immortallifeform:

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.”

immortallifeform:

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.

immortallifeform:

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.

immortallifeform:

…

… 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.”

immortallifeform:

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.”

immortallifeform:

… He wanted to hug her. Hold her as she let her frustration out, cried, did something better or worse than this quiet anguish, this quiet wait over someone who’d promised their return, yes, but failed to deliver.

But, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he’d done the same. He’d done the same to so many people on his birth world, and all for the same reason.

It hurt. It hurt so much that, every time he even saw them, he felt his heart, his very soul, tear asunder, with no chance of recovery. It cut so deeply that even he couldn’t heal the wound.

He could only hope that wasn’t why N had never returned.

Green eyes looked at the sky, and, after a few blinks, he gave a sigh and an answer.

“News or not, I’m sure he misses you. Fateful encounters such as those stay marked within one’s mind, and the people you bond with during that time are not easily forgotten. He might return, he might not, but I’m certain, absolutely sure that he thinks of you. Maybe not as often as you want, nor as often as he wants, but he thinks of you and misses you. Deeply.”

Rebecca looked up at Hark, hope in her eyes before she gave him a happier smile and nodded.

“Y-Yeah, I bet he does… Even so, I’m gonna give him a noogie when I see him again, just for worrying me.”

Her pout could only be described as adorably determined. She huffed and crossed her arms underneath her head with a tiny smile on her face.

“I miss him a lot too. He’s a giant dork and I just hope he’s doing okay.”

She was quiet for a moment, thinking about something before speaking up again.

“… N’s the one who suggested the orchard before he left. He said I could help out the whole region with just ten simple berries. And look at it now, the orchard’s huge and I supply berries to a lot of people who help out trainers.”

immortallifeform:

Half-conscious. Sounded just like Rebecca, and the fact that Zeke found it hilarious that he – Hark looked at the pokedex for confirmation – they could practically turn their trainer into a walking lightbulb was no surprise. He seemed like the type, anyway.

But the sad look that Rebecca gave pushed all of his joking aside. N. Seemed like an important person to her. And it seemed like she hadn’t heard about him in a while.

A hand went to her shoulder, and Hark smiled sympathetically.

“I think you should try contacting him, no? To have confirmation?”

“N, he…  He doesn’t exactly have a cell phone. I was only able to find him again eight years ago because Reshiram showed me the way to the collapsed Plasma Castle.”

“I haven’t seen or heard from him since then. I can’t have a poor Flying type deliver a letter that I don’t know where to send.”

She softly sighed, closing her eyes as Zeke started to quietly snore.

“At this point, all I can do is hope he remembers me in all his adventuring. We made a promise years ago that we’d see each other again.”

immortallifeform:

A USB port? Oh! That did make things a lot easier! He took his communicator, pulled out the cord and connected the Pokedex to it before creating a folder for the entries. He then let the ‘Dex download itself, setting it aside to pay attention to Rebecca, now noticing her hair.

Well now.

“I’m supposing that taking a wet brush to it doesn’t help?” he chuckled. “I’m glad he doesn’t get too near me. I’d probably look like a fluff ball. And good luck getting it down without giving me a bath. Static electricity is a horror for Mobians.”

He collected the ‘Dex, going through the entries before tilting his head.

“… So Zeke’s a Zekrom? The… personification of ideals and he has a counterpart, Reshiram, personification of truth. Huh,” he stated aloud, “Both double types, too. Dragon-Electric and Dragon-Fire. I can only imagine how Reshiram is with its partner if Zekrom is like this.”

“I wouldn’t dare. When he gets crankier, actual electricity starts going up and down the strands and he finds it hilarious, the lazy bum.”

Rebecca looked up at the sleeping Legendary with a smile, rolling her eyes before nodding at Hark, her face a little pink.

“Yep, not the best nickname of the bunch but I defend my choice with the fact that I was half-conscious at the time and it stuck.”

Then that subject was brought up and she softly sighed, a sad smile on her face now.

“Probably the same as Zeke is acting now, knowing N.”

immortallifeform:

Hark only gave a snort when Zeke got up, shaking his head. Definitely a mix of both cat and dog, it seemed, although he could have done without the bolt of lightning which woke up his new friend who was now terrified and hiding under the kerchief, trembling.

Great.

Needless to say, he was glad when Rebecca came back, and blinked at the flat object, ears perking when she said it was her Pokedex. That would definitely help!

But, before he got the chance to thank her after taking the device, Zeke claimed her as his pillow once again, making him laugh. Yep, definitely between the two.

“I suggest you don’t move too much, he’s getting grumpy,” was what Hark started with before waving the ‘Dex a bit. “And thank you. This will be tremendously useful. I have no idea how many there are, but having the data on me will be nice. I’d rather not have a headache over it.”

That was when the young Wurmple crawled partially out from underneath the handkerchief, almost fleeing back underneath it when Hark’s hand found its head.

And his tone softened along with smile, a finger gently petting the side of the caterpillar’s face.

“Hey, it’s okay. There’s no danger. Zeke is calm now, see?”

Before he gently took the Wurmple and put him on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. I’m right here. He won’t hurt you.”

And the young pokemon snuck into the crook of his neck, making him chuckle as he spoke a little higher, to Rebecca.

“So, is there a way to connect the Pokedex to an outside device?”

At Hark’s comment, she pointed to her raised hair with a quirked eyebrow and and grumble as Zeke slept on.

“I figured. A grumpy Zeke is like walking around with a dryer strapped to your back.”

“And I sure hope it’ll help, I’ve got a ton of entries in there already.”

Rebecca listened to Hark talking to the tiny Pokemon with a warm smile on her face before the other asked his question.

“There’s a USB port on the bottom, it’s how the regional professor checks your ‘dex.”