Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.
Chapter 3: The Sculptor's Dream
It was mid-morning as Ross sat at a long table in the hotel lounge drinking a cup of coffee. Lorain was sitting in the chair to Ross's left, her laptop open to some kind of spreadsheet regarding the stats of her current team of Bug Pokemon. Neither of them had really said anything to one another since they sat down, as both their minds were very much on other things. Just then, Quinton entered the room carrying a huge stack of books in his arms. The blonde keyboardist dropped the stack of books on the table, almost causing Ross's cup of coffee to spill onto his lap.
"Well, this is everything the town library had with stuff relating to Jirachi." Quinton informed them. "Hopefully some of the local folklore will give us an idea about just what we're up against with this Jirachi Christine told Bolt about."
Ross calmly took another sip from his cup. "Hey Quinton… do you think that Bolt and Christine will end up getting back together?"
Ross's question caused Lorain to look up from her laptop.
"Why the heck are you suddenly asking about that?" Quinton asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, Christine is pretty much available again now that her dad's charcoal and the stuff he was using to blackmail her is fried too." Ross pointed out. "From the sound of it, that bastard Richter is dead too. Bolt has a shot with her again."
"I suppose, but it's not exactly like Bolt and Christine can just pick up where they left off again." Quinton pointed out. "Even though she was forced into it, Christine still just took Bolt's heart and crushed it in a vice that day in Viridian City. I'm sure that's a hard thing for Bolt to get past."
"Yeah, but… it still seems like Bolt has some pretty strong feelings for her." Ross pointed out. "Who knows? Maybe those two will end up hooking up again after all this stuff with Jirachi is over."
Suddenly Lorain slammed her laptop shut. "If you ask me, Bolt's better off without Christine. She hurt him before, and she'll probably hurt him again! Now if you guys will excuse me…"
With that, Lorain stood from her chair, picked up her laptop and left the room. Ross and Quinton watched as she left.
"What the hell was that about?" a confused Ross asked.
"How should I know? Now how 'bout you make yourself useful and help me look through these books?" Quinton requested.
Ross sighed and picked up one of the books Quinton had brought in. The two of them began reading in silence.
After seeing that Christine seemed to be suffering no residual damage from her head injury, the doctors had decided to release Christine from the hospital. Though she had to use crutches for at least a few weeks because of her sprained ankle. Of course because Christine had nowhere else to go due to her father's villa burning down, Bolt had decided to take her back with him to the hotel. The two of them had been walking though town in utter silence since leaving the hospital.
"I guess… everything that just happened proves that I'm no different from my mother." Christine suddenly spoke.
"What the heck do you mean?" Bolt asked.
"I told you about how she killed someone." Christine reminded him. "It was in self-defense, but still… I'm just as much a murderer as she is."
"Christine, you had no way of knowing that Jirachi would just blow up your dad's place like that." Bolt pointed out.
"Maybe, but… I think that if I never found Jirachi and made that wish… I probably would've killed Richter eventually." Christine told him. "Maybe shot him like my mother shot that man. I don't know."
"What're you talking about?" Bolt asked. "I'd like to think I still know you pretty well, Christine. And that doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd do."
Tears came to Christine's eyes. "You don't what it was like, Bolt. You don't know what it was like after I was forced to leave you back in Viridian City. When I got home, my father and Richter were more brutal to me than ever. Both of them started beating me on a regular basis, though Richter was the one who beat me more. My father usually found other ways to torture me. My life became and absolute hell! And with the wedding just around the corner… I just couldn't live like that anymore!"
"Christine…" Bolt spoke, totally at a loss for words.
"I just wanted it to stop, Bolt!" Christine cried. "I just wanted it to stop!"
At that point Christine once again broke down sobbing. Bolt quickly pulled her into an embrace to try and calm her down.
"It's okay." Bolt whispered in Christine's ear. "It's okay. It's over now."
It was a little before noon as local sculptor, Milo Corbin chiseled away at his latest creation, a marble statue of a beautiful longhaired woman as if in the middle of a dance. The piece was the final component of the fifty-four-year-old artist's grand work that he called the Twelve Goddesses of Dance. Each statue was of the same female figure posed in the different step of a graceful dance. When Milo finally chiseled away the last unneeded pieces of stone, he stepped back to take a look at his creation. It was absolute perfection.
