Sorry for the major delay. Exams, family, schedule, all the usual craziness, you know how it goes.
Insults should be well avenged,
or well endured.
- Scottish Proverb
The First Physical Challenge
After a few minutes of hugging, Pikachu began to squirm. He'd been trapped in his pokeball long enough, and wasn't keen on anything else holding him captive. So, with a bit of a grumble, Ash reluctantly let him go to stretch and wander the floor. His master followed suit, jumping up, stretching, and searching the room for some kind of hint of where to go next. But there were no pieces of paper, no surprise teleportation, no hidden words or secret messages that he could find.
He had gotten back Pikachu, though. Even if he didn't know what to do, he had Pikachu, his pikachu, and he would know if it wasn't his pikachu. He was sure he would.
The mouse in question jumped onto the stand where the pokeballs has been held, and Ash petted his head gently, lowering himself down to Pikachu's eye level. "Alright, buddy," he murmured. "Where do we go from here?"
The mouse muttered something that was echoed by his stomach rumbling and a hopeful look up. Ash laughed in return and stretched out his arm, and once Pikachu was on his shoulder he headed out the door.
"I know, buddy. Just because the pokeball keeps you alive doesn't mean it feeds you, right? We'll get you some stuff," he said as he jogged down the stairs and out the front door. The scenery was the same as before, still in Pallet Town, so after some careful speculation he decided, "I don't know where Oak keeps the food, so we'll see if this crazy place stocked up the pantry at home."
"Pika," he argued doubtfully.
Ash shrugged, taking the steps down to the road two at a time. "If there isn't any pokémon food, you can live of people junk. You've done that before. Besides, if I can live off your nasty Pikachu food for a week when I ran out of real food, you can stand a meal or two of string beans and chili."
He set off down the dusty path at a stroll, taking it all a little slower now that he had his faithful companion at his side. He could relax a bit now and take in his surroundings, which seemed real enough. The dirt made little clouds behind him, the wind made each blade of grass wiggle in the same direction. Clouds floated in a bright blue sky, the sun burned like it should, and he could even hear the sounds of life somewhere out in the grass. It was just like the real Pallet Town, except it wasn't. It was almost better, in a way.
He had found Pikachu in this place, not lost him.
That disappearance had been the most discreet of them all. They hadn't noticed it for quite some time. After all, the rat could be allowed some independence. He wasn't always tied to Ash's side. He had scratched at the door and Ash had let him out, telling him to be back for dinner. But time passed and the mouse stayed missing. He was always back in time for meals. Still, weirder things had happened. They assumed Pikachu had gotten caught up in something, and Ash had stayed up all night waiting for him to come back.
By morning, they knew something was wrong. They thought about falling trees, Team Rocket, mistaken trainers eager to try and catch a rare pikachu, but had all their answers handed to them when the star haired man appeared. He was smiling and, creepy as he was, they did their best to be friendly. A few minutes later, once the pleasantries were out of the way, he explained to Ash that he had his pikachu, and that it was only the beginning. One more polite handshake while they gawked in stunned silence, a nice-to-meet-you, and he was gone.
"But you're alright now," Ash promised. "He won't get you again."
"Pikachu!" He pushed the red spot of his cheek into his owner's, sparking gently, then leapt from his shoulder and scrambled down the path as the house came into view.
Ash chased after him, shouting, "Slow down! It's not like you've never been here before!" But even he picked up the speed as he realized the smell of hot pastries and food was getting stronger the closer he came. He grabbed the door handle, not noticing Pikachu had stopped a foot away or so from the door, his fur puffed and a deep growl coming from his throat, and threw it open.
There was his mother, back bent as she toiled over the flaming kitchen stove, the stair haired man's smiling face at the kitchen table.
He ran across the house to her, throwing his body between the two of them, pushing her into the stove so that, in her surprise, she nearly bent too far forward and burned herself in the pot. She managed to stop just quick enough to keep her nose out of the boiling sauce, though Ash paid no mind as he focused on the much more dangerous threat across the room. "Mom! Keep away from him!"
"Isn't this one of your little friends, Ash?" She beamed and turned around to hug him tight. "I'm so happy you're home!"
