Love Lost, Chapter 16a: Declarations.
#31 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 16a: Declarations.
Grace spun with a flourish to present herself wearing her present from Sulmepride's fashion district, "Ta-da!" but Joe's vision was fixated on his trainer's device after he greeted her and proceeded to crash upon his bed. Grace forced a cough. Extending her arm, she curled a digit and telekinetically lifted Joe's chin. "Ta, da," she said again, in a flat tone tinted with a little sarcasm, while flinging her arms wide.
"I knew it'd look great on you," Joe commented before pausing and looking back at the glowing screen he held.
Grace lifted his chin again, drifted horizontally over his bed, took away his trainer's device, and leaned him onto his back. "We are going to have to work on your manners. You haven't learned how to properly compliment a lady."
Joe blushed, gazing up toward her shadowed, quarter-rotated face. "Uh, I'm sorry?"
Grace placed her left palm on his cheek and kissed him on his forehead. "You will be if you don't make it up to me."
"How do I do that?"
"Don't tell me how my new dress looks on me, tell me how I look when I'm wearing my new dress."
Joe stared into her eyes, shadowed by her hanging hair but showing a faint but brilliant sparkle. They were kind, but serious. He could tell that the next word he said would be remembered forever, and chose very carefully.
"Glamorous."
The gardevoir suddenly smiled, giggled, and shifted to lay her head on his chest. "Much better; that wasn't so hard. Did you find anything on that thing?"
"Not much. The League video library had one of Professor Oak's shows that mentioned gardevoir and gallade skirt health, but mostly it was about treating injuries in the field when there isn't a pokecenter nearby. He did mention that the whole thing can slough and regrow if damaged badly, but he didn't give any details."
"Professor Oak?" Grace asked.
"He was some big deal a long time ago, when the League was new and there was still a lot of pokemon research going on."
Grace sensed Burner's approach and opened the door away from his knuckles as he was about to knock on it. He peeked inside somewhat timidly. "Master James gave me a small grocery list. Do you need anything?"
Grace immediately piped up to rattle off a number of berries she wanted to try in hopes of finding at least one she truly liked.
This gave Joe time to think of something. "Actually, if you could stop at a cinema kiosk, maybe there's something educational that talks about gardevoir skirt re-growing... stuff."
Burner nodded and left.
Standing to remove her fancy dress in favor of something more domestic, Grace shut the door and chided playfully: "You wait until it's a medical emergency that leaves me horribly disfigured," accentuating her statement with a bare booty wiggle, "then you get ready to start learning about your pokemon's care and feeding. Way to go, Trainer." She under-estimated how he would react.
"That's not fair! I never had pokemon before; how was I supposed to know?"
Hastily placing her palms on Joe's head, Grace apologized directly. In return, he thought about an explanation for his reaction. She did not really understand it.
A rugged jeep pulled up beside a large panel truck. Killing the engine, the woman driving it called out, "Hey there, it's not often I get to see the whole thing!"
The truck's owner stood a little straighter. "Do you like what ya' see?"
Sabrina let her keys roll around their ring as she walked from her vehicle. "I was talking to the cute one."
A dragonite hefted a large crate filled with books from the back of the truck while Mr. Chambers' belt buckle angled downward as he sighed and let his no-longer-being-sucked-in belly return to its normal level of sag. Ford chuckled softly and whispered, "Better luck next time," as he marched alongside Sabrina toward a small mail office. Mister Chambers scratched beneath his hat and felt around its felt rim for a tucked-away matchstick. It was a good time for a stogie.
"Are you sure?" Sabrina asked as she held a glass door open for the mail carrier whose arms were full with the mail he carried.
"I haven't lost a single piece in years, Ma'am, and I don't intend to ever again." Ford entered his mail room with a hurried step, not because of the weight of the crate, but a desire for the door not to close on the tip of his tail. Dragonites seemed to consider that an embarrassing place for a scar. Walking back around a partition to the brass mail boxes, Sabrina continued her conversation with Ford in the way they most often went: through a hole in the wall after she keyed open her mailbox.
