"This is taking far too long."
It was half an hour after that statement was stated. Finally, Dusk and Dawn had reached their home. Not a single noun or verb was spoken the entire trip back; not even the Pokémon made a peep. Adversely, multiple words were constantly running through Dusk's head, leaving him scared to think about how many were running through Dawn's. He wasn't sure why, but Dawn had backed away from him ever since they had left Rowan's lab. She independently walked next to him, head lowered, crying without control.
It was dark out by this time. Dusk didn't feel like lifting his wrist up to see the exact time, but it had to be late. Nothing but stars, street lamps, and the moon illuminated anything.
Breathing in deeply to calm himself, he lifted his knuckle up and knocked on his familiar door. Knowing his mother would soon answer, he quickly leaned over to give Dawn one last peck for now. She nodded; whether that was an agreement to be courageous or simply her head shaking from crying so much, he didn't know for sure.
The door suddenly swung open. "I have enough shampoo, tha-" The woman at the door paused for a minute. "...Umbreon? Dawn? What are you doing-Is everything okay?"
Umbreon's eyes shifted into a different direction. "Not...exactly. Mind if we stay here for the night?"
"Of course you can." Johanne stepped backwards, leaving the two room to enter the house. "What really is the matter? What happ-"
Dawn suddenly felt as though she lost control of her own will. With no warning to anyone, she turned around and bolted the way they had come from. Seconds later, she was off the property and dashing down the paved road.
The mother blinked out of surprise. "...end."
"Ugh..." Dusk growled under his breath. Mimicking his partner's decision to spontaneously leave without an explanation, he turned around and chased after her.
There were two others in the group who weren't as enthusiastic.
"...Pikachu, Pika?" he yawned.
"Chic..."
Seemingly quite bored, the two Pokémon limped into Dusk's home for the first time, following a winded Johanne into the living room.
-OAM-
No slower than his legs would let him, Dusk chased after the remaining Sinnoh Team Missile member. Acquiring victory over her in Coronet must have been a fluke, because Dawn was back to her speedy self. Even though he didn't have a chance of catching up to her, he confirmed that she never fell out of his visual range. He had called her by name three times, only to be ignored every one of them. It was pointless to him to continue wasting energy on shouting after her, which left the wind rushing past his ears to be the only sound he could hear.
It took twenty minutes of constant jogging until Dawn slowed down. Dusk wanted to celebrate getting the opportunity to stop running, but knew there was something more important to deal with. "...Why are we back in Sandgem?"
Dawn had backtracked to the very town they were just in. Looking to his left, he noticed the laboratory that they had just been inside of. However, the girl he was tracking was silently walking in the opposite direction of that. A panting Dusk followed her.
Suddenly, she stopped. Dusk sprinted the rest of the way to see what she was doing.
When he arrived, he noticed she was standing in front of a very large tree that he hadn't paid attention to before. Her hand was gently placed on its trunk. "...Dawn?"
She instantly jumped. Upon seeing who it was after she turned around, Dawn gave a huge breath of relief. "Oh, I...didn't know you followed me."
"Uh, selective hearing much?"As angry as he was at that, Dusk didn't let his thoughts physically show. The boy got closer to Dawn, who had already turned back to the tree. "You know, if you wanted to stay in Sandgem for a minute longer, you could have told me that back when we were still here..."
"I'm...sorry, Umbreon." Dawn's head turned to the entirely-shadowed branches above. "I just...don't understand anything anymore. I mean, honestly...Who am I? What if Rowan didn't even tell us everything? What's next? I am a girl, aren't I?"
Dusk couldn't help a smirk. "Have you checked lately?"
Dawn's head sunk. She lightly pounded on the bark of the tree with her numb hand. "I just...don't get it. Why was I lied to my entire life? Getting told that Rowan was my father would have been a lot easier to accept ten years ago than it is right now. Getting told that Ashley was a half-sister would have been nice to know before her death. When did Mama plan on telling me all this? I mean...did she?"
Dusk took advantage of Dawn's vulnerability and squeezed her tightly around her waist from the back. He set his head gently across her shoulder blade. "I don't know."
The Sinnohian smirked a little. She began rubbing her hand on a couple of Dusk's fingers. "Me neither...That's what you're supposed to be here for."
