I'm taking you out of the equation.
Apparently, some fifteen years ago, a girl was born in Violet City. That is what Tamao learned while sleeping.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
She was very much like her, actually. Physically, they had more than a lot in common. After all, when looking at the illusion if this girl in front of her, Tamao could've easily been convinced that it was she herself. Her black hair was cut the way hers was, her forehead looked a bit too long, just like hers, her body was built the same way, and she even seemed around the same height as her – though when Tamao really paid attention, she realized this girl looked a bit taller than her. Apparently, her back was straighter when she stood up. For the first time in her life, Tamao had a moment of worry about her posture.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
There were other differences too, though. The first thing Tamao paid attention to were the eyes of this girl. Unlike hers, they were bright, light green. They were of a colour that seemed to remind her of something she had seen recently, but she couldn't quite put her finger to it. The dream didn't seem to want her to. But, that was okay; there was a lot more to move on to. Nothing major, but notable things either way.
The second thing Tamao saw was the differing choices of clothing the two had. While Tamao preferred darker colours, like murk green or even black on bad days, this girl seemed to like pastel colours. The aloof-adventurer style Tamao usually preferred was nowhere to be soon on her, too. Instead, she was wearing a simple, rather pretty white summer dress. Tamao herself felt that she would look weird in such clothing, but the girl was pulling it off. Even the soft yellow headband with the ribbon on her hair didn't make her look childish. Perhaps it was thanks to her personality. It was probably very different from Tamao's.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
The reason Tamao could guess her personality was probably different was the expression on her face. While Tamao usually preferred an empty face or even a moody scowl, this girl was smiling very pleasantly. Looking at her, Tamao decided she might as well practice smiling like that if she ever got over her current situation. It might be a bit more inviting to other people… Though she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted. People sometimes made her a little uneasy.
Either way, the girl who was so very similar to her while being completely different interested Tamao somewhat. Why was she dreaming of this person? Did she really exist? Who exactly was she?
I'm taking you out of the equation.
As if to answer Tamao's question, the image of the girl faded away. Tamao's vision turned blurry. She felt like wiping her eyes, but she couldn't even lift her hands. It would've been no use, of course. After all, this was still that odd dream. Something blurry would probably stay blurry as long as the dream wanted it to. It had hardly anything to do with Tamao herself.
The blurry image did start becoming clearer soon enough, gratefully. Tamao was able to recognize the picture some time before it became completely sharp too. It was a rather lovely landscape picture of Violet city. The apparent place of birth for this person who apparently existed.
Oh, then perhaps she was about to hear her life story? Tamao wasn't sure if she was particularly interested in getting an answer quite that detailed. But she had to watch, so she didn't struggle. The hold of this dream was too strong on her, there wasn't much she could do on her own. It seemed like she had to accept that for now.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
The weird, irritating repeating sentence seemed to be getting more distant now. Tamao was relieved to notice that. She had heard the same line for who knows how many times now, and she still didn't understand it. She wasn't sure if she was even supposed to, but either way it irritated her. She knew it had to be sinister, there was absolutely no doubt about that, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn't even panic. The dream kept her in a state that, while not calm, was relatively nonchalant towards her current uncomfortable situation. It was so strong that didn't even bother her too much. Enough to make her a little uneasy, but not too much.
The voice echoed a little, and the Violet city in front of Tamao's eyes turned sharp and lively. Way too sharp to be her own dream – Tamao had been to Violet city, but not often enough to know it in such detail. The facial features of everyone passing by, the exact shades of the blue roofs, the silent yet omnipresent ticking of the sprout tower… She didn't remember ever actually noticing them, not like this. This dream definitely wasn't hers.
That was when the show began. Tamao watched, unsure of whether she was bored or interested, as a little green-eyes girl, otherwise identical to Tamao's own baby pictures, played with a pokémon egg on the floor of a light room. It seemed that she was trying to eat the thing, despite the fact that it was twice the size of her head. Yet, she looked awfully focused on he mission. Babies could be so illogical.
Scenes flowed by Tamao's eyes. These possible memories of someone's life flashed to her like a movie. The situations she saw seemed completely random, though they seemed to follow a chronological order. There was a moment the baby girl bit her tongue with her first tooth, bursting into unbelievable scream. Oddly enough, while Tamao usually felt uneasy when a baby was crying, this time she could almost relate to the baby. She was certainly feeling her pain, for some bizarre reason.
