Sitting in silence, Gem seemed in no hurry to leave the ground, splayed out on the dirt and moss, she looked almost as weary as Hailey usually felt.
"Wendy…"
"Actually, that's not my name."
That got some movement out of the Minun, cocking her head to look back at her, confusion in her red, puffy eyes. Hailey wasn't sure why she was coming clean now. Maybe she was just tired of lying, maybe cause this felt like a honest moment. "I've, uh, been travelling under a… assumed name, for… reasons. Not important right now. It's actually Hailey."
Gem let her head thump back onto the ground, a horse laugh rose up in her, but it didn't sound to mirthful. "Acreus, you really did step out of a bad Soap didn't you? Going to reveal you have an evil twin next? Well, whatever, suits you better anyway. So Hailey, as I was about to say, how long ago do you think I spawned?"
Hailey, didn't know how to respond to that, so eventually she decided that honesty was todays policy. "Honestly? I don't know. I've not exactly spent much time around Pokémon, especially not young ones. I… think I remember watching some special, with professor whats-her-name, Pine? Mostly just remember that we think you little monsters come from eggs, but we can't confirm because, while you guys talk about it a lot, we've never witnessed one and you all clam up on the details."
You're quoting a TV special at me?" Gem sounded actually incredulous at that, at least it was distracting her from her grief? "Did you not go to school?"
"No."
"… Ok, not unpacking that right now. Well, yeah, we come from eggs, the rest is need to know and y'all don't need to know. Arceus wants there to be some mysteries in the world. Thing is, not all eggs are equal. Some of em are newbies, totally fresh. They usually live in the wild for ages, figuring things out before they look for a partner. The rest are Returns, I know I'm one of them because I've still got some… not memories, impressions? You wake up and you know stuff, but you don't know how you know stuff, that's how you know this ain't your first time around."
Hailey just nodded. Now that she thought about it, these kind of plot lines had come up on more than a few dramas she'd watched, she just hadn't payed attention to that part at the time. "Ok, so you weren't literally hatched yesterday then?"
"Fuck no!" Another laugh, still strained. "No you know how long it's been? Almost two years, and it's been hell pretty much the entire time."
Hatching out of an egg? That Hailey couldn't pretend to relate to, but pain? "You know, if Giratina really is Arceus' opposite, then I feel like I should have a punch card for how much it feels like they've messed in my life, so I get it, kinda."
No laugh this time, looking down, Gem was looking up at her. Her eyes looked so blue from this angle.
"After those… whatever you call em, what I saw yesterday, I actually believe you. Wanna know the real bitch of it though, since I'm gonna assume you really don't know anything about my kind?"
Hailey nodded again, then leaned in, not out of interest, not entirely, but to hear, as Gem's voice suddenly dropped low. Low and mournful.
"Thing is, Minun were never meant to be alone."
Jubilife was certainly the biggest city in Sinnoh, but Carita couldn't say she really knew it.
She mostly experienced it from the air, swooping to and from the hospital, and from on high the myriad skyscrapers really blended together, broken only by the occasional landmark. The JTV tower, the great arena, the main train terminal, the Trainers Finishing School grounds, more than a few girls had caused a bit of a public scene when they'd marched straight from their graduation to her workplace. Youthful exuberance and overconfidence and all that.
Speaking of her workplace, it was an easy spot even without years of experience. Our Lady of Healing Moonlight was built like a rough trapezoid, outer walls surrounding an inner courtyard that was Suni, the Cherrim gardeners’, pride and joy. With a tilt, Carita went into a dive. Slow, gradual descents weren't really her thing, but she did at least try to aim for the Helicopter landing pad. It was reinforced after all.
She liked to think the impact vibration served as a little calling card, to make sure everyone was ready for her.
Ready they were, with arm loads of every Pokémon's 'favourite'. Paperwork. If you ever wanted to know why so few Pokémon held down real jobs, or were content to forever remain junior partners in some enterprise, even when they were interested in the work, you could sum it up in one word.
Paperwork.