Milo looked towards the back of his studio at the other eleven statues that were part of the series. It had been a long road with a few mistakes along the way, but at long last the artist had finished his life's work. Milo put down his sculpting tools and went over to an old barrel that had a wicker picnic basket set on top. Inside the basket was a special bottle of wine he had been saving just for that moment. Milo poured himself a glass, raised it to his finished piece, and sipped. He felt the sweet satisfaction that every artist feels after finally finishing a long project.
"That really is a well-crafted piece of artwork you've made." A cheerful child-like voice suddenly commented in Milo's head. The bald sculptor looked to his right and saw Jirachi floating beside him.
"Who… what are you?" Milo asked.
"I'm Jirachi." The Pokemon answered. "I saw you working on that statue and became curious. You really did a good job."
"Why thank you, my little friend." Milo replied as a look of pride came to his face. "It took years of blood and sweat to carve my Twelve Dancers. These statues are my dream, my gift to the world."
"So are you saying that your life is now fulfilled?" Jirachi asked. "You have no other wishes or dreams you would like to have made real?"
Milo let out a slight chuckle. "I suppose I do have one small wish, strange though it may be. I wish that my Twelve Dancers could come to life."
"So be it." Jirachi replied.
Suddenly the room became filled with a strange silvery light. When the light faded, the eyes of the statue Milo had just finished began to glow red. Suddenly the statue moved and broke free of her base. The other eleven female statues at the back of the studio came to life as well. All twelve of the statues began to walk towards Milo.
"What… what is this?" a stunned Milo asked.
"You wished for your statues to come to life." Jirachi pointed out. "Now they are alive."
Suddenly the statue that Milo had just finished picked him up by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. The statue then threw Milo past Jirachi into the wall of his studio. Soon after, all twelve of the statues broke through the far wall and headed into town. After a few moments, Milo got back to his feet, totally shocked at what was happening.
"Seems these statues are a bit aggressive." Jirachi observed.
"This… this not what I wanted!" Milo told the Pokemon. "This is not what I meant when I wished for my Twelve Dancers to come to life!"
"Really? Then you should've been more specific with your wish then." Jirachi told him. "It would've been helpful if you said you wanted them to be sentient or flesh and blood, or at least have said you wanted them to perform a specific task."
Milo put his hand to his forehead. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Not my problem." Jirachi told him. "Well, goodbye!"
With that, Jirachi flew off into the sky. Milo stood there for several moments trying to figure out what to do. Eventually he ran off into town in the hopes of somehow preventing his living masterpieces from hurting anyone… or perhaps worse, getting broken by someone.
Quinton, Ross, Skins and Lorain had all once again gathered in the hotel lounge. After waiting for about twenty minutes, Bolt finally entered the room with a scowl on his face.
"Dude, you okay?" Skins asked.
"I'm fine." Bolt answered flatly.
"You sure man? You seem kinda ticked." Ross observed.
"It's not something I wanna talk about right now." Bolt told all of them. "Now Quinton, did you find out anything about that Jirachi?"
"Well… the good news is that if we do nothing, this problem with Jirachi should simply solve itself." Quinton revealed. "According to most of the common legends about this Pokemon, Jirachi is only awake for a week at a time. When that week ends, Jirachi goes back to sleep for another thousand years. Of course all of this is only theoretical. The fact is Jirachi is pretty much a myth because practically nobody alive today has seen one in the flesh… that is until now. Still, if we wait for about six more days, this thing should just blow over."
"So what's the bad news?" Lorain asked.
"The bad news… all the local legends about the Jirachi of Stardust Falls say that it's a total psycho." Quinton answered. "A lot of the stories that Ross and I read are pretty much just fables and folktales, but those types of stories usually have a basis in fact. One of the stories is about a man who travels all the way from another village to make a wish to the Jirachi of what would later become Stardust Falls. The man wished that he were the richest man in his village. Jirachi granted his wish, but when the man returned home he found out that every man in his village that had more money than he did had suddenly died. The man's wish had been granted, just not in the way he had intended."
"There are a lot of other stories like that one in these books." Ross added. "Some of them are even more twisted. It's like this Jirachi is a character out of some horror novel."
"What I don't understand is how any Pokemon could be that psychotic." Lorain remarked.