The next scene appeared, as suddenly as the old one had begun. The egg the girl had been trying to have for lunch finally hatched, and she watched in pure awe. The little hatchling turned out to be an Eevee – Tamao felt an instant sting in her heart – and the little pokémon leaped into the arms of the little girl the instant the last piece of the eggshell was off. This scared the child, and she started screaming again. This instead served to scare the baby pokémon, causing the two to scream in unison. Tamao felt amused – it was a scene from every home video in existence, a pokémon and child yelling together. Even she had seen herself do that in a photo of the early years of her life.
The next scene showed the girl and the Eevee playing together in the sunny streets of Violet city. Tamao could see sunburn on the shoulders of her little look-alike. She realized the girl's hair had to be like hot iron too, since the sun really seemed to e blazing. Weird, since she didn't seem to notice and kept on playing. Perhaps the kid was tough.
The sunlight brought another particularly notable detail to Tamao's mind. Now that she looked at it, the colour of the girl's Eevee seemed… off. Its fur wasn't of the full, light chocolate brown Tamao had seen so many times during her rather short life. Instead, it was a pale, almost grey brown. It was so different from the usual, Tamao knew it couldn't be just coincidental variation – no, this pokémon was definitely what they called " a shiny pokémon". This particular detail seemed to remind Tamao of something that felt very crucial, but, once again, she couldn't recall it. Her mind wasn't fully under her control now.
The rest of the scenes were very similar to the ones before. They were simply short slices of some euphoric, cheerful life she had never heard of before. Tamao couldn't help but to doubt the story of this look-alike girl growing up happily with her shiny Eevee. Not that she was that distinct-looking, but having a nearly identical doppelgänger living just a few towns away? She was sure she would've heard of it.
That was not all there was to it, of course. As Tamao watched the different phases of the lives of these two, the lack of anything sorrowful or painful happening became all the more apparent. It seemed like every day was a sunshiny, happy place for these two. Everyone greeted them with love and happiness, they won every single battle they happened to take part in, and just generally seemed to be living a dream. Even if they were real, it was clear someone was editing the story a little. Even if something like this existed, Tamao was sure it couldn't be healthy. It wasn't like she was into pain or anything, but she had a good appreciation for realism.
Tamao's thoughts were interrupted by a particularly notable moment in the life of miss perfect and her rare pokémon. The girl had reached her preteens by now, dawning on eleven or twelve. She stared in astonishment, as her little Eevee suddenly started glowing as the sunlight surrounding it. The girl gasped as the shape of the little pokémon took new twists and turns. Tamao, however, knew the process well; she had seen it before. The body of the pokémon turned a little taller and much more slender, its tail got thinner and thinner, parting into two ways. Before long, an Espeon was revealed from the light.
And Espeon with a bright, light green fur.
The moment Tamao saw this she became extremely uncomfortable. She felt something raspy in her throat, as if she was holding back a scream. She knew why it was though; a memory was trying to come through to her. A very important memory, it seemed, a very crucial and critical one. But she couldn't touch it or obtain it at all. Her inner workings seemed to be struggling their hardest to get the message to her, but the dream was victorious in every struggle. She felt like a third party, having no idea what she was supposed to remember, yet knowing the dream seemed to be working against her.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
That's what the dream said. It had been a while since Tamao had heard it, but it felt all the more stubborn now. Tamao didn't find it reassuring, but she realized there was no use talking back to it. Whether or not the dream wanted to hurt her, she was its captive for now. So even if it felt wrong and painful, she couldn't do anything but feel the dream slowly suffocate the opposing voices of her mind.
After a while, it started feeling quite nice, actually. The dream made her feel rather peaceful, uncaring, and somewhat cheerful. Suddenly, watching the phases of the life of the green-eyed girl seemed like a very good way to pass her time. The girl seemed to be having a very nice time with her life too. She looked happy. The evolution of her pokémon proved that it was happy too. No matter where the girl went, there was happiness surrounding her. Tamao started wondering why she had seen anything wrong in that, and why thinking this made he feel sort of wrong. That, if something, didn't feel logical at all o her. Not anymore.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
The sentence of the dream didn't irritate Tamao so much anymore. She was too relaxed to be annoyed. She now felt that whatever that thing meant, it probably didn't make any difference if she understood or not. The dream seemed more than eager to do the thinking for her, so she might as well let it. She was feeling far too good to identify it as a threat. Why would it want anything bad to her? So far, it had seemed like a very nice dream indeed.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
Though it did seem to be repeating itself more often now. Tamao wondered if there was any meaning to it. She wasn't particularly interested, but the words sometimes broke off her concentration. And she liked concentrating on the memories the dream was showing her, the one's of the green-eyed girl and the green Espeon. Now that she looked at them, Tamao realized the green of the eyes was identical to the green of the fur. What a coincidence!
I'm taking you out of the equation.
