wasn't going to elaborate on the 'transformation' portion.
"Oh goodness no!" Crystal exclaimed before continuing normally.
"See, that's kind of a public servent thing, and besides whitch, once people have a translater," she blew out a vary heavy sigh, "They never, and I mean Never, attempt to learn how to communicate with their Pokémon partners in a traditional way. Kind of sad, really." she finished.
"Pokémon don't all communicate with a trainer in the same way either, even among the same species right?" Chris reasoned.
"Not only that, but Pokémon languages are incrediblely diverse as well." Crystal explained.
"How do you mean?" I asked.
Crystal paused for a time then.
"Okay, take this example." she said before speaking in her own language.
"anyone know what that means?"
"Yeah, 'please let me play outside.'" chris answered.
"Good. Now how about this." she spoke in her native tung again, paused again then, "anyone know what That means?
I noticed sirtain sounds were pitched differently, and some had an almost imperceptible rise and fall to them.
Their were also slight volume and rhythm changes, and different syllables were stressed differently as well.
"Please tell me a story." chris said in amazement.
"I guess that leaves out writing a book on translation. It would drive people nuts, trying to figure out what a Pokémon wanted." I deduced.
"Correct." Crystal responded as we made another turn.
"So why do you need to give me a new Pokédex?" I asked after a moment.
"Two reasons. First, what you've got is an out-dated prototype I put together for a blind kid about 5 years back, but his parents pulled him just two days before he was to choose his first Pokémon and get his dex. So it just kind of sat there until you came along.
Second, the new dex I'm making should work for both sighted and blind people, and I'd like you to field test it for me." crystal explained.
"As long as it doesn't, crash during battle, or something, I will." I answered after a few seconds.
"It shouldn't. I've spent 3 months debugging it. That, and, I have to instal some, programming into it I'm not quite done with yet."
She paused, then; almost as an afterthought; she asked, "Do you have JAWS where you come from?"
"Jaws?" Robin asked.
"Job access with Speach. It makes a computer speak so a blind person can use it." I answered out of habit.
"I take it that's a yes then?" crystal laughed.
"Yes it is. I know it's in my old Pokédex to, but I guess I'll need to find some way to set up a kind of quick instaler so I can access the PCs in the Pokémon centers." I said; already dreading how that process was going to go.
"Nope. My version of JAWS I worked on with freedom scientific is already built in to all those PCs." Crystal answered.
"Oh." That's all I could say.
Another question popped into my head, and I decided to ask it before nurves got the better of me.
"So, um, you've got a last name, are you married?"
Crystal didn't miss a beat.
"My last name is just their because it's nicer to say 'I'm crystal Brightstar' than 'I'm crystal the computer Marill'."
She paused for ten seconds or so before taking a deep breath.
"As for marage, we Marill don't marry in the same way as humans do, but, no I don't have a mate. That doesn't mean, however, that I live alone either." She finished rather vaguely as we pulled into a drive, and the engine died.
"Really?" Crystal said; embarrassed.
"What?" sarah asked.
"I killed it not five feet from parking." crystal said before grabbing the keys with an embarrassed sound.
She finished parking the car, then disembarked.
Taking that as our cue, Liz and I got out of the car.
"You were pretty quiet on the way over here." I observed as the others finished getting out as well.
"Oh... just thinking about stuff..." liz replied in a distracted way as we began walking toward Crystal's house.
we didn't even make it to the front door before someone came out of it.
"Crystal I just finished un" the person said before braking off abruptly.
"Packing." she finished slowly after a second or so.
"Ah Bella, this is Michael and his friends." Crystal said; not seming to notice the awkwardness with wich bella had stopped talking.
I noticed that Liz was shaking slightly.
"You!" Liz and Bella said at the same time.
I knew I'd find you eventually. You're the creature that killed those Espeon in cold blood, and this is all that's left of them." Liz said; indecating her dress by rubbing it with one of her hands.
Bella walked right up to Liz and got in her face.
"I was only twenty minutes old when I did that, and only because I was told to by a person who only wanted to take advantage of my ignorance." Bella said; low and dangerous.
Liz; to her credit; wasn't the least bit entemidated by Bella's display as she said, "That's not going to get you out of paying for your crime against the innocent creatures I had to promiss to avenge if I ever found their killer!"
