Chapter 23
Air Dragon said:
I never knew there were so many ways to describe getting punched in the face...
I just had to let this stand out by itself. I laughed my *** off when I read it.
Air Dragon:
So, Cheren realized you don't exactly play with Plasma and get away with it (and he's meant to be smart...), Bianca gets dragged into it (shocker), and speaking of "shocker", Zebstrika's expression to Colress's emotional display would be funny if the situation weren't so dire.
Colress... is probably one of my least favorite canon characters in the sense that I feel like a guy like him had so much potential to be a character players remembered - and yet the only thing memorable about him in the games is that weird hair. Since Colress doesn't seem to appear at all until out of the blue in the sequels (the main thing I dislike about him), it gave me a bit of freedom to re-imagine his character a bit as, in this timeline, he shows up as a major player two years early. He's a scientist by trade, so very intelligent, but also (as I could gather from his appearance in the anime) a bit twisted and definitely an 'ends justify the means' sort of guy. He's a bit of a foil to Cheren, who's also very logical and doesn't seem to mesh with other people well. But Cheren's friendships (with Bianca in particular) are starting to make him care about others around him enough that he wouldn't turn into someone like Colress.
One question, though: hasn't Bianca once mentioned that she isn't as strong as Blake or Cheren? Why would she get in-between Plasma and (I'm guessing) Iris especially if she'd crossed the former before? Especially if she didn't exactly come out on top last time? Guess some people are just that slow...
You'll find that out next chapter. Although it
is canon in the game that Bianca sort of accompanied Iris around Castelia City initially, since Iris was new to the location and quite a bit younger than the others. Basically, while the two were together, Bianca ended up in a situation that forced her to either try to fight them or run away and leave Iris to God-knows-what sort of fate. Especially as Colress comes off... how do I put this politely... a bit sketchy?
Well... That was interesting. This story is definitely taking some twists I didn't see coming. Fox and Dalton are on the rocks... :/. Call me a romantic but I don't like relationship turmoil.
And I don't like relationships without turmoil. I honestly feel like the only way two people in a relationship aren't having the occasional disagreement is if one or both of them are going so far out of their way not to offend the other that they're actually being very fake. I write relationships with turmoil because I'm something of a romantic, not in spite of it. To me, there's nothing more beautiful than when two people see each other's faults, and whatever cracks they have in their armor, and decide that they love each other even with all of that. But I'm waxing poetic. Time to move on.
That reminds me of that time I bought fireworks from that guy who was selling them out of his van behind Walmart in Sioux Falls. Then there was that time we dropped the ring into the sink and Igor was able to get it out using his lightsaber.
I'd really love to make sense of this, but something tells m that it'll only lead to me getting a severe headache. Headaches are no fun... but I do know something that's fun:
~~~ *** ~~~ *** ~~~
23: A Promise
~~~ *** ~~~ *** ~~~
The lights flickered. Cheren looked up at them for a moment. A crash of thunder shook the hall.
The afternoon storm had hit hard and without much warning. Fortunately, everyone had managed to find their way to the shelter of the Pokémon Center before it had happened.
Everyone except Blake. He had disappeared after the melee, and no one knew what had happened to him. Although, if Cheren was being honest with himself, he – or at least his jaw – could have happily done without seeing Blake for a while. He might have deserved that punch, but likely not from Blake…
He stopped at a door and suddenly the reality of what he was about to do hit him. He couldn’t help but feel a bit sad… but he reminded himself that it would be for the best. And, knowing her, she might even agree with him. He raised his fist and knocked.
A moment later, the door opened. Cheren instantly felt his face growing hot. She was dressed in what looked to be her sleep clothes; a white shirt that didn’t quite stop at the waist and a pair of orange shorts. They certainly left a lot less to the imagination than did her usual traveling outfit, and the thought went through Cheren’s mind for a moment that she might have been wearing it on purpose, just to mess with his head. But then, Cheren thought, she was far, far too innocent for that – and probably too innocent to know why this was making him uncomfortable.
Nonetheless, Cheren tried to fix his eyes directly on her face, which curled into a sad sort of smile. “Hi.”
“Hey,” Cheren said monosyllabically.
It was strange, being in Bianca’s room – or at least the room that was her room today – alone. Her father never allowed such things when they were growing up in Nuvema Town. She and Cheren usually met at the twins’ house if they ever did sleep over anywhere. Bianca enjoyed it at the twins’ place. Blake’s and Whitlea’s mother was far less strict than Bianca’s father… although pretty much anyone was less strict than Bianca’s father. Even in a tiny town with hardly any people and even less strangers, he was always insistent that she be inside before nine – which was reasonable, Cheren supposed, for an eight-year-old. But the further they got into their teens, the more ridiculous it sounded. Cheren swallowed hard. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he would have to twist her arm a bit to get the result he wanted.
“I’m okay, just so you know,” Bianca said. “But it was… it was really sweet of you to come check on me. I mean that.”
Cheren sighed hard. Prolonging this with small talk wasn’t going to make it any better.
“Bee-Bee… I think you need to go home.”
