Love Lost, Chapter 20a: Exposures.
#39 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 20a: Exposures.
Not awake enough to realize that if he were fully awake he would be sure without questioning it, Carlos spent a moment wondering if he was awake, asleep, or still in an altered state of sub-consciousness. His transition to wakefulness completed instantly when the ceiling above him shook with a powerful beat. Something large landed on the deck above him. He flinched and tried much too late to protect himself with his arms. One, pinned between his body and the crevice of the booth seat that he lay upon, proved numb and unresponsive. His other, having been dangled over its edge, sprang up only to strike the table along its way. Cursing with abbreviation, Carlos became sensible and used his left arm, despite its dull pain, to assist himself up. Looking around, he saw a paper sack, some candy wrappers, and a cup quarter-full of now-flat fountain soda on the table. Sliding out, he wiggled his toes and shook his right arm, transitioning it through amusing limp dangling, annoying prickly tingling, and in a half-minute or so, restoration of faculty. He slipped on his shoes and partially tied the left one before his right arm gave any useful aid, but once it awakened, in a flash his shoes were fast and his hair stroked into something moderately presentable.
"Surprise, Uncle Gil!" he felt, projected boldly and carelessly from above. The Sphinx lurched a little as the captain's control was momentarily disrupted. Carlos filled the biggest mug in the cabin with ginger ale and staggered out onto the deck. Gil was invisible, occluded by Junior who was "helping" to steer and wearing Gil's cap. Glancing beyond them, Hollingsmoth Island appeared distant as the yacht approached it, full speed ahead.
"Hey, Kid," Carlos began.
Junior turned is long neck behind himself quickly enough that the hat fell off of his head and he abandoned his duty to snatch up the mug and down it like a shot before giving Carlos a hug, briefer and less affectionate than the one previous but no less strong or salt-watery.
"Did you enjoy your vacation?" Junior asked as he let Carlos loose.
"Vacation. If you mean being off the mainland, I want nothing more than for it to end. If you mean spending a month on those islands instead of this one, whatever. Islands are islands; there ain't much to say about them."
Gil asked Junior to hold the wheel, reaching down as the lugia passed to recover and replace the cap where it, for the time being, belonged. He took out his metal box and prepared his pipe. "Don't try pumping Mister Velasquez for information on where he went. Your father handled the debriefing."
Junior vocalized a sour groan.
Carlos rubbed his face and re-stroked his hair, blown about by a gust of sea breeze. "I don't remember seeing him. But--" he realized that he did not remember much of anything.
Gil enjoyed his smoke for a moment. "The Gatekeeper takes his job seriously. He's a wild lugia, you know; he grew up around here and inherited his role. He never really cared much for people, either, so his technique is a little brutal. That's good on the way out, but not really needed on the way back. That's why the Keymaster's supposed to handle returns. But, she's on vacation--to the mainland, I think; ain't you jealous?--so you got Sinalom both ways."
"I got him both ways? He got me both ways. No wonder it feels like I've been turned inside-out."
Later, passing the outer buoys of North-Tip, Junior surrendered the wheel and the hat and squeezed into the cabin to re-fill his mug a few times. Gil asked of Carlos, "Do you have any business to take care of on H.I.? We can shove off again after next bell if you're in a hurry, but your room should still be booked, so if you want to kick back for a while, I've got nothin' that can't wait a day."
Carlos's first impulse was to proclaim that the sooner would be the better, but through the fog of his manipulated memory, he remembered a promise that he made months before. Honestly he would rather avoid making good on it, but if the only memory to stick with him was that of a broken promise it would make for a hell of a souvenir. "Actually, I think I do. Two hours, just to be safe?"
Gil smirked as he began his approach. "If it's going to be more than two hours, I'm going to get into some trouble. Make it four, just to be safe."
Junior emerged. "I think Mom's here," he projected as he crossed the deck. Seconds later, the largest, by a little, lugia that Carlos had ever seen burst from the water, flew in an arc over the docks and shoreline, landed near the entry of the general store, and snaked her neck through the entry doors. She might have been able to get part of her body through them if she tried, but there was not room inside for much more of her anyway. "Mom didn't sense me," Junior continued. "She isn't focusing, so she's furious about something."
"Is that the kind of trouble?" Carlos asked of Gil.
"No, sailors like the kind of trouble that leads to fights, not executions. That said, I better take care of it first-thing, and you better walk the other way."