"Please don't try it. Nothing can kill me, and we have the legal documents to prove it." Bella said; almost begged; quietly.
Liz thought for a few seconds before saying, "It's, kind of, programmed in." and unleashing a vary powerfull attack on Bella anyway.
as bella had just told us, the attack did absolutely nothing, though to her credit, she didn't laugh in Liz's face or do anything to show off how right she was.
Liz composed herself before saying, "At least I delivered a ceremonial strike of revenge in their stead."
"They already found ways of herting me more than that, but you've kept your promis to them as well, so are things squared away now?" bella asked.
Liz blew out a vary long; slow; breath before saying, "Not really, but I guess they'll have to be."
Bella took the time to choose her next words vary carefully.
"Liz, I knew I had that coming from you, but at least I was able to grow a conscience, unlike my successor Mewtwo, whom I have killed, and put his master Giovanni behind bars and the name of Team Rocket in the past where it belongs. Will that suffice?"
"Why didn't you kill him?" I asked.
"Because humans told me not to so their justice could be served.
"And if he escapes?" Liz asked.
"Oh, he won't, but if he does, those same humans have said I get to kill him before he can start up something like Team Rocket again." Bella replied.
Liz thought on this, then said, "That will suffice, so long as you don't even think of harming my friends."
"I have no reason to, now that I've reformed." Bella said; backing off slightly.
"You won't be offended if I keep an eye on you until I get to know you better?" Liz asked; backing up a little herself.
"I'd be surprised if you didn't, given what you've witnessed." bella said; now backing fully into the house.
I knew I was supposed to follow her in, but I held back for a moment and turned Liz to face me.
As I did, I asked, "Liz? You were pretty quick to start flinging accusations in bella's face. How'd you know that she was the creature you'd been sirching for anyway?"
"Several factors." liz said, but stopped as I noticed that her dress was tingling ever so slightly.
"Her appearance matches exactly with what the espeon showed me. About my hight, rocky skin, pink as all getout."
She paused for a few beats, then asked, "Notice anything different about my dress?"
"Yeah it's tingling or something." I replied; not knowing why a dress would do such a thing, but having a good hunch anyway.
Liz knew I had a hunch to, because she asked me what it was.
I told her that my best guess was that the dress had some kind of special power or something in it that would only go off in Bella's presence, and only once at that.
"You're correct! So it's just a regular dress again." Liz explained.
"Well that's a relief." Chris said as he entered the house.
We all took his lead and followed him in with the rest of the group not far behind.
While Liz gave me a quick rundown of the house's interior, the others all made themselves at home.
Most of the chatter during this time was trivial except for trey who seemed to be asking Crystal some questions regarding the strange video file from earlier.
"Liz, did you see where Bella went? I'd like to meet her if that's okay with you." I asked eventually.
"I have no problem at all with that." Liz replied in a good-natured way before giving me directions to Bella's room.
As I arived, I noticed that the others had decided to join me.
Preparing to enter the room, I made a fist to knock on the door, just as crystal tapped me on the shoulder.
"Hay can I borrow Trey for a moment?" she asked.
I turned my head in her direction and said, "I'm not exactly his keeper. If he wants to go with you it's fine by me."
Trey seemed just a little surprised, but was glad all the same.
After they left, I turned back twward the door, knocked, and when Bella answered, I entered her room, then waited just inside the door which I'd closed.
"well?" Bella asked as she got to her feet with a loud thunking sound.
"If it's all right with you, I'd like to get to know you a bit." I offered.
"That's fine whith me, though you'll probably think me just as ugly as everyone else once you get a good feel of me." she said as she made her way over to where I was standing.
She paused in front of me, waited some time, then said, "Come on, let's get this over with. If it ends badly I don't want to have time to get my hopes up."
So I reached out and felt...
Well..
Um...
I don't really know how I'd describe how she felt.
Kind of, rockish, and like the surface of teath, I guess, but, with some kind of, other feeling, to her as well.
She stood just slightly shorter than me, was a biped, and seemed to have four limbs; two for standing on and two for 'hands,' but the human similarities ended there.
