Phew! My vacation has finally started and I'm healthy again, so I can focus on writing. I hope everyone hasn't abandoned Mama's Boy yet! My thanksies to bobandbill who, again, betaed the chapter despite me being unresponsive and all. Thanks! It would be a lot worse if it weren't for you, bobandbill!
All kinds of feedback is gladly accepted.
This time we have more Raymond! I love him a lot =D It was fun to write this chapter, so I hope it's also fun to read.
Chapter 8 - Hero
Mom was going through the mission with Dialga, Palkia, Blanca and Mew. I tried to hear what they were saying, but even in this small, abandoned apartment they had found a place that was almost completely soundproof. I couldn't hear anything. I guess that was what they wanted to happen. If I didn't hear what was going on, I couldn't take part in it. Mari, Piyon, Shin and Fanny were watching me. Mari's expression was an unfrequent one, as she was, for once, sad and disappointed. I could honestly remember only two times she had been disappointed, and both of those times had been when her father couldn't come back or do something because of his job. This was the first time I had ever been even a part of the reason for her face to look so sad, and it made me feel even worse.
"Stop it, Jack," she said quietly. "Come here and sit with us."
I looked at her. "Why'd you call me 'Jack' all of a sudden?"
She shrugged and looked away from me. "I didn't want to annoy you. You're always saying how annoying it is when I call you Charlie. It felt weird to say 'Jack', though."
"Then call me Charlie," I mumbled. "You're the only one allowed to call me that, so you should take advantage of that right. Besides, it feels weird for me, too."
"Okay, then, Charlie," she said and smiled faintly. "Charlie is better."
I didn't say anything. I sat down next to her and my pokémon and hugged my knees.
"That posture is a sign of depression, you know," Mari told me.
"What do you expect me to be? Why can't I be depressed? Mom has taken away my adventure at least twice now. Is she going to keep doing that until I die?" I was starting to feel devastated. I knew Mom wasn't doing it to tease me, but I had a hard time keeping that thought away from my head. I just couldn't shake the feeling that she was doing it on purpose.
"I figure she's doing that so you wouldn't die. I have to admit, Charlie, I found it really weird that she came with us on our journey. When I told about it to Daddy, he was relieved. He said he might have fetched me home otherwise. I think... I think they're really scared." Mari looked at me, and she was clearly very serious. She seemed to have thought about this before.
"Of course I know that. I mean, my dad and your mom got killed, so we're the only ones they have left. But why can't they realize that we're us, and we're not going to die? We're only ten years old! I understand they're scared, but they should understand... That you're not your mom and I'm not my dad." My voice had gotten pretty loud and I was almost crying again. I don't think I have ever been that disappointed. Moreover, I was very mad at myself, because it was obviously my fault. If we had been more patient, Mom wouldn't have gotten so angry and would have taken us with her to the past.
"Charlie, you idiot, that's not it. They know this is dangerous and that we're still very you-"
Mari was interrupted when the door opened and Mom came back with the legendaries. She wasn't looking so sure about herself anymore. She had started to look more like her usual self: a bit confused but still very stubborn about her own ways. I also noticed that she had modified her ridiculous "teenage trainer" outfit so that it looked a lot more mature. Her skirt was notably longer, for example. I didn't want to look at her, so I turned my head away. Despite my efforts to hold back, a tear rolled down my cheek. Piyon noticed it and leaned to me, so I patted his head. Mom came and sat down next to me and Mari.
"Look," she said to us. I was cereful not to look at her. "Jack, Mari, I know you're mad at me for not letting you go on this mission. Consider it a punishment for your idiotic stunt back there. You could have been killed, you hear me? I would take you with me, but I don't feel like I can trust you two right now. Can you understand that?"
"Yeah," Mari mumbled. She was getting teary-eyed as well.
