Pokeumans Room 181 Ch 7

It'd been two weeks since Jack arrived at the base and they'd been the busiest weeks in a long time. Loads of people had signed up for the extra battle classes to go out and fight Pokextinction. A Lucario named Brandon who seemed to have become a minor celebrity had announced that he was training to take on the Elite Four, although I've no idea whether he was successful or not. People from other bases had been arriving all the time for the special classes for both learning and teaching including a Ninetales from the Arcadia Base known as Sora, who the rumours say destroyed an Extinctionist base by himself (or with a friend, the stories vary). Then again, the rumours also say he can turn into a super-powerful monster on demand, so be careful what you believe.

Other than that life went on as 'normal'. We'd attempted to get Jack as our roommate, and our request had gone perfectly right up to the moment when Asula pointed out that there were only four beds in our room. Nevertheless, he'd got a room nearby with a Mawile and a Riolu and had still settled down into base life, and we still got to see him quite often. When Jack arrived he'd brought a message of a great dark force in the base that we needed to stop, but unfortunately we'd heard nothing on that and had absolutely no ideas. We'd had to resign to waiting for it to move first, but we knew we'd be ready when it did.

Apart from that, it was back to the usual lesson timetable, and for us that meant Gym. We'd been playing with the elemental dodgeballs, and as always happens in Pokeumans dodgeball, someone had been sent to the infirmary. In this case, it was me.

'Does it hurt when I do this?'

'Yes.'

'And this?'

'No.'

'And this?'

'OW!'

'I'll take that as a 'yes',' the nurse said and wrote something on the clipboard she was carrying. 'Right, it'll be fine, just some slight bruising. Just please take care next game, ok?'

'Ok,' I said, straightening up. 'Thanks very much. It doesn't hurt that much anyway.'

'Look, I said I'm sorry!'

I smiled. 'It's alright, Cathy. I'm not cross or anything.'

Cathy the Vespiquen wiped her forehead in relief. She, along with Kieran, Jess, Danny and Jack, were stood at the side of the examination bed I'd been told to sit on. 'Oh, thank goodness for that,' she said relievedly. 'I just can't apologise enough. I'd just hate myself if I'd done you injury...'

'Nicole...' Jess said, patting fretting Bug on the shoulder. 'It's fine, don't worry about it. You heard the nurse, right?'

'Yeah, I'm alright,' I said, sliding off the side of the bed and standing up, despite the slight twinge in my shoulder. 'There's no problem. If you want to go now you can.'

Cathy gave me a big relieved smile and slipped away.

'So you're not going to die?' Kieran said jokingly as we walked away from the bed, the Chansey nurse having already dematerialized to find another patient.

'Well, this won't kill me,' I said with a smile, 'but that's not to say I won't do something incredibly stupid sometime in the future.'

'Who to?' Jess said absent-mindedly.

'Sorry?'

'Hm? Oh... I was just thinking...'

'Don't try and do my job' Kieran said jokingly. 'I'm the Kadabra, I do the thinking around here.'

'Yeah, goodness knows what would happen if people like Cam started thinking,' Danny said, smiling. 'That would be a nightmare.'

I smiled. 'You sneaky, disrespectful little Aron. Good one. What's going on over there?'

Across the various areas of the hospital there seemed to be a wave of people shouting and calling out as they scattered out of the way of something like an inefficient Moses. In fact, you could trace a line from the doors...

'Sorry! Coming through!' A Deino rounded the corner at high speed, its four legs slipping on the smooth floor and sliding away from under it, making it look like it was attempting a powerslide. It bounded up the aisle between the beds quickly when it suddenly realised we were in the way and stopped, or at least tried to. Unfortunately Deino paws don't have much grip on infirmary floors and the poor creature continued sliding until it collided with me. The whole looked like a scene from Looney Toons.

'Ugh... Sorry Mr Ampharos,' Lizzy said as she stood up again. 'Oh wait, Cam! I was looking for you!'