Her hands were more like claws, but you could call the ends of them fingers if you were willing to brake out the air quotes.
Her, 'face'; if you could call it that, was more like a sort of ball that stood on a skinny stock that came up from the center of her body like a neck, but I couldn't see how it would be able to turn at all.
Her face was also strange, as she had no hair or ears; at least that I could feel or define as such, and she had no upper lip or noze.
She appeared to breathe simply by directly drawing air into, then blowing it out of; her mouth.
If she had fangs in place of teath, her breath didn't wistle through them as I would have expected it to do.
Her bottom lip was more like a beak, who's shape kind of reminded me of a spork.
When she inhaled, her body sort of rumbled, and her exhales were vary deep, long and sort of loud.
Though her voice could be deep, it also had a strange range; not small enough to be considered sing-song, but not large enough to qualify for one that could be considered gracefully flowing either.
"uh, nnot to be rood but, how were you ever a killing weapon if you're so, loud?" I asked.
In reply, something dull suddenly pricked my sholder, then Bella said "Prick."
"So, I take it that I'd be dead if you'd really ment to kill me?" I asked.
"Yeah that's only one of many ways I could do it, but I'm done doing that kind of stuff now." Bella answered.
"Yeah and she'll never even entertain the thought of killing again or I'm gone!" a small voice answered from the place where Bella's left shoulder should have been.
I let out an involuntary "Huh?" then recovered from my surprise and asked, "And who are you?"
"Bethany Porter." the voice answered without offering anything else.
After a short time, Bella added, "Bethany's my partner, or rather I'm hers. I'm just glad she introduced herself before you felt her and asked something like 'what's this strange groath on your shoulder.'"
"Um, I'm a, Bellossom who's, vary small." bethany explained shyly.
"Well nice to meet you to." I said.
"I'd shake your hand, but"
Bethany cut me off. "Oh how sweet. It's a vary small leaf hand, so shaking it would most likely be impossible, but it's the fact that you even want to shake it that really coundts. Thank you!" she said.
I started feeling my way around with my cane for a seat.
"So, I'm guessing from Liz's discription and what I just felt that you were a Corsola at one point?" I asked bella as I found the couch where she'd been sitting.
"Think you've got me figured out huh?" Bella asked.
"At least if Corsola here look anything like they do back home."
"And?" Bella asked.
"Well, kind of like a round ball with a face, legs, horns, and, groaths on their back." I said; trying to remember as much of a Corsola's description as I could.
"That seems to match how they look here, but my groaths are my fingers." she answered.
I could now see how she could be a Corsola if her head represented her Corsola roots.
She sighed. "Though I have no memories of those times, I have no choice for the time being but to accept what everyone else in the know says."
She made her way over to the couch, then paused.
"You do realise that if I sit with you, you're my first friend outside of Crystal, right?" she asked.
"Well, I don't really se anything ugly about you, so far, so until I do, yeah we're friends, both you and Bethany."
Bella unceremoniously thunked herself down beside me, then Bethany said, "Wow, our first human friend who's not studying us or something."
"Yeah, surprises me to." Bella said, as I began feeling her face again.
"Um, my face hasn't changed in the last minute you know."
"I know, I'm just trying to figure out how you look around if your head is stuck in one position all the time.
"It's not." Bella said; turning her head, but keeping it far enough away so as not to breathe in my face as she answered my question.
After I got done feeling her face, I reached for her hand.
"Nice to"
"No!" Bella interupted sharply.
She took a few breaths, then started again.
"My hands have these little spikes coming out of them that could really hurt you so..."
She trailed off as if not knowing how to finish her sentence.
"Not anymore, remember we finally got them to pop out yesterday?" bethany added.
"Oh yeah. I seem to have developed a rather bad habit of purposely losing parts of myself lately." Bella explained nonchalantly as she offered her hand to me.
I shook it; noticing how strange it felt; before getting to my feet, then moving in close to Bella.
"Um, what are you doing?" bella asked vary slowly.
"I'm not going to hurt you." I asured her.
"Oh, I'm not worried about that. I'll just have bethany put you to sleep if you try anything funny." Bella answered; awkwardly getting to her feet.
"If I don't end up cycling first." Bethany responded as I went to hug Bella.