Silence – just as Cheren had expected. The room illuminated with a flash of lightning. Bianca let out a short squeak – she had
always been afraid of thunderstorms. And clowns. (But then, Cheren couldn’t blame her for that. He hated clowns even more than she did.)
“I’m not going home, Cher,” she said, very calmly. Cheren breathed an inward sigh of relief. He’d expected her to yell. Still, though, it was time to convince her.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Cheren said.
“Then why won’t you let me?” Bianca replied. Cheren could already feel his patience starting to thin.
“What happened today changes things completely,” he said. “This is turning into a war. A normal journey’s dangerous enough, but you can’t just pretend everything’s okay with Team Plasma out there.”
“I’m not stupid, Cher. Why does everybody treat me like I’m stupid?” she said, going around the table and toward the huge window that led out to the small balcony. Cheren immediately noticed that the blinds were thrown open, which he found strange. Her arms were folded and she was staring intently at the rain-soaked outdoors. “I never thought it wouldn’t be dangerous.”
“I’m not talking about danger, Bianca,” Cheren answered sharply. “This isn’t regular ‘danger’ anymore. That’s what I’m saying. People could
die.
You could die.”
“I’m going to die,” Bianca answered. Cheren’s jaw unhinged for a moment; he hadn’t been prepared for that. “Eventually, everyone does. I’d like to live first.”
“Oh, come on,” Cheren groaned, rolling his eyes as his irritation got the better of him. “This isn’t a movie, Bianca.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“Real life doesn’t always have happy endings!” he snapped. “Sure,
maybe once in a hundred times, that girl who goes to fight her fears and face the world turns out okay, but you know what happens to that girl the other ninety-nine times? Huh?
Do you?!”
Bianca flinched. Cheren wasn’t sure if it was because of his yelling or because of the clap of thunder that had joined it in the background.
“You don’t get it,” Bianca said. “Of course you don’t get it. You’re smart, talented, strong, good-looking. You’ve always been able to do anything you set your mind to. If you gave up right now and went home, you’d have a job in Juniper’s lab the next day. If I go home… no. I can’t go home.”
“If you go home, you’ll be safer,” Cheren said, trying to speak so even a four-year-old could understand.
“Safer?” Bianca said, and now Cheren could hear desperation in her voice. “If I go home now, my father and you and everyone else that said I couldn’t do it are all right. If I go home, you all win. And I’ll be in a cage again, never able to get out.”
She shook her head.
“Whit knows. She knows everything. If she was here…”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Cheren said, “Whitlea’s
not here. In fact, nobody knows where the hell Whitlea is. I’ve tried to call her – nothing. We don’t even know if she’s alive or dead!”
“And that’s what it’s about, isn’t it?” Bianca asked fiercely, turning to him, her eyes glittering with tears. Cheren somehow knew that she had misunderstood him. “Your
precious Whitlea. I never saw you convincing
her to go home all the time. Because she’s strong and I’m weak. I’m sorry if I thought that maybe,
just maybe, if I ever wasn’t scared of my own shadow, you’d look at
me instead of her!”
“You don’t get it!” Cheren said, his voice breaking as he raised it to a shout. “
You – are – going – to – die!”
“THEN LET ME DIE!” Bianca screamed, at the very top of her lungs, in a voice Cheren never thought her capable of using. She flinched again – a bit less than before – at a flash of lightning and a crackle of thunder. When she spoke again, it was in a cracked whisper. Her scream had all but destroyed her voice. “If being caged up is the only way I can live… I don’t want to live anymore.”
She sank to her knees in front of the large window, staring through it.
“I can’t let you die,” he said. “That’s just what I
don’t want to happen. But I’m not strong enough to protect you against these guys, Bee…”
He swallowed hard, fighting down the lump in his throat. A clap of thunder went off with the force of a small bomb. Bianca flinched and hiccupped but did not look away. Cheren walked over to where she was kneeling, and sat down.
“Why are you doing this to yourself?” he asked. “You’ve got enough sense to know you’re scared of thunder by now, don’t you?”
“Sure, I do. That’s why I’m doing it,” she whispered. It was becoming apparent that she wasn’t going to get her voice back anytime soon. “You remember that one storm? When we were ten?”
“…No,” Cheren said. If it was nostalgic, chances were he didn’t remember it. That was always a source of friction between him and the girls. Even when they took their first step together past the borders of Nuvema Town, Whitlea had joked that Cheren would probably forget what that meant in a year or two.
“We were at Whitlea and Blake’s,” Bianca went on. “It was the worst storm of the year. My dad wanted me home right away… but Blake’s mom said no one was leaving the house – that we could all stay there until it blew over. We were in the basement. I was scared out of my mind. Whitlea thought it was fun, that the house might crash on top of us. But I was so scared… then you put an arm around me – you’d never,
ever done that before – and you said, ‘Don’t be silly. Grown-ups aren’t afraid of lightning and thunder.’”
Cheren’s face twitched indeterminately.
Bianca hiccupped. Whether she was laughing or crying, Cheren couldn’t really tell. He’d never really been an emotional type and was never really good at reading emotions – especially the emotions of women.