Gil hastily docked The Sphinx and all disembarked. Gil and Junior waved goodbye to Carlos as they went west toward the store and Carlos went east toward a tiki bar. In a familiar manner, the radius of the mother lugia's projections increased over time and became omnidirectional.
"I sensed him becoming sick. I trusted you to take care of him. You drugged him, didn't you? Where is he?" She shook the windows with a bellowing snarl accompanying her telepathic rant. Her eyes practically glowed and entranced the merchants who were fully at a loss.
"We told you, he's fine," asserted one. "He went swimming a few hours ago."
Her eyes flickered and her feathers rippled like a wave as her muscles tensed. "Sure he did. Then why did you want a garbage can for him? For the leftover parts?" Despite knowing that their thoughts' failure to incriminate them ought to be the shopkeepers' acquittals, that such could be their plan only angered Joan further.
The merchants' clothing fluttered as she took a deep breath, sucking much of the air out of the building and creating a violent whistle as outside breeze rushed in through the gaps between her body and the entry doors' frame. They felt thankful that her hyper-beam would be a relatively painless way to go.
Gil walked along the front of the building in the narrow path between its glass windows and a large wing lying flat on the ground. He reached his right arm upward, running his fingers through the sleek feathers of the lugia's neck. She twitched with a start, snapping shut her jaw and spilling from her mouth a strange energy that was accumulating therein, and busted out some ceiling panels when by raising her neck in surprise she thrust her cranial prominence through them. She withdrew her neck, staggering backward and whipping her tail in the air violently. Although Gil had not moved an inch, her interest did not focus upon him but rather her offspring who stood a dozen meters away as Gil had instructed him to. Gil knew the Keymaster well enough to expect that she would--.
The Keymaster dove to the ground again. This time, not to serve as interrogator, judge, and executioner, but as a protective mother delighted to see that her life's work was unharmed. She wrapped him in her wings and shook the ground with something similar to a happy bird sound, but far more primal in timbre. After giving them a moment, Gil approached, and before he could say anything, a flick of her wing drew him into the protective wall of feathers around their embrace. The two lugia communicated for some time before the Keymaster released either. With a little reluctance, she left them to return to the store. Again kneeling and injecting her neck, and with a little negotiation, squeezing the greatest of the digits of her left wing in through the gap as well, she abused her power a little to telekinetically draw the merchants close and nuzzle them both between that digit and her snout. "I was misled by a false vision, somehow, and I overreacted a little. My fears have proven unjustified. Please, accept stewardship of him again when I ask it of you."
"Our pleasure," replied one merchant weakly, half out of breath from the pressure that Joan applied to his body. "We're happy to help," replied the other with the air that she pressed out of him when she squeezed harder, her delighted response to the first agreement. Then, releasing them, she gave each a kiss with the tip of her tongue and withdrew.
" 'Our pleasure'?" asked the second merchant, incredulously.
" 'We're happy to help'?" counter-asked the first, accusingly.
The two became momentarily shadowed again as the large lugia eclipsed the sunlight while passing their store's front glass in departure. A smaller lugia waved to them with its wing and projected, "I'm sorry Mom was annoyed because I wasn't here when she came back. I'll visit you soon; get more of that 'root beer' stuff!"
A broken fluorescent tube fell from its fixture and shattered into more pieces near the merchant's feet.
Carlos twitched and turned when he heard a dull bump sound beside him. A flaaffy had placed a blender upon the tiki bar's counter-top and spoke while wrapping a pair of leads around his horns.
"Pamtre Chilan Chill-out, coming right up." Sparks arced wildly while the flaaffy scooped some ice from a small freezer beneath the counter. He added a few cubes at a time between chunks of berry.
"Is my credit still good, Lloyd?"
"Your credit is fine, Mister Velasquez. Don't worry. I've got connections, you'll get your bar tab in the mail." The flaaffy increased the juice, causing the blender to vibrate, squeal, and emit a cautionary scent. The power soon ceased. Then, a glass appeared on the counter-top and acquired the last few ice cubes which crackled faintly as Lloyd poured the drink over them and finished it with a quick blast of pure grain, a paper umbrella, and a novelty straw bent into many loops. "I guess this is my last pour for you for a while?"