"Okay?" Bella asked.
"It's a hug. A way of showing you want to get to know someone." I explained.
I held the hug for some time so that Bella could get used to the fact that I wasn't going to harm her.
Her body felt hard against mine, but I didn't care. even if she was hard on the outside, that didn't necessarily reflect her inner person.
I rapped my arms around her and gently squeezed; feeling her rough back in the process.
As we held the hug for some time, she took several rumbling breaths in and out, and as I listened and felt her body cycle air through its systems, I suddently realized that; as far as I could tell; she didn't appear to have any kind of body temperature.
I thought I'd ask about that, but just then, I felt bella take in a somewhat more rumbling breath that I associated with her getting ready to say or ask something.
"Um," she began hesitantly.
I decided to give her time to form her thoughts instead of trying to rush her into saying whatever was on her mind.
At the same time, I noticed that she seemed to be able to store air inside of her kind of like humans did when they were holding they're breath, and wondered if this was how she snuck up on her victims.
Finally, she began vary slowly.
"No matter what other people say about you or the friends you choose to have, don't let anything they say change your goals or plans you make.
"I wasn't planning on letting others have that kind of power over me in the first place." I responded; wondering where this line of conversation was going.
"So, if, for some reason, you choose to have me, on your team, at some point, just call Crystal, okay?"
I started to respond, but then the implications of what Bella was saying hit home.
"Well this is kind of sudden. Are you," I began, but Bella made as if to say something, so I stopped talking to let her speak.
I realised; after a few seconds; that Bella was just blowing out breath like she was incredibly nervous, so I continued.
"Officially offering me your friendship?" I finally finished; not missing the ironic run of good luck I was having with the acquisition of new friends.
"Just putting the card on the table. Gotta' do that at some point you know." she answered as softly as she was able; as if she expected me to bock at the notion.
"Well, sure. Everyone needs a first friend, and I'd love to be that friend, but only if that includes Bethany as well.
"Of course. I'd be glad to have another friend besides Bella, but she and I can't battle for you." Bethany answered.
"Well that's no problem. We'll just be regular friends." I told her.
bella and I broke apart then, but I still had questions I thought one of them could answer.
"Look, if this is an embarrassing subject you can stop me, but Bethany said something about cycling?"
"All Bellossom do it, as well as most other grass types, but Bethany is a little bit obsessive about it." Bella started.
"It's her size right? I asked.
"Has to be. No way it could be anything else, really." Bethany answered.
"So; basically; what is it?" I asked.
"Well," Bella sighed as if in thought.
"Every month, or so," she began slowly, "Most grass types have to change out the kind of spores and or powder they release, weather it be stun spore or sleep powder or the like. During this time, they can release what the Pokémon leagues have officially termed spore attack."
"So that's how that works." I said; recalling said attack from the games in my world.
"Bethany is a little embarrassed by how frequently she has to do it, releasing the excess elements, but"
Bella stopped suddenly.
"Well, it's bloody inconvenient, when it happens, and, it's not, vary fun either, but it has to be done." Bethany said quietly.
"I get it. You don't have to talk about it any more if you don't want to." I said.
"Thanks." Bethany almost gushed.
"Never had to explain that concept to anyone before huh?" I asked.
"No, but I'm glad I got it out." bethany said softly.
a sudden knock at the door caused all of us to react in different ways.
I turned toward the door, Bella got extremely protective of Bethany, and Bethany; for her part; just got vary nervous.
"Hay, Michael?" Trey's small voice asked.
"Yes?"
"Are you okay in there?"
"I sure am." I replied back.
"who's that?" Bella asked.
"Just a humble Wigglytuff, worried about his friend." Trey answered.
"Well, if you're like Michael, then, I guess, you can come in." Bella invited.
Trey tried the door knob without success.
"Okay, this is different." he said before trying again and succeeding.
He entered the room, then stopped dead in his tracks.
"Well." he said after several seconds.
"You two are not what I was expecting, but you are not bad to look at either." he finished carefully.
"Well you're not bad to look at yourself, and thanks for being careful with your words. Bella replied.
"I think he's kind of cute." Bethany added.
trey only made a disgusted sound, and I decided to ask a question before some kind of fight broke out.
