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More from jazzfoxrules
Welp, it took me long enough, but here we have a new installment of Pike's story :O
Things continue onward, and finally we have a few things revealed, the question is, can they really be what they seem?
This chapter may make some people tear the walls down on me to end it where I did, lol, but what good does it do me telling you where I ended it, go ahead and read it...
This version may yet be replaced, I'm toying with ideas at the moment, but I won't deny you the chance of seeing it while I'm happy enough to do so ^_^
Pike, Glowybutt C Chupi
Anyone else mentioned C their creators, all the usual ~.^
Things continue onward, and finally we have a few things revealed, the question is, can they really be what they seem?
This chapter may make some people tear the walls down on me to end it where I did, lol, but what good does it do me telling you where I ended it, go ahead and read it...
This version may yet be replaced, I'm toying with ideas at the moment, but I won't deny you the chance of seeing it while I'm happy enough to do so ^_^
Pike, Glowybutt C Chupi
Anyone else mentioned C their creators, all the usual ~.^
Category Story / Pokemon
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 43.5 kB
Everybody Changes, Part 3
“Damnit, Amy…”
Pike shook his head as he entered his room and - lo and behold - found his computer keyboard and mouse on the desk instead of the floor, evidence his cousin had been in his room twittering again without either bothering to ask or even be decent enough to put the equipment back.
He sighed and slumped his bag down on the bed, shoving up his sleeves roughly as best he could with those stinger-shaped arms, “Really need to use some of that paycheck and spring for a lock… or at least add a password to this thing…”
Pike grunted and strained as he tried to shift everything carefully back down to the floor: this had never been a problem before, him being the only one in the whole house who had ever used a computer, but ever since his Vespiqueen cousin had moved in to be closer to the PCA she had certainly made herself at home, helping herself to anything and everything she could.
“Finally…” He sighed, sinking back into his seat and hitting the power button with a toe, it was awkward enough for him to use the computer without having to use his awkward limbs to put it back down on the floor again and again.
Not to say he wasn’t skilled, he’d damn near turned toe typing into a skilled art as he began to load up VIM.
No sooner than that, a message beeped into existence.
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: Heyo! *Waves*
Pike paused.
Faith’s username, he froze up, he hadn’t expected her on this early; or rather – as he glanced at the clock hidden under the windows on his screen – he hadn’t expected to be back as late after meeting Mrs Glowybutt.
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: *Poke* < _ <
Finally, he set his feet to work.
PERSIANKNIGHT: Sorry Faith, only logged in for work, raincheck?
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: Okay… x_O …Have you got a minute at least?
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: I needed to ask you something important?
You logged off.
Pike slumped forward over his desk.
“Damnit…”
*****
When most kids played hooky, usually they did it to go to the movies, maybe they got out their skateboards and hit the streets, or just hung around with friends who’d either dared or been dared along for the ride. So it was a slightly strange idea to see Pike skipping team practise to hover on the steps of the public library in exchange.
It wasn’t often that Pike skipped practise with Sarah and the others, but today was an exception, it was a weekend, which meant that instead of the Academy, Team Quickstrike (formerly the Team Untitled) would be training at Faith’s.
Not the Cartego’s house, not miles away at the shrine or even the Zuna’s dojo, but the so-called Battle Factory, a broken down warehouse the girl had once called home after a confusion on behalf of her father, having reportedly bought the thing on eBay for all of ten dollars.
He still remembered how furious he was when they had found out about her living conditions, the entire time she’d hid it away from them, not out of embarrassment, but because she didn’t want them to worry about her, something of a habit the girl made, in fact, it was that same quality that had put them in their current predicament.
Back then, everything worked out so well just so easily, Faith went to stay at the Cartego’s, where Penny’s family seemed to welcome the girl with eager arms and the girl had near enough gained a second family!
Even the beaten up old warehouse had a happy ending: not one to give up, Faith had roped in help from Team Trauma and some of the most hardcore Auto Shoppers to help put it back together. All courtesy of the eccentric Slowpoke Twoflower and his funding to restore and refit the place into nothing less than a fully functional gym for the team!
It spoke volumes about the girl: every problem Faith met, no matter how despaired looking or downtrodden she would get, she bounced back despite the odds.