He broke away from her, taking her wrist to guide her farther away from the table. "Mom, stop!" He pointed back to the man. "This is the guy who's been stealing everyone! He eats people!"
"Well, that's not very nice, now, is it? But I'm so happy you're home!" She threw her hands up in the air delightedly, then brought them together over her heart. "Oh, Ash, aren't you glad to see me and the food I made you? I bet you're hungry, sweetie. You're always hungry, aren't you?"
"Mom, he…he eats people," he said weakly, glancing back at him. "He's the one who-" He glanced back at her "-what's wrong with you?"
The man coughed a clearly fake cough and explained, "She's not really your mom. I made her."
Ash glared, putting himself once more between his mother and him. "What do you mean? I thought you said you weren't a god."
"I'm not," he confirmed, then picked up a glass of orange juice and began to drink.
Ash's mouth opened and closed, his eyebrows knitting tight together while he tried to work it out. His only theory was that, perhaps, his mother was a hologram or a robot, but she didn't feel like either. So, after a good couple minutes of thinking (during which the man finally finished his juice and began to play with the glass), he looked back and argued, "But you said you made her. Only gods make living stuff."
"Plenty of civilizations can make life. You ran into a man who did. Remember? Porygon? It could come into the real world."
"Yeah, I guess, but…but not…" He swallowed. "…not people."
He hummed happily, tilting the glass and giving it a spin, so that it rolled around on an edge until he snatched it up again. "Secret labs and underground warehouses. You'd be amazed at the things you can make from scratch. All it takes is sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what big girls are made of. I mixed them up and got your lovely mother, the perfect mother, actually."
He relaxed a bit. "But not my real mother."
"No. Your real mother is in Pallet, but that doesn't mean this one isn't real. She's programmed to love you and feed you. She's not too bright, but don't worry. Her food is fantastic. You should have had her roast beef earlier." He kissed the fingers he pinched to his lips, then opened the hand in a flash. "It was fantastic. I've eaten things all across the universe and that was one of the best."
"Why'd you make her?" he demanded.
He raised an eyebrow. "If you don't want her, if a nice person to cook for you and love you isn't a nice surprise, I can take her back. You can figure out how to feed yourself."
His mouth opened and shut once more, before he strode over to the counter where rows of food sat, and picked out a thick sandwich and a red velvet cupcake. He slammed the plates on the table, and picked up one of the triangle pieces of the sandwich, biting into it hard. It crunched for a dramatic effect, as it was stacked with potato chips and pickles between the ham and mayonnaise and mustard.
The man eyed the sandwich and stated, "I like squares."
"Shut up," he said, pieces of food splattering on the table. "Why are you here?"
He rolled the empty glass back and forth. "Well, I thought you would come here before you rescued your first friend. Then I'd be able to give you a nice introduction to what you'd be facing. I guess you did fine enough without it." His laughed and shook his head. "Ah, right. That reminds me – congratulations on passing the easiest level in the same time it would take a retarded slowpoke."
"Thanks for the compliment." He walked across the kitchen and ripped open the fridge door, grabbing a liter bottle of orange soda. "Why'd you think I'd come here first?"
"You should have smelled the food. I thought you were driven more by hunger than you actually are." He shrugged. "Oops."
He smirked to himself, twisting open the bottle to drink. "So you can be wrong."
"Yes, I'm not omniscient," he agreed. "But, what I was going to tell was that there are checkpoints. I'll be standing at them, and if you reach one, you'll know you've gone too far. I'll let you pass me, but you can't come back. That means you skip the challenge."
He twisted the cap back on the soda slowly, continuing back to the table. "And my friend dies."
"Oh, gee, have I become predictable?" he sighed, propping his head up on his hands.
"So, should I stock up on food? I don't want to live off berries."
"This area can be an exception. You can come back to it any time and get a good meal." He slid his elbows out so his head dropped to the table, resting on his hands. His eyes rolled up to look at Ash as he sat down at the table, setting the soda down a bit away from him. Just as he had picked up another triangle of his sandwich, the man continued, "Keep in mind that this world is an exact replica, minus the people and plenty of pokémon."