"Well, if you're sure, I guess I should think of some other excuse why he didn't send a third like he always does." She listened to the faint hiss and scratch of a soda can being opened behind the thin metal wall.
"He apologized; you didn't acknowledge it."
"I don't forgive him," she spat, "I never forgave him. I won't ever forgive him."
A cart rolled into the narrow path behind the boxes, and a rapid shuffling sound preceded Ford's response. "Maybe you should have told him that before he left the land mass."
"Again? How many times... wait, he left?"
"That postcard was a BK0-XY postage-prepaid 'Fun in the Sun' motif, version two. It's only available as part of a bon-voyage package for people making long-term round trips to the continent through one of the mid-grade cruise lines."
Sabrina thought it over. "Good. Good riddance. Well, except for that round-trip part. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll fall off of somebody else's waterfall." She slammed the door to her mailbox shut and twisted the key.
"Do you need any stamps?" Ford asked emphatically through the brass.
"No, I need Hunter to finally disappear from my life."
Beckoned by a claw tapping on metal, she re-opened her mail box.
"I can't do much to keep him away if he comes back to visit, but if you want, I can make sure you never get another piece of mail from him again."
Sabrina laughed faintly. "Then I'd miss out on the fun of throwing them away myself. Besides, what if he didn't put his name on one?"
"My offer stands. Let me know if you change your mind, Ma'am."
Sixth-sense activated; a nearby presence was examining her body and finding it familiar.
"Hey, aren't you the lucario that's been working on the house across my street?" that presence asked after a moment.
Alice hated being recognized, but in a town where there weren't too many resident lucarios to try to blend in with, being inconspicuous was not easy. Her ribbons did not aid her cause. Sometimes she made eye contact with massage clients, but they valued discretion as much as she did. This man's hail meant that she was failing at one of her tasks: not to be noticed by the neighbors.
"Uh, you're Mister... Parente, right?"
"You've read my mailbox. The front half is Quentin. So..." He gestured for her help.
"Alice."
"Alice, since you can communicate, would you mind cluing me in on what's going on over there?"
Shit. "Oh, nothing much. My d--uh, my master's done renovations and stuff like that, and since that place needed a lot of tedious but simple clean-up it became my job."
"A creepy old dive like that should be cleaned with a bulldozer. I guess that means later on they're going to try putting renters in there again?"
"Nope! I--I mean, I don't know for sure. Somebody wants it to stay standing, but I don't think it's going to be rented out again."
Quentin hummed. "That's been the big worry along the block. The last gang in there was a terror. And, I do mean 'gang.' They acted like they were a family but none of them really looked related, and people kept appearing and disappearing. Then there were some strange break-ins nearby. Suddenly, one day, they started leaving, each taking a small load of furniture or whatever with them until they were gone. There was a rumor about someone wanting to buy it, then pulling out, and that was about it. For the last few years, other than it being mentioned whenever a conversation turns to ghosts and haunted houses, that house has been forgotten. When word started getting around about something happening inside, everyone got worried the gang was coming back, or a new group of thugs were coming in. But, since it seemed to be only a few pokemon, you and--"
Quentin stretched his neck and lifted his chin to nod toward a blaziken towering behind a rack of goods some aisles away.
"--that one, and then that man with the truck came and changed the door, we figured it must be a renovation thing. Although that was at an odd hour. Was that man your master?"
Alice shifted her weight. "No, but, he's part of our family."
" 'Our family?' " Quentin asked. Alice felt his aura change a little.
"Yes, no, not like the gang/family you described. It's complicated."
"Family business; business family?"
Alice hesitated.
Quentin threw her a line. "How about, next time I chat with the neighbors, I'll let them know the big guy's helping you keep the place from falling in on itself and releasing a toxic plume of asbestos and worse to drift over our block."
Her reply came as a sigh of relief bearing syllables. "I appreciate that."