But then, she’d had so much help: this time it was just him and Faith.
And the secret.
His head ached from the constant to and fro in his head, just thinking about the girl made him start mentally juggling; he sorely needed some breathing space, some time away from the Vulpix to think about things.
He’d sworn not to tell a soul what she’d told him.
Then again, who did he even have to talk to about it anymore? He felt like a stranger in his own team!
Penny was gone now, having advanced to a Junior and starting her own team; Ross too had fell away for whatever reason he kept hidden under his tinfoil hat; and Sarah hardly seemed to be in it anymore for anything other than the sight of new girl Ness in spandex.
Forget Ness too, besides never understanding a word that came out her mouth, he just didn’t trust the Dragonair enough to share his thoughts with her.
He’d been avoiding Faith now for the best part of a week now, he couldn’t even voice his thoughts to her.
And that left him all alone.
Well, perhaps not entirely alone.
“Hello there, young Beedrill!”
Finally a smile lit Pike’s face as he got up and turned to see the elderly Illumise, only to be met with a wave of children crashing down on him!
“Beeeeeee!” He gave his wings a kick start, leaping up and out of the wave of the torrent of children! Just above the floor he hovered and watched as the kindergarten aged kids stormed down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk for their waiting parents.
And then finally, a slightly rotund Sandshrew brought up the rear, waddling out after an orange-parka covered Burmy, (“Wait up you guys, seriously!”) Pike landed once more and looked as Ms. Cavatica made her way down towards him.
“Ah, children… weekdays I watch them ‘til the parents come home, the weekends, I watch them ‘til the Miltank come home!”
“You spend the whole week here?” Pike folded his wings as he landed, blinking at the sudden thought.
“Heavens, no!” Collette A. Cavatica chuckled as she brought her trolley dolly trundling down the steps after her to meet the boy, “The Library is closed on Sunday!”
“…” Pike wasn’t sure if he’d brought the answer on himself, but simply shrugged as he moved to the next obvious quest, “Well… what do you do on Sundays then, Ms. Cavatica?”
The old bug stood there beside him, picking through her purse with a hum as if she’d never heard the question, checking carefully.
“…Um… is something wrong there?”
“Why yes!” She snapped it closed with a satisfactory chuckle, “I think I much prefer Glowybutt over Cavatica!”
*******
Truth be told, Pike had expected more books.
Indeed as he sat in Mrs Glowybutt’s house, there were bookshelves, and indeed they were full, but not with the tomes he’d ever imagined; instead they were lined with row after row of DVD cases!
From dollar store drop bins to black and white oldies, to even the latest releases, Pike was sure he even caught a peek of the Transformers movie halfway hidden by the Titfield Thunderbolt.
Each shelf was full, and if it wasn’t filled by DVDs, it was by little trinkets, old photos, nick-nacks, old tin toys or other ornaments, indeed it was a collection even Sarah may have been envious of.
“I was expecting more books?” Pike called to the kitchen as he sat there in his chair.
“Will you be alright with a regular cup, dear?” Came the reply, evidently ignoring his question again.
“Oh, well… anything that has a handle on it?” He glanced at his stingers, before deciding another attempt at the question, “Why don’t you have many books here?”
“You know, Pike, the most wonderful thing about spending most of your time in a library?” The little old Illumise shuffled her way back into the living room with him, offering a cup of an amber colored concoction.
Pike took it with a quiet thanks, sliding his first stinger carefully through the hole of the handle, then slipping his other stinger’s broad length underneath the cup to stop it dangling.
Mrs Glowybutt watched him with the slightest smile forming at his precarious balancing act, taking her own seat opposite, “I spend all day with my books, Pike. I can read as many as I like, as many times as I like and they’ll always be there.”
“Whether waiting for you, waiting for me or anymon else to come back and visit them again… so you could say you’ve seen my books many times before, Pike!” She chuckled.
Pike at first blinked, his nose tickled by the surprising fizz of the sweet tasting drink, warm, buttery, it seemed to make him buzz all over at once as he held it still carefully and looked back to her, “Well, I guess that makes sense… but… what about the DVDs?”