There were a lot of things to admire about humans, and Carita wasn't going to think of any of the fun ones, lest she become distracted, but one of the baffling ones was how they not only dealt with, but created more of the dreaded stuff at seemingly every opportunity. Carita would be the first to tell you that she was far above average for a Pokémon in terms of patience and focus, and that was mostly true, but even she had to put an out-sized amount of her energy into dealing with the stuff.
Even though all her instincts were screaming at her to continue the search for Hailey without rest, day and night, until the girl was either found or she herself collapsed from exhaustion, that simply wasn't an option.
When she'd decided to become a doctor it had meant thinking beyond base instincts. While some of her work could be temporarily put off on other doctors and nurses, that was only a fraction. Patient charts needed to be gone over for any signs of error, prescriptions needed to be double checked and signed, and other patients needed one on one face time. Hailey may have been special to her, but that didn't mean she was the only one Carita was responsible for. Other's needed checkups, examinations, even just attention, making sure they knew they weren't being abandoned or forgotten.
Thank Arceus for monstrous stamina reserves, because she wasn't sleeping anytime soon.
In fact, it was… 11:27 at night, according to a wall clock, when that brown haired girl clawed her way back to the front of her thoughts. One of the night nurses had come by, gave her a brief update. Apparently the Rangers had gotten a tip of a traveller that matched her little runaways description. Wasn't the right name, but the other details all matched up. They wanted to let the hospital know they were on the case.
To Carita, it was a great opportunity to finally get up and stretch.
Now, the Rangers probably wouldn't have just handed over case information, even if she was Hailey's doctor, but luckily this time of night one of the station Growliths was on duty. Mon to Mon it was much easier to make them understand.
So, shrouded by night, with a crescent moon high in the sky, Carita found herself flying over the suburbs, low so she could still read the signs by lamplight, till she finally came to an unassuming little semi-detached, no different than the hundreds of others around it. The street was dark, but a light still shone in a window, perhaps good luck that someone else was burning the midnight oil.
Despite the noise, she decided to use the doorbell instead of knocking. No sense in shaking the entire house.
The woman that answered looked like she should have been in bed hours ago, even as she pulled the door open a olive skinned hand rose to stifle a yawn, only barely keeping her big brown eyes open.
She was short, but almost every human was compared to Carita. Even so, she might have been shorter than Hailey even, if her ward could have stood up straight. Overall, her close cut hair, cute nose, and the hint of curves under a oversized T-shirt with some Clefairy idol on the front led Carita to the conclusion that she was pretty darn cute.
Not what she was here for though.
"Ms Schooner?"
Despite the obvious exhaustion in her eyes they immediately snapped up to meet Carita’s. There was no instant of hesitation or intimidation that usually followed when she surprised someone, interesting.
"Who's asking?" The words were wary, but not hostile. Honestly, perfectly reasonable for the time of night.
"You may call me Carita, or Dr. Carita if you wish. I apologize for the intrusion, I was informed you recently made a report of a girl in a wheelchair who matched the description of a missing person?"
That got a blink from those sleepy eyes, and as she moved to respond a low voice thundered out of the house behind her. "Baaaaaaabe what are you doing? Come to bed before I drag you away from that damn box." Brigit's head snapped back over her shoulder, letting out a hoarse shout. "Just go to bed Thảo! I'll be there soon, just gotta wrap something up.
Turning back, she now looked at Carita with curiosity, or perhaps a bit of suspicion. "Yes, I did make a report, but I'm not sure what it has to do with you, I talked to the Rangers."
"Yes, well, one of them… passed the information on to me. You see, if the individual you encountered is the one we've been looking for, then I have a close personal connection, as her primary caregiver and physician. I also happen to be leading the search for her." She added, almost as a afterthought. Digging around in her coat, she pulled out of of the posters of Hailey.
Brigit barely scanned it before meeting her gaze again. "Yeah, that certainly looks like Wendy, though we didn't spend much time with her before she… rolled off."