"I'm just very mad at you right now," Mom continued. "That's because I love you so very, very much. Do you have any idea how scared I was-"
"Aunt April, we're sorry!" Mari screamed all of a sudden. "We were stupid and we're sorry. But we wouldn't have done it if we had gotten to do the things we wanted to do before! You know, you left us at the first Gym and you never got us any ice cream like you promised. And after that, it's only been rules and porridge!"
"She's right, Mom," I agreed. "You've made our journey feel like we never even left home. We don't get to do anything fun!"
For a while, she just stared blankly at us. Then, she turned her face away from us. "What would you have done if you were me?"
"I don't... I don't know," Mari said, sounding a bit frustrated. "You know, just because we're kids doesn't have to mean that we don't get to decide anything for ourselves."
"Sometimes it feels as if you're trying to take all exciting stuff away from us, Mom," I told her. "As if you were doing it on purpose."
Suddenly, she laughed and looked at us with her usual not-quite-there expression. "You know, I think you are right. Maybe I have tried to protect you too much. I've been too scared and thus unknowingly put you two through some hard times." She patted both our heads and smiled at us. "I'm sorry, Mari and Jack. When I come back, I promise we'll go and get that ice cream and I'll watch all your Gym battles. Also, I guess we could go into a restaurant and eat something else than porridge for a change. Does that sound better?"
"You're still not letting us go with you?" I asked her, cautiously.
"No." She shook her head slowly. "If I'd take my punishment back now, you would never learn. This one time, I'll go without you. But I promise that I'll never leave you out of adventures again. You know as well as I do that this isn't the last time PFFP is going to need the help of humans. So, when they need us next time, maybe I'll be the one to stay behind. I know nothing about stuff like this, anyway!" She laughed again and then spread her hands, waiting for us to come closer and hug her. "Do we have a deal, kids?"
I looked at Mari and she looked at me. Then, we smiled. "Deal," we said and hugged Mom.
"Let's hurry, April," Dialga said, shaking her head impatiently. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can start organizing the future operations for PFFP."
"I know," Mom mumbled, squeezing Mari and me tightly tightly to her chest. Luckily it lasted for only a few seconds, because we would have suffocated otherwise.
"Uhh," Mari breathed, "Were you trying to kill us, Aunt April?"
"Of course not," Mom said, as if she hadn't realized it was a joke. "So, uh, to what time are we going again?"
"For crying out loud, April, we've told you a million times!" Mew cried. "I'm starting to think it was a bad idea to ask you guys to do this..."
I covered my face. That was my mother, all right. I started to get worried about her, not to mention the mission. How could she, of all people, manage to save all the legendary pokémon? We had no other option than to simply to trust her, because she had to succeed.
Mom climbed to Dialga's back, which proved to be quite a task for her with all the metal spikes pointing from the pokémon's neck and shoulders.
"What are you, anyway? A spike type?" Mom asked her, causing the pokémon to roll her eyes.
"Yeah," she answered. "I'm a spike type, all right. The only one there is."
"Really?" Mom asked, completely oblivious of the joke - again. "That must be coo-"
She was interrupted when Dialga formed a dark sphere around herself which then imploded. When she got to the end of her sentence, she was already in the past, so we never heard what she actually had to say.
***
To April, it looked like everyone else in the room had disappeared instead of her and Dialga. The light of the setting sun made the room a bit dim and reddish, just as it had been in her own time. She slid down from the pokémon's back and walked to the window.
"Wow, this city has grown quite a lot in the past few decades," she said.
"Cities of Voitto seem to do that," Dialga replied. "It must be because of all the immigrants."
April glanced at Dialga. "Immigrants..?" Then she shook her head. "More importantly, shouldn't we get going?"
"You should, yes," Dialga answered with a strict tone. "There's a disguise for you in the top drawer, complete with an entry pass to Legendary League's building. The company was founded only five years or so ago, so they shouldn't have much security yet. They have only just begun their illegal deeds. This is the day after the day the company killed the childhood friend of Brice Ackland... Anthea Burroughs."
"Burroughs... Why is that name so familiar?" April pondered out loud while taking out her disguise.
