Hello everyone, here's part 8! I got a bit taken away by the time thingy... I was writing it and before I knew it I was two pages further than I thought. After reviewing it I thought it might be funny to leave it in. Anyway, enjoy part 8. Not alot of action, but I promise the next parts will have more stuff happening.
BloodyStarGeneral: Get well soon!
Pichufan: Thanks for beta-reading!
If you got any comments, requests, or additions you think fit perfectly, do not hesitate to PM me! I like to hear the opinion of others about pika-related stuff. :P
Alright, enough chat! Let's get part 8 started. Enjoy!
While we moved towards the center of the open field the pikachu lived in, I was wondering something. Although I loved that I was accepted to this colony so quickly, and the fact that everyone seemed to like me (I know I was good at handling pokémon, but I never expected THIS to happen) they were still wild pokémon. Weren't they scared of me? Scared I would hurt them or catch them inside a pokéball? I had some in my backpack in case of emergencies, but I was hoping I didn't have to use them. Suddenly I heard Espeon's voice inside my head.
"It's because we know you're good hearted." I stopped and looked at Espeon.
"What do you exactly mean by that?" I asked. Lukas looked at me.
"What do I mean by what?" he asked. Espeon chuckled.
"I'm having a telepathic conversation with Maurice. Very interesting to see how he thinks." she chuckled.
"Ah, ok. So he was thinking aloud just now." Lukas said.
"Yup... I was wondering why... Maybe a good question for you." I said. "Why do you like me so much? Don't get me wrong..." I added quickly, "but I only know you for one day and you already are riding my shoulder like you know me forever. I did save you, yes, but aren't you scared at all for humans? For me? That's what bothering me." I said. "I don't dislike it though, yet I have to get used to the fact I'm accepted so quickly. I suspected it would take at least a month or so."
Lukas looked at me. "What's a month?"
"Maybe I should start using child language for Lukas..." I thought. Espeon chuckled loudly.
"A month is 30 days." I said. "You know what 'time' is?"
"Time? I heard of it... I mean..." he stared to nothing in particular. "I don't know really... I know that when I'm hungry it's TIME to eat... And when it's time you're gonna do something... If the sun rises it's time to get up!" he added with a smile.
"Interesting to know how you pikachu think about that... Shall I explain human time? You probably won't understand it, but maybe you will." I said.
"Sounds cool, explain me!" Lukas said.
"Yeah, maybe I'll now understand those numbers I see at human places. I visit the nearby town regularly and every time (Hey! I said time!) I see those numbers... Humans somehow manage to do stuff at certain times of day when those numbers point to the exact same point as yesterday."
"You said times a day." I chuckled. "Alright... Hold on, because this can get complicated."
"To understand time, you need to understand how we determine it. In space you got a solar system." I said pointing at the sun. "The sun is the center of our solar system."
"What's a... Sun? You mean the ball of light?" Lukas asked while looking at my finger. I stopped for a moment.
"You don't know what... Whatever, yes, the ball of light is the sun." I said. "Maybe you should call it sun from now on... That's really basic knowledge! Even for a pikachu!"
"Young pikachu know the word sun, but mostly refer to it by 'ball of light'" Espeon said. "For them that's easier."
"Alright... Hmmm... I'll just continue." I said. "The earth is going around the sun with incredible speed..."
"Earth? What on... earth... is earth...?" Lukas said, knowing that he knew what it was but also didn't.
"This is earth. The planet we're standing on. It's a planet in our solar system (don't ask, that's even more complicated) and it's called earth. Basically a big round ball we live on." I said. Lukas blinked with his eyes a couple of times.
"Alright..." he said slowly.
The earth also turns. You can notice that when you look at the sun. In the morning it comes up there (I pointed to the east) and goes down there (I pointed at the west). If you look carefully, at different TIMES it is on a different spot. It moves."
"The earth takes 365 DAYS to move around the sun. That's what we call a year. In easy words: The time between the start of the winter and the start of the next winter." Lukas looked at me and stared at me.
"So the earth... Moves... Around the sun... But what's a day then? I know a day is like... Today... But what's a day for you?" he asked.
"A day is the time between when the sun comes up one day and comes up the next day. Like it came up today and it will tomorrow. The time between that is one day."