"She never was that good with other people so that doesn't surprise me. If she is the one, and there are not more than a handful of wheelchair bound individuals in the whole region, then her name isn't Wendy though. Hailey always enjoyed, I suppose, playing pranks on others, so using a fake name seems like something she'd do. There's one way to be sure for all that."
Brigit had taken a step back, not out of fear, but… surprise? Shock? Was she bothered by learning that Hailey had lied to her? Interesting, Carita wouldn't have expected that from what must have surely been a brief and inconsequential meeting. Very interesting.
'What.. way is that?" The woman asked, now unsure.
"Well, when you encountered Hailey, did you have a Partner with you? A Pokémon partner, specifically."
"Yeah, of course, not gonna wind up in some damp cave without Thảo dragging me there."
"And how did your Partner react to Hailey?"
The way Brigit was looking at her now told her everything she needed to know.
"It was… quite strange, we actually got into a bit of a tiff about it. She would look right at her, but not see her. She pushed Wend… I mean Hailey's chair for over an hour but didn't seem to even know what was going on. At first I thought she was just being spacey, she can do that sometimes, but eventually I got worried, real worried."
Sometimes, Carita thought about getting a set of glasses, so that she could push them up at opportune times, still, she tried to resist the dramatic urge.
"Well, first, let me assure you ma'am that there is nothing wrong with your partner, no damage temporary or permanent. It is simply an effect Miss Wolters has on us. Best to think of it like a… move, yes. The effect can be disorienting, but there is no lingering effect, no more than a blast of Hypnosis would last more than a few minutes."
"Yeah!" Brigit snapped her fingers, the sound reverberating in the otherwise quite night. "Hailey mentioned something like that, but it didn't make any sense to me. I mean, I've never heard of a person that could ghost Pokémon, and just Pokémon, better than an actual Ghost!"
"That is because there is no other human who can do so, or at least, if there is then they have eluded my own research skills, which I can assure you are considerable." A little pride crept into her voice, you could only repress for so long. "We have taken to calling the condition Perceptual Dampening Disorder, and as I stated, as far as can be ascertained Hailey is the only individual to suffer from it. It also goes far beyond just her perceptual effect, though that is what most focus on. It is incredibly rare for any individual Mon to even temporarily shake off the effects and even individuals that have worked around her for years find it inescapable, why…"
"Really? Cause while Thảo was out of it for a good long while, she did kinda shake it off at the end. Well, sorta."
The interruption had Carita clammed up. She was normally stoic, unflappable. She'd only come here to get information on her little lost girl, but found herself pulled into a whole conversation. And that last bit… was that right or was this civilian just mistaking. The curiosity gnawed at her like a Mankey at a chestnut.
"Ma'am, Brigit, once again I apologize for the late intrusion, but do you think I could meet your partner?
Hailey was more than a bit confused. " Ok, yeah, I know about Bonds and stuff, the basics at least. Pokémon need partners to absorb, refine, and return their energy right? Though I remember some article talking about Wilds that could seemingly last ages and ages with no contact, not sure what's up with that but…"
"Ok, stop right there." Gem was slowly pulling herself to her feet, dusting herself off. Hailey had only seen two sides of the Minun so far, crying on the ground, and confident bitch, looked like the second was reasserting herself. Progress?
Honestly, with the way the Mon stood, talked, she reminded Hailey of a TV cheerleader. Confident and kinda mean, when she wasn't breaking down that was.
"Yeah yeah, bonds, everyone wants em, everyone needs em, not gonna get into the hermits though. I'm not talking about Pokémon in general, just Minun." Just like that, the regrowing confidence seemed to flee, and now Gem just looked tired, very tired. Slumping against a tree, she dragged a hand across her face.
"We're just like electricity see, can't have the negative current without the positive flow, the minus without the plus. We're not literally spawned together, but we always find our match soon after, it's like… magnetism, gravity. Plusle and Minun."
Hailey nodded, not really understanding at all. Arceus, a Dex would be so useful right now. Luckily, Gem seemed to notice the issue, or just anticipated her confusion from earlier. Once again, she pulled herself up. Posed in front of the chair, she cocked a hip, before motioning from toe to tip.
