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()()()

The seashore of Sinnoh was always Dawn's favorite place to go, so that's how Lucas sees her—swimsuit-clad and running barefoot in the hot sand, laughing with the widest, most amicable grin he's ever seen on a person. Piplup is scrambling after her as fast as it can on its webbed toes, cheeping and flailing its infant fins as its owner slows for it to catch up. She turns around to pick Piplup from the ground and hug the perky Pokemon to her, cooing praises of complimentary love to her companion. Lucas watches her as she stares out beyond the stunning, moist beach and out to the ocean where the sun is setting on the horizon, the luminous rays skirting the surface with a maroon tinge. He knows she's thinking about all the wild Pokemon in the sea, from the Tentacool that float menacingly on the surf to the Wailord living fathoms deep that swim with their babies. As she ponders, the tide licks her toes affectionately, sifting the sand from her feet, leaving them clean as it retreats back into the waves.

Suddenly, she blinks as reality blankets her again—and then she notices that Lucas is studying her from afar. Turning around, her smile returns, crinkling the edges of her pert nose. Her dimples reach the apexes of her large, dark eyes as she calls out to him.

"Lucas! Lucas!"

She's putting Piplup down and heading his way, the beads that adorn the strings of her bikini bottom whispering loudly in the breeze behind her. Her face is so lovely, from the lines of her succulent crimson lips to the shoulder-length black hair that she has tied in pigtails. As she approaches, Lucas's heart swells with love. She's here with him now—Team Galactic was nothing but a dream; they weren't captured. They were here the whole time.

Together.

Like they are supposed to be.

But then Dawn's countenance begins to blur, and Piplup's chirruping cries with the distortion of crooked melodies played in an ancient music box—and Lucas understands then that it was this that was the dream, that they indeed have failed. Dawn's smile soaks into smudges, and soon dissipating to darkness entirely. The breath escapes from Lucas. Why? Why was he denied her face? He had been injudicious, putting the girl he loves so powerfully and irrevocably in danger, but why must this be his punishment?

He needed her to survive. Dawn was his oxygen. He would suffocate without her.

His voice is thin and tired when he tries to speak. "Dawn, I love you." He has told her this a hundred times, but she does not seem to listen. Maybe, somewhere, she can hear him—somewhere outside the dream that he cannot escape. Over the sound of his anguish, perhaps she can hear him. Maybe she will answer. Finally, maybe, she might.

But the only words he hears are the jumbled ones spoken by the hush of the fading sea.

()()()

This place smells.

Lucas thought this within seconds of waking up in his prison cell. Releasing his last breath of fresh air, Lucas inhaled the putrid atmosphere, knowing that the only way to tolerate the stink was to permeate himself with it. His gray pupils darted around to the prison in which he was now being kept, staring at the putrefying metal bars that led to a concrete corridor outside and studying the four bunk beds that were strapped with rotting chains in pairs to either wall. A gristly strand of unwashed blond hair hung off the mattress of the bottom bunk to his right, but the owner's face was obscured to him. Loud snores radiated from that bed and echoed off the cedar block walls that surrounded Lucas, streaked with piss and dried human excrement. There might have been blood mixed in as well, but Lucas couldn't tell from his vantage point.

He was sitting upright on the floor in this very traditional prison cell, beside a wooden plank that swung on its rusting hinges, leading to a small back room that Lucas presumed was a bathroom. (He really had to go, but he was almost too afraid to see what revolting state the toilet and sink were in.) With a quick personal appraisal, Lucas noticed that he was still wearing his clothes from his and Dawn's attempt on Team Galactic—and he was completely sure that this was their prison sector. All his Pokemon were gone, but he wasn't too worried about them. He knew they were quite competent at taking care of themselves. Glancing down, he saw that his hands were bound in front of him with tight rope, tied in a Boy Scout's knot. Who the hell remembered how to do that?

A throbbing persisted at the back of his head, and Lucas knew he had been hit there or bumped his skull accidentally. He wanted to touch it, but his hands were occupied at the moment. Lucas expelled a breath to deaden the pain and began to glance around calmly, trying to find some way he could rub the rope raw and cut through the fibers, but a disembodied hand descended upon his shoulder before he could make a move to get up.

"You're finally awake," someone said. "You need some help with that?" The voice in his ear tickled his skin as foreign hairs—presumably from a mustache—danced around the entrance to his eardrums.

