A/N: Here it is… Sianne's story! Whee! It only took about nine chapters… ¬.¬ Anyway, thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far; you've made my day!
Dedication: To Evie for my amazing birthday present! . And everyone else who gave me a prezzie as well, actually. I love you guys :)
Disclaimer: If you're Satoshi Tajiri (and if you're not, why are you bothering to read this, you can't sue) will you marry me? I have Pikachu slippers…
Once I had shut to door, I bit my lower lip to prevent me from crying yet again and I sent out Sianne, now a Raichu, forever a Raichu, onto the floor. I looked into her eyes, which always seemed to betray her emotions. But I saw nothing. No sense of hatred, fear, anger, revenge, betrayal. There was nothing.
"Sianne?" I ventured, swallowing a huge lump in my throat, "Are you okay?"
I was so surprised to see a huge grin appear on her face, lighting up her whole face.
"I'm so sorry!" I wailed, breaking into tears, "It was an accident… I'm so sorry, Sianne!"
Sianne just grinned more widely, before saying something, but it passed over my head completely. I was not too good at understanding Raichu-tongue. Sure it was similar to Pikachu language, and I could understand every word
"Sianne… are you all right?" I asked, just before my Raichu shouted something which was unmistakably "Wheee!" and began running around the room, shouting.
"S-Sianne?" I asked, a little worried. Surely she wasn't happy about the evolution, was she?
"Yahoo!" she yelled, leaping onto my bed and bouncing a few times before jumping high into the air, aided greatly by her greatly improved leg muscles, and grabbing onto the light fixture, swinging back and forth. I stared.
"Sianne? Are you all right?" I asked, trying to get her attention. She stopped swinging and leaped down to look at me. She brought her face uncomfortably close to mine, our noses almost touching. After staring at me for a few seconds, she yelled something loudly in my face, which made me jump in surprise. She then fell about in hysterics.
I was worried; Sianne had never been like this before evolution. I had evolved only a handful of Pokémon, and none of them had ever become more hyper; Genesis the Chikorita had positively mellowed after becoming a Bayleef. I picked her up under the arms and sat her on my lap. "Sianne?" I asked. The Raichu turned to look at me, a crazed expression still on her face.
"Are you all right?" I said slowly. Sianne grinned widely, giving me a full display of her teeth, before she stuck her tongue out at me. She then blew a raspberry, showering me with her saliva. After wiping my face, I tried again. "Sianne, can you understand me?"
She nodded vigorously, still beaming.
"I'm really sorry you… I evolved you…" I said slowly, feeling bad. Sianne sensed I wasn't feeling great, so she gave me a tight hug, one that nearly crushed my ribcage.
"How does being a Raichu feel?" I asked. She responded by screeching something that sounded a lot like "Über!", but I couldn't be sure. I was a tad worried, knowing that her personality must have changed dramatically during the evolution process. Nevertheless, I still wanted her to know I was sorry for evolving her without her consent, even if she was happy with the changes.
"D'you want to see the others?" I asked, trying to talk to her. She nodded vigorously. I removed the five other balls from my belt and released the Pokémon inside. Once they had stretched their legs and blinked a bit, they noticed Sianne, who was bounding around on the bed, looking ecstatic.
"Who's that?" Souriee asked, pointing at Sianne. Sarah and Russell seemed to be wondering the same thing, but judging from the expressions on Terra and Luke's faces, they had already guessed who it was.
"Danni… is that…?" Terra asked slowly. She didn't need to finish her sentence, as I nodded slowly.
"Sianne?" Sarah repeated. "Woah… so you evolved her?"
"Well… yes." I said, trying not show any sign of guilt. Souriee, however, spoke before I could say anything. "But… I thought that you said Sianne didn't want to evolve!"
All eyes, save for Sianne's, were on me. I felt myself beginning to sweat, my heartbeat increasing and adrenaline gushing through my blood. I kept telling myself to relax, that these were my friends, but my stupid body wouldn't listen.
"I…I…" I began stupidly, trying to think of a way to say it. "She didn't. I… I accidentally gave her the stone instead of you!" my voice went higher and higher during the sentence, ending with my voce being no more than a squeak at the end.
"What does Sianne think of this?" Sarah asked, looking at the newly-evolved Raichu, who was still bouncing on the bed.
"Well," I said honestly, "I can't understand much of what she says. She seems to be pretty happy, though."
"Sianne?" Souriee asked, "How did it feel to evolve?"
Sianne stared at the Pikachu before grinning, leaping off the bed and shaking his hand energetically. "Groovy!" she exclaimed.
"I dunno what happened to her," Souriee laughed as Sianne hugged him, "But I approve of the changes!"
"That's odd…" Sarah commented, "Most Pokémon grow less hyperactive when they evolve."
"I thought that was weird too." I agreed, "And Sianne wasn't exactly overexcited to start with, was she?"
Terra, meanwhile, looked deep in thought. "Danni," she asked slowly, "once you found out that it was Sianne, not Souriee… did you… try and stop her evolving?"
"Erm… well, of course I did. I tried clapping, like I do when you try and evolve, but it didn't work." I said, feeling horrendously guilty.
"It wouldn't." Russell said, scratching his ear, "Once the elemental force-field starts working, the Pokémon's cells won't stop rearranging until the evolution is finished. Or that's what I heard."
"That's right." Sarah said, "You can't reverse a stone evolution. Or a trade one."
Terra still looked pensive. "But… did you do anything that might have caused her to… erm… for the evolution to go wrong?"
