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Brock had found the food court.
It was wonderful. They had every food imaginable. He moved from booth to booth, only pausing his gaping at the variety of foods to load down the plate he had been handed when he had first stumbled into this utopia. Everywhere he turned, there was a new dish. There was everything, and of course, it all looked and smelled perfectly delicious. He hefted a final roll onto the towering pile of food on his plate and moved to the checkout counter.
Except there wasn't one.
He looked around the large, open court, roving over the small tables at which people happily ate and conversed, over the long tables stacked with steaming platters and dishes, over the bustling dozens of cooks, clad not in the conventional white, but in all different colors, in all different styles. But there was no line leading up to a checkout counter, no cashier, no cash register. In fact, Brock hadn't seen a single price written anywhere in this convention.
Confused, he approached a girl wearing a pair of steely purple overalls, flipping an okonomiyaki offhandedly as she talked cheerfully to a much younger girl stocking up on sweetmeats. "Excuse me," he began nervously. The smaller girl giggled and ran off to a table, balancing her crowded plate rather artfully. The older girl looked up at him, eyebrow raised. Brock was horrified to find that, with her long, sleek black hair and big green eyes, she was incredibly pretty. 'Just what I need,' he thought dejectedly. 'To act like a complete idiot in front of this complete stranger, in the middle of all these hundreds of more complete strangers. Way to get off on the wrong foot.'
"Not to worry, Brock," his amulet piped up unexpectedly, making him jump in surprise. "I'll take care of it."
'You will?' he thought, slightly skeptical.
"No problemo. Leave it to me. After all," it went on in a tone that Brock immediately associated with a wry smile, "what are supernatural, all-powerful, mysterious, divine amulets for?"
'Not much, I'd wager,' Brock thought, with a smile of his own.
The amulet sent an appreciative chuckle shuddering up and down his spine.
Throughout this entire mental exchange, the girl was rapidly becoming more and more impatient. Finally she thwapped her small spatula on the table irritably and said sharply, "Well? What d'you want?"
Brock blinked. "Oh." He blushed sheepishly. "Sorry. I just wanted to know... uh..." He made a vague gesture at the incredible array on the table before him and blushed even deeper. 'Uh, you aren't helping much,' he thought furiously. The amulet flickered in distress. "I'm doing my best!"
The girl continued to stare at him critically, though a small half-smile quirked on her lips. "Yes?"
"Is all this food, er-?" he began weakly.
"Free?" she interrupted. At his feeble nod, she continued, "Of course it is, you doofus."
Though it seemed scientifically impossible, Brock blushed even redder.
The girl hadn't noticed, or else chose not to make note of it. "I mean, what good is money to any of us? Money is only worth something in society, and don't plan on being around our old society anytime soon. Besides, think of the poorer people who're here. Why should they have to suffer because they were unlucky when it came to your precious 'society'?"
A wave of calm swept through his nerve-wracked body. "There ya go. Take it away, boy."
He smiled. "Well, sure, that's a good point," his blush fading and his voice regaining its strength as he spoke. "But," he countered, "without money, how do you manage to get all the ingredients for all this food? And this table." He thumped the piece of carpentry with his fist. "And these dishes. They all cost money, and unless one of 'us' has access to all these resources and has skill in pottery, carpentry, farming, and sewing, we had to have gotten this with money." The girl was watching him now with an amused look, her eyes not unkind. Even more emboldened by the disappearance of her previous hostility, he finished with, "Truth be told, I don't know how much more than me you know about our current situation, but it seems logical to me that we will be interacting with our old society, sooner or later. And when we do, we are going to need money."
"Smart lad. You showed her who's boss."
He grinned, and a faint rosiness of blush returned to his cheeks.
The girl, though it seemed it almost annoyed her to be so, was grudgingly impressed. "Mmmm. Okay, you've piqued my interest, I'll give you that. And I have quite a few answers for your little argument." She smiled broadly at him, and the dimples that suddenly appeared in her cheeks were like a smack in Brock's face. "We'll have to get together sometime and continue our little debate." The full-fledged blush that Brock had hoped was gone for good blasted back at full power. The girl's grin narrowed to a small, knowing smile. "But," she said quickly, the smile vanishing instantly, "right now, I really need to focus on my cooking." She turned back to her grill and began flipping the okonomiyaki feverishly, ignoring him.
"Hey, I could help," Brock blurted out.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. "Could you, now?" she asked quietly. She raised an eyebrow. "And how, exactly?"
