I'm writing this while feeling awful – I have a pounding headache, a sore throat, an aching back and a blocked up nose. I should be sleeping (because writing isn't going to improve my headache…) but I just can't get to sleep past 10:30. Anyway, enjoy the chapter.
As always, I own nothing except a couple of characters. I don't even own Seig, although technically, I own Willow's personality.
Seig dressed in casual, comfortable clothes while Willow admired her lilac form in the full-length mirror. She flicked her ears back with a slight tinge of disappointment. This body didn't fully feel like hers. She was far more comfortable in her unevolved state. But if she was seen to be an Eevee by any of the teachers at school, she had no idea how quickly she'd be recaptured.
"Come on, Willow – we don't want to be late," Seig called, spurring the Espeon to delicately pick her way across the carpeted floor towards Seig.
Seig managed to sneak out of the house without being seen by his foster parents – they had fussed over Willow every day for the past week since she evolved, without knowing anything more about her evolutions. Willow felt nervous around them – but then again, she was nervous around everyone except Seig.
Some days, Seig would think about leaving the school just for Willow's sake, but when he followed the thought through, he knew that this would look too suspicious and they would never let him go without knowing a very good reason. They would never let him rest in peace.
Willow often heard his thoughts, and sometimes delved deeper into his mind, and while she wasn't happy at returning to the school every day, she knew Seig could do nothing about it. She also knew that she was safe with Seig.
That morning, during their couple of hours of free study, both Seig and Willow went to the library. Over the last couple of weeks Seig had researched Pokèrus and yet got no closer to finding out why the virus had infected him, or why it had affected Willow in this way. Today, Willow wanted to try a new strategy.
'You know how you can never find anything if you look for it?' she asked her trainer psychically. 'Well, we should look up something completely different, and maybe we'll find something by accident.'
"I know where we would find answers…but us trying to poke around the school's records would be asking for trouble…"
'I'm not too sure that they even know…' Willow muttered quietly. 'According to them, their experiment…me...was a failure. I didn't evolve at all until I met you. They evenshoved vile smelling stones at me… That's the reason I was put in with all the starter Pokèmon this year. It was the easiest way to get rid of 'the failure'.'
Seig's face, and thoughts, became sombre and sympathetic. "Willow…"
'Anyway, we're in here to study, aren't we?' Willow said, falsely bright. 'What about studying psychic Pokèmon's abilities?'
A bitter-sweet smile crept onto Seig's face – he knew Willow was trying not to worry him; she'd never wanted or liked sympathy.
"Well, it'd come in useful," Seig reasoned, selecting a thick, heavy tome off the dusty shelves hidden towards the back of the library.
He opened the leather bound cover on a nearby table and skim read the first couple of pages, before deciding that the book was 'too vague' and found a more specific – if just as heavy – book. Willow watched him reading with interest. She'd found that humans were more relaxed mentally when they were distracted by something like a book, and it was easier to read their thoughts. In this way, Willow – despite not being able to read herself – knew and understood every word on those pages.
The 'y'-forked tail swayed behind her as she 'read' the book.
'Many psychic Pokèmon are able to levitate objects and people outside of battle, without calling on a technique… Other common abilities of psychic Pokèmon are: telepathy, being able to create illusions and influence the mind.'
Seig looked at Willow with barely contained disbelief.
"What do you think you could do?"
Willow did a universal gesture known to Pokèmon, which was a rough equivalent of a human shrug.
'I can try all of these…'
Willow tapped into the part of her brain that made this form different to her other forms and focused. Seig dropped a pen on the floor for her to practise with. Willow focused, her dark violet eyes not straying from the fallen piece of stationary for a single second. The pen began to glow with the stray psychic power used and it slowly raised a miniscule height…until a shadow of a thought crossed Willow's mind, and everything stopped abruptly.
"What's wrong?" Seig asked.
'I just had a stray thought… It's a bit pointless to pick up a pen with psychic energy when it would take less time and effort to just pick it up and give it to you…'
"The whole point of this is to practise…"
'I know that, but when I'm focusing on the pen, I forget it… I want to try again.'And so the small Espeon spent most of the morning making objects levitate off the floor. At one point, the library itself was in danger as the bookshelves strained to leave the ground too, but Seig stopped Willow very hastily. Willow sheepishly explained that she'd been trying to get a book off the shelf, not the shelf off the floor, but had overdone it a little.
