Author's Note:
Hi everyone! Thanks for reading my story! I made a big change to the whole thing, changing the villain's name - now Malira/Mallie, if you were confused - and adding a whole prologue-ish section to Chapter 1. I suggest you go back and read that part, since it's kind of important. :) Also, I added a bit more to the part when Charmander is in the bubble all alone thinking about his family. Oh, AND, obviously, the title! Other than that, and some small edits, the rest of the story is pretty much the same. Here goes:
Chapter Five: An Explanation
"Ahem." Ekans cleared his throat and gave his head a quick shake as if flicking off invisible fleas, readying himself to speak. "Charmander, do you know where you are right now?"
Charmander furrowed his brow and shook his head. He wondered diffidently if he should feel stupid for not knowing the answers to any of the questions the others directed at him. He decided it didn't matter, since he did anyway.
"This is called a Pokeball," the snake Pokemon explained. "This is what humans use to capture Pokemon. None of us know how a Pokeball works…it seems to change our corporeal forms into massless energy, and pull us into these tiny spheres that humans carry around all day. Once we are inside, we enter this realm and somehow fit as bodily beings again, held inside these bubbles which in the real world are actually pocket-size. But somehow, they can hold us inside them…" Ekans blinked, and his yellow eyes carried a faraway look. "Really, these humans are incredible, with how they have become capable of harnessing the secrets of the world. There must be something about us Pokemon…something that makes it physically possible for them to do this." Charmander heard a hint of true wonder in his voice; Ekans respected these humans and their intelligence.
But wait…really? he marveled, gawking down at his own hands and attempting to imagine them as fluid, nonphysical pieces of mere energy. I'm inside a tiny little handheld ball right now? Am—am I real, or not? How is this possible?
"So that's what's happening to you right now, if you were confused," Chikorita piped up. "And really, we should be happy. Life with humans is a good life. They care for us—the good trainers do, anyway—as they would a good friend; we are taken great care of. And even better…they teach us to be greater than we ever would have been…infusing us with some of their own abilities intrinsic to the nature of humanity itself…their wisdom, their strength, and—and their ideas, their caring and love for others. We learn to be better Pokemon under their care and guidance. And we develop a bond, an unbreakable bond of friendship and happiness. It's truly remarkable."
Charmander listened, nodding all the while as the others explained to him the life he had never known. A twinge of unease still fidgeted in his heart as mixed emotions tumbled together in an unfathomable pool gathering at the bottom of his chest. What they said sounded so happy, so fortunate…and yet the way they carried themselves, the way they looked, even the way they spoke…it hinted at a giant "however" lingering in the distance. He forced down all his hopes at becoming greater, stronger, perhaps evolving…
It took Charmander a moment to realize that all of the others were looking expectantly at Jigglypuff. The small pink Pokemon nodded, her round body bouncing with the motion, and hopped to her feet in her bubble. It seemed she had the next line in the story.
She took a breath and began. "But you, I was this—this girl's first Pokemon," she declared, forcing the words out with some difficulty. "She captured me because she loved my special ability. My voice. You know that it is every Jigglypuff's pride and joy—it's our life." Her huge eyes shone with emotion, reflecting the tendrils of mist outside. "I was scared at first, as every Pokemon is, but I soon came to be excited for the life I now had ahead of me.
"The girl pampered me for the longest while. I thought she was the kindest trainer any Pokemon could ever have. She spoiled me, really. Gave me the best food, the fluffiest places to sleep, the best toys and care, even let me roam outside my Pokeball for almost all the time. You know we Jigglypuffs love to be indulged that way." Jigglypuff smiled and winked.
