Author's Note:
So. Another chapter, and another Author's Note section that is quite short, and would be virtually empty were it not for the following:
Shout-outs to AtomicOverlord and Saraceaser for the Favorite and Follow, and especially to you, Saraceaser, for the additional Review! Your words are humbling.
Also, in response to your question, Saraceaser, I meant that Pokémon don't exist at all. No video games, no cartoon-like anime, no card games, nothing. Nor do several major media franchises, actually, but that's more for the sake of comedy, if I decide to put some references.
Disclaimer:
Pokémon and any other referential materials found in this story do not belong to me. They belong to their respective owners and subsidiaries, and I claim no ownership of them.
Of Children, Men, and Monsters
Chapter Seven: Explanations
And I really do mean loudly. So loudly, in fact, that Julius came running in, mistaking her squeal for a shriek of fear.
"Erise! What's wro–!?" He went silent as soon as he saw his wife cuddling the… well, whatever it was in her arms. The thing was struggling to get out of her grasp (and face), squirming frantically with its stubby arms and legs.
A relatively miniscule number of moments later, the thing had had enough of the woman's cheekiness, opening its mouth and taking a deep breath before letting out a truly ear-splitting screech. Erise let go of it in shock, instinctually covering her ears to protect her from the deafening noise, dropping to the floor due to the sharp pain in her ears. Julius did the same, allowing the creature to escape from the room and flee down the stairwell.
A few seconds passed before the pain of the screech wore off and the couple uncovered their ears.
"Well, that thing may be adorable, as well as quite small, but it is really, really loud," observed Erise, voice a tad numb from shock. Her inner little girl couldn't help but give the thing a cuddle, but after she got over that, she couldn't but be dumbfounded by its appearance. Nothing in this world was that cute, aside from things like puppies and kittens. In fact, she couldn't recall anything on Earth that looked remotely like the creature to begin with, which lead her to the following conclusion:
"Honey… I think that our daughter has been hosting an alien in her room."
"I do believe that she has been, yes." Erise was very nearly shocked about his immediate agreement, but remembered that he married him for a reason. Well, several, actually: namely his great intelligence (much like her own) and tolerance of her Asperger's.
The two sat in a somewhat awkward silence for the next several seconds. Another crash made the apparent alien known to them again, and they promptly got up. "Well, I suppose that it's time that we round up an alien, hmm?" inquired Erise's husband rhetorically.
"So it would seem, honey!" And the two exited the room and walked down the stairs, getting started on the long, tedious process of catching a notably evasive Pokémon.
Unbeknownst to them, they were in for quite the long haul…
"I've got it!"
"No, you don't!"
"Wh – how did it even–!?"
"It's in the corner! Erise, get over here!"
"And where are you, exactly!?"
"The kitch–! For the love of…!"
"Alright… It's in the bathroom… Nowhere left for it to run now…!"
"About that… It kind of got into the vent space in the wall…"
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me…!"
Finally, after nearly an hour of scouring the house several times over, the pair had caught the creature, imprisoning it in a wrapping consisting of about half a dozen blankets and sheets, restricting its movement quite thoroughly. Both Erise and Julius exhaled loudly in a combination of exhaustion and relief, flopping down carelessly on their plush living room couch. The thing was still in its confines even after several minutes of struggling, to no avail.
"Man, this thing must be quite the large bundle of energy to still be attempting to run after all of the fleeing it's done, especially considering that it did so for the past hour …" Julius merely nodded in agreement, attempting to save his energy to get rid of his immediate tiredness.
Just then, the door opened and Marza walked into the house. She barely even needed a single second to comprehend the situation that she was observing (however silly-looking Oscura was underneath the many layers of fabric) before saying to her parents a simple, three-word phrase:
"I can explain."
"You had better make that explanation good, then, because you are already very deep into trouble for keeping something such as this a secret to us!" responded Erise, looking thoroughly aggravated. "Your pet made us quite literally run all over the house to catch it! It took us an hour to finally catch it, most of which consisted of running!"
Marza sighed resignedly, putting a hand at the bridge of her nose to rub it, as if preparing herself for the worst moments of her life. "Just give me a minute to calm myself down and figure out what to say. I've already had a bad day at school, and this little situation is hardly helping my mood…"
And indeed, the parents of Marza gave their child the minute she needed, plus some seven seconds, during which she came over to the living room and sat herself down on a nearby chair. "Okay… So, first off, Oscura is not a thing; she is a Larvitar. Speaking of which, I'm going to have to ask that you give me her." They did so with reluctance, with Erise warning her to be careful with it. "She screeched right into my ear, you know, and you can imagine that it hurt quite a bit."
"That's probably because you startled her, Mom. So, tell me: what did you do when you first saw her? In fact, when and how did you first see her?"
Erise blushed. "Erm… Well, I… gave her some cuddles?"
Marza sighed out, "And how intensive did you get with said cuddles?"
"… Apparently intense enough to warrant an extremely loud screech? I don't know. Julius, how intensive do you think my cuddles were?"
Julius gave a sigh of his own. "Excessively intensive, dear, like you during some of your mood swings when you were pregnant."