"Ok, see all this? Hot, tight, one sexy bitch." Also kinda flat, but Hailey kept that to herself. "Well, get it nice and set in your mind, I know, lucky you. Now… turn her red."
Hailey blinked. "That's it?" Which got a honest laugh out of Gem.
"Well, there are some differences. For instance, these cute cheek markings… are pluses!" With two fingers actually pointed at her cheeks she held the pose for a second. "Plus, our tails are different, but yeah, other than that, we're like two peas in a Metapod. Twins, Hailey I tell you, drives trainers wild. Like I said, we're always together, as soon as I came back to myself I knew, first thing, was I had to find her."
Once again, all joy fell from the Minun's face.
"Except she wasn't there."
Dropping to her knees, the Minun looked about two seconds from face planting back into the dirt once again, so Hailey did her best to think quickly. What she got was reaching out and pulling the mouses head onto her lap. Gem didn't seem to really notice, but she didn't pull away either.
"At first, I thought it was just an accident, maybe we were just missing each other, something we'd laugh over later. Then, I thought maybe she'd already nabbed a trainer, a real go getter, but there were no trainers around with a Plusle waiting for their Minun. I… wandered for weeks, months, even met up with other Plusle, Minun, all already paired of course, and none of them had seen her either. I think it was probably a year later when it finally sunk it for real. Arceus had made a mistake."
Hailey could feel a growing dampness in her blanket. What did you even do in a situation like this? What was even appropriate to do? She wasn't Gem's partner! Hesitant, she settled for stroking the other girls head, slow, cautious-like.
"I KNOW she existed. I told you before, this isn't my first time around, I MUST have had a match last time, I wouldn't have made it otherwise. But, for some reason, she didn't come back. Was it my fault? I can't even ask her, can't even remember her name!"
For several moments, the Mon just sobbed into Hailey's waist. It didn't feel right, but eventually she felt the need to speak up.
"So then JJ…"
"Not even the first, don't even remember how many I've thrown myself at, they all end the same way. They run, scream, let me know that I'm not wanted, that I fucked it all up, that they hate me."
"I don't think JJ hates you." It sounded empty even to her, she'd have to go deeper to make it sound right. "I mean, if she hated you, she wouldn't have cornered me to ask me to try and find you. Trust me, no one talks to me for my charming personality."
A small snort cut through the sobs, good sign, but she'd really have to get this blanket washed after.
"Well, I guess that serves me right for spending all of yesterday talking to you." Ouch, ok, Hailey could admit she rolled right into that one. "Just means JJ's more considerate than most when telling me to get lost though."
Ok, time for the coup de grâce that would hopefully turn this whole situation around.
Reaching down, Hailey put a hand in one of her pockets. Always being sitting made pulling stuff out of them a bit of a pain due to the pants shape, plus the Minun still laying on her lap, but she managed to get the paper out with an acceptable amount of crumpling.
"Again, I don't think that's true. Yeah, it wasn't going to work out with JJ and her team but… look, she gave me this ok?" Smoothing the paper best she could, Hailey handed it over. She hadn't actually read the note, so she was praying it wasn't about to set off another event.
Gem
Hopefully Hailey managed to find you, I'd have done it myself but I don't think either of us were in a state
to see each other again so soon after the fire. Listen, I know my group are pretty intense,
there's a reason we've been looking for a forth for so long. Well, several reasons. When you're this tight
knit, only the perfect fit can slot in. But just because you're not our perfect fit doesn't mean you're not
someones.
You're passionate, that much is clear, maybe even a bit to much, perhaps tone back the stalking a little?
A lot of girls like being chased, but there are limits, ok?
The important thing is to never give up, that's not the electric way. We keep rolling forward, never stopping.
You'll find her, your perfect match. No, them, a whole group of them, and when you do, look me up.
Hopefully one day your friend, Vijaya Zavala
The sniffles didn't stop, but the sobs slowly faded away.