“It didn’t work,” she said. “Five years later, I’m still afraid of lightning and thunder. But…”
She trailed off, looked away from him and straight through the window. The sky and room went white with lightning again, followed by a crash of thunder that shook everything so hard that it felt like someone had run a truck into the nearest wall. This one even unsettled Cheren a bit; he’d been through plenty of bad storms… but never this high up in a building. Buildings didn’t reach this high at home – not nearly.
“I think…” Bianca said, and though Cheren could barely hear her over the rain, he listened as hard as he could. “Of course, I was ten, I didn’t really know back then, but...”
The sound of rain filled the encroaching silence.
“That was… what I meant to say,” Bianca said. “Back in Nacrene. But I asked if we could travel together instead… and then you said no and I didn’t see you again until the bridge and I was so…
pissed at myself. I chickened out. I’ve been chickening out for years. Truth was… is… I think that day, back then… I started to fall in love with you.”
Cheren’s heart tripped over itself for a moment, but he stayed within his own skin, sincerely hoping that Bianca wasn’t expecting a shocked reaction – because he
wasn’t shocked. Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he had known for a while.
“I know it doesn’t matter much now… but you know, and I told you… so I feel better,” she said quietly. “Even though I know you and Whit…”
“
No,” Cheren interrupted – an utterance of mingled surprise and insistence.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Bianca asked. “I mean… I don’t really blame you. She’s funny, attractive, smart…”
“You’re funny, attractive, and smart…”
“She’s got better hair than I do…”
“Nothing’s wrong with your…”
“And she doesn’t have these… these stupid… child-bearing hips…”
“WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR DAMN CHILD-BEARING HIPS!?!” Bianca jumped a little. “If you’d stop looking at the magazines for a second, you’d know how beautiful you are!”
Cheren’s voice rang off the walls in the silence.
Bianca blinked for a moment. “You really mean that?”
“Well… well, yeah,” Cheren murmured, feeling his face grow hot.
Bianca buried her face in her hands and started to cry softly to herself.
Cheren knew what to do this time – he went to reach an arm around her. “Bee-Bee.”
She looked up at him, wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m such a wimp. I just… I guess I’ll always be that little girl to you… right?”
An ample rumble of thunder followed Bianca’s quiet question. This time, only her mouth twitched. Just a bit.
Cheren’s face broke into a smile for a flicker of a second, and they shared their first kiss.
~~~ *** ~~~ *** ~~~
Dalton sat on his bunk in the Pokémon Center. No lights, no sound but the storm outside…
That was a habit of his whenever he wanted to think. He found it easy to shut everything and everyone else out.
It had been so easy, in the heat of the moment, to sink that dagger into N’s stomach. Was it just because it was N? He’d always had the feeling he would have to kill N or Ghetsis, if not both. Or was he turning into something? Something – someone – bad? It might have been for a good cause, sure, but taking a life was still taking a life.
And that’s if he had managed to take N’s life. He was probably in some undisclosed location, being mended. Dalton didn’t think he had managed to hit any of N’s vital organs. In retrospect, if he really wanted to kill him, he probably should have put the knife into his chest. He’d studied basic anatomy – he should have known that. Except those were the sorts of things that did not come to mind unless you practiced them over and over again. Dalton swore to himself in frustration. His entire point of going to college in the first place had been to land him a job that would get him close to the higher-ups of the Union Party – or Team Plasma, as they were still called here. Close enough to find out exactly what had happened to his sister, close enough, perhaps, to take out a few while he was at it.
Except the one thing he had forgotten to learn was how to kill.
That would have been a great lesson to pick up at some point. That, and how to deal with women…
On cue, the door opened. Dalton jumped to his feet and asked the question that had been burning inside him for hours.
“Okay – what the hell was that for?”
“It’s because you’re stupid, that’s why,” Talia said breathlessly.
“But you know already!” Dalton snapped. “You know why I came here! I’m here to take down Team Plasma! That is the only reason I’m here.”
“As usual, you’re not making any sense,” Talia said. “You keep talking around the problem because you don’t know how to deal with people problems. I’m not surprised you and Cheren hit it off so well. You’re both two peas in a pod – emotionally stunted
little boys that hide behind their intelligence and a whole bunch of other ******** because they can’t deal with the outside world!”
Dalton staggered backward to his bunk and sat down again.
“You… don’t… f—king…
know.”
Talia seemed nonplussed. “What don’t I know?”
“You don’t get it by now… ” he asked.
“I get it. You wanted to be alone, and I wasn’t part of your original plan,” she said in a tone that was, to Dalton, maddeningly condescending.
“
What plan?! I’m making this **** up as I go along!” he retorted, standing up and starting to pace the side of the room furthest away from Talia. He was trying desperately to calm himself. “What you don’t know… you don’t know… you don’t know what it feels like to lose the only person in the world you care about. You don’t know what it feels like to get out of bed every morning and get back in bed and
not sleep every night, living with the fact that it’s your own damn fault, knowing her blood’s on your hands!”
“What the hell are you talking about? I do know,” Talia said, looking insulted. “I can’t feel it, but I know because I’ve watched
you.”
“Then you should know why I don’t have it in me to go through that again,” Dalton answered. “I’ll settle for a draw, but I’m not losing.”