'Really?' I asked. I'd met Lizzy a while ago back when I was a new arrival and seemed to keep colliding with her occasionally (literally or otherwise). She was a sweet little girl and the little Deino's peppy attitude and bright smile never failed to brighten the moment. Unlike her brother...

'Yep! I heard you were in the hospital so I did a little something for you!' Lizzy replied with an enormous smile. She lowered her front half and began pawing at the black 'collar' around her neck. I thought she was scratching an itch until her paw came out clutching a small hand-made card. 'This is for you!' she said cheerily, presenting the card to me. I looked at it. It was a small thing, the kind you make in a hurry when you heard news and want to give support quickly. On the outside there was a photo of two Deinos stood next to each other. The one on the left had a big smile on its face, while the one on the right had a bored appearance and was looking at something off-shot. Lizzy and Luke, aka the Deino twins, aka the sweet one and the brat...

Inside the card was a scribbled, but still well-drawn 'Get Well Soon!' message with two little signatures. I passed the card to Kieran to pass around. 'Thanks very much Lizzy,' I said, 'but I just bruised my shoulder. It's not like I came down with Delibird flu or anything.'

'But I didn't know that and I was really worried and I wanted to make sure and, well...' Lizzy's voice tailed away. 'Just in case it was anything serious, I just wanted to send... you know...'

I smiled and ruffled her hair. 'Thanks for the card, Lizzy.' She smiled back.

'Oy! Lizzy! There you are!'

I looked over Lizzy's head to see another Deino walking down the aisle between the beds at which Chanseys and Audinos were already back at work, but this one was slow, as if he was doing you a favour just by being here. I groaned inwardly. This guy was a pain.

'Oh! Luke!' Lizzy said in the cheery enthusiasm that seemed to be permanently attached to her voice, even when talking to someone like this guy. Then again, he is her brother. 'Sorry about that, but I was just dying to give Cam his card so I-'

'Yeah, whatever. Don't see why, he's perfectly fine.'

'Hello, Luke,' Jack said, as civilly as possible with someone as annoying as Luke is. 'You ok? Everything all right?'

For a second a look passed over Luke's face, but before I could interpret it it was gone. 'I'm fine,' he replied, and that was that. 'Are we all done here or what?'

'Aw, come on Luke!' Lizzy pleaded loudly. 'We only just got here! We can't go yet!'

'Why not? He's clearly fine.'

'I worry about you too,' I muttered out of the corner of my mouth to Kieran who was stood nearby. He sniggered.

'But I wanted to let Cam know I was worried and everything! Aw, come on Luke!'

Luke rolled his eyes - he's the kind of person where even you can't see his eyes, you can tell they're being rolled. 'Oh? Didn't you have some plans of your own?'

I blinked. I could have sworn that Lizzy's expression flickered for a fraction of a split second, but then it was gone, if it was ever there at all. Then, in her normal bubbly manner she said 'Uh... Oh yeah, that! Thanks very much for reminding me, that's pretty important! In fact, if you don't mind...'

I realised she was talking to me. 'Oh, no, go ahead, I won't hold you back.'

'Great! I'll go and do that now. See you later!' She dashed away down the aisle of beds, nearly knocking over a Chansey examining a silver-coloured Kecleon with a 'Sorry!'

Luke sighed. 'That little... Ah, it'll be fine.'

'Luke?' Jess asked concernedly. 'Is something wrong?'

'Hm?' For a second Luke's expression was a long way away, but then it was back. 'Just thinking. Jeez, Lizzy can be so... so annoying sometimes. Argh...'

'Aw, don't be like that,' Danny said supportively. 'Lizzy's a sweet little girl. I'd call you lucky to be related to her.'

'Hm...' Luke looked thoughtful for a minute, then shook his head. 'I don't care. I don't care about it. I mean, yeah, she's my sister, of course I'm looking out for her, but... I don't really care about it.' He frowned as if remembering something. 'By the way, some guy gave me another card for you.' He fetched it out of his 'collar' and passed it to me. It was in a sealed blue envelope.