Once Willow felt confident in levitation, Seig turned back to the book again.
"What about…creating illusions?" he suggested.
The pen that had been used for practising levitation suddenly vanished.
'Well, that's easy…' Willow said proudly.
"What did you do?"
'The pen is still there – try and touch it.'
Seig did so, patting the floor near where the pen was supposed to be.
"It's just been hidden, it hasn't actually gone anywhere…" Seig muttered to himself.
'Exactly. I'm basically just bending the light waves so that they don't touch the pen, but they touch the floor underneath. Pretty simple, really.' Seig frowned slightly – that was simple? He understood why it worked fairly easily, but how can you manipulate light waves on an individual level and call it simple? Meanwhile, Willow was experimenting, not with making things disappear, but with making things appear.She managed a vague Eevee shape before the bell went, destroying her concentration.
"Come on, Willow, dinner time."
'I'm not hungry…' Willow protested…before her stomach rumbled as if on cue.
"You've been working hard all morning – you deserve a rest. And a meal – we haven't had breakfast, remember?"
Willow sighed, jumping into Seig's arms to be carried to the dinner hall.
"And why do I need to carry you anywhere? You were fine walking this morning."
'I feel safer here,' she stubbornly insisted, and Seig knew she would not walk a step on her own right now.
In the dinner hall, Seig joined the short queue of people waiting for food, ending up behind Zero.
"Hey, Seig, where were you all morning? Zippo and I wanted a match!" Zero half-heartedly complained.
"We were in the library."
"Again? What are you looking for in there, the answer to life, the universe and everything? I'll save you a bit of time, it's forty-two."
"We're just studying," Seig said nonchalantly.
"Well, how about training tomorrow? Zippo verses Willow?" Zero suggested, getting a ladleful of a thick beige liquid on a plate with a bit of rice.
"Willow?" Seig asked, trying to select something from the counter that didn't have meat in it.
Willow purred in response – she was happy to fight.
Seig eventually choose a leafy salad and sat down with Zero, Haru and Fossil. Their Pokèmon had to get their own food – that was an unspoken and unwritten rule, but everyone knew it. Most of them, though, brought their food back to eat near their trainers. Willow almost seemed to shrink into the floor as she ate – Zippo the Dratini was peaceably eating on one side of her and Rolo the Phanpy ate on the other side. Nearby, though, all of Haru's strong Pokèmon were eating, and quite frankly, they all scared Willow.
Some days, they'd decide that she wasn't worth talking to; so then she was all right. But occasionally, one of them would get it into their heads that she was too much of a freak to be ignored, and would ask her questions until the end of lunch. Zippo and Rolo used to join in, but she'd won some respect when she'd beaten the both of themin a battle.
'What the hell are you, anyway?' the Staravia asked, training beady eyes on Willow.
'An Espeon, the last time I checked,' Willow said coldly, shaking slightly with fear – the Staravia was intimidating her and was at least twice her height.
'You're no normal Espeon,' Haru's Luxio growled, sparks dancing over his body.
'You don't feel like a psychic type. You feel like a grass type to me,' the Grovyle muttered.
'No, I can feel thunder,' Luxio argued.
'I can feel water and ice,' Floatzel input.
'She feels like a normal type to me,' Staravia argued, puffing up its chest.
'You seem a bit confused, if you ask me,' Willow muttered defiantly – yet her eyes didn't leave the floor. 'I shall leave you to your meal in peace.'
Willow stalked off, making the food behind her 'disappear' in the process, drawing many angry and surprised growls from Haru's Pokèmon.
Once the Espeon had found a comfortable corner, so she couldn't be snuck up on, she closed her eyes and meditated, feeling all the power she'd been using that morning just brimming under her smooth skin, waiting to be used.
She made an illusion of a Butterfree, flapping off, up into the ceiling. She then made flowers 'grow' from the floor around her, with all manner of bug Pokèmon swarming around them. Remarkably, she was unnoticed until Seig came to get her.
"Very pretty," he commented as the illusions disappeared.
'It calms me down,' she explained.