“Someone that’s supposed to be trying to save the world shouldn’t talk like that,” Talia said.
“F—k the world,” Dalton replied succinctly. “You think I’m doing this for the ‘world’? Because it’s the ‘right thing to do’? This isn’t a fairy tale. I’m doing what I’m doing for revenge. Plain and simple. I want to make Ghetsis and anyone connected to him pay and suffer for what my life turned into. The ‘world’ can go get bent… didn’t do **** for me anyways…”
“So, suppose you pull it off,” Talia asked.
“You’ve asked me this question bef—”
“
Suppose you kill Ghetsis, bring Team Plasma down, to the point where they can’t take over Unova or anything else.” Talia talked right over him. “Suppose you do all that. What happens after?”
“That’s what I’m trying to get you to understand,” Dalton said impatiently. “There
is nothing after.”
A rainy, stormy, heavy sort of silence followed this statement.
“…So it’s… it’s a suicide mission,” said Talia shakily, her voice almost a whisper. “You’re planning to go after Ghetsis or die trying?”
“Both, if I can manage it,” Dalton said, smiling ironically. “Take Ghetsis out, lay my life down in the process, give the history books something to talk about – or not. It’d be their call – and not my problem anymore.”
“…Are you really that…” Talia muttered for a moment, then shook her head. “Are you really that selfish?”
“You’re damn right I’m that selfish!” snapped Dalton. “I don’t see anyone else that can give me what I need, so I have to
take it – for myself,
by myself.”
“And what do you need?” asked Talia.
“Rest,” Dalton said simply. “I need to rest. I’m tired of myself, tired of what’s around me – just tired of life in general. And I need to rest.”
“So you just want to kill Ghetsis and die, is that it?” Talia asked. “You’re just going to take that and like it?”
“Do you honestly think I can come out of this a happy, healthy, human being?” Dalton asked. “That’s almost a really good joke.
Almost. ”
“What if I’ve got a problem with it?” she asked. “With you just being so eager to die?”
Dalton grimaced. Talia’s face was tightening with every passing, silent second.
“Talia, I…”
“No – just shut up.
Stop talking.” she exclaimed. “Just…
stop. Listen, you might… you might hate thinking of yourself as a hero. That’s fine. Maybe you’re not a hero. But you’re not this cold, selfish… robot that exists only for revenge. When I saw you for the first time…”
She swallowed and looked away from him.
“When I saw you for the first time,” she repeated, this time more quietly, “you wanted to know whether or not you’d been getting lied to all your life. You questioned. You were ready to fight with everything in you to find
your place. You weren’t willing to follow the crowd, and people thought you were strange for that. But I…”
She trailed off again…. then shook her head.
“I can’t watch you destroy yourself, Dalton,” she said, finally choking up as she flopped onto the lower bunk. “I
want to…”
She took a couple of ragged breaths, tried blinking, averting her eyes, but the tears were coming. She wiped them away quickly, almost as if ashamed of herself for crying.
“What do you want?” Dalton asked.
“Don’t check out,” she answered. “Don’t check out on me. If you leave me behind, too…”
She let out a sob that she quickly tried to cover up – but tears were still flowing down her face, which she tried to hide with one of her hands. Dalton watched her for a moment. When he sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, she embraced him in return, almost like she had been waiting for it. She didn’t cry much, if at all, after that.
They sat there in silence, listening to the storm and not moving. Her arms stayed latched around him. He looked her right in the eyes. He hadn’t really ever been this close to her before. They were blue and they twinkled – or maybe that was because she had just been crying.
“You’re a lot better than you think you are,” she said. “A lot better than me, anyway…”
“What?” replied Dalton, confused. “Why do you say that?”
“I… I miss my dad more than anything,” she finally said. “It hurts. And I… I really thought he’d be here. Now, I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t want to go back to Accumula Town. There’s just… nothing. I always felt so chained up and… just… stuck. I never liked it there.”
“You’ve been following me around the past couple of weeks,” he answered. “You don’t still feel stuck?”
“…Are you saying I can leave anytime I want?” she asked. It was such an obvious question that it took him off guard.
“Well… yeah,” he answered. “I thought you’d leave last time… but you came back.”
“…I didn’t want to go.”
“And… now?” he asked, knowing she would understand what he meant. But, to his surprise, she shook her head. And more than that, her gaze suddenly hardened.
“I
won’t watch you destroy yourself,” she said. “I don’t give a damn if you’ve even written yourself off –
I will not give up on you.”
“That’s nice of you, I guess… but…” Dalton stood up. “Why do you want to keep me alive so much?”
“It probably sounds ridiculous,” she said, a half-smile crossing her lips, “but I have a good imagination. I can see you finding peace… being happy one day.”
She looked down at the ground and grinned.
“I’d like to be around to see that. Because…”
THUMP.
THUMP.
Talia stopped cold.
“You’d better…” murmured Talia, sounding breathless and more than a bit flat. “You’d better get that.”
“Yeah,” Dalton said, going to the door. Dalton knew by the obstinacy of the knocking before he opened it, and sure enough, standing in the doorway was Cheren. He had his hands in both of his pockets, alternating between slouching and drawing his shoulders back, almost as if he could not decide whether this situation called for him to be more relaxed or more serious-looking. Then again, with as little humor as Cheren usually showed, it was very hard
not to take him seriously. He could have been in a clown outfit, doing a handstand, and Dalton would have still felt like every word out of his mouth was a matter of life or death.
