Heart & Soul -

Chp 3: There Are Worse Things I Could Do (Grease) 

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"Is it just me, or does this just smack of that film?"

            "…expand." Brock shifted and absently scratched the side of his face. There was a quick flash of sadness within him, as he noted that his cheek felt warm and well…living, but the absence of the stubble that surely would have grown by now, reassured him that he was indeed dead. And working with Tracey Sketchitt. On some bizarre mission set by some half-dressed babe with wings, who seriously couldn't make up her mind what hair colour suited her.

          "Well," Brock started. "That one with the blonde chick…about the angels…she dies at the end." Tracey looked up at him, giving him a pathetic look.

          "Gee thanks, that wasn't vague at all, and oh-so-cheering." Brock glowered at his bandana-ed companion, and tilted his head back to look at the black and grey sky. His attention was diverted by a lone leaf twirling by, on what looked like a strong wind, but Brock couldn't feel it, and his hair and clothes remained stationary. The whole of Pewter lay at his feet, and he looked down sorrowfully at the square shaped building that had once been his Gym.

          "So what have you learnt at Misty's?" Brock asked the other teenager, grumpily.

          "Nothing much," Tracey answered, stretching out on the roof of the Pewter museum. "She's cut his face out of all her pictures, she still lives in the Gym, she has a psychopathic Eevee that keeps trying to pee on me, and oh, the other day I saw your funeral card. And mine. It was a lovely experience," he said bitterly, tossing back a layer of ear length dark green hair moodily.

          "Stop grumbling," snapped an angry female voice. Brock and Tracey whirled around in shock to see no one. They looked at each other warily. The voice laughed, echoing in their heads. "In here," it mocked. "Don't tell me you've forgotten me already!"

            "C-catalia?" asked Tracey warily, slowly reaching up to his temple with his fingers.

          "No, Santa," mocked the voice. "Of course it's me. How many voices *are* there in your head?"

            "Well-" began Brock, but he was silenced by a glare from Tracey.

          "What do you want Catalia?" he asked, half irritably, half respectfully.

          "Did I mention that you guys have a time limit on this little job?" Catalia asked sweetly. The boys groaned.

          "No." Tracey rubbed his face with his hands in exasperation before pushing them back over his hair. "How long?"

            "Probably anything from two weeks to…fifteen days?" she said, almost apologetically. The boys groaned again.

          "How come Pokémon can sense us?" Tracey asked suddenly. Catalia laughed.

          "Sense? Haven't you figured it out yet? You can probably communicate with some of them. The smarter ones. Don't even try on a Psyduck or Slowking, you're wasting your time."

            "Eevee?"

          "Pikachu?" the two boys asked. There was a small silence.

          "Pikachu…probably. Especially if it spent a lot of time with you when you were alive. But…I've never heard of an angelic messenger being able to communicate with an Eevee…" she answered. "Maybe it's a special case? Anyway, that's all I can give you for now, good luck! Ja né! Um…have a…groovy time guys!"

            Then the patch in their heads that had felt unusually warm was gone, and the boys were left with nothing but headaches and a horrible feeling of being totally violated. Brock quirked an eyebrow at Tracey.

          "Groovy time? When was the last time she came to Earth??" he laughed. Tracey didn't respond; he was staring down at the considerable drop from the roof to the grassy ground below. "W-what are you thinking about Trace?" asked Brock warily.

          "I'm just wondering…whether we should try jumping down…" murmured Tracey, turning his dark, dark green eyes onto Brock. "I mean…it's not exactly gonna hurt us is it? I mean, we're dead. Doesn't get any worse than this does it?" Brock nodded, then smiled.

          "As long as you try it first!" Tracey made a face.

          "Oh brave Gym Leader, your courage shines through," he murmured sarcastically as he sized up the drop again, before taking a deep breath. "Okay, here we go…"

          Tracey walked slowly to the ridge edge, before halting, sweatdropping.

          "How do I do this? Do I run off? Jump? Walk off?" Brock shrugged.

          "I dunno, I don't really jump off museum roofs for fun Tracey." Tracey took another deep breath, and fidgeted with his feet, as half of them were hanging over the edge, and his heels were safely on the roof itself. Gritting his teeth, Tracey simply let himself teeter off the edge. He felt nothing. Slowly he opened his eyes, and screamed as he saw the ground coming at him very fast, even though he couldn't feel any breeze on his face at all.

          Then…everything froze. The ground stopped coming towards him, and the roaring in his ears and Brock's panicked voice stopped. Nervously, Tracey spun himself around, so his feet were pointing to the ground rather than his head.

          "Idiot," came an accusing voice.

          "Catalia help me!" he yelled, panicked. "What's going on!?"

            "Listen, just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't feel pain," Catalia said softly. "It's how you can feel cold when you pass through something biological, or how you have sad feelings when you think about the fact that you're dead. You still have feelings."

            Tracey started hyperventilating.

          "So I'm gonna hit this ground, and feel it exactly like I would if I was alive?" he asked, incredulously.

          "No, not exactly," Catalia answered. "It would only hurt for a few minutes, like a Beedrill sting, but it would still hurt."

            "Help!" Tracey repeated again, helplessly, unable to keep his eyes off the ground below him.

          "Open your wings silly," Catalia yawned. "You're an angel, use your wings!"

            "What wings??" Tracey yelled, indicating his flat back. There was silence for a minute, then a weird itching sensation on his back, right underneath where his shoulder blades stuck out.

          "Those wings…ja!" The sensation in his head was gone, and the world began moving slowly again.

          "Help!!" screeched Tracey. "How do I turn these things on??" Slowly, two dusty pink coloured feathers slipped through his skin, and tee shirt without making a mark. These were followed by another pair, and another until Tracey had a set of shimmery, transparent pink feather-wings, and glided to the ground, where he met a pale Brock, who had run down the stairs.

          "What just ha-" Brock began, before taking note of his companion's rather feminine wings, and sniggered.

          "Oh I hope yours are yellow," Tracey said bitterly, before turning his attention to these bizarre new extensions to his body. They remained still, ruffling slightly in the wind; the only part of him that did. "I'm flying back to Cerulean then," he said smugly. "Guess you're walking Brock!"

            "I'd rather walk from Olivine Port to Lavender Town than fly on those things!" laughed Brock. "I swear I've seen a pair of girly knickers that look exactly like them!" he chuckled.

          "Well I very much doubt you've seen any girly knickers at all, apart from the ones in your wardrobe that you wear on Saturday nights," cut back Tracey, glowering as he was strangely proud of his wings.

          "Cuh, forget you," Brock said in a disgusted voice. "I'm off back to Pallet."

            Tracey grunted, and turned his back on the taller, spiky-haired boy. Before he knew it, he was left alone in the garden of the Pewter City Science Museum. Hesitantly, he reached out and brushed his finger tip against one of the feathers. It felt smooth under his finger, and it sent little waves of impulse down to his nerves - it was part of his body alright.

          Tracey sighed, and his shoulders shuddered, the feathers making rustling noises as they rubbed against each other.

          "Now…" he murmured. "…How do I flap these things?" Suddenly, his back felt like it was on fire, and the feathers slipped back into his back, making him yelp, and leaving him with a serious backache, and a long way to walk.