Jumping in surprise, Lucas scooted away from his assailant and whipped his head around to see who was getting too close for comfort. The hand belonged to a large, potbellied man of about forty years, whose stringy brown hair was balding and encircled the bare patch of skin atop his head like a monk's ring. Just as Lucas suspected, he sported poorly groomed but elegantly drooping facial hair on his upper lip, dipping so deeply that it nearly touched the straps of his grease-stained white undershirt. He was fat everywhere—even around his watery blue eyes, the barrenness of which scared Lucas to death. Lucas had heard about men in prison—stories of big criminals making the scrawnier, wimpier "boys" their… sexual companions. Lucas felt his stomach turn in horror. There was no doubt that Lucas perfectly constituted one of those "boys."

The man must have seen the terror in Lucas's eyes, because he started to laugh at the boy's apprehension. "Easy there, Jolteon," he chuckled. "I don't swing that way. Not even in jail. I'm just here to help you. Come on over here and I'll untie your hands."

Amazingly, despite the situation, Lucas found the gall within him to speak to his roommate. "How do I know that I can trust you?"

"You can't," the man said frankly. "But this is captivity. We're nothing but animals. You trust who you can and suspect those you don't."

Lucas, fazed from his many hours of sleep, scrutinized the man. Physically, he was ugly and intimidating, but he spoke with softness and gentle warmth. His prison philosophy was ambiguous and somewhat broad, but Lucas felt slightly placated by it. He glanced down at his hands again; they were beginning to turn purple from the cutting of blood flow from his wrists on.

"Are you sure you aren't going to rape me?" Lucas asked.

"I'm pretty damn sure, kiddo," the man said.

Sighing, Lucas knew that he would lose his hands if he chose not to have faith in this man. Besides, he wanted to get up off this sticky, disgusting floor and into a bed—which probably wasn't much better, with its springs jotting out at every imaginable direction, but it was certainly better than this. Slinking over to the man, Lucas cautiously held out his tied wrists out to him.

With swift haste, the man skillfully untied Lucas's hands, the rope coiling by his knees like a twined Arbok. Lucas rubbed his wrists and looked at the man gratefully. "Thank you," he said, still wary but indebted to this fellow prisoner's kindness. Gingerly, Lucas reached back to touch the pulsating lump on his scalp. "Ow."

"You got quite the goose egg back there," the man observed. "Just lay on your side tonight and it'll heal eventually. I wanna know how your beret stayed on through all that. It's probably better that it did. We don't get clean clothes down here. You're stuck with the ones you came in."

Lucas saw that the scraps of cloth dressing the man's lumbering frame suspended in tatters; his outer layers, at least, for his undershirt and shorts seemed fine. But his jacket—judging from the leftover material, it was probably once a white cotton polo shirt, but now could barely be used as tissue paper. Nevertheless, it was rather immaculate. "How are you keeping so clean?" Lucas asked.

"We shower once a week down here," the man told him, "and I wash my clothes while I'm there. I have to go naked for a few hours, but nobody seems to care. On the plus side, I've been around here long enough that everyone knows not to harass me." He lovingly rubbed his Buddha-esque belly. "And I'm so chunky that nobody wants to, anyway."

"How long have you been here?" Lucas asked in disbelief.

"One year, kiddo," the man said. "Team Galactic picked me up in Olivine City while I was messing around in the port shops, and I haven't even heard a word uttered about home since. I was a sailor, y'see. Apparently, they thought I was flirting with one of their Commanders while on leave, but it was a case of mistaken identity. I ain't never seen any of them in my entire lives and I said so during an interrogation, but they locked me up anyway. Took my Pokemon and threw away the goddamned key."

"A whole year?" Lucas felt ill. And that was a mild case—the crime he'd committed was much worse. What if he was stuck here for that duration—or even longer? Why would he want to keep on living? Dawn's image materialized in his thoughts, and he pushed away all dreams of suicide. He had to keep living. For her. It was crucial. It was clear that she was not in this malodorous hole with him; he could only hope that she was safe.

"Yep," the man relented, ignoring Lucas's daze as he daydreamed. "They let you out after a few months if you have good behavior, but I can't be obedient if my life depends on it. I guess I'll finally be emancipated from this place when my soul decides to burn in hell and leave my corpse behind to rot."

