Peep and a squeak would be the answer, along with curious staring.
“It’s a surprise, you silly Sitrus.”
She promptly got a tiny gloop of dough and booped Kin’s nose with it.
“All I can say is that I made it with Pecha and Magost berries.”
That should really get the curiosity going. Magost were the sweetest berries in existence.
The champion looked down at the little hedgehog from where she was hands deep in a bowl, her face as pink as the wonderfully smelling dough.
“Hey, Goldie. What’s up?”
“I’m making you a surprise, gimme a sec.”
She managed to lean down to give him a smooch on his head.
Laughter was the first sound that would find Rebecca as Hark got licked again, going to pet the one of Zeke’s horns before his ears turned, catching the words and only chuckling more.
“It’s Hark, and I’m not sure if it’s something I can teach you. There are many things I went through to even pulled this little stunt off, and half of them are horrors you never want to go through. I think I’m right in saying that you believe in trust and justice? I… I sometimes don’t. I’m willing to give whoever proves me wrong the benefit of the doubt, but a world that’s either black or white is not one I believe in. I was…”
He stopped and looked at the grown for a moment.
“While I wasn’t raised into it from moment I could understand the world, I am of… N’s group. Led to believe that the world is a cruel place, and had her eyes opened in the most violent of ways. If Zekrom is the Pokemon of ideals and you associate with it… I associate with Reshiram, the pokemon of truth. Yes, I have ideals, but most are… realistic. Down to earth. I don’t dream much.”
Before looking back to her, smile strained.
“What happened there was… A combination of disgust, anger, and complete and utter mortification. Combined with the swirl of my past which is, in and of itself, a horror to witness, let alone live, I’ll let you guess what happens when all of that just come boiling right out.”
“Hark… I’m Rebecca.”
Rebecca quietly listened to Hark’s speech before moving Triton off her lap and pulling Hark into a warm hug.
“I’m sorry I asked. It’s just that he’s rude and horrible and I didn’t want to sink to his level just to get him to leave.”
Triton softly trilleed, nuzzling Hark’s side as Zeke gave him an affectionate nudge.
“I was all ready to have Triton use an Ice Beam on him too. I’ve got a wagon near the orchard that I was gonna use to wheel him to- ?”
Rebecca looked over to the officer who was standing on the end of the path, the officer signing something to her. The champion signed something in return with one hand, holding up an ‘a-okay’ sign at the end.
Green eyes watched as the man scrambled to get away, barely noticing that Wurmple had jumped off his shoulder in fear, and that both Rebecca and Zeke just gawked. No, he was to in shock with himself to even turn around immediately.
He’d let Markus live. Even though the man clearly held ideals that had probably cost many, many lives in the process, Hark had let the human escape with his life intact instead of delivering the instant justice he knew himself capable of. He didn’t kill, didn’t even touch. Instead, he’d let Markus escape with a chance to change himself.
A chance Hark found himself hoping Markus would take, strangely enough.
Was he finally getting a grip on himself? Or was the need for revenge, the need to make sure someone knew his pain slowly fading? Seemed like it.
Definitely seemed like it when he turned around and got licked by Zeke, causing him to chuckle before gently grabbing the pokemon’s head to nuzzle it.
He was changing. He was slowly, but finally, gaining what he lacked in all the time he lived, and he couldn’t be more grateful for it.
He crouched as the young Wurmple returned, holding out his hand for it to climb on. And he could only chuckle when it hesitantly did, only to look at the cyan jewel floating near it and grappling onto it, quickly standing atop it with pride which made Hark snort.
“You little show off,” he said while bringing the emerald to his palm before looking at Rebecca and pointing to his shoulders. Her earphones had slipped. Must have been earlier.
Zeke softly growled out a happy noise, gently nudging Hark in return and licking his face again. Rebecca blinked before gently setting Triton down and pulling her headphones back up, sound returning to her world before she promptly sat down so Triton could curl up on her lap.
“How… How did you do that? I’ve never been able to intimidate him lke that…”
“Or rather, never for so long. Teach me your ways.”
The champion was completely serious before realizing something and her face turned bright red, Zeke letting out a noise similar to a huffing laugh.
