New Game +: Chapter 7, Be Calm.
Masterlist for New Game + available here.
Title: Be Calm.
Song Link: You hate your pulse because it thinks you're still alive.
Characters: Silver, N
Word Count: 2231
Silver and Crobat and Eevee sat together on top of the highest basket on the Nimbasa City ferris wheel, looking down at the empty park and watching the glowing signs flash and fade. Various booths, now empty, still had glowing signs on them advertising something incomprehensible from the sky; the smaller rides in the park also still had their lights on, glowing cars on tracks or bright spotlights tracking around the outside of a funhouse. Across the river, some of the larger buildings in town still had lights on in windows, either houses with families still working on getting to bed or offices with someone still in there doing something. A theater appeared to still be open, although it might just have been advertising itself to no one like the ring toss booths; Silver couldn’t tell.
The air was crisp and Silver held Eevee on his lap to keep both of them warm, Crobat seeming not to mind the cold and occasionally swooping around the park in spirals when it didn’t want to sit on Silver’s head. The three had occupied the park since shortly after it closed, watching people move along the city streets and occasionally tossing flecks of paint from the top of the basket down towards the ground. Silver liked to watch them fall and imagine they were snow, drifting slowly, occasionally catching a flash of neon from one of the wheel’s struts on their way.
He had started writing a letter to Kotone, but given up; it was hard to focus on anything between the repetitive jingles of the fair equipment, still playing even after the park was empty, and his own anger, still replaying the conversation with Cynthia in his head. At first he had been worried about falling, his balance on the basket precarious; at this point, though, he could stand up on the basket and pace and not fall, although if he started doing that he had to pick up Eevee or she clung to his legs. It was nice to be the tallest thing; he could see and not be seen, scan and stay ignored.
I wonder if this is what it was like for Red, he thought. What could he see from Mt. Silver? Silver had been to the summit and had not been impressed; other than whirling snow and a drab sky the mountain offered nothing to him. On the other hand, in the morning, people would want to ride the ferris wheel, and no one wanted to climb Mt. Silver, really. Only Green, every couple of months, even...
Silver closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Most people held him responsible for the whole massacre, and he rejected that; it wasn’t his fault his father was evil. For all he knew, Giovanni hadn’t even realized that he would be at the restaurant. He did hold himself responsible for Green, though. If he’d been better at handling the whole thing, if he hadn’t been so jealous... maybe he could have just gone by himself to talk to Claire and Kotone, and Green wouldn’t have been there. It was almost harder to miss Green; Kotone had spent four years away and somehow they’d survived that, and he could pretend she was on another voyage somewhere and in a few weeks Pidgeotto would show up with a letter, and he could write back, and this time he’d write back often enough, and they could retire to an island or something together...
What was Cynthia’s problem? How could she go from hitting on him to insulting his dead friends in like five minutes? Silver picked another piece of white paint off of the top of the basket and let it drift down. He didn’t want to have to deal with her, but apparently her and Looker were in cahoots, and Looker knew where Giovanni was. He reached his hand out, and Eevee wandered over from the center of the basket where she’d been cowering, hopping up into his lap. He pet her softly, counting the lights still on in windows in Nimbasa City. After around thirty, he got bored, laying back on the painted metal and looking up. The lights from the city drowned out the stars, but he could still watch wisps of cloud pass over the moon, and the twinkling of a few things that might be stars, or might be airplanes.
One in particular, a small blue dot, flickered in the sky and was moving, roughly toward him from the south. He watched it, wondering if it was a helicopter or a plane or something. He imagined that maybe some people who flew with their Pokémon at night, and didn’t have Crobat’s echolocation to rely on, might wear lights like bicyclists; he wondered if, in another world where he didn’t have to go do battle with his father, he could make a living building lights to attach to your Pokémon. Flash worked well enough in caves, but in the sky...
The blue light was coming markedly closer, and Silver sat up a bit, watching it. It almost looked like a blue halo around a black dot, now, blue light propelling a bit of darkness darker than the sky. He lifted his left hand, and Crobat came back from wandering through the park to rest on Silver’s backpack and stare over his head. They watched the blue light, the black spot in its center getting larger, until Crobat flew up into the air, hissing quietly, wings spread out. Silver reached for his Pokéballs, and then reached for his gun, and then shrugged and stood up, watching.
