Not a Man, Just a Mannequin

The sound of a window grating against its own frame isn't an unfamiliar one. And for that, Ash can thank Team Rocket and Team Rocket alone.

It means he's wide awake in his newfound cage when the shadow comes creeping across the chaotic remnants of Ash's little fit ―not at all as sneaky or nearly as quiet as they seem to think they are. And by the gods, are they trying.

Ash can't see much from where he's been set up. There's an IV drip attached to one paw because he refused to eat, and he's more or less bolted in place as a direct result of his earlier… tantrum. But it's difficult to miss the shock of meadow green hair as whoever the intruder is stubs a toe on the nearest table and nearly sprawls themselves across the floor in shock and pain. Somehow, they don't immediately give away their location by swearing themselves blue for all in the nearby vicinity to hear, but it's a very close thing.

Instead, they pick themselves up, shoving the metal table further away in some vain hope to prevent a repeat later on. Ash doesn't like thieves, and the intruder certainly isn't earning any brownie points the longer they meander around, but he'll give credit where credit is due.

They are determined.

Not that that says a whole lot when it comes to thieves.

"N, I don't think this is a good idea!" a voice whispers from somewhere in the dark, urgent and utterly terrified. Ash knows exactly how it feels, considering his own difficulties coming to grips with what is happening in his life right now.

It won't stop him from giving the two away if they try to do something he doesn't like.

"You worry too much, Zorua." the other voice soothes. Definitely a guy, though Ash thinks he could be forgiven for assuming they were a girl with all that hair. "Now where is…"

The intruder turns around then, clearly looking for something. And Ash, idiotic, suicidal Ash, gets a good long look at his face,

And N looks young. Not much older than Dawn or May when they first started their respective journeys in fact. The thought alone makes something in Ash twist and ache, and Misty had always warned Ash about acting without thinking first but…

Age doesn't negate the fact a crime has been committed, and while the kid may not know what he's doing, that doesn't change the fact that someone is likely to get hurt.

And maybe Paul was right about him being too soft.

"Y'know, if you don't give your trainer a reason to get out of here soon, he's gonna get himself caught and sent to jail."

"Ah!" the zorua flinches, baring its fangs in the general direction it seems to think it heard Ash from. Ash might've even been intimidated. ―If it weren't for the simple fact that he's stuck in a cage as far out of reach as he can get without being able to move and that the zorua is facing the entirely wrong direction.

In the end, the only thing the poor creature manages to do is make Ash laugh.

"What's so funny?" the boy asks the air, because he's apparently just as inept as his pokémon at tracking sound. N has an excuse the zorua doesn't of course, but it's still funny to watch them both spin around in circles trying to figure out where he is.

"Uh… up here?" Ash finally offers, feeling at least some pity for the two. They kind of remind him of Jessie and James if he's honest with himself. He doesn't miss them, not like he's been missing Pikachu and the rest of his pokémon and friends for the last few hours. They weren't always terrible though.

"Oh! N, up there!" the zorua points out when it finally manages to figure out what "up" means, tail wagging a mile-a-minute and eyes sparkling in a way that Ash immediately equates to a growlithe, or Pikachu when he's being offered ketchup. "See that? That's an―!"

"That isn't right." the boy says, and the sudden amount of venom Ash can hear in his tone is startling. Ash gets a good look at N's face before he disappears in the blind spot just beneath the opening, and he looks absolutely furious.

"Uh…" Ash hedges, unsure how to respond to the open contempt the boy now displays. He'd been somewhat… calm? Collected? ―Ash hesitates to use the word oblivious. N clearly knew that he was doing something wrong by entering the lab. For all their mistakes and near misses, Ash would not describe the pair as unaware of their surroundings or actions.

But now? Now N is intense.

"Pokémon shouldn't be kept in cages like this! They're just as bad as pokéballs!"

"N, you need to calm down! You're going to get us caught!"

"You're both going to get yourself caught if you don't stop yelling like that." Ash reminds the zorua. In the state he's currently in, he can't talk to humans ―for all intense and purposes, he is a pokémon. Unless N is special like Anabel, he's not going to understand a word Ash says beyond the species name and maybe a change of tone or two.

"But Zorua―!" N stops himself, and Ash can hear the boy huff somewhere not very far below where his cage is set.

He's not entirely certain what he's expecting the other to do, but picking up his cage and setting it down on the table definitely wasn't it. "No, like Ghetsis says, if I want the world to change I must start with myself first!"

"N…"

"It's alright," N smiles at his pokémon then, trying for soothing though it doesn't come across quite right from what Ash can tell. "I'm not Ghetsis, I know. I can't… humans aren't pokémon, I can't reach them like I can you guys. Maybe someday, but…."

For a moment, N looks really… lost. Like he doesn't know where he is or what he's doing anymore. And Ash knows what that feels like even more now.

"You okay?" He asks without really thinking about it. N won't understand him, he knows, but intent and sentiment usually make up for a lot of the gaps in his experience.

"I'm fine, and I'll be even better once you're out of that cage!" N says, and goes about wriggling the lock on the front loose.

"So why were you in a cage, and what's up with that thingy attached to your arm?" Zorua asks him later, as Ash lays on the table and refuses to move despite N's insistence.

He's not a cautious person, normally. Ask any of his previous traveling companions, or literally anyone who's met and spent a day in his company, and they'll tell you just as much. But Ash knows better than to move around when there's anything foreign in your body. Especially when it's attached to a vein.