"So, what made you want to come in here anyway?"
"I was concerned for you, and also, crystal wants you whenever you are done here." Trey responded.
"Well I can come whenever." I replied heading for the door.
"unless," I prompted turning back tward Bella and Bethany..
"Well, their is one last thing, now that I've seen your current team." Bella offered.
"Are they all still outside the door?" I asked.
"We are." Hope answered.
"Okay. forgive me for coming off as blunt, but, Clefairy, when was the last time you gathered moon light?" Bella asked.
What do you mean?" I asked; not really understanding why Hope could; or would; need to do such a thing.
Bella was unfazed by my question.
"Well, your Clefairy can use the stored moon energy in her wings to fly, and tonight is a perfect night to gather some if she's low on it."
"And, how would she get said energy? I find it kind of hard to believe she can just stand on the side walk and get it."
"Well she could, But this house has a tall roufe, as it used to be some kind of observatory or something, so she'd be able to gather her energy without having to expend any in the process."
"And you think Liz will just be okay with teleporting Hope up there? If she is, I'm betting sarah won't like the idea." Robin added.
"I can stay with her, unless she starts trusting Bella." Liz responded.
"I might need that moon light advantage in tomorrow's gym challenge, but anyone could stay with me." Hope offered.
"Gym challenge?" Bethany asked.
"Wow you sure don't waste any time getting into the thick of things do you?" Bella laughed in my direction.
"Not like we have much of a choice, what with the PWT and all." I responded.
"Then gathering moon light is a vary good idea for Hope." Bella agreed.
"Can you really do that?" Christina asked Hope.
"I sure can." Hope answered enthusiastically.
"Then can I take you up their later and stay with you until you're done?" robin asked.
"I don't see why not." Hope agreed.
They all began to leave, and I followed after them.
"We'll still be here if you want to talk some more." Bethany called after me.
"Thanks. It's a deal later." I called back, then I took my leave to see what crystal wanted.
Crystal lived in a room that would have fit right in if it were included in a maximum security prison.
It had one of those thick mettalic doors that kept out sound, and the walls were padded as well.
"So, why are you living in a place like this?" I asked once the door was closed.
"The room blocks enough sound so I can cfocus on my work." she replied easily.
"Oh that's it? I guess it makes sence. So what'd you want?"
Crystal sighed theatrically.
"It's kind of stupid, but legally, I have to ask for your okay before I can do something for any of your pokémon."
"Why. You're a grown woman."
Crystal laughed at that.
"Some would disagree with the woman part, though I'm glad you're not one of them."
"I'm glad to be a posative influence in someone's life. So did trey ask for your help?" I asked: already knowing the answer.
"I did indeed. I would vary much like Crystal to help me find Ruby if she can." Trey responded.
"I thought so. I have no problem so long as it doesn't get in the way of your work." I said in crystal's direction.
I thought for a moment before asking, "Trey, how much have you told her?"
"Just about the video, and the fact that Alder tried to help track it down." Trey answered.
"Yeah that went nowhere." I said glumly.
"For most end-users it would, but you're talking to a pro here." Crystal said with a flurrish.
"She continued. "All I had to do was go into the video's source history and track it down."
"And what did you find?" I asked.
"Well, Ruby. Trey's already varified that it's her." Crystal explained as she keppt typing away.
She then pulled up a recording on her PC.
"This was released on a benefit CD published just yesterday by a charity that I support." Crystal explained.
A sweeping symphonic peace of music filled the room.
After a twenty second intro, an extremely high-piched voice joined the music.
It wasn't to the point of grating, but was still unemaginablly high-pitched for a wigglytuff.
The lyrics were in a language I'd never heard before, but; even without a translation; were still vary beautiful to listen to.
We listened in silence until the bridge of the song came up.
Instead of pure music, the singer gave a little speach that had an odd pattern to it.
Crystal paused the recording at this point.
"That speach you've just heard is an extremely dead language. According to Trey, it's the ancient language Pokémon used to communicate with before the big wars and such."
"So what does it mean?" I asked.
"Well that's the problem. You see, the language is so dead that I can't find anything on it anywhere online, not even in old FTP archives." crystal explained.