Mister Parente paused and added once he turned to leave, "Although, if some good people were moving in, I don't think too many of the neighbors would mind."
Alice stood on her toes and straightened her legs to get a better view over the shelving. An employee was showing Burner something and they were having a muted conversation. A particular patch of his mane feathers stood out; he was nervous or embarrassed whenever that happened.
Percival flicked off his trainer's device and groaned with disgust as he leaned back in his chair. Even with a digital doppelganger of Burner on his team, he was having a hell of a time in virtual match-ups unless he boosted his team's variable stats above realistic estimates, and even then it just was not clicking. He spun his chair around and approached Sam's corner of the room. "Well, what do you think?"
Sam snipped a bit off of his new bonsai tree. "It grows well, but I wish you would have asked me before you bought it."
"Why? Is there something wrong with it?" Percival was struggling not to become incensed.
"Because you will surely want to journey again, and I fear it will die the same way." Sam glanced over his shoulder, expecting Percival to look incensed.
"Okay, next time I'll get you a book." Percival was out the door when he heard Sam ask, "Why?" behind him. His passage down the hallway was blocked by a colorful fan. It was attached to a serpent that filled much of the bathroom. Water was running. Percival leaned over the long ecru lump with red and blue accents to speak through the upper half of the doorway. "Oh, come on. If Mom sees this she'll send me to bed without my supper, and that supper will be fish fillets."
Fiona's head rose from the bath tub to glare at him.
"Don't you hop in Joe's pool when you start to dry out?"
She nodded and re-sank her head.
"Then why are you--look, why don't you go out back and have Sam hose you down or something?"
Her head rose again, grunted something slightly hostile, and spat a narrow stream of water into his face before re-submerging. As Percival staggered back and dragged his hand across his face, Frankie clambered over Fiona's tail, then reached back to lift Li'l Sis across. He bleated something slightly hostile as they left for her room. Next, Sam peeked around the corner.
"He said that she said that her head hurts and hot water made it feel better, and that you wouldn't understand."
Percival replied as Sam un-peeked. "Of course I wouldn't; I'm not a pokemon." He turned and looked at the fan that blocked the hallway and made his decision. "This is going to be such a waste of credit." He returned to his room and picked up his trainer's device. Glancing at his social network blotter, Terrance had recently added a linoone to his roster, and Joe had received a second badge over the weekend. "What the?" Percival asked his T.D., not that it knew or cared to answer.
Pacing with intent speed down a sidewalk, Alice let the bags she carried bump together as she brought her paws behind her back and nudged Burner with her body. "What were you doing over there?"
Burner leaned over and gave her a gentle peck on the tip of her snout. "What, where?"
"You spent a little too long over in the health and beauty section, big guy. Spill it."
"It's nothing. I, just had some questions about some things."
She chose not to pressure him by letting him know that she saw him buy something separately and put it in his satchel before they met again with the rest of their goods. "Those things didn't include an itchy rash, did they? I got a little skin thing; my creme for it is probably still on the table in your house if Ivana didn't squish the tube just to be a bitch. Anyway, Doc Hass said it's nothing serious but if you got it from me--"
"No, it's not like that. I think Grace has your stuff; she said something about medicine to Joe." His feathers flagged again.
"Burner, please tell me." She stopped walking.
"This thing with Ivana has made me think and feel a lot of things. It's changed my perspective a little. How I think of myself, of us, of you. Her power to cast attract, it's different. I mean, it was used on me a couple times when I journeyed with Percival, and I felt the effect, but it was just enough to make me hesitate before attacking and after the fight it was gone. I don't know if it's because she's a legendary pokemon, or because she's probably at a high level, but I still feel the effects."
Alice felt her own aura shift.
"It's only right that I tell you. But, please, don't react like I'm afraid you might react." Burner knelt beside her and began whispering, in the language of pokemon, into her right ear.