He blinked. "What?"
He lifted a hand to twirl a finger in the fair. "This whole world is built to scale. It'll take days to get back here."
"Great, I get to run around a giant world solving riddles and killing monsters. It's all my wildest dreams come true. Anything else I should know?" He shoved the sandwich into his mouth violently, then did his best to hide the gag brought about by shoving too much in at once.
"Your friends are where you first met them."
He frowned. "Shouldn't Gary be in Pallet then? I met him here, didn't I?"
"You met each other long before you had any memory. That's not very fair."
He snorted. "I think it'd be fair to just give me my friends back and go home."
"I'll give away that he's at the Plateau," the man continued, "where he first decided to become a researcher."
"If Gary's at the Plateau, Misty's next. Depending…" He paused to think. "Either Brock or Gary would go next, since they're both about the same distance away. But how am I supposed to get to other regions?"
"Get a map." He shrugged. "I've left you what you'll need. You'll get more information at the next check point. Have fun with your first physical challenge."
He grunted, focusing back on his sandwich. A glance up proved he had vanished. No more questions now. A finger darted out to slide down the cupcake's frosting, and he brought it back to his lips for a taste. He decided that his real mom made better cupcakes, and this cupcake was too sweet. He grabbed up the desert, stretched out his arm, and gave a little whistle. Pikachu perked his ears up and trotted over to his extended hand, licking the extended cupcake happily.
"Fill up on what you can. I don't know when we're going to have really good meals again. Not until we get Brock back to cook for us, or a pokémon to fly us back." His eyes widened and he slammed his free hand onto the table. "Damn it, we won't get any pokémon until Sinnoh."
The mouse stopped licking to look up at him.
"The pokémon he got from me were all my Sinnoh pokémon. I met them there." He sighed, then took another bite from his sandwich."But it's not like I can skip everyone in all the other regions and go straight to Sinnoh. I need a plane to get me there. Or something can fly, but all those are in Sinnoh. Maybe I can catch something. It sounded like there was something living out there."
"Pika." The mouse jumped to the floor and walked a few paces to the door before looking back over his shoulder hopefully.
"Yeah, yeah. Let me just finish my sandwich and say goodbye to my mom." He looked back at the woman, still happily fixing soups and salads and delicious treats he could never hope to finish, then looked down at his food. "Just let me finish my sandwich."
"At least we're not being chased by spearrow," he chirped, "and I bet you anything this is a shortcut to the next town. I mean, it's got to be. Sure, we're walking the opposite way, but how fast did we get there last time? A lot quicker than any other time."
"Pika." His ears went horizontal, each pointing in the opposite direction of the other.
He laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "We did have a bike, didn't we?"
"Pi."
"So…do you think she's forgotten about the whole you'll-die-alone-you-bitch-thing?" Ash asked hopefully, sliding his eyes over.
"Chu," it muttered.
"Well, we'll find out soon enough."
And on he walked, Pikachu on his shoulder, towards where he first met Misty. He had a pretty decent idea of where it was, but managed to get a little lost along the way. Once he got his bearings straight, he found himself walking right alongside the small river that led to the waterfall he jumped off. Honestly, he didn't know if he was right until he saw the stereotypical steel bar cage with a passed out girl sitting near the roar of the waterfall.
He ran the final few feet and slid down next to the cage. She hadn't been happy about being trapped, with almost every available inch of her covered in bruises and swollen. He consoled himself with a positive at least she's not bleeding, before the thought was replaced with the question of whether dead people bled. He reached through the bars and shook her shoulder, holding his breath. She groaned a bit, and with that encouragement he shook her a little harder, calling her name quickly.
She curled up tighter, screwing her eyes shut. "Are the bugs still there?"
"What bugs?"
"The river," she said, starting to shake. "Mew, Ash, please tell me they're gone."
The sound of the river changed, and when he glanced back he realized just what had driven her to beat herself so badly against the bars. The river clicked and buzzed with millions of bug bodies swarming over one another, moving southward and toppling down like a waterfall, pooling in the lake below. Briefly, one would fly up above and zoom along, then dive down into the swarm a few moments later. He pulled a face – not scary to him but certainly not pleasant.