"Do they always pick on you?" Seig asked, referring to Haru's Pokèmon.
Willow's violet eyes grew wide – she didn't think Seig knew, he was normally busy talking to his friends.
'Most of the time…' she admitted.
"Right, I'll have a word with Haru. And don't try and keep these things all to yourself, Willow. I know I can't do everything, but I can be here for you to talk to."
True to his word, Seig did talk to Haru, the conversation being along the lines of: "your Pokèmon are becoming anti-social little yobs, so could you do more to control them?"
Haru couldn't actually understand his Pokèmon, nor did he have any desire to learn, so he had no choice but to believe Seig and promised to do something about it. By this time, the bell had rung for their next set of lessons. These were inside, in the small lecture hall, where a teacher addressed the class for an hour or so on a topic. Today, the teacher was Mrs. Hurtz, and they were covering elemental weaknesses and strengths.
On this topic, the class was all over the place. Most knew basics like fire is good against grass but bad against water, yet only a few knew more complex and less commonly used types like ghost and psychic. Seig was one of them who knew more complex type match ups, and was quite bored throughout the lesson. He tried to guess who else knew this all already.
Haru probably did, except for one or two type match ups…Aria seemed to, from the amount of questions she was answering correctly. Zero seemed to know a lot, but had a couple of types that he wasn't brilliant with.
Then there were people like Rhiannon, Tegeirian, Latto, Wraith and Ebony, who knew a good deal, but were clueless on some types. But worst by far was Fossil, who had yet to answer a single question correctly.
At the end of the lesson, they had a computerised quiz – everyone had a keypad with a, b, c and d as possible options to press. Mrs. Hurtz would call out type match ups and the pupils had to decide whether the match up was either effective, not very effective, normal or no damage would occur.
The quiz started with easy match ups.
"Water attacking Ground."
After five of the easier match ups, more complex ones were added.
"Fire attacking Dragon."
"Bug attacking Psychic."
And then, she started on duel types.
"Electric attacking water and ground."
"Fire attacking grass and water."
At the end of the fifteen-question quiz, everyone's results were displayed on an electronic leader board at the front of the class.
Seig came first, with a score of fourteen. Aria and Haru had a very close joint second, with thirteen. Wraith came next, with a respectable twelve. Then Zero, Ebony, Rhiannon and Tegeirian with eleven. Latto seemed embarrassed at his score of ten – his cousin had beaten him again… Finally, Fossil's name crept up near the bottom, with two.
This ended the first hour of the lesson, and they then got Mr. Harrier for the second hour.
He handed out some photocopied pictures of ancient woodcarvings to the class.
"Does anyone know what these are?"
Aria's hand went up slowly.
"Yes?"
Her voice trembled slightly. "Aren't they the woodcarvings found in the caves of Sunnyfoam island?"
"Very good. Not many people from Saralli even know about a small island like that."
"I've read a lot of books on travelling, sir."
"Anyway, according to recent research, these carvings were made over a thousand years ago."
At this, Seig had a sudden thought and raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"If they're a thousand years old, wouldn't the wood have rotted by now?"
"We believe that a legendary Pokèmon preserved the carvings for this long. Now, if we look at the carvings themselves…"
There was a general rustling of paper in the lecture hall, as thirty odd pupils found their copies of the sheet.
"What Pokèmon can we see in the carvings?"
A few hands went up.
"Pasqua the Miner?"
Everyone groaned at the nickname – Pasqua's last name was Minore.
"There's Celebi!"
It was true – in the background – Celebi was fluttering around.
After a few minutes, they had managed to spot a whole myriad of Legendary Pokèmon in the intricately carved wood. Some were cleverly disguised as part of the background and it took a keen eye to pick them out.
"Most scholars believe that this was an ancient record of the legendary Pokèmon, and that the way in which the carving is arranged tells a story. However, the means to read this story have become lost over time, and so we can only wonder at what it says."
Seig looked at the carving again – there appeared to be runes on the edge of the carving, or some form of ancient language at least. And the picture itself – Raiku fought against Zapdos up in the clouds, while Suicune danced on the surface of a lake to dodge Articuno, and Entei, along with Moltres, clashed atop an erupting volcano. Great metal monstrosities rose around Registeel, spikes of ice and rock crashed near Regice and Regirock. Even the peaceful looking Celebi seemed to be engaged in a psychic war with Mew.
