Chapter Text
It was afternoon. The strong and hot sunlight announced the arrival of the month of May a few days earlier. And inside Hope’s bedroom, the computer’s speakers were in full blast with a playlist randomly chosen by the hardware. At a moment, the first chores of a music we both loved to listen to in Alola were playing. Being a karaoke session, we were dancing on our sits as we sung the lyrics. It‘s always awesome meowing out loud the human vocals of this song! The over four minutes of music had passed in the blink of an eye.
Hope’s passion is music. She absolutely loves music. Everything has got a sound. It’s present in our daily lives. They can invoke emotions and as such it’s an art by its own. Words all told to me by my Trainer. Don’t get fooled by her feminine and cute looks because this girl is a great tomboy. Back in Alola, she was that kind of lass who wouldn’t be scared to climb an Alolan Exeggutor just for the challenge and observe the tropical landscape around her. She did some crazy stuff during the Island Challenge and I love her for that madness. Some of my favourite moments with her were the night musical festivals at the beaches. Hope’s eyes were shining with each time the locals were singing in their own dialect. I wasn’t fully understanding what they declaimed but I felt an incredible energy inside my soul. It was like a chant to summon courage, something powerful. Even to this day, never forgetting about her origins, Hope listens to Alolan music. Especially before going to physiotherapy sessions and to hospital surgeries.
The bicycle crash was something I wished I could forget about. I was there at the day it happened. I’m still certain it wasn’t her fault but yes other human that for some reason was driving his car on the wrong road lane and that had startled Hope. She changed the direction by instinct but ended losing control of her vehicle. Her tire hit hard on the metal rail and we fell from very high. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, my sight was blurry and I took a while to notice that I was listening to a siren and a human agitation around me alongside with some metallic and electric sounds. Then it was when I’ve noticed. Hope was being taken away to an ambulance as I was set apart to a Pokémon Center.
I don’t remember much of my Pokémon Center stay. But I remember seeing weird and scary objects doing things on me. I highly suspect this is the reason why I started to dislike hospital scenarios and feel anxious in this sort of places. Nurse Joy had told Hope’s parents that I was extremely lucky to only have broken a paw. Unfortunately, Hope’s case was much more severe from what I posteriorly learnt and it felt a real shock to me. Her parents were devastated. When we had both been discharged and returned home I could see in Hope’s eyes how frustrated she was and she kept asking me apologies for what happened. She thought I would be upset after her because she wouldn’t be able to continue to travel with me. But I proved Hope wrong and showed my understanding by licking her hand. I always stood by the girl’s side and that has brought some relief to her.
The girl was barely eating on the first weeks due to depression. It took a while before she could find again her path of happiness. I eventually recovered from my paw but she was still on her wheelchair. There was an evening where our living room television was broadcasting a concert from a Unova group and something must have clicked in Hope’s mind. She recovered her appetite and the kid started a routine of listening to music every day in her personal computer. Pop, Synth, Rock, Jazz, Ballad, Dance, Funk, Disco, Rap, Hip-Hop, Classic, Movie Soundtrack, Game Soundtrack… Anything was valid in terms of musical genre. I soon had figured: music was a catharsis for my Trainer.
Thankfully after some time, Hope had begun showing signs of recovery thanks to the physiotherapy sessions. She could now walk alone in her small bedroom even though she still needed to hang herself on some objects and couldn’t dispense the wheelchair just yet. I also like to think that music was equally helping her out because she occasionally tried to dance a little while standing up.
“This song’s always so good to sing out loud!”, she commented to me with a big sweet smile. “You know, Litten? I want the lyrics to become real. The moment I manage to walk again on my own, we need to travel again!”
I nodded in affirmation with my head, I was in full agreement with her! Seeing her slowly getting better gave me a greater belief that it was all a matter of time before that dream became reality.
It was Hope’s birthday a week later. She had received a special guest at home. A cousin of hers that was a young adult but pretty chill spirited. He had travelled from the Galar region in purpose to make her a surprise: the man gifted her a Pokémon Egg. She was marvelled and extremely excited as she was endlessly thanking him! Hope then asked:
“Which Pokémon’s going to hatch?!”