“I need to talk to you,” said Cheren.
“Obviously, or you wouldn’t be knocking my door down,” Dalton answered, stepping outside into the hallway. The lights flickered. The storm was still hanging over Castelia City, but the worst of it seemed to be over.
And for wanting so desperately to talk to Dalton, Cheren seemed to be at a loss for what to say.
“First off…” Cheren muttered, looking down at his shoes. At times, he seemed much older than his age, but every now and again, the awkward, gawky teenager that he still was would shine through. “Bianca and I…”
He trailed off, becoming suddenly interested in the floor patterns, then the flickering lights overhead.
“Uh… congratulations… I guess?” uttered Dalton, a bit confused. “Why are you telling
me?”
“I thought you should know,” Cheren said, still looking everywhere but Dalton’s eyes. Dalton noticed a faint tinge of pink on the boy’s pale cheeks. “I dunno… I don’t mean this in a weird way, but I feel like… like we understand each other.”
“You know, you’re really self-conscious for a kid your age, and that’s saying a lot,” Talia answered from the doorway. Dalton’s insides did an involuntary (but not altogether unpleasant) squirm as she locked eyes with him. Cheren bit his lip. Dalton guessed that Cheren was slightly wondering where Talia got off intruding on their conversation. It’s what Dalton would have thought if he’d been in Cheren’s position. Dalton’s facial expression must have changed, because Talia gave him a strange look.
He’s got a point…
“Because you two are a lot alike, right?” Talia asked, looking between them. Then her eyes seemed to do a double take. “You even look a little bit alike, actually… except for the eyes.”
Indeed, Cheren had dark eyes – but they both had jet black hair. Cheren was not much shorter than Dalton, and Dalton thought he could even see some vague resemblances in their jawlines.
“We’ve gone over this already,” said Dalton, grimacing. “You’re looking in the wrong place for relationship advice. I don’t know any more than you do.”
“I…uh…” murmured Cheren. “Mo…moving on…”
Almost as if someone had strings on his arms and shoulders, Cheren drew himself straight.
“… …I think we should join up.”
Dalton studied Cheren’s face for a moment. He did not appear to flag, or have any intention of looking away from Dalton’s eyes.
“What, you mean, to fight Team Plasma?” asked Dalton. “You didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”
“I should have let you in on the plan,” Cheren answered. “Things wouldn’t have become such a mess.”
“Maybe you should’ve had a better plan,” replied Dalton coolly. “Or better yet, maybe you should have stayed out of it. Your recklessness almost got everyone killed.”
“I see where this is going,” Cheren replied immediately. “‘You’re in over your head. You’re just a kid, so you’ll get in the way. You’ll get yourself hurt, or worse.’ I should probably just let an adult handle it, right? Adults like you and your friend from Interpol?
Yes, I know who he is. Blake and Whit told me back in Nacrene City. In any case, I don’t see him jumping up to help Bianca or anyone else.”
Cheren’s guess had been more than accurate; he had outlined Dalton’s entire thought process in a paragraph. He knew it, too; he raised his eyebrows.
“And don’t call me ‘reckless’,” he added. “I’m not the one that shanked Team Plasma’s king.”
“Let’s just call the whole thing a clusterf—k and be done,” Dalton sighed, shaking his head. “In any case, you’d probably do better to just… leave it alone, I guess. Get back to your Pokémon Training. It’s not your fight, really.”
“If it were only that simple,” said Cheren, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling in a faux-wistful expression. “Colress and N have both seen all of our faces. Unless Ghetsis is completely brain-dead, he’s going to see us as a potential threat and want all of us eliminated. Besides…”
He looked meaningfully from Talia, back to Dalton.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Cheren said. “We’re still rivals. We have to be. You want to be Champion, I want to be Champion, and only one of us
can be Champion. But if Team Plasma isn’t brought down, there won’t be a Champion because
there won’t be a League.”
“Trust me,” Dalton said darkly, “if Team Plasma wins, not having a Pokémon League is gonna be the least of your problems.”
“So you see my point, then,” Cheren answered. “I think the five of us should travel together. And when we get to Nimbasa, we should start telling anyone who will listen about Team Plasma, what they plan to do, and the methods they’re willing to use to do it.”
“Why Nimbasa?” Talia asked. “We could start here in Castelia.”
Cheren looked at Talia strangely, almost as if he had not expected her to talk. Dalton could see the moment in Cheren’s eyes, however, when the latter realized that the question was very valid.
“If you take a look at this place, you’d know why that’s not going to work,” Cheren said. “This is the sort of place where people get too busy for their own good. They may make just enough time for family and friends… but not for strangers.”
“What makes Nimbasa any different?” asked Talia. “It’s the entertainment capital of Unova, isn’t it?”
“That’s just it,” Cheren said, and now he was starting to pace. “That’s exactly why. People come there from all around Unova – all around the
world. People aren’t going to put up with this if they know it’s coming. Imagine what would happen if a trainer from every town in Unova went back home and told a couple of friends?”