He looked down modestly. "Well, I domake a mean onigiri."
"Better than mine?" She smiled wryly. "A doofus like you? We'll have to see."
Leaving his forgotten plate on the table, Brock went to join her.
"Score!" his amulet crowed joyously.
James was, for once, completely and utterly content with the world.
Not that his life hadn't been a good one. He'd been happy before, with Jess and Meowth. In fact, if you'd asked him a week ago, he'd have chosen death over losing that lifestyle. It was what he was used to, and besides, he genuinely loved Jess and Meowth. They were a family (the only family he'd ever really had) and he'd have been perfectly happy if they'd carried out the same routine for the rest of their lives.
But, of course, there had been several flaws with their way of life. Mainly, it was the entire Team Rocket aspect. Oh, sure, at first it had been just fine. But James had never been well suited to the hardships of that job. He had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and a hundred grand clutched in his little hand. Unfortunately for him, Jess had really wanted to join, and so, for her, he'd pulled through. And for a while, they'd been Giovanni's top agents. But then they'd been assigned that abysmally foolish job to capture that ridiculously powerful Pikachu after it beat them at the Viridian City PokéCenter. After that, they'd fallen quite rapidly, status-wise, in Giovanni's eyes, despite how many times Ash and his friends defeated his other, better agents. (James guessed Giovanni never stopped to consider that.) At any rate, after their humiliating fall from grace (and loss of the little respect they had), the game of Team Rocket had stopped being fun for he, Jess, and Meowth.
Even now, thinking about it sent a shiver of fear up and down his spine.
Giovanni had been a cruel, cruel master.
Now, sitting on a bench, surrounded by all these warm, happy, smiling people, people who were actually happy to see him, people who didn't know he was wanted all around the world, people who didn't know what a joke he'd become, didn't know all the cruel things he'd done... well, it was hard to even begin to think of how he'd managed before. The pure evil of what he'd been before (or at least the pathetic attempt at pure evil) was like a touch of ice on this warm bubble of euphoria enveloping him at the moment. He just felt like he belonged here, like he'd been an outcast his entire life until stumbling into this clearing, filled with all these people. The people were what blew James's mind. He had had only Jess and Meowth for most of his life. He'd never had the chance to be around a large group of loving people. But now it was like he was in the midst of his closest, best friends, even if they numbered in the hundreds.
He lounged on the bench, letting the brighter-than-sunlight moonlight shine on his upturned face. People passed by and smiled at him, overlooking his tattered appearance, his grimy skin, and the obvious, if torn, red 'R' on his shirt. To them, what he had been didn't matter. It was what he was going to be, now that he had a second chance.
"Mind if I sit down?"
James jumped, startled, and then looked up into the face of a young man. He had short brown hair, and wore an aviator jacket. His eyes were a plain gray, and his face was straight and honest. He spoke again: "I mean, if it's that much of a problem-"
The sudden interruption sent James's elated thoughts crashing back down to earth. A "No, it's okay," he mumbled. "Go ahead." He scooted over to the left side of the bench and the young man sat down next to him.
"How do ya do?" the new boy said amiably, sticking out a gloved hand. "M'name's Rokou. I'm from Celadon."
James took the hand with his own and shook it slowly. "I'm..." He considered quickly if telling his actual name would be wise. He was known in all major cities, including the greatest of them all, Celadon. But that was just paranoia. He was safe here. "James. I'm James. I'm from..." Where was he from? "...around," he finished lamely.
Rokou shrugged, overlooking James's embarrassed blush. "So, you been around here yet, or what?"
"Nah, I just got here." He crossed his arms over the Rocket 'R' on his chest self-consciously. "You?"
"Me too. I had to hitch an all-day Fearow ride to get here. I need a rest 'fore I do anything." He passed a weary hand over his eyes. "It wasn't a good ride, either. Lotta turbulence. I think it had something to do with this bugger." He spun a chain around his finger. A light brown stone glittered at the end of it. "Second I got aboard, it started glowing, and the bird got agitated."
James watched the spinning amulet curiously. After a moment's worth of trying to decipher what animal was engraved upon it, and failing miserably, he asked, "What is it, anyway?"
"Pidgeot." Rokou caught his eye and winked. "Makes sense, don't it?"
"Huh?" James concentrated harder on concealing the 'R' from view.
