The Dates

Throughout the dim room, the surprised sighs and gasps of the audience resonated in unison with the completion of the trick. How did Hugh pull that off? No psychic powers involved! How in the world did he manage to pull that trick off? There were murmurs between friends, whispers between pairs, and the confused mumblings of Pokemon who had gone to the show solo and as such had no one with which to share the experience. That was okay though. It was enough to be a part of the audience at large when such feats were performed. That Kadabra flashed another one of his charismatic smiles over his shoulder (wooing a few ladies in the process) before dramatically spinning around in such a way as to let his cape twirl in the air. He certainly had a flair for theatrics; the stage was his home, and in it he was most comfortable. His incredible intelligence lent itself to setting up elaborate tricks to deceive the audience into believing beautiful lies. It was his craft! Alongside Dee and Nie, Hugh could pull off anything. And besides, it’s not as if he had psychic powers... the Dusk stone ground into the cement and placed all along the walls of the King’s Rock Casino had no real bearings on what Hugh could do. The Psychic-type suppressor was in place so that the casino couldn’t be cheated out of its money. How unfair would that be for everyone if it weren’t so?

It made the mind tricks that Hugh did all the more impressive. Sometimes, he would call up a Psychic-type from the audience and get them to do their best in predicting cards or some random number. They would, of course, fail - and be momentarily embarrassed. That was the nature of it, and that was how Hugh had to set it up. If he didn’t let the audience understand that one of them wasn’t able to breach the barrier, then they would automatically have doubts about how genuine he was being. After all, it’s easy to say, “I am not using any psychic powers,” but how many would believe you without an unknowing audience member being flabbergasted when he cannot use his own powers? You become a lot more astonishing when you can still, apparently, read minds!

...but of course, that was all a trick, too. It was only the illusion of being able to read minds, but it seemed incredible when no one could figure out the secret, when everyone would get lost in the magic of the moment. That was what Hugh lived for.

It was kind of a silly topic, anyway. Genuineness? In stage performances? Everything was never what it seemed, there was more to be seen no matter what was being pulled! The unimportant was important; anything that was seemingly important was probably a diversion. Though, it wasn’t as if the audience knew this or cared. They came to be amazed and to be entertained, and this is just what Hugh was good at.

…

And with that trick over, and the audience nearly sated, Hugh wanted to pull off his finale for the afternoon. He needed a member from the audience though. Someone smaller than he, someone he could fit into his box and who wouldn’t need to do anything complex...

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