"It could be that because Jirachi spend so much of their lives asleep, they don't develop a proper sense of right and wrong." Quinton theorized. "It's either that, or this particular Jirachi is just abnormal."
Bolt walked to one of the windows of the lounge to look outside. "…If this Jirachi really is nuts, we need to find it and lock it up somehow until it falls asleep again. I mean, look at what happened with Christine! If other people run into this Jirachi and make what seems like a harmless wish to it, a whole lot of other people could get hurt."
"But where the heck do we even start to look?" Quinton asked.
Suddenly the group heard a scream coming from outside.
"My guess is that my be a clue." Ross assumed.
The gang rushed out of the hotel to find Milo's twelve living sculptures randomly attacking the townspeople. One of them had picked up a mailbox by the sidewalk and flung it towards a nearby house, breaking one of the second story windows. Another one had picked up a parked car and flew it at a young couple that had made the unfortunate mistake of walking onto the scene. The couple managed to run out of the way in time to avoid getting hit. The car ended up toppling onto its roof.
"What the hell…?" Ross exclaimed. "Are those… statues?"
"Well, they don't look like any kind of Pokemon I've ever seen." Lorain responded.
Suddenly one of the living statues grabbed a young woman by the next and picked her up off the ground. The woman tried to scream and hit the statue's wrist in a vain attempt to break free of her grasp.
"Let's rock, Raikou!" Bolt called as he quickly threw out a pokeball. Raikou burst out of the thrown ball with a roar. "Use Extrasensory on that statue!"
Raikou's eyes glowed and a second later a beam of golden light shot from the crest on its forehead. The statue was hit in the torso and shattered to pieces. The young woman that the statue had attacked ran away as soon as she was freed from its grip. Meanwhile, two of the other statues were chasing after a pair of children.
"I don't think so!" Ross declared as he took out a pokeball. "Go Machamp!"
The creature that burst from Ross' pokeball was a muscular light-grey humanoid with four powerful arms. It had three darker grey ridges on the top of its head like hair, and around its mouth it had a tan muzzle. The humanoid Pokemon wore a pair of black shorts with an ornate gold championship belt like the kind worn by boxers or wrestlers.
"Take out those statues with Seismic Toss!" Ross commanded.
Machamp ran at one of the two statues chasing after the kids. In seconds, the four-armed Pokemon picked on of the statues up, turned her horizontally, spun around three times and flung her into the other statue. Both statues shattered apart upon hitting each other. Meanwhile the remaining nine statues were still wreaking havoc.
"I'll help out too!" Lorain decided. "Go Beedrill!"
Flying out of Lorain's thrown pokeball was a large bee or wasp-like insect with two large red eyes and a pair of large wings on its back. The bug's arms and legs were very slender, and its arms ended with two large silvery lances. On the front of the insect's chest was a round yellow and grey stone held in place by black leather straps.
"Okay Beedrill! Use Poison Jab!" Lorain commanded.
Suddenly the stone fitted into Lorain's bracelet began to glow with a brilliant light. In the same instant, the stone on Beedrill's chest began to glow as well, and in seconds the insect's whole body gave off a yellow light and changed shape. When the light faded, Beedrill had taken on a larger and more mechanical appearance. His red eyes had become longer and sleeker, and his antenna pointed towards the back of his head. The lances on his arms had grown longer, and his legs ended with a smaller pair of lances that bore yellow and black stripes up towards the knee. Beedrill's abdomen had grown larger and had a pair of grooves that his legs could fit into. Once Beedrill's transformation had finished, a multicolored light in the form of a DNA helix momentarily appeared above his head.
Beedrill tucked his legs into the grooves on his abdomen and flew towards three of the statues, which had happened to line up in a straight path as they continued their random destruction of property. As Beedrill flew, the stinger on the end of his abdomen began to glow with a purple light. The wasp Pokemon's stinger hit all three statues in a single pass, causing them to shatter apart.
"So Lorain. Looks like you found the stone needed for your Beedrill to Mega Evolve." Quinton observed.
"You know about Mega Evolution too?" Lorain asked.
"We saw it in action a little while back when we were playing a gig in Kalos." Quinton revealed. "In fact, Skins and I have a little first-hand experience. Go Chrome!"
Bursting out of the pokeball that Quinton threw was a large silver metallic creature with a saucer-like body with four long legs. On the front of its body were two red eyes and a large gold X. Its legs were thicker and longer towards the bottom and tipped with golden claws. Around the metal creature's front right leg was an ornate metal band with a spherical blue gemstone embedded in it.