But whose memories were these anyway? The dream didn't seem to offer any answers to that question. Neither did Tamao's own head; at the moment, it was becoming as blurry as the image of Violet city had been in the beginning. It was becoming very hard for her to remember even the simplest things, like the reason her throat was so sore, why she sometimes felt so uneasy when watching the Espeon of the memories. She also wasn't sure of what she was or wasn't supposed to know. Now that she really thought about it, even thinking itself felt a little heavy. Heavy and uninteresting.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
Tamao sighed to herself. She decided it was better to get lost in the memories the dream so kindly presented to her. It was a lot easier than thinking herself. A lot more pleasant too. Whenever she even tried thinking too much, she started feeling increasingly uneasy, like she was missing some very important detail. The scenes in front of her eyes weren't like that at all. They were happy and nice. It was comfortable to watch them. Tamao even felt a little envious of the girl in them. She probably didn't feel uncomfortable when thinking herself.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
" Why do you keep saying that?" Tamao tried to ask, but she didn't manage to form the words. She couldn't even find them, truth to be told. Maybe she wasn't supposed to. No, it was better just to watch the nice pictures, the pleasant moments presenting themselves to her.
A lot seemed to have happened to this girl during her life. Tamao watched the many battles, the many amusing circumstances, the days and the nights. The most recent event seemed to have taken her to a very cold Route, one right next to the entrance of an icy cave. There, due to an amusing encounter with an angry fisherman, she became separated from her Espeon.
Tamao felt like clutching to her chest, watching eagerly as the girl searched for her beloved pokémon. The girl was shivering in the cold, with her skin in goosebumps. She really should have worn something warmer than a summer dress. It was even snowing in the place? Poor, poor girl.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
The girl continued her desperate search. Several things happened around her. People tried to challenge her into battles, but she kindly declined. Wild pokémon were playing in the newly snowed snow, but she ignored them. A weird, oddly familiar looking angry blue-haired girl stomped by her, but neither of them paid the other any attention.
Tamao sighed. All the girl wanted to do was find her dear, missing pokémon. What was keeping her from doing it? It was so heartbreaking. If she was separated form her pokémon like that, she'd be heartbroken. But the girl seemed brave – instead of falling into despair, she just kept on going, looking for Espeon. It was rather inspiring to watch. Tamao hoped she was as strong as the girl, too – right now, she wasn't quite sure what she was like. But that was a minor detail; who cared about her, when there was such drama going on in front of her eyes?
I'm taking you out of the equation.
The split second her attention was caught up by the repeating sentence, Tamao missed the scene changing. When she looked again, she could finally sigh in relief. The girl had finally found her dear Espeon, and was embracing it tightly. Tamao felt happy for her. Whoever she was, she had managed to conquer a very unpleasant obstacle on her way. What a brave girl she was.
Tamao had become quite sure she knew this girl. She had to, since she could relate to her so well. The Espeon seemed awfully familiar too – all too familiar for her not to actually know it. No, there was something there. She most certainly knew who this girl was. It was obvious. She was someone she knew very well. If anyone would've asked, she could easily have told them anything about her. Surely it was so.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
I'm taking you out of the equation.
I'm taking you out of… what is her name?
Her name? The girl's name? Oh, that was it! She needed a name! But what could it be? She didn't recall hearing it, not even once. As she stared at her face, her pretty green eyes, her entire being, nothing came to her mind. But that was no good. She needed a name, she needed it quick. So Tamao thought quickly, scanned her blurry mind for a name. It needed to be a good name, a name the girl could be proud of. Something that'd be as strong as she was.
What is her name?
In despair, Tamao chose the first name that came to her mind. It was a good name, so she wasn't worried.
What is her name?
" Satsuki!" gasped Tamao, realizing that talking felt hard in this dream. But all was good, since she had managed to say a name. Even though it wasn't actually the name of this girl, it'd be fine. It was a good name. Tamao wondered whom it actually belonged to. Someone she knew…? She couldn't quite remember. The dream didn't want her to.
Satsuki? Is that her name?
" Yes", sighed Tamao. It was the girl's name. It felt right. She saw it now; the dream wanted her to.
Then, what is your name?
The question threw her completely off. She had absolutely no idea how to answer that. What was she supposed to say? Her head felt empty… But she couldn't just ignore it. The dream wanted her to answer. Answer quickly, and answer right.
" Err… Satsuki?" she asked, unsure. Right now, it was the only name she could think of.
However, in the instant it came out of her mouth, it felt good. It felt right. It was a strong name, so… Maybe she'd be strong too. Yes. She felt good. The dream seemed to want her to; it felt like it was smiling at her approvingly.
Yes, that's good. Now, I'll take you out of the equation.