Dialga didn't answer, so April presumed that she didn't think the name was familiar at all. The woman then started to put on the disguise: a long-haired wig; a long, white coat like the one Raymond used to wear to work; a name tag with the picture of a long-haired, spectacled woman in it; and a pair of eyeglasses. April looked at the picture.
"The woman in this picture is me. How is this possible?" she asked and turned to Dialga.
Dialga grinned playfully. "I'm the Guardian of Time, am I not? I came here after this mission to bring that ID card with a manipulated picture of you. Control over time is not simple, but it sure is convenient."
April stared at her, looking like she had a million questions to ask. Somehow she managed to beat the urge to ask those questions. Instead, she attached the ID card to her pocket and walked to the door.
"I'll be back sooner or later," she promised while opening the door.
"Yeah, you'd better be," Dialga said earnestly. "Otherwise I'll have to tell one orphan some very bad news."
"You won't have to," April replied with a very determined expression on her face. "You won't have to." Then, she closed the door behind her.
Dialga stared at the door for few fleeting seconds and then disappeared in one black explosion.
Finding the Legendary League building was fairly easy. It was only a few blocks away from the apartment - which probably wasn't a coincidence - and it had the words Legendary League painted to its plain concrete facade. With only three floors, it wasn't very intimidating or impressive. It also seemed to be almost empty, as there were lights in only one of the rooms that had windows, yet April was still absolutely horrified. Her hands shook when she took her entry pass and slid it through the reader. After a second that felt like an eternity to her, the reader blinked a green light and the lock on the door in front of her let a little sound. Still trembling, she grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. Lights went on in the corridor behind the door. She took a deep breath and stepped in.
She arrived to the elevator door - although it seemed stupid to have an elevator in a three-storey building to her - and the floor chart next to it told her that Ackland's office was in the top floor. She deducted that it would be the place to start looking and pressed the elevator button.
If she had been ten years younger, she might have enjoyed doing something so adventurous and exciting. Now all she could think was her incredibly fast and loud hearbeat that was - in her opinion - probably audible to anyone in the building and that if something was to happen to her, Jack would be orphaned. Then she almost had a heart attack when the elevator arrived and let a little sound to notify her of its arrival. The door slid open and revealed the empty elevator. Soothing music playing in the elevator lured April in before she even had the time to think.
The third floor was dark and abandoned. April let out a relieved sigh and turned the lights on. Ackland's door was easy to spot, as it had his name and the words "NO ENTRY" on it. Much to April's surprise, the door was also unlocked - she believed Dialga had something to do with it - so she gently pushed the door open and stepped in.
Ackland's office was really nice: the floor was covered with a soft carpet, the furniture was very tasteful and there were even some stylish works of art on the walls. Compared to the rest of the building, it was really extravagant, especially the expensive-looking sculpture on a pedestal around the middle of the room. April tiptoed to the desk and looked over it, but of course there were no evidence left carelessly lying on it. She snorted and turned to look for other places to put letters in the room. There was a wooden closet, but it was locked. April returned to the desk, getting slightly annoyed. Then, she noticed a small key under the calculator lying on the desk. She tried the key to one of the desk's drawers, and it opened. Inside, she found an envelope with the name Anthea Burroughs on it.
"You might as well have left it lying on the desk," April mumbled to herself. Suddenly she realized why the name Burroughs was so familiar. "Lilian," she whispered. Her curiosity took the better of her, so she slid the letter out of the envelope and read it quickly. It occurred to her that the letter wasn't going to be enough evidence for the police. Getting paniced, she started to dig through the drawer. All she found was letters to completely unrelated people. She was getting desperate when her fingers came upon a much thicker envelope with Ackland's name on it. Inside the envelope, there was a photo of a woman. April looked at the photo and suddenly realized what was in it.
"Oh my," she let out a yelp and almost dropped the envelope. She didn't drop the envelope, but she did drop a paperweight that had been on the corner of the desk. It rolled on the carpet and hit the door. Luckily the carpet made it almost completely silent. After a few seconds of relievement, April was almost scared to death by the alarm going off.