"Makes sense that the Fearow would be so P.O.ed, don't it?" Rokou watched him carefully now.
"Yeah, yeah, sure." James was getting more and more uncomfortable. Maybe he wasn't welcome here. After all, he'd never been welcome before anywhere in his life....
"But then, Fearows and Spearows are basically, in a whole, real P.O.ed Pokémon," Rokou laughed. When James only feebly chuckled in response, the Celadon youth fell silent.
"You know, James," he started slowly. He looked up at the Rocket, and James was struck by how truthful his eyes looked. "I don't think anybody here could care less if you was in Team Rocket." He grinned hesitantly. "I know I don't."
James blinked.
Rokou stood up and stretched. "Well, at any rate, I think I'm in the mood for some sight-seeing." He nodded at James. "It was nice to have met ya. Maybe I'll see you around." He turned to leave.
The Rocket stared at his hands for a second, his mind racing down a path he never thought he'd come up across. Finally, he jumped up. "Rokou, hold on." The young man turned. James smiled waveringly. "Think having a Rocket around would be too illegal for you?" he asked shyly.
Rokou's face lit up, but he kept his voice sly as he answered, "Nah, actually, I was thinkin' that it might be helpful having a hardened criminal around, sooner or later." He grinned. "And hey, if you get in the way, I'll just turn you in to an Officer Jenny, and get myself a cash reward."
James responded by punching Rokou's arm -- hard. As the two got in a small fist fight, laughing and joking as they did, a fleeting thought shot through James's mind: 'I haven't had a friend like this since Chopper.'
Far away, lost somewhere in the crowd, as she huddled in the shadows, trying to keep away from the other jovial convention attendees, a young woman picked up on the treacherous thought and hissed in loathing. Her jumbled mind tried to put words together... words to describe just how she felt. How she felt abandoned. How she felt lost. How she felt unloved, unguided, and unpopular.
How she felt like she had no family. Like she had no friends.
Like she had once had a friend, but he had betrayed her.
The difficulty had started the second she had been given this accursed amulet. It had twisted her thoughts, made her more evil than she had been before. It had taken control of her, and made her something that she wasn't. Made her something that she had never wanted to be.
She sat in the dark and watched these happy people with their kind, benevolent, loving amulets, talking with their kind, benevolent, loving friends. She had been unlucky. She'd gotten a hateful amulet. A hateful new friend, to replace the old one she had lost to a different stone. Another one of those benevolent, loving stones. One of the others. He'd become one of the others, after all these years, and worst of all, far worst of all, he'd left her behind to be different.
They'd always been together, as far back as she could remember, and now he'd left her in a second, to embrace the happiness that offered itself to him. But hadn't he been happy with her? Hadn't he loved her just as much as the new amulet had suddenly loved him? Lately she had come to appreciate tragedies; often in them, the harshnesses of truth are revealed. And they had. She knew where her 'friends' stood now. She was alone now, wasn't she?
Well, she wouldn't be for long. The new power she had received didn't make her happy, but it gave her other things in return. Even now, crouched in the cold corner of an empty booth, she could sense several other people, scattered throughout the entire convention, reeking of evil and hate like black smudges on this jewel of a new world. They would find each other, and then, alone no longer, she could start getting her revenge. She knew nothing now but the desire for revenge.
Her scrambled mind found the words. She muttered them through blistered lips, narrow eyes glittering with malice, and a distant pain of a world lost.
"James... I will kill you."
Her name was Claire, and she was from a farm not unlike the Laramie Ranch, though quite a bit smaller. It was on the outskirts of a small patch of woods, and their property, it being the out-of-the-way, unpopulated place it was, covered not only the hundred acres they farmed, but also stretched into the small forest. It was there, where the trees met the fields, that they had built their large, ramshackle farmhouse. It had just been her and her parents and her siblings, her uncles and aunts, her cousins, and her grandpa and grandma. They had lived as a big, unruly clan, keeping up with the farm work, crops, and animals, and basically just making a life of it. It had been a good life, without a doubt. She had been very happy there, nestled among her kin, living in a house full of people and full of love. She was well-suited to the hard work that comes with a farm, too. It kept her busy, and it kept her in shape, and so she was content to continue living this way forever.