“You should know about those, being a fully fledged critic now, dear?” She divulged with a hearty chuckle, beckoning a nod to the plate of biscuits she presented forward.
“Well…” He floundered as the question came back to him and his new job, putting down his cup to stab a biscuit with a stinger, deciding it was bad manners to grab a treat with his teeth or toes, “…I wouldn’t say ‘critic’…?”
A sudden howl of warm laughter filled the room as Collette wiped her eye, “Pike, when you were nothing but a Weedle by my ankles, you asked me about the Wizard of Oz: if the witch had an hour glass that would kill Dorothy when the sand ran out, why didn’t she just flip it over and be done with it?”
Pike blinked mid-turning his stinger into a skewer on the plate, a slightly surprised and embarrassed awe as he tried to scan his memory, “You remember all that? I don’t even remember that!”
“Well… as you might gather by my collection, I enjoy a good storytelling. And you need a good memory if you want to be a good storyteller, Pike, as good as a Donphan in fact.
“I remember you and so many more, all the kids who ever came to my corner, all the little memories, all together…”
“Heh… it doesn’t hurt to have a few good stories then?” Pike looked at the miniature kebab forming on the end of his stinger, panicking slightly as he saw the number of snacks he’d accidentally picked up on its end.
“Goodness merciful Palkia, Pike, no: it doesn’t matter how good the story is.
“Hand a set of forth graders a William Shakespeare and you can imagine the horrors you’d behold-“
Pike couldn’t quite help squirming at a flashback of forth grade there, of a Beedrill in tights on stage, standing with one stinger wrapped in tin-foil for a sword, stammering as he stood before the unamused audience, his mother waving eagerly from the stands, camera recording.
“…I’ll agree with you there.”
“It isn’t the story; it’s how you tell it, Pike.” The Illumise nodded sagely with him, a twinkle in her eye, “Although, not to say some stories aren’t more interesting than others?”
“Hmm?”
“Oh, now don’t play coy, Pike!” The old Illumise patted his thigh before sitting back, “Now, I’ve told you a little about myself, and I know a good bit more about you… but you haven’t told me so much about this Faith girl, have you?”
Pike’s heart sank like an overboard Golem, suddenly not able to enjoy the taste of the honeyed drink he’d been given, his wings raised an edge or two, his toes fidgeted over one another, but no more than that came before he finally spoke again. “Well, there isn’t much to say about her…”
“Bidoof-Sauce! There HASN’T been much of her said you mean. Besides a name and the fact she’s a Vulpix, the girl’s not much more than a missing number in the pages of this story to me.
“Not to mention, I’m a curious old Crobat,” She let out a half grin, “I want to hear more about the girl who managed to win the favor of the valiant Sir Pike!”
Pike squirmed, he’d spent good enough time invested in avoiding Faith to not want to think about her, but he wasn’t about to just throw a brick wall in Mrs Glowybutt’s face either, looking aside slightly, brushing one stinger over the arm above the other.
“Okay, but…” he laughed despite himself, shrugging, “I don’t know much where to start?”
The old Illumise let out a small laugh into her hand, “Well, as an experienced storyteller… may I suggest at the start?”
And so he would begin, and keep going on… as Pike kept talking, the easier it would become for him, with a light verbal nod here and there, he was encouraged more and more, from their first fantasy games online, to the meeting at the shrine, and the many culture shocks that had came ever since Faith had arrived to stay in the city.
He hadn’t even noticed how long he’d been speaking, as finally, he’d finished the story of Faith’s last broken bone, shaking his head, “Hard to believe, huh?”
For it all, Mrs Glowybutt sat back with a warm smile, grinning to herself, she’d definitely been paying attention, but all the time, it had been on him, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Pike.”
The Beedrill blinked, wondering what was crossing the old womon’s mind.
“You really do love her, don’t you Pike?”
The Beedrill stammered, unsure how to respond, but certainly feeling a little more uncomfortable before he’d nod finally, “Well, yes, of course I do!”
“…But there’s been trouble lately, am I right?”
Pike froze up, it was hard to tell how he felt to hear her say it, so bluntly and out of the blue, the short fuzz of fur he had bristling, he wanted to deny it, but at the same time, he wanted to say yes, to have someone to vent, someone who could understand him, but all that came out was a pathetic- “How did you…?”
