*Yep, still a filler. By the way, the ending to this is kinda important. Oh, I should mention that I'll be updating Mondays and Fridays.
Eros was nerve wracked at the sight of the audience. He could barely fight, how could he perform? Hank must've noticed this, as he said, "Don't worry, you'll do great." His words and expression didn't match, showing he was nervous too. However, if Hank was nervous and competed enough so that the fans went wild for him, then Eros could do it too!
Eros suddenly filled with confidence. The audience noticed this and cheered louder, ever boosting the morale of Eros. The smaller two of the other contestants smiled at him, proud of the false impression of an honest nature that Eros showed. He was ready to cheat, and not only cheat, but cheat badly, as to even disqualify the others. Eros was ready.
First Pichu walked up and down the catwalk with its trainer, giving a very impressive performance and portraying its cuteness well. Next up was Fennekin, who didn't seem as impressive as Pichu in the aspect of cuteness. As Fennekin returned, there was a pause to let the audience calm down its cheering. In this time, Eros decided converse maliciously with Fennekin, starting with this:
"Good job! I'm sorry I said you didn't look tough earlier."
This was met with a look of approval. "It's alright. It's not like you meant it."
"Well, I mean, don't make any assumptions, but... You did great!"
A hint of anger came across the Fennekin. "What do you mean, don't make assumptions?"
"Well, honestly, you look a bit frail for your kind, but that's alright. After all, I don't think the girls are as strong as the boys."
"How dare you-" a look of distraught came across the Fennekin, but it was already Eros' turn to take the walk.
Eros was starting to tremble, even after only a few steps. Having Hank at his side didn't help him too much, but he managed to get about halfway out on the stage without freaking out. The crowd was roaring, but they were cheering just as loud for everyone else too, weren't they? Eros then realized that there was a scoreboard on at least three parts of the upper stadium; By the looks of it, he was tied with Fennekin, where Pichu was in the lead. Furfrou didn't get any votes yet, but it might put him behind if it did... Eros decided to give a small wave to the audience, which somehow boosted his score between Fennekin's and Pichu's. From what little he knew of the show, a fraction of the score came from the audience, while another came from the judges. Eros didn't realize that he had already made it to the back of the stage again, ending his performance and placing him right below Pichu. Fennekin definitely looked nervous, but the Pichu seemed calm and collected.
The Furfrou spoke to Eros in a condescending tone, "Hah. Watch how it's done, little baby."
Eros was slightly confused. "Aren't babys cute though?"
"T-that's not what I meant."
Eros coughed in a way that let Furfrou hear, "Dunce."
The Furfrou gave a rude look towards Eros, but it was time for it to go on stage. There was some charm to the Furfrou, but alone it was no threat. It impeded Eros' score more than Pichu's, though, so it upset Eros in the slightest. Eros thought to himself, 'Maybe I could use his ego against him...'
As the Furfrou returned to it's position, Eros made the attempt to try and push it against its best interest by saying, "Quite the trainer. Say, which one of you is the dog, and which one's the bitch?"
The Furfrou immediately snapped its jaws at Eros and started spewing the vilest of words, the most pleasant being, "I'm going to rip your fucking head off!" and "You better pray to Arceus that I don't bury your pokeball in the middle of nowhere!" This was taken as a series of violent barks and an anonymous outbreak by the humans, and one of the sturdier looking employees escorted the Furfrou and its trainer off the stage, the Furfrou still violently barking as it left. At this, the remaining Fennekin looked oddly relieved, while the Pichu looked sorta sad. As for the score, Eros' skyrocketed to the point where he was almost beating the Pichu, down by the smallest count, but the Fennekin wasn't too far behind. The crowd on stage then quickly made their ways back and grouped with each other to await the next round.
Despite his proposed interest in Cerci, Hank was still openly flirting with some of the other contestants who were, somewhat surprisingly, glad that the Furfrou and its trainer were disqualified. Eros was spending his time talking to the other contestants, trying to give the impression that he was innocent. It started off with the Pichu saying, "Why did you do that?"
Eros replied, "Do what?"
"Why did you make the Furfrou angry like that?"
"Why, did you WANT him to compete?"
"No, but I don't think that that was necessarily fair..."
"Is that so? What rule did I break then?"
"I mean, not that there's a rule to it, but you can't go around making people angry like that."
The Fennekin jumped in, "Come on, it wasn't like he didn't deserve it."
Eros continued, "I mean, someone has to deliver the punishment sometimes. If a man does a crime, is it wrong to stop him? Or should you just watch and let it go?"
The Pichu was about to speak, but found itself at a loss for words. It continued a moment later, saying, "But it's wrong to go around making people angry!"
"You say that, but then why are you even talking to me? You know what kind of game Hank plays, so you certainly aren't trying to change my mind. Are you just arguing to make me angry?"
