Brutaka's Nominations

Something was blocking his scans! It left him with a shiver that wasn't from the wind. He could only compare it to a black hole where there was usually sunshine. He'd never felt anything like that before, and he didn't like it one bit. “Jade….I sense something. I mean, I don't, but I…!”

Jade nodded slowly, scanning the trees for the source. “Its like a shadow. A darkness…and its getting closer. I have a bad feeling…a very bad feeling, Jake…!”

Jake was genuinely afraid now. It took a lot to upset Jade, in spite of his tendency to whine and complain about everything. As Jake was contemplating simply running away in the opposite direction, a shape suddenly charged forward! Jake only had the time to scream before it emerged.

It was a Lillipup.

He stopped short once more. This time, it was because he wasn’t alone. In the doorway, a single person stood. A girl, actually—one no older than eleven. Her wide, dark eyes settled on Bill, and her face blanched. Bill shook at that point. He knew her. He knew this girl. He knew that the short, green hair was the exact color of her mother’s. He knew that the flower hair clips she wore to keep her bangs out of her face were given to her by her sister. He knew that the shade of pink that her shorts were happened to be her exact favorite color and that her boots were considered fashionable in her hometown. And he knew that she always wore Hello Skitty merchandise like her hooded sweatshirt because she adored those cartoons, even if she recently tried to insist that she was too old for them. He even knew that she was here because she wanted to go to Hoenn since she was eight, after she saw her first contest on television.

And he knew all of this because he watched her grow up. Because he bought her those boots for Christmas. Because he sometimes watched Hello Skitty cartoons with her when he was bored. Because her sister wouldn’t stop rubbing in the fact that she got those hair clips for the birthday that he missed. Because one time, he let her choose that shade of pink for one of the wallpapers for the storage system.

Because her mother was his.

“Raye?” he whispered.