“Now, I told you that one already Pike,” the Illumise nodded slowly and gently, “In any story… it’s the way you tell it that’s most important.
“I could see it in you, the way you talk about her, the way you stare into space while you imagine her stories… you’re well and truly smitten, Pike...” She lightly patted a stinger there.
“…But, I can see it also, the way you frown, the way you try to hide some of those expressions, you don’t want to hide it, but something’s troubling you?”
Pike didn’t answer as much, but nodded, slowly.
A click of the tongue came from her, as Collette took her tiny pebble-shaped glasses, shining them slowly with a cloth. “Well, now I won’t be a busy-body and push my way into this, Pike… neither am I going to sit in front of a dear old friend and lie.
“If you have anything you want to share, these ears of mine are all the willing, but every relationship has its bumps, only the strongest on-“
“Faith wants to evolve.”
The Illumise was the one to blink this time at the sudden reply Pike came out with, the Beedrill looking to her imploringly as she rushed her polishing of her glasses to replace them on her face, “Well… it’s not something I have experience with… but isn’t evolving generally a good thing?”
Pike screwed up his face, he wanted to push the words out and just tell her, but still, he’d promised, and it didn’t feel right to let out the secret, even if it was for Faith’s own good, at least not so easily! “It’s… a little more than evolving… You see… back at the Shrine where Faith comes from… there’s a tradition, a kind of rite for every Vulpix who evolves…”
Again, she nodded slowly, following along as he spoke, “As I understand, that’s quite common among a lot of pokémon who evolve through evolution stones, evolution ceremonies? I’ve known a good enough number of Poliwraths in my day, Pike, tattoos, piercings…”
“No!” The Beedrill clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head as he spoke with a sudden snap, one he didn’t even seem to recognise himself as he spoke onward, “This isn’t like that, it’s- it’s-“
Collette kept silent, waiting, and watching him solemnly, before giving him one final little nudge, “Pike… you can tell me dear, now go on.”
Pike swallowed in his throat, and looked to her finally, his eyes beginning to water, “…When a Vulpix at the shrine evolves…”
The silence held, before finally, “They hammer a spike into their chests.”
And the silence lay there, as Collette’s mouth hung open slightly, trying to run that image in her mind, for once, words failed her, before she simply spoke up again, “What did you say?”
“They’re going to take Faith!” Pike spoke up, his voice rising as his emotions soared, “They’re going to take a fire stone, carve it into a spike, and then impale it straight through her chest!!
“Unless I do something to stop them, if she goes ahead with this, they may very well end up killing her!!!”
“Damnit, Amy…”
Pike shook his head as he entered his room and - lo and behold - found his computer keyboard and mouse on the desk instead of the floor, evidence his cousin had been in his room twittering again without either bothering to ask or even be decent enough to put the equipment back.
He sighed and slumped his bag down on the bed, shoving up his sleeves roughly as best he could with those stinger-shaped arms, “Really need to use some of that paycheck and spring for a lock… or at least add a password to this thing…”
Pike grunted and strained as he tried to shift everything carefully back down to the floor: this had never been a problem before, him being the only one in the whole house who had ever used a computer, but ever since his Vespiqueen cousin had moved in to be closer to the PCA she had certainly made herself at home, helping herself to anything and everything she could.
“Finally…” He sighed, sinking back into his seat and hitting the power button with a toe, it was awkward enough for him to use the computer without having to use his awkward limbs to put it back down on the floor again and again.
Not to say he wasn’t skilled, he’d damn near turned toe typing into a skilled art as he began to load up VIM.
No sooner than that, a message beeped into existence.
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: Heyo! *Waves*
Pike paused.
Faith’s username, he froze up, he hadn’t expected her on this early; or rather – as he glanced at the clock hidden under the windows on his screen – he hadn’t expected to be back as late after meeting Mrs Glowybutt.
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: *Poke* < _ <
Finally, he set his feet to work.
PERSIANKNIGHT: Sorry Faith, only logged in for work, raincheck?
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: Okay… x_O …Have you got a minute at least?
MAGICIAN_OF_HOPE: I needed to ask you something important?
You logged off.