Dalton frowned.
“You don’t think that would work?” asked Cheren.
“It probably would – and that’s what worries me,” Dalton replied. “You’re being naïve. Most Pokémon Trainers are, what, your age?”
“There are plenty of Pokémon Trainers older than we are,” Cheren argued.
“That’s not the point,” Dalton answered. “You’re talking about trying to raise an army to fight. What if some impressionable little kid wants to get in on the action and gets himself killed because of it? You think Team Plasma’s above hurting children? Is that it?”
“Hell, no, I don’t,” said Cheren fiercely. “They’ll hurt anyone if it suits them. They tried to kidnap a little girl. Look what they did to Bianca!”
“And you still want to pick a fight with them. That’s not very smart,” said Dalton.
“Oh…” Cheren uttered, his voice awash with snark. “Classic pot-kettle situation.”
“I’m gonna say something here,” Talia said, raising a finger. Cheren just gave her a stuck look. Talia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know… ‘Stay in the kitchen, b—ch. Men are talking.’”
“I wasn’t gonna—” Cheren started.
“
Good, because you need to hear this. It’s obvious you two are too much alike to agree on anything,” Talia interrupted him. “Both of you have really good points, but I think you’re missing each other a little bit. Cheren, there’s something about Dalton you have to understand…”
“Wait… I can’t talk for myself all of a sudden?” asked Dalton, half confused, half indignant.
“This isn’t something you’d say on your own,” Talia said quickly, looking back to Cheren. “Dalton… well, he’s gone through a lot, and he thinks he’s meant to be the one to take down Team Plasma.”
“Really?” Cheren asked. “Man, and I already thought one guy with a messiah complex was one too many…”
“It’s not a messiah complex,” said Dalton through gritted teeth, unable to help throwing even Talia a dirty look for a moment. “It’s… it’s the only reason I came to Unova. That’s the difference between you and I, Cheren. If I had to choose between being a Pokémon Trainer and wiping Team Plasma off the face of the planet, I’d take out Plasma every time. But you… you’d have to think about it, wouldn’t you? You’d be perfectly content to let someone else take out Plasma as long as you got your dream of being Champion—”
“Dalton, come on!” Talia shouted warningly.
“No – he was right,” Cheren answered, looking away from both of them. “He…
was right. That used to be me. Yeah, I’ve had a run-in or two with Plasma before I got here. I fought them with Blake to back him up. He’s on fire to crush all of them. You should have seen his face… I figured he’d go on to be the great hero and deal with Plasma, and I’d go on to be Champion right behind him. I’d be taking on the Elite Four while he was still dealing with Ghetsis’ rank and file… and of course I would’ve ended up stronger than him. Plasma’s goons don’t make good practice in a fair fight – that’s why they always attack in groups… Most of the time, I just thought they were a bunch of crazy activists… it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard some extremist group come up with something like that. Back before I was born, I heard a bunch of religious nutjobs tried to shut down the Pokémon League. They said Pokémon were born from evil spirits and Pokéballs were demonic artifacts used to seal their power and summon them from the underworld. Which… I guess they sorta had a point. Nobody’s sure exactly how a Pokéball works… anyway, the point is, everybody just shrugged ‘em off. You’ll still get the occasional one-off guy, but there haven’t been organized groups for years. So I figured, leave ‘em alone, maybe teach a lesson to the handful that get really crazy… they’d disappear. But… these guys are different. I don’t think they’re going away. And I think… I think if they leave bodies in their wake, they’d just see it as a sacrifice that had to be made. They’re willing to go that far.”
“I know they are,” Dalton replied.
“Well, somebody needs to stop them, then… but you know that already, don’t you?” asked Cheren. “You seem to know an awful lot about them in general, which makes me wonder…”
He paused significantly.
“You were one of theirs once, weren’t you?” asked Cheren.
“Nnnn…” Dalton started. Instead, though, he glanced at Talia, who – as discreetly and imperceptibly as possible – nodded. “Worse than that. I was raised by one of theirs.”
“Then you started asking questions, and they put you out of the fold?” asked Cheren.
“…That’s pretty much how it went. I was the type of kid that always needed to know why. My sister was the same way. Plasma couldn’t have anybody asking why… so they took her.”
Cheren’s jaw dropped. “Is she… is she… alive?”
“I don’t think so,” Dalton said simply. “Actually, there’s times were I hope not.”
Cheren’s face went through horror, realization, and then horror again. He raised his hand, opened his mouth slightly to say something… and then turned and walked away.
Meanwhile, Dalton stood still. What he wouldn’t give, as his hands shook and his fists clenched, for a way to forget. But he couldn’t forget. So he had to do the next best thing – remember always.
“Cheren!”
The younger boy whirled around, looking a bit surprised.
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow,” Cheren answered. “Once this weather clears and Bianca’s had a little bit more rest.”
Cheren turned his back on them again.
“We’re gonna take them apart. That’s a promise.”
~~~ *** ~~~ *** ~~~
The storm was over. The sea, however, refused to sleep completely, still churning iron gray and white and crashing against the edges of the pier. The bad weather had scared most people to shelter.
