Ch. 38 - Do You Believe in Magic
“Alright Murkrow, this time I’m sure we’ve got it!”
“Krow, Krow!”
Lily stirred the mixture around in her cauldron carefully three times widdershins and then three times sunwise. She sprinkled in a pinch of butterfree dust, then two fingers of sticky string shot from the same. There was a visible bubbling from the brew within and the concoction started to reduce, fizzling and sizzling, into a ball of goop. The young witch was delighted, her violet eyes sparkling as she stirred once more, changing the direction, wiping the sweat off her brow and tugging her red hair out of her eyes.
“Murkrow! Your feather if you please!” she called, putting her hand out, palm up, with a flourish.
“Kroowww…”
“I know, silly, but just a loose one! You have more than enough, my silly fluffy featherbutt!” Lily smiled indulgently at her pokemon partner as he complained.
“Hmph!” Murkrow grumbled, but he put his beak through the feathers on one wing until he found a pinion that felt off. Worrying at it with his beak, he pulled, and eventually it came loose. He flipped it to Lily and the young witch caught it in her grasp.
“Yes! Perfect! Here we go! With a swish and a swoosh!” Lily waved the feather in just the right pattern, a flowing corona of light following its movements, before she plunged it too into the mixture, and with another deliberate set of motions, stirred the remaining liquid in the cauldron with it, which roiled and bubbled, and swirled after the feather, rushing and raging as it poured itself into the feather. Breathlessly, Lily wiped the sweat from her brow with a final triumphant sigh as she reverently held the feather aloft. It had turned from a dark blackish blue into a now bright purple and green.
“We did it! Look! Look!”
“Krow krow murkrow!”
Lily and her pokemon pal Murkrow danced around the cauldron, the latter flapping his wings as he hopped from branch to branch of the nearby trees, the former bouncing up six feet or more as she leaped and cavorted, springing up as if she were lighter than air… which she sort of was.
“Oh, it works! It works! Do you think I could actually fly with this one?”
“Krooowww? Krow krow. Murkrow mur mur krowmer. WARK!”
“Oh you’re definitely right. I’ve got two choices, now that the essence of butterfree flight is in the feather; either I put it into an article of clothing or a pendant and work on a direct levitation aura, or I put it into a broomstick and fix the charm there… hmm. The latter’s easier, but the former… I could fly myself! Oh what to do!”
“Krow!”
“You’re right,” Lily thought for a moment, then nodded, rising up nearly level with the treetops as she jumped and twirled. “Pendant of flight it is!”
“I fink dis is da one,” said a voice from below her. Lily looked down to see a meowth reaching into the cauldron and pulling out a large lump of… something. “Hey, what’s dis stuff when it’s at home?”
“Bibibi! Celebi? Cele lebi bibi?”
“Well I dunno, but looks like the right one. Seen one cauldron, you’se seen ‘em all. Intres’tin’ stuff dis. What’s it for?” The meowth started playing with the ball of what LIly realised was congealed, discoloured stringshot, bereft of its stickiness since she’d used the sticky to bind the essence of flight from the dust into her feather. The meowth started making odd little purring noises as he rolled around for a few seconds, playing with the ball, before clearing his throat and secreting it away somewhere.
Lily slowly descended back towards the ground like a deflated helium balloon, scratching her head. “Umm, hello? You appear to be speaking human?”
“Ohhh, we’se got a clever one! Dat’s right! Meowth’s da name, don’t wear it out!”
“Don’t I recognize you?” Lily asked, taking a few steps closer to the meowth. “Yeah, I think I do! You’re that meowth that hangs around that Team Rocket duo! What do you want?” Lily put her hands on her hips angrily, glaring at him.
“Vee! Vui, eevee vee eeveevee!” said an eevee, as the little brown furball walked out from the same undergrowth as Meowth had come from.
“Yeah, what she said,” the scratch cat pokemon said, crossing his paws and nodding. Lily sighed, walked over to her campsite off to one side of the clearing, and rummaged through her bag. After digging through it for a solid half minute, she swore and stamped her foot.
“Look, my ‘understanding pokemon’ potion wore off and I’m fresh out of at least one of the ingredients necessary to make more, so either translate or get lost. Last time you were here you stole my stuff and I have no wish to chase after you again!”
“Nyaaa, harsh words. I swear I’m not outta steal your stuff this time… though we do kinda need to borrow your cauldron.”
“Oh? Borrowing? That sounds like stealing with extra steps.” Lily crossed her arms and scowled at the cat scratch pokemon.
“Yeah, it’s why Celebi’s brought us here. First plan was just to steal it, but she had to know whether it was the right one or not.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“And is it?”
“I dunno. Kinda looks like the one we were using to cook chilli in, but—”
“YOU COOKED CHILLI IN MY CAULDRON!?”
“Yep, or we will have done. But you know what?” Meowth turned back to the cauldron and took a good hold of it. Then he heaved it into the air. “Now I’m sure. Dis is da one! Lux, Cheese it! I’m not stealing it I’m borrowing it we’ll bring it right back Rocket’s Honour!”
Celebi turned, but was too slow. The eevee grabbed hold of the other side of the cauldron and, with a swish of her tail, lit up almost like she was going to evolve, and then disappeared in a flash of light, taking the cauldron and the meowth with her.
Celebi screwed up her little fists, took a deep breath… then let it out in a long sigh. “Biiiii,” she said, dejectedly. And then she found her lunch being squeezed back up into her mouth as Lily grabbed a hold of her tightly.