Pike slumped forward over his desk.
“Damnit…”
*****
When most kids played hooky, usually they did it to go to the movies, maybe they got out their skateboards and hit the streets, or just hung around with friends who’d either dared or been dared along for the ride. So it was a slightly strange idea to see Pike skipping team practise to hover on the steps of the public library in exchange.
It wasn’t often that Pike skipped practise with Sarah and the others, but today was an exception, it was a weekend, which meant that instead of the Academy, Team Quickstrike (formerly the Team Untitled) would be training at Faith’s.
Not the Cartego’s house, not miles away at the shrine or even the Zuna’s dojo, but the so-called Battle Factory, a broken down warehouse the girl had once called home after a confusion on behalf of her father, having reportedly bought the thing on eBay for all of ten dollars.
He still remembered how furious he was when they had found out about her living conditions, the entire time she’d hid it away from them, not out of embarrassment, but because she didn’t want them to worry about her, something of a habit the girl made, in fact, it was that same quality that had put them in their current predicament.
Back then, everything worked out so well just so easily, Faith went to stay at the Cartego’s, where Penny’s family seemed to welcome the girl with eager arms and the girl had near enough gained a second family!
Even the beaten up old warehouse had a happy ending: not one to give up, Faith had roped in help from Team Trauma and some of the most hardcore Auto Shoppers to help put it back together. All courtesy of the eccentric Slowpoke Twoflower and his funding to restore and refit the place into nothing less than a fully functional gym for the team!
It spoke volumes about the girl: every problem Faith met, no matter how despaired looking or downtrodden she would get, she bounced back despite the odds.
But then, she’d had so much help: this time it was just him and Faith.
And the secret.
His head ached from the constant to and fro in his head, just thinking about the girl made him start mentally juggling; he sorely needed some breathing space, some time away from the Vulpix to think about things.
He’d sworn not to tell a soul what she’d told him.
Then again, who did he even have to talk to about it anymore? He felt like a stranger in his own team!
Penny was gone now, having advanced to a Junior and starting her own team; Ross too had fell away for whatever reason he kept hidden under his tinfoil hat; and Sarah hardly seemed to be in it anymore for anything other than the sight of new girl Ness in spandex.
Forget Ness too, besides never understanding a word that came out her mouth, he just didn’t trust the Dragonair enough to share his thoughts with her.
He’d been avoiding Faith now for the best part of a week now, he couldn’t even voice his thoughts to her.
And that left him all alone.
Well, perhaps not entirely alone.
“Hello there, young Beedrill!”
Finally a smile lit Pike’s face as he got up and turned to see the elderly Illumise, only to be met with a wave of children crashing down on him!
“Beeeeeee!” He gave his wings a kick start, leaping up and out of the wave of the torrent of children! Just above the floor he hovered and watched as the kindergarten aged kids stormed down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk for their waiting parents.
And then finally, a slightly rotund Sandshrew brought up the rear, waddling out after an orange-parka covered Burmy, (“Wait up you guys, seriously!”) Pike landed once more and looked as Ms. Cavatica made her way down towards him.
“Ah, children… weekdays I watch them ‘til the parents come home, the weekends, I watch them ‘til the Miltank come home!”
“You spend the whole week here?” Pike folded his wings as he landed, blinking at the sudden thought.
“Heavens, no!” Collette A. Cavatica chuckled as she brought her trolley dolly trundling down the steps after her to meet the boy, “The Library is closed on Sunday!”
“…” Pike wasn’t sure if he’d brought the answer on himself, but simply shrugged as he moved to the next obvious quest, “Well… what do you do on Sundays then, Ms. Cavatica?”
The old bug stood there beside him, picking through her purse with a hum as if she’d never heard the question, checking carefully.
“…Um… is something wrong there?”
“Why yes!” She snapped it closed with a satisfactory chuckle, “I think I much prefer Glowybutt over Cavatica!”
*******
Truth be told, Pike had expected more books.
Indeed as he sat in Mrs Glowybutt’s house, there were bookshelves, and indeed they were full, but not with the tomes he’d ever imagined; instead they were lined with row after row of DVD cases!
