Chapter Thirteen
Home Comforts
"Bzz… bzz… bzz…"
"Mm…" Ivy moaned.
"Bzz… bzz… bzz…"
"Mmm…" she swatted weakly at the faint tickle of something at her nose.
"Bzz… bzz… bzz…"
"Mmm!" Ivy murmured indignantly as the tickling suddenly intensified.
"Bzz… bzz… bzz…"
The slow, rhythmic, yet soft buzzing was slowly permeating her hazy consciousness, but still she tried to ignore it. The lure of sleep was so powerful, and the warm comfort she was enveloped her was simply too pleasant for her to focus on anything else. Despite this, she could feel a peculiar presence in her arms and conscious of an odd breeze wafting over her face. But yet, she ignored it, kept her eyes tightly shut and embraced sleep once again.
"Ivy…"
The voice was far away and so soft and muffled that she barely even heard it.
"Ivy…" the voice came again, this time louder and sharper, punctuating her sleepy state like a bullet. Her body jerked as the voice came once more and her eyes began fluttering of their own accord. She began protesting vaguely and buried her head into the pillow.
"Ivy! Wake up."
"No…" she mumbled.
"Ivy, I seriously suggest waking up."
She felt a tugging on the blankets. Her bare feet were suddenly exposed to bitterly cold air and she squealed, begging her assailant to leave her alone.
A sigh of exasperation sounded above her. "Ivy, you lazy arse. Get up! Or else—!"
It was at that point that Ivy lost her temper. Angered by the constant invasion of her sleep, she suddenly yanked hard on the covers to grab them back, displaying strength that neither she, nor Jack, would have attributed to her. However, in the process of this, her elbow suddenly collided with something soft. No sooner had she made contact with it, an angry, rapid, high-pitched buzzing suddenly sounded in her ear, coupled with a sudden vibration that seemed to shake the whole bed. At last, Ivy jerked fully awake, her eyes wide and the first thing she saw was a vibrant yellow and black striped pattern.
She screamed.
"Beeeeeedrill!"
With a flurry of blankets the black and yellow striped thing suddenly lifted out and flew into the air, buzzing irately. Ivy screamed, threw herself back in sheer panic and backed off until she hit the wall and could go no further. Thrown off balance by Ivy's sudden movements, Jack accidentally fell forwards and sprawled out onto the mess of blankets, while whatever it was flew manically around the room! From nearby, underneath the pile of blankets, and almost squashed by Jack, Toni screeched and cawed, her claws scrabbling uselessly against the tough fabrics. Juliet, who had been curled up at the edge of the bed, squeaked in terror, threw herself off the bed and dived underneath, trembling.
As the commotion from the tiny Pokemon Centre room reached frantic levels, no-one idly passing by the room could fail to hear it. Ivy screamed relentlessly as the buzzing didn't cease, the shrill and high pitched shrieks only serving to anger the irate Beedrill more, while Jack, caught up in the tendrils of the blankets attempted to both free himself and calm Ivy down, but in trying to do both, ended up doing neither. Thankfully, the commotion reached the ears of a friendly ally walking by the room.
But as the door swung open, banging off the opposite wall violently, Ivy screamed even more from the sudden noise, her whole body simply fuelled by panic and her brain unable to even process the tiniest of details. Not even Sebastian's familiar voice would calm her down.
"What on earth is going on in here?"
He stopped in his tracks when he saw a giant, angry Beedrill buzzing around the light fitting, its massive stingers raised.
"A Beedrill?" He gasped. "How did that get in here?"
"I think its Ivy's!" Jack cried, suddenly finally managing to disentangle himself from the blankets he was wrapped up in. He stood up, but thought better of it when the Beedrill suddenly lunged for him. He had to dive forward onto his own bed to avoid it, and the angry Beedrill collided straight with the wall, only centimetres away from Ivy. Ivy screamed and threw herself away from the Beedrill, almost tumbling off the bed in the process.
The Beedrill was dazed for only a few moments before it took fright again, returning to buzzing around the entire room. Sebastian had the inkling it was looking for a way to escape the tiny room and he closed the door firmly shut behind him. He remembered what Jack had said, and looked at him in shock. "You think that's Ivy's Beedrill?"
"How is it mine?" Ivy screeched in indignation, hiding behind a fistful of blankets "I had a Kakuna when I went to bed last night!"