'It's the world at war with itself,' Willow explained. 'From what little I know, this never actually happened, it's a metaphor for war. The legendaries themselves have never fought like this, if anything, it was mankind. And then, an impartial race of people created this, so that humans would never glorify war again. The legendaries obviously approved of this, so preserved their message for all time. Or at least, that's what I think. Pokèmon don't really know, either.'
The bell shook the class out of their stunned silence – everyone was studying the picture in one way or another and it had made an imprint on everyone.
"Class dismissed."
Stunned though they were, the class wasted no time in throwing books in their bags so that they could head home.
As Seig and Willow exited the building – Willow in Seig's arms, as per usual – Willow suddenly flattened her ears, ducked her head down, coiled her tail around her and pressed her small body into Seig chest. She was making herself as small and unnoticeable as possible, and Seig was about to ask why – when he saw the obvious reason.
The woman – the first 'doctor' from the lab to come and see him. The one who had only kept him alive for the sake of not attracting suspicion. A nervous shiver travelled through his body, and he walked briskly past her, not making eye contact. It was probably his imagination, but her very face had a cruel, haughty expression on it, as if it had once been deceptively beautifully, but decades of time had – thankfully – taken that advantage away from her.
Seig quickly caught up with Haru, reassuring Willow the whole time.
"Who was that woman at the door?" he asked quietly. He didn't know why he was being quiet – she was well out of earshot.
"Naois Genwyn," he muttered – and there was a hint of venom in his voice. "She teaches PSHE once a month."
Seig was utterly shocked. That…creature, teaching morals?
"You don't seem to like her, Haru," Seig said slowly.
"That bitch apparently made life hard for my father. She's doing the same to me, and if she gets the chance, Aria and her mother, too."
Seig nodded understandingly. "What does everyone else think of her?"
"That she's the centre of the universe…a 'brilliant' teacher. The stupid thing is, none of us can do anything against her without facing expulsion. While Griff is seen to be the big boss around here, Genwyn holds the money, so she also has all the power in the school."
"How do you know?"
"Two years of not listening to teachers lands you in detention more times than you can count. And it's amazing what teachers will say if they think no one is listening…"
Seig filed all this away in his head for future reference – he had a feeling it would be very useful soon.
Seig split off the main road to take a smaller, winding path to his house, leaving Haru behind.
'Genwyn seemed to have all the power in the lab, too,' Willow muttered in a wavering psychic voice. 'She never did the dirty work herself, but gave all the orders – which were always carried out to the letter. Even her subordinates spoke ill of her.'
"She's really dangerous, then. We'll just have to keep our guard up, won't we?"
Willow nodded.
"Good. Now we have to get our own dinner tonight – Monica and Harry are still at work until eight."
Monica and Harry were Seig's foster parents. Monica was a secretary for a small company in the only city on the island, Elli, and Harry was a bus driver. Seig never called them Mum or Dad – it just didn't feel right.
Willow and Seig made a vegetable stir-fry for dinner and then went outside to train until it began to grow dark. When Monica and Harry came back, they had a light conversation about nothing in particular until Seig went upstairs to bed. In his room, a long, thin bladed sword caught his attention, just as it always did. It had belonged to his grandfather, but he'd inherited it, with his parent's dead…
He lightly traced the shiny, smooth metal with a finger – he could almost hear the blade's disappointment at not being used. Seig had tried to use the sword once, but the blade was far too long and far too heavy – he'd almost ended up slicing off part of his foot. He wanted to learn swordplay, if only to give the blade some use, but as far as he knew, there was no one on the island who could teach him.
With a reluctant sigh, he got into bed, and prepared himself for another night's nightmare.
One thing I want to draw attention to, in case the place names are confusing anyone. Saralli is the name of the island, Elli is the biggest settlement on the island (in no way related to Llanelli, sometimes argued by certain geography teachers to be the centre of the known universe…), Caira is another settlement on the island, a fairly small village which most of the pupils either live in or near to, and Saralli Caira High is the school's name, as it is on the island of Saralli, and nearest to the village of Caira.
Anyway, thanks for reading and please review!