[This piece has recently been revised to reflect my current style. If you'd like more information on that, please consult my profile. Other than these revisions, the general tone and feel of the text that follows is still a time capsule from the glorious early 2010s. Thanks for understanding.]

Word count: 1131 words.

The Hawlucha Conspiracy Theorem

Calem's eyes snap wide open, surrendering to the miasmic haze surrounding his weary figure. Darkness engulfs him like a pitch black void, its fetid tendrils ensnaring and injecting his every limb with a maddening dosage of eternal cerebration the likes of which even history's greatest thinkers would not willingly subject themselves to.

Sleep is unfeasible.

"Hey, Serena. Hey."

He nudges her softly, enough to make her moan but not enough to make her stir. His yearning heart swells at the sound. Even in her sleep, Serena emanates a certain grace and tranquility he cannot help but admire—and utterly disrupt.

"Psst!" he jabs her in the hip. "Hey, Serena! Are you awake?"

Even the swirling darkness can't mask the resting contempt on her face, a look so familiar one could almost mistake it for her default expression.

"I am now."

"Sweet!" Calem says, his smile remarkably dumb and earnest as he crosses his arms behind his head. "What luck, huh? I thought I was going to be staring at the ceiling all by my lonesome for the next eight grueling hours!"

"You're taking too much blanket," Serena patently ignores him. "Stop hogging it all."

Their room is stock, compact, and furnished with a single bed clearly not meant for two people—the Pokemon Center starter pack in other words. Ever the self-proclaimed Kalosian gentleman, Calem stubbornly refuses to sleep on the floor, his every whim guided by dimwitted desire and sweet nothings delivered in a sensuous baritone.

"You shouldn't have chose the outer side then," Calem turns his back to her, earning a light shove for his trouble. "Everyone knows the side of the bed hugging the wall induces you into wrapping yourself up like a burrito."

"I'll sleep where I want to, thanks."

"So we're on the same page then? Glad to hear you've come around."

"Go to sleep."

With their backs to each other, the next few minutes pass in silence—awkward silence. Neither of them are asleep, neither of them are anywhere close to falling asleep, and they're both painfully, painfully aware of it.

"Hey," Calem breaks the silence, if only to hear her voice.

"What now?"

"Remember that Hawlucha from earlier?"

"The one that almost broke your back? I can't say that I've forgotten it, no. Figures that it was immune to paralysis, and it figures that even after learning that, you still tried to paralyze it."

"Third times a charm, right?"

"Do you even know what 'immune' means?"

Calem shifts around, as does she. "Yeah, it's a condition I don't have because of my chronic Seren-itis. Back on track though, the Hawlucha—did you notice anything off about it? Like, the way it looked, its posture, its whole ensemble? Did you see anything... wrong with it?"

"I'm looking at something wrong right now," she answers. "But besides that, the only thing I saw was the grass after I was dropkicked into it."

Calem gingerly boops her nose, to which she gives him a pouty glare. "You're lucky you had me to escortyou to safety, mademoiselle, otherwise you'd still be in that field. No, but really, aboutthat Hawlucha... See, I've been thinking—"

"That's new."

"What if Hawlucha isn't a bird, and he's just some guy in a wrestling costume?"

She stares at him for a few seconds, utterly dumbstruck, before turning her back to him again.

"I'm going back to sleep."

"N-no wait! Look here! Look, listen!"

"You're stupid," she declares without question. "It's a Fighting and Flying-type. That makes it a bird. Stop trying to make stuff so convoluted. Go to bed."

"But don't you see? It's totally possible! Didn't you notice earlier today that its mouth opened separately from its beak? Considering it has a wrestling gimmick, that means the beak could easily just be a mask!"

"Even if that's true," Serena continues to humor him, her biggest mistake given that the option to ignore him still exists. "There are many Pokemon species with innate accessories that could be classified as clothing. Not exactly groundbreaking."

"But it also wears boots!" Calem counters. "No claws, talons, or quirky webbed feet! Nothing! Birds don't wear boots—except for this one supposedly—and you know what's the problem with that? The problem is that it isn't a bird to begin with!"

He looks at her, hopeful and wide eyed, but she still isn't convinced of anything other than his IQ. "It's a naturally colorful and flashy bird of prey that likes to dropkick helpless young ladies, end of story. Go to sleep."

"But it isn't a bird."

"Then what is it? A dog, a fish, a cat? You're so insistent on proving that it isn't a bird that you've yet to explain what it truly is."

"I did say! It's just your regular everyday average Joe in a vibrant hawk suit—that also wanted to become a luchador! Remember how it was immune to paralysis? That's clearly because humans don't get status effects!"

"Yes, yes, of course. Obviously. It certainly isn't because of any supplemental attributes you've foolishly overlooked or anything," she sighs. "It makes about as much sense as trying to accuse the thousands upon thousands of Hawlucha in the region of being vertically-challenged little people in identical costumes."

"Actually, I said they were all the same person, all at once."

"I'm going to bed."

Calem props himself on his elbow. "Now, wait a minute! You've stuck with me this long! Let's think about it this way. What if it's not really a bird, but an avian-like humanoid incapable of flight, so it dresses up like a bird and uses the luchador thing as a front to live the dream of its beak-endowed brethren?"

Serena gives him another doubtful look before closing her eyes and wrapping herself in a blanket burrito.

"Go to bed, Calem."

With no further arguments (at least ones he can plausibly argue without being thwacked on the spot), Calem finally relents. He lies back down, relaxes, and attempts to get more than his fair share of the covers. Serena notices right away, her brows furrowing at her gradually unfurling burrito, but she elects not to fight him on it out of wasted energy.

"We should catch one someday," Calem mumbles. "Then we can settle this."

"There's nothing to settle," Serena yawns. "You idio—ah!"

"Hm? Something wrong?"

"Your feet are cold."

Calem wastes no time closing the already negligible space between them with a limb entwining embrace, needing no further motivation to spring himself upon her. Naturally, Serena excuses him for the same reason she refuses to humor his delusions any further. It certainly has little, if anything, to do with the myth that some sick, twisted part of her actually likes being in his lecherous hold.

"I'm telling you, it's a midget."