Alice was so shocked at what he said, she stood paralyzed for quite some time, long enough to Burner to whisper her name twice hoping for recognition after he finished admitting the details of what was weighing on his mind.
She felt betrayed by him.
"It will be okay. Better, in the long run. For both of us, I hope," he whispered as he increased the pressure. "And, it will be just once tonight."
Comforting news--although only slightly--to Fiona, who closed her eyes and anticipated the horrible sound that was coming. Sam did not warn her how long and excruciating the speech T.M.'s install process was. He knew that would be better, in the present moment, for both of them; he hoped.
"Frankie?"
The ampharos was reluctant to help. He refused this treatment absolutely when it was offered, and did not want to be party to it being inflicted on a coerced, if not unwilling, victim.
"If you don't do it, I'm suspending your meat privileges for a month, and I'll get someone else to do it. Thunder-wave isn't unique to Electrics."
Frankie relented and bleated an apology to Fiona, which Sam did not appreciate as it made her more nervous upon realizing what was about to be done to her was apology-worthy. Then, he climbed atop her body and discharged a steady current that tensed and locked her muscles.
"You got the cuffs on tight?" Percival asked, and with Sam's confirmation, he pressed a button and soon the damage was done.
About an hour later, Fiona had recovered enough to slither away to a beloved swimming pool. Despite her new capability, she said nothing to anyone in the house as she left.
Delilah gave Percival a cross look at her dinner table.
Percival would have rolled his eyes if that would not evoke an immediate punishment. "It's better if they can talk. If it wasn't, they wouldn't still sell the T.M. discs, you know."
"Pokemon training is supposed to be about partnership, not dictatorship."
"Ma, that's not what this is. And also, if you study the guys who win in the league, not just qualify but do really well, most of them are what you would call dictators."
Delilah chuckled. "Like that Valley girl who applied for and qualified for National instead of Regional on her first year out, and now people are saying she might win the title and the tabloid photographers are following her around night and day? Yeah, she really bosses her pokemon around. That League video-zine had an interview with her; they caught her forcing her gallade to eat a cupcake with sprinkles after torturing her feraligatr with beach balls and foam noodles at a public pool for over an hour. What a hard-ass!"
Percival wiped his face with a napkin. "Doesn't count. Those are her brother's pokemon. He took a Regional title here and abroad with them, and semi'd in National. He knows how to train pokemon right. She's just playing with his toys while his father has him doing internship work so he can get into the biz."
Delilah stood with a clean plate. "What do you think it says if she gets the title while he only got to the semi-finals?"
"It says either they caught a white-flag match-up last time, or they got better in the off-season and their trainer is so good he doesn't have to be there for them to win."
Burner had a valid excuse. He was ordered to get a video about the nature of gardevoir flesh. However, what he received was not exactly health class. As the narrator warned that the next scene was more graphic and disturbing than the last, Alice could not bear to watch further and covered her eyes, but remained seated on Burner's lap. He held her tightly.
A hidden camera worn by a mole captured footage of a bisharp forcing a gardevoir against a vertical partition with a horizontal slit across its middle. Held fast, the gardevoir struggled weakly as two men with masked faces fastened its wrists inside silver manacles, and then its legs. A third came from behind, reached through the gap, and pulled its skirt through. The other two men departed and returned. The first gagged the gardevoir and brought a silver chain-maille coif over its head while the second fitted a wide leather strap around its waist underneath its skirt.
When the third man brandished a strangely modified knife that had wire woven in loops through the body of its blade and an electrical cord running into its grip, Joe motioned to reach for the remote control. James denied him. "You wanted to become a trainer, Joe. These are the bad kind of people I warned you about. Watch what they're going to do to him."
Grace was next to shut her eyes and turn away, but trying to take comfort by pressing her body and mind against both of Joe's was of little help, since she felt his reaction to, and to a degree saw, the imagery he witnessed on the screen. Sound quality was poor, having been captured by a covert device, but between muffled screams and a sizzling sound of an electrically heated knife cauterizing the flesh it cut away from the pokemon, there was not much to hear. If anything, the lack of visual made hearing the sounds even worse for the girls.