From dollar store drop bins to black and white oldies, to even the latest releases, Pike was sure he even caught a peek of the Transformers movie halfway hidden by the Titfield Thunderbolt.
Each shelf was full, and if it wasn’t filled by DVDs, it was by little trinkets, old photos, nick-nacks, old tin toys or other ornaments, indeed it was a collection even Sarah may have been envious of.
“I was expecting more books?” Pike called to the kitchen as he sat there in his chair.
“Will you be alright with a regular cup, dear?” Came the reply, evidently ignoring his question again.
“Oh, well… anything that has a handle on it?” He glanced at his stingers, before deciding another attempt at the question, “Why don’t you have many books here?”
“You know, Pike, the most wonderful thing about spending most of your time in a library?” The little old Illumise shuffled her way back into the living room with him, offering a cup of an amber colored concoction.
Pike took it with a quiet thanks, sliding his first stinger carefully through the hole of the handle, then slipping his other stinger’s broad length underneath the cup to stop it dangling.
Mrs Glowybutt watched him with the slightest smile forming at his precarious balancing act, taking her own seat opposite, “I spend all day with my books, Pike. I can read as many as I like, as many times as I like and they’ll always be there.”
“Whether waiting for you, waiting for me or anymon else to come back and visit them again… so you could say you’ve seen my books many times before, Pike!” She chuckled.
Pike at first blinked, his nose tickled by the surprising fizz of the sweet tasting drink, warm, buttery, it seemed to make him buzz all over at once as he held it still carefully and looked back to her, “Well, I guess that makes sense… but… what about the DVDs?”
“You should know about those, being a fully fledged critic now, dear?” She divulged with a hearty chuckle, beckoning a nod to the plate of biscuits she presented forward.
“Well…” He floundered as the question came back to him and his new job, putting down his cup to stab a biscuit with a stinger, deciding it was bad manners to grab a treat with his teeth or toes, “…I wouldn’t say ‘critic’…?”
A sudden howl of warm laughter filled the room as Collette wiped her eye, “Pike, when you were nothing but a Weedle by my ankles, you asked me about the Wizard of Oz: if the witch had an hour glass that would kill Dorothy when the sand ran out, why didn’t she just flip it over and be done with it?”
Pike blinked mid-turning his stinger into a skewer on the plate, a slightly surprised and embarrassed awe as he tried to scan his memory, “You remember all that? I don’t even remember that!”
“Well… as you might gather by my collection, I enjoy a good storytelling. And you need a good memory if you want to be a good storyteller, Pike, as good as a Donphan in fact.
“I remember you and so many more, all the kids who ever came to my corner, all the little memories, all together…”
“Heh… it doesn’t hurt to have a few good stories then?” Pike looked at the miniature kebab forming on the end of his stinger, panicking slightly as he saw the number of snacks he’d accidentally picked up on its end.
“Goodness merciful Palkia, Pike, no: it doesn’t matter how good the story is.
“Hand a set of forth graders a William Shakespeare and you can imagine the horrors you’d behold-“
Pike couldn’t quite help squirming at a flashback of forth grade there, of a Beedrill in tights on stage, standing with one stinger wrapped in tin-foil for a sword, stammering as he stood before the unamused audience, his mother waving eagerly from the stands, camera recording.
“…I’ll agree with you there.”
“It isn’t the story; it’s how you tell it, Pike.” The Illumise nodded sagely with him, a twinkle in her eye, “Although, not to say some stories aren’t more interesting than others?”
“Hmm?”
“Oh, now don’t play coy, Pike!” The old Illumise patted his thigh before sitting back, “Now, I’ve told you a little about myself, and I know a good bit more about you… but you haven’t told me so much about this Faith girl, have you?”
Pike’s heart sank like an overboard Golem, suddenly not able to enjoy the taste of the honeyed drink he’d been given, his wings raised an edge or two, his toes fidgeted over one another, but no more than that came before he finally spoke again. “Well, there isn’t much to say about her…”
“Bidoof-Sauce! There HASN’T been much of her said you mean. Besides a name and the fact she’s a Vulpix, the girl’s not much more than a missing number in the pages of this story to me.
“Not to mention, I’m a curious old Crobat,” She let out a half grin, “I want to hear more about the girl who managed to win the favor of the valiant Sir Pike!”
