Heart of Steel [Pokémon Fanfiction]

21| Reconciliation

Nostalgia was the first thing I felt when entering Rustboro city. For the first time in almost three months, I was back in what was effectively my home city. The tall stone buildings, the crowded roadways, the dazzling sparks of sunlight off tinted windows... To me, this was where I came from.

   For an hour or so I let myself become distracted, and like a wordless tour guide, led Wallace and Winona through Rustboro's streets, letting them take in the sights for themselves. When we reached the street that separated the business district from the tourist side of the city, I stopped walking.

   "I know my way home from here," I said, a thought becoming vocal.

   "Do you still want us to come with you?" Wallace asked.

   "No." The word came out combined with a shaky exhale. "This is something I have—want to do alone," I corrected myself. "I feel horrible saying that..."

   "It's okay, we get it," Wallace said, nodding. "We'll meet you later at the Pokémon Center, okay?"

   "Sounds like a plan," I confirmed.

   "Good luck!" Winona said with a smile.

   "Thank you," I replied. I'll need every bit of luck I can get. And although I said I wanted to go alone, in reality I wouldn't be alone. It was hard to turn my back on my friends—they had been with me and put up with so much of my nonsense—but I managed to do it and entered the business district.

   I retraced the path I would take from Meteor Falls to my home, unintentionally reliving the days before all of this started. It was the more depressing side of my nostalgia, and one sight in particular made it all the more real. The moment I saw it snapped me right back to the present.

Looming taller than the other buildings in the business district, ambiguously-shaped Pokémon statues placed outside its doors like granite guards, was the Devon building. Instinctively repeating what I had done so many times over the course of my time living here, I glanced up to the window connected to Dad's office, half-expecting him to be returning my gaze. He wasn't there.

   I breathed a shuddering sigh of both relief and dread—relief for him not being there and the other for our inevitable meeting. What would he do? What would he say? So many unpleasant responses to these questions crowded my thoughts that it was difficult for me to think. I was positive that he would be furious with me and that didn't even begin to account for Mom's possible reactions.

Imagining it all was enough to knot my still-queasy stomach, and the added feeling of anxiety wasn't helping things. The sound of a Poké Ball opening on its own resonated from within my bag, and Meteor appeared beside me, startling the people around us with his unplanned entrance. We moved to a spot on the sidewalk between a pair of buildings so we wouldn't further impede any passerby. I wondered why he wanted to talk face to face.