CHAPTER 55

I felt elation wash over me during our walk back. The conversation the three of us just had were just words, but deep inside of me, I knew it was the start of something else. I already knew Cece wanted to win her freedom, but beforehand, she was always alone. Always scared to take that first defiant step against her father. But with us by her side, I knew that real progress could be made. Even now, the resolve hadn't left her eyes, but it was also in the way she walked. The way her shoulders swayed, the firmness of her steps, her slight smile rising on the corner of her lips. It was as if Cecilia had just been reborn into a different person.

"I'll need to visit Emi in her hospital room," Cece said.

"Sure," I nodded. "I was planning on doing that anyway."

I still hadn't visited Emilia, mainly because it felt awkward with Pauline always being in the room. I didn't want to come in between the two, but I figured I'd need to do it at some point anyway, and it would feel less awkward if we went as a group.

"Knowing Pauline, she'll be there as well," Denzel said, speaking my thoughts out loud.

"That's good," Cece said. "I want both of them to be there."

"Why?" I asked.

"I need to borrow their psychics."

——

We opened Emilia's hospital door, and I was surprised to see that only Justin was there. The girl was watching television while dozing off, but she woke up once she saw us enter. I stared at her leg, which had been bandaged up much better than anything we could manage. I expected her to be a little out of it because of the painkillers, but she seemed fine enough. Justin smiled as he saw us.

"Hey, everyone," He said.

We greeted them both.

"How's your leg, Emilia?" Denzel asked.

"It's better," She said happily. "I'm just happy to be back to civilization."

We all related to that feeling. I was glad she was being more forceful with her tone now that we were out of Eterna forest. She was definitely the one that suffered the most in there, but she stayed strong and allowed us to make it through.

"Well, we won't have to go through such a harrowing experience for a long time," Denzel said before pausing. "What's on TV?"

"Oh, just some trivia gameshow about Pokemon I enjoy. Here, let me explain the rules…" Justin started.

We hung out for a while, talking about anything that came up while we waited for Pauline to show up. After ten minutes of waiting, Cece seemingly got impatient.

"Say, Emi," She said. "Could you lend me your Beldum? I'm going to be releasing Scyther soon, and I'd like to have his Confusion available, just in case," She asked.

Cece told us on the way back that she was planning on fighting Scyther with her team— on her own. Of course, we'd be there for backup, but she wanted to try taking it down alone to gain its respect. With Beldum, Gothita, and her Slowpoke, she estimated that all of their Confusions would be enough to restrain it permanently, or at least long enough for her to retrieve it if it attacked her. She would be fighting it with Fletchinder and Deino.

"Beldum… I don't know," Emi said quietly. "You know how I feel about him."

I raised an eyebrow. Back at the first half of route 205, Emilia also seemed to release her Beldum as little as she could, opting to use her Aipom or Rockruff instead. I initially thought I had been overthinking it, but now that she herself had said it, I was definitely curious.

"Why don't you like Beldum?" I said bluntly.

Emilia sighed, but Justin answered for her. "Emi's Beldum… well, it doesn't speak to her."

"It can speak?!" Denzel exclaimed.

"Well, it should," Emilia insisted, clenching her teeth. "Beldum can't really speak in complete sentences until they evolve into Metagross, but they should be able to say some words, or convey emotions to their trainers through their psychic powers," She said. "He's never spoken to me. Not even once."

"Oh…" I awkwardly said. "I'm sorry for asking."

"Yeah," She sighed. "But it's alright, I… I have to get over it eventually. Beldum just hates me."

"Are you kidding me?" Denzel asked. "It defended you so many times in the forest without you saying anything. It fought with us and listened to your orders. If it hated you, he'd be behaving like Cecilia's Scyther."

"Trying to kill everything that moves," I added. "Maybe it just can't?"

"Can't what?" Emi said.

"Can't talk. Maybe it's not good at it yet and it's been trying the whole time. Have you tried asking?"

"I don't know, that seems pretty far-fetched," Emilia sighed. "Either way, I'll lend it to you," She grabbed one of the Pokeballs on her bedside table and released Beldum. The hulking, marble-like metallic Pokemon floated upward and loomed over us, watching with its red eye. "Beldum, I'm lending you to Cece. She'll be fighting her Scyther and she needs you to protect her if he attacks her."

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Beldum let out a sound, like metals shifting and grinding against each other, and it made its way next to Cece.

"Thank you," Cecilia said, dipping her head slightly. Emilia handed her Beldum's Pokeball and she recalled it. "Now I just need to go find Pauline, I suppose."

"You missed her by a hair. She left five minutes before you arrived," Justin said. "Something about a phone call."

"Was it Josephine?" Cece asked.

"No, she's having her fight with her mom for sending her through Eterna forest," Justin shook his head. "You should have heard the screaming match they had in here yesterday. The nurses had to come in here to ask her to stop yelling."

"Pauline and Josephine's relationship has always been special," Cece nodded.

"I guess we can go look for her," I said, eyeing Cecilia.

She frowned for a second before her eyes widened. "Yes, I suppose we could."

"Can't it wait?" Justin asked. "I wouldn't want for you to intrude, she said the call was very important."

We got up. "You coming, Denzel?"

One look into my eyes, and he knew something was wrong. He tilted his head slightly toward the others. "Nah, I'll stay here."

Running interference, I thought. Got it. "Alright, let's go then. We'll be back later."

As soon as we were out of Emi's room, I said what was on my mind.

"I'm glad you got what I was thinking so fast," I said. "That phone call sounds suspicious."

She nodded firmly. "Louis is missing as well, so he could be involved," She said. "It might be Amy again."