The Pichu stuttered a bit before saying, "N-no... I did-didn't mean... Stop!" The Pichu was starting to cry a bit.
Eros tried to recover from his callous word choice, "Please don't cry. I didn't mean to make you angry or sad. I just get argued at a lot, so I just.... I'm bad at being friends sometimes. I'm sorry."
The Pichu slowed its tears. "No... I-it's alright." The Pichu slowly made its way to its owner before receiving the inquisition, "Are you alright buddy?"
The Fennekin spoke again, "Don't worry. Some of the Pokemon around here are delicate little pansies. And, just to clear up from earlier, I am a male." The last word was said with some umph.
Eros replied coolly, "Sorry, my bad. But hey, being a bit fragile can make you really cute!"
This was clearly starting to get on the Fennekin's nerves, but it calmed itself down and said, "I AM tough. I mean, I'm tougher than I look."
"You're way to good at being cute to be tough." This was given in a way to avoid any implications.
"No, I insist, I can be tough."
"Look, you'll do well. Show em' your best, bud!" The last bit was given with a playful punch to the shoulder, which might have given the Fennekin a little more instability in its behavior.
At about 7 o'clock at night, it was long before the contestants were taken back on stage for the talent round, where the Pokemon shows off its skills to prove its worth as a competitor. Where there was a catwalk now lies a broader, shorter stage with a wooden dummy in the middle. While some might not use the dummy, certain moves require it so that what's going on can be better visualized. Once again, the contestants were brought to the back of the stage, in reverse order of score (as this generally gave those failing an advantage). The order was, in other words, Pichu first, then Eros, then Fennekin.
Pichu started off the performance by using a series of powerful looking yet somehow adorable set of electric-based maneuvers and other gestures of cuteness. During this time, Eros and the Fennekin had the chance to speak when Fennekin said, "I am tough, stop trying to get into my head."
Eros responded almost neutrally, "I'm not saying you're not tough in a bad way-"
"No, I mean don't judge my toughness when I'm not trying to look tough."
"You don't look to have a tough side."
"I'm not going to talk to you."
Next up was Eros. He made his way to the stage, Hank along side him. Hank tried to say something to Eros, but the roar of the crowd was all too much to hear. All he saw was the dummy in front of him, and all he heard was a roaring crowd. And he froze up.
He couldn't manage to move. Why? Was this the work of Pichu? No, he wasn't paralyzed in that way... He couldn't shake the nervousness. The sound of the crowd was dying out. All he heard was a fading cheering, which was turning into murmuring. He froze up.
"Show 'em what you're made of." Hank's words stuck out once more. Eros was inspired and wanted to show everything he was made of, just for the crowd.
Eros thought, 'Damn, I'm pretty exhausted from the transformation, but maybe I can squeeze out one little...' Eros started to focus on the energy inside of him once more, closing his eyes and blocking out the noise. This time, it ached to feel for his power, but it was there none the less. He slowly moved it out from his center, dragging it along his arm and soon out through his fingers. He opened his eyes and senses to reveal that a little bit of dust was kicking up around him, giving drama for whatever decided to happen next. He still felt his energy slowly making his way out of his hand, forming a light on the end of his arm. Maintaining this energy the day he transformed was exhausting, but he seemed to manage it just well from the outside. To the audience, this seemed like there was suspense building up for a dramatic specialty technique, which wasn't uncommon in the contest world.
Eros finally let the energy leave his body, visualizing a shower of sparks. As he brung his arm upwards, he suddenly saw a large (to him) shower of sparks and sparkles come flying up from his hand, lighting up the stage around him. Even to the audience, this appeared to be akin to a fountain styled firework, although it only lasted for a second or two. The audience went wild at this, cheering for this unique skill that would end Eros' round and boost his score greatly. (To those who wonder why the audience didn't pick this up as magic: due to the nature of the skills used by certain Pokemon, such as Cleffa, knowing a move with the main function being to create sparkles wouldn't be suspicious, even if it's a specialty move.)
Eros went backstage again, greeted by the Pichu and Fennekin, both intrigued by his performance. Pichu started off the conversation with, "That was amazing! How did you do it?"
Eros replied excitedly, "Oh, you know, just a bit of practice."
"Think you can teach me one day?"
"Uh, I don't think we'll ever see each other again, honestly."
Up next was Fennekin, who made its way up the stage collectedly. It looked back and saw Eros give it a thumbs up, which partially egged it on. It looked towards the audience, aggravated, but continued the performance like normal. Fennekin's set of moves included giving a series of growls and playful tackles, but it seemed extremely distant at times during the performance. Even Eros and Pichu could tell Fennekin was disturbed by what Eros said, and the Pichu gave a sad look towards Eros.
