“Penny, it’s bedtime!”
“Noooooooo!” Penny screamed, running down the hallway at top speed. Her Jigglypuff jammies were currently covered beneath a child-sized Queen Ilene dress, and she giggled with glee as she turned back to see the long skirt flowing out behind her. Next to her, Atol was bouncing along gleefully, chirping out his name and laughing.
Penny’s mother sighed, exasperated from her child’s actions. It was getting to be too much, and she decided it would be best to bring out the secret weapon. Walking to the end of the hallway, she knocked softly on the last door to the left. A muffled grunt responded, and she spoke softly against the door to the boy on the other side.
“Payton, could you please bring Emmet out here and help me?”
“Do I have to?” came the voice, still groggy from having fallen asleep earlier in the afternoon. The boy had been out all day training with his sandshrew, and was notorious for sleeping record-amounts of hours straight.
“Please Payton. Penny is too wound up for me to get her to sleep without your help, or at least Emmet.”
Silence for a moment, then a “fine,” and Emmet emerged from the room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He yawned, and the woman smiled down at the mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
“Thank you Emmet,” she mumbled. “You know what to do.”
The sandshrew nodded, then made his way back up the hall to where laughing was emerging from Penny’s open door. The room was a bright pink, and Emmet had to blink a few times before his eyes would adjust. Penny was in the middle of the room at a small table, serving tea to Atol and a variety of stuffed-animal pokemon. Emmet shuddered, remembering the days when she’d forced him in here and made him wear a little dress. She’d always given him a choice—pink with lace, or purple with ribbons.
When he stepped forward, Penny turned and let out a whine. It was over now, and she knew it. Emmet locked his eyes on Atol’s, and the Marill hopped up from the spot he was sitting, and over to Emmet. They touched hands, sniffed each other’s faces, and took turns licking each other’s noses before Atol turned and hopped over to Penny’s bed.
“Rill” he trilled, patting the pillow next to him with a stubby arm. Penny gave him a look.
“But Emmet!” she whined. “Atol and I aren’t tired!”
The sandshrew stood his ground, giving her a death glare that took the young child by surprise for a moment. She readied herself, preparing to cry out, but Atol cut that short.
“MA-rill!” he called to her, patting the pillow again. She huffed, shot a look at Emmet, then stomped over to her bed. It was tall, covered with a giant pink comforter adorned with ribbons, and about a dozen pillows. She pulled herself up dramatically, then set about stripping off the dress. It fell to the floor in a messy bunch, and Penny made a production of getting under the covers. Atol looked at Emmet as if to say, “what shall we do with her?” but Emmet’s work was done, and Penny was finally in bed. Atol licked her cheek, and she gave in, giving out a short burst of giggles that ended in a yawn.
Penny’s mother appeared in the doorway now, smiling.
“Good to see you’re finally tired,” she said, then looked down at Emmet.
“Thank you for your help. You get extra treats tomorrow.”
Emmet looked up at her indifferently, but smiled before sauntering out the room and back down the hallway. The woman made her way over to Penny’s bed, leaning down and kissing her on the forehead.
“Atol too mummy,” she muttered sleepily, and the woman leaned in to plant a second kiss on the pokemon’s small forehead. It trilled happily, snuggling in next to Penny under the covers.
“Mummy, Atol told me today that he loves you very much.”
“I’m sure he did honey,” she replied with a kind smile. “Pokemon say all kinds of things if you listen closely.”
A pause, and she brushed some hair back from Penny’s face gently. The green eyes were almost completely shut, but they stayed focused on their mother’s face. Atol was already drowsing, breathing lightly against Penny’s neck. His fur shone brilliantly, clean and brushed daily by his loyal owner.
“I love you both very much too,” she practically whispered, not wanting Penny’s drifting to cease. “And I always will.”
She sat for a few moments longer to make sure the child was fully asleep. A few more yawns and Penny was snoring lightly. Her mother stood, walked to the doorway, flicked off the light switch, and closed the door quietly.
~X~X~X~
The dream started simply enough. Penny felt herself floating, and all around her was prettiness. Pastel colors swirled in and out of each other in wisps of smoke and cloud. Beside her, Atol floated as well, trilling curiously at the sight. Penny smiled—this was pretty!
“Wow Atol, lookie,” she said, gesturing all around them. The movement pitched her forward, and she noticed with a giggle that she could flip and turn easily in this mist of colors. She did a flip, then spun around for a moment, before she heard Atol call up to her. She stopped, straightening herself. She felt good, and was happily surprised to notice something new had joined them—a pokemon.
“Oh!” she said, looking the creature over, and moving closer to it at a rate that seemed to concern the little Mesprit a bit. It floated back a few feet, out of her reach, prompting a pout from Penny. “You’re pretty is all.”
“Thank you young one,” Mesprit spoke, and Penny gasped. “But I do not have time to play. I must tell you something, and you must listen very carefully, do you understand?”
Penny nodded, but her eyes were locked on Mesprit’s tails, which were lazily floating beneath her. They glinted, despite the lack of sunlight in the area. Mesprit sighed, but plunged ahead in her speech.