“Ooh! To the reverse world with that creature! That’s twice! Twice that meowth has stolen my stuff!” Lily stamped her feet, then rounded on the celebi cowering apologetically in her hands. “You! You are going to get it back, or so help me I’m going to hex you right here and now! I can do it, too! I can drop your little onion headed butt into trouble quicker than you can blink! How’d you want to have a psyduck sized migraine for the next ten years, huh? Or a nose as big as a nosepass? Or find out whether the seven year itch really does last seven years? Get my stuff back or you’re going to find out!” Making a quick set of gestures with the fingers of her other hand, Lily flung something invisible at the floating pokemon, who glowed momentarily. “There. Wherever you go in time and space, I’ll know. Find my stuff and bring it right back or I’ll find you, if it takes me a hundred years to do it!”
“Celebi.” Celebi sighed, nodding dejectedly. Lily let go, and the onion fairy disappeared.
Lily tapped her feet.
Lily scowled at a tree.
Lily got on her knees and, with a mixture of ash and sand, started creating a collection of glyphs and runes on the ground in a rough circle. Then she dove into her bag of belongings and brought out a hand mirror, which she put right into the centre. After a short set of words that hurt her throat she drew her hand across the mirror as if she were wiping it clean. It shimmered momentarily and then changed somehow, almost like it was a window rather than a mirror… and then that window opened.
A large, almost formless black mass flowed out of it and pushed itself into the real world from wherever the opened window came from.
Lily reacted immediately, backing up and hastily saying a few more of those head-splitting, throat-burning words, swearing mid-stream as she couldn’t quite get the pronunciation right.
“That’s not very kind,” said a voice, emanating from the shapeless black mass as it bubbled and boiled into the real world. “After you invited me here and all.”
“Uhh, buhh, I, umm, I-I-I apologize!”
“Hmm, you are forgiven this time.”
Lily watched as the black mass squished and squoogled its way into the clearing, stepping back but making no attempt — no matter how much she wanted to — to run, until the formless black mass bubbled up and solidified into a massive, six-legged, golden-headed form with gigantic, ragged, black and red wings. Then the whole creature wavered and folded in and down upon itself until it was only about a foot high.
Lily blinked.
“You may call me Giratiny when I am like this.”
“Uhhh s-sure, Girati-um-tiny.”
“Here is my ball,” said Giratiny, as a black pseudopod dropped a dusty, aged pokeball at Lily’s feet. She blinked at it as if it were an angry ekans. “You will need it to stop pesky trainers from ending their journeys early by attempting to catch me.”
“Umm…”
“Indeed.”
Very cautiously, Lily picked it up and expanded it. She hefted it, lobbing it experimentally into the air and catching it. It seemed normal enough. “Umm, why are you…?”
“I’m hungry. And a bit bored. And it seems my latest project can deal with both of those, so I’m joining your team for a while.”
“Hungry and bor… oh no.”
“Oh yes. And my sibling’s kid is headed back in…” Giratiny incongruously lifted one of his forelimbs, held it horizontally, and looked at it, “three, two, one, now.”
There was indeed a flash of light, and Celebi appeared, momentarily staggered as the tiny little green creature was carrying a cauldron many times bigger then she was, in the air. Very swiftly, the cauldron was lowered to the ground, and Giratiny sped over to it and put his head deep inside. Slurping noises were heard, followed by loud gulps and then a rather satisfied sounding ‘uuurrp’.
“Yes, minion, this is satisfactory fare for your number one pokemon! You, as my dutiful trainer, shall procure more!” Giratiny withdrew from the cauldron and leaned back on his haunches, patting his belly, which was noticeably quite distended, with his front two limbs.
Lily looked aghast at first the diminutive Legendary, then the other diminutive Legendary, then the cauldron, then off into space.
“Welcome to the club,” said Celebi. Lily slowly turned to blink at her.
“Wait, wait, I can understand you? I mean I could understand Giratina b-but—” Lily broke off as Celebi spun.
“You can understand me? Gira… uncle!?”
“Yes, yes, my little niece,” said Giratina, his diminutive front leg waving idly, “I have granted her the gift of Pokespeech. It means I don’t have to wait around for all that human stuffing in her head to get to understanding me the normal way. Besides, she is a witch, talking to her pokemon won’t seem strange to anybody. Now, if you will furnish my trainer with your pokeball, we can be off!”
Lily and Celebi looked at each other.
“What?” “Huh?”
“Come on, I am still hungry and I want to get more before my siblings turn up. You of all mon should know, Celebi, that things get difficult the more twisted the pathways of time get!”
Celebi sighed, reached into the air, and pulled out a glowing white premier ball from a hole in space. “Here. Once Uncle Gira gets an idea in his head, he’s hard to deny.”
“Wh-what? What are we doing?”
“Didn’t I already say?” Giratina blinked up at the human. He rustled his wings and turned his long body to face her. “I’m hungry and you’re getting me some chilli, by buying some from… I believe Fiore, if the taste of the chilli’s I’m getting are native, and I believe they are. Come on. Celebi, this is why you’re coming with us. We could go through the reverse world, but I’m hungry and getting hungrier.”
Celebi turned lighter green as all the color faded out of her body at those ominous words, took up station on Lily’s shoulder as Murkrow landed on the other, and all four of them, plus the chilli cauldron, disappeared.