It had happened on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The entire family was gathered on the outskirts of the woods, in the field at the foot of the small hill their house sat upon, to have a wiener roast. The fire crackled, the hot dogs and marshmallows sizzled, and the family laughed and chattered and played around. One of her smaller cousins had brought his football down with them, and the majority of the children were engaged in an all-out game. The younger of the kids were splashing around in the creek that meandered lazily through the woods. The adults either sat contentedly in the warmth of the fire, or talked cheerfully, or ate gratefully, or else had joined their children in their games.
She had been sitting in the bed of her grandfather's pick-up truck that they had driven down to the field, sipping from a cup of apple cider and letting the sun shine on her face. It had really been a wonderful day that day. She had woken up that morning and felt giddy with excitement. Sitting there, with warm sunlight shining down on her, and waves of more warmth emanating from the fire, with the light breeze that swept through the trees, and the bright chirps of miscellaneous birds, hidden in the woods, she had decided that the thrill she had felt that morning could logically be tied to this magnificent weather. It was logical, but she had thought vaguely that it wasn't right. There was something going on that she didn't know about.
Yet.
Her mother appeared at the side of the truck then, and, turning to face the woman, the girl was struck with a sudden pang of jealousy. Her mother looked beautiful, standing there in a ray of sunlight, laughing. Her long, curly, thick, dark green hair was gathered back in a messy ponytail. She was dressed in a pair of old jeans cut-offs and a raggedy sweatshirt. She had been one of the adults participating in the football game, and her skin was flushed and her soft gray eyes were bright with excitement and exertion. Her mother had always been known as a pretty girl, and she had common sense to boot. Claire had always been told she looked exactly like her mother, except for her eyes, which were a deep blue, but she had always doubted the truth in those off-hand assurances.
Her mother asked her to run up to the house and get the other pitcher of iced tea. Obligingly, she jumped out of the truck and set off across the field, laughing and playfully shoving one of her cousins out of her way as she did. She walked briskly, and soon the shouts and chatter of her family faded to silence as she hurried across the field. A breeze blew through her long, curly, thick dark green hair, that she had always thought lacked the luster and bounce of her mother's. As it had, she suddenly noticed that the birds she had heard earlier had grown silent. The sun also had seemed to disappear behind a cloud, and the temperature had dropped to a cooler degree. She shivered and sped up her already quick walk. The house seemed much too far ahead to her. She set up the hill at a half-run, eyes warily darting to each side of her.
Without warning, a gale of wind hit her at full blast. The sky instantly turned almost black. The wind ripped through the trees and sent her reeling back, clutching at her bare arms in a futile attempt to keep warm and whimpering in fright.
And then a black shadow zoomed past her, mere feet away from her face. Suddenly, as a rally of raucous caws overpowered the deafeningly loud roaring of the wind, a horde of indistinguishable birds began sweeping past her, on all sides, like a fleet of dive-bombers. She screamed in terror, covering her face with her hands and sobbing with fear. The birds kept coming; she could sense them flying past her, and could feel their feathers brushing against her body. She opened her mouth to scream again, but found her voice reduced to a mere squeak. She gasped for breath, her heart pounding, and curled up in a defensive ball, feeling the buffeting of strong wings on her unprotected back.
It seemed to go on forever, but it probably didn't last for more than a minute. At any rate, as quickly as they had come, the buffeting suddenly stopped, and the panicked girl, after a moment of waiting, slowly uncurled to find herself completely alone. The wind too had unexpectedly disappeared, leaving an eerie silence in its place. The sky was still been dark, and Claire, eyes so wide the whites were showing, had the gut-wrenching impression that this was only the eye of the storm.
Suddenly, a soft chirping permeated the heavy silence, and the faintest breath of wind stirred the leaves of the trees. She whined in horror and her knees gave out, dropping her to the ground. She hunched there, trembling in fear, bright eyes flitting from shadow to shadow in dreading anticipation.
The branches of the tree directly before her began to shake. Squeaking in alarm, she scrambled backwards, desperate to get away. Her back, however, thunked against the trunk of a tree hard before she was able to get very far, and so she simply cringed there, watching the tree before her with fear-bright eyes.
The dark leaves of the tree rustled for a moment, and then a single bird appeared out of its branches, winging its way almost lazily towards her. As she watched it, paralyzed with fear, it lit gracefully on the ground before her. It was beautiful: small and white and delicate. She didn't recognized it as any known breed of Pokémon. It sat there, preening its feathers carefully, as she slowly calmed down. After quite a long moment, she stretched out a tentative hand that shook as it neared the soft feathers of the bird. Her fingers were no more than an inch away from it when it suddenly looked up at her, black eyes flashing.