"Well it was in your bed when I woke up this morning!" Jack yelled back as the frightened Beedrill began ricocheting off the walls. He winced with every thud that sounded out. It was like the Pokemon was trying to bust straight through the walls!
"In my bed?" Ivy yelped, looking horrified.
"Ohh…" Sebastian said slowly, finally understanding. "He must have evolved during the night, then," he stated, nodding his head. "Well done, Ivy. You finally had it evolve. Though I don't understand how you could've slept through it evolving…" he added with a short chuckle.
But Ivy wasn't interested as to how the Beedrill had come to be in her room, or how she had apparently slept through it changing. The only thing she cared about was getting it sedate and calm, preferably avoiding being stung to death in the process. As the Beedrill flew past her, missing her by what felt like only a few inches, she shrieked again. "How am I gonna calm it down?" she cried to Sebastian. "Why is it so angry?"
"Probably just shock," Sebastian said, ducking his head calmly to avoid the Beedrill as it shot past him. "How would you feel if you went to bed one way and then you woke up and you had taken on a completely different appearance? Try talking to him, you might be able to calm it down."
"It'll attack me!" Ivy screeched as it flew past her again, buzzing madly, stingers raised.
Sebastian had to admit that the Beedrill looked frightening, but for the sake of everyone in the room, including that poor Beedrill, he needed to get Ivy to step up and take responsibility. "He won't attack you," he told Ivy firmly. "You tell him to stop, he'll stop."
"Do it, Ivy." Jack urged.
Ivy let out a vague squeak of protest, but all the same leaned forward and looked up at her panicked Beedrill. "Kak—" she stopped, cursing. "Maybe a nickname would have been better after all," she remarked darkly to herself, before trying again. "B-Beedrill! Stop that!"
But her pleas fell on deaf ears and the Pokemon still continued to rampage around the room. Ivy glanced helplessly at Sebastian.
"Try again!" he told her.
"It won't work!" she wheedled, but a firm look from Sebastian made her obey, albeit a little reluctantly. "B…Be…Beedrill! Ca…Calm down, okay?" she begged of her Pokemon. "It's okay! Just calm down."
But her Beedrill simply wouldn't calm down. It twitched angrily, hearing her voice and then suddenly lunged for her! She screamed and ducked, the Beedrill slamming straight into the wall where her head would have been only a few seconds ago. Completely dazed and almost unconscious, it dropped to the bed, buzzing weakly. Ivy flew off the bed and dived onto Jack's, scrambling to get behind him as protection, trembling.
"Sebastian, what do I do?" she cried, looking close to hysterical tears as her Beedrill struggled to get airborne again, droning weakly.
Sebastian winced. That Beedrill was unusually aggressive, even for just having evolved unexpectedly. It was totally panicked and fraught, and Ivy wasn't faring much better. There wasn't much of a chance of her calming it her down when she herself was the farthest thing from calm you could get. He sighed, knowing that Pokemon had to be stopped immediately before it seriously hurt someone. "You'll have to recall it."
Ivy didn't need telling twice. She lunged for the Beedrill's Pokeball and grabbed it, before it almost slipped from her grasp. She was shaking so much that it took her a few attempts to get her aim right. She eventually caught the Pokemon in the red beam, and no sooner had the buzzing ceased and the red light disappeared, she slumped backwards, exhausted and let out a shaky sigh. Even Jack heaved a sigh of relief.
Sebastian on the other hand, was smiling. "Well that was an interesting wake-up call, wasn't it?"
Ivy let out a nervous laugh. There was nothing else she could do anymore. She turned to look at Sebastian, whom she was shocked to see smiling at her pleasantly that she couldn't say anything. However, the smile was so genuine and contagious that Ivy couldn't help a smile from tugging at her lips. She then began laughing, Sebastian too chuckling merrily as Ivy's laugh rang out. The only one who didn't laugh was Jack, who was sitting on the bed, dumbfounded and open-mouthed.
"They're laughing." He said flatly. "We almost just got mauled by an angry Beedrill and they're just sitting there laughing to themselves. Unbelievable."
He then caught sight of a tiny face emerging from under the bed. Ivy's Nidoran, Juliet, looked positively terrified as she poked her little face out, daring to expose no more than her nose and eyes, it seemed. Jack smiled at the little Pokemon.
