~~~ Chapter 12 - Banging Cabinets ~~~

The university would like to issue this announcement and correction from yesterday’s interview with Lyra:

“The University recognizes that there are multiple competing theories about the newly-unearthed ruins and the meaning of their hieroglyphs. While the popular interpretation Lyra provided is humorous, there is no consensus on the purpose of the recently-uncovered distortion realm’s chain chambers. There is an ongoing excursion planned into Mt Coronet which will hopefully uncover the meaning of these ancient ruins.

Thus, while the translation and interpretations are ongoing, we do not endorse the interpretations that they are, to quote yesterday’s article, "Giratina's BDSM fun-zone." Please direct further inquiries to our new Archaeology Media email, [email protected]”

- Opelucid University Media Team press release

~~~

Light rushed into my eyes, a slight warmth in my arms indicating the beginning of energy production from the sun filling my leaves. The grass below was green, the world was quiet, salty air indicating the ocean was near. I was in a small green field that stretched out, a tall wooden fence at the edge, more than twice my height. A couple trees were fenced in the field with me.

How long ha—“Eea!” I yelped, falling to the ground with force, Lanky’s tackle bowling me face-first into the grass. A sharp pain hit me. I cried out again, the stabbing pain of a pinched nerve as my abdomen was pressed unnaturally. Dude! At least let me wake up a little first!

The pain continued as I was locked into his grapple, rolling over. He was making small hiccup sounds. I wiggled with what little movement I could, releasing my abdomen from the pinch, allowing my abdomen to take in air again. He was snorting, stuffing his face into the leaves of my helmet, which was still clasped from the night before. The release was simple—a little wiggle and a slide of my arm, and it was undone, letting my face and eyes free once more. That tense I had been smelling in the pokeball while in that half-asleep stupor had been coming from him. I pulled air through my mouth again, I could smell the vestiges of my nest-mates.

The light feeling and a feeling of tightness along my joints told me the pressure in the air was lowering. A storm was wafting in, and soon we would be getting rain. The low production from my leaves told me all I needed to know about how much sun was available. As Lanky's arms wrapped around me, I angled my blades in so he wouldn’t get cut too much. He still got a pretty good scuff of shaved hair on one arm from the initial roll, and a slight gash on the other was beginning to leak blood. The smell of swadly wasn’t too thick, so probably just the one from last night accompanied us. I wiggled a little bit more, pushing out to get some room so I could better breathe through my mouth without clipping his clothes.

The air was clean and fresh to the taste. Despite my protests, he pulled me closer, the taste of freedom moving further away, I was gifted the scent of his body odour. Little drops of rain fell from his face. Though I couldn’t see, the patter and the salt of his tears were easily sensed, dripping down my leaves in great gobs. Sniffling his nose. He sat up, and I made to push away again, trying in eternal effort to just get room to breathe as he pulled me from the grass, set me on his lap. I turned to face out a bit, the leaf behind my head hitting him with a light thwack. Life was just one big breathing challenge the last few days. The greyness in the sky told me I was right. We would be blessed with rain, and soon.

Loosening his grip further, Lanky began to recover what little composure he had. I adjusted, wiggling so my abdomen would sit on his thigh rather than pressed flat. My arms, my legs, they felt lethargic. Like a person who had eight hours of sleep and it wasn’t enough. I needed water and something to eat. The kid was older, and taller, than what I’d expected of someone who got their first pokemon and was going to go out training. And the neighborhood I’d found him in wasn’t the nicest. Which probably meant he wasn’t a trainer; the crying and the taste of relief as he had bowled me over told me that much. Why else would a kid who’d been stuck in a shit town be crying and holding the very first pokemon he’d ever had? Really, I could think of several reasons why, but the circumstances here didn’t line up with what the others implied.

We were facing the house. It had big windows, beautiful shades and sheens of purple reflecting off them, and beyond that was a dining room table, presumably a kitchen behind it. All only barely visible with my bad eyes. On the porch was a set of cushioned outdoor chairs, a patio table, and on that table, was a brown box. The porch had a garden hose and various other implements. As far as I could tell, the whole property was immaculate. Not a single thing seemed to be out of place—except for the brown box. Lanky grabbed my head and tried to pull it into his bosom again.