He fidgeted around a bit before responding. "...I can't lie to you. I have no idea what I'm supposed to say. Honestly, the only thing I care about is that you're the same girl you always have been. Dawn, I hate to put it to you like this, but Rowan's always been your father. Ashley's always been a half-sister. Just...now you know it."
"I know that, Umbreon!" she choked out. "But...why? That's all I want to know! Why was everything kept from me?"
Dusk kissed her softly on her neck. "I don't know..."
"You say that I'm the same girl I always have been, but you know something, Umbreon? Right now...I don't feel that way. I don't feel like I'm me. In one night, I'm barely related to my sister. Berlitz and I have had a lot of good times together...but our bond isn't what it should be. The father that I've wished so long to meet has been bossing me around for two weeks, and I never knew it."
This time, he didn't dare to say anything. Still, another kiss was planted softly in the same spot as the last one.
"Umbreon..." Dawn shuffled her feet on the grass a little. Slowly, she turned her head upwards, once more, observing the black leaves. "What do you think it'd be like..." She paused for a moment. There was no way around the oddity of her next words, but it was too late to not say them. "...to meet your father?"
His body instantly stopped any function besides breathing. He contemplated the answer carefully, knowing that it was a dangerous question. "...It's too hard to say. It would all depend on who he was." Silence ruled the air. Dusk found that ideal enough to test his observational abilities. "Let me ask you a question. Are you mad at me?"
"A little," she instantly replied. "This hasn't exactly been your greatest inspirational speech for me. I'm really, really confused right now, and by the way you dodged that question, it's beginning to get harder to convince myself that you actually care." She closed her eyes when a wind blew through, swaying her hair off in one direction. "Don't take that personally. I'm mad at everything right now."
He couldn't come up with a response that he felt safe giving. He decided not saying anything at all was a better alternative.
She turned around. This broke his arms off of her, so he backed away a few steps to retain comfortable talking distance. "I want to live my life, Umbreon. But...why do I have to do that in curiosity? Why will I always have to wonder why Mama, Rowan, and who knows, maybe even Ashley kept everything from me? Nobody in this entire world knows any of those things anymore. I take that back. Rowan does, but he'll never tell me. Umbreon, right now, that's...all I want. It'll take awhile, but I will eventually come to terms that Rowan's my father. But even when that happens, it won't help answering...why. Why my life is a bunch of question marks. And why I never knew that my life was a bunch of question marks until tonight."
"...Why do people die?" Dusk folded his arms. "Why do humans, who, though different, are all the same, hurt each other? Why is the sky blue? Dawn, there's a lot of questions out there that nobody will ever be able to answer, and having one or two personal ones isn't something to be so surprised at. Even if I do meet my father. Why did it take so long? Why wasn't he here for the rest of my life?"
Dawn gave him her back once more and folded her arms. Her head bowed slightly, though not much.
Dusk paused for a minute. "Is that a good sign, or bad?"
"Good, if you keep going," she mumbled out in reply.
"We can't expect to know everything," he went on, following her advice. "Forgive me for throwing salt in the wound, but that's sort of obvious. We'll always have questions that will go unanswered. Maybe you won't know why you were lied to your entire life. But, when you get down to it, there's much weirder things out there. Like how Brendan and May possibly ended up together. Or...Why your hair is blue."
As incomplete as she felt right now, Dawn couldn't stop herself from chuckling.
"Dawn, I...understand if you're feeling confused. You're handling this better than I would if our shoes were reversed, I can tell you that much. Still, with that said, this is just another one of those things in life. I don't mean to blow it off as nothing, but you will recover from this. And I don't need to tell you that I'm going to help you. Right now, c'mon...let's just get home for awhile. We could both use some sleep on a comfortable bed for once, and a few days of rest won't hurt anything, either."
The nanosecond he put a hand on Dawn's shoulder, she spoke up. "Umbreon? This tree...was everything to me. Do you remember how I kept asking if I could sleep outside?"
"I couldn't forget if I wanted to."
She turned around to give him a weak smile. "It's because it wouldn't be the first time. My sister, Berlitz, and I slept in a tent, under this very tree, all the time. And I mean that...literally. Every day but maybe ten days a year, we would sleep out here. It didn't matter how cold it was."