As the light got closer, Silver could tell that the dark shape was not a plane, it was a Pokémon, but not one he’d seen before. The blue seemed to be coming out of the back side of the Pokémon. It had wings, and was probably bipedal; it definitely wasn’t one of Giovanni’s monsters. Crobat was freaking out about something, though. What was it- Oh. Silver reached for his Pokéballs again, finger on the button for Typhlosion, but when he realized who was riding the legendary, his hand stilled.
-
Julie shivered, sitting next to Silver on the top of the ferris wheel, Eevee on her lap, Crobat circling warily around Zekrom on the next basket over. They carefully left just enough space between them that they could stretch their arms, but not too much that they wouldn’t be on opposite sides of the basket, or that they basket wouldn’t sway slightly side to side because of their weight.
“So your father is also the mastermind of a criminal organization.”
“Welllll..” Julie looked up and shrugged one shoulder, bracelets jangling. “Mastermind is such a strong term. But yeah. After the whole thing fell down, I ran away.”
“Did you...” Silver lifted a finger, and then dropped it, and then lifted it again, and then blushed.
Julie sighed. “That was incidental. Well, I mean, who knows what’s incidental, right? But it wasn’t to hide.”
“I’m sorry. It’s new.”
Julie pushed some of her hair out of her face. “It’s OK! You’re... basically more supportive than anyone else, so. I take what I can get. She tugged at her hair and frowned. “You... don’t have a hairbrush, do you? Flying all around looking for you left me kind of a mess here.”
Silver tugged his backpack around into his lap. “I... probably do?” He rummaged around through his scant clothing. “And you flew here after me? I thought you were running away from Cynthia.”
Julie turned away. “Wellyes... But you’d also just run away from Cynthia. I’m really sorry about what she said. That was terrible.”
Silver pulled out a brush, and took in breath sharply when he realized whose it was, and then awkwardly pushed it towards Julie. “How did you know?”
“Eevee told me,” she said, taking the hairbrush. Eevee, on her lap, wagged her tail and looked up at Silver with big innocent eyes.
“Eevee... doesn’t talk.” Eevee pouted and drooped her ears. “Okay, I mean, Eevee can communicate some things, but she couldn’t have explained Red.”
“How come so many Pokémon trainers have color names?” Julie ran the brush through her hair, starting from the bottom, slowly working out the tangles from flying with Zekrom. “You’re Silver, you just mentioned Red, I knew a Black... I thought about changing my name to Green, you know, because of the hair.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” said Silver, “Eevee’s trainer’s name was Green.”
Julie covered her mouth and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Silver reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, and then pulled back, hand dangling awkwardly between them. “You didn’t know. He was... a very close friend of mine.”
“Eevee said you were lovers,” Julie said, still looking away. “On the plane. Which is why I initially said something to you.” She turned to look at Silver, noticed the hand, and turned down to her hair, brushing more. “And Pokémon do talk, if you know how to listen. Some things are hard, like names, or specific places. But if you spend most of your childhood with no one but Pokémon around you, you learn to listen well enough to pick up general things.” She stretched out her legs, working her way slowly up her hair with the brush. “And if you spend a good few years of your adulthood hiding from anyone else except Pokémon, well. You get better at it.”
“Do you...” Silver watched Zekrom, curled up on the next basket over, tail glowing blue. Hopefully that looks like just another light from in town. He looked at Juile, who was smiling and twitching a little bit. He drew his hand back into his lap, folding it with his other and leaning back a bit. “Do you think that’s what Red was doing, then? Up on the mountain?”
Julie shrugged. “I’d have to ask him.”
Silver dropped another fleck of paint. “A bit late. But it doesn’t matter.” He looked at Julie and frowned; he bit the inside of his lip. “How much do you know?”
Julie put the hairbrush to her side and rested a hand on Eevee’s head; the Pokémon chirred and closed her eyes, settling down next to her. “I know...” She smiled broadly and pulled her knees up, pulling them close to her chest. “I know that you’re the only other trainer I’ve met whose Pokémon chose them and not vice versa.”
Silver shook his head, and Crobat flew down to rest on his shoulder, nipping gently at his hair. He looked up at it and made a face, but the bat just grinned. “It wasn’t like that until I decided to come here. I tried to free all of my Pokémon, and Green’s, and...”
