Pokémon Obsidian | An Orre Fanfiction

Chapter 81: New Page

'Ah. I see.'

Laila tossed a treat to Raidne's Yamper. It was difficult to win a Yamper's heart beyond its constant hunger for treats, but it seemed to genuinely love its Trainer.

'That was why he promoted her,' Raidne continued, 'She was efficient and she wasn't scared or obsessed with him. She also had a conscience and she wasn't a pedo. It was why he promoted me, too. So we were all friends.'

'But... arguably... if she kept taking photos of him...'

'Well, she became kind of obsessed in time. That was the nature of loving a guy who was... in his position. But he was head over heels for her by then. I kept telling the cops... and myself... and everyone else... that it was me, but...'

Raidne looked down at the floor. 'It was never me.'

'I don't know...'

Laila hesitated. 'He legit worries about you. He asked me loads of questions when I last saw him.'

'As a friend. I'm sure he does care about me as a friend. Not a lover.'

'But... sorry, because this is a kind of personal question and it feels weird asking about my brother, but... I guess I'm asking as your friend.'

'...You really want to be my friend?'

'We get on alright, don't we? We're both into art. We like the same kinds of music. Your Pokémon are lovely.'

'You're really sweet, Laila. I'd really like to stay friends, if you still remember me when I get out of jail.'

'Hopefully you're not going to jail. You haven't really done anything wrong and Jamie's going to blame himself if you have, anyway...'

'No, no! I don't want him to blame himself. If anyone should be blamed for my actions, it's my family. And I did make Shadow Pokémon. I showed Jamie how to make them. I cloned Shadow Pokémon. Anyway... what were you going to ask?'

'Well... you were still together, weren't you? Even after he met Lavender?'

'I mean, we were definitely friends... I thought we were still together... but I think now that he just felt sorry for me...'

'You probably know more about him in that department than I ever need to, but I was super close to him when we were young – including when he was banging Nora – and I'm, like, 99.9% sure he needs a good reason to shag someone, like he had with those creepy women. He's not a raging sex maniac. And I don't think feeling sorry for someone is a good enough reason. Curiosity, yeah. Not pity.'

'Poor Nora... he looked for her when she went missing. We all did. He knew every single person we employed. She was never in Cipher.'

'I just hope she's somehow happy somewhere under a new name. She was never the problem. I mean, she was the keener one and she kept bothering Jamie after he broke up with her, but I think she was just confused. But then Jamie clearly was, too. Maybe his feelings for Lavender were easier to understand because they came when he was past the worst of the abuse.'

'Maybe... I don't know. We looked for Orpheus, too. Me and Jamie scoured the desert together, soon after we met. Then he sent out whole teams of Commanders and Peons. But we never found him.'

'Did he have any Pokémon?'

'A Mudbray. She was a runaway, too. She ran away from a farm. The Trapinch family that my Flygon came from adopted her. I'm sure she did what she could to help him. But she wouldn't have known where she was going.'

'They might've been OK, you know. Mudbray can walk with huge loads for days. They're super loyal. And there wouldn't have been any record of his birth, even if he told people his name, so he would've gone to an orphanage or whatever. Rui Vincent was in an orphanage and she turned out alright.'