"I have to go in it, don't I?" he moaned, "I'm supposed to get the key to your cage."
"It's on the pillar."
"There's no-"
"He told me to tell you it's on the mewdamned pillar and you have to swim through the damned bugs to get to the damned pillar to get the damned key." She snapped, heels of her hands pressing against her eyes so hard he was sure it had to hurt.
He stared at the cage. "How heavy is it? Can I move you?"
"You can't drag me to the next town and hope the cage'll pop open."
"A lot of the bugs bounce outside the river. I'm trying to move you far enough away so they won't touch you. If you freak out and knock yourself out I won't be able to get you out of here until you wake up. How heavy is it, so I know whether to make some stupid pulley system."
She didn't reply, so he went to a corner, gripped the bars and pulled back hard. It moved, but it screamed as it slid against the rock. When he moved it far enough, he let it go and gave another pat to Pikachu's head. "Be a bug zapper if they get too close. You're not going to help me any down there."
He gave a big sigh, walked to the edge and peered over. There was definitely a tall pillar there, in the middle of the lake. He couldn't see the key, though. He tried squinting his eyes and leaning forward, but that didn't help much either. He walked back and forth, hoping for a better view of what waited for him at the top, but nothing helped. Eventually, he couldn't think of any other way but to take a few steps back and charge off the edge.
And he was just about to do that when Misty gave a sudden cry of "Ash!" and he spun around, half expecting some weird wave of bugs coming to crush him, but there wasn't. Just her. "Plug your nose and ears if you go under. They'll crawl inside and bite you and lay eggs that'll hatch and eat you from the inside out if you don't."
"Thanks," he said, then muttered, "a little more graphic then I needed, but not bad advice."
He put his thumbs to his nose and index fingers in his ears, then jumped down.
It wasn't as soft a landing as it would have been in water, but his momentum had been a bit gradually slowed as he crushed the things beneath him. More of them swarmed to fill the places of the ones he had crushed. He kicked his legs, hoping he could swim through them, but that didn't work. His heart sped up a bit, panicking. He couldn't take his hands from his face, couldn't open his eyes, not with the creatures swarming and buzzing around him, so loud he could hear it clearly before his closed ears.
He thrashed, and to his luck, managed to move a little higher, enough to get the tip of his hand out. He flung out his hands and slammed them onto the surface layer, trying to get up. They pushed and crawled prickly legs across his hand, under his clothes. He hardly noticed. It was the adrenaline kicking in now. He lifted his foot and pushed down, bringing his whole head above the mass, and breathing deep. The pillar was a few feet away, and he went for it, stomping the bugs down and opposite the way he wanted to go. Each step didn't move him very far, there wasn't enough resistance for that, but it was something.
Step by step, he plodded through, closer to the pillar. At times, the bugs would shift in a way he hadn't expected, and he would plunge under once again, his face slamming into the nasty mess before yanking back out fast, where he would have to pause to pull them off and crush them between his fingers. He finally reached it, panting and gripping the stone with ever reddening hands.
"Bee sting," he muttered, touching his cheek and wincing when it hurt. He glanced at his hands and his body still below. "Lots of bee stings. Bet you can die from that."
His eyes roamed over the stone, finally seeing handholds. Tiny, bug infested hand holds. He reached up and brushed them out, then put his fingers inside. It reached the middle joint on his middle finger, and even dipped down inside for a better grip.
"This is the part you make easy?" he demanded. "I'd rather swim through pudding and get to a pillar made out of spikes." He stretched a hand up to the second, brushed out the bugs and put his hand inside. He hauled up, feeding a foothold just below the bugs to stand on while he brushed out the next one. There was a gap in the holes, from below the bugs to his current hands.
"Thank Mew I've had practice," he breathed, sucking in air, then shoved off to the next handhold, more to the right, and pulled himself out. One leg slammed into the hold his hand had been in, leaving him awkwardly curled up, but out of the swarm. He eyed a handhold a little higher, and aimed. He straightened fast and grabbed it, wincing again at the bugs crushing under his palm.