Lucas frowned with sympathy. "I'm so sorry," he said.

"Don't ever feel sorry for anyone in prison, kid," the man instructed. "It brings you down to an undesirable level if you commiserate with them. Only think about yourself." He grinned at Lucas, disporting a mouth of yellowing teeth with black holes from decay. "You gotta name?"

"Lucas."

"And that was your first mistake," the man volleyed. "You never, ever tell anyone your real name here. Team Galactic's got it on file, but no one down here should know your true identity. You need a pseudonym." He leaned in closely to Lucas, exorcising his ripe, scorching breath on the boy's face. "You got grey eyes. Hard, tough grey eyes. Damn. You have a feral spirit, don't you?"

Biting his lip, Lucas wasn't sure how to respond, so his roommate finished his own thought. "Yeah, you do," he said. "I can discern your stoutness well. It reflects proudly in your diamond eyes." He smiled. "Diamond. That's your new name, kid. Learn to wear it like your heart on your sleeve."

Being a sixteen-year-old, Lucas found something to complain about. "That's a feminine name, isn't it?" He observed.

"That's a common misconception about diamonds," the man explained, "that they're a lady thing. Not true. Diamonds are one of the hardest stones in the world. Almost nothing can shatter them. They might look shiny and appealing as jewelry, but diamonds are used on the ends of drill bits. They are virtually indestructible. In my eyes, diamonds are the most masculine object in the natural world. And you, my friend, look unbreakable yourself."

Opening his mouth to say something, Lucas closed it again immediately, realizing with a blow of epiphany that this man was right. He'd never thought of diamonds that way before. Suddenly, his dour mood was uplifted. He felt stronger now. "What's your… er, name?"

"Name's Huey," he said. "I took that on after I came here 'cause I worked with a bunch of guys on the ships who had that name. It's an ordinary name for sailors. I even gave my old Krabby that moniker." Jabbing his finger toward the limp piece of hair hanging off the bottom bunk that Lucas had seen before like Spanish moss, Huey continued. "That other guy is Rob. We call him that because he stole some gadgets from Team Galactic when he was broke so he could sell them to unsuspecting little kids for pocket change. He was a Flying-type trainer once. According to prison legend, he was decent, too."

"Is he asleep?" Lucas asked.

"Yes," Huey said. "He was a spruced bastard when he came here last March, but he let himself go about six months ago. Now he looks like a hippie prick. Ten moons in this place can break a man's character if he isn't smart enough." He nodded at Lucas. "You look like you might have a chance, Diamond. Pump a little iron, and you can hold your own."

"Do you know what time it is?" Lucas asked.

Huey smiled. "Good thing that you asked." He reached into the holey pocket of his denim jeans—a wise choice for prisoner attire, Lucas decided, for they seemed to be in excellent shape. Huey took out a bronze pocketwatch—somewhat tarnished, but still impeccably polished. Flipping open the cap, Huey squinted in the dim lighting that was provided by a single gull lightbulb above their heads. "I got this from an old friend who passed away before I got thrown in here. I hide it in my mouth during every inspection so they never find it. One o'clock in the morning." Huey closed the watch and put it away.

Lucas yawned. "Is it safe to sleep?" He asked Huey.

"Go for it," Huey advised. "You'll need all the rest you can get here. I'll keep watch for ya. And don't fret about Rob; he won't do anything creepy. He's a pussy. The only living thing he can coerce is the occasional Pidgey." He nodded toward the right bed on top above Rob. "That pad is mine, but the other two across the way are open. Take your pick."

Standing up on his rubbery legs, Lucas trudged over to the bunk ladder to the left, directly opposite from the two taken divans. Climbing up the corroded rungs, he pulled his heavy body onto the mattress. Indeed, as he had assumed, the metal springs jabbed at his covered skin, but he was too tired to care. Turning over on his left side to face the wall, Lucas laid his head down on the pillowless textile plane. He closed his eyes, already beginning to feel himself slip away from consciousness.

"Sleep well, Diamond." Huey's voice was remote.

When Lucas opened his eyes again, he was on the Sinnoh seashore once more, watching Dawn run with Piplup and wave at him, beckoning him over. This time, Lucas found that he was able to move, so he walked toward her, holding out his hand with the fondness he knew would now only visit him in these dreams.

He missed her.

He needed her.

Oh, come back to me.