"Why's that?" he wondered somewhat genuinely, though he couldn't deny that another reason was to simply keep the subject moving.
"...I don't know. We just loved it. Everything was so perfect out here. Falling asleep to the Hoothoot, and rising to the Starly was just...motivating, you know?" She turned her head over her shoulder to glance at the tree. Her smile widened, but stayed dangerously disheartened. "But everything changes, doesn't it." That didn't sound like much of a question. As she went on, she talked less to Umbreon and more to herself. "Back then, I used to live for my family...Now I have friends instead..." Her head dropped, even though she still kept it over her shoulder for some reason. A moment later, she finally turned her head back to Dusk. "Anyway…Let's just get home. Maybe all I need right now is something to take my mind off this."
Dusk nodded. He cordially placed an arm around Dawn's neck and began leading her back to the same path they always used to enter and exit the town. Soon before getting back on Route 201, Dawn turned her head over her shoulder and smiled at the tree that now belonged to someone else. She didn't really care about a detail like that. Finally, she turned her head back to the path for a second, before finally laying it on Dusk's shoulder. She silently listened as Dusk continued rambling on with his guesses about why Dawn's hair was blue. Though none were correct, she found some theories worth giggling at.
-OAM-
Once again, it took another half hour to reach Dusk's home. This time, however, the trip seemed to go much faster, with all thanks due to Dawn not crying. Having a feeling it was unlocked, Dusk grabbed the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed in. The door creaked open to reveal a barely-lit house. "Watch your step."
Having been here only once before, Dawn was thankful for the warning. She watched the ground to make sure she climbed the single stair to enter into the home successfully. Now inside, she was instantly washed over with an atmosphere that she loved. No doubt she felt much more welcome than last time she was here, given the changes her and Dusk have had between then and now. Still, the fact that they could hardly see anything was slightly off-putting. Dawn quite literally followed behind Dusk blindly as he made his way into the living room.
There wasn't a light on in the entire room, spare the TV. Looking onward at the screen was a perplexed Johanne. A certain Pikachu, Torchic, and Skitty were on the couch next to her, all fast asleep.
After a quick moment, however, the adult managed to turn away from the TV set. "Oh, hello...again. Is everything all right?"
"Yeah. For now. If you don't mind being spared the story for a night, where do we stash Dawn? We're both pretty tired, so..."
Almost without detection, Johanne nodded her head. "Her room is upstairs, first door on your right. Good night."
"Night." Dusk began taking off.
Dawn, however, bowed low until she was at a ninety degree angle. "Once more, ma'am, thank you for going through all of this trouble for me."
Johanne forced a smile. "Don't think about it. Now go get some sleep, dear."
Dawn silently complied. Reaching over the back of the couch as she passed by it, she picked Ionu and Wizard up into her arms. With them in tow, she dashed for the same staircase she had just seen Umbreon rush to.
Johanne frowned. "...Were those two just holding hands?"
Unfortunately for her, the Pokémon-toting girl had lost sight of her friend. Hoping he wouldn't mind much, she figured that Wizard could just sleep with her tonight. After quite a struggle to get the door open while both arms remained occupied, she finally got inside. She brought her well-toned leg up and literally kicked the light switch on.
Then her mouth dropped.
Pink curtains. Pink carpet. Pink paint. Pink bed sheets. Everything that could realistically be pink was. In the middle of her ceiling was a fan that was readily equipped with a lighting fixture. Two windows were on either wall of the corner that her queen-sized bed was shoved up against. Pushed against the wall to her right was a dresser, and on the opposite side of that, a full-length mirror.
"I'm really not this girly...am I?"
Whether it was because he sensed his unusual surroundings or not, Wizard slowly opened his eyes. He blinked them twice, then rapidly looked around.
Dawn chuckled a bit. "Don't ask me, Wizard."
She finally began setting foot into the overly-feminine room. When she reached her bed, she kicked off her pink boots, which instantly blended in with the rest of the room. After letting out an audible groan of pleasure just because of that, she twirled on her heels and collapsed backwards to her bed. She instantly deemed the mattress an immeasurable number of times better than any she slept on at the Pokémon Centers.