"Crap," she screamed and stormed out of the room.
When she appeared back, it was already night. Long-haired, spectacled April came trough the door, looking exhausted.
"They sure made me run," she panted. "But it went pretty well."
"Did you get the letter?" Dialga asked her, eagerly.
"Of course I got the letter!" April answered, smiling. "It was a breeze, really. There was no-one there because it was apready past their closing time. I might as well have had the kids with me, it wasn't dangerous at all. I got the letter and a few other things, too." She put both her hands in her pockets and took out the things inside. "I have here... Ah. Here's the letter, written for Ms. Anthea Burroughs as an apology. However, reading through it, I realized that it wasn't going to be enough proof for the police. So, I got this, too." She lifted a paper with only two fingers, like it was something smelly and disgusting. "It's an order, signed by Brice Ackland. It tells here to kill Ms. Burroughs if she doesn't tell what she knows about Mew. It also says here that 'all forms of torturing are also fully acceptable'."
"Wow, that's even better - or worse - than I expected," Dialga said.
"I know," April replied, "but it gets even better - or worse. The third piece of evidence I have here is a picture, submitted to Brice Ackland as proof that Anthea was killed. It's a picture of her dead body, it seems."
"Oh," Dialga only said.
"So, that's what I've got here," April concluded and put the papers back to her pocket. "After getting these, I accidentally knocked something down and the alarm went off. Some security men appeared with their malicious-looking pokémon and I ran here as fast as I could. They could have followed me, so we'd better get going."
"To your own time, then," Dialga said and started to get ready for another time trip.
"Umm... Dialga?" April asked with a cautious voice. "I have a request..."
Dialga turned to face her, surprised. "What might that request be? We're in a bit of a hurry here, so get on with it."
April looked at Dialga straight in her yellow, intimidating eyes. "I want to go somewhere before we go to my own time."
"You want to go to your husband," Dialga guessed.
"Well, yes," April admitted, "but I wouldn't say anything to him. You see, there was a security camera in their laboratory. After the explosion, the rescue team found the fireproof camera and its recorder, but there was no tape inside. Nobody really understood it, but they presumed that if there had been a bomb, the bomber had stolen the security video so that they wouldn't get caught. We already know that the bomber was Legendary League, so they should have that video."
"But, it would be too dangerous to go and steal the video from them at that time," Dialga concluded.
"I suppose so, yes," April agreed. "So, maybe we could steal the video before they do."
"Why do you want that video?" the pokémon asked her with a soothing voice.
"For Jack and Mari," the woman replied.
"I see," Dialga said. "We need Palkia's help for that, though. I'll go and fetch him."
"Thank you," April whispered, fighting against tears. It would be easy to get that video for Jack and Mari. Then, they could really see what Raymond and Kotoko had looked like. April wanted to teach her kids to love their deceased family members like she had loved. She wanted Mari to know her real mother, even though she herself had been the girl's mother for all these years. She wanted Jack to know his real father, even though Jushiro Itaka had been a good father to him. She wanted to finally let the kids know the truth. She took off her wig and hugged it tightly. A determined smile spread through her face and she smiled like she hadn't smiled in years.
Soon, Dialga appeared with Palkia, and their new mission began.
***
After we had waited for three seconds or so, Dialga reappeared to the room. She startled both me and Mari when she did so.
"Palkia, we need your help," she said to her brother - at least I think they are siblings - with a serious tone. "There's something we still need to do."
"Let's get going, then," Palkia answered. He seemed to instantly know what it was about.
In another black explosion, they were gone.
"I wonder if something went wrong?" Mari asked timidly.
"I don't think that's it," Mew said with her usual, carefree tone. "I think there's something April wanted to do after completing her mission."
"It took her only three seconds to do it?" I was dumbfounded.
"Of course not," Mew answered. "Dialga is the Guardian of Time, don't you remember? She's trying to make the waiting as short as she can for us. They should be all back any second now."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I forgot something like that was possible."