"Eh, Juliet? It's unbelievable, isn't it?" he said to the little Nidoran.
But no sooner had Jack spoken to the little Nidoran, it shrieked and scurried under the bed again, making Jack's eye twitch in annoyance. "Really…?" he said in exasperation, before sighing and glancing back at Sebastian and Ivy still roaring with laughter. "Unbelievable." He reiterated firmly, before reluctantly dragging himself off the bed.
Sebastian left soon after that, still laughing weakly and shaking his head, leaving Jack and Ivy alone to get dressed. As she got ready, Ivy's mind ticked over the morning's strange events.
"Kakuna's evolved…" she thought in wonder as she dressed. "My Pokemon's evolved. Into its final evolution. Wow… after just two weeks, I have a Pokemon that's in its final evolution. That's pretty incredible."
She still couldn't help but worry however as she went down for breakfast. Her Beedrill had been so frightened and it had seemed so powerful, almost like it wouldn't even hesitate to attack her, his own trainer. She just hoped that behaviour was simply attributed to the shock from the evolution and that it wouldn't continue to be an issue. She was still however a little too scared to release the Beedrill to find out however, and told herself it was a good idea to leave it to calm down first before she attempted anything like that.
As they arrived down to breakfast, they discovered that news had spread that Ivy's Kakuna had evolved. Michaela in particular found the story of how they had discovered that news particularly amusing and laughed so hard she choked on her toast. Robert smiled secretly to himself, also privately finding Sebastian's recount of the morning's event also hilarious, but didn't dare to say so. Ivy was embarrassed to say the very least, hiding her face behind the plate of fresh fruit she was eating.
As the others laughed at her expense, she found herself zoning out, the conversation around her gradually fading away and eventually muting. She was thinking about the Beedrill again, particularly her slip-up at almost calling it 'Kakuna' again. Toni the Pidgey and Juliet the Nidoran both had nicknames, so it only seemed right and decent that the Beedrill also have one. She thought about it for some time, before an idea suddenly occurred to her and a big grin spread across her face.
"Scorpio." She announced, banging her spoon off the table for added effect.
With just that one word, she silenced the entire of the conversation that had been taking place and everyone turned to gawp at her. Jack in particular choked over the mouthful of cereal he had just put to his mouth.
"What?" he asked slowly.
"Scorpio." Ivy said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"No…" Jack said warily. "I'm pretty sure I'm a Virgo."
"Huh?" Ivy's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.
Sebastian grinned, catching on immediately. "I'm a Scorpio!" he chipped in enthusiastically.
"Oh! Star signs!" Ivy grinned, finally getting it and now completely distracted from her original thought. "Actually, now that I think about it… I was almost a Scorpio. I'm actually a Sagittarius."
"Robert's a Taurus." Sebastian said with a snort, elbowing his cousin in the gut, making the elder Rhodes cousin swear and drop the piece of toast he had just picked up. "Kind of fitting, huh?"
"Oh yeah!" Ivy giggled. "A Taurus! I can see that!"
"Shut up," Robert remarked, rescuing the piece of toast from the floor which had, of course, landed butter side down.
"I'm a Pisces," Michaela intercepted, but it quickly became evident nobody was listening to her. She sighed. "Not that anyone cares…" she added darkly, shooting glares in Sebastian and Ivy's direction as their conversation became animated.
As the two of them wittered on blithely about star signs, lucky numbers, ruling planets and personality traits, Robert was just staring, oddly perplexed at the topic of conversation, clutching onto new piece of toast that had only been half buttered. Michaela looked like she wanted to bang the younger Rhodes cousin and her older sister's heads together and Jack looked like he'd just been hit with a brick.
"Ivy!" he finally managed to time a break in the eager conversation to interrupt. "What about Scorpio?"
"Huh? Oh! Yeah!" She said, as she remembered, banging the table with her spoon to add emphasis, almost making the milk jug bounce off the table alongside the gesture. "Scorpio! What do you think of that as a nickname for Beedrill?"
Four blank faces looked back at her.
"Scorpio… for a Beedrill…?" Jack said slowly, glancing at Sebastian as if willing the other young man to confirm what he had just heard as correct. "Call me Old Mr Unobservant, but I don't really see the link…"
"Well, Scorpio is like scorpion, right? And scorpions have stingers, same as bees and wasps do, right?"