'Thanks,' I said, 'I'll open that later. What're you going to do now? Gonna go and catch Lizzy?'

Luke flicked his head dismissively. 'Nah. She could be anywhere in the base by now. No point.' He turned and walked away down the aisle of beds.

'So what are you going to do now?' I called after him, not wanting to end the conversation just because he was going away.

Luke looked at me over his shoulder. When he spoke there was an edge in his voice. 'I do what I want.'

He walked briskly away.

'Geez...' Kieran said as we started to head back towards the doors again. 'What's his problem?'

'Search me,' Jack said. 'He's so rude. Is he always like this?'

'Yep,' Danny replied, 'unfortunately.'

'Don't get me wrong,' Jess added, 'it's good to see the two of them, and Lizzy is the sweetest person in the world, but him... he's so unlovable sometimes. Reckon he does it on purpose?' she continued as we stepped out of the infirmary.

I shrugged. 'I'm not here to judge him, so leave him be. Some people you can't change, anyway. I wonder who this is from?' I continued as I held up the blue envelope that I'd only just remembered I was holding.

'How about we find out?' Kieran replied. 'Go on, open it.'

I did. It contained a blue piece of paper, folded to fit in the envelope. I unfolded it and read it.

Sparkles,

Heard you got sent to the hospital. Anything fatal?

Yours,
Alex, Louise, Russel, Harry

I almost laughed as I tore it in half and threw it in the bin.

'Tch, those guys just won't leave us alone, eh?' Jack said. 'Well, I gotta go back to my room, I promised Ethan I wouldn't be too long. See you later.'

We waved as he walked off. Then, on agreement, we headed off for our room too.


---


In the shadows, two figures watched them go.

Eventually the one on the right said 'Is that them?'

'Yep,' the other replied.

'They do not appear to have the strength at all. They are like silly weak little children with no muscles.'

The other figure ignored the belated simile. Instead it said 'Precisely. They won't be a problem at all. It'll be pitifully easy, and they won't suspect me until it's far too late.' There was a smile. 'Silly Cameron. He thinks he knows me, he thinks he knows what I'm like, but he's wrong. I'm not as bad as he thinks I am.'

'Aren't you?' asked the other figure in a voice of polite surprise and disbelief.

'Oh, no.' The smile grew larger. 'I'm much worse.'

'You are a mastery,' the other figure said. 'In the closing moments of the finale of the finale, we shall surely have the grand triumphing.'

'Yeah, whatever. I'd better go and sort that useless idiot out.' There was an irritable flick of a head in the darkness. 'Honestly, just because the relationship between us is as close as it is doesn't mean I have to like that pathetic loser. Floating around, trying to do things for the greater good-' the voice spat these last words, 'and making the world a better place and attempting to be nice to people, even though I'm doing all this stuff that, let's face it, is much more fun.'

'Oh, indeed.'

'So I'll go and sort that hopeless cretin out and make sure the lesson's learnt this time. The simple truth is... I really don't care. About that Ampharos, about that idiot... I just don't care. I don't care what that useless, spineless moron thinks, so long as someone takes the fall. Going around, acting like that, trying to stop me and get away... It makes me want to laugh. I am not being defied by that stupid, useless, pathetic imbecile that I have to put up with.'

'You really are the bad one,' the other figure said in a voice of what might be awe.

'Don't you forget it. Anyway, you sort out that Ampharos, ok?'

'It would be like taking the deliciousest candy from weak babies who are stupid.'

'Whatever. Just make sure something... unfortunate happens to them. I'm off.' The first figure walked away and the shadows enveloped the little body.

The remaining figure saluted the empty space, and looked down the corridor in the direction the group of Pokeumans had gone. She smiled evilly.

'Watch out Cameron, here we come! Ahahaha!'