"Can't you translate it Trey?" I asked, even though I had a vary bad feeling he couldn't.
"No, I cannot." he answered in a low voice.
I thought for a moment before asking, "Can anyone at home translate it?"
"Tina can, but I am not supposed to contact home unless it is an emergency."
We were quiet for some time, until trey said, "'Well whatever,' as Daniel would say. Crystal, do you have a reflective surface I can borrow?"
"Yeah several, but why?" Crystal replied; somewhat taken aback.
"I have these coins that can allow me to contact home, but I need an extremely reflective surface to generate the image." Trey explained.
"I see. and are you needing to play this recording to your fokes?" crystal asked.
"Yes." Trey answered shortly.
Crystal messed around with the mouse, then called Trey over.
He climed into her lap, then said, "This will do nicely."
Trey then made a small surprised sound before the music started up again.
It stopped, then restarted, then jumped ahead, and I realised that Crystal was showing Trey how to work the media buttons on the keyboard.
"This will work out fine." trey said before leaving the room.
"What did you do?" I asked Crystal in the silence that followed.
"I blacked out the screen so Trey can use it as a mearer." she explained.
Trey flew into the room shortly after.
He climbed into Crystal's lap, then proceeded to fiddle with something in his left hand.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Contacting home." he responded as he slapped something on the screen.
"How does a coin" Crystal started.
Trey politely shushed her, and we waited in silence.
"Your progress Trey?" Daniel's voice asked.
I couldn't help gasping, as his voice had come from Crystal's mouth, or at least where her mouth was.
"Please listen to this." Trey said in a rush as he activated the recording.
The song played for a while before Daniel spoke up.
"That is progress all right. It sounds just like Ruby, and it is a song she sang for us quite frequently!"
"I am very glad you agree." Tray said with relief as he skipped to another part of the song.
"What do you make of this then?" Trey asked just before the speach started.
After the speach was done, Trey paused the recording to wait for a response.
"I think," Daniel started in a very low voice, "Tina is the only one of us who can decode this."
Daniel then said something to someone else, then, to us, "I am sending for her now."
It didn't take very long for tina to appear.
Speaking from the same place as Daniel, she made Trey replay the recording several times while she wrote it all down.
Daniel then returned.
"How is" his voice began to fade out, then, after a few seconds, it returned.
"Your time on this coin is almost up. Where aare you now?"
"In the same city in which I first arived in this part of the world." Trey answered.
"Then we will send a package containing tina's translation to the same place we sent you."
Daniel's voice was fading as he was talking, so the last few words were bearly audible.
The coin dropped from the screen, and Trey caut it with a sigh.
"Trey, not to be rood, but what was that all about with Tina?" crystal asked.
"As I already said, Tina can understand the ancient language, and the message in Ruby's song was ment for her. And no, you are not being rood, just curious, and given the nature of what you witnessed, your curiosity is more than warranted."
"No I mean how does that communication work?" Crystal clarified.
"I have no idea." Trey answered honestly.
"I see. So where did you appear when you first arived here?" Crystal asked.
"It was a high place, why?" Trey replied.
"Oh that must be the look-out." Crystal replied before seeming to look at something.
"It's almost time for my nightly soaking, so I'll have Bella take Trey out their if that's all right with you." she added in my direction.
"Bella can drive?" I asked.
"Yes she can, but she can ALSO RUN LONGER at a steady pace THAN ANY CREATURE ALIVE. As a matter-of-fact; now that I think about it, Trey would be much safer at this late hour with her rather than me."
"You trust bella that much?" Trey asked.
"With my life! Nobody in their right mind would attempt to harm you while bella's with you. And those that aren't, would still not mess with you." Crystal said confidently.
"I'm going with you to." I said.
"No, You're not." Crystal said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because, you need to train Hope for tomorrow." Crystal answered.
She then went to the door and called for Bella.
Training Hope wasn't to difficult. The hardest thing was getting her to attack her opponent, rather than run away from them.
As sarah was an extremely familiar opponent, Christina took her place.
Hope kept feeling bad for Christina because she couldn't see. A few of Christina's well-placed attacks later, Hope began to battle in earnest.
"But! You can't! Even! See me!" Hope said after an extremely intense series of attacks.
