Chapter 7

Curing Oshawott

"Oshawott!" I called in the town. "Oshawott, where are you?" Sylveon and I had been searching for Oshawott outside.

"Froakie, maybe we should check in some of the buildings," suggested Sylveon. "We've been looking for him for over an hour now outside."

"Good idea," I said. The two of us began checking in all of the nearby buildings. I first went into a faded green building. "Oshawott!" I called. My call echoed throughout the building. There was no reply. "Oshawott!" I called again. Again my voice echoed throughout the building with no reply. I left the building.

Sylveon and I had no luck in any of the buildings there were still a few more left we hadn't checked. I waited outside to look out while Sylveon went inside one of them. I heard her call Oshawott's name a few times, and then I heard her scream. I reacted by darting into the building. I frantically looked for her. I couldn't find her on the first floor. I checked on the second floor, and I saw her. She seemed frozen in place, just staring at something. I turned my head to see what she was staring at.

"Dear Arceus, what the heck happened here?" I yelled. In the empty room, there were bloodstains, shreds of fur, and lots of gore splattered about. On the back wall, it read in blood: "Oshawott was here."

Without turning to me, Sylveon said slowly, "I think Oshawott was here not long ago."

"Let's see…" I said. I didn't really want to do it, but I had to in order to see if Sylveon was right about the 'not long ago' part. I walked over to a small puddle of blood, and put my finger to it. The blood hadn't dried up, and it was semi-warm. I took my finger out of the puddle of blood and saw the blood slowly ooze off of it. "You're right," I said. "He was probably here about three minutes ago."

"But how could he have gotten away without us noticing?" asked Sylveon. "Three minutes isn't a long time!"

"Darkrai said that demons gain incredible speed and strength," I replied. "It wouldn't surprise me if we didn't catch him."

"Well, let's get out of here," suggested Sylveon. "We still have to find him, no matter what the circumstances."

The two of us exited the building. I put my head in the clouds to try to think of the places he could be. We checked nearly all of the buildings in town, yet there were only two of us…

"The smoothie shop!" Sylveon suddenly blurted. "We haven't checked there yet!" She dashed to the smoothie shop as my thought bubble was popped.

"Wait up!" I called. I began running after her.

When we made it to the shop, Sylveon crashed through the doors. I proceeded after her. "Oshawott! Are you in here? We've been looking all over for you!" She darted to the back where we got our smoothies from before. When she made it to the back room, she gasped. I immediately went to the back room and was shocked to see what was back there. Oshawott was there, along with the Sylveon of this province. He had a gash on his side and appeared lifeless.

"Oh, hello Sylveon and Froakie," said Oshawott. He seemed horrifyingly calm. "You may be wondering what I've been doing."

"Yes, we have," I said sternly. "We've been looking for you for hours."

"Well," started Oshawott, "I was just taking care of some… business."

"Like?"

"Like what?"

"What kind of 'business' were you taking care of?"

"Oh, come on Froakie! I'm a demon now. Don't you know what demons do?"

I stared at him.

"They murder for fun. And don't think you'll be able to cure me. I've killed too many to count."

"Just because you've killed probably half the population of this province, that doesn't make me think that I can't cure you. I know you. I can get you out of anything."

"You know what you can't get out of?" Oshawott smiled devilishly.

I sighed. "Is this going to be that 'You can't escape your own death now' cliché thing that Ducklett did when I was ten feet tall?" I retorted. "Because when he said that, I didn't die. And knowing that you're not as skilled as a fighter, or killer in this circumstance, as Ducklett, you probably won't kill me."

Oshawott stared at me confoundedly.

"My thoughts exactly."

"By the way," said Oshawott in a more normal tone, "what's Sylveon staring at?"

I had almost forgotten about Sylveon. She was just looking at her dead male counterpart. She began to slowly move over to him, barely making sound. When she got near to him, tears welled up in her eyes. Her legs collapsed, and she began weeping loudly. She buried her face into his dead body.

"What she so sad about?" said Oshawott with no sympathy.