“You’ll soon figure it out! Hope, once this Pokémon hatches, you’ll have a great companion. I’m pretty sure they’ll share a common taste that you have!”, her cheerful cousin told her alongside with a wink. “Please raise them well!”
“You’ll bet I will!”, she said this with great determination in her face. I wasn’t seeing this optimistic side of hers for a long time already! I was happy.
Since this day on, Hope became obsessed after this mysterious purple egg. I never went to Galar before, I wondered how it looked like and what kind of Pokémon live in there. The very few I knew about Galar were things I had seen on television. They passed good Pokémon battle broadcasts from that region in our favourite sports channel. Both Hope and I didn’t know what to expect to origin from the egg. My Trainer was almost permanently paying a lot of attention to it, resting in her desk. She talked to it, she was singing to it, playing music for it and holding it. There were few nights she even slept while hugging that egg. I was beginning to dislike this spoiling treatment, I felt like being put in a corner.
It only got worse the day the Pokémon had finally born. Good Arceus, what was that thing?! He was purple and lilac coloured, he looked like he was wearing a human diaper, he was making an unsettling grimace with his tongue stuck out and his forehead flickered a white light. Boy, he was ugly! Really, ugly!! So ugly that I could even find beauty in the scales of a Feebas! Hope quickly figured out thanks to a phone app that this Pokémon species is named Toxel.
“Toxel, huh? Wow!! It‘s so nice to meet you, Toxel! Welcome to our world!! I’m Hope! I promise to be a good friend!”, she enthusiastically presented herself to that annoying thing.
Toxel smiled and lifted his arms while saying a “Hello!” I could understand. Then, that thing looked to me and I felt extremely uncomfortable. I approached him and tried to be nice, just to please Hope: “Hi, Toxel. Good to meet you, I guess... I’m Hope’s Litten. And I’m keeping eyes on you. Better you treat her nicely or I’ll present you my sharp claws.”
Toxel just stared to me for a few seconds and lifted his arms while saying “Hello, Litten! Let’s be friends!” and nuzzling me afterwards with his head. Yup, Hope and I figured out that this Pokémon knew an Electric-type move named Nuzzle. A tingling feeling crossed my whole body, I felt a shiver and fell to the side. I was Paralyzed.
“Litten! Are you ok?!”, exclaimed Hope in surprise. “Whoa, so you must be an Electric-type Pokémon! So cool!!”, the girl complimented the new-born as she picked up a Paralyze Heal flask to spray on me.
I just let out a sigh of annoyance. That ugly thing did it in purpose, I was certain. Quite bold from him… And he was surely Bold-natured. He had proven in just a few days to be a Pokémon that doesn’t really know the meaning of fear. Once I’ve put my physical integrity at risk trying to protect him from a shelf that had a kit of knives located at the kitchen. The grimacing baby Pokémon made the cutlery fall and I pushed him to the side as I vigorously avoided each falling sharp edge stabbing on the floor. I saw my whole life passing through my eyes in just six seconds.
One day I got really upset after Toxel in an evening. I was watching my favourite television series and something big was about to happen in the second half of the episode. The whole power of the house was cut before the protagonist could finish the sentence. Why? Because that uncontrollable purple thing was playing with his fingers in an electric socket. It wouldn’t have been so bad if that power cut didn’t destroy the television provider’s Setup-Box and the Internet router. I lost the best part of the show and I was screaming in negation!! I chased that annoying thing throughout the whole apartment in a way I got scolded by both Hope’s parents and my Trainer herself for the consequent mess of the pursuit and for a book having fallen on Toxel’s head, making him cry. They got so mad after me that I wasn’t allowed to sleep inside Hope’s bedroom. I had to spend the night at the living room. If it wasn’t for the fact that I care too much about Hope I swear I would have burnt the carpet.
During that same night, I removed my collar for a brief moment and looked to the Everstone attached on it. I started to think to myself: If I evolved to a Torracat, would Hope begin to give me more attention? Because I would be cuter, bigger and even stronger? For the first time since I can remember, I was pondering to evolve. But I was afraid. What if after upon evolution things didn’t turn out right and ended up forever stuck in the body of a Torracat? What if my personality would change? I had heard stories of Pokémon that changed completely upon evolution, almost unrecognizable from their previous selves. I decided in the end that I wouldn’t take the risk so I wore back my collar and tried to fall asleep. It was a rough day and I just wanted to rest.