"Doesn't matter." Christina calmly said as she delivered yet more attacks.
Hope tried to keep up, but Christina overwhelmed her easily.
Bethany came running out at that point.
"Hay you need to heal Hope now!" she said; out of breath.
I started to get a potion from my bag, but Bethany told me she had something better in mind.
I followed her back to the room where I first met her and Bella, and Bethany lead me to a shelf with lots of bottles on it.
"Bella and I make natural medicine for people and Pokémon." she explained, then asked me to get a small bottle and take it back to Hope.
As we were about to heal Hope, Robin offered to take her up on the rouf to gather moon light, explaining that the process would heal her as well as prepare her for the gym match in the morning.
I didn't see a problem with that, and nither did Crystal.
after they left, Bethany told me I could keep the potion for use in tomorrows match.
I thanked her hole-hartedly, and told her I knew it would be a big help, and it'd be like she was their with us even though she wasn't.
Sarah's POV
Robin couldn't fly very well yet, but he was just trying to help, so I kept quiet.
He did manage to get me up to the rouf without trouble, and I was more than greatful for that.
The rouf wasn't much to write home about, but it did have some kind of big dish thing on it that looked very complicated.
After we settled, Robin left me alone.
"Sorry about the rough landing, but, we're here. so, Do your thing." he said, slightly, okay, a lot, out of breath.
I nodded, then spread my wings with a sigh.
"I've never actually done this before, just heard about how to do it, so" I began.
"That's okay. I'll stay up here with you for as long as you need, so take your time, okay?" Robin said.
I held my wings all the way open, but nothing seemed to happen.
Robin sat down with his knees under him, then looked down his beak at me.
A small breath escaped me as I frowned; trying to figure out just what I was supposed to do to make my wings work.
As it Turned out, I only had to open my wings, because I began to feel a warm feeling pass through my entire body. At the same time, I noticed that my wings were glowing pretty brightly.
"Well," Robin said quietly, "That was easy."
"Yeah. And I guess we just sit until they stop glowing." I stated.
"Seems like it." Robin said with a strange look I couldn't quite read.
Then, he stood up and took a deep breath of the warm night air.
He blew it out slowly, but I could tell he enjoied the way the air smelled, so I didn't bother asking if anything was wrong.
"Season's changing." he said.
"What?" I asked.
I knew that seasons changed regularly, but I had no idea the change could be smelled, and said as much.
"You learn how to smell the change only when you spend a lot of time outside so"
A loud screaching sound cut him off. We both looked up just in time to see another bird diving directly at Robin.
I jumped to my right and got ready to defend myself and Robin, but the other bird did something very unexpected.
I thought it was going to attack him, but it kissed him instead.
Needless to say we were both grosed out.
"Hay you, you can't just go around kissing other birds that might have girl friends!" I yeled at the newcommer.
"Besides which, us birds don't kiss to show love, we do it to comfort one another." Robin explained.
"I didn't knaaah" the other bird began.
It then made a strange sound before starting again.
"I didn't, understand that." it said.
"Feara." Robin stated.
"How do you knaaah" she stopped again, but, at least as far as I could tell, she looked more annoied than angry with herself.
"How are you aware of my name?" she asked.
"Yup. You're defanatly feara." Robin said, making his eyes grin.
I felt sorry for the bird, so I went over to her, and turned on my healing powers to se if I had the erge to do something to fix her.
Immediately, I felt the warmth of the healing erge pass through my body, and I then started the process of figuring out what part of Feara's body it was guiding me to heal.
After some time, I realized it wasn't really an injury of Feara's I was supposed to heal, but rather some kind of mental problem instead.
Feara kissed Robin again before turning to me.
"If you are a healer, then you should have psy powers right?" she asked.
"I do, but I haven't used them for healing yet. why?" I asked.
"Maybe you can fix my problem." she explained.
I checked her out again, and confirmed that she did indeed have some kind of mental problem, though fixing it was way beyond my skills.
"I'm not really sure what mental problem you've got, but I can't fix it." I said with more regret in my voice than I wished to show.
"Hmm maybe Liz can?" Robin asked with a strange expression on his face.
"Their's only one way to find out, but can I at least finish gathering moon light first?" I asked.