"I hope it's my last forever." Carlos took the drink with a rudely rapid grab and sipped it savagely. Seeing Lloyd nod and turn away, he coughed a little, speaking slightly before his sip finished descending down his throat. "Hey, that wasn't nothing personal. Come to the mainland and I'll be your first regular. But shit, I've had a headache since the day I came to this island. I gotta go home--anywhere but here."
Lloyd returned and snacked on a remnant of the pamtre berry whose better half went into the drink. "It's not so bad, here. I guess if the climate disagrees with you, that's just how it is, but I can't imagine going back."
"You're from the mainland?"
"Worse. I'm from Johto. I was caught by a kid, trained long enough to evolve under him, but he spent some time in Goldenrod. There, he met a trainer with a jolteon, and seeing how much faster they are than we are; the hour a day that used to be spent helping me practice became an hour a day at the game house. Soon, he had what he wanted--an eevee bought with prize coupons--and turned me loose. I had a few masters after that. I'd get caught, I'd let them catch me without a fight, and fight for a little while, but... that seems to be our role: we help new trainers get through that second stage when you're willing to take anything to get to six, and into the third where their favorite or favorites become what matter and the others are there to help cross terrain or just filling space until something new comes along. Eventually, I wound up near Olivine. I sold my wool a few times to get some money; I don't know if you know much about the other regions--"
Carlos nodded dismissively.
"--a pokemon with money, or an interest in it, isn't very common. Of course, they just assumed that my trainer sent me to sell it, and I didn't hint them otherwise. Anyway, one summer day I'd bought a big drink and I was playing with the cup, flipping it around and stuff; an imitation of the stunts a juggler was doing to get people to throw coins in his hat. He noticed me between tricks and approached me. I stopped, but he told me to continue. I dropped it a few times but he'd just smile and hand it back. After a while he asked if my trainer taught me that, and I shook my head no. Then he asked where my trainer was and I shook it again. He asked if I wanted to be his, to learn some tricks and keep him company. Pooling our money, we got a cruise ship ticket for one without a damage deposit. He trained me throughout the ride, not in battle like the trainers would anywhere on the ship that wasn't explicitly off-limits--I don't think any of them got their deposits refunded--and by the time we landed in Hexyloxy, I didn't drop the cups nearly as much. We became official Ocimene citizens and traveled around for a long time doing street shows to fill the hat and once in a while we'd make up a new name and get booked for some small variety act or a fair. He put the speech T.M. on me as an anniversary gift of sorts, and we landed a real job: bar-tending. We could show off some fancy tricks to keep the patrons amused when it would improve the tips, and it paid a lot better than fancy begging on street corners. That lasted a couple years, but he got a call. His mother had fallen ill so he went back to Johto to help her. I didn't want to go back, and practically couldn't. Now S.T.M. positive, they'd sterilize me if I wanted to move back permanently, and he didn't know how much of his help she would need or for how long. So, that was that; life goes on. Eventually I decided I needed a change of scenery, learned that my kin are endemic to Hollingsmoth Island, and made the jump. I never looked back, and I would rather my family here stay ignorant of the downsides of city life than give them an explicit reason to better appreciate our paradise."
"And you never evolved again. I guess, because you quit battling?"
"I'm ready for it, but I've never needed to so I've resisted every time I felt it coming. I tell myself it's easier to juggle and tend bar with this shape than the next, though I'm just used to it and already got everything custom built. And, my mate is an ampharos, so I have her get things off of the top shelf for me," he added with a bleated chuckle.
"Tell me, what do you think about a pokemon that wants to leave this paradise? Ignorant and ought to be corrected, or let it go and let the chips fall where they may?"
Lloyd finished the berry remnant. "It's paradise for me and mine, but it's not for you, and might not be for whatever pokemon you're talking about. Things want to go where they need to go and suffer if they're restrained."
"Not always. I've seen men and 'mon walk into the jaws of death on a pursuit."
"As have I. But never by going where they needed to go. Only where they chose to, for poor reasons."
Carlos finished his drink. "Do you think my credit's good enough to rent a buggy on a lying smile?"
Lloyd rummaged in a small tin and put a bank note on the counter. "Go where you need to go."