The scoreboard was now tallying up the scores of the contestants, with Fennekin falling far behind as a result of its poor performance in the last round. The scores were being tallied and re-tallied, from the scores from the audience to the scores from the judges. As the two bars on the screen representing the progress for Eros and Pichu were tallied up, both seemed to be at the same position; Only in the last second did Eros' score jut up about 3 votes from Pichu's. They looked at each other, with Eros looking gleeful and Pichu looking distraught. Suddenly Eros felt something grab him, and Hank lifted him up for all the crowd to see. Everyone was wild before, but now they were savage. Fans roared across for such a great performance, making Eros feel like the center of the world.....
It wasn't long before Eros was recalled back into his pokeball again. He saw that during the time Hank was walking out, a man or two handed him quite a big sum of money. Eros didn't care if this was legitimate or not; After all, he was the one who cheated. He saw Hank continue to walk out, making it to the exterior lawn before being stopped by a lady holding a Pichu. From what he gathered, she was challenging him to a battle, and the Pichu was in tears. The lady sent out Pichu first, while Hank sent out Surge. The lady gave him a cold stare before Hank brought Surge back and let out Eros.
Eros spawned right in front of the Pichu, who was still crying. He heard the Pichu's owner give out a command, one for some move like Volt Tackle, but the Pichu ignored her and started whining, "You cheater!"
Eros also received a command of sorts from Hank, but he knew engaging would be dickish and stupid. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry's not enough!" The Pichu ran at Eros at full speed, tackling him down as she hit. Damn, she was sturdier than he thought...
Eros stood back up after sliding a few inches. "What do you want me to say!?"
"I want you to realize what you did!" Everything the Pichu said was done in tears, making the whole fight depressing. She ran back over, this time bringing her arms in and covering herself with electricity. Eros was terrified, since even the runoff power from the move started to make his spasm. "You cheated..."
"I didn't want to cheat!" This was sort of a lie, although Eros knew that without Hank, he would have never cheated. Pichu didn't fall for it.
"You liar! You cheated and made everyone else lose!" The Pichu slammed into Eros, causing his entire body to burn and spasm at the same time while slamming him back a few feet. (Volt Tackle) Eros took this hit out of guilt, but he was really starting to regret it. His body still burnt, but the Pichu started to walk over to him. His body felt rigid, and every time he tried to move he would feel a spasm and stop attempting immediately. The Pichu put one foot on his chest, its paw charging with energy that ran up and down its arm. It said in a threatening voice, "Any last words?"
Eros knew that whatever happened next might be the last thing he'll get away with, considering that he just might change back if the attack lands. However, for whatever came next, Eros himself couldn't explain where the words came from. It's as if his Pokemon fraction worked with his human mind's desire and empathy to deliver the next line, "I just wanted to make Hank proud."
Whether Eros was truly desperate to survive, or whether he actually wanted Hank to be proud, or whether he was even anywhere near the truth, or whether he was doing anything but lying, something in this made something come over the Pichu. Whatever came over it, it slowly released the energy from its arm, still maintaining the look of murder. Soon its arm held no power at all and it stepped off. Both Pokemon were returned to their balls and the trainers were extremely confused, but dismissed it as a simple rivalry that went some unknown direction.
Eros never mentioned how this exact event went to anyone except for Sicily later that night. He was trying to talk to her to better understand his Druidity and how unstable his mind felt. The conversation started with Eros describing the events of the last two chapters, where at the end Sicily said, "Wow. Sounds like a rough night."
Eros had returned to human form at this time, having discovered how to release his form on his own. The sensation was akin to trying to shout with one's magic, releasing everything in his soul at once. Whatever gave him his form wasn't a malleable kind of magic that could be used for spells, but rather a binding for one's body. Sicily sat with her dragonfly body in Eros' lap, letting Eros pet her for the while it took for him to finish his story. He replied to Sicily by saying, "I know. I can't help but feel terrible, but I also feel accomplished."
"Maybe you'd do better with just being a Pokemon trainer instead of a Druid." Sicily still wanted Eros to quit his Druidic training, but Eros never seemed to be swayed any other way.
Pushing off what she said, "I mean, am I really a bad person? No-"
"Of course you're not a bad person! You're the best person ever!"
"But sometimes I wonder what I really am. I mean, am I really human now?"
Sicily was afflicted with a deep worrying, "Of course you are!"
"But really, what's the difference? Birth? Experience? Physical form? I can readily switch between a human and a Pokemon, so what's the difference?"
Sicily thought for a moment and said, "Maybe a Druid's something else. Like, neither or both."
"Oh." This was a relatively easy and simple solution to Eros' identity dilemma. "Maybe a Druid is none of the above. Thanks, Sicily, that helped a lot."
"No problem. After all, why else am I here?" Both smiled to each other and fell asleep shortly, thanking one another subconsciously for what they've done for each other all this time.