“…I completely forgot to ask for your name, I’m so sorry.”
That was enough.
While Zeke and Rebecca were willing to be magnanimous with Markus, Hark wasn’t. And it showed in the way an ice spear planted itself between the man’s feet, missing his foot by mere inches as the hedgehog stood forward, cyan Emerald twirling near his shoulder, inner light flickering. How dare that human, that male, step over a female, a woman, thinking they’re weaker?!
The tone that Hark spoke in had no growl, no hate. But the command, the sheer power of it leaked through every word.
“You ungrateful child. You ungrateful, spoiled brat! You call women weak?! What is your mother, then? Someone you can step on?! She gave birth to you! Passed hours in labor to give you life! And this is how you thank her?! By stepping on the very reason you’re alive?! She could have had an abortion, decided that she didn’t want you. But she gave you life! She gave you everything at the price of her own happiness! And this is how you thank her?!”
Another ice spear was thrown, clearly missing Markus intentionally, but meant to induce fear.
“Get off this goddamn property! And don’t ever think about coming back or I will chase you to the ends of the earth and end your miserable existence.”
Rebecca was startled at Hark’s anger, her cold expression shattering into awe. Triton in her arms, his ears drooped down as his claws dug into her shirt.
“Ah…”
Rebeccas headphones had fallen down to her shoulders halfway through Hark’s rant, so she missed Markus’s squeak of fear. She didn’t miss him scrambling back from the ice spear Hark had thrown at him and practically running on his hands and feet to get away from the angered hedgehog. With her headphones off, her scarred ears were exposed.
Zeke was looking at Hark in awe, sniffing at him a bit before promptly licking his face.
“A cool, pardon the pun, fact about Vaporeon is that it can turn into water when submerged.”
That definitely was cool along with familiar. How many times had Hark transformed into Chaos just to swim with the fishes? How interesting was it to have a fish go right through him while he stood idle with the water itself? That was definitely within his chords and got a smile of approval.
Okay, so Eevee was weird, but it was almost like…
Almost like a metaphor for all the alternates he’d met. One origin, thousands of possibilities that only expanded the more decisions they took.
That train of thought stopped when he heard the crack, though, and the sudden shout. Who…?
… Deaf? He gave a quick look to Rebecca’s ears. That did explain why she could hear him with the headphones on, but it was not a reason to joke about it.
Although, seeing Zeke’s reaction, Hark was definitely certain that this guy, Markus, was not someone who cared about respect and politeness.
The hedgehog stood, and gently placed a comforting hand on the dragon before nearly glaring at the male. He wouldn’t let that human do anything to Rebecca. And if he thought he would…
He’d probably learn to stay away once Hark was done with him.
“I challenge you to a battle to take back my rightful place as Unova Champion! Something a woman like you might not understand, but it’s an important job for a man-”
Markus ended up having to dodge a silent Ice Beam from an angered Triton, Rebecca’s expression as cold as the ice the beam made on the ground. The champion had skillfully brought the Vaporeon out, his Pokeball smacking her hand as she caught it.
“Well then? Are you going to battle a female trainer for once in your life, Markus? This is certainly a surprise.”
“You might not remember, Markus, but your trainers license was revoked seven months ago because of your ‘battle preferences’. Oh no, I’m not going to battle you for anything. I’m going to turn you in to the authorities once I make an ice sculpture out of you.”
Her voice seemed to growl at her last sentence, reminiscent of Zeke’s growl. The Zekrom’s hackles were raised, his tail zapping with electricity as his ‘motor’ started spinning. Then the other trainer simply made his situation worse by speaking again.
“Are you really? You women are so weak that all I have to do is beat you down to teach you where you’re supposed to be, you deaf little bitch.”
The second she said her name the little lightbulb in his head went off. He motioned for her to wait one minute as he set Sapphire down on the ground. Racing down to his ship he pulled out the communication device Sprocket had been working on. Getting back up to the house and presented it her with a quickly written note on it.
“Sprocket made this so yu can talk to him. So it shud not have any problems”
Rebecca carefully took the communicator, reading the note patiently before giving the other a bright, warm smile.