Carlos thanked him with a nod and left the tiki bar behind, following along Route 3 and passing markers 41 and 42. He visited the small hotel that accommodated all visitors to the island, and indeed his room waited untouched and still available. He declined its service, but received a small note that arrived in the mail for him. He opened it and began reading its message. It was a form letter. "Dear Sir or Madame: We regret to inform you that an incident has occurred and one or more of your pokemon left in our care have been involved--" Carlos wadded the notice and its envelope into a tight ball and threw it into a plastic palm tree's pot in the corner with a sharply vocalized "Fuck!" as he stomped away.
Piloting a rented buggy at an unsafe velocity, Carlos quickly cut a chord from the northern shore to near the south-east-by-eastern one. There he slowed down and came to a stop at a small home near the beach. A woman emerged behind a vulpix that dashed out swiftly when she heard the buggy approaching.
"Mister Nice Guy came back!" spouted Sasha as she bounded into the vehicle and licked Carlos's face.
Shannon lacked the overt excitement that the pokemon expressed, but was not displeased to see him, although his timing could have been better. "I didn't think you would come back. You told me you didn't want it."
"I didn't either, and I didn't, but I changed my mind, unless it changed its own."
"No. In fact, the little guy has been nagging to be trained more so he'll be able to fit in with your other pokemon once you take him home. As I said, I was doubtful, but I guess it's better that he didn't listen. Come on in, I'll put him in his ball."
Carlos exited the buggy and carried Sasha inside with him. "I guess Ree's still at school?"
"Of course. Don't you know what time it is?"
Carlos glanced toward the sun after leaving the buggy. The way he felt, the sun must have been traveling at half-speed to tease him. Sasha leapt down from Carlos's arms once they all were inside. The vulpix dashed ahead of Shannon to give the other pokemon the news a few seconds earlier than they would learn of it otherwise. As Shannon disappeared into another room, Carlos commented, "I hardly know what day it is." That was a lie; he actually was not sure at all, and glanced about for anything that might show today's date.
Shouting through the walls, "Well, I won't kick you out if you want to wait and say goodbye in person, but..." Shannon trailed off suggestively.
"No, I won't linger. Just tell her and Lennon that I didn't leave without thinking of them."
Shannon emerged from a back room with a ball to hand Carlos. A swablu flapped around, following her into the living room. "Here's yours, and that's hers behind me. Rhiannon named her Adrina and started teaching her scales. Don't mention the name of any cliche kids songs or she'll sing it for an hour."
Sasha hopped and placed her fore-paws on Carlos's left leg. "We said goodbye, but Adrina's going to be a little lonely now. You won't let him be lonely, right?"
"I told you when we met these two, I've got a couple pokemon of my own already. He's going to have new friends."
Shannon noticed a catch in his voice. Sasha did not, yelped with a nod of approval, and stepped off of his shin.
Carlos reached the front door before Shannon called out to him. "Hey. I know I said it before, but I have to again. Thanks. You didn't have to help them."
"Who else would have? I was just passing by, and there wasn't anybody else driving around."
"Lennon would have brought her back safely. Rhiannon gets ideas sometimes, like that helping the altaria will make them lose their hatred for humans here. As you saw, it just makes them more suspicious. If it became a serious battle, Lennon would have carried her back, kicking and screaming that she was about to break through to them. It wouldn't have been the first time. But, I am curious how you got them to stop defending those two swabs so you and her could take them for treatment."
Carlos sighed. "I brought my darts with me."
Shannon's expression shifted. "You're a ranger?"
"Not even close. I was a poacher, once, but I like to think those days died with my partner. The old ties keep getting cut, and I wonder what'll be left when they're all gone."
Carlos returned to the route and with a little time to spare, returned to North-Tip. Glancing around, he noticed that a sign reading "gone" rested on the tiki bar counter, and the store was shut for a late lunch. Carlos realized that he would have to get used to stores keeping regular hours again once he left island life behind. Approaching the docks, he noticed a man, neither young nor old, holding a small object wrapped in plain kraft paper.
Nearing where The Sphinx stood vacant, the fellow standing about hailed Carlos. "Are you waiting for a boat to the mainland?"
Carlos nodded, but hoped to avoid further conversation.
"Can I ask you for a favor?"
"What kind?" Carlos grumbled.
"It will sound stupid if I explain it." Carlos faced away. "I had a strange dream last night, and this morning, I felt like I needed to send this somewhere. If you'll take it--"
Carlos looked at the object. "What is it, and where?"