"Right…?" Jack said warily.
"So, there's your link!"
Jack blinked. "That's it?"
"What more do you want?"
"How about a nickname that actually makes sense?" Michaela quipped.
There was a silence as everyone looked at Michaela.
"I like her," Robert suddenly said decisively, before biting violently into the piece of toast he had almost forgotten about. "I think she must have gotten all the common sense chromosomes in the family, cos you certainly don't have any, Ivy."
"Eh?" Ivy asked, not getting it.
"Oh never mind," he said hotly, looking like he was about ready to bang the table with his first in exasperation.
"Anyway!" Sebastian chipped in as he sensed his older cousin's temper beginning to fray. "So, Scorpio, huh?"
He was fighting to keep a grin off his face at the nickname suggestion, as was Jack, but thankfully Ivy didn't notice this.
"Yeah!" she cried enthusiastically. "Scorpio the Beedrill, Toni the Pidgey and Juliet the Nidoran. I like it!"
"They're certainly… um… unique…" Sebastian agreed, stifling a snort.
"That's one word for it," Michaela and Robert remarked darkly in unison.
Sebastian glared at them, shaking his head, before attempting to rescue the conversation. "Anyway," he said, looking at Ivy. "Didn't you say you wanted to make a move to Pewter today? We're heading for Lavender Town after that Cubone next, right?"
At the mention of Cubone, Robert snorted to himself.
"Oh yeah!" Ivy said brightly. "Back home to Pewter City. It'll be nice getting to travel again. I'll feel like a real Pokemon trainer again!"
"A real Pokemon trainer…?" Jack's brow knitted together as he stared at his friend. "Then what the hell have you been up until now?"
"Oh, you know what I mean!" she flapped, struggling to find a way to explain her logic, which she admitted hadn't been expressed the way she wanted it to. "Travelling and Pokemon trainers are you know… what's that word? Syna- syno—cinna… cinnamon…?" she suddenly asked, looking confused.
"Synonymous." Sebastian and Jack chorused.
"Yeah, that." She nodded. "Synonymous with each other. Real Pokemon trainers travel. You know, to get badges and battle and all that stuff. I don't really feel like a real Pokemon trainer if I'm not on the move…"
Sebastian couldn't argue with her logic and nodded approvingly.
"So yeah!" she surmised cheerfully. "I wanna get going to Pewter today."
"I think we can do that," Sebastian said with a nod. "After breakfast, anyway. If we don't get distracted, we should be there by midday at the latest."
"Alright!" Ivy cheered happily. "I'm excited." she stated needlessly with a beaming grin.
Michaela rolled her eyes and Jack simply sighed, but neither of them said anything. Robert however was a totally different matter, muttering darkly to himself under his breath.
"How we let ourselves be ordered about by that ball of ditz, I'll never know…" he said with a hearty sigh, finding himself wishing, and not for the first time, for a little bit of the quiet life.
Unfortunately, much to Robert's lamentations, he didn't seem destined for the quiet life, as no sooner was breakfast over and they had checked out from the Pokemon Centre, they were on the road to Pewter City. The journey there was mercifully a quiet, untroubled one.
Viridian Forest was traversed in a fraction of the time it normally took and the walk from outside the Forest into the main city, although fairly long, was strangely calm and peaceful, conducted in a comfortable silence.
Ivy found herself particularly keen to be returning to her home city once again, eager to show her parents and two other siblings the progress she had made after only just less than two full weeks as a Pokemon trainer. For Michaela however, the thought of returning home was a far sobering thought, and in all honesty, she found herself dreading it. In the three and a half months since she had been the road, she had barely even spoken to her parents and siblings on the phone, much less seen them, so engrossed she had been in her adventure. She had relished the thought of independence so whole-heartedly that thoughts of her family had just faded away completely. And now, faced with the idea that she would be returning to her family home, she felt quite sick. A strange feeling of guilt arose in her that intensified with every step she took, and she found herself wishing she could weasel out of it somehow. But, of course, she knew she couldn't. Not without having to explain to Ivy the reasons behind it…
When they reached the stony suburbs of Pewter City, Jack, Sebastian and Robert tactfully excused themselves to go to a Pokemart, revealing they were running low on supplies. Jack in particular was in urgent need, as he explained, somewhat sheepishly, that he had not yet purchased any Pokeballs or medicine of his own. Ivy was shocked at this revelation. It was most unlike her extremely (and somewhat anally) organised best friend to neglect such an important necessity.