The oddly spaced hand holds spaced out to only four more to the top, at most. He bet there probably wouldn't be that many. He brought his left foot to another one of the handholds, making one leg bend up tight and the other one nearly useless, since it was in a hole already too far down to be much help. He went for the next hold, another jump and grab, but got more than crushed bugs. Something gooey and sticky. He couldn't check it, with most of his weight on that hand. If he let go, there he went, so he hoped there wasn't poison and looked up once more. Another foot, he leapt up and put his hand in, meeting the same sticky goo. He yanked his other handout and put it to his face, smelling it carefully.
He licked it off his finger, then laughed with relief. "It's honey."
He continued up two more, each filled with honey, until the top was in reach and he could finally peak over the edge. He did so, jamming both his feet into one hole so he had a good place to stand and look over.
"Oh, shit," he groaned. There was a beehive, buzzing with a note stuck and blotchy from the honey that explained the key was just inside. He glared at it for a moment, and then, defeated, hauled himself up so he could sit next to it and prepare for the horrible onslaught of bee stings that would come from trying to open it up. He didn't get much time to think, as he bees considered this too close and rushed out to defend their home.
He swatted at them to no avail, and finally squinted his eyes half-open to grab the hive and slam it down on the stone. More bees came out, swarming around his and digging their stingers in again and again. He slammed it down once more, and this time it split. His hands dug into the crack and ripped it open, searching through the thick, gooey mess of honeycomb until his hand gripped the hard metal of what he hoped was the key. He flung himself off the tower, back into the swarm, as they hurt less and he bet you could die from beestings.
He landed in water, soothing, comforting, hurt-a-hell-of-a-lot-to-land-in-back-first-but-better-than-bugs water. He stayed under for a moment, feeling his bites soothed by the cold, then popped up for air. The bees weren't gone, and they dove down at him in a buzzing black cloud. He swam back under, and the bees swerved up at the last moment, a few of them falling in the water and spinning in circles on the surface tension. He swam as quick as he could, coming up quick (and often, now that he was a bit out of breath from all the running around) and diving back down quicker. He was caught by one or two, until he reached the shore. He jumped out, groaning aloud when he realized he didn't have a chance now that he had to climb back up with the bees hot on his tail, when he heard a loud, "Chuu!"
The electricity streaked out behind him, circling the swarm, which dropped to the water dead. Ash glanced back up to see Pikachu standing proudly at the top, tail flashing back and forth, seeming to brag that Ash had been wrong about needing him. He leaned against the rock, breathing deeply, then started the climb. This one was harder to hold onto, with the water pounding down on one side and the rocks slick and smoothed by the pounding spray. But he had rock climbed before and made it up without too much trouble.
Once he had flopped over the edge and caught his breath once more, he wiped the key on his shirt to take off the honey and put it in the lock, hoped, and turned the key. It clicked open with hardly any resistance, and Misty had shoved the door open and gotten to her feet the second she heard the tumblers tumble into place. She stretched her legs and arms and sighed with relief, lolling her head back to the sky.
"You're welcome," he said under his breath.
"I wouldn't have been in his mess if it wasn't for you," she retorted. "What should I thank you for?"
His eyes widened and his mouth hung open stupidly. "I could have skipped you. This wasn't exactly fun for me. I could have just left you here!"
"Right, just like you could have let that girl fall off the cliff," she said, twisting her head back at him with her very best glare.
He gulped. "How'd you know? You weren't-"
"He told me. He showed me. Don't even try to go there, Ash. I know everything about what happened so don't think you can lie to me and get out of it." She flexed her stiff fingers, face softening into a much more condescending look. "Besides, you got out of it without a scratch. It didn't cause you any trouble."
"Without a scratch? Look at me!" he shouted.
He held out his arms for her inspection, and she stared at them, her eyebrow arching in a clear, "what is it I'm supposed to be looking at?" gesture. He held them up to his face and found them smooth and healthy, realizing that he didn't feel any pain at all now. His hands swept over his skin, hardly breathing as he found everything perfect, with only a bit of dirt to be bothered with. Another moment passed and he realized he wasn't wet.