The narration returned. "Gender notwithstanding, if the client sought further cosmetic alterations, such as artificial mammary structures to mimic an endowed human female, this process would also be applied to portions of his vestmental shroud. However, his physical and psychological pain is far from over. Soon released from this panel, he will be attached to another for further alterations. Our mole, who was unable to film this particular instance but has witnessed the operation before explains..." The video switched to a darkened interview room, where a man cloaked in shadow spoke with a heavily altered voice.
"Removal of antennae is a difficult operation. It isn't merely shortening, which is legal cosmetic alteration that domestic gardevoir inquire about somewhat more often than their trainers do, because it lets them lessen inconveniences their antenna structures cause when they adopt human lifestyle. Complete antendectomy removes all structure above the root plate. Sometimes prostheses are placed to give normal looks in public, or skin grafts, often from the skirt they cut off, are used to cover the holes and allow surgery wounds to heal quickly."
The narrator returned as a montage of mutilated pokemon, mostly gardevoir, appeared. "At least, for the ones whose operations are successful. As these images attest, many of these illegal procedures fail, and when they do, the victim is disposed of like so much garbage. Sometimes, in bags."
The scene changed to a man in a suit sifting through a binder full of photographs. Joe was startled as he recognized the man before "Detective Jacob Palmer, Rennin P.D., Pokemon Affairs" appeared on-screen. "They'll take a ralts, feed it the same extracts used to produce rare candy to make it evolve as quickly as possible, and set up a little theater. They'll let a number of people handle it while they're chemically evolving it, including the client, who they'll let it spend a little more quality time with. Once they see it's bonding to the client and ready to establish a permanent link, all the others will burst into the holding cell during a session and take the gardevoir away from their client. Evolved at an early level with no training of its abilities, it can't resist. Depending on the client's fantasy, they'll perform body modifications, sever the horns, and torture it to break its will, and if it survives, the client will come back to perform a mock rescue about a week later when it's healed enough to leave. With only horn roots, its powers will never develop properly, ensuring it can't function naturally, and because of the mind game they play, it will always be suspicious of well-meaning strangers, since that's what the people who attacked it seemed to be, and it will always seek comfort and safety in the heroic client, no matter what he or she would do to it."
An off-screen interviewer asked, "No matter what?"
Palmer nodded. "And if it doesn't survive the alterations or has too much spirit, it winds up in here." He lifted and fanned the pages of his binder.
"What is the police force doing about this?"
Palmer lost some posture. "Everything it can, which isn't a whole lot. The pokemon that get involved in this are taken from private breeders or the wild and few are ever registered. Unless the client is caught for something else and the pokemon involved can be legally removed, at least temporarily during investigation, there's little we can do pro-actively. Even in cases where it's obvious to anyone that abuse is happening and who is responsible for it, a broken gardevoir will never testify or petition for separation. Years ago when this practice first became an issue, pokemon with visible surgical alterations were removed by court order if the pokemon was unregistered or did not show the operation on its medical records, but after a while judges quit signing those orders."
The interviewer asked, "Why did they stop?"
"Too many of the pokemon committed suicide after being removed. Gardevoir especially but other species vulnerable to psychic manipulation, too. The investment required to recuperate one victim and even to prosecute one client was just too great when it didn't do anything to prevent the next case. Today, our focus is on the criminals who perform these operations. Once in a while we can get a fresh face who is willing to infiltrate and bring us some evidence that we can use to shut down a shop and make a few examples. However, as long as there is a demand, someone is going to supply. And right now, there are a handful of people out there who want a pokemon, gardevoir or some other species, that will serve them as a pleasure slave; one that's been brainwashed into believing that it wants to be such a thing."