The young men left soon after they walked the girls to the McKenzie household, leaving the exuberant Ivy and a nervous Michaela to their own devices. Upon reaching the door, they were surprised to find their family home unlocked, but completely empty of life.
"I wonder where everyone is," Ivy said aloud as she casually strolled into the living room, stopping briefly to grab a can of lemonade from the fridge as she passed.
"Work and school?" Michaela said slowly as she carefully sat her bag down on the floor and gingerly sat at the edge of the sofa. She was feeling inexplicably nervous as she took in the scarily familiar surroundings.
Ivy on the other hand held no such reservations. She threw herself bodily into an armchair, the whole thing sliding back as she flopped into it, snapped open the can of lemonade, gulped from it noisily, and kicked off her shoes, curling her feet under her body.
Michaela watched her. "How can you do that…?"
"Huh?" Ivy said, over the rim of her lemonade can. "Do what?"
"Act so…" Michaela gestured uselessly, unable to express herself properly. "At home, I guess."
Ivy blinked. "Cos it is home."
"Not really." Michaela said with a minute shrug. "Isn't home for you out in Saffron? You live there more than you live here. I mean, even when you're not actually at university, you still stay there to work. I mean, I'm pretty sure this is the first time you've been home in what…? Almost a year?"
"Yeah, that is true…" Ivy admitted, nodding. "But while I may live out in Saffron more than I live here, I still don't think of Saffron as my home home." Ivy clarified. "This is my home."
"I don't feel like Pewter is home anymore," Michaela said gruffly.
"Then where is?" Ivy asked, her eyes wide.
"I don't know." She said with a short shrug. "Out on the road, I guess."
Ivy bit her lip. "Well, you know what they say. Home is where the heart is, after all. Home is never a building or a place. Sometimes it's not even about where your friends and family are. It's where you feel happiest and where you feel most comfortable." She paused for a moment. "I think that's why trainers, and students to an extent, yeah…" she added after a moment's consideration. "… are kinda luckier than most people. They have a place out on their own, their independence, their freedom and they feel at home there. And then they can come home, to their family and feel at home there." She then paused, looking a bit confused. "Sorry, I don't even know what I'm talking about…"
"No, no, no… don't apologise." Michaela said slowly. "I get it. I actually get something you're saying… for once."
"Eh?" Ivy murmured. "Well, thanks… I think. I don't really know what I did, but hey, I'll take it…"
It was at that moment that the front door slammed, shattering the calm moment between the two sisters, sending a violent tremor throughout the house. Ivy and Michaela both jumped as the sound of high heels clicked across the floor, and an impossibly skinny figure with a head of brown curls appeared in the doorway.
"Oh great," the figure said as the bag she was carrying clattered loudly to the ground. "What are you two doing home?"
"'Hi Lily-Mae, it's good to see you too. Yes, it is nice to be home, thank you for asking'." Michaela deadpanned, shooting her eldest sister a glare. "Jeez, whatever happened to manners? I haven't seen you in almost four months!"
"Well whose fault is that?" Lily-Mae replied tetchily. "You're the one that doesn't call or visit. Half the time we don't even know where you are. You worry mum sick sometimes."
"Huh?" Michaela asked, her thin eyebrows furrowing together.
"Sure, she never says it, you know what she's like, but she's always worrying about you." Lily-Mae said stonily. "At least Ivy calls whenever she can. But we always know where she is. We don't always know where you are."
"Uh…" Michaela was looking uncomfortable.
"You know, you should really think more about your family back here." Lily-Mae let out a deep sigh, fixing her eyes firmly on her youngest sister. "You know, it's times like these I almost agree with what the government's saying. I almost agree with raising the age so that you have to be a legal adult to train Pokemon. Kids who do Pokemon training don't realise just how tough it is for the families left behind, always worrying and scared for their children's lives."
"I am not a kid!" Michaela said angrily, and for just a moment, Ivy half expected her younger sister to fly out of the chair and throttle her elder sister. However, Michaela let out a deep sigh and seemed to compose herself. "But I think I understand what you mean… both of you, actually," she added, with a nod in Ivy's direction. She sighed again and leaned back in the couch, finally relaxing. "I think I've something." She announced.
