Part 5

We entered the cave, which was attached to a system of caves and tunnels. They had found Brock’s jacket in the cave in front of a small rock fall. Arbok did burrow through, and then we were able to clear the rest of the rocks and go through ourselves. For a while we saw a few Zubats and not much else. Then we turned a corner and saw Brock.

He was alive, but looked pale and ill. He was crouched near a wall staring at something. When we got closer we saw that it was a giant spider’s web, containing a giant glowing spider.

Ash and Misty ran to him yelling “Brock!” He just ignored them, and continued to stare. Misty put her hand on his shoulder.

“Brock, what’s going on?” she asked.

I went over. Suddenly I noticed that the spider had been throwing loops of webbing over Brock. I called for Arbok.

The spider scurried out of the web when Arbok approached and tried throwing webbing at it. Then it tried to bite Arbok, but Arbok bit the spider instead. The spider was obviously seriously damaged but it managed to crawl away into a tunnel.

Meowth was standing against a wall, looking terrified. “Thanks for sending Arbok after him… I could barely look at that thing. I guess my courage only goes so far.”

Brock was still sitting there, staring at the web where the spider had been. Ash was trying to talk to him, and Misty trying to take the loops of webbing off him.

Suddenly Brock spoke. “My mother, it said it could tell me where my mother is…”

He still wouldn’t look at any of us.

I went over to them. “What is the deal with his mother?” I asked Misty in a low whisper.

“Dead.” Misty mouthed silently.

“Has being in her affected his brain?” whispered Ash.

“I think that spider was a psychic pokemon,” I said.

“We told everyone that she’s dead,” said Brock. “We don’t know. It was going to tell me!” He looked terribly upset, and wouldn’t move even when Misty pulled on his hand.

I put one hand on his shoulder. “No one knows what happened to my mother either…” I said. Brock looked at me, and nodded slightly. Then he let Misty pull him to his feet and he began walking out of the cave. I called Arbok back into his pokeball and James, Ash, and I followed them.

When we got outside, Brock was looking better. He began to try to explain what had happened to him.

“I just started hearing this weird voice in my head. I must have lost my backpack somehow; I was pretty confused. I found the cave and I went in. I remember having some food to eat, but mostly I just listened to the voice.”

“It was a psychic spider!” I said.

Brock looked up at me. “No offense, but did I have a memory lapse, too? I mean, am I supposed to know why Team Rocket is here?”

Ash and Misty laughed nervously and told how we had agreed to help. They made me sound nicer than I had been, and I was somehow grateful.

“I never told anyone that we don’t really know if my mother is dead or not,” he went on. “I feel so stupid, I’m almost a grown man, how could my mind be so vulnerable to something like that?”

“It’s not stupid,” I said. “I never talk about my mother either. She is dead, at least as far as I know, but I think about her every day.”

Brock looked at me gratefully. “Thank you for understanding,” he said. I reached out and gave him a little hug. I was worried he would misinterpret it, but even Brock has his limits. He did wink at me though.

“So now what?” said Misty. “I kind of hate to think we’re going to all go back to the way things were.”

“Well, we were already leaving you guys alone, I think we’ll still keep away from trying to capture Pikachu,” said James.

Brock spoke up, “Well, if either of you run into a giant spider that talks about your parents, we’ll help.”

“Sorry if this sounds insensitive, but I’d rather deal with a giant spider than with my parents,” said James.

James and I finally left them. Meowth was playing with Togepi and said he would catch up with us later.

“I guess Meowth will miss Togepi,” I said.

“I won’t miss those kids much, but it was interesting being helpful,” said James.

“It was sort of nice, having friends for a little while,” I said. “Maybe I should try acting decent more often.”

Well, I love you, either way,” said James.

I looked away, embarrassed. But I think he already knew how I felt.

Evidently whatever mission I had in Cecelia’s world had been fulfilled. I only dreamed of Cecilia one more time. She was looking at a wedding ring on her finger. Next to her was Mr. Delvile, looking very happy and only a little bit like my James.

Author’s notes:

Brock’s mother is dead in the English version, but according to information from a book (which I found on the Brock-O-Rama site), Takeshi’s mother is alive in the Japanese version. I kind of played with these two ideas.

About two hundred years ago, a fascinating woman named Frances Burney wrote about Cecilia Beverley and Mr. Delvile… (his name was actually Mortimer, not James). Cecilia was an interesting character but something of a wimp. I prefer Jesse. Mr. Delvile did bear a vague resemblance to James, in that he had rich parents who wanted to push him around, and a loyal dog that I unfortunately couldn’t work into this fic. My characters are only very, very loosely based on hers, but if you really want you could call this the world’s only Pokemon/Cecilia crossover.