"It's an IV or an Intra—something-something-something…" Ash flounders, unsure how to explain it. He knows what it does, understands what it's for even, but he's no doctor. That's Brock's thing now. "I don't remember what that stands for, but it's so doctors and nurses can make sure their patients get the nutrients and fluids they need."

He can't help but to preen a little when he sees the starstruck expression on Zorua's face. So few of his friends had looked at him like that. Too busy running behind him trying to save him from his own recklessness to be anything other than fondly exasperated at best, but to Ash that just meant they cared enough to worry.

Being looked on like he's done something amazing feels good, though he tries not to let it get to his head too much.

"Intravenous therapy," N drops in finally, hands full with a first-aid kit he'd procured from Arceus only knows where. "You've seen it before, Zorua. The medics in Team Plasma use them for some of the pokémon we rescue."

"Oh yeah!" Zorua cheers, just plain happy to have N's attention it seems.

Ash smiles, reminded of his own pokémon for a few brief moments, but then… "Wait a minute. How'd you know that?!"

He's not talking about the information itself. Anyone could figure that out for themselves if they just dug around long enough. But N had said that like he understood what Ash and Zorua had been saying.

"I know a few doctors, and I guess reading books doesn't hurt…"

"No, no!" Ash cuts off, taking the opportunity N gives him when he removes the needle in his… paw, to stand up properly. It's not at all easy trying to find his balance when he's used to walking on two legs ―instint and habit almost have him falling backward when he tries to stand on his hind legs. But he manages it, eventually. "—I mean the… the…"

Ash flounders, finding himself suddenly unable to explain what he means. It's not usually this hard, but then again he's only ever encountered a situation like this one other time.

"Oh!" Zorua cuts in from the side suddenly. The fox turns, weirdly excited before finally bouncing forward to brush along his uninjured side. "You mean how N can understand you, right?"

Ash nods, thankful for the assistance, even if he kind of would like his personal space back. He's not used to this body, kind of doesn't want to be, but he also doesn't want to get knocked over simply because a new friend got too excited. "Yeah, that!"

"Oh, that's because—!"

"That's because N is amazing! He and I grew up together, like brothers! —N always been special like that, no doubt about it and… Ghetsis said N is gonna be a hero."

"Not yet," N hedges, suddenly shy when faced with Zorua's many praises. It's a little cute, Ash finds, but he's more curious about Ghetsis.

That's the second time he's been brought up, and while N seems to think he's a man of respect, Ash gets the impression that Zorua would much rather the man take a long walk off a very high cliff. "Who's Ghetsis?"

"The Great Sage Ghetsis, leader of the Seven Great Sages of Team Plasma and one of my advisors," N explains, kind smile suddenly very strained. "With his help, I am going to become king and save pokémon from the burden humans place on them."

It's at that exact moment Ash realizes he's actually completely lost. Maybe it's how N phrased it, but Ash can't seem to wrap his head around that last bit. "Wait, so you want to separate humans from pokémon?"

"Yes."

"Why?" he asks, unsure if he likes what he's hearing. A king isn't an entirely foreign concept to Ash, for all that his only memories of one are marred with nightmare images and twisting shadows. It's the saving pokémon from humans bit he seems to be having trouble with.

And Ash isn't sure he likes what he's hearing.

"Because humans hurt pokémon. They run around, enslaving them in pokéballs, forcing them to fight!" N says, increasingly loud until Ash reminds him that as late as it is, there's still a chance of someone hearing him.

And it is late.

Ash hadn't originally been sure what the time was, but looking at the one digital clock in the room reveals that they're very lucky in regards to the pair's own timing. It's somewhere slightly before three in the morning, and while Ash remembers Prof. Oak keeping strange hours, the owner of this lab is unlikely to come in for at least another hour and a half.

But only so long as N and Zorua both remember volume control.

Misty would die of laughter if she could hear me right now.

"Have you met them?" Ash asks then, and N goes surprisingly still.

"What?"

"Have you met them?"

"I'm not sure—!" Ash sighs, testing his footing and seeing what he can do with this new body.

An unintended twitch of a leg reveals that his side still aches a little, but it's much better than earlier. And he's slowly starting to figure out how to compensate for the tail, or maybe use his new tail to compensate for his own clumsiness. He's… getting used to it, slowly but surely. So he's not afraid when he takes the opportunity to hop into N's arms. He's small, the boy can take a little additional weight if it means Ash gets his full attention for what he's about to say next.

"You haven't met them, have you?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Ash admonishes, as gently as he can. "I haven't met them either."

"Met who?" Zorua asks, and Ash turns to smile down at the dark-type.

"Other humans, other pokémon. Other humans and their pokémon."

"Oh," N says, like he finally gets what Ash has been talking about. And maybe it has finally clicked in the other's head. But Ash isn't quite done yet.

"You said you were going to be crowned a king, right?" N nods, "And I'm assuming you've never left… wherever this place is?"

"Unova," N tells him, allowing him to jump back down to the table. "We're in Unova, you didn't know?"

No, Ash hadn't, but now he does. It doesn't matter. "How is a king supposed to lead when he knows so little?"

"Ah…" and Ash gets to see the exact moment it all clicks in N's head. Or rather, Ash really hopes that's what that expression is.

"You can't say for sure that everyone is the same if you haven't met everyone. And you can't lead people when you yourself don't really know what you're doing." Ash says, trying not to slip across the metal and ruin the atmosphere. "Having advisors is good and all, but they can't do everything for you."

"So what do you think we should do?"