Erise gave her spouse a look so extraordinarily sour to the point where her face could be mistaken for some child's snack before continuing to answer her daughter:
"And as for your second and third questions, Julius and I decided yesterday to go up to your room and check out what was warranting rocks and water, of all things, and just over an hour ago, we found your Larvitar, hiding in your closet from us. And speaking of rocks, why were you grabbing stones from our yard?"
Only just then noticing Oscura's wiggles, the girl began to unwrap her from her bonds as she responded: "I was startled to find this out, as well, but it turns out that Oscura eats rocks and dirt." Her parents' brows rose accordingly. "She eats what?" they said simultaneously.
"I know, right!? How anything like Oscura can sustain itself off of just rocks, dirt, and a bit of water escapes even me!" The Rock Skin Pokémon came fully unwrapped at last, and she stretched her (rather short) limbs with a small grunt.
"Well, that is certainly strange, but that doesn't answer the most important questions here," Marza's father spoke up, sounding quite curious. "Just what is Oscura – who is likely an alien – doing here, in this house of all places?"
Marza sighed once again. "Okay, so here's where it begins to get complicated. This next spiel of mine will likely answer the rest of your questions, so pay close attention to this next bit.
"You're right about Oscura being an alien, though she isn't one in the literal or traditional senses; rather, she comes from an alternate dimension filled to the brim with beings like her. They're collectively called Pokémon, and I presume that they're about as intelligent as us. Isn't that right, Oscura?" The little alien nodded. Marza's parents' eyes bugged out a bit at the revelation that she could understand English.
"Yes, she is intelligent; in fact, when I got her as an egg four days back, she somehow immediately understood English mere hours after she hatched and could react accordingly. How that works? I've no idea, and I may never learn how, either.
"Anyway, you're probably wondering how I came across all of this information even though I've only known Oscura for a few short days. Well, here's the strangest part of it all, by and far; this being called Arceus came to me in a dream and told me this stuff."
Erise and Julius' brows rose. "I'm fairly certain that I'm not going insane, either – it just… inexplicably makes sense to me. I think it was real and telling the truth, as well – after all, it was somehow aware that I was in possession of the egg that would later hatch into Oscura, even though it was in an alternate dimension entirely, and it knew that I was taking good care of her, as well. I am doing that, by the way, and I intend to continue doing so.
"So, to finally answer your last two unspoken questions, both of those likely relating to the why, well… Arceus said that Oscura was sent to this house in particular by complete and utter chance; nothing else. And as for why she had to be sent away from her home to begin with…" Oscura perked up at this, eyes widening in curiosity.
Marza gave her longest, most melodramatic sigh yet. "Promise you won't over-react to this last part?" The two gave an uncertain nod. "And that you won't get depressed about this, Oscura?" A third nod. "Okay… So, Oscura apparently caused a lot of destruction a few years into the future of her home world, razing several cities to the ground and probably… you know…"
Julius and Erise gasped at this new information. Oscura looked to be on the verge of tears, though she wiped them away just as they were about to flow free from her eyes. "So you're saying that you've basically been raising some monster from a parallel universe?"
"I wasn't finished! The reason that Oscura did all of that was because of this evil man. He probably abused her and forced her to do these things! She hasn't attacked me, and she hasn't ever made an attempt to harm you two outside of that screech, has she?" she nearly yelled out, clutching Oscura close, both for her comfort and protection. Her parents looked a bit unsure of their previous accusation now, glancing at each other for a moment before the patriarch of the family exhaled softly.
"Marza... I've no idea what this "Arceus" fellow has gotten us into, or if you're even telling us the truth. If I had the option to, Erise and I would have Oscura kicked out of the house…" Marza clutched the green-skinned Pokémon tighter at this, with Oscura clutching the girl's stomach area tightly. "… However, as I have just implied, we don't really have any other options. Where would Oscura go? To our rowdy, generally irresponsible neighbors? The local pet shelter, to never be picked up and truly taken care of? Or – goodness forbid it – a laboratory of some sort to be experimented on? No, the moment she came into your possession, the situation was out of our hands. We don't really have any other choice but to keep her here."
Marza and Oscura released their respective grips of from each other. "… Really?"
Erise spoke for her husband: "Now that I think about it… Yes, I suppose that you're right, Julius. Yes, Marza, you can keep Oscura."
The odd pairing of human and Pokémon were almost immediately tempted to jump for joy, but Marza managed a refrain. Oscura, on the other hand?
"Laaaaar!" she couldn't help but let out, jumping almost an entire foot into the air before crashing back down onto Marza's lap.
"… Yeah, and that's how I learned her species name. For some weird reason, she can only say her own species' name's syllables. Doesn't mean that she can't write, though; I'm teaching her how to right now, as a matter of fact. She's already mastered the alphabet, so she should be able to talk to you via writing soon enough. Trust me when I say that she's a very quick learner."
At this point, Erise and Julius simply figured that they would have to get used to strange and impossible notions, such as a four-day-old alien learning the complete English alphabet. Needless to say, that was a brilliant idea on their part, especially since the strangeness surrounding Oscura's arrival was only just beginning to unravel itself…