"But the best part is," she went on, "she would always listen to my song, however much I wanted to sing it. She would even bring her friends in—well, her 'friends,' they were always human boys that she lay on the bed with and…I don't know, hung around with while they listened. In fact, she listened to me so much that even when she fell asleep, I wouldn't draw on her face with my marker. She was so kind to me, it didn't feel right to do that, and I understood that she truly cared and never wanted to fall asleep while I sang. Or so I thought. And…well…that was how it began." She hung her head—her body, rather—and her smile flattened into a dull grimace. "I became weak. All the attention had gone to my head, and I stopped thinking I had to practice anything, any kind of attacks or even my singing. And then it wasn't enough for her.
"She had picked up much singing from me, but she thought it all came from herself. She laughed at me when I sang, then, and then even snatched my microphone from my hands and in her arrogance tried to teach me how to sing." Jigglypuff's body began to swell as her mouth twisted into a scowl, her anger mounting. "Jigglypuffs do not need, and should not, to be taught how to sing. We are born with the ability, and it is purely natural. But she believed she was well beyond my level. And then…" She sighed, and her body seemed to deflate like a balloon pricked with a sharp pin. "Her twisted teachings so wrecked my abilities that I could not sing anymore. Not the right way, at least. It stopped working." Her voice shook. The small pink Pokemon looked as if she were about to cry. Jigglypuff took a deep breath and tried to steady her trembling body. Charmander gazed at her with sympathy, his nose nearly pressed against the wall of the bubble in rapt attention; the others nodded their encouragement for her to continue.
Jigglypuff inhaled again, and her sweet voice calmed, but when she spoke again in a dark, low mutter, it was laced with scathing bitterness. "And then, of course, she had no further need for me. She took away my special treatment with no warning, and began to scream at me and throw me around whenever I made noise, even the slightest whisper that would interrupt her…sessions…with those boys. I don't know what they were doing. I don't understand humans." She shrugged and waved her tiny arm. "But finally, one day, she locked me inside my Pokeball. I was the only Pokemon back then…I had no one here with me." She gazed down at the floor of her bubble in dejection. "I know that most Pokemon spend their time in Pokeballs…but…the relationship between a human and her Pokemon is built on a special bond, and above that…love and caring. I thought she loved me. And though I knew she never would again, I couldn't leave—that special bond still holds my loyalty no matter what. I cannot leave; she captured me, and I am bound to her. A—a Pokemon can leave, but there needs to be some kind of special impulse for them to do so. Something that cuts through to the purpose, straight to their spirit. And sadly, she has not given me that.
"And so, nowadays," Jigglypuff concluded, "she lets me out to battle sometimes. But I am not nearly as strong as—as I once was…and I have lost my life force. A Jigglypuff with a broken voice? I am nothing." Her mouth trembled.
Charmander gulped. The story sounded horrible enough…but there was something he didn't understand. His heart churned with sympathy. "I'm so sorry…" he told her softly, "but…how—how did your singing work on me, then? I fell asleep…"
Jigglypuff fixed her brimming turquoise eyes on him, burning with a faint accusation. "I can still often make Pokemon fall asleep—especially someone like you, who has never been exposed to such an attack—but you should know that that isn't why we Jigglypuffs sing." Her brow furrowed indignantly. "We sing because that is what brings joy to our hearts. Our gift, the gift Arceus granted us, is the gift of our voice, and it fulfills our dreams and purposes if we can use it well. A Jigglypuff naturally has its own unique voice, and to sing with it to its full potential—and to have others hear it—is what we were made for, is what leaves our mark on the world. I can no longer sing the way I was naturally gifted to. When I sing, I hear falsehood and twisted treachery in my voice…the voice of her, as she instilled it in me. Though I can't help but to feel joy when I sing, when I hear my own voice, it is a swift reminder of what I have suffered under her. It's as if I carry it inside me." She inclined her head to Charmander. "I don't know if you can understand it, Charmander…but it would be as if in your ember, the heart of your life…you saw buried in it, as what consumes and drives it, the reminder of what you hate the most and all your suffering."
What I hate the most… Charmander wracked his brains. Water, he decided instantly. I hate water. It was the opposite of his soul. If his flame were to be drenched, infused by water…? Well…I would die, he reasoned. Two forces that were the opposite—one that destroyed the other, simply by nature—entwined together into one? It was bizarre to imagine. He shivered mentally at the notion. It would be unbearable.