“Eaa,” I said. “No.” Lifting up my arms and pressing them into his arm, threatening to turn the blades out and cut.

His eyes opened.

“No. I’m a bug, and you can hug, but you can’t tug.” I said, the gibberish flowing out as I pushed lightly against him with both blades. Yeah, no. Not happening any more. No wrestling. I didn't have to take this treatment. I was never the huggy type as a human, nor did that change here.

I’m not a cat and I’m not a dog, all right?

He relented, loosening his arms, and letting me go. If he’d pressed the point, I hadn't planned on hurting him unless it got rough. I could only press lightly even if I wanted to, the energy just wasn’t there. I didn’t want to cut the kid up for being stupid, but he still needed to learn to respect boundaries. As he let the pressure off, saying vocalizing more of his human gibberish to me. I couldn’t bring myself to care. Awake and finally able to think for a moment, I was getting hungry and thirsty. Swadloon was, too, I was sure. Was this my life now? I looked up. The air felt slightly lighter. I examined my arm. It was slight, but it had enlarged. The layer I’d shaved off last night had healed. This was the first time I’d been hurt and actually had to heal up. Did healing the body eat energy stores? I felt a quick, sharp click resounded in the thinning air, but judging by Lanky’s continued babbling, he hadn’t noticed.

The teen turned his head to me, a moment, and the image went fractal, before coalescing back into one, the world around us wobbling. A reminder of the occasional oddities that came with being a bug. He had green eyes, light, curly brown hair, violet of the sun reflecting off the whites of his eyes. An agitated, hungry smell wafted in. The swadloon was getting hungry too. Lanky's face felt familiar. I'd seen it before, though it had been more cartoony. His mouth was moving, and he was vocalizing, but I didn't care. My mouth was dry, and the stomach in my abdomen was empty.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The air around us was slowly shifting. Lanky jumped up. “Ea!” I cried, getting launched off his lap. He yelped too. “What was that for!?” Of course, all that came out was, “Ea nea eae eey.” The kid was standing up, twirling around. The swadloon had bitten him on the backside.

Click, click, click. I clacked my jaw in amusement. It turned to look at me and walked over. I took a breath. I knew what it needed. The atmosphere was shifting, shuffling the scents of the town. Maybe I was just in a good mood? The two pokeballs lay on the ground, open at Lanky’s feet, as the kid inspected his backside. My scent indicated mine on one, the swadly's scent on the other. If I ran away, would the other pokeballs still work? Was I tagged somehow while at the Pokecenter?

The swadloon walked under my legs and waited. For a second, there was a look on his face as Lanky sized the swadly up. He said something, then looked at me, then back at the pokeballs that sat on the ground. How did it get out? Lanky moved to pick up the balls. I pulled my arms up. Arms practically vibrating, I didn’t want to fight. Lanky sighed, then began talking.

Words, words, words, was all I could think.

As a human, it had been hyperventilation. As a bug, it was fidgeting and vibrating—at least, that was what I could tell. Anxiety wasn't just the consciousness things we noticed. It was the tension in the muscles and face, the arms flexing, the legs getting ready to run. The unconscious movements, the over-tight muscles were what gave it away as a human. Here, my face was locked in an unchanging permagrin, my eyes produced no tears, never closed, never moved. My chest area was a hardened, keratinous thorax. My abdomen was somewhat softer, and more sensitive, yes, but I could not look in the windows of the house and see it tensing up. Hell, I hadn't even had a good look at myself in the mirror until the other day. As far as I could tell, there were no good cues I could use to gauge my own state. Manually breathing through my mouth only seemed to make the instinctual panics even worse.

Oddly similar to when I relied on instinct for guiding the crafting. I needed to get it under control if I was going to get busy. I manually pulled my blade-arms down, separating them after drifting up. Being around people and growing a garden, I’d need to be able to handle myself. I was hoping that the fight/flight response would be more muted, but the last couple of days gave me a stormy-weather-ahead-type forecast for that hope. My arms wobbling, I picked the swadly up, setting him on my head. I felt his weight pressing down. The sun just wasn’t there for us today, and we needed food. Clouds in the east were blocking the strongest of the rays. My antennae started to wobble in the light breeze.