"It's a book. And I don't know where. In the dream, I gave it to a pokemon. A beautiful gardevoir, with brilliant green eyes and horns, like emeralds. The shiny kind, with that soft blue hair that's strangely deep in the shadows but brilliantly bright in the light. Uh, okay. I don't know why, but when I woke up this morning, I knew I had to send this book to her somehow."
"Shiny pokemon. I've met the kind of people who care about things like that. They're shit-heads."
Daniel's body tensed. "Oh, I don't. I don't know why the one I dreamed about looked that way. I don't really normally, but... look, I'll give you," Daniel slipped the wrapped book beneath one arm, opened his wallet and counted out all the notes it contained, "a hundred seventy-five pounds if you'll take this book and promise to give it to the first shiny female gardevoir you can. Okay?"
"With a good lead on where one's at, I could bring you back the first shiny female gardevoir I saw--bound, gagged, and doped up for another twenty-four hours--for a couple hundred pounds." Carlos took the money and the book. "But without a good lead, no promises. My business doesn't usually include hunting owned pokemon."
Daniel refrained from asking what kind of character this man was. "I don't want to know if you ever find her. I just gotta get this nagging feeling off of my back."
Gil emerged from somewhere neither Daniel nor Carlos saw, well-dressed in clean, different clothes, and walking with the aid of a cane and a grimace on his face.
"All aboard."
Carlos asked, "Are you okay?"
Gil looked back, "I found the right kind of trouble, but I threw my back out. I'll be fine once I'm on the water again."
"Wait," Daniel asked as Carlos began away, "you seem to know your pokemon. Gardevoirs; are they really all they're cracked up to be?"
Carlos stared at the man for a few seconds, until prompted to respond by Gil's ejaculation of relief as he sat beside his wheel, felt some vertebrae click back into place, and prepared his pipe. "I've never lived with one, but I guarantee, of all the crap stories they put in the pokedex, that bit about them being willing to die to protect the ones they care about is perfectly true."
Soon, The Sphinx was again underway. Carlos kicked off his shoes and squirmed into the booth seat. He noticed a bowl on the table surrounded by empty wrappers and an empty, Junior-sized mug. Amid them lay a piece of paper. Unfolding it, it bore the emblem of the supermarket chain that the general store was affiliated with, and written upon it was, "Secret. Don't tell Uncle Gil." Then, as the boat shifted in the water, a pokeball in the bowl rolled up its curve and made its violet and magenta shell be known.
"Oh--shit."
Carlos sat nervously during the entire ride to Hexyloxy Harbor, expecting at any moment for the entire yacht to be slammed down into the ocean by a force intending not to impress, as it was when the Gatekeeper did it, but to immerse. He prayed whatever relationship the Keymaster and Gil had, it would be enough to again stay her wrath.
The attack never came. The Sphinx docked safely. Carlos left the cabin with a paper bag in one hand and a paper-wrapped book tucked inside his jacket's internal pockets.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Gil called out.
"Oh. Uh, thanks for the ride, Captain."
"That's just the job. I'm talking about his mug."
Carlos suppressed his reaction.
Gil shook his head. "It's good for unlimited free refills at Pokemart shops across the region, and he'll happily bankrupt them with it. Now that the Keymaster's calmed down and got her head where it belongs, she figured out Junior's plan not long after he hatched it and she let me in on it. He also left a feather on my deck as evidence. Don't tell him we know; that'd take the fun out of it for him. Just remember, if something bad happens, Momma's going to be on her way in a hurry. Make sure you aren't responsible."
Carlos went in once more to get the mug and left The Sphinx behind to enter Hexyloxy's maze of sprawling industry. He kept its radio tower before him as a guide until it led him to the immense pokemon center that served much of the city, although Hexyloxy had grown so large that smaller satellite centers existed in four places along its perimeter. The doors opened for him with a musical chime and a recorded voice that welcomed him. The lobby was expansive, inset into the floor on both his left and right. He approached the counter and nervously set two pokeballs on it. "I need a new T.D., and to register these two pokemon."
"Right away. Do you care to purchase a premium model?" the attendant asked, after noticing that one of the balls was a master ball and assuming that he must be an experienced trainer to have either earned or afforded one.
"Uh, a good one, but nothing too fancy. Are there any old or used models on sale? Here," he put one of Daniel's twenty pound notes on the counter, "the best that that will buy."