After a moment of resting, Dawn set Ionu near the pillows, which were at the head of the bed. With her other arm free, she got a better hold of Wizard and lifted him up into the air. She giggled when she found him cringing. "Given your last Trainer, you probably aren't into pink very much, are you?"
"Pika..." he muttered, his tongue falling out a bit as he said it.
"Hey, Wizard...do you think I could talk to you for a minute?"
-OAM-
One room over, Dusk was already feeling more than welcomed home.
"In the nightlight, do you see what you dream? All your troubles, are they all what they seem?" Increasing the volume on his headphones, Dusk continued prancing around his room in socks, whispering the lyrics to himself, all the while trying to recover the damage that his mother had done to his room while he was gone.
His room was painted a light shade of blue. Multiple posters of just about everything were scattered all along his walls, hiding most of that paint. Besides that, surrounding most of his room was nearly everything imaginable. A stand with a small TV on it, with his game console fittingly next to it. A bed, a dresser, a portable cooler, a stereo, and other miscellaneous things were scattered all over the place in a seemingly unsalvageable manner. Dusk naturally felt that he knew where everything was, leaving him slightly aggravated that his mother insisted on cleaning his room.
"'Cause every night, I will save your life! And every night, I will-'" The whispered words came to an abrupt end when he looked in his second dresser drawer. Slowly, he pulled a red string out. After it was finally free from the entanglement of all the other junk he had stored in there, a small plastic heart was found at the end of it. On the heart were the words "Best Friend." However, the heart could be broken in half; for this reason, there was actually two strings tied to it, one on each side. It was used to signify friendship by giving one half to anybody that deserved it. "I...forgot about this..."
-OAM-
Dawn repositioned herself. Her head was now laying comfortably on the pillow, on its side. Ionu was at her back, still out cold, while she had set Wizard in front of her. He was staring back at her with a small smile on his face; this inwardly made Dawn melt, being exposed to so much cuteness. She shook that off and got to the point. "Wizard, I was hoping I could confide in you...okay?"
He simply blinked as a response. Understanding the subject was serious, he decided to drop the smile.
She began stroking the Pokémon that was half hers on its side. "There's just some things that I...don't feel like I can tell your Trainer, you know? But I know that I can trust you. You won't tell Umbreon, will you?"
"Chu."
Dawn sighed. "I guess...The truth is, I sorta snapped at your Trainer tonight. The reason I did it is because I'm...scared."
"Pika."
"Well...You saw what happened at Rowan's. And now I'm honestly scared. It's not...I..." Dawn finally stopped talking until she could formulate a sentence. "I just want to know who I am. With an announcement like Ashley being a half-sister, I just feel...alone, you know? I could always keep Ashley and Mama close to my heart, but now...why? Why should I, after they lied to me?"
"Chaa, pika pika pi."
It was here that Dawn began wondering why she had picked Wizard for this exercise. He could listen, but Dawn didn't have a clue what he was saying. "It's not that I don't want to remember them for my life. But...I suppose you don't know why they kept everything from me, huh?"
He closed his eyes and nodded. "Pika. Pika pi."
Her blood began pumping faster. She had no idea what the mouse had said, of course, but the fact that he nodded was enough to make her curious. "Should I...just forget about this?"
"Pika."
Dawn rolled onto her back. As she looked at the plain white ceiling above, she frowned. "...But how? It's easier to say that I'll forget that they lied to me for fourteen years than it is to do it."
"Chu, ka Pika pi," he chuckled to himself.
Dawn turned her head to him. "Was that a crack about amnesia?"
Wizard waved her off, rolling to his other side so Dawn would get his back. It hid the smirk on his face. He closed his eyes and snuggled into the mattress a bit. "Pikachu. Pika pi, ka Pikachu."
The confused girl sighed. "That was probably something about talking to Umbreon," she assumed. She decided to discontinue the conversation, which turned out as a good thing. Wizard fell asleep shortly after. Still watching the ceiling carefully, Dawn's mind was racing the entire night, until she finally lost consciousness as well.
-OAM-
Morning rose. Assumed by the fact that her room remained completely dark, Dawn just wasn't entirely aware of just how early in the morning it was yet.