"So your Metang evolved into Metagross!" Lorain observed. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised."
"This shouldn't surprise you either then. Chrome! Take out some of those statues with Meteor Mash!" Quinton ordered.
The stone embedded in Quinton's bracelet began to glow, and in the same instant the stone on Chrome's leg began to glow as well before its entire body gave off a dazzling explosion of blue light. In moments the light faded and Chrome had taken on a new form. It now floated in the air and its legs had moved on its body so that they pointed forward. The end of each leg had gained three large golden claws. Its back end had gained additional limbs that resembled thrusters, making the metal Pokemon look like some kind of spacecraft. The gold X on the front of its face had turned blue and had gained points on the ends. A multicolored light in the form of a DNA strand glowed briefly above Chrome before suddenly vanishing.
Chrome flew at full speed towards two more of the statues. The statues responded in kind by running towards Chrome in an attempt to fight back. As Chrome flew, its claws began to glow and its body began to give off a mist-like multicolored aura. The spaceship Pokemon rammed its claws into both statues, shattering them into debris.
"Go Aerodactyl!" Skins called with the throw of a pokeball.
Flying out of Skins' ball with a shriek was a large wyvern-like Pokemon with stone-grey skin and great wings that were purple on the inside. It had a large jaw and its mouth was filled with sharp fangs. Around its neck was a black spiked metal collar with a purple stone fitted into the front.
"Use Sky Drop!" Skins commanded.
The stone fitted into Skins' bracelet began to glow, as did the stone in Aerodactyl's collar. The wyvern's body suddenly gave off a brilliant purple light and changed shape. When the light faded, Aerodactyl had become larger and his body had a deeper stone-grey color. His horns had turned black and he had gained black stone-like armor on the brows of his eyes. A single black stone spike jutted out from his chin, and a large black spike grew from the top of his back. The front of each of Aerodactyl's wings had each gained five similar black spikes, and three black spines grew from the wyvern's tail towards the front. Three black markings adorned Aerodactyl's chest. As the wyvern's transformation finished, a multicolored light in the form of a DNA helix appeared briefly above his head.
Aerodactyl flew down and scooped up one of the statues with his massive talons. Seconds later, the wyvern dropped the statue on one of its comrades, causing both of them to shatter apart. The two statues that were left standing began to run as if in fear for their lives.
"Raikou! Finish those statues off with Thunder!" Bolt commanded.
Raikou roared and shot a bolt of lightning from the cloud on its back into the air. The sky darkened with thick black clouds, and a few seconds later a massive bolt of lightning came down and struck the fleeing statues. The force of the attack was so great that both statues shattered to pieces. The sky quickly returned to normal, and Aerodactyl, Chrome and Beedrill all returned to their original forms. At that moment, Milo arrived on the scene from behind Bolt and the others, crying out in utter despair as he fell to his knees.
"What have you done?" Milo called. "My creations! My life's work… ruined!"
"Dude! You made those things?" Ross asked.
"Yes, but… I never intended anything like this to happen!" Milo told them. "Oh! Why did I ever make that damned wish?"
"A wish?" Bolt repeated. "Was this wish to a Pokemon called Jirachi?"
Milo nodded. "He flew into my studio. We talked for a few moments about my work… and then he asked me if I had anything at all that I wished for. For some reason, I wished that my statues would come to life… maybe because I thought of them as my children. I never had a family of my own, you see. But I never wanted anything like this! My god! All those years… wasted!"
"Well Bolt, it looks like you were right about Jirachi." Quinton observed. "If we don't find and contain that Pokemon for the duration of the week somebody might end up making a wish that we'll all regret."
Author's Note: I hope the battle scene I did for this chapter was okay. I have to admit that I kinda had fun writing that particular scene since it wasn't just a typical Pokemon battle. It also gave me a chance to show off a few Mega Evolutions. I confess that half the reason I originally came up with the Lorain character because I wanted someone that could use Mega Beedrill in a later story.
On a different note, I'm wondering if I should change the genre of this story from Romance/Supernatural to Romance/Horror. After all, Ross did say in this chapter that our story's Jirahci is like something out of a horror novel.
Please review and let me know what you think.