"What?" Ivy and Lily-Mae asked in unison.
"I'm not going back out on the road with you, Ivy." Michaela said with a grin.
Ivy's face fell. "You mean you're going back out on your own again?" she asked dejectedly.
"No, I'm not going out anywhere. I'm staying here."
"You're staying in Pewter?" Ivy said in wonder.
"I'm staying at home."
There was a stunned silence between the three sisters. Michaela was grinning madly in light of her announcement, but Lily-Mae and Ivy were simply shocked. Eventually Lily-Mae seemed to find her voice.
"Great." she said, shaking her head. "I've only just gotten used to a quieter house with the two of you gone and Lewis finally settling down, and now what? I try and be a responsible older sister and somehow end up with even more people under the roof. And now Lewis is gonna be all excitable and mum and dad are going to be flapping…" she let out a deep sigh. "Nice one, Lily-Mae…"
"Oh shut up, Lily-Mae, you've missed me really," Michaela was grinning wickedly.
"Missed you like a hole in the head…"
"Hey!" Michaela recoiled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
As her older and younger sisters began bickering, Ivy tuned them out, letting their argument wash over her. She remained completely zoned out from her sisters until her mother returned from running errands ten minutes later. Hollie McKenzie screamed in delight at seeing her two younger daughters unexpectedly sitting alongside Lily-Mae in the living room. She immediately fell on her youngest daughter whom she hadn't seen in person since she had left almost four months ago, becoming increasingly emotional the longer she held on to the embarrassed fifteen year old.
Ivy didn't stay much longer, just enough to tell her mother about the progress she had made and then excused herself, remembering she had to meet up with the three boys. She said goodbye to her emotional mother, promised to call when they reached Lavender Town, and exchanged short awkward hugs with her two sisters.
She left the house with a peculiar lump forming in her throat, and the threat of tears forming in her eyes.
As she slowly trudged through the grey suburbs of Pewter City, feeling sorry for herself, she ran into Jack and the Rhodes cousins outside the local Pokemon Mart as they emerged, laden with shopping bags. They stopped in surprise at seeing the young woman.
"I didn't expect you to be back so soon," Sebastian was the first one to speak as they locked eyes across the street. "We were going to go eat."
"That's okay…" Ivy said thickly. "I'll come with."
Noticing the best telltale quiver in his best friend's voice, and the absence of Michaela, Jack was quickly able to put two and two together and figure out what had happened. But still, he wanted to hear it from Ivy herself. "So… where's Michaela?" he attempted to say conversationally.
"She…" Ivy hesitated a moment, before forcefully stretching a smile onto her face and trying to inject a little brightness into her voice. "She's not coming. She's decided to stay at home in Pewter for a little while. I think she might be missing home, so she's gonna stay for a bit. Which… which is good!" she added, nodding vigorously.
Jack nodded too. "Yeah. That is good. For Michaela."
"Y…yeah…" Ivy nodded. "S…so! How…how about that food, huh?"
"Uh, we were just gonna go get pizza…" Jack said, looking at Sebastian and Robert helplessly.
"Pizza? Great!" Ivy said enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. "I know this great little pizza place just up the road from us! Come on, I'll take you! Follow me!"
As Ivy turned on her heel and marched up the road in the direction of the small pizzeria in the city centre, she felt tears prick at her eyes. She was exceedingly thankful the three boys were behind her, unable to see her face. Sebastian glanced at the other two young men, sighed, and began to follow Ivy as she rapidly began disappearing up the road. As they moved away, Robert turned to Jack.
"Does she honestly think she's fooling anyone?"
Jack sighed. "Maybe not fooling us, but I think she's trying to fool herself… Despite what she says, or what she'd like to think, I think Ivy really will miss having her sister around… Especially since they seem to be getting along better now."
"Hmph." Robert muttered. He suddenly looked uncomfortable, like he was internally contemplating something difficult he wanted to say. Eventually he spoke, but his voice caught, almost like he regretted his words as he said them and wanted to claw them back. "I guess I know the feeling." He said gruffly. "I've got a younger sister too. But thankfully she's a lot quieter and a lot better behaved than Michaela."
