Pookamon

Confusing Logic with Reality (Brooke)

Blue eyes fluttered open and Brooke screamed. "He’s hurt, I know it, Mr Green-eyes is hurt!" She sat bolt upright in the darkness of the barn. Buttons the Eevee, asleep across her chest, jumped to her feet.

"EEE VEEE!" She shouted in alarm as she tried to regain her footing on the concrete floor of the barn.

"I must go to him," Brooke said softly. "I must save him. I shall ride the lightning, harness it and be at his side. Don’t you think that’s sweet of me?" She asked the Eevee.

Not that Buttons really cared.

Brooke stole out of the barn and across the lawn, failing to disturb the Charmeleon asleep in the pen. Despite her size and tendency to skip, the Vaporeon-morph could be quite quiet at times. Buttons followed her anxiously.

"No, no little eevee," Brooke scolded her, "following me is not good for your health at all. It’ll get you hurt. I have to go back to the bright city. Oh yes I do." Reaching the wall, she scrambled over it, landing in the soft ground on the far side. "Must go to Mr Green-eyes." Once Brooke’s mind was made up, Brooke’s mind was made up.

Buttons scrambled clumsily up the wall behind her and whimpered as the Vaporeon-femme headed off across the grassland. She glanced forlornly back at the house and the beautiful grounds, then scrambled down the far side and ran after Brooke.

The child needed someone to take care of her.

*

She had been running for twenty minutes when the young Vaporeon-girl had to stop for breath. The cold air seared in her lungs like it was edged with needles. She collapsed into the grass, sobbing.

"He’s in trouble and I can’t help him," she gasped. "I can’t help him because I’m a freak. I’m a goddamned freak." Having regained enough breath she threw her head back and screamed to the stars above, "I’M A FREAK!"

Silence answered her.

Putting her head in her hands, she cried, and cried.

Something nudged her. Something warm. "Ee vee?" It queried.

"Eevee?!" Brooke turned and scooped the little creature up in her arms. "You came with me!"

"Ee vee ee VEE!"

"I know, I need your help," she said softly, "I can’t hardly help myself. He stole the rainbow from me, Eevee, but I want to help him anyway.

What happens if he’s caught the rainbow?"

"Ee VEE!" Buttons insisted.

Brooke squeezed her. "He’ll be fine, won’t he girl? Of course he will. Everything will be fine, everything’s always fine…"

She wished she could believe that.

New resolve strengthening in her, Brooke stood up, stretching her aching muscles and continued to walk back to Celadon City.

*

"If you’re out there all alone, and you don’t know what the sense is," Brooke sang to herself as she half walked, half skipped across the meadow. Flowers had been tucked into her silvery-white hair.

"Ee veee, eee veee!" Buttons sang from a perch half across her shoulder.

"That’s not the words," the morph pointed out, "it’s come and look how it could be in future world!"

"Ee veee, eee veee!" Buttons agreed.

Brooke sighed. "You can’t sing girl," she said softly. Suddenly she paused. Somewhere, not far away, something crackled. Startled, the Eevee clutched close to the woman’s shoulder. Brooke crouched low, as nervous as the Pokemon. She knew when she was being hunted.

Peering through the long grass, the Vaporeon-morph saw someone, a small woman, not much bigger then she, clad in a tattered shirt and dirty leggings. The skin on her head and limbs appeared to be lightly armoured, as though she were covered in square greyish (everything looks grey by moonlight) plates. Brooke paused. And watched.

The girl walked slowly through the moonlight, crouching low, nervously as though she were hiding from something. She gradually came closer, and suddenly Brooke realised that her tail was in the way. The Vaporeon-morph stood up.

The Sandshrew girl immediately shrieked in fear, making Brooke cover her ears.

"No noise!" She shouted. "Shut up!"

"EEE VEE!" Buttons agreed.

The girl stopped shrieking. "Who are you?" She demanded.

"I am who I am," Brooke replied enigmatically, "and I am whatever you wanna make of me. But you can call me Brooke, if you like. What might I call you?"

The girl stared at her, her eyes wide. "I don’t remember," she stuttered. "I don’t know my own name."

"Then I shall have to catch one for you," Brooke replied, doing a little twirl. "Because everyone needs a name, how else would they know what they are?"

"Eevee?" Buttons was confused.

The Vaporeon girl stroked her chin. "I think I shall call you…" she paused, "Sandy, yeah, Sandy, cos you’re a Sandshrew."

The Sandshrew stared at her, looking somewhat startled and more then a little scared.

"Eevee, eevee?" The Pokemon queried.

Brooke nodded in agreement, "yeah, you’re right, its dull like a rock. I think we should catch you a name that glows like a gem. What’s a good name, Eevee?"

"Ee vee ee vee eevvee."

"That’s a pretty name," Brooke replied, "but I’ll lose it in the middle and forget it on the outside."

The girl looked as if she were about to run away. "What do you want?"

"I want," Brooke, momentarily distracted pondered this all important question. "I want a nice house in a place where people don’t want to kill you with a nice man like Mr Green-eyes."

The Sandshrew-morph rolled her eyes.

Suddenly something clicked in Brooke’s head. "I know, let’s call you Cassandra. I had a cousin called Cassandra once, or was that Jessica?" She scuffed her foot in the dirt.

"Cassandra’s fine," the girl replied, both frightened and fascinated. "What are you doing out here?"

"Talking to you," Brooke answered, truthfully.

"Eevee eee vee vee evveee!"

"Oh yeah, I’m going to help Mr Green-eyes cos something real bad happened to him and I’m kinda worried he might be, you know, a little bit dead."

"Dead? You’re looking for someone who might be dead?"

"We all might be dead," Brooke replied quite honestly, "until someone finds us and says we’re, thing, you know, alive. So Mr Green-eyes might be dead now, but when we find him, he’ll be alive cos he has to be."

"Ee vee?" Buttons shrugged as Cassandra stared at her in grim and confused, fascination.

"Oh, come with us," Brooke said happily, "Eevee was teaching us a song."

The newcomer stared at her. "But I’m running from Celadon," she said softly, "they’re nasty people there."

"But they think you’re running away so if you go there they won’t know you’re you and you’ll be safe." Brooke stated firmly, placing her hands on her hips and beginning to stride away purposefully.

Glancing furtively from side to side, Cassandra hurried after her. "I suppose a little company won’t hurt," she replied softly.

And the two of them marched onwards, towards Celadon City, to catch the rainbow.