She crossed her arms, careful with her hands, and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, one hell of a challenge to rescue me."
"He must have healed me when I finished the challenge," he said slowly.
"Then why am I still beat up?" she snapped.
"Maybe he doesn't like you," he snapped back, "how should I know? Misty, I just dived into water and I'm not even wet, and the water I jumped into was made out of bugs five minutes ago. You're in some weird alternate universe, and your biggest problem is that my bites got fixed."
She glared for a moment, lost for words, then muttered a rough, "Screw you," and set off in the other direction.
"What are you doing?"
"Going home," she called out without looking back. "I'm going to get my pokémon and be prepared in case that asshole shows up again."
He barked out a laugh. "Oh? Really? How the hell are you going to get home? This isn't our world."
She froze, wavering on the spot before saying, "Shut up."
"No, really. It's not our world. It's a whole new world he made just to screw with me." He laughed again as she turned to fully look at him, and stood a little taller. "If you go home you won't find any of your pokémon, your sisters, townspeople, anything. There's nothing here. I don't even know if there really is anything living here or if that's just another trick. If I go and try to find them they'll probably vanish, just like the bugs."
She crossed her arms, bouncing a bit. "Then what am I still doing here? You saved me, didn't you? How do I get to go home?"
"I don't know." He shrugged. "We have to go to the next checkpoint. You can ask him there."
She rolled her eyes. "And you think he'll really let me home?"
"He might. It's worth a shot. I already saved you so…" He cleared his throat awkwardly and rubbed at the back of his neck once more, something that Pikachu took to be a sign for him to jump up onto his shoulder again. "So you should get to go home."
He swallowed down the urge to beg her not to go, or even ask how she could get there, because he didn't want to go back to being alone, and because he didn't trust him to send her back and not just throw her into some hellish dimension. He fought the urge to yell at her for being the same selfish, uncaring, heartless bitch she was whenever she got upset. Instead, he walked past her and listened closely for her footsteps behind him. He heard them, and, with a sigh of relief, he reached up to rub one of Pikachu's long ears before he carried on.
The road there was pretty easy. There weren't any challenges along the way, and though he still didn't have anyone to talk to (because, though she definitely had the ability, she did not want to speak with him at the moment). He nearly got lost on the way, but she snagged him by the shoulder and muttered that Route 1 was in the other direction, if that was where he intended to go. From there on, it was a good two hour walk to the checkpoint, which was just inside Viridian.
He was leaning against the pole that led up to the loudspeaker, invisible behind the small police booth. Ash hadn't seen him before he came around the corner, and jumped in front of Misty protectively. She elbowed him in the ribs and stepped to the side of him, staring at the man pretty calmly considering everything she had been through. Ash blinked at her, wondering why she hadn't rushed up to hit him by now.
There was a pregnant silence, and Ash attempted to stimulate it into labor with a nervous, "I saved-"
"When can I go home?" she asked, cutting him off sharply.
"Later," he said with a smile. "That'll come up later. Besides, you're too frustrated right now to make a straight decision. Maybe after you've calmed down a bit I'll let you have that choice."
She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, her back straighten and chest puff. One daring step forward, and she snarled, "I know when I'm too frustrated to think straight and I'm plenty calm enough. I'm perfectly in my right mi-"
"Mmm, the policemen didn't believe it and I don't either." He laughed, looking back at Ash. "So, how close have you two been since you found out what happened back in Cerulean? I bet that shook things up."
She balled her throbbing hands into fists. "An accident happened in Cerulean, and nobody knows what the hell went wrong."
He clucked his tongue. "You know what the hell went wrong."
"I have no idea what went wrong!"
Ash cleared his throat. "Um, weren't you supposed to fill me in some more?"
"Gym leader," he snorted, ignoring the boy completely. "I made you what you are, you uneducated dope. After how I helped you all, and this is the thanks I get. Everything this nation has become, the fame and skill your family possesses, it's thanks to me. I know things can get lost over time, but with what I did? My name should be immortalized in your history books, or the very least basic mythology."