We all stared at the place where Dialga and Palkia had disappeared. We kept on staring while minutes went on, barely even blinking so we wouldn't miss it this time. When ten minutes had passed, we stopped staring. The silence that had been full of anticipation was starting to get very anxious. Neither me nor Mari dared to say anything.
"Huh," Mew finally said, seeming very surprised. "Maybe there's some bump in time and they will return later."
"Bump in time?" Mari asked. "Are there really things like that?"
"How would I know?" Mew asked her back. "I've never traveled in time, as you all know. It's just that Dialga told me once that time is a lot like space. There are bumps in the ground, so you'd suppose there can be bumps in time."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Mari disagreed.
Then they were silent again, and we all focused on waiting.
***
April stared at a very familiar door. It was early evening and she could hear the voices of the working scientists inside. The Parcel Town Pokémon Research Laboratory. Raymond's office, so to say. Behind this door, April's long late husband was working, completely unaware of the fact he'd die a couple of hours later. April took a deep breath. Did she really want to meet Raymond? Could she really not tell him that he was going to die? Could she meet him without crying uncontrollably? She shook her head. No, she probably couldn't. Yet she still pushed the doorbell.
Before April could prepare herself mentally for the meeting, the door opened. A familiar face greeted her.
"Hello, April," Kotoko Itaka said, smiling. "I'll go and get Raymond. Has Mari behaved herself today?"
"Of course not," April answered. She was surprised of how happy she was to see Kotoko again. It wasn't quite as painful as she had thought. Kotoko smiled to her with the warm smile she always had on her face. Mari often smiled in a similar way, but April had never noticed this before.
Kotoko disappeared from the narrow hall. April held her breath. Then, Raymond appeared.
It was just the Raymond April had always remembered. The same dark red, messy hair, the same tanned skin, the same dark, playful eyes. "April! What brings you here? Is everything all right?"
"Yeah," April breathed. It had been so long since she had heard his voice, she had almost forgotten what it sounded like. "I just missed you so much."
Raymond looked a bit worried. "Are you sure you're okay? You look like you're nine years older or something."
How could he be so right? April couldn't help but to laugh out loud. "I really missed you a lot, you know. Will you be late today, again?"
"Yeah... Sorry about that," Raymond said, "But I really think we're getting closer to breakthrough! And I promise, after we're done with this, I'll take a long holiday and spend it with you and Jack."
April started to feel like crying, so she decided to change the subject. "Uh, so, anyway. The kids are restless, they want to see their parents already... So I thought I'd come over and loan the security camera tape for a while. Is that okay? Maybe it'd keep those rascals quiet for a while..."
"Oh!" The worried look disappeared from Raymond's face. "I guess that's alright. It's not like anything special ever happens here, anyway. Those kids can be quite a handful, so I guess it's okay. You have to return the tape before night, though."
"Of course, of course. It's only for a while."
Raymond disappeared to get the security tape for his wife. April stood outside in the cool air and listened while the research team chatted inside. They would all die in a few hours, never getting to finish their research or say goodbye to their families. April took a deep breath again.
"Here we go," Raymond said cheerfully and gave the tape to April. "That should keep them quiet for a while, huh?"
April hugged him and he squeezed her close to his body. The warmth, the smell, the feeling of Raymond's lab coat against her cheek... She had forgotten about all of them. She realized now that it had been a huge mistake to meet Raymond. She could have asked Kotoko to give her the security tape. She could have come during the night and took it herself. She could have forgotten about the whole thing. It would take her ages to get over Raymond's death again after seeing him so alive. "Goodbye, Raymond," she muttered and took the video tape.
"Yeah, bye," Raymond said cheerfully.
April walked to the other side of the building, where Dialga and Palkia were waiting for her under the lab's window.
"Did you get the tape?" Palkia asked before seeing the black object in April's hand. "Oh, okay."