Her hand shot back to safety instantly, but the damage was done. The bird launched itself into flight and, hovering a few feet in front of her face, began to flap its wings furiously, battering her face with the wind it created. This was too much for her. From her lips escaped a thin, high shriek, and she struck out with her fist blindly, feeling it come in contact with the soft feathered breast of the bird.
It hit the ground and skidded to the foot of the tree it had appeared from. Shaking with outrage and immeasurable fright, she climbed unsteadily to her feet. The bird lain there in a pitiful bundle of white feathers, moving not at all. Then, to her surprise, it stirred, and awkwardly righted itself. Her back hit the trunk of the tree again as she took a startled step backwards.
The bird, however, acted quite differently than before. It almost bowedto her, bending slightly and extending a wing. As she blinked in utter confusion, her heart racing with excitement, a gentle voice suddenly sounded in her mind: "Youare a brave one. There is nothing to fear now."
The white bird took wing, then. The sun same back out, and as Claire watched the bird disappear into the bright sun, something in the sky glinted. She stepped back in alarm, and then a small stone dropped back to earth, landing softly in the grass directly before her. It was a brown stone, flat and the size of a quarter. It hung on a leather thong, and on its surface were carved intricate archaic designs. Peering at it curiously, she couldn't quite sort out what it--
Claire was a farm girl, and no more than that. She looked exactly like her mother, except for her eyes. They were a deep blue, and, of all the features that she inherited from her beautiful mother, they were the most stunning, and the most beautiful. She stood among the trees, motionless, her big, beautiful deep blue eyes fixed on the brown stone. From somewhere within it, a white light began to glow through the drab brown.
"You are brave, and you are strong. You are perfect, Claire.
"Will you accept us?
"Will you accept the Fearow?"
A wind stirred the leaves of the trees in the forest. The faint sounds of a football game, somewhere far away, touched her ears. The sun shone down on her face, warming it comfortingly.
Her lips moved to form the words she could not find.
"I will."
He had finally snapped.
Years of abuse, years of hurt, years of pain, they'd finally taken their toll. He had gone his entire life without fitting in. He had lost his first love, he had been spurned by his master, he had even lost the chance to be around the girl he had loved at first sight. A special girl... and she had vanished from his life forever. He had only ever had the two of them, and had only managed to survive because of their awkward, albeit ever-present, love for him. The three of them had been a family, and their company had been the only place he had ever belonged. Their love had been the only he had ever had.
And he had lost them.
Lost them, he had lost them, and as if it couldn't have gotten any worse, he had found that he had lost her to the very thing in the world he hated above all. The thing to which he had lost his first love, the thing which his master had replaced him with, and the thing that the she, the girl he saw only in his dreams now, had innocently chosen over him. And now he had lost her to it, too. She had changed immediately, gotten just as smug, just as cruel, just as evil.
Jessie had turned into a Persian, and he and James had crumbled beneath her.
He had been forced to watch her change, and then had been forced to watch him suffer. James had been broken, and Meowth hadn't known which was worse, to see her so evil, or to see him so pitiful. It had been hell boiled over, and he hadn't known what to do... and then he had lost James, too.
It was then that he had finally lost it. After a lifetime of challenging the boundaries between human and Pokémon, walking among those he was not supposed to walk among, speaking the words that he was not supposed to know, he had at last, having been faced with this unspeakable nightmare, lost all sanity. He was hopeless: hopelessly demented, hopelessly depressed, and hopelessly desperate for any form of consolation. He was crazy, and he was hurt, and he just wanted to be loved again.
Somewhere, deep inside the jumbled chaotic roiling mess that had become his mind, something was telling him what to do. It was a voice that spoke to him quietly, a hissing, malicious voice that swore it was his friend. He had needed a friend. It had revealed to him what needed to be done. It had first spoken to him as he had stalked through the forest, following the two who had abandoned him thoughtlessly. On the heels on those two, what it had said had struck him as obvious. Salvation was easily obtained.
He just had to kill somebody.
Or so the voice had said. And it was his friend, and friends don't lie to friends.
Friends only cruelly thrust friends away, leaving them alone and unloved in a hateful world.
And so now he was on the prowl, searching for the one who would die easily, the one who would grant him release from his self-contained dementia. He stalked around the edge of the clearing, weaving between the trees, wild eyes darting from person to person. He was invisible to the jubilant people of the convention, but he knew that he was no threat to them. There were too many of them. He'd never be able to take them all.