But…loneliness, Charmander admitted to himself on second thought, I also hate loneliness. When he was alone, he felt desperate, lost, plain frightened, and he could practically sense his fire shrinking and cowering in despair somewhere in his belly. He remembered the feeling all too well, when he had realized that fateful day that his siblings were nowhere to be found, that for a moment, he was facing the world alone. Charmanders always hunted together in the wild, Charmeleons did not. Perhaps he would outgrow it.
Or…or I have Squirtle, he thought wryly. He mulled the thought over in his head for a few moments, and then returned his focus to the situation at hand. For, he understood, Jigglypuff had had no one.
He hung his head and nodded. "That would be awful," he agreed solemnly. "I'm sorry, Jigglypuff." In addition to the deep sorrow he felt for her, his knowledge of her story had ignited a new burning curiosity as he longed to learn more. More, so he could understand the life he was obliged, bound, to have. "How did the rest of you end up here?"
"We all had similar experiences," Chikorita answered. "Jigglypuff was her first, though. She used her to capture the rest of us—there was Ekans, then me, and then Pichu. She seemed to be going after many different types of Pokemon. But…"
The leaf Pokemon suddenly looked uneasy, the buds on her neck bristling. She turned to glance around the circle, and Charmander saw that the rest of the Pokemon shared her air of disquiet, their eyes glistening and posing a difficult question into the darkness. There was something they didn't want to tell him, he realized. Small flames of apprehension leaped up inside him.
"What?" he asked, grasping his tail in his hands. The ever-present flame soothed his anxiety, as it always did. "What is it?"
Chikorita tossed her leaf back. "Well…we don't know," she admitted hesitantly. "That's the thing…we really…don't…know…"
"Oh, come on, guys, I'll tell him!" Charmander flinched at the unexpected squeak, as did the others, turning over their shoulders to stare at the baby electric mouse who had barely spoken until this moment. Pichu beamed at them and danced impatiently in her bubble. She rolled her eyes. "Seriously! I don't see why we shouldn't tell him…he deserves to know why he might be here!"
"Peach…" Chikorita cautioned in a motherly tone.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, 'we don't know for sure and there's no point in scaring him,'" Pichu mimicked in a hoity-toity voice that roused an involuntary bark of laughter from Charmander. "But when she first caught me, hey, I know I sure wanted to know. And Charmander does too! He has a right to! Come on, Charmander, you must be scared!" Her big dark eyes twinkled as she gestured enthusiastically in his direction. Charmander opened and closed his mouth like a Magikarp, realizing he had no idea how to respond. "It's so much worse to be scared because you don't know what in Arceus's name is going on, than because you do."
"Pichu!" Chikorita admonished, shocked. "Don't use that language!"
"You can't really blame her, Chikorita," Ekans rasped, amused, "she spends far too much time listening to us talk."
Chikorita shot him a quick glare, and then turned back to her young charge. "Pichu, I don't know if you understand wholly what's going on," she chided in a calm, reasonable tone. "Maybe you should stay out of this…"
"Hey! Just because I'm younger—" Pichu protested angrily. "I know just as much as you do! We've been through the same things! I'm not any less capable of understanding than you are! In fact, you just watch, I'll probably evolve into a Pikachu soon." She stuck out her tongue and crossed her tiny yellow arms. "And then you'll have to take me seriously!"
Um…I have a feeling I shouldn't intervene in this, thought Charmander, curling himself up in his ball and watching the argument passively. His bubble sank down an inch as he leaned against the wall.
