Rigorous Relationships

Catching Cal

When Cal arrived back at the Pokémon center he was met with a starting sight that would haunt him to his grave. Sitting on a table, amid his four female friends, was his head smiling with childlike joy. Cals didn't react at first, and just stared at his head in shock, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Dena eventually noticed him standing in the doorway, dumbstruck, and snapped him out of his daze by carrying his head over to him.

"Cal you're back! How'd your gym battle go?" Dean asked as his head looked at him with curious eyes.

"It- it went well, I managed to get the Rock badge, but forget about that; why is my head in your arms?!" Cal said, panic creeping into his voice.

It was then that Dena realized Cal hadn't been there for the past few hours and had missed basically everything that had happened. "Oh sorry Cal Nurse Joy said Ditto should try transforming into stuff, to test how well it was recovering, and when we showed him a headshot of you he transformed into your head."

"Ah, I see." Cal said looking uneasily at Ditto as it looked back at him with his eyes. "Could you get him to turn back, please?" Cal asked unsure how much more of looking at his head he could take.

"Fine, since you asked nicely; Ditto could you go back to normal, before Cal passes out." Dena said, smiling jokingly at Cal as she made fun of how freaked out he was by Ditto.

Ditto for its part, did as it was asked and returned to its pink putty like form and smiled affectionately at Dena who rubbed his head. Cal sighed, relieved to no longer see his head off of his body.

"So Cal what do you think of my new partner, he's pretty neat isn't he." Dena said gleefully as she held up Ditto closer to her face and shared a smile with her new pokemon.

Cal did not think Ditto was pretty neat, in fact he was utterly creeped out by the beady eyed pink blob; his prejudice with wasn't actually based on an appearance bias but solely because he couldn't get the image of Ditto transformed into his disembodied head. Cal didn't tell Dena how much Ditto actually freaked him out, and instead smiled nervously as he complimented her on what a wonderful addition to her team she had.

Dena seemed to be so engrossed with joy over catching her second pokemon that she didn't notice the uneasiness in Cal's voice. Serena however did spot it and decided to change the topic before Cal reached his daily Ditto limit. "So Cal how'd you like your first Gym battle?"

Cal jumped at the escape route Serena had given him; unknowing that it would lead to a much more complex conversation. "My battle was so much fun; I had to push my team to our limits fighting Roxane's Pokemon, and we got to see one of those Alolan Pokemon Ash was telling us about."

It was about this time that everyone noticed Ash wasn't there with them, and they turned Cal's conversation into an interrogation. "Cal where's Ash; why didn't he come back with you, and why are Eevee and Pikachu with you?" The girls asked in rapid fire session.

"He's running some errands and sent me back to tell you he was going to be awhile and to eat lunch without him; and Pikachu and Eevee are with me because he wanted to make sure they got fed after battling so hard for him." Cal responded just with as much swiftness as the girls. He hadn't actually told them what was happening and would come to regret adding details to his lie, for Serena caught him within seconds of his falsification of the truth.

"Cal, you tell us right now what Ash is doing; because there is no way he would skip out on lunch, especially not after he texted me he asking for a BLT sandwich an hour and a half ago!" Serena demanded, as she held up a lovingly prepared bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich.

Cal backed up into the doorway, thinking he might need to make a break for it soon, and tried to think of a way out of the web of lies Ash had helped him into. "Well... you see... uh why don't I just go and get him to tell you!" Cal said as he turned and ran out the door, giving Ash's Pokémon an order to stall the girls as he fled.