Chapter 19 has an exchange between Chloe and UnChloe via messaging where the latter accuses her of still being The Ditherer.Chery_girl: Parker you need to stop! I don’t want you to do anything to anyone else! Not to Ash, not to Sara, not to Professor Cerise! Please stop!
ERROR
Un_Chloe: I’m sorry but I do not recognize this account. I can’t let you bother my little brother with spam messages.
Cherry_girl: This is Chloe Cerise, the real Chloe Cerise. Let me talk to my brother NOW!
ERROR
Un_Chloe: You must surely be mistaken. I am the real Chloe Cerise, and anyone who is Chloe Cerise wouldn’t think that her tormentors should be let off freely. Contacts from ‘Cherry_Girl’ can no longer send messages to Parker Cerise. You may, however, continue to receive them from him.
Cherry_girl: But why? WHY?!
ERROR
Un_Chloe: Because all who hurt Parker Cerise must be punished.
Cherry_girl: I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS!
ERROR
Un_Chloe: How can you? You’re busy with your little crusade after all. Off on your adventures like a certain jerk with a Pikachu. Not caring about who you leave behind when you’re off having fun.
Un_Chloe: The difference between you and me is that I actually do something; you have to wait for someone else to tell you what to do. A train gives you a number to go after, a boy asks you to go on adventures, your teacher offers you a writing contest. I take the initiative and get things done. You immediately say “No” and beat yourself up at such missed opportunities.
Un_Chloe: You couldn’t even tell anyone you were hurting; I made sure they knew exactly what they did. And I'm gonna to continue until they Get. The. Point. They missed out on befriending you, right? Well, they’ll get the message now. After all, I’m the better you. I’m all the good traits your brother saw in you with none of your failings and with the power to make everyone realize their crimes and pay for them.
Un_Chloe: So have fun with your two “friends” and your mission! I’m heading off to an online course your beloved useless teacher is hosting. Oh, and because you could probably text Ash if you really want to, not that you do I’m sure, if I see any warning about that in his mind...well...Parker could use a real leather throne that just 'screams' high society.
Cherry_girl: You’re worse than any monster ever created. Any DEMON that had been summoned from the depths of Hades! You don’t deserve to exist! HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A THING?!
ERROR
Un_Chloe: If you really wanna blame someone for this mess, blame Sara. It’s her fault that she couldn’t shut that pretty little mouth of hers and confess that she couldn’t find happiness in her nightmares cause of her dead father. I’m sure the next time you lock eyes, she’ll think twice before saying something nasty. All because she was jealous of you, you lost the opportunity to make friends, pursue your interests, lost your friend and father’s love and an entire city could care less if you jumped off the school rooftop. But now, thanks to me, the entire city will be plunged into a playground of fun! After all, didn’t you hate how this city never cared for you?
Un_Chloe: Now then, I’ll leave you alone. Parker wants to have breakfast with his sister~
Chapter 23 has Delia give a blunt assessment of Chloe's failings that both Talia and Chloe herself ultimately agree with. Then she tells Parker just how awful his actions were to his face, telling him that he'll never be forgiven by Ash or herself. Talia: Parker...this is Ash’s mother. She...would like to talk to you.
Delia: Why did you hurt my son?
Parker: I hurt him because...I was angry at him.
Delia: Why were you angry at him?
Parker: Cause...cause he did nothing for my sister, never asked anyone what was wrong with her. Never went to her and asked what was wrong...left her all alone…
Delia:“The girl who was antisocial and quiet and reserved wanted to be alone, I’m not aware that Ash respecting that was a reason to mind control him, or offering to take her along was a criminal offense if she said no?
Parker:She was scared! People hurt her and how could she compare to a Champion!
Delia:She only knew that the day she ran away.
Parker:...Chloe was mad that Ash got Goh’s attention and our dad’s love.
Parker:: Ash hangs out with Goh. Ash talks to dad and dad talks to him like he’s his son. And Goh sleeps with Ash all the time, he stops sleeping at our house! He never comes to visit, you always tell Chloe ‘Sorry, Goh is busy right now.’ and so she gave up on him thinking that she was so important to him! And Ash too...Ash just takes Goh away to another adventure and Goh forgets Chloe exists!
Delia:You thought my son was replacing Chloe? Boy, I don’t know what you were seeing but that was not happening. I know what a Professor seeing my son like his own child is like, and that was not your father.
Parker:Dad never talks to Chloe! Never! Never does he ask her to go out on these trips, or he never has her open up. I never hear her talk about having ice cream with him! He just left Chloe alone just like everyone did! And I had to do something...I had to do it if no one else would!
