Dawning
A Pokemon fic about Dawn, Cyrus, Mars and the relationship between certain points in time.
By On The Surface.
And begin.
Mars touched the glass, fingers leaving small, vanishing compression stains as they traced the corners, lambently. Her boss of two years, one-hundred and seventy-two days, stared from the inside of the glass office. Vibrantly, Mars traces the letters 'TG' in thin air, leaving Cyrus quietly amused yet compelled to invite the Commander in.
"Mars," fleeting interest marked his face for a moment when the woman entered and sat, but it was soon dispelled and he returned to his work, impassively. "What's your report?" he asked, without lifting his head from the papers scattered around his desk.
Mars eyed the papers suspiciously, wondering why Cyrus had so many files on Professor Rowan open on his desk. She also, to herself, grinned when she saw the corner of The Veilstone Messenger hidden behind a single portfolio on Professor Rowan's male assistant, Lucas.
Cyrus frowned at Mars' silence, tapped twice on his desk with his right index finger and then simply said, "Get on with it." He showed no further interest in either her or the silence until she actually spoke.
"Oh," Mars seemed a little taken aback by his apparent disinterest in what she had to say. "The one girl, allied with that Professor Rowan, Dawn I believe her name is, she has been captured. Jupiter found her snooping outside this very building."
The interest appeared once again on Cyrus' face. His intrigue was aroused at the wonderment surrounding why an impractical diminutive girl would be snooping around outside Team Galatic's HQ. He nodded slowly to Mars, as if asking her to continue.
"Oh, err…" Mars fumbled for words, she had not been prepared for Cyrus to be so inactive when it came to something like an intruder. "Perhaps she could be questioned on Rowan's whereabouts."
"Good," Cyrus nodded to Mars, allowing the Commander an inward sigh of relief. He stood, looming over her with authority. He picked up the papers he had been reading and sifted them into a neat pile by thumping them on his desk. After putting down the papers again, he walked calmly out of the room, making no motion for Mars to follow.
The ruby-haired Commander sat on Cyrus' desk, swinging her legs under her. The hand-carved wood counter creaked, and the glass door of Cyrus' office finally shut, after slowly rolling along on its hinges, with a slight grinding screech. Mars departed the office promptly, with a forlorn feeling and gut-wrenching impression of the room.
--
The girl standing in front of him was not the girl he had grown up next to, her attitude remained the same, but she was amazing taller than he would have predicted her to be, and she wore a strangely serious look on her face. Although, he had not been to Sunyshore in over seven years, when he was sixteen and Dawn would have been about five. It was unmistakably her, however. She remained as slender as she always had been as a young child, and she spoke with the same shy, small voice as she always had.
He remembered her so vividly, despite only knowing her for but a year before he departed from Sunyshore, leaving the memories he did not want behind. She was, surprisingly, one he had just forgotten about instead of merely erasing her from his mind completely.
Did she remember him, as well? "Hello," he tested the waters, seeing what she said.
"Oh, hello," she said, "you speak to you as if you know me. But I certainly don't know you, Cyrus, for you haven't been seen for over seven years."
"I see you have not lost the wit you were always said to have."
The girl lowered her eyes with a sad smile. "Cyrus," she started, "the Professor is so close to finally reaching a major point in his discovery on how Pokemon evolve. Why have you chosen now to reappear, and with these goons as well?"
"Because Team Galactic is on its own verge of discovery! Soon this world will be lacking strife, because I will rule!" Cyrus would not stand for the girl's pleading against him. "This world could be a much better place!"
"For everyone or for you?" Dawn said softly, causing Cyrus to come out of his soon-to-form mini-rant.
"For everyone," the Galactic boss said firmly, "I believe that under my rule no one would be fighting each other!"
"Because they would be too busy fighting you?"
Cyrus angrily raised his hands in the air, "You don't understand! Pathetic! Under my rule, the world would be perfect! So just get out, and leave me and the rest of Team Galactic to our work! And that goes double for the Professor or that stupid boy, Lucas!"
Dawn silently stood, staring for only a moment at Cyrus with a saddened look. She then departed as nonchalantly as she had answered his hello, leaving a bitter taste in Cyrus' mouth.
--
Saturn awaited Mars in the General Meeting Room of the HQ. As the female Commander walked in, her male counterpart took a seat in one of the cushioned chairs used for assemblies. "Ah, the Meeting Room," Saturn said sarcastically.