"She's right, you know," offered Jigglypuff. "We don't know any more than she does. And she's just as mature, considering we've all experienced the same things…"
Chikorita glowered at each of them and raised herself in a protective stance, her feet spread apart, shoulders forward, inhaling deeply. If she had hair, Charmander mused, he was sure it would be standing on end. Finally, the leaf Pokemon let out her breath in a hushed sigh as her body relaxed. She turned away, defeated. "Fine. Fine. Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I guess I'm just too protective of you, Pichu. It's just—now that we've all been taken away and—and we're all together here—we're like family. Pichu, you're so little, and you don't have your Raichu brothers to take care of you anymore…and…and…" Chikorita's voice quivered as she fought to maintain control of herself.
"It's okay," Pichu reassured her firmly. "I'll be all right. I'm not that little; I can take care of myself, you know, 'Rita."
Chikorita gazed at her for a moment, her eyes swimming, and nodded. "All right, then, Peach. I'm sorry…I guess I was overwhelmed by…by everything…since we were captured…but you go on, Pichu. You tell him."
Charmander swallowed awkwardly as they redirected their attention toward him. His mind was racing with the dispute he had just witnessed. Was he…was he going to become part of this—this makeshift family now, too? He knew the answer before his mind even finished the question, and it hit him with an array of mixed emotions. He was one of them, now…and he would be forever, unless his trainer ever let him go, and from what he had heard, that possibility seemed unlikely. No, he couldn't leave—for Pokemon weren't meant to abandon their trainers. He felt the irresistible pull already to the Pokeball, to the others, to the great black space around him. To his trainer, who for now was nothing but a mysterious idea in his mind. He felt its presence nevertheless, like a spirit stranded somewhere out in the darkness.
I am one of you now… The statement drenched him and seeped through his skin, reminding him powerfully of the water that had almost drowned him so long ago. Yes, it seemed like so, so long ago, so far away…and in a way, Charmander realized with a wave of shock, he was a newborn. A brand new Charmander, just hatched from his egg. He had a different life now. This was its beginning. That memory belonged to his other, former, life, never to return again. His home in the forest, a unusual home for the usual mountain-dwelling Charmanders, was gone. And so…so was Squirtle.
Don't! Don't give up hope! his mind screamed at him. He scrutinized the other four Pokemon once again, his eyes darting from the Chikorita, to the Pichu, to the Jigglypuff, to the Ekans. He liked them, yes, but he had only just met them. They were as good as strangers. And now…now they were his family?
But…but Squirtle is my family… Charmander had the strange desire to laugh at the irony as he realized that even Squirtle wasn't his real family. His parents, though he knew he could find them anytime in the cave where they still dwelled, weren't expecting him back anytime soon. He hadn't seen them in a long while. And he could only clench his fists and grit his teeth and hope, hope fervently with all his heart, that he would someday see his siblings again.
I know I will, he told himself fiercely. I can't give up.
Yet his thoughts still mostly lingered on Squirtle. He had to say goodbye to Squirtle? Was Squirtle looking for him? He must have noticed, by now, that his fiery friend hadn't followed him back from the clearing where they had met with the Ekans. Did Squirtle care enough to look for him? He knew the answer instinctively. Yes, he does. But was there any way that he could ever find him?
Stop it, he commanded himself sharply. He had to stop wondering about such things, questions that filled him with the reminder of his despair and would eventually suffocate him into hopelessness. He had friendly Pokemon around, and it would have to suffice for the time being. You're here now. You need to deal with it. Perhaps…perhaps these Pokemon are your family, for now. But it doesn't mean you have to forget about Squirtle, or your real family. You'll always remember Squirtle, won't you? And he…will always remember you.
"Hello? Charmander, are you even listening?" Pichu bounced her bubble so close to his that the two round, glistening surfaces almost collided. He dragged himself out of the deep pit of his thoughts and forced himself to absorb her words. The others were staring at him strangely. She must have told me her entire story already, he speculated, embarrassed. And he hadn't heard a single word.
"S-sorry," he stammered. "I was thinking…"
Chikorita grimaced with sympathy. "You must be homesick…right?"
"I…well…yeah," Charmander admitted. "This is all kind of new to me. I don't know what to expect."