She instantly sat up in her bed as a loud boom simultaneously crashed outside. It had been an unkept secret from her friends that she was a somewhat light sleeper. It had sometimes backfired on her, this particular time being a prime example.
She continued listening in silence, forcing herself to keep her breathing under control. Finally, she deduced where it was coming from. The rain constantly beating all around her room was a decent indication of it. Soon after, another rumble attacked, followed shortly by a beam of pure lightning.
Dawn gulped. Quietly, yet swiftly getting out of the bed, she soundlessly raced over to the door and opened it just enough to squeeze by. Despite being sensitive to the most subtle of sounds, Wizard stayed unconscious as she made her escape.
After shutting the door behind her, she opened the next one she came across.
"Umbreon? You're...awake?"
The young Trainer was laying on his bed. Though the screen was turned away from her, Dawn saw that he was enraptured by something on his laptop. "Yeah..." He clicked the mouse a few times. "I was reading this horrible fan fiction about a girl with, like, seventeen phobias, but then I found this article about asexuality. Who knew that cartoon characters...Well, anyway, what are you doing up?"
The girl cringed as another, even louder crash of thunder shook the house. "Umb...Umbreon? Can I...sleep with you tonight?" she asked, knowingly innocently.
His eyes shifted from the laptop's screen to Dawn. "You're still worked up over what happened earlier?"
She sniffled once, then shook her head. "No, I just...don't really like storms very much..."
Dusk grinned and turned back to the computer. "Says the person who won a Pikachu. Sure, if you want to." His eyes jumped all around the screen as he began crossing out all of his windows. After finally hitting the power-down button, he reached over and set the laptop on the dresser. He rolled to the opposite edge of the bed to give Dawn plenty of room. "Hit the light," he added with a yawn.
Slightly intimidated by touching too many things in a room that wasn't hers, she lifted her arm up and turned off the lights in the room. After shutting the door, she nervously sat on the bed. "Umbreon..." She laid down on her side, keeping her back to Dusk. "Thank you."
"...You can come a little closer, if you want to."
Being on the very edge of the bed disturbed Dawn. That didn't mean she had any plans of letting him know that. "No, it's fine."
Dusk began rubbing Dawn's side. She remembered doing nearly the same thing to Wizard just hours ago. "You never told me you were afraid of thunderstorms..."
Dawn laughed. "At least I don't have seventeen phobias."
Feeling much comfort from being with her boyfriend, Dawn managed to go back to sleep with relative ease. It wasn't long after she went out that Dusk followed her to dream land too.
-OAM-
The next time Dawn woke up, she was a bit more pleased with the result. The overcast was still there, and the rain was still heavy, but the storm itself seemed to have passed. She sat up and looked around the room for a clock. According to a digital clock on a shelf above Umbreon's bed, the time seemed to be 6:30. Satisfied with enough sleep, she got out of the bed, leaving the drooling Dusk to his slumber.
She made it down the steps and blindly into the kitchen. Johanne was at the table in the most stereotypical position that Dawn could have expected: drinking coffee, reading the paper. "Good morning, Dawn," she finally said. "Would you like anything?"
"A glass of orange juice would be great, thank you."
As Johanne got up to get the necessary supplies, Dawn walked further into the room and took a seat on the chair negative of that which the parent was sitting in. After thanking the woman once more, Dawn instantly removed a fourth of the drink from the cup that was given to her.
Johanne sat back down and picked the paper back up. "I didn't figure you were an early riser."
Dawn forced out a nervous laugh. "Well, it depends, I guess..."
"So..." She lifted the paper up to block her view from Dawn. She flipped a page in it. "You and Umbreon have become pretty good friends."
A suspicion alarm was raised inside of Dawn. "...Yeah. Your son is an awesome friend, Mrs..."
"Corsica," she replied, still without being bothered to move the paper away so Dawn could see her expression.
"Umbreon...Corsica? Honestly?"Dawn blinked it off.
Johanne flipped another page. Dawn couldn't help but wonder if she had actually managed to read through all of the last one. "...Have you two kissed yet?"
The alarm was raised three levels. In reaction, the Sinnoh Trainer's face contorted into perceivable anger. "What? Well...Yeah, we have. May I ask why you wonder that?"