“Thank you for delivering this, I appreciate you coming all this way.”
She gave him a bow of her head before speaking again.
“Would you like to stay for a while to rest?”
No words. No words at all as Hark searched for the Pokemon in question only to gape at the amount of possible evolutions. Seven. Seven possible evolutions and all depended on different methods. Three asked for specific stones which seemed to be possible to carry, two asked for friendship either in the day or the night and two others demanded rocks that were apparently located in specific areas.
“Motherfucker…”
Unstable genes indeed.
He then looked up Vaporeon, only to tilt his head. Weird pokemon, but cute in its own way. And it was Water. Nice.
He looked at Rebecca.
“That is just insane. I have no idea how or why that is possible, but that pokemon is just… crazy. I just hope it stays at seven, ‘cause goddamn that’s a lot.”
Rebecca didn’t even blink at the sudden swear, instead she softly laughed at Hark’s reaction.
“That was about my reaction to the Eevee line too. A cool, pardon the pun, fact about Vaporeon is that it can turn into water while submerged. The Eevee line is a little odd at first but they’re all very loyal to their trainers.”
She adjusted her headphones right when Zeke rolled off her back sleepily, causing it to make a sharp cracking noise. Rebecca stood up and patted her back with an appreciative expression.
“Jeez, he got a nasty kink right outta there. Nice one, ya lazy bu-”
The champion was interrupted by a frantic cry of triumph.
“Aha! I knew if I looked hard enough, I’d find you, you deaf idiot!”
The voice caused Rebecca to bristle much like a hedgehog, her eyes hardening into ice as she looked over where the voice came from, a single hand on her belt.
“What do you want, Markus.”
There was a growling from Zeke, having woken up. His expression was one of anger, protectiveness.
…
… So he had been taken advantage of. Led to believe that the world was a cruel place, which had probably had part of his heart turn cold.
Hark’s hand tightened into a fist before he gave a breath, looking away. The best were always taken advantage of. But that was why they became the best. Because they didn’t want the rest of the world to deal with the horrors they had gone through.
He saved his comments on how Team Plasma were no better than the ones who had tried to own him and concentrated on Rebecca’s last comment, trying to smirk at the snort.
“It’s not the entry itself, it’s the… evolution system? The fact that Wurmple has two possible cocoons. Silcoon and Cascoon, I believe? How many Pokemon have different transformations like this?”
“Evolution system? Oh! The two cocoons Wurmple evolves into are all up to luck if I remember correctly. And to my knowledge, only a few Pokemon have multiple evolutions. I have one in my party now, look up ‘Vaporeon’.”
“The previous evolution, Eevee, has a ton of forms and you have to be very careful to decide which one the Eevee wants to change into.”
Rebecca, you’re starting to sound like the nerd you were when Professor Juniper entrusted you with the Pokedex.
“There are stones in this world that can induce evolution, y’see.”
The pout and comment got a smile from Hark, and the fact that she mentioned managed to get a blink out of him. N… really was a nice person, wasn’t he? Then, in that case, he’d keep a lookout if ever he decided to explore this world, although it would have to wait until he knew more about its fauna and flora. Didn’t want to step on anything that was endangered, right?
So Hark simply grabbed the ‘Dex after checking how far the download had gotten – twenty-five percent, so many files – and began to actively look for Wurmple as he spoke.
“He sounds like a wonderful person, and I’d love to meet him. Kindness and care for all things is something that is rare and I hope he was never taken advantage of. That would be a shame.”
Ah! There’s the entry! Wurmple…
…
Green eyes blinked at the entry before looking at the one who refused to leave his shoulder.
“You are one complicated bug. You know that, right?”
“He is. Being with Team Plasma most of his life did a number on him though… He was their ‘king’, Ghestis practically raised him on abandoned and abused Pokemon. He can hear the hearts of Pokemon. The poor guy thought all Pokemon were abused by the time Plasma let him out into public.”
Rebecca softly sighed, relaxing a little under the giant napping Legendary before snorting when Hark looked at Wurmple’s entry.
“A lot of entries vary from region to region. Sinnoh’s might not be the same as Johto’s, and so on.”
Back in the Game 
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