She bared her teeth. "You liar. My family built its name on its own, same with the other leaders. We'd never make a deal with scum like you."
"I've lied before but this isn't one of those times. I made the Gym Leaders what they are. I gave you your love for pokémon, and found your talent." His tone changed suddenly, back to the calm, uncaring tone he typically had, and he relaxed against the pole. "Don't talk what you don't kno-"
She threw a fist at him and it connected, slamming into his cheek and driving him sideways, bent in two with a hand clutched to his face. She cried out at the same time he did, collapsing to the ground with her hand clutched to her own cheek, which was reddening and bruising up. She wasn't bleeding, but he was – a line of milky liquid slid down, dropped onto his clothes where it burned and sizzled through.
"I taught you this just a few hours ago and still you defy me!" he shouted. "With every strike you lay on me you'll get it right back."
She stumbled up, glaring. "I'd still shoot your brains out if I had half a chance."
He raised his hand in the air and snatched a thick, hardcover book from the air. He rolled it over in his hands, as if to make sure he had grabbed the right one off the bookshelf, then threw it her way. She caught it, keeping her face set as her knuckles thrummed with pain. "Educate yourself, and maybe you'll be too ashamed of your past to confront me again."
Her fingers tightened around it, breathing deep. "There's nothing in my past to be ashamed of."
But he was gone, had popped out of existence as quick as it took them to blink, and with it went any chance of getting more information. Ash groaned, storming up to her. "Fan-freaking-tastic. Now how the hell are we supposed to know what he was going to-"
"He says he's got something to do with the gym leaders, and he gave me this to prove it. Pretty damn big hint," she muttered. She released her grip on it, delicately opening the book. She stared at the title page for a moment, then licked her finger and began to turn the pages. "Pretty damn big hint, don't you think?"
"Maybe," he agreed reluctantly.
"I've got one just like it at home." She paused. "Not the same condition, I guess. Mine got passed down for generations, so it never looked this good. Same title, though." She smiled a bit and tapped a page. "And my favorite story is in the same place, same wording, same font, even. Mew, I must have heard this a hundred times before going to bed when I was little. I could probably recite it by heart."
He leaned forward, trying to see it, though he could hardly make out the words thanks to the fancy, flowery font. "Anything I'd know?"
"Probably. This one's a Cinderella story, but there's stuff like Rapunzel and the underdog hero and all those little stories with morals at the end."
"The Fairytales of Kanto," he read, twisting his body to read the cover, "An Em…uh, crap, I can't read it with all the stupid cursive…oh! An Embellishment of History." He stepped back, examining the flowery script within. "Embellishment means lying, doesn't it?"
"Mom told me that it was something to pass onto my kids, make sure everyone had a copy. A family thing," she said quietly, closing it up. "But I never asked where the tradition came from. It's got to be just a stupid family thing, like Friday night pizza or-"
"I'll bet you anything it's a gym leader thing," he blurted, then childishly slammed his hands over his mouth.
"That's stupid."
"Are you sure?" he pressed, frowning at her condescending tone. "Did you ever ask Brock?"
She laughed, pushing the big book into his chest, but he refused to wrap his arms around it. "Ash, you can't believe that he was telling the truth, that he made Gym Leaders." She stared up into his face and added, with a touch of horror, "You can't believe him."
He shrugged. "Well, you think the book's such a big hint but if he didn't do anything with you guys it's not a hint of anything, right?"
"Ash, it can't be. Why would he make Gym Leaders? They keep peace, they don't start wars or play sick games." She frowned and brought it back from him, pressing it to her chest instead. "I don't believe it. I…I can't. It can't be. Tell me he's a liar."
"You ever read the whole thing?" he pressed further.
She stomped her foot. "Dammit, Ash, tell me he's lying!"
He didn't talk to her then, and she wouldn't talk to him for quite some time after.
I didn't have as good a feeling about this chapter, but I worked with it for quite some time, and I don't know what else to do with it. It's probably because it's been so hectic, but even now that exams have passed I can't think of any other thing. So, please tell me what you think went wrong, what you think went right, and I'll see if I can make it better.