Delia (all but snarling):Didn’t you already get told how wrong you are? You know that everyone had already done plenty , yet you still want to claim you had some right to torture my son and his friends?
Parker:You weren’t there on the day she snapped. I tried stopping them but got hit! And laughed at! And laughed at me more when those bullies said all those things they did to my sister!
Delia:Why did that give you any justification, any right, to hurt my son? If you were that angry with your father why didn’t you mind control him? You didn’t, and instead went after my son.
Parker feels like he got a Mach Punch to the gut
Parker:I mind controlled him so that he could be the perfect friend for Chloe, so he didn’t leave her behind like he always does and take Goh with him.
Delia:...You forgot the part that Chloe didn’t want anything to do with him until she forgave him. What was that going to accomplish? If she didn’t want my son, why would she want your horrible puppet?
Talia: Answer the question Parker.
Parker (shouting):BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT ASH TO TAKE MY SISTER AWAY!
Parker:Ash would take her away and I’d never see her again! He takes everyone away! He took Goh away from Chloe and me, he took Dad away from us! If he made Chloe like Pokémon, she’d leave and I’d never see her again….
Delia:You did a good job at that all on your own from what I’ve heard.
Parker:Chloe was everything to me. I don’t have lots of friends and I’m scared about my interests. But Chloe...she’s amazing and not afraid of what she likes. But everyone wants her to get into Pokémon, pushing her to do what they wanted. And Ash was so good at stealing people, taking them away from us…
Delia:Your father had a job. That was what he was doing, he wasn’t getting a replacement child. I’ve heard some talk of what was going on with Goh and Chloe, but Ash filling in a void for one of them was no excuse to hurt my son.
Parker: Why didn’t Dad do more for Chloe? Why did he break his promises to protect her?
Delia:Because your sister didn’t tell anyone anything.
Parker:She told me!
Delia:And you didn’t let your parents know your sister was suffering until she snapped and made everyone else suffer.” Delia sighed. “I was told you like playing games of what-if Parker, so tell me this. If you had told your parents that your sister was still being bullied, that she was feeling neglected, wouldn’t she still be here?
Delia (groaning):You are glossing over the simple thread that ties all of this together. The reason your parents didn’t know Chloe needed help, the reason you felt the need to go on a rampage, the reason that my son was made miserable even before your little fun with the Unown is because your sister lied about herself to everyone.
Parker:She had to! Because no one accepted her as she was. What was she supposed to say, ‘I’m Chloe Cerise and even though my dad is a professor I don’t like Pokémon?’ She’d be laughed at! She was laughed at!
Delia:Children can be the opposite of their parents. Just look at my own family: Ash can’t cook and I could probably list what he shares with his father other than looks on one hand and have a finger or two to spare. Your parents love her, and would accept her interests. I don’t think if she said ‘I’d rather do something unrelated to Pokemon’ they’d have been surprised. Any surprise would have come from her keeping it a secret needlessly.
Parker:But that would lead to them getting angry...That’s what happens when you say you’re different. People hate you.
Talia (taking a deep breath):Parker, just listen to me right now. We will always support your sister no matter what she does. If she doesn’t want to be like her dad, it’s fine. But what’s not fine is that you had to keep this secret. If we had known sooner, we would’ve told her that it was okay and that she could ignore what all her classmates said. We could have talked to the school more, we could have helped her find a better place, we could have gone to the students and tell them that they should just go to dad directly instead of pestering Chloe...anything is better than this. We’re sorry; dad and I are so sorry that we made you think we’d hate your sister for not liking something. But Parker, what you did with the Unown was just like what your sister did with the paint can. It felt good to unleash that anger and wrath upon everyone but in the end, it wasn’t worth it, was it?
Parker finally gets it
Parker: It is all my fault. I was mad and hurt and I did so many bad things…
Delia: Yes.
Parker:And I was afraid of saying anything because I was afraid people would not understand her…because of how everyone loves Pokémon...and not Chloe...
Delia: You were
Parker: And I wanted her back, wanted everyone to pay for hurting her...when I should’ve said something….And now everyone hates me! Everyone hates me and they’ll hate Chloe too and I didn’t want that! Why did they have to hate her in the first place
Delia: I can only speak as to why someone wouldn’t like her after she ran away.
Parker: “I’m so sorry...I-I just wanted Chloe to be happy but now I ruined everything….what do I do? You hate me...so it’s fine, I’ll just...I’ll do anything to make it up to you and Ash...
Parker: Molly.