"She's trying to get info on you?"

"No. If it's her, she'll be trying to know more about you."

I swallowed. This was already moving fast, but I was resolute. I was going to help Cece no matter what. The first thing we tried was going inside of Pauline's room, but it would have been too obvious. She wasn't there. Luckily, we went to Louis' room next, and he was just reading some book about running a business.

"Oh! Cece, did you come to keep me company? We haven't been alone together a lot these days—"

"Louis," I said, speaking for Cece. "This is really important. Have you seen Pauline?"

"It is rude to interrupt people," He huffed. "But I have seen her. She came to ask me…" He trailed off before stopping.

"Ask what?" I asked. He didn't budge. "Spit it out!"

"Erm, before I say this, I want Cece to know I had nothing to do with anything. I haven't spoken to Amy since that day at the outpost, and it was the greatest mistake of my life. I can tell you still haven't forgiven me, but I swear to you, I have been a loyal fiance—"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, waving my hand. He still thought that Cece believed he was cheating on her? I sighed internally. At least my hunch about that phone call had been correct. "Now tell us what she asked you and where she went."

"Pauline came into my room a bit ago— just a few minutes ago, actually, asking about Amy. She was calling her nonstop, and at first, she thought Amy wanted to talk to me, but I refused to do it out of love! Then she berated me with her foul mouth and stormed off, saying she was going out."

"So she's outside?" I asked. "Know where?"

"Unfortunately not," He asked. "Do you want me to help look for her?"

I stared at Cece, and she shook her head. "Uh, we'll be fine. We just wanted to ask her about lending Cece her Gothita," I said in half-truth.

We left immediately after that.

"Damn that Amy…" Cece cursed. "Trying to worm her way into my friendships."

"It'll be fine, we just need to catch Pauline and spy on her."

"We aren't confronting her?" Cecilia asked, quickening her pace. "I'm angry. I want to fight."

"It'll be better if we find out what Amy's asking Pauline," I said. "We can confront her after. Now quick!"

By the time we made it to the Pokemon Center lobby, we were practically running. Cece released her Fletchinder, and I released Togetic and Frillish to ask them to look for Pauline from the air. Not even a minute later, Fletchinder landed on her trainer's shoulder, making her wince. The flying type hadn't realized how powerful its talons were yet. I whistled and called for my Pokemon before recalling them, and Fletchinder led us to Pauline. She was in a secluded part of the outpost, near one of the electric fences that blocked off the forest to make sure trainers always entered and exited through the main entrance. Luckily for us, she was also next to a convenience store that we could hide behind, and she would still be within earshot.

Pauline looked angry— well, Pauline looked angrier than usual. I settled behind Cece as we tried to hear the conversation.

"...keep asking me that? What's wrong with you?"

Pauline waited a few seconds before continuing.

"You're pissing me off, Amy. If you want to know more about her new friends, just call her. You're best friends!"

I swallowed. We were right on the money. Amy was asking about Denzel and me.

"Oh, you're fighting? I don't remember asking. You know I hate this… this fucking backstabbing, backroom dealing shit. That's not how I roll. Talk to her directly. If you're fighting, there must be a good reason—"

Pauline stopped, seemingly having been interrupted.

"Arceus," She groaned. "No, I will not do that. I won't. Tell Harvey and Clarence that I don't give a fuck about what they think. Mommy will back me up on this," Pauline said. "You know what? I'm hanging up. I'm tired of you and this shady shit."

Pauline hung up and swore a few times before she started to leave.

"Are we confronting her?" I asked, tapping Cecilia's shoulder. "Cece?"

She took a deep breath before answering. "Sorry. When she mentioned my father, I… I froze up. Let's talk to her."

I nodded, wondering whether her dad's name was Harvey or Clarence, and we quickly ran up to the redhead. "Pauline!" I yelled out.

She turned and grimaced when she saw us. "What? Were you spying on me?"

"Was it that obvious?" I asked.

"Pauline," Cece said, crossing her arms. "I need to know everything that went on in that phone call down to the very last detail."

She clicked her tongue. "Fine. What about her," She asked, looking at me.

"Grace has every right to hear this, especially since it's about her," Cecilia said.

"Now spill," I added.

"Amy's been calling Louis and me ever since we got through Eterna forest," Pauline started. "At first, I just ignored the calls because I've always hated that Amy bitch. Seemed too fake to me, and I hate fake people. Eventually, it got on my nerves, so I answered, and she asked me to talk to Louis, but he refused, so I called her back and told her that, but then she started asking me these questions."

"Such as?" I asked.

"I was getting to it, Grace," Pauline retorted. "She wanted to know why we were traveling with you and Denzel," She said, nodding toward me. "And she also wanted me to tell her about the way you behaved and stuff. It was really fucking weird."

"What'd you tell her?" Cece asked.

"Nothing," She shrugged. "I'm not going to play informant for her, especially if it's about people I respect. Anyway, then she did that thing where she subtly but not so subtly threatens you—"

"Ah," Cece sighed.

"—and she said that your dad and Louis' dad wouldn't be happy about what I was doing. I don't take kindly to people that threaten me, so I decided to hang up after that."

Cece's face relaxed. "Thank you, Pauline. You're a great friend."

"I know. Anyway, she'll probably try to call Justin or Emilia next, but I'll tell them not to talk. Is that it?" Pauline asked, tapping her foot against the ground.

Cece grinned. I couldn't imagine how good it must have felt to finally be sure that someone she was doubting for so long was actually on her side. "Well, I was wondering if I could borrow your Gothita…"