Julie nodded. “It was good of them to come with you.”
Silver looked down at the ground, trying to make out the grass, and Crobat gently folded a wing over his eyes. “It was foolish,” he said. “But I guess they can’t help being attached to me any more than I can help being attached to her.”
Julie extended her hand, much like Silver had, fingers outstretched and not quite touching him; Crobat noticed and another wing pressed lightly against Julie’s forearm, and she leaned in to touch Silver. When she pressed her hand against his shoulder through his jacket, she felt him tense up, and then relax, and then tense up, but less, and then lean into the touch, slowly. He shook a bit, and Crobat covered his face with its wings entirely, closing its eyes. She squeezed his shoulder, and he leaned onto her slightly, fingers knotted in each other on his lap.
Silver took a deep breath, steadying his body. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Julie shushed him. “Don’t be sorry.”
Silver shivered. “Fine. I’m not sorry.” He untwined his hands. “We don’t have much time. Eventually they’re going to find us.”
Julie swiveled her head around. “Who?”
“Either Looker and Cynthia or the Rockets. It doesn’t matter who, really. They all want the Legends together so that they can collect and hold power. The Rockets want to control; Cynthia I think just wants knowledge, and the Rockets are in the way. They think I’m the key to finding Kotone’s, which if I am I don’t know how, and you’ve got a giant electric dragon.”
Julie laughed awkwardly. “I... might also be responsible for the rise of Team Plasma a while back, a little bit.”
Silver brushed Crobat’s wings away and looked at Julie, eyes reddened. “You, or your father?”
“Well, it was his fault, but I-”
He grabbed her arm, shaking the cart suddenly. “Never let him define you.” He leaned in close and put his other hand on her shoulder, staring at her. “What you’re born into isn’t what you...” He blushed and backed off, shuffling away. “I mean, you know that.”
Julie laughed. “Oh, I do.” She kept laughing and stretched out her arms above her head, one of them reaching to the sky, the other wrapped around it in an awkward triangle. “But I carry responsibility, too. And it’s probably good that I come back and face that.”
Silver closed his eyes.
“Hey Silver.”
“Yeah.”
She put a hand back on his shoulder and squeezed. He did not pull away.
-
Title: Be Calm.
Song Link: You hate your pulse because it thinks you're still alive.
Characters: Silver, N
Word Count: 2231
Silver and Crobat and Eevee sat together on top of the highest basket on the Nimbasa City ferris wheel, looking down at the empty park and watching the glowing signs flash and fade. Various booths, now empty, still had glowing signs on them advertising something incomprehensible from the sky; the smaller rides in the park also still had their lights on, glowing cars on tracks or bright spotlights tracking around the outside of a funhouse. Across the river, some of the larger buildings in town still had lights on in windows, either houses with families still working on getting to bed or offices with someone still in there doing something. A theater appeared to still be open, although it might just have been advertising itself to no one like the ring toss booths; Silver couldn’t tell.
The air was crisp and Silver held Eevee on his lap to keep both of them warm, Crobat seeming not to mind the cold and occasionally swooping around the park in spirals when it didn’t want to sit on Silver’s head. The three had occupied the park since shortly after it closed, watching people move along the city streets and occasionally tossing flecks of paint from the top of the basket down towards the ground. Silver liked to watch them fall and imagine they were snow, drifting slowly, occasionally catching a flash of neon from one of the wheel’s struts on their way.
He had started writing a letter to Kotone, but given up; it was hard to focus on anything between the repetitive jingles of the fair equipment, still playing even after the park was empty, and his own anger, still replaying the conversation with Cynthia in his head. At first he had been worried about falling, his balance on the basket precarious; at this point, though, he could stand up on the basket and pace and not fall, although if he started doing that he had to pick up Eevee or she clung to his legs. It was nice to be the tallest thing; he could see and not be seen, scan and stay ignored.
I wonder if this is what it was like for Red, he thought. What could he see from Mt. Silver? Silver had been to the summit and had not been impressed; other than whirling snow and a drab sky the mountain offered nothing to him. On the other hand, in the morning, people would want to ride the ferris wheel, and no one wanted to climb Mt. Silver, really. Only Green, every couple of months, even...