"I see." There was a pause. And another page flip. "I'm just surprised. Umbreon's been a loner his entire life. Of course I was expecting him to make friends on his journey, but I didn't know he'd move that fast."
That seemed to be a reasonable response as far as Dawn was concerned. She dropped the unsubtle hints of anger before speaking again. "Well, in all honesty, it didn't show. He made a lot of fast friends over the past week."
Johanne nodded her head and moved the paper ever-so slightly so Dawn could see the movement. "That's good. I'm glad he's meeting so many people."
"Like Roark, and Giovanni, and-"
"Dawn, I was just...wondering something, though. Have you...ever been in a relationship before?" Johanne allowed the paper to fall down a bit. Dawn could instantly see that her look of confusion was doing a horrible job masking a look of anger.
The bluenette took a simple sip of her drink before responding. "I guess I can't say that I have." Dawn looked back at the glass and cursed. Johanne had given her a large drink, which wasn't ideal when all the girl wanted to do right now was leave. "I say this with absolutely no disrespect intended, ma'am, but...Isn't this getting a little personal?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Dawn," Johanne quickly covered her face up with the paper again. Dawn was beginning to get sick of that happening. "I didn't mean to hurt you. We can talk about something else."
The next subject was interesting. For at least forty-five seconds, they talked about absolutely nothing. Finally, once more, the forty-something-year-old broke the silence.
"So...I saw you in Umbreon's room earlier this morning."
Dawn rolled her eyes. "So much for talking about something else," she thought. "Yes, Mrs. Corsica, but trust me, we were not doing anything. I hate thunderstorms, so I just asked if Umbreon would help me get back to sleep. We've been helping each other out since the day we started off together, and last night was no different."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Dawn!" the older woman repeated, though her tone made it sound like it had an utterly different meaning. "I didn't mean to accuse you or anything. I was just afraid you didn't like your new room, that's all."
"Don't worry, ma'am, I love the room!" Dawn exclaimed, lowering her guard a bit. "Honestly, though, you didn't have to go through so much trouble for me."
Johanne lowered the paper once more and smirked at Dawn. "Oh, you stop that." Conveniently, the paper rose once again. "Umbreon's girlfriend deserves only the finest, after all."
Though maybe it only happened in her head, Dawn could have sworn her blood boiled. "Ma'am, and again, I say this with all due respect, is there a problem with me and Umbreon being together?"
"Hm? Of course there isn't! It's wonderful that Umbreon's wanting to try a relationship."
Silence.
"...Just remember not to break his heart."
Dawn's anger turned into confusion.
For the first time in at least three minutes, Johanne flipped to the next page. Dawn grinned when she realized there was only one more page to go on the paper. Then the woman couldn't hide behind anything anymore. "Like I said, he hasn't been in a relationship before, and it'd be horrible for him if something happened between you two so early on. He takes loss very hard."
Dawn genuinely smiled a bit. "...I assure you, ma'am, I have no plans of leaving Umbreon anytime soon."
Something was mumbled under Johanne's breath. Dawn couldn't hear it, but was determined to find out what it was. "I'm sorry, did you say something, ma'am?"
"Oh, no, of course not. I just wanted to mention that Umbreon generally doesn't like anything that isn't useful anymore. He's always throwing things away."
Dawn closed her eyes and decided to forget about it. Why such a random detail was needed to be brought up, she honestly didn't know, or care, either. She took another drink of orange juice. "Well, that's good."
"Hm?" Johanne shot back almost before Dawn finished her sentence.
"...Huh? Oh, well, I guess, philosophically, that means that Umbreon's open to change. Which is almost ironic, if he takes loss as hard as you say."
"Mm-hm...Umbreon generally isn't that philosophical, though."
Dawn chuckled, hoping to keep the topic light-hearted. "I noticed. That's why I usually keep those thoughts to myself."
"Oh? You're afraid to be yourself around my son?"
"What is this?"she shouted at herself. "Of course I'm not, Mrs. Corsica. I just don't want to bore him with things that I like and he doesn't, so we just talk about things that we have in common instead."
"I see your arm is a little stiff, there..."
Dawn blinked. That came from nowhere. "Uh...Yeah. I had a pretty severe accident on Mount Coronet, and ended up with a numb arm."
"Accident-prone?"
