The Hunchback of Lumiose Cathedral: A OC/Pokemon/Amourshipping story

Chapter 8

Up in the bell tower, Electchu, Odyssey, and Shockwave were eating their supper, while Timothy sat down on the floor against the wall beside them with no emotion on his face. He told his Pokemon friends everything that happened on the way back up to the tower, and they apologized for convincing him to go. He told them not to feel guilty about it, but his forgiveness did not make the Pikachu, Kirlia, and Riolu feel better. They frequently glanced at the glum hunchback as they ate.

"You sure you don't want a little of our food, Timothy?" Odyssey asked.

"No, Odyssey," Timothy said. "I disobeyed Master Markenel, and I deserve not to eat."

Odyssey frowned and turned to Electchu, who gave an edgy look and asked, "Do you hate us for convincing you to sneak out?"

"Of course not. You guys did what you thought would be good for me," Timothy said. "It was my fault for letting my guard down and getting on that stage."

"At least you had fun, though, right?" Shockwave said. "And now we don't need just Master Markenel's word to know how cruel the world is out there."

"I guess," Timothy said.

The three Pokemon looked at him confused, and Shockwave asked, "You guess on which part? Had fun or that the world is cruel?"

"The world being cruel," Timothy answered.

"What do you mean, you guess?" Odyssey asked. "They tied you down and threw food at you?"

"I know, but...I guess I want to believe that it wasn't all that bad," Timothy said.

"Because of that Arcean woman?" Shockwave asked.

Timothy was silent for a moment before he finally raised his head to look at the Pokemon. Electchu and Odyssey looked at him with tilted heads while the emotion Pokemon gave him a look that implied it already knew the answer. The hunchback sighed and looked away again.

"Yeah. Because of Serena," he said. "I know she was the one who convinced me to get on the stage because I'm ugly, but she still defended me. The whole thing is just about as much her fault as it is mine, but at the same time, no one has ever been so nice to me before. She even stood up to Master Markenel for me. Then again, she doesn't know that I'm Master Markenel's son, so maybe she would have left me there if she did."

Shockwave gave a skeptical frown and said, "I think you might be giving her too little credit, Timothy."

"Yeah, well, we'll never know, will we?" Electchu said.

Odyssey and Shockwave hummed in agreement while Timothy said nothing. After half a moment, the hunchback stood up and said, "I think I'm gonna go for a walk. You guys keep eating."

The three Pokemon silently nodded in understanding and went back to their food while Timothy exited the room. He went outside, walked to the south tower, and went down the staircase to the next floor below. He had come to this floor before to think about things since people rarely went as far up the cathedral as the middle floor. Timothy paced from one end of the hall to the next, his mind fixated on Serena.

As Timothy paced, however, he saw smoke coming from, out of the windows. He walked over to a window to see a group of monks out on one of the lower exterior balconies, fixing some of the cathedral's statues. Some were pouring molten copper onto the busted figures while one of them was stirring copper inside a man-sized cauldron hanging above a fire. The hunchback was fascinated by what they were doing and, against his better judgment, decided to go down another floor where he could watch the monks with the door leading to the balcony slightly open. Timothy smiled like a child fascinated from looking at something he had never seen before while some of the monks began to make conversation.