“Hurry up, kid!” I clacked. I could think of worse luck to get in terms of humans to partner with as a pokemon, but even I could tell they just didn't have it all together. Lanky left the box out on the porch table, then went inside. He stood for a second, verbalizing, then waved. “Food!” I assumed he was announcing. I’d have to pay attention to the words he’d use. As we moved inside, we passed the table, the kid going on into the deeper kitchen, swadly swaddling on my head.

The box should get brought inside. I was just barely tall enough to get my head over the table, but not enough to reach. Swadly didn’t say anything, like usual. The grumps didn't vocalize. But it could reach the box, and, well, to my surprise, it intuited what I was trying to do, grabbing it on my behalf. We walked up the cement stairs of the porch and into the open doorway. What little sunlight we had been getting, it diminished as we entered the doorway of the kitchen. The soothing outside air still tasted nice.

Pokemon were supposed to be smart, right? I didn’t have any desire to lose my cover, but from what I knew about Pokemon, that they were smart. At least, the anime had pokemon able to talk to each other. I reached up with both arms, the swadly dropping the box into my spindly leaf-arms with a small clang as its contents shuffled. The box was small, though it was almost as wide as a swadly. Caught in my arms, I set it just inside the doorway by the porch as Lanky’s clangs continued through the doors and cabinets in the kitchen.

The house. It was… It was big. But not pompous. As far as I could tell anyway. A group of chairs in a rough circle. Living room? There wasn’t even a rug if it was. No TV, either. Whoever this guy was, I decided I liked his house. That building we were in the other day though? It could fuck off. The tile was grooved like it actually came from rock, not covered in some kind of slick grease. No sliding around. And, best of all? No fluorescent lights.

Lanky continued to demolish cabinet doors. Swadly’s smell of frustration was growing stronger. I sat him down on a window sill by the door. Lanky had found a couple of bowls. He’d moved to the sink. That wasn’t food. I could taste where that was. Lanky had shuffled through the shelves for too long. He didn’t know where it was. A draft of air indicating where it was. Not all bugs were herbivores, that much I knew, but I didn’t have any impulse to eat any other animal or bug. Only fruits and berries, seeds and leaves even seemed appealing. I thought back to the sunflowers. I salivated.

The door which blocked my path to the smells of fruits and berries, the smell of lunch, it was accordion-style, with multiple joints. I clacked my jaw in annoyance at this newest obstacle, some saliva spitting out, ready to digest. I pushed on the door with the backside of my arm, trying not to knick it. The door swung a bit, as though it had rail on top, but not on bottom. My arms bent. I moved to the center. I pushed on it, the accordion-door moving ever so slightly, bending at the vertical seams. Center was always the spot to push for these inane contraptions.

Concerned about the pressure on the wrong side of my arm, I used my head. A whoosh of air, I pushed, and it came open? No, a shadow stood over me. It was Lanky. I followed the smell. He saw what I was after. “Eeaaa,” I whined in annoyance as he grabbed the black cardboard bag before I could, the dried contents inside shuffling about. Of all the smells that were in the kitchen, this was the only one that was even remotely appetizing.

Lanky took a couple of bowls, scooped out some berries for Swadly and I, then set them on the kitchen table, pulling out a chair for me and setting swadly across. Swadly scooped and I speared, enjoying the flavor as the digestive juices in my mouth broke them down. Lanky then set a cup on the table for me and a bowl of water for swadloon.

I looked out the window as he went outside, running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Tears were in his eyes. He ran into the kitchen, then into the hallway, a door slammed, a whirr and clangs were muffled as the garage door shut. I looked at swadly, who was scooping out his food, berry after berry. Despite not having a great scooper, I was faster and finished my bowl of breakfast. A drop of water hit the window.

Lanky was shouting something as he ran around. He sat on a couch, holding his hands over his ears. Tears streaming down. I took a drink of water from the cup, using the sideways pressure of my arms to hold it in place. He was crying again, I could taste his fear. He looked at me, coughed—no, sobbed. His shirt was wet. Then, he looked down.

At the box by the door.

Then he looked back at me.

Then he looked at the box.

Then he looked back at me.