The attendant's eyes bulged when her terminal showed what was in the master ball. "Wow, congratulations, Sir," she said with a hint of anxiety in her voice, "you enjoyed a clean capture, I hope?" With a touch of a few buttons, she quickly brought up the harbor's police news feed on her terminal just in case a warning of a very angry and very large lugia might appear.
"It just kinda happened."
His business with the attendant concluded, Carlos looked around again. The center was fully loaded, and with some cash in his pocket and no desire to accelerate his approach to deal with the letter, he took his time. He visited a communications terminal. There were no messages except for an electronic copy of what came by paper mail. He deleted the message without reading it. He sat for a moment in reflection and came to a decision. He stood, stepped to an open area, and released the contents of his master ball. Junior licked his face immediately while privately projecting, "That's so they know you're with me."
Carlos wiped his cheek and forehead as best he could. "Junior, I've got some shit I have to take care of, and I want to take care of it alone. Here, I got your mug and Gil said they'll let you drink for free--"
"They won't stop me." He glanced toward a small food court north of the lobby's west half and licked his chops.
"--right, and here's a little money. The pokemon food is free or cheap at these places, but I've had it a few times when things were rough and it's practically punishment so get something decent while we can afford it."
Junior took up the money with a pinch of his wing digits. "They won't be happy if I eat their food without giving them this, right?"
"Right. Did your parents ever explain money to you?"
"It's trash paper and metal bits that humans will trade useful things for because other humans will trade useful things for the same trash later."
Carlos patted Junior on his shoulder. "Close enough. Play nice and don't make them want to stop you."
Junior nodded and approached the food court, his stomach's rumble suggesting a clearing of his way and alerting all that had not yet noticed that they were in the presence of a rarity.
"Like I could afford to feed a dragonite on my budget, God makes me responsible for that belly." Carlos passed through the lobby, not noticing a pale young woman lying on a couch, wearing a skirt whose fashion passed years ago and holding tightly a cerulean purse bulged slightly by a pokeball within.
He traversed the streets until he found the city's day-care and breeding center. He needed a few deep breaths before he could bear entry. At the desk, he rang a bell, and waited impatiently until a familiar face appeared. "I'm here to pick up my black ribbons."
"Velasquez, right? We're very sorry. There was a mix-up with a new employee, and he put some of the wrong pokemon together. Specifically, we had a Kanto arcanine sent here for stud service and--"
"My dogs!" Carlos shouted, with as much commanding firmness as he could muster despite emotion striving to shatter his voice.
"But instead of the breeding pen he was let into--"
Carlos leaned over the counter, "Shut the fuck up, you stupid fucking idiot, and give me their dead fucking balls!" and half-collapsed onto it.
The staff member had retreated by a step, but did not flee. "Your dogs fought him bravely, and probably saved a few other pokemon's lives. Rosa's flash-fire ability protected her, but Ruby, already crippled--"
Carlos sobbed through his words. "Ruby isn't crippled. She's fine. She just spent that leg protecting me. She's... how many lives do you think she saved?"
"Three."
"Four for four, then. I guess--" Carlos snorted harshly, "--more would be too much to ask."
"Our management has arranged a compensation package for you. We know that a life cannot be replaced, but we wish to do what we can to pay respect for the loss."
Carlos hardly heard what the clerk was saying, but looked up with a cross glance at the word, "respect."
"We offer you one of your pokemon's unhatched offspring free of charge, a reimbursement as breeding service was part of your service compensation contract; and a rare equipment item that is difficult to acquire in Ocimene. Although it is a matter of chance that we can offer it to you and your surviving pokemon, we hope that these will help you through this painful episode in ways that monetary compensation cannot."
Carlos glanced around for a tissue, snatched one from a box halfway behind the counter, and blew his nose. "They make you memorize shit like that?"
The clerk nodded gently. "I will bring you your pokemon now."
"Keep the egg, but I'll assert naming right. It's 'Ruby.' If a prospective buyer can't accept her namesake, they can fuck off."
The clerk nodded gently, left the desk, and soon returned with a houndoom. "She evolved after the battle. That's not supposed to happen here, but--"
Rosa walked up to Carlos without any energy in her body. He knelt and hugged her. She whined a whimper, long and somber.
"Then it will be the jewel and a monetary compensation."
Carlos withdrew and held up his trainer's device, not releasing Rosa, for the clerk to take and scan. As Carlos exited, the clerk recited another stock phrase, one required by the position but in bad taste. It fell upon deaf ears.