The program's host appeared to summarize and close. "While any surgeon performing non-consensual amputations or augmentations on pokemon can be charged for their crimes, active pursuit has driven the activity underground, and as Detective Palmer's folder proves, pokemon are dying at untrained hands. If you, or someone you know, has information that could be used to prosecute a case of physical or psychological abuse of a pokemon, we urge you to call your local authorities. Pokemon ownership is custody, not control; and in Ocimene, it is a privilege, not a right. We at the Association for the Protection of Frequently Abused Pokemon thank you for watching this documentary. Our hope is that if enough people see what horrors are happening to our precious partners, someday no one will ever suffer through it again."
James relinquished control of his remote as credits scrolled across the right half of the screen, but Joe watched on as an inset video played on the left. It featured a gardevoir with a full bust and shortened horns.
"I saw her near the street, hiding behind some bushes. I thought it was odd, but I could sense she wanted help so I approached her. She stood and I saw she was like me, physically, and I brightened up. I was always happy with the work I had done, but I was curious if she was, too. When I got up to her and offered to connect, she seemed confused. When I saw what was inside her mind, her memories," the gardevoir choked up, "I felt so ashamed of what I did to myself. And also I felt like I wanted her master to die. I had never wished death upon somebody before. But she wanted him to live after all he'd done to her, so I called for the police and an ambulance. She hid in their house for a while. I brought her food. The last time I communicated with her, I tried to show her my life. She couldn't connect to me very well because she had been de-horned, but I got a connection through and I hoped it would inspire her, motivate her to start a new life. It just made her decide to follow him. I'll never forgive myself. Every time I look in a mirror, at these," she gestured toward her alterations, "I see her."
James rose from his love-seat. "You really know how to pick 'em, Burner. I'm going to bed early. Joe, you'd better do the same, and don't forget to lock up."
Alice commented that she ought to head home. Burner asked her to stay over, and she nodded an agreement before sliding off of his lap and going into his room to re-arrange his bedding for two.
Joe gave Grace a hug and whispered, "I love you just the way you are."
She squeezed him back, letting her ventral antenna press painfully into his ribs. "I never thought I'd be so happy to hear you say that."
Joe winced and Grace blushed. She glanced eastward. "I'm going to talk to our pool guest right quick."
As she floated away, Burner apologized. "I'm sorry, Master. I think I got the wrong type of show."
Joe weakly slapped his arm with the back of his hand. "I figured something was strange when the parental content lock-out thing popped up. Dad set it for like, only the two highest levels, which usually you wouldn't be able to rent on my account. Still, what made you pick that title?"
"It was the only search result."
"Well, don't sweat it. It answered a lot of questions I didn't know I needed to ask."
Burner faced Joe. "Like how to make sure a gardevoir's skirt won't grow back?"
Joe flicked to regular broadcast. The screen displayed a number of numbered doors opening in succession. "No, more like why everyone acts funny when they find out I got a gardevoir as my first pokemon. But, that's something to know, too, I guess."
Outside, Fiona gently touched Grace's skirt with her right fin as the gardevoir knelt beside the water. "Why you... now wear, cloths?"
"Because the one that was a part of me came off and until it grows back, this makes humans more comfortable. And, I kinda like it. Or I did until tonight."
"What tonight?"
"I saw a video. It was very upsetting, about how to make themselves happy, some people do things to their pokemon that hurts them really badly."
Fiona coiled beneath the pool's surface. "Master made him happy, do to me loud sound. Make me talk like them."
Grace chuckled. "I heard it once, myself. I think it's a good change, though, because even though I can talk to almost anyone using telepathy, there are a lot of minds I don't want to connect with."
"What ones you want to connect with?"
Grace stood. "Come inside, I've got an idea." She teleported twice to appear at the back door with a towel and quickly blotted Fiona dry while she recovered her bearings. After getting permission from Joe, Burner, and Alice to do a little sharing, Grace squeezed between them on the love-seat and with Fiona's head perched gently above her own, helped the fish understand what a good mind felt like while they watched the tail-end of a more amusing television presentation.