“Penny, you must do something very important—the world depends on you and Atol right now. You must listen to me, okay?”
This got Penny’s attention, and the girl brought her green eyes up to focus on Mesprit’s own. Penny reached up, and brushed a bit of red bangs from her face, nodding.
“Alright then. It is up to you and Atol to be loving and compassionate, and show others that it’s good to be kind to their pokemon.”
Penny tilted her head to the side, trying to understand, but she just couldn’t. Atol mimicked, not getting the gist either.
“I… I don’t understand,” Penny mumbled, embarrassed to be failing the beautiful pokemon. “Comp… compassinape?”
“Hmmm, how can I put it,” she mused, looking at Atol and Penny in turn. “You love your Atol very much right?”
Penny nodded dramatically.
“Oh yes! I love Atol more than anything in the world!”
Atol smiled next to her, his chest puffing out. Mesprit smiled kindly at the two, letting out a light glow.
“Then love Atol all you can, and show others how much you love Atol. That is what you can do to help the world. Be strong, and love your pokemon—do you think you can do those things for me?”
Penny nodded again, leaning down to her side to pick up Atol and hold him against her chest. Mesprit continued to smile, and the glow reached out from her to touch them all, obliterating the colors that had previously swirled around them. Soon it filled Penny and Atol’s vision, until even Mesprit herself was gone. The light cleared, and then there was darkness, and Penny could feel herself drifting into consciousness. Her eyes opened, and she could tell at once she wasn’t in her room.
“What?!” she cried, sitting up. The bed was nothing like her own, in comfort or appearance. It was a thin fabric, supported by four metal poles and a metal frame, about a foot from the ground. A thin white sheet served as a blanket, and it lay atop her clothes lazily. Beside her something shifted beneath the sheet, and she let out another cry when she felt it knock against her.
“Atol?” she mumbled, pulling back the sheet, but two things caught her attention. The first was a minor shock—her hand was covered in some sort of red hair. She brought her other hand over to try and wipe it away, only to find that it too was covered in red fur. Crisscrossing the red were stripes of black. Her palms were covered in fur too, and rubbing them together, she found it to be soft.
The second surprise was a bit more major. Beneath her hands, the body moved again. Expecting to see Atol’s small blue body, Penny screamed when she found a boy laying next to her. He woke with a start.
“Penny?!”
“What?! What?! Who are you?!”
Penny shuffled backwards, quickly reaching the edge of the bed and falling to the floor. The sheet went with her, tangling around her legs and pulling back to expose the boy in his entirety. He was blue all over, and had huge blue ears. The ears were round, red in the center, and stuck out from the sides of his head, reminding her of…
“Atol?!” she whispered, still pushing backwards. The wall soon met her back, and with nowhere to go she stopped to stare at the boy. She felt for a moment as if something was beneath her, and turning for a quick moment to look behind her, Penny yelped to find a tail coming out the back of her outfit. She was in overalls now, with ribbons all over, and out the back popped a tail—one that had most definitely not been there before. The hole it protruded from in the fabric was surrounded by pink and red ribbons.
“Penny?” he said, causing her to turn back around and look at him. He was crying, and it almost made Penny start crying.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered, standing up and walking shakily towards the bed. She reached out and hugged him to her, and he hugged her back. She sniffed, and realized she could smell him very, very clearly. It was a warm scent, with a sort of freshwater smell to it. She sneezed, and a jet of fire escaped her mouth.
“Ahhhh!” she screamed, falling back. Her hair was now ablaze, and she reached up with her hand to swat at it, burning her hand, but successfully putting out the fire. She began to sob, and the boy ran forward to comfort her.
“It’s okay Penny. You’re okay!”
She brought her hands from her face to see that she was indeed okay. It still stung a bit on her hand, but the worst part was the smell. It was terrible, and she gagged on it for a minute. She looked up at the boy with tears in her eyes. His eyes were golden, and blue bangs hung in his face. She noticed that he too had a tail, and it bobbed behind him.
“Atol, are you a human now?”
He nodded, and she smiled a little.
“You’re blue.”
He nodded again, and she giggled. Atol stuck out his hand, and she grabbed it, standing up and looking herself over. She hiccupped a few times, wiping the tears from her eyes. Her tail amazed her, and it was long enough to tickled her nose, which after a quick touch with her soft hands, she found to be wet. When she breathed in, she could smell everything around her very well.
“Penny,” Atol mumbled, after she’d been looking herself over a bit. “Did you dream with me?”
“About the pretty pokemon?” she said, wide-eyed, and he nodded in response. “Wow! She must have done this to us.”
She stepped forward and looked at Atol. His tail was still there, and so were his ears, but now he was taller than her, and had hair. It was long-ish for a boy, and she tugged on it gently. All over his skin was soft blue fur.
“Wow,” she said, touching his face with her hands. “It’s so soft.”
She leaned forward, and pressed her cheek against his, and Atol felt something sweep through him that he’d never felt before. He stepped back, then grabbed her hand.
“I feel like we should go outside,” he mumbled, not quite use yet to his speaking abilities. “Something’s out there that we should see.”
Penny nodded, and together they walked to the door. She reached out with her free hand, and grabbed the doorhandle.