He hunted for what seemed like an eternity, each minute alone inside his deranged mind like a knife that tore through his skin. He had to find someone. He just couldn't last. He was lonely, and the voice had long since vanished, and his friends had left him alone, and he needed someone to help him to help him survive what was he going to do he was--
Then he found her.
She was a little girl, kneeling at the edge of the clearing, among the trees, effectively cut off and hidden from view of the other convention attendees. He heaved a sigh of relief, though he felt none.
It would be over in seconds. She was just sitting there, blissfully unaware, humming quietly to herself and playing with a necklace she was wearing. He sneaked silently up to pouncing distance, then crouched among the shadows, muscles tensed.
Suddenly, he sprang. With a demonic yowl, he leapt forward. Too late, she turned, gasping, eyes wide with fright. He was inches away from the girl, his claws were inches away from her perfect face, he was inches away from salvation -- when a blast of white light seared into his maniacal eyes, causing him to cry out in pain. It was followed immediately by a great force slamming into his body, hurling him away from the girl, and flinging him with a sickening crack into the solid trunk of a thick oak tree.
There was white light, and a disoriented feeling, and a faint sense of floating. Meowth didn't know what it was, but it felt wonderfully free. Maybe the voice had been right. Maybe his attack had brought on release. Release from himself, from his mind. From this god-awful, loveless world. He was free now. Oh, to be free.
The light was overwhelming now, the same bright whiteness that had blinded him before. But it was different now. It was healing. It was loving. As he slowly lost all consciousness, he faced eternity with no regrets, save one. A face haunted his memory, a voice echoed in his ears. He had never had a chance for a future with her, but it had been nice to be loved for once. And to love in return. He would never forget her, or her beautiful face, or her beautiful voice, or her beautiful name... Cassan--
White light, and nothing else. He exhaled one last time and knew no more.
Ah, heaven.
They numbered three now, and she was so full of happiness, it had an intoxicating effect. She and Claire had been admiring a pair of adorable Clefairys when they had heard a third voice cooing in unison with their two. Her name was Faith, and she was from Vermilion City, and she had fit with the two girls like a missing puzzle piece. Misty had never enjoyed the company of any two people in her life like she did theirs. It was like an empty hole in her life, a big chunk of it gone and gaping open, had suddenly and without warning been filled. For the first time in her life, she knew what it felt like to have a best friend. And not only that: she knew what it was like to have twobest friends. She felt safe with them. She felt happy with them.
It was just so wonderful.
And so she had felt for the past hour or two. But then, as she and her two new friends sat together on a park bench, chatting, she suddenly stopped dead in her conversation as a suffocating sense of deep, deep depression smothered her contentment. She gasped for breath as it hit her, her eyes suddenly becoming unfocused. They brimmed with tears, and she whined slightly.
"Misty? What's wrong?"
"You okay?"
"Y-yeah... I think..."
She didn't need to think. She didn't need to guess. She knew what it was. She had sensed it, only the night before, and it had tugged at her mind, though only for an instant. She had barely felt it, nothing like she did now, but it had stayed with her all this time, like a tiny reminder at the back of her mind. She had felt it then, and so now she could easily identify it.
Something had happened to him. He was gone.
She could barely grasp the concept, but at the same time, a twinge of her early happiness forced its way through the melancholy. When she had last seen him, he had been a wretched beast that had known only misery, beyond help. It was best, she knew, that he suffered no longer.
'But he had had such personality before... all this happened...' she thought vaguely, then shook her head, dashing the thought from her mind.
"Poor, poor Meowth," she murmured, and a single, regretful tear traveled its course down her cheek.
"Misty?" Her friends were concerned. "You okay?"
It was just the oddest thought, to think that she would never be bothered by his loud mouth again. A flicker of sadness darted through her eyes. 'Never again,' she thought sadly, then met the eyes of her friends. She smiled shakily, but smiled all the same. "Yeah, I think I am."
'I'll miss him though.'
The girl cringed in pain as the amulet suddenly filled her head with the vile oaths of its cursing, the impossible volume of the noise that was contained within her mind pounding at her eardrums.
"Hurts," she whined, clapping a hand to her ear. "P-Please..."v
The amulet responded by sending an irritable volt of pure, fiery pain down her spine. As she jerked around on the cold ground, mouth gaping open in a silent scream, the ivory amulet glowed sulkily. To her unhearing ears, the hissing, malicious voice spat out the words: "Damn. I've lost him."