On the way back to the pokecenter, Carlos found an express shipping depot and put the paper sack in their care. Remembering spontaneously to his own surprise a shipping code, his parcel's fee was pre-paid. They passed the parcel off to a flygon, and away it went for next-day delivery before Carlos even left the counter.
A small crowd, composed of almost the entire patronage and much of the Hexyloxy Pokecenter staff, gathered around a table at the food court. In fact, the only person whom Carlos saw elsewhere aside from the desk nurse was the pale woman wearing a dress in the farthest lobby seating. Her face was covered by a broad-brimmed sun hat and she clutched her purse to her chest as though she had something to hide. Being unable to make out any other details, Carlos was reminded that he needed to replace his lost-abroad contact lenses. A strong projection demanded that the group make a hole for "my best friend, Carlos Diego Ortega Velasquez de la Isla Antigua!"
Everybody looked his way except Rosa, who was immune to Junior's effect. The sun hat rolled upon its rim for a couple meters. A chair telekinetically slid out for Carlos's benefit.
"Any change left?"
Junior projected privately, "When I ran out of money and food I told them I would go and look for you so we could leave town. They gave me more food so I would wait for you and they could see me more."
"This is going to be a thing I'm going to have to deal with, now, isn't it?"
"What?" Junior asked while munching on a levitated hamburger.
"Celebrity. You drawing crowds everywhere we go."
Somebody in the circle admitted, "Can you blame us?" A couple photos were taken. One was snapped every few seconds on average. "Everybody knows lugia live near Hexyloxy, but it's been years since anybody's seen one in public like this."
Another on the other side of the circle added, "And a young one. Once the news gets around, tourism will be up again. Our economy is saved!"
"Hear, hear, three cheers for Lugia!" cried out a third and most of the group joined in.
Engaged in one-sided small-talk with his choice of legal guardian, Junior lost the intense interest of the group. Most stayed near, buying meals to excuse sitting nearby, or collected at the lobby seating nearest to the food court to keep seeing, to keep believing. Carlos introduced Junior to Rosa and gave him a short and partial version of their history together. Junior's demeanor shifted sharply when Carlos admitted that Ruby was in his pocket, in a ball bound with a black ribbon.
"I'm sorry that she was not able to tell you how happy she was to see you."
Carlos recalled a conversation they shared a half-year earlier. "Rosa isn't happy to see me." He looked at her, motionlessly watching over the lobby people's activities. When she was little, she'd be up in his lap, or desperately trying to be, hoping for a chance to get a bite of his food. "I don't think I could handle both of them like that. It's almost like it was for the--" Carlos coughed a morbid laugh, "the best."
Junior licked around the inside of his mouth, top and bottom, clearing it of any remnants. "I don't think she will take my word for it, but she may take yours. Tell Rosa that I am going to do something to her that is very uncomfortable, but she will not be hurt."
Nearly verbatim, Carlos repeated Junior's message, adjusting it a little. She gave a reluctant growl at first, but when Junior draped his left wing over her and his right over Carlos, Rosa became more worried about what the strange creature might do if she angered it. It took some time, but with a little strain and a little leverage, Junior broke through, not unlike cracking through the defenses of a master ball. Onlookers recovered their interest but by the time they noticed that the lugia was doing something, he was done.
Carlos almost fell out of his chair and Rosa's body trembled for a moment, Junior's forced intrusion nearly foundering her. The two looked at each other for a moment until the after-effects dispelled. Then, Carlos slid his chair back, Rosa jumped up, planting her paws on his thighs and licking his face a few times.
"I'm surprised that worked," Junior admitted to himself, projecting nothing.
To become somewhat more incognito, and to delay the next time when Junior would get hungry, Carlos recalled his pokemon. He returned to the service counter and asked if they had any open trainer lodging available, and the nurse put him down for one, from 20:00 to 08:00, reveille at 06:00, breakfast included in the nominal cost served at 06:40. He took his key-card and went into the other wing of the lobby, finding a television airing around-the-clock news. The time was 7:42 P.M., so the hostel wing was not yet open. He took off his jacket and wadded it up loosely, placing it beside, and slightly upon, himself, in memory of how Ruby would rest alongside him. He did not notice a pale figure that crossed both lobby wings to address him. He did not even look away from the screen when he heard her ask, "Carlos Diego Ortega Velasquez--what do you know about my mother?"