Chapter 2:The 1900 Words of Truth

From the top of the cliff side, all you could see was trees. You wouldn't see a crisis that had befallen Ash. He was attacked and knocked off the mountainside by a pair of shadowy figures, and disappeared beneath the sea of trees. He laid on his side, reeling from the pain of that shot to the chest, and unable to move. The pain was like shards of glass, poking and scraping every bone and organ inside. Hearing him breathe was a good sign that he was alive. It was the only good sign. Another pair of shadowy figures emerged, but they were smaller than the ones who assaulted him. One figure looked down and swung a nod to its apparent partner. The partner's eyes were glowing blue, followed by Ash, himself. Then, Ash's body...was floating? The mangled body was levitating, and gliding toward the new pair of silhouettes. Where were the two "carrying" Ash? The morning rose. Back at the campsite, Brock and Pikachu were waking up to the sun. Both stepped out of the tent, ready to start the day. They looked inside, but they didn't see Ash. It was pretty strange. "Wonder where Ash ran off to?" Brock questioned. Pikachu looked, but didn't see anything that was out of the ordinary...as much as Ash's vanishing act was concerned.

("I don't know,") it shrugged. The early discovering sounds had stirred Dawn up, making her look at the emptying tent and the two, looking outside for Ash. She stepped out, not sure of what was happening.

"What's going on, guys?" she asked. Brock turned to the girl, hoping to see if she could help in the search.

"Ash is gone," he informed. "He didn't leave a note." That was troubling. Dawn started to panic a little, and looked over to the tall grass, where she saw Ash mess around, last night. She ran over to that spot. That's when she found something, that made her think that Ash's disappearance didn't go unnoticed. It was a camcorder.

"Guys, over here!" Hearing the cry, Brock and Pikachu ran over to the lone female, and saw the camcorder. What, was Ash a person of voyeurism? Trying to catch an up-skirt of Dawn?

"Why would a video camera, be in the grass, like that?" That was a good question. The only one who would know of this was Ash, and no one else...except for Pikachu.

("It was for our safety,") it explained. The humans shot looks to the Pokémon, wondering what Pikachu was talking about.

"Safety?" Dawn repeated. Brock picked up the camcorder. Safety wasn't the issue. Ash was.

"Let's go over the tape, and see if we can catch Ash's departure," Brock hypothesized. It might have. They were hoping that Ash was okay. He wasn't. Meanwhile, Ash was opening his eyes. He saw a ceiling. The ceiling seemed unfamiliar to him. He slowly bobbed his head back and forth, trying to see where he was.

"Where am I?" he questioned. He tried to get off his back. He got an inch up...before gently putting himself back on his back. There was pain and he was grimacing. He clutched his chest. He was greatly injured. "My ribs!" The way, he reacted to the injuries, might have meant that his ribs were busted. He tried to take breaths, as deep as he could inhale, without aggravating the ribs, any more. It had taken a few minutes, but he was starting to calm...but he looked back to what happened. 'Hands down, that was Paul and his Electabuzz that attacked me.' He knew his attacker? 'I should have it on tape.' So he was the one to put the camcorder in the tall grass. As he was just about relaxed, despite the injuries suffered, he laid a hand down...and felt hair. Why was he able to feel hair? Or was it fur? Ash petted the hair for a few seconds, before he turned his head, gingerly, to his petting. It wasn't a fuzzy creature...but a pigtailed redhead girl. Her head was lying on a makeshift bed, Ash was on, near his waist. Her arms had green bracelets, matching the beads in her hair. Ash was stunned. 'I thought she wanted to be an archaeologist, not a doctor.' That's when Ash peered at his upper body...wrapped up like a mummy. Bandages were covering everything above his stomach, as well as his left shoulder. He probably couldn't see, but his right knee was bandaged up, too. He was in nothing but his skivvies. He took quite a beating and fall. 'Guess it does run in the family, after all.' He turned to the unknown girl...not so much, unknown. Like she knew that her name was called, she was waking up. Her emerald green eyes glared blankly at the awakened patient.

"How are you feeling, Ash?" she sleepy wondered. Ash smiled, still wincing from the pain.

"Not too hot, Calista." Calista had risen to her feet, wearing an overall blue dress. She began to observe the bandaged areas, pressing on the wounds. Ash felt pain from the areas and clenched his hands into a fist, having the stress fill up. His shoulder was hurt. His knee was hurt. His chest felt like a pin cushion. He was a mess of busted bones. Calista was willing to let Ash know of his diagnosis.