Darkness.
Darkness, and a voice that barely permeated the silence that accompanied it.
A muffled murmuring.
"Oh, please be okay."
The big, feline eyes flickered open.
"Me.... Meowth?" he gasped.
Everything blurred, then came together. The girl's face was hovering above him. She was biting her lip in apprehension. She visibly relaxed as he rubbed his painfilled eyes with a feeble paw. "Oh, thank goodness you're okay!" she cried. Her voice was beautiful, filled with the sweet simplicity of a child, but a musical sound nonetheless. "I'm so sorry, but the amulet thought you were attacking me."
Amulet? As the spots before his eyes began to fade away, he again noticed the necklace that she wore, and then saw the stone which hung upon it. It was an ivory color, and for a second, he was filled with panic. It was the same color as the one she had received. It was the same--
"Relax, brother," a soothing voice resounded in his mind. A voice much like the first voice, in the way he and he alone could hear it. But this one was much, much different."You are among your kind."
Then he could make out the carvings on the stone. It couldn't be. It was a... it was a...
The girl's eyes roved over his battered body, at the scratches he had obtained from his reckless trek through the forest, at his broken claws and bruised skin. And then her eyes found his eyes, and only a fool could miss the bone-weariness that the feline possessed. "You poor, poor Meowth!" The girl hugged him close. "But you're all right now. You're safe with me."
He was safe with her.
"I... I..."
She wasn't surprised at his evident gift of speech. Meowth got the idea that nothing about him was a surprise to her. And what was even better was, nothing about him made her hate him. Couldn't she see he was evil? Couldn't she see he had wanted to kill her?
"Oh, she can see. But do you really think it bothers her now?"
"Who... who are you?" he asked haltingly, his big eyes fixed on her face. She had shoulder-length blond hair, and big green eyes, but there was something familiar about her.... something that went beyond physical appearance. She reminded him of.... she reminded him of....
"My name's Cassandra."
Cassandra....
"Welcome to our family," the voice said.
It took a moment for it to register, but it registered. He had a family.
Meowth closed his eyes and began to purr.
It had the same effect as a whistle blown, but there was no noise. All throughout the convention, men and women and children alike all flinched as a ringing noise suddenly sounded in their heads.
The two young men heard it, as they ate ravenously in the food court. One dressed in brown and black, and the other dressed in rags, they both choked on egg rolls as the painful sound rang through their minds, and spent a few minutes coughing and pounding on each other's backs.
The three girls heard it, as they talked happily, laid sprawled out comfortably on a park bench. The green-haired one cursed loudly as the eardrum splitting noise suddenly sounded in her mind, and her pink- and red-haired friends both fell off the bench as they grasped their ears in pain.
The older boy heard it, and as a result, he let an onigiri drop into the dirt as he clapped both hands to his ears and yelled in surprise and pain. The dark-skinned girl next to him did the same, and her okonomiyaki fell to the ground as well.
The girl, lurking in the shadows, heard it, but her limited comprehension forced upon her the decision that it was a punishment from her new friend, and she bore it silently. The agony tore through her mind like a blade, but the only outside evidence that she even heard it was a tremble of her lip and a single tear that traveled its course down her scratched, grimy cheek, leaving a shiny trail through the dirt.
The cat didn't hear it as he walked at the little girl's side, but the girl heard it, and she stopped dead and cried out. The cat jumped to her shoulder anxiously and frantically asked her what was wrong, but by then the pain was gone, and she hugged him comfortingly, both for her and for him.
The young boy heard it, as did the people he sat with, and they all kicked back from their chairs and shouted in surprise. When the pain suddenly vanished, the young woman in blue giggled, and the younger girl next to him elbowed him in the side and winked at him. Rubbing his forehead with a mock expression of pain, he laughed himself.
The small yellow Pokémon didn't hear it as it wandered through the convention, lost, searching to no avail for its master. A pitiful cry escaped its lips, it eyes brimming with hopeless tears: "Pika"
All over the convention, people heard it, and felt it, and all around the convention, almost imperceptibly, every single amulet that hung around a person's neck, or looped around a person's fist, or dangled from a headband or a belt, began to glow, and their light intensified until every single amulet there was glowing and humming cheerfully.
The words echoed through the minds of all that gathered there:
"It's time for the briefing."