All except for Blake.
He sat on a double-sided bench on the pier, soaked through to the skin but not caring much as he stared to his right, out to the horizon where gray sky met gray sea.
At least he had done one thing right – coaxing Whitlea to get her badge and leave Castelia as soon as possible. Although, a nasty voice in Blake’s head said, that may not have been the best idea, either. The idea of crossing that desert alone… not even Blake was looking forward to it. From what he had heard, there were sandstorms all the time, and trying to travel through one could get a person lost at best, and killed at worst. A lump formed in Blake’s throat. Whitlea was a tough girl, to be sure… but he didn’t know if she was alive or dead. She was his most precious treasure, one of the few people about whom he cared above all else. They had come into the world together.
Maybe he should have gone with her.
No… that would have been running away. He had just been trying to protect her from the inevitable. If he had gone himself, that would have been cowardice. And Blake was no coward.
“Interesting weather to be sitting outside, isn’t it?” the voice of a girl asked. It wasn’t Whitlea – he could tell that right off. He didn’t turn to acknowledge the voice. “Maybe I’m stating the obvious here, but… you’re all wet. Let me guess… drowning your sorrows? I guess I’m splitting hairs, but most men choose to do it with alcohol.”
Blake shut his eyes tight in annoyance. Judging from the sound of the voice, the girl had sat on the other side of the bench, right out of his view.
“Do I look old enough to drink to you?” he asked. “And I wouldn’t, even if I could. Stupid thing, alcohol. Dulls the senses. Only fools and weaklings need a crutch like that.”
The girl made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “You’re… not much of a people person, are you?”
“No, not really,” Blake said, wishing sincerely that the girl would stop talking to him.
“And yet you wish to change the world in your own way… but you’ve got the temperament of an irritated Voltorb… and the personality of a blank sheet of paper.” the girl said in a maddeningly serene tone. “You’ll never change anything like
that.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t change,” snarled Blake. “And if you’re gonna do it, at least have the guts to show me your face.”
“Ooh, prick…ly,” she squealed. She was mocking him – not in that affectionate way that Whitlea and his friends always used to do, but genuinely mocking him. “Blake.”
This finally got Blake to turn toward the voice. She was leaning her head over the back of the bench and looking toward him. She had a curtain of long, regal-looking black hair, and her eyes were a bluish gray.
“How do you know my name?” asked Blake, standing up and stepping away from the bench.
“Your name?” She stood up. She was wearing, of all things, a long halter gown of sorts. Apparently, she didn’t like to show her legs but had no problem with her back being out in the open for all to see. She turned around toward him. “I know a lot of things about you, Blake. You’re from Nuvema Town. You have a twin sister… where is she, anyway?”
“Somewhere you wouldn’t be able to hurt her,” Blake said suspiciously.
“Hurt her? Why would I want to do that?” she asked, trying her best to sound innocent. Blake wasn’t buying it.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“You’re so rude,” she replied, folding her arms and assuming a mock-petulant pout. “You shouldn’t talk that way to a lady.”
“Well, maybe you should tell me your name so I have something to call you,” Blake answered stubbornly.
“Fine, then,” she said, pulling her arms away from herself. She took a few steps toward him, crouched into a curtsy, and said, “My name’s Estelle. Nice to meet you.”
“That’s a strange way to greet someone you’ve obviously been following for a while,” Blake answered, continuing to be suspicious. Surprisingly, Estelle smiled at this. She had dimples. Blake normally wouldn’t notice this sort of thing, but she was very pretty. Although there was this feeling of familiarity he couldn’t shake… like he’d seen her somewhere before…
“Nothing gets past you, does it, Blake?” she asked. “You got me. I’ve been following you.”
“Why?” asked Blake. Estelle giggled.
“Isn’t it obvious? Your warm and charming personality is
so inviting,” she said. Blake’s face twitched. She was mocking him again. “Except that it isn’t any of those things.”
“Oh, that’s really cute,” Blake deadpanned. “Another person that doesn’t like me very much. Like you’re the first. Hell, not even my so-called ‘friends’ like me that much.”
“Let me guess… your sister’s the popular, social one?” Estelle asked. “You ever stop to think she doesn’t like all of the attention?”
Blake smiled the opposite of a smile. “You’ve never met Whitlea, then,” he said. “She loves attention. Nobody can even fault her for it because she’s the type of person people love to be around.”
“So, since you’re not that…” Estelle asked probingly, “you’re better off as a lone wolf?”
“What are you, some sort of shrink?” Blake questioned, a disparaging tone to his voice. “Of course not. You’re just some random girl that thinks she knows me, but she really doesn’t…”
Blake turned his back on her.
“Tell me, then,” Estelle said. “What makes Blake… ‘Blake’? And why does Blake insist on being so weak and one-dimensional?”
“One-dimensional?” Blake scoffed. “You’ve gotta focus on the things you do well. I train Pokémon. I look out for my sister and people who need defending. That’s what I do well. Or at least, I thought I did that well…”
“…Yes… you do,” Estelle answered, the tone of her voice sweetening.
“How long have you been stalking me?” Blake asked directly.