"Um..." Once again, Dawn laughed to herself. "Well, a bit, I guess."
"...My son hates seeing people hurt."
Dawn frowned. And possibly growled a bit, too. "I understand that, ma'am. Still, he's been with me through every single accident, and that's one of the reasons I love him."
"Love?"
Dawn hurriedly finished the last of her drink. "You know something, ma'am? Thank you for the drink and conversation, but I think I'm going to explore around Twinleaf for awhile. I'll try to be back by lunch, okay?"
"Have a good time, dear. And don't hurt yourself!"
The girl pushed her chair back, gently set the empty glass in the sink, then left for her room to go equip her boots and handbag.
Johanne scoffed. "Love. Umbreon wouldn't know what love is if it hit him in the head with a lead pipe." She took a sip of her coffee. "And I certainly don't need him hanging out with some girl that's more trouble than she worth." Flipping over the last page to see there was nothing of interest on it, Johanne decided to get up and start her morning chores.
-OAM-
Dawn didn't waste any time. Without even waking Ionu or Wizard up, she got her stuff and bolted out of the house, avoiding Johanne like the plague. Once outside, and a few steps away from the home, she sighed. "Well, there's one good thing about her. If Umbreon and I get married, she'd be the perfect mother-in-law." After an apparently necessary eye-roll, Dawn picked a random direction and started walking toward it.
Her first stop was pleasant enough. Since she actually hadn't gotten anything to eat back there, she made a stop at a breakfast house to get some food in her. With that out of the way, she decided to make her way to the mall to kill some time.
She wouldn't have needed to, if it wasn't for Johanne. As much as she wanted to hang around with Dusk, the two women needed a break from each other. The mall was a convenient means of that. By the time she walked herself to the oversized building, her Pokétch told her it was 08:50.
It wasn't long after she got inside that a set of black clothes that caught her eye. Looking through the window, she could see that they were basic jean shorts, along with a sleeveless top. It wasn't amazing to her, but still cute enough to deserve an inspection.
She happily raced around the corner to reach the store's entrance. Before she entered, she took notice of the shop's name. "Valiant Shed, huh?"
The atmosphere was nothing that she wasn't used to. Soft music played from ceiling-mounted speakers. The floor was entirely polished wood, though the majority was covered up with racks of clothes. Much like the wearable material itself, gender-specific changing rooms were on opposite sides of the store from each other.
It was apparently too early for many costumers; she saw only two other girls, and both were employees based on their name tags. She didn't pay mind to that and walked over to the reason she came in here originally.
She grabbed both, the short jeans and matching top, and wasted no time making her way into the changing room.
It took some time to transfer between clothes in the confined space that she had, but she was nearly finished with it. As she was working her numb hand through its corresponding hole in the shirt, loud and swift footsteps could be heard barreling into the Valiant Shed. She was about to shrug it off when she heard a man's burly voice somewhere near the front counter.
"Give me the money! Now!"
Dawn's mind froze. As the five words that weren't even spoken to her rattled through her head time and time again, she realized that if she stayed quiet, the guy would never know she was there.
However, then she looked at her handbag.
"That's it. Put it in the bag. All of it. I better be countin' pennies when I get home! Heh heh heh..."
Being so enamored by the paper that the two employees were fearfully shoving into a green bag, the thief failed to see a lion covered in blue fur dart out from one of the female's changing rooms. With one highly territorial cry of "Luxio!" the beast leapt for the man and tackled him on his side.
He was shoved straight to the ground. The landing was painful, but so were the claws that dug into him afterwards.
Dawn, fully decked out in the dark-colored clothes, shoved the curtain blocking her sight to the side. Sunnite took a quick glance back to ensure that her Trainer was nearby, but quickly returned her focus to the criminal that she was still standing on top of.
"Who invited you?" the thief shouted, physically shoving Sunnite off of him.
Now that he was getting back to his feet, Dawn was able to look the guy up and down. His hair was completely covered by a blue bandana; his shirt was blue and white, striped, and he had casual jeans thrown on his legs. No attempt had been made to cover up his face.
"You're asking me that?" Dawn angrily questioned. "Sunnite, Bite him!"
The Electric-type Pokémon did as she was told and chomped straight down on his pant leg. Her teeth sliced straight through the material and into his leg.