Pike squirmed, he’d spent good enough time invested in avoiding Faith to not want to think about her, but he wasn’t about to just throw a brick wall in Mrs Glowybutt’s face either, looking aside slightly, brushing one stinger over the arm above the other.
“Okay, but…” he laughed despite himself, shrugging, “I don’t know much where to start?”
The old Illumise let out a small laugh into her hand, “Well, as an experienced storyteller… may I suggest at the start?”
And so he would begin, and keep going on… as Pike kept talking, the easier it would become for him, with a light verbal nod here and there, he was encouraged more and more, from their first fantasy games online, to the meeting at the shrine, and the many culture shocks that had came ever since Faith had arrived to stay in the city.
He hadn’t even noticed how long he’d been speaking, as finally, he’d finished the story of Faith’s last broken bone, shaking his head, “Hard to believe, huh?”
For it all, Mrs Glowybutt sat back with a warm smile, grinning to herself, she’d definitely been paying attention, but all the time, it had been on him, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Pike.”
The Beedrill blinked, wondering what was crossing the old womon’s mind.
“You really do love her, don’t you Pike?”
The Beedrill stammered, unsure how to respond, but certainly feeling a little more uncomfortable before he’d nod finally, “Well, yes, of course I do!”
“…But there’s been trouble lately, am I right?”
Pike froze up, it was hard to tell how he felt to hear her say it, so bluntly and out of the blue, the short fuzz of fur he had bristling, he wanted to deny it, but at the same time, he wanted to say yes, to have someone to vent, someone who could understand him, but all that came out was a pathetic- “How did you…?”
“Now, I told you that one already Pike,” the Illumise nodded slowly and gently, “In any story… it’s the way you tell it that’s most important.
“I could see it in you, the way you talk about her, the way you stare into space while you imagine her stories… you’re well and truly smitten, Pike...” She lightly patted a stinger there.
“…But, I can see it also, the way you frown, the way you try to hide some of those expressions, you don’t want to hide it, but something’s troubling you?”
Pike didn’t answer as much, but nodded, slowly.
A click of the tongue came from her, as Collette took her tiny pebble-shaped glasses, shining them slowly with a cloth. “Well, now I won’t be a busy-body and push my way into this, Pike… neither am I going to sit in front of a dear old friend and lie.
“If you have anything you want to share, these ears of mine are all the willing, but every relationship has its bumps, only the strongest on-“
“Faith wants to evolve.”
The Illumise was the one to blink this time at the sudden reply Pike came out with, the Beedrill looking to her imploringly as she rushed her polishing of her glasses to replace them on her face, “Well… it’s not something I have experience with… but isn’t evolving generally a good thing?”
Pike screwed up his face, he wanted to push the words out and just tell her, but still, he’d promised, and it didn’t feel right to let out the secret, even if it was for Faith’s own good, at least not so easily! “It’s… a little more than evolving… You see… back at the Shrine where Faith comes from… there’s a tradition, a kind of rite for every Vulpix who evolves…”
Again, she nodded slowly, following along as he spoke, “As I understand, that’s quite common among a lot of pokémon who evolve through evolution stones, evolution ceremonies? I’ve known a good enough number of Poliwraths in my day, Pike, tattoos, piercings…”
“No!” The Beedrill clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head as he spoke with a sudden snap, one he didn’t even seem to recognise himself as he spoke onward, “This isn’t like that, it’s- it’s-“
Collette kept silent, waiting, and watching him solemnly, before giving him one final little nudge, “Pike… you can tell me dear, now go on.”
Pike swallowed in his throat, and looked to her finally, his eyes beginning to water, “…When a Vulpix at the shrine evolves…”
The silence held, before finally, “They hammer a spike into their chests.”
And the silence lay there, as Collette’s mouth hung open slightly, trying to run that image in her mind, for once, words failed her, before she simply spoke up again, “What did you say?”
“They’re going to take Faith!” Pike spoke up, his voice rising as his emotions soared, “They’re going to take a fire stone, carve it into a spike, and then impale it straight through her chest!!
“Unless I do something to stop them, if she goes ahead with this, they may very well end up killing her!!!”
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