"In which the fruit turns sour," Mars ended, smirking.
"And as such within, fifty percent of all people are evil."
"Aww," Mars cooed, "don't be so hard on yourself, you little wannabe."
"Ouch," Saturn winced. Due to a lack of care concerning what he had actually been doing in the Meeting Room, Mars departed, leaving Saturn to his own devices.
Bored, she walked the inside parameter of the building, climbing up stairs all the way to the fourth floor, where she came upon a sight she did not expect to see.
Jupiter, righteously drunk, was stumbling around and muttering slurred swears against poker, grunts, and her genetic intolerance. "Marsy?" the purple-haired Commander questioned as she was saved from falling down by the other female Commander. "I think I'm a bit," she hiccupped, "drunk."
Jupiter blushed, obviously embarrassed to be seen in such a way. "Don't tell Cyrus, mmk…?"
Mars sighed and heaved the other Commander to her feet, then helped her down to the second floor and into her bed.
Mars, deep inside, had the same gut-wrenching feeling she got from Cyrus' room, and wondered just where he was, and what he could be doing.
--
He approached her, along the beach outside Sandgem Town, with a coat over his figure to hide who he was, despite the obvious blue hair and the warmth of the sea breeze. "I forgot how the world looks from the beach."
"You have forgotten many things, it seems."
He raised an eyebrow, "I have not forgotten you."
"Sometimes I wish you had."
"Forgotten you? But, oh, how could I, you always were annoyingly persistent."
Tears formed in her eyes, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, "Why, Cyrus?" she questioned. There was a pause and the air grew still. "You are not the person who I knew back in Sunyshore. You are different."
"I am the same man."
"You are not! You are cruel and corrupt and ineptly blind to the world of reality!"
"Dawn," Cyrus started bluntly, "There is something precious inside of all of us. You have found yours. I have not, nor do I plan on doing such a meaningless thing," he turned his back, "but I know you, Dawn. Who you really can be. Your precious thing inside of you is as dead as mine."
He turned his head to her once more and gave her a smirk, then left, quietly and securely. "Goodbye, Dawn."
Dawn was glad that Cyrus had turned his back and began to walk away, and was therefore currently unable to see her crying.
Because deep down she knew just how right he could be.
She walked slowly back to the Lab, considering how she should go about explaining her tears to the Professor and Lucas.
--
"This just in; the leader of Team Galactic, a man with blue hair and going by the name of Cyrus, apparently a denizen of Sunyshore City, has made a public announcement from Team Galactic's Headquarters in Veilstone City. Here it is."
The program cut to Veilstone, where Cyrus was on a podium. "There have been rumors going around about Team Galactic. They say that we are a business focused only on destroying the world and taking it as our own. I would like to crush these rumors right now," he paused, "but I can't, because the people behind these rumors will continue to spread them around. The world is a safe place, do not fret! Cosmic energy for the win!"
"He really is the scathing, soulless person everyone makes him out to be," Lucas said with a sad look in his eyes as he examined the data in his Pokedex. The trio of researchers were currently toying with a new function Professor Oak had mailed to them – a National Dex, with all 493 Pokemon ever recorded located within. "I really didn't think anyone could be so inhuman."
"There is a worth in all of us!" Dawn burst out, not being able to comprehend how both Lucas and Professor Rowan, two people who had devoted their lives to understanding Pokemon, just like her, could have such a conversation. "Have you submerged yourselves in all your efforts to understand Pokemon and why they do things and have forgotten how to understand humans and their motives as well?"
"But Dawn, why give someone such as he a chance? He mistreats his Pokemon and plots to take over our world and ruin all of our efforts to bond with Pokemon," Rowan seemed deeply concerned over the young girl's brashness.
"I'm sorry for snapping, Professor. I didn't mean it, really," the girl sighed, "I'll head on over to Lake Verity to research Mesprit some more." And with that the girl turned and walked out the door and taking her travel bag with her.
--
"The evening sky is so interestingly colored, Professor Rowan," Lucas sighed, after Dawn had left the lab. He was looking out of the window, towards the sky.
"But not as interesting as the dawn of a new day," the Professor countered.
Lucas sighed and lowered his eyes to the retreating figure of a girl in the distance.
"Or just Dawn in particular…"
Fin.