"OW! You little...If you want a battle, you found the perfect guy! Let's rumble-"
"Freeze!" a different female voice boomed.
Both contestants jerked their heads towards the front entrance. There stood a girl only a couple ages older than Dawn. Her torso was untouchable with help from a bullet-proof vest, while Dawn knew that the long pants she wore could possibly be hiding more armor. Below her silver hair that was pulled back into a ponytail was the detail that the heroine found oddest: orange eyes. At the teenager's feet was a purple-colored starfish.
"...And I mean that whichever way you want to take it. Starmie knows Ice Beam, so."
The criminal forgot about Sunnite as he shakily took a step backwards. "Wha-What are you doing here?"
"Don't give me that," she snapped. "You're coming with me."
"Augh..." The thief reluctantly lifted his hands into the air. The only positive outcome of that in his eyes was Sunnite finally dropping her grip.
The young woman walked up, reaching behind her back to grab a pair of handcuffs. She talked as she pulled the man's arms back down one at a time. "The alternative was getting crushed by a couple of girls. I would have been fine either way."
Though he remained silent, Dawn didn't.
"Who...are you?"
"The name's Key," she answered, locking the final handcuff. After that, she pointed toward her own eyes. "And before you ask, they're contacts. I've been told I look more threatening with orange eyes."
Dawn gave a weak smile in reply. She appreciated Key's friendliness, but somehow didn't feel completely comfortable letting her take off with an attempted robber. "I'm Dawn..."
Key nodded. "The pleasure's mine. I can't thank you enough for standing up against this guy. You saved me there."
"I...did?"
"I'd love to explain, but I can't stick around long. Maybe I'll be saving your tail one of these days!" Wasting no time in leading him away from the store, Key winked as she passed by Dawn. "Good meeting you. We'll see each other around."
"Y-yeah," Dawn said. It was about all she could force out before Key left, shoving the thief in front of her.
She stayed watching the door-less entrance, even after the two had disappeared from view. When she sighed, her eyes shifted to Sunnite instead. The lion looked back at her, but only until she felt the need to lick one of her front paws. It got a smile out of Dawn, but that morphed to surprise when somebody else spoke to her. This voice came from one of employees.
"Um...We're not, like...managers...or anything, but, uh...You did just save the store. So if there's, um, anything you want, uh..."
Her sentence trailed off, leaving Dawn confused for a moment. Once it clicked, she completely forgot about Key in favor of the offer. "Oh! Can I have these?" she asked, her face lit up brightly with a smile.
-OAM-
It was a few minutes before noon. Despite her promise to Johanne, Dawn was still in the shopping mall, specifically in the food court. With legs hurting from walking around so much, she limped toward a table with a tray of unhealthy, but devilishly tempting food in hand. Her mind was still dazed by the earlier event, but she was still happy that she walked out of it with a free new outfit. Sitting down, she set the bag that contained her old clothes on her lap, and the tray on the table. She picked up a few French fries and shot them into her mouth.
"Key...She was so odd." Her musings paused while she inhaled a portion of her milkshake. "Why did she take that guy? She was definitely no officer. Was she like Kartock...?"
"You just can't stay out of trouble, can you, Walker?"
Dawn instantly twisted her head to her backside. She was greeted by six eyes. "Umbreon! What are you doing here?"
Wizard and Ionu hopped off of Dusk's shoulders and landed on the table. Not caring much about asking her, they began partaking of the human food. Dusk took a seat on the metal chairs next to Dawn.
"Hard to stay asleep when my mother's blaring the 'breaking news' about how my girlfriend just threw her life in the frying pan for the umpteenth time."
Dawn smiled shyly, stealing some of her own fries before the Pokémon took them all. "It's a thrill..."
"Nice clothes," he complimented, also gladly changing the subject.
Dawn was beyond elated that her boyfriend noticed the new wardrobe. She looked herself over again, beaming. "I love them! They gave them to me for free, you know..."
More conversation between the humans commenced. The Pokémon stayed quieter, though that was because their mouths were usually stuffed full of food. In fact, they ran out of snacks faster than they did conversation. When the Pikachu and Torchic had finished cleaning Dawn's plate for her, the lot of them escaped from the large mall and began their trip back home.