April didn't say anything. She didn't really feel like saying anything. She felt like running back inside and dragging Raymond out of the building along with the whole research team. Rationally she knew that it wouldn't help; Raymond would still be killed very soon, but she couldn't help but to wish that she could help him. Her son deserved to know his father, and her daughter deserved to know her real mother. Raymond and Kotoko also deserved to know their children and watch them grow up like April had done.
"You again?" an angry voice sounded from inside the lab. "I told you a billion times, we're not going to share the details of our research yet!"
"Is is the Legendary Whatnot again?" This time it was Kotoko's voice.
"What Mew? No, we don't..." It was the angry voice again. "A bomb? Oh, come on! How could there possibly be a bomb in our lab? Are you insane?!"
April's eyes widened with panic.
***
We were all getting very worried. After another ten minutes, Mew started to transform into all kinds of pokémon and celebrities to amuse Mari and me and take our thoughts off the mission. We laughed at some of the things she did, but it was nervous laughter rather than the real thing.
When forty minutes had passed, I stood up. "What if something has happened to them?"
"Nothing has happened to them," said Blanca from her corner. It really surprised me, as I thought she had been sleeping this whole time. "April is with the two strongest legendary pokémon there are. Nothing will happen to her, Jack."
"Palkia was protecting dad too, right?" I disagreed. "And look what happened to him!"
Blanca stared at me. "I heard that he was elsewhere, doing some mission at the time. It's not like he could have been on guard all the time." She said it quietly and softly. "I have forgiven him, Jack. It wasn't his fault. It was an unlucky coincidence. He's perfectly capable of protecting April."
"Maybe so," I sighed. "I just hope everything goes all right."
After another minute, they finally came back. At that point, we had all stopped expecting them to appear any second, so we got startled - again. Mom was sitting on Dialga's back just like she had been when she left. This time, though, she seemed to be more flabby.
"What took you so long?" Mew asked. "I thought yo-"
"I didn't have time to aim for the right time of day. We have to get to a hospital right away." Dialga sounded very serious.
"What's wrong?" Mari asked.
I felt my heart stop. At that moment, Mom looked up to us. She was pale and sweaty and she smiled faintly. After a second or so, she fell from Dialga's back and hit the plastic-covered floor.
"Mom!" I screamed and ran to her. "What's wrong with her?"
"We went to the day your dad died and she mistook the time," Palkia explained. "But there's no time for explanations! We'll tell you later; now we have to get to a hospital!"
Mew transformed into Lilian and ran to Mom. When she lifted my mother's powerless body from the ground, I saw what was wrong. A piece of wood was pointing out of her abdomen. Her shirt was soaked blood and ripped from many other places, too: it seemed like the biggest wound wasn't the only one. Her skirt was also bloody, as was her other hand. I gasped for air and fell on my knees. Something had definitely gone wrong.
"Meet us at the central hospital," Mew said and vanished to a pink cloud with my Mom.
When the cloud dissolved, there was only a small puddle of blood on the floor to show that Mom had actually been there and that she had really been severely wounded. I sat there, gasping for air - my chest was tightening and breathing started to seem impossible. Mari sat next to me, just as powerless as I was. She was ashen, as probably was I.
"Let's get to the hospital," Dialga said, trying to calm us down. "I'm sure the doctors there can help her. It didn't look like it was very deep."
Oh, yes, it looked, I thought to myself. I was struggling with my words to get them out, as my lungs had seemed to stop functioning. Finally, I got the silent words out of my mouth. "Mom's not going to die."
"She won't die," Mari repeated my words, just a lot more loudly than me.
We both took a deep breath. Somehow, I found the presence of Mari very soothing at that moment. She had always been with me, and I had the feeling she would always stay that way. We were almost siblings, after all. The sound of her breathing made me realize I wasn't alone.
"Let's get going," Palkia said and offered us his paw.
"Yeah," Mari said.
We got up and held his paws when he teleported. Everything was dark for a while, and all I could feel was my insane heartbeat and Mari's breathing.