Silver closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Most people held him responsible for the whole massacre, and he rejected that; it wasn’t his fault his father was evil. For all he knew, Giovanni hadn’t even realized that he would be at the restaurant. He did hold himself responsible for Green, though. If he’d been better at handling the whole thing, if he hadn’t been so jealous... maybe he could have just gone by himself to talk to Claire and Kotone, and Green wouldn’t have been there. It was almost harder to miss Green; Kotone had spent four years away and somehow they’d survived that, and he could pretend she was on another voyage somewhere and in a few weeks Pidgeotto would show up with a letter, and he could write back, and this time he’d write back often enough, and they could retire to an island or something together...
What was Cynthia’s problem? How could she go from hitting on him to insulting his dead friends in like five minutes? Silver picked another piece of white paint off of the top of the basket and let it drift down. He didn’t want to have to deal with her, but apparently her and Looker were in cahoots, and Looker knew where Giovanni was. He reached his hand out, and Eevee wandered over from the center of the basket where she’d been cowering, hopping up into his lap. He pet her softly, counting the lights still on in windows in Nimbasa City. After around thirty, he got bored, laying back on the painted metal and looking up. The lights from the city drowned out the stars, but he could still watch wisps of cloud pass over the moon, and the twinkling of a few things that might be stars, or might be airplanes.
One in particular, a small blue dot, flickered in the sky and was moving, roughly toward him from the south. He watched it, wondering if it was a helicopter or a plane or something. He imagined that maybe some people who flew with their Pokémon at night, and didn’t have Crobat’s echolocation to rely on, might wear lights like bicyclists; he wondered if, in another world where he didn’t have to go do battle with his father, he could make a living building lights to attach to your Pokémon. Flash worked well enough in caves, but in the sky...
The blue light was coming markedly closer, and Silver sat up a bit, watching it. It almost looked like a blue halo around a black dot, now, blue light propelling a bit of darkness darker than the sky. He lifted his left hand, and Crobat came back from wandering through the park to rest on Silver’s backpack and stare over his head. They watched the blue light, the black spot in its center getting larger, until Crobat flew up into the air, hissing quietly, wings spread out. Silver reached for his Pokéballs, and then reached for his gun, and then shrugged and stood up, watching.
As the light got closer, Silver could tell that the dark shape was not a plane, it was a Pokémon, but not one he’d seen before. The blue seemed to be coming out of the back side of the Pokémon. It had wings, and was probably bipedal; it definitely wasn’t one of Giovanni’s monsters. Crobat was freaking out about something, though. What was it- Oh. Silver reached for his Pokéballs again, finger on the button for Typhlosion, but when he realized who was riding the legendary, his hand stilled.
-
Julie shivered, sitting next to Silver on the top of the ferris wheel, Eevee on her lap, Crobat circling warily around Zekrom on the next basket over. They carefully left just enough space between them that they could stretch their arms, but not too much that they wouldn’t be on opposite sides of the basket, or that they basket wouldn’t sway slightly side to side because of their weight.
“So your father is also the mastermind of a criminal organization.”
“Welllll..” Julie looked up and shrugged one shoulder, bracelets jangling. “Mastermind is such a strong term. But yeah. After the whole thing fell down, I ran away.”
“Did you...” Silver lifted a finger, and then dropped it, and then lifted it again, and then blushed.
Julie sighed. “That was incidental. Well, I mean, who knows what’s incidental, right? But it wasn’t to hide.”
“I’m sorry. It’s new.”
Julie pushed some of her hair out of her face. “It’s OK! You’re... basically more supportive than anyone else, so. I take what I can get. She tugged at her hair and frowned. “You... don’t have a hairbrush, do you? Flying all around looking for you left me kind of a mess here.”
Silver tugged his backpack around into his lap. “I... probably do?” He rummaged around through his scant clothing. “And you flew here after me? I thought you were running away from Cynthia.”
Julie turned away. “Wellyes... But you’d also just run away from Cynthia. I’m really sorry about what she said. That was terrible.”
Silver pulled out a brush, and took in breath sharply when he realized whose it was, and then awkwardly pushed it towards Julie. “How did you know?”
“Eevee told me,” she said, taking the hairbrush. Eevee, on her lap, wagged her tail and looked up at Silver with big innocent eyes.
“Eevee... doesn’t talk.” Eevee pouted and drooped her ears. “Okay, I mean, Eevee can communicate some things, but she couldn’t have explained Red.”