In the next morning I got awakened by an awful noise combined with a stench. It seemed like a Muk had entered in the living room and freed their entire fragrance out of their goop. But, no. The smell was coming from Toxel after eating a berry. The ugly baby was showing off the Poison-type move Belch. I nearly fainted with that. The smell!!!! THE SMELL!!! DISGUSTING!! I was so nauseous that I had lost my appetite.
Hope and her parents had already taken their breakfast and seemed to be calmer. They even laughed after Toxel’s move. What was so funny about it, anyway?... The human family was already dressed up and ready to exit because Hope had other physiotherapy session to attend. She turned to my direction and asked from afar:
“Litten! I’ll be away for a few hours again for some locomotion treatment. Please keep an eye on Toxel while we’re not here, alright?”
I closed my eyes and turned to the side. I wasn’t happy to be babysitting that stinky Pokémon again but I had no choice. The girl smiled and waved a “See you later!” as her parents repeated the same words. Her father pushed her wheelchair outside the main hall and her mother closed the door.
Now I was alone with that thing. Again. He was staring at me with that grimacing face. I tried to avoid visual contact every time it happened. Why out of every Pokémon that exist, Hope’s cousin had to gift a Toxel, I asked back then in confusion. There’s nothing charming nor interesting about this purple blot of trouble, I wondered as well.
“Big sister!”, he said out of nowhere.
“I’m not your big sister…”, I corrected Toxel while still avoiding to look at him. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
“I want to play with you!”
“Oh, is that so?”, I sarcastically asked Toxel as I faced him again and made the effort to look to his boring-looking eyes. “Guess what? I couldn’t care less about that. Do you remember what you’ve done to me yesterday? I missed the biggest spoiler of yesterday night’s show. And it was your fault! It’s going to take a day or two before a technician can appear to fix what you’ve done!!”
Toxel looked to me and started to use another move he knew: Tearful Look. But it had no effect on me. I kept glaring to him. He then started to crawl towards me and I was going backwards while arching my spine.
“Don’t touch me!”
“But I want to play with my big sister!”
“I’m telling you for the nth time that I’m NOT your SISTER!!”
The ugly thing kept ignoring my requests and decided to touch me with his paw. Toxel was chuckling out of my misery. A Nuzzle move came afterwards and I once again felt my whole body weird and got paralyzed. That’s when I gave a loud shout that echoed the entire apartment: “I’M FED UP OF YOU!”
Toxel stopped to touch my fur and observed me searching for a Cheri Berry that was available in the food dispenser. I quickly became healed from the special condition, but I kept venting out my frustration:
“My life was perfect with Hope! Just us! Since you appeared, she barely gives me any attention! It’s only you, you and just YOU!! I don’t understand how can she like such a weird Pokémon like you, Toxel!!”
As soon as I finished to vent out, I ran to the entrance door to cross the door flap. Toxel crawled after me and stopped in the exterior carpet.
“Where are you going, big sister?!”
“Taking some holidays from you! You tired me out since you hatched almost two weeks ago! You’re a crawling troublemaker!!”
“Big sister!!”, Toxel shouted loud with his arms stretched forward.
I just ran away without turning back, I didn’t want to listen to him anymore. Eventually, I stopped to listen to his constant calls the more distant I became from home. Now I was alone. Like I’ve felt for the latest times. Except it felt nice listening to the only sound around me: the swinging treetop leaves.
I walked around without any particular destination. It was good to return to these morning walks. I wasn’t doing them since that belching new-born had hatched. I quickly arrived to the downtown and I was seeing the usual human movement, back and forth with all sorts of objects and conversations either on the phone or to someone nearby them. I returned to the docks, the sea was quite calm and there were very few Pokémon around. I saw some people walking on the footstep and an adult couple had called my attention. They were giving their hands and the woman kissed the cheek of the man, making him chuckle out of satisfaction. An idea flashed on my mind at that moment! There was a place where I could actually visit! Thinking about it made me greatly excited so I sprinted immediately out of the port towards the destination I had in my head.