Chapter 11: Damask
Her feet sauntered at a weary speed away from the hospital.
It took Dawn another week after regaining consciousness to be fully dismissed, her mother's orders. Cynthia disappeared after the confrontation, and so had Johanna. Dawn was on her own again, back on the road, just the way she liked it. It had been a month since the start of her journey, and she certainly did not expect things to be held up like this. Her team was now more than half-way reassembled, but the rest aren't exactly easy to find. Furthermore, the attack on Hearthome was still fresh on her mind, and Dawn assumed responsibility of finding the culprit all on her own. Logically speaking, there was only one person capable of such destruction and complete disregard for the lives of others. Four years had passed, and it would make perfect sense for him to finally pick up his plans once again. If so, there would only be one person that could help confirm it. Before she left town, however, she had a visit to make.
Walking amongst the stripped, burnt streets of the ruined city, Dawn was able to observe the rebuilding process of a once majestic entertainment hub of the entire region. People were still busy about, worried looks never leaving their faces. She understood that such a catastrophe must had shaken their resolve quite a bit. Things like that didn't happen often, and certainly civilians living in the most advanced and populated place of all Sinnoh would have a good reason to feel safe. Dawn was unaware of the casualty numbers herself, but it must not have been modest. She knew how lucky it must have been to survive, and especially to feel as she did then.
A fifteen minute walk before she arrived at the dingy shack of old. The outer layers of concrete and roof pieces were barely putting itself back together, but light of intense activity could already be seen from inside. The door was only half-way closed, and so Dawn eased in gently. She could see Bebe's feet planted firmly on her uneven desk, legs stretch all the way back to hold the laptop, on which she madly tapped away without a care in the world.
"Morning." Dawn greeted, as the other woman seemed too absorbed in her work to notice a visitor arriving at her door step. "How are you doing?"
"Oh Dawn!" Bebe was apparently ecstatic, enough to pause, set the laptop aside, and give the girl a great embrace. "I'm good. You're good?"
"I'm good." They both grinned. "Where's Eve?"
"Right here." Bebe tapped lightly on her belt, and out came a brown four-legged creature, the fur around its collar and the tip of its tail were silver coloured. It wiggled its pointy ears at the touch of fresh air, and walked around on its feline paws, soaking in the light. "Just got her back too. Scared the hell out of me to think she could've been lost in the last minute transfer."
"Hey," Dawn bent down and extended her reach. The eevee recognised her immediately, and propelled itself onto her open arms, and snuggled up to her cheeks. "You've gained weight."
"Has she?" Asked Bebe, amused. She gave the eevee to Dawn a long time ago, but the girl never intended to train it to participate in battle. When Dawn finished her full team, Eve was returned to Bebe, who had been taking care of it ever since. "When she looks at me with those eyes, I can't say no to her, I guess."
"That makes two of us." Dawn smiled, and petted the eevee. She didn't carry it around long enough to have developed a special bond or anything, but such an adorable creature would always warrant at least some degree of indulgence.
"So what do you plan to do now?" Bebe grabbed her laptop once again, and went back to her seat.
"Finding out who did this." Dawn had the stern tone in her voice not commonly heard. It was her way of letting others know she was serious, and none had doubted her resolve on it before.
"You're bumping head first into danger again, huh?" Bebe sighed. She wasn't one of Dawn's closest friends, but Dawn was definitely one of hers. She knew fully well what the girl was capable of doing, but that also worried her greatly. "You know, you can't do this forever."
"I know." Said Dawn. She returned the eevee, and it rested itself on Bebe's lap. "I'm sorry to drag you into that suicide mission too."
"You saved my life, least I could do is to drive a fire truck into a lake for you." It felt bizarre to joke about such insane things, yet had personally experienced it themselves. "But eventually all of that luck is going to fail, and then who knows what will happen."
Dawn only nodded. She knew it very well. The weight of the things she frequently got herself into made themselves very clear. That time she stepped into the Distortion World, with no gravity under her feet and no sense of directions around pitch black darkness, was one of those times. To this day, nothing had felt quite so troubling.
Soon Dawn departed after some words of goodbye. She climbed onto Toto for the first time in three weeks, and they soared above the city. She headed northeast, for that was where Veilstone city was located. Veilstone didn't hold a lot of special moments for her, not to mention that the giant Team Galactic HQ building was still standing, and that bothered her greatly. Ever since Cyrus' disappearance into the Distortion World and Charon's arrest, the entire group had reorganised their assets into a large corporation concerning themselves with the operation and security of entertainment venues. It sounded legitimate, but she was never one to put a lot of trust into things like this. She would have just shut down the organisation if she had the chance, unfortunately politics and matters of money wasn't something she was well-versed in. It was a hard swallowed loss, but nevertheless nothing seemed to have turned sour since then, so that wound was healed.
She arrived at the city with plenty of time to spare. The entire town was built on cold, hard concrete and facing dead ends from all sides created a very isolated atmosphere. That said, it was still the second largest city in the entire region, with Jubilife basically having fallen off the map. Toto landed right in front of the Galactic Veilstone Building. Its purple, rugged exterior hissed at Dawn with detest. She would return the favour, but then she would be classified as crazy. She had other things that needed to be done.
The city was just as she had remembered it, except perhaps that focus of it all had more firmly shifted towards the constantly growing game corners and subsequent bars that rode its success. A lot of the unemployed migrated here after the downfall of Jubilife, and had taken somewhat of a permanent residence beside the slot machines. Walking inside the once humble game shop, the immense spatial design overwhelmed dawn. The establishment had long since morphed into a casino with the investment capital of Team Galactic, who then was running the place. Arrays of gamblers strutting to and fro as if blissfully aware of them chugging away their own money at every turn. Dawn was not old enough to participate just yet, one of the drawbacks of this place not just being a small game corner any longer, so she had her own way of sneaking in.
Legs tucked, and backpacked held up half way, she stuck to a middle-aged couple by the shoulders. Her feet turned as theirs. Her head swayed against theirs. They walked in without ever realising her presence, but the receptionist was made to fully acknowledge their unwilling companionship.
"Are you sure a single bed is suitable?" Asked the receptionist mid-way through entrance.
"Why not?" The man craned an eyebrow.
"Well, since you'll need a bed for your girl there." The receptionist pointed at their back. As they turned, no one was there. Awkward silence took over for a brief moment. The receptionist took some time to massage between his eyes. "Never mind, let us carry on."
Dawn was already in the middle of the casino floor by this point. She never really understood the draw of gambling, but that was just something she accepted. She had little chance still of finding anyone within this centre though, as she had to pay attention to dodge the patrol and serving girls. The slots of all kinds, blackjack tables, poker stands, and inviting entrances to private shows populated her view, and though she didn't plan to anytime soon, she began to warm up the idea of it all. Pure entertainment, as it went. Another twenty minutes passed, every single one of which she was glad to have been wearing breathing shorts, before her gaze locked firmly on who she was looking for.
In front of a wheel of fortune machine slumped a man. His passing, silver-lined hair was dredged and unwashed; his old, stained, worn-out brown jacket covered his tired body. There were numerous glasses of hard liquor pushed to the side, some half-drank, most empty. He had aged considerably since the last time they met, something Dawn did not expect. She approached, only to see he was barely conscious, a kind of belching smell exuding from his skinny figure.
"Looker?"