Delia:She wasn’t angry at anyone, she didn’t have fun hurting me. She didn’t want to go after anyone. She wanted to remake her family, and I just happened to be the first mother she saw. I wasn’t targeted. You targeted people. And even when Ash and his friends went after her, they weren’t mad, they saw a lonely girl while you saw everyone as a potential enemy. (Parker nodded his head in shame)Parker, I am furious at you for what you caused. By keeping all of these secrets, you only made Chloe’s pain grow and grow. I guess I can understand that, for your age, being different does feel very scary and to not have your parents’ support would be the worst thing ever. But the way you lashed out at everyone was unacceptable. You gave my son nightmares. Ones where you are hurting all of his friends. Because you did hurt his friends, not just himself. You drove one of his friends into a suicide ward. That’s why he will probably never forgive you, Parker. It’s why I won’t. You might very well earn some forgiveness from the people around you, but you will have to work for it
Parker:I’ll do whatever I can, I want to be a good boy. I’m so sorry...I didn’t know what to say at the time…
Delia:Like your sister hiding what she wanted because of her own fears. The two of you refusing to talk hurt a lot of people, including yourselves. You’ll need to think about that.
The above leads to Talia sending Chloe an email putting her foot down on Chloe's spiteful, childish, and selfish attitude, and telling her it needs to stop. Though, it's less of a "reason you suck" speech and more of a "reason you need to be better" speech.To: chloe_cerise@pmail.com
From: tali_cerise@pmail.com
Subject: This has to stop For whenever you get a chance to read this, Chloe.
Your father mentioned the possibility of us moving in the last email, and we have a place in mind. It’s in Pallet, where we can work with Professor Oak. But it’s not complete yet, and it turns out that there is one only one guest house in pallet Town and Ash’s mother owns it.
I just had a very...enlightening chat with her. The good news is that she’s agreed to house me and your father while we get situated in our new home if it comes to that.
Parker is a different story...and I think you might be as well.
As far as she’s concerned, you’re just a self-pitying runaway throwing a tantrum that the world didn’t give you everything you wanted on your exact terms, even though you never said what you wanted and rejected everything you were offered. And then you ran away after lighting matches so everything burned to the ground once you were far away, and then started demanding that we earn your forgiveness even after you started hurting everyone around you.
I...almost agree.
You wanted me to act as a parent to you, and to see you as who you are. Well, part of being a parent is acknowledging your child’s flaws and addressing them. Granted, there’s only so much I can do on this side of the Train. But I will tell you this: the long speeches, the sarcastic sniping, the passive aggressive ‘oh why didn’t you do this sooner’?
It has to stop RIGHT NOW.
There is nothing you can say that we haven’t already heard...from you, from each other, from everyone else. We get it. We messed up, ignored you, never considered your feelings and so on and so forth.
But you’re just as responsible for keeping things quiet until they boiled over, and keeping that same attitude forever will not help. If you did that the best case scenario would be you ending up in this same situation again and this all repeating again (hopefully sans Unown).
This will apply both now and when you do get back. Delia says that you need to actually apologize to her son, ask for his forgiveness after all the fuss you made about him getting yours. I’ve no doubt he’ll give it to you, but you still need to own up to how you messed up and ask him for it. If you don’t and you get back quickly enough, you’ll probably have to share a tent with Parker.
If you don’t want to forgive or talk to your classmates, fine. Don’t talk to them (I certainly won’t). That’s your right. But if you do want to see them, it shouldn’t be until you’re at least willing to entertain the possibility of trying again with them. They have been hurt and told how horrible they were more than enough.
Also apparently Sara’s mother said her daughter emailed you so be on the lookout for that and get a pillow to scream in. Don’t worry, she’s long gone. But do not try to chase her down. The foster system is hard enough at the best of times, let alone with Sara’s situation.
This goes for Goh as well. I’m attaching a document of everything he’s heard you “say”, both in text and in his nightmares. If nothing else, it’ll save you some time and energy when you return...provided that Goh is still in Vermillion City by then. If you understand what I mean.
And finally... stop pretending that Professor Cerise isn’t your father. It’s getting childish. He’s your father, and nothing is going to change that. He wanted what was best for you, and yes, he did so much wrong. But the intention was clear; he loved you, always has, always will.
We are absolutely done with the speeches, the blame game, the anger and the punishments. And we won’t care to hear them from you anymore than we have to hear them from the public or the team of lawyers we have to deal with now and for however many more months to come, if not years.
Make no mistake...you are my daughter, and I love you dearly. But I need to put my foot down here. So much harm has been caused, and I can’t pretend your hands are completely clean. None of us can. Everyone else has owned up to their part of it, and you need to as well.
Good luck on your quest, and come home safely. We’re all rooting for you.
-Talia