Sylveon slowly got up. Her sadness turned to rage. "Look at what you've done, you… you… you sick fuck!" She violently turned her head to face Oshawott and stomped over to him. "I loved him. And then you come along just to leave a gash in his side! If it weren't for this legend shit, none of this would have ever happened!" Oshawott began to back up. Sylveon kept walking slowly to him until he got against the wall. "Why wasn't it me and Froakie that were turned into demons… we could have gotten out of it A LOT easier than you, you little shit! Thanks to you, my life it RUINED! Just take a minute to think of all of the other Pokémon you ruthlessly murdered! Them I'm sure you'll see the real cost!"

She was up in his face now and was breathing really hard. I was appalled. I had never seen Sylveon get this outraged at anyone.

Oshawott was staring at her emotionless. "I…" He tipped his head down. "I… I don't know what to say."

I tried to think of things to make the situation better for both of them. I remembered the conversation me and Darkrai had before I went off to cure them both. His words echoed through my head. Then I remembered him saying: "But there's a good side to all of this! Once you uncorrupt one of their minds, all of the Pokémon that they possibly murdered will be revived!"

"Sylveon! I remember something!" I cried happily.

She whipped her head to face me. She didn't share the same happiness I had. "What could possibly make this situation better?!"

"I remember something Darkrai said. He said that when one of you is cured all the Pokémon murdered by that said one would be revived!"

"Well this little faggot says he'll never be cured!" snarled Sylveon.

"There's a cure to everything…" I said. "Well, mostly everything. And this is a thing that can be cured. I cured you, didn't I?"

Sylveon's expression softened a bit. "Yea, true, but Oshawott—"

"If I cured you, then I see no reason why Oshawott can't be cured."

Oshawott decided to speak up. He turned to face me. "Froakie… I…"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Sylveon to his face. Oshawott shrunk back.

"Sylveon, let the guy talk!" I said. She growled at both me and Oshawott.

Oshawott began to speak. "Now that I'm trying to draw myself back to reality, I see what I did was wrong. I saw Sylveon mope pathetically, and that made me think. Are those the consequences of murdering Pokémon? When Sylveon snapped, I was trying to figure out what was making her so angry. Then I heard her say that she loved him. That's when I realized…" He trailed off. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, you realized what you did, and that's what you needed to do." I said sympathetically. As I said that, I saw dark particles coming off of Oshawott that was beginning to form a dark orb above him. Sylveon noticed too, as well as Oshawott himself. The orb kept getting bigger and Oshawott's colors began to come back. The particles stopped coming off of him and the orb of darkness flew towards the direction of the tower. I turned to see Sylveon's male counterpart. The gash on his side was sealing up. He slowly opened his eyes. I could see Sylveon filling with joy.

He got up and stretched a bit. "Ugh, what happened? I had a dream where I was partying with and praising Arceus…"

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" shrieked Sylveon. She glomped her male counterpart.

Oshawott and I were laughing as he was struggling slightly under her.

"Woah!" he said. "Don't kill me now!"

"I'm sorry," she said as she got off of him. Tears of joy were rolling off her face. "It's just… you actually did die…"

"Blame me!" said Oshawott.

"So that dream…" said the Sylveon of this province, "Wasn't a dream…? Well, who cares? I'm happy to be back."

The two stared at each other for a bit until they started to shift awkwardly.

Sylveon sighed. "I was going to tell you this right before we left the province to our own, but…"

"Oh?" said her male equivalent. "What's that?"

"Well," she started, "I kinda… I really… I love you."

"Why didn't you say so?" he said playfully. "You're perfect! I… I love you too!"

Oshawott and I started clapping. Both of them touched their heads together and savored the moment. Once they separated, the Sylveon of this province said, "Now I know that you three are the chosen three, and you probably still have a couple legends to solve. I'm not even sure if you have even solved the ones on this province yet, but if you haven't, I don't want me to hinder you from getting done what you have to get done."

"Thank you," Sylveon said. "I love you!"

"I love you, too!" he said.

"So," began Oshawott, "what did Darkrai say to do when we were cured?"

"He told us to go back to the tower to report to him," I replied.

"You three hurry along now," said Sylveon's date. "I don't want to keep you waiting."

"Thank you," I said. We left the shop and we went off in the direction of the tower

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