"Well, if you'd listened to me, you might know by now," sighed Pichu, exasperated. "Anyway. As I was saying, starting from the beginning again, but don't expect it to be very flowery and eloquent this time over." She took a deep breath. "The human girl tried to capture all sorts of different types of Pokemon, which is very common with trainers, since it's good to have many strengths in battle. But during the time that we were let out of our Pokeballs…we started discovering strange things.
"She tried to hide it from us, keeping us blindfolded and only letting us out at very certain times and such, but Jigglypuff saw by accident once when she was outside that she was in some kind of—something that looked like a weird metal room with all kinds of odd devices in it. They looked…mechanical and, well, what's that word…" Pichu squinted. "Tecky-lonical."
"Technological," Jigglypuff corrected. She sighed. "And I sure got punished once she realized I had seen that. But it almost looked like…a lab of some sort. She really didn't want me to see it."
"Right," Pichu agreed. "A lab. It must have been important. But that's not all. One day, Ekans's Pokeball wasn't all the way shut or something…I think he got his tail lodged in the opening."
"And you bet it hurt." The snake Pokemon winked.
"It wasn't closed, so Ekans could see a crack of the outside world, and more importantly…he could hear. He heard her talking to someone else—we don't know who—and she was talking about…about you, Charmander."
"Me?"Charmander was stunned speechless. All the while, he had assumed that the girl was an ordinary trainer with a mean streak, who simply wanted to collect Pokemon to use in battles. But…she had planned his capture? It didn't make sense to him. The way they had encountered each other in the forest—no matter how he pondered it, it seemed like a perfectly random meeting to him. He had barged into the scene to rescue Squirtle, after all….she hadn't even found him. What could this girl possibly want with a wild Charmander like him?
"Yes, you. Well, a Charmander…and not any Charmander, but a special one. We don't get it, either." Pichu shook her head. "She said…she said you were really important, and if Ekans remembers right, something about needing your fire. She said you were the last piece to use to complete some plan. The most powerful." Pichu shrugged. "And then, a few days later, you showed up here. A Charmander, just like she wanted."
Charmander's mind reeled. He suddenly felt vulnerable, exposed, as if the eyes of the world were undressing him, peeling away his outer bodily shell to violate him, appraising him with their harsh judgments. They were asking, in his mind's eye, whether or not he could take on some unknown, impossible task.
But I…I'm just a Charmander, he argued lamely with the shadowy, imaginary onlookers. I'm not even evolved. I know so many Pokemon who are much stronger than me…I bet all of these guys are! They've been trained, and I never have. I have plenty of weaknesses. So why, by Arceus, why me?
His eyes must have implored the four other Pokemon in his desperation, for they shrugged and channeled their sympathy to him through their pure, shining eyes as if they understood. So much, he reflected, could be communicated through a Pokemon's gaze. For a moment, he felt a strong love, a strong bond and connection to all creatures of his kind—not Charmanders, but Pokemon as a whole. We are all one, he marveled, admiring the beauty of the world. And then his epiphany was followed by a second revelation. If there are humans as bad as this one, this girl…there must be the trainers out there who bring up good Pokemon, the people who take care of them, the nurses who breed them…there must be good humans, too…
The ideas dissipated like a fog into the darkness as Chikorita nodded grimly, though the sense of amazement remained with him. Charmander felt as if he had learned something beyond words and expressions just then, something he could not explain. And so, because he could not form his own, he sat back and listened intently to the leaf Pokemon's words.
"So we think…we think there's more to this human than just plain cruelty…" she declared. "We think she's planning something. Something powerful, and perhaps, knowing her—terribly destructive."
Charmander met her crimson eyes with his own shocked blue ones. One question out of thousands, one insignificant, trivial, yet persistent question, lingered in his mind. Humans had their own unique names, he knew. He had to know what to call this one.
"What's this girl's name?" he inquired.
"Mallie, short for Malira," said Jigglypuff. "Her name is Mallie."