"Looks like you've got a separated shoulder blade, along with a cracked knee cap, and don't get me started on your rib cage. If I had a guess, I'd say four or five ribs on each side. It's a miracle that you're even talking to me, let alone, be conscious." Ouch! Ash was a wreck, and all the blame seemed to be on this Paul-dude. Ash was astonished with what Calista was doing.

"I thought you wanted to become an archaeologist, not follow your parents path, and become a doctor." Well, considering that they met in the past, it seemed that Ash had a point. Calista stared out somewhere in the distance. There were...mysterious markings.

"Well, believe it or not, we're in a hidden underground sanctuary." A sanctuary? So, Calista was doing her digging. But for what? In the meantime, Brock, Dawn and Pikachu were viewing the tape. They were up to when Ash stepped outside of the tent.

"He seems restless," Dawn figured. It was when Ash walked over to the edge of the cliff. There was no reason for Ash to walk off, but he wasn't doing that.

"Well, he's not moving himself away from the camp," Brock mentioned. That's when someone else got into the shot. It was a young man in a dark spring jacket and jeans, to go over his messy violet hair. By him was a large yellow creature with black lightning-shaped marks over its body. Brock recognized them, right away. "That's Paul and his Electabuzz!" Dawn and Pikachu were shocked.

"What's he doing at our camp?" Before Dawn and Brock were able to answer, they watched Electabuzz deliver a nasty electric punch to Ash's chest, with enough force to send him flying over the side. Did Paul run over to save Ash from becoming killed? Not that Ash is dead, yet, but Paul walked off, with a grin on his face. Disbelief. Dawn, Brock and Pikachu couldn't believe what occurred."W-w-why?" Brock's face was grit. His best friend, attacked off the mountainside, and he feared the worse.

"I know that Ash and Paul weren't on good terms with each other, but this too far." Way too far, indeed. They turned the camcorder off, before they raced down the mountain. While that was happening, Calista was telling Ash of why she was here in this underground sanctuary, and revealed something that had Ash highly interested.

"Arceus?" he wondered. Who now? Calista seemed to have known something that would get her interested in something like this.

"Yeah, quite a find, to say the least," she praised. "I've come to Sinnoh to get knowledge about Arceus. Baltoy and I stowed away from home, and managed to get here." That's for sure. Ash was fascinated about what Calista did to get here. "I talked to plenty of archaeologists, so that I could get a head start on the discovery, and history of this world, including info on that legendary Pokémon." Wow. Ash got more and more interested with her findings.

"Sounds like you and Baltoy've been through a lot." Calista was willing to disagree with that. It couldn't have been too long since her research of this Arceus began.

"I recently got here, and saw the markings, when I heard a pretty bad series of broken tree limbs, and thuds." It's usually the thuds that draw people to see what happened. The tree branches were a nice additive, though. Ash realized that she was pointing at him for that noise. "I was gonna give you a piece of my mind, until I saw this." She pulled the white shirt, Ash was wearing when he was assaulted by Paul. It was scorched in that sweet spot. Calista pondered that he was attacked. This was proof. "What happened to you? Got mixed up with some heartless trainer?" That's one way to put it. A heavy sigh told Calista that she was right.

"When it comes to Pokémon, I enjoy seeing them, believing that I'll catch one, as well as train one." Calista nodded, stemming from an earlier meeting.

"You can't be a Pokémon Master, if you don't try to capture more." True enough. Ash had more.

"Well, there's a guy who's pretty much the opposite of me, more or less. He's one who discards Pokémon, almost as fast as he captures them. He's also the one, who attacked me." Calista became petrifyingly worried. These injuries were pretty severe, and the knowledge of how he nearly died, or killed, seemed to sink in more than the amount of food Ash could stuff in his mouth...when he was healthy. She walked over to Ash, with tears in her eyes. She leaned over, and as gently as she could, embraced Ash in a hug. She cried, with her tears soaking the wraps on his body. His left shoulder was shot, not his elbow. He reached her head with the forearm of his left, and wrapped her back with the right arm. Consoling her, Ash wished that he could've avoided that attack from Paul's Electabuzz. He wished that he had extra time. Right now, all he could do, was comfort the person, treating him. Pikachu, Brock and Dawn were going to find him. At this moment, he needed to find himself. 'I'm sorry, Calista. I wish I could ease you...like you, to me.' He stared at the ceiling, as he brushed Calista's hair. That was all he could do.

TO BE CONTINUED... (This is a Timeshipping, meaning Ash/Calista pairing. If you don't know who Calista is, look up the episode "Me, Myself and Time)