"What? You have a sister? And I thought you said you liked Michaela?"
"According to Sebastian, I don't like anyone." Robert said as if that closed the matter. "And yes, I do. Her name's Sophie. She's… she's only five."
"That's… quite an age difference."
"Half-sister." Robert said bluntly. "Dad remarried seven years ago. His new wife's closer to my age than his…"
"Ah…" Jack nodded. "I know the feeling. My dad remarried too. Course I was only about seven or eight when he did, and she didn't want kids. And I don't really see much of them anymore. Our relationship's not good. Hasn't been since…" he stopped himself, catching what he wanted to say before it came tumbling out. "… well, we just don't get on,"
"Same." Robert said seriously. "The only good thing that ever came out of that marriage for me was Sophie." He suddenly stopped, a mild look of annoyance appearing on his face, as it became clear he had revealed too much. He cleared his throat loudly. "We should catch up to them."
"Yeah…" Jack said, as Robert pushed past him and began following Ivy and Sebastian. "We should."
Their lunch was a subdued affair, even among the cheery and bustling restaurant Ivy had recommended them for dinner, each member of the strange little travelling party lost within their own thoughts as they munched on their respective pizzas. Ivy barely ate half of hers, claiming it was simply too much for her, but the three men knew better. Ivy was an eager eater, sometimes even managing to put away more food than them, despite her delicate, girly appearance. In the end, they decided to divide her leftover pizza among them and didn't pursue the matter.
As they were halfway through the meal, Ivy's phone vibrated with a text from Michaela. She excused herself and slipped away for a moment to read the message in private.
"I'm not staying away forever. So you better let me know as soon as anything interesting happens. Text me when you reach Lavender. Got it? Don't forget."
Ivy couldn't help but smile as she finished reading the message. She was surprised however when, as she made to stow her phone away again, it vibrated with another message, yet again from Michaela.
"And when I see you again, Pokemon battle! Me and you! You're not getting out of it this time. So you better be ready!"
Then, she was further astonished when her phone vibrated with yet another message some ten minutes later, this one from Lily-Mae. Ivy privately felt she had never been as popular with her two sisters than she was today.
"You're on your own from here, sis. Don't cry, now! You don't have your baby sister looking out for you now. Grow a backbone and stand on your own two feet. Just cos Michaela said she's coming back doesn't mean you should slack off. You're not always gonna have people looking out for you."
"What cheery sisters I have…" Ivy thought to herself as she pocketed her phone again and glanced out the window at the afternoon sky. It was a crisp blue sky with barely a blemish or wisp of cloud. It looked so calm and peaceful and it seemed to soothe Ivy's somewhat agitated spirit. "But I guess they're right. The easy bit is over now. I have the start of a team. But that's not enough. Now it's my job to train them up right so they'll be strong enough to evolve and help me catch the others." She looked across at the three young men, noisily chomping down on their various pizzas, and then down at her own that had barely even been touched.
"It's time to start taking this thing seriously. And taking it seriously means getting to Lavender Town as soon as possible and getting that Cubone."
She let out a slow, steady sigh.
"There's nowhere to hide now."
Author's Note
And here's another chapter!
Unfortunately I don't have much interesting to say, so I'll just take the opportunity to thank all the readers and reviewers, personally, this time :)
Sisno2200, a new reader, thanks so much for reviewing and the awesome compliments on the story!
TristeWilds, I'm pleased you like Juliet, she is kinda sweet and shy and yes, you were right on the money about Ivy waking up clutching a Beedrill :P
I have a dictionary here, I have no idea what it's like to hug a bee, considering I'm that scared of them! If I'd been in Ivy's position, I'd have died on the spot :P
MasterFreezeman, I always love getting your reviews in particular cos you're so thorough and comment on everything. Thank you, love *hugs*
MidsummerMoonlight99, another new reviewer! I am pleased to say there will be a little mini sub-plot kind of thing that I'll be introducing in later chapters just to inject a little more fun into it :)
YoungDarkPegasus, well, Kakuna evolved and he got a nickname so that should make you doubly happy :D Thanks for the review!
Noshadowone, yay for another new reviewer! Thanks for the suggestion on the update, but I had my heart set on the nickname Scorpio just because it seems to suit both the Beedrill and Ivy's thought process!
Well, that's it for this chapter! Until next time!