“How come so many Pokémon trainers have color names?” Julie ran the brush through her hair, starting from the bottom, slowly working out the tangles from flying with Zekrom. “You’re Silver, you just mentioned Red, I knew a Black... I thought about changing my name to Green, you know, because of the hair.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” said Silver, “Eevee’s trainer’s name was Green.”
Julie covered her mouth and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Silver reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, and then pulled back, hand dangling awkwardly between them. “You didn’t know. He was... a very close friend of mine.”
“Eevee said you were lovers,” Julie said, still looking away. “On the plane. Which is why I initially said something to you.” She turned to look at Silver, noticed the hand, and turned down to her hair, brushing more. “And Pokémon do talk, if you know how to listen. Some things are hard, like names, or specific places. But if you spend most of your childhood with no one but Pokémon around you, you learn to listen well enough to pick up general things.” She stretched out her legs, working her way slowly up her hair with the brush. “And if you spend a good few years of your adulthood hiding from anyone else except Pokémon, well. You get better at it.”
“Do you...” Silver watched Zekrom, curled up on the next basket over, tail glowing blue. Hopefully that looks like just another light from in town. He looked at Juile, who was smiling and twitching a little bit. He drew his hand back into his lap, folding it with his other and leaning back a bit. “Do you think that’s what Red was doing, then? Up on the mountain?”
Julie shrugged. “I’d have to ask him.”
Silver dropped another fleck of paint. “A bit late. But it doesn’t matter.” He looked at Julie and frowned; he bit the inside of his lip. “How much do you know?”
Julie put the hairbrush to her side and rested a hand on Eevee’s head; the Pokémon chirred and closed her eyes, settling down next to her. “I know...” She smiled broadly and pulled her knees up, pulling them close to her chest. “I know that you’re the only other trainer I’ve met whose Pokémon chose them and not vice versa.”
Silver shook his head, and Crobat flew down to rest on his shoulder, nipping gently at his hair. He looked up at it and made a face, but the bat just grinned. “It wasn’t like that until I decided to come here. I tried to free all of my Pokémon, and Green’s, and...”
Julie nodded. “It was good of them to come with you.”
Silver looked down at the ground, trying to make out the grass, and Crobat gently folded a wing over his eyes. “It was foolish,” he said. “But I guess they can’t help being attached to me any more than I can help being attached to her.”
Julie extended her hand, much like Silver had, fingers outstretched and not quite touching him; Crobat noticed and another wing pressed lightly against Julie’s forearm, and she leaned in to touch Silver. When she pressed her hand against his shoulder through his jacket, she felt him tense up, and then relax, and then tense up, but less, and then lean into the touch, slowly. He shook a bit, and Crobat covered his face with its wings entirely, closing its eyes. She squeezed his shoulder, and he leaned onto her slightly, fingers knotted in each other on his lap.
Silver took a deep breath, steadying his body. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Julie shushed him. “Don’t be sorry.”
Silver shivered. “Fine. I’m not sorry.” He untwined his hands. “We don’t have much time. Eventually they’re going to find us.”
Julie swiveled her head around. “Who?”
“Either Looker and Cynthia or the Rockets. It doesn’t matter who, really. They all want the Legends together so that they can collect and hold power. The Rockets want to control; Cynthia I think just wants knowledge, and the Rockets are in the way. They think I’m the key to finding Kotone’s, which if I am I don’t know how, and you’ve got a giant electric dragon.”
Julie laughed awkwardly. “I... might also be responsible for the rise of Team Plasma a while back, a little bit.”
Silver brushed Crobat’s wings away and looked at Julie, eyes reddened. “You, or your father?”
“Well, it was his fault, but I-”
He grabbed her arm, shaking the cart suddenly. “Never let him define you.” He leaned in close and put his other hand on her shoulder, staring at her. “What you’re born into isn’t what you...” He blushed and backed off, shuffling away. “I mean, you know that.”
Julie laughed. “Oh, I do.” She kept laughing and stretched out her arms above her head, one of them reaching to the sky, the other wrapped around it in an awkward triangle. “But I carry responsibility, too. And it’s probably good that I come back and face that.”
Silver closed his eyes.
“Hey Silver.”
“Yeah.”
She put a hand back on his shoulder and squeezed. He did not pull away.
-