Broken Souls

The Rainbow City

While the Kanto cities have continued their trend of growing less and less elevated, Celadon City doesn't grow upwards like a traditional city. It grows outwards from every angle, bursting with plants of all varieties and green, organic structures.

It's like walking into someone's garden, but it goes on for miles and miles, spreading its vine and tendrils over the whole city and blanketing it more thickly than Reginae's petal dance. Awestruck, we wander the streets, with Reginae whispering, "Pelargonium. Bellis perennis. Rosa rubiginosa."

"Careful, your nerd is showing." Minerva warns him, and Reginae lets out a soft chirruping laugh, undeterred.

Two girls, no older than eight, watch us as we pass with wide eyes. They're sitting on a park bench in the shade of an aspen, picking the last of the clover flowers from the fertile earth and knotting them through each other to make a chain. One girl holds hers up, pointing at me, and Minerva and Fang tense up a bit, enough for me to notice but not enough for a casual observer to tell that anything's wrong.

Calm down, they're kids. They probably don't even have Pokemon yet, there's no need to be so hostile, I tell them, and my twin fox guardians slump out of battle mode, thankfully.

One of the girls, a dark-skinned youth with hazel eyes and a pursed-lip smile, walks up to me brandishing her flower chain. "This is for your pretty Pokemon. Can we pet it?"

"Ooh. Thank you," I say, "Which one?"

"The big green one." she points again, and I realize they were never looking at me- they were staring at Reginae.

I laugh, and kneeling down to her level, say, "You can pet him, if you want. His name is Reginae."

"I'm not your pet," insists Reginae, but he quiets down as the girl begins draping her chain around Reginae's neck. It's so small, so delicate, but the sentiment of the gift makes it valuable as woven gold. Someone must've spent an immense amount of time and effort working on this, and now, to give it away so easily, is almost an obscene act of kindness.

The other girl runs over to join her friend as they stand on their tip-toes to get at Reginae's head, running their hands down around the chain to tap his petals. They've got gardener's hands already, calloused but gentle, and Reginae presses himself into the touch. His amber eyes are wide with joy, perhaps just at being noticed by strangers, and I dare not ruin the moment for him.

"Not a pet, huh?" Minerva asks snidely.

"Minerva." I snap. "You stop that."

"Stop what?" asks the second girl, whose caramel skin and long, amber hair are made even more brilliant by the light filtering through the cover of the trees at the edge of the park.

"Sorry, my Ninetales is a bit sassy today. Don't mind her."

"You can talk to Pokemon?"

Shoot.

I half expect them to turn me into the authorities, which upon further consideration, is ridiculous, but the second girl whips out a Pokeball and holds up her Piplup insistently.

"What's he saying? What's he saying?" she asks, giddy with excitement.

"Hello, erm... sir." I say, reaching out to touch the Piplup's fin. "Your trainer wanted you to say something. If you don't mind."

"Ashley, queen of smooth. I think someone who's not a Goldeneye would be a better Pokemon whisperer than you." calls Minerva from the corner.

"Thanks," I say.

"Hello, my name's Dew, it's nice to meet you." says the Piplup with little to no inflection in its voice at all.

"She says her name is Dew and it's nice to meet me."