"So when the sun comes up tomorrow, it's the next day?" Lukas said.
"Exactly!" I said. Espeon chuckled. "It sounds incredibly complicated."
"If you don't understand it, it is." I laughed.
"Alright. As I said, the earth takes one year to go around the sun. A year consists of months. A year has twelve months with the days equally spread... Well, not entirely equal, but spread among twelve months. A month has days like this one. We divide days by hours, minutes and seconds. And those hours, minutes and seconds are what you guys see on those numbers..." I said while getting my smartphone out of my pocket.
"Check this out." I said while I chose "time configuration" and the local time appeared on screen. Espeon and Lukas both watched with interest.
"These are milliseconds." I said while pointing at a rapidly changing number. "These are seconds, these are minutes and these are hours. One day has twenty four hours. After twenty three it moves back to zero and then one day has passed.
Lukas looked at the numbers. Espeon did the same. They were totally obsessed by the milliseconds counter which went very quickly as usual.
"And that's about it for human time..." I said... "Those are the basics..."
"So... Time... Has something to do with... Arrg... It's too complicated!" Lukas exclaimed.
"No it's not when you understand it." I said. "But I can understand its complicated for you guys."
"So those human marks are seconds..." Lukas said while looking at my phone again.
"Milliseconds, seconds, minutes and hours." I said while pointing at the screen.
"They look... Fascinating..." Lukas said with a almost hypnotic voice, while looking at the milliseconds again.
"They indeed d..." Espeon said before she was cut off.
"HEY!" Volt shouted. "If you're done talking and watching that human thing, will you finally come with me? I'm waiting for hours!"
"You're not! You're waiting only several months!" Lukas shouted back.
"Ehm Lukas, you mean minutes." Espeon said as I laughed.
"You guys are so funny. I really should explain you more human stuff and see what you make of it. It'll be hilarious." I said while putting away my phone and walking towards Volt.
"You know, you still didn't answer my question, Lukas." I said. "Why do you like me so much?"
"Well, just because... I like you." he said. "I don't really know, but ever since you said you wouldn't hurt me I believed you. When someone is up to something bad, I can feel it, and I felt it before. I once met a smaller human inside another forest clearing. They were eating food so I was curious what they were eating when suddenly a kid ran up to me and almost grabbed me. He also said he wouldn't hurt me but something inside me told me I shouldn't trust him, so I ran away. When I met you the first feeling I got was some kind of... I dunno... Safe feeling... I could sense that you weren't here to do something bad to me... It's just... I don't know... But I like you. You are very interesting and you have nice stuff... Your smell is also nice... I don't know what I like about it, but I like it... I can just feel you are nice."
"Hey, same for me about that scent." Espeon said. "I also like your scent. It's nice, but I don't know why."
"So pokémon can indeed feel or smell if someone is good hearted..." I said.
"Told you." Espeon said chuckling.
We arrived at the "main" entrance of the pikachu nest. It was in some kind of burrow in the ground and the entrance was down so it wouldn't really stand in the clearing. Behind the little hill that led to the entrance, there were lots of pikachu standing, waiting for me.
"You know, this really is like the way humans do this... Introduce someone before an entire departement of people... Maybe we're more alike than we think!" I said while looking at all the pikachu, which all looked back at me.
"Are you serious?" Lukas said. "Some things you just do with your entire colony. Accepting new members, for instance. Everyone has to meet the new member so we all know it isn't someone from another colony or just a random pikachu." he said. "Its just... Something you do with your family." he added.
"Ah, alright then... So that's why I'm meeting you in groups?" I asked.
"Well, I just wanted to show you to my friends...I thought they'd found that cool..." Lukas said slowly while putting his paw behind his head. I smiled.
"Hey, no problem. I liked it. I didn't know your colony existed of so many pikachu... I thought you had less... Do you have any raichu at all?" I asked.
"No, we don't have raichu. The raichu that we had left our colony because they couldn't play boss over us. After they tried to kill our leader, we expelled them."
"Wow... So they wanted to kill him?" I asked.
"Yep. That's why they're gone." Lukas said. We walked up to the clearing and saw a crowd of pikachu.
"So this are all pikachu in this colony...? Wow..."
"Yup!" Lukas said. "This is our colony. I don't see the pichu around though... Probably too early for them to come out. There are some pikachu with the pichu, those are missing. But this is our entire colony!"