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it ‘stalking’,” said Estelle. “‘Stalking’ implies some sort of attraction. You’re not very attractive.”
“Oh. Gee, thanks,” said Blake sarcastically.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re good-looking and all, but…” Estelle sighed. “Well, you’ve got more spines and barbs than a Qwilfish.”
“What the hell is a Qwilfish?” asked Blake. Estelle laughed.
“I’m assuming you’ve never been to Johto before?” she said.
“Uh… no,” he replied. “All your… stalking, and you don’t know that already?”
“I’ve only been following you since right before Nacrene City,” she remarked. “Waiting for a chance to speak with you...”
“Well…” sighed Blake. “Here I am. What do you want?”
“Oh, Blake…” said Estelle with a smile. She walked to his side. “It’s not about what I want. It’s about what
you need.”
“Hmm…” Blake uttered skeptically. “Okay, since you’re suddenly an expert on the needs in my life, what do you think I ‘need’?”
“You’ve got a little bit of a hero complex,” Estelle said. “You think it’s your destiny to win the League Championships… but if you’re honest with yourself, that’s not enough for you, is it? You want to leave your mark on history by doing something truly great.”
Blake watched her with an investigating eye.
“But you’re in over your head,” Estelle said, and suddenly her sweet mannerisms were gone.
“What did you say?”
“One against… a dozen? Two dozen? A hundred? How many men and how many Pokémon do you think Ghetsis has available to him?” Estelle asked. “And you’re going to go in, two guns blazing and accomplish
what? You’re going to get yourself killed. That’s what. For every person that tries to be a hero and succeeds, there are a hundred that try and fail – and guess what?
Nobody remembers their names.”
“You think my motives for wanting to stop Team Plasma are that selfish?” Blake asked, his rage simmering right below the surface. “They prey on the weak…”
“
Exactly,” Estelle interrupted, looking a bit impatient. “They prey on the
weak.”
“…Are you trying to say that I’m weak?” asked Blake, his face contorting into something terrible to behold. “Maybe you want to battle me and find out how ‘weak’ I am?”
Estelle sighed. Her maddening smile returned. “I’d crush you and it wouldn’t accomplish anything,” she said casually. “But you’re proving my point. You don’t choose any allies, and everyone’s some kind of enemy. How long do you think you’re going to last going on like that?”
“Everyone’s not so charismatic,” Blake said. “I have to make do with what I’ve been given.”
“That’s good… because I’m here to offer you a gift,” Estelle answered immediately.
Blake looked up. Approaching them was a group of several people, appearing to move uniformly but each with a different appearance and style of dress. One was garbed in very dark gray, a feathered cap leaning off his red-haired head in a devil-may-care fashion. A second, much older man, was wearing what looked like the sort of thing that would be worn by a martial arts teacher. Appropriately (and somewhat alarmingly) attached to his outfit appeared to be a scabbard to a sword. Was that legal?
The third person, and only other woman, had royal blue hair and walked in the shadow of the fourth.
The fourth was a relatively young man, thirty at most – although his hair, which was a perfect, uniform silver-white, seemed to have forgotten this. He was dressed impeccably in a two-piece gray suit with a high-collared shirt – the type a vicar would wear.
Blake drank in the sight for a moment as Estelle turned to stand at his side, facing the others with her trademark smile. “So, this is your ‘gift’?” he asked through grit teeth. “A freak show?”
Estelle’s teeth were locked into a smile. She wasn’t listening.
“So this is your prized recruit, daughter?” the young, silver-haired man looked Blake over appraisingly. “I was expecting… a bit taller.”
“He’s the one,” Estelle answered plainly. “Although if the rest of our family thinks he’s beneath us, we can continue on as is…”
“Mind your tongue,” the blue-haired woman started, and rather aggressively at that. Estelle’s eyes narrowed at the perceived threat, and suddenly she looked a full decade older and more hardened.
The young man’s eyes flashed. “Both of you,
calm down,” he said. Turning his eyes upon Blake, he spoke: “Blake… no, it doesn’t sound right. I shall call you by your true name. Do you mind?”
“Yes, I mind,” said Blake flatly. “I hate that name.”
“Do you, really? ‘Blake’ is such a common-sounding name, if you don’t mind me saying so. Hilbert… Hilbert Krieger.
That… that is a powerful name – the name of a warrior,” the young man reasoned.
“Either that, or his mother was just trying too hard,” chuckled the tall, young man in the hat.
“
Enough, Wesson,” Estelle said, her eyes flashing dangerously.
The red-haired young man chuckled. “Forgive me.”
“While we’re on the subject of names,” said Blake, “what’s yours? And who are you guys?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” the young, silver-haired man said, peering at Blake through his spectacles. Almost as if she had been given a signal, Estelle returned to the man’s side. “We are the ones who stand in the way.”
“
We are the ones who stand in the way,” all five of them repeated at the same time. “
The light in the shadows, the watchers at midnight, the shield of chaotic freedom that stands against the sword of ordered tyranny. We are the chosen ones. We are Ekklesia.”
“And as for me…” The silver-haired young man stepped forward, his eyes glinting behind his glasses. “You may call me Father Mordecai Crane.”
END