"Wrong?"
"Well… evolution causes personality changes. Sometimes, an upset evolution can cause it to go wrong, like being stuck halfway between two evolution stages, or to cause amnesia or something."
"Are you saying that Sianne's brain is messed up?" Luke asked, looking horrified.
"No!" Terra said quickly, not wanting to suggest something like that. Then she realized that she did. "Well… yes, actually. I mean, and I'm not accusing you, Danni, but maybe something happened that caused her to go a bit hyper?"
"Erm…" I swear my heart went apoplectic just then, I could feel it hammering away inside my ribcage. "Well… I… I kind of took the stone away before she completely evolved, but that wouldn't have caused it, right?"
One look at the faces of Pokémon in front of me told me otherwise.
"You mean, you took away the stone?" Souriee asked, looking scared. "Before she had finished?"
"Yeah…"
"Oh, Danni. Oh no…" Terra moaned. "Taking away the stone is the last thing you want to be doing… it can cause mid-evolution halts!"
"A what?" I asked, my heart in my mouth.
"A mid-evolution halt is when a Pokémon is past a certain stage at evolution and is made to stop. With normal evolvers, they evolve when mature enough, you can't stop them, nor with traders, but with stone and item-traders, if you take away the stone or item, it can do horrible things, from making them deformed to making their heart stop!"
"Yeah." said Russell, nodding his head sullenly, "That's the point in maturity evolution when clapping doesn't work anymore. It's called the 'point of no return', and once a Pokémon goes past that stage, you can't go back."
All the Pokémon's eyes were on me, except for Sianne's, as she was bounding around the room, throwing things about. My mind was racing, filled with anger and pain, anger with myself for being so stupid, anger for the stupid Museum guy for giving me the stupid stone, and even anger at my Pokémon for knowing so much and not telling me. I picked up their Pokéballs and recalled them, unable to think coherently any longer. I recalled Terra and Luke first, then Souriee and Russell. I went to recall Sarah, but she hit the ball out of my hand. She looked angry. Leaping onto the bed, which I was now sitting down on, she looked me straight in the eye.
"Look." She said, glaring at me, as if daring me to cry, "I know you want to go ahead, drown in misery, hate yourself and even go and release all of us because you're such a terrible trainer who can't even look after her Pokémon." I stared back at her. How on earth was she reading my mind?
"But," Sarah continued, "How will that help anything? What had been done to Sianne can't be changed, and no amount of you moping around and telling yourself what a waste of space you are is going to get the old Sianne back."
She spoke harshly, each word hurting me more, but I knew, deep down, that a good talking-to was just what I needed. And everything Sarah was saying was making sense to me.
"But I-" I began, but the Marshtomp cut across me.
"Look, the best thing you can do right now is to look at things outside the box you've built yourself into over the last few weeks. Then you'll be able to see things much more clearly. You might think you're doing the best thing, keeping yourself bottled up, but you're not kidding anyone. Think about everything Sianne told you about her past. About her 'family'. Her experiences with other Pokémon at the Safari. Everything. You knew how sad she was, how desperate she was; she even went so far as to be caught by a human to get away from it. She was sad, Danni. Desperate. Now look at her."
She pointed across the room to where Sianne was bouncing on and off her tail, squealing with delight.
"Do you think she's happier now?"
"Yes, but-"
"Think about it. All memory of her previous life has been forgotten. She gets a new start, this time with a group of friends, who love her. Just like we all love you. None of us hate you for doing this to Sianne. Everybody makes mistakes."
"But what I did was so-"
"Even though you didn't tell the others what Sianne's life was like before you caught her, it was obvious. She was a bag of bones, her fur tattered and scraggly from malnutrition and lack of care. She had a permanent sadness hanging around her, and was unable to look anyone directly in the eye. They might not have known that she had never had a happy moment in her life, but they're not blind."
I wanted to cry, but Sarah was still glaring at me. Sianne, who was at the moment standing on top of a large shelf unit, bounced off and into the swivel chair set at the desk in the room. She spun around in it, screaming ecstatically. Looking at Sianne and thinking about everything Sianne said suddenly made me feel a bit better.
A little later, I let Luke, Souriee and the others out and apologized to them for recalling them so rudely. Sarah told them everything about Sianne; about her past and how the effects of her evolutions weren't really all that bad. I sat on the bed and watched. Once she had finished, she added to me, "We're here for you. We'll always be here for you." Everyone else nodded in agreement. I grabbed Sarah in a tight hug and she hugged me back. The tears finally spilled over, but neither of us cared. The others came over and joined in the hug as well, everyone looking so happy. Then Sianne saw us and wandered over, joining in the hug as well and nearly breaking our ribs.
As I sat on the Pokémon Center bed, hugging my friends, feeling the love and trust we had for each other, I suddenly sensed a new, warm feeling.
I had told myself that I had no family and didn't want to pretend I did.
I realized then that I didn't need to pretend.
I had family. Sure we didn't share blood or genes; we weren't even the same species, but the bond I felt with my Pokémon, and not just Terra, Sarah, Souriee and the others, but the emotional ties I still had to Sparky, Hlìn and all the other Pokémon still in a pseudo-quarantine back in Johto were stronger than anything I had ever felt with my real parents. My Pokémon genuinely cared about me, and I loved them back.
Life is good.
That's technically the end, so yay! But I can't stant to have it end of such an unbearablycheesy note, so look out for the epilogue at some point. I really hope you liked this, and a huge thanks again to everyone who has reveiwed!