"It's huge..." I said. There must be at least sixty pikachu standing around here. A pikachu walked up to me.
"Lukas, come down please and join the colony." he said. "I heard Espeon translates for you?" he asked.
"Yes, please let her stay so I can understand you." I asked.
"Of course" he smiled. "It makes things a lot easier."
He turned around and started speaking to the crowd.
"Everyone, meet... Ehm..." he gasped. "What's your name again...?" he asked me.
"It's Maurice."
"Yeah, Maurice. Thanks. Alright everyone, meet Maurice the human! You don't have to be scared of him, he won't hurt you." he added quickly. The crowd quickly started to talk to each other. I could hear some pikachu at the front.
"Are they kidding?"
"I thought they were joking when they said a human would join us..."
"I wonder if we can trust this guy..."
"He looks nice to me..."
The pikachu that announced me raised his paw and everyone became silent. Apparently he was in charge, but it wasn't the elder that I had met before. Just when it was silent, a pikachu screamed over the crowd.
"Why are we adopting a human?" he shouted. Immediately there was uproar. Multiple pikachu agreed, while others didn't really know what to answer. It was kinda strange to see.
"Did he save Lukas?" one asked. Slowly everyone looked at me and got silent.
"What did he do?"
"Save him? What?"
The pikachu sighed. "Yes, he did save him. If you just let me finish instead of interrupting me all the time, we'll be done soon and you can really meet him." he said, clearly annoyed.
"Maurice has been accepted by our leader because he saved Lukas and because he asked to be accepted. Yes, I know this sounds odd, but Maurice wants to know us better, according to Tommy. He said that he will be doing research over our way of living."
"So he's a researcher?" someone asked.
"Yes, he's a researcher. Don't be scared of him. He smells very nice, actually." he said.
"Tommy is crazy." someone said.
"Who's Tommy?" I asked.
"Tommy is our elder, then one you did meet." the pikachu said. And he continued talking to the colony.
"And while we're here, I would also like to warn everyone that the raichu are roaming around the colony lately. Please be careful. Maurice has also attacked a ekans while he saved Lukas, and I predict they won't be happy about that. Everyone be aware that they could attack us soon as revenge." he said.
"Guardie already took down one ekans today, so I don't expect them to come this day. But I want to warn you again: Be aware!" he said on a dangerous tone. "And that's all, meet Maurice!" he said with a smile.
I didn't really know what to think. About a quarter of the colony seemed happy to see me and wanted to check me out, a half didn't really know what to think, and another quarter wasn't amused. But I hadn't much time to think, a lot of pikachu wanted to meet me. The older pikachu were just as curious as the younger ones. That's one of the things I like what about these species. Pikachu are very social and very caring and above all: very clean. That's why they're popular pets.
I sat down, noticing that the younger pikachu were also present. Some of them still hadn't got enough of me and came for a second inspection. Because they loved me, more and more of the older pikachu got curious and decided to investigate me. It was exactly the same as we humans. They didn't want to stand out of the others so they came up to me anyway. Only a few really refused to see me, and those were mainly males.
A lot of pikachu seemed to like my smell. "He smells nice..." and "Do you smell that?" were things I heard a lot... I must have a really nice smell... Which I cannot smell myself.
What I also discovered was that they mainly wanted to know my scent. The rest didn't really interest them. Only a few really checked me out more than only sniffing me. I already knew that scent was important to pikachu, but as human I didn't really realise that they really knew each other by scent and not face recognition, like we humans do. Yes, of course there's a little of that present in a pikachu mind, but the most important thing is and remains scent. After most of the pikachu had checked on me, Lukas joined me.
"I'm hungry. You want to go find some food?" he asked me.
"Sounds fine to me... When will I meet the pichu? I thought I'd meet them right now." I said.
"Not yet. It's too dangerous for them to come out yet. We wait until the ball of... Ehm... What was it... SUN! until the sun is right there, so they have as much light as possible. That scares away predators and makes them easy to see when they attack.
"Alright then, let's go find some food!" I said while looking at Espeon.
"Coming with us?" I asked.
"Yeah, why not. Maybe you can learn something from us now..." she chuckled, as we left the colony and headed inside the forest.