This is the longest (and the most confusing) chapter yet! (And possibly my favorite, it's kind of a tie between this chapter and the one when the king kissed May) To be honest, I was originally going to have Giratina (Ghost Dragon legendary from Sinnoh) instead of Darkrai, especially since I am slightly aware that he isn't evil in the 10th Pokemon movie (or at least that's what somebody said) but somehow, I felt that Darkrai was a better choice. (I had found it hard to write something like Giratina anyway) Speaking of Giratina, I actually did catch that Pokemon in Diamond. (Your next, Heatran!)
I don't own Pokemon.
.:.Fourteen.:.
The king took a sip of wine from the glass that was poured to him by one of the butlers, sitting at a small table next to a window that allowed him to look out over his kingdom. He had found it hard to believe that he had forgotten about something as simple as the taste of wine, but he blamed it on the fact that this tongue had never tasted wine. He vaguely thought of the repercussions of drinking wine in this body, but then figured that it'll just get handed over to the brat. He almost felt like giving the poor kid a hangover just for the heck of it.
He swilled the wine around in his glass, watching the red liquid swirl around lazily. He hadn't received one mental message from Ash at all since locking him away in that part of his mind, not that he had expected to feel him at all. He had thought that the kid would be a fighter or find a way out, but it seemed not. He wasn't sure if he was happy about that or slightly disgusted at Ash's weakness.
And there was still the matter of those friends of his. Any minute now they would be coming to try to get their dear old brat back. Especially the girl.
He tightened his grip on the wineglass, nearly smashing it. Why did this girl affect him like this? Whenever he had made physical contact with her, it burned his skin. The first time that had happened, it was the first time that he had ever felt pain since being released from his stone prison. It was a problem that had to be dealt with, immediately if possible.
But how? He couldn't physically hurt her without hurting himself, apparently.
Ah, but mental and emotional pain...those were the only ways. But how to damage her heart even more than it was now...
"Your Majesty."
He frowned as he slowly sat his wine glass down, frowning at the guard that had arrived, a Houndoom at its side.
"What was so important for you to disturb me?", the king snapped at him, causing the guard and the Houndoom to flinch.
"We caught intruders in the west wing area. We wish to know what you want done to them?", the guard asked.
"Just toss them over a cliff or something. Or feed them to the Houndooms.", the king suggested as he picked his wine glass up again to take another sip.
"They demand an audience with you."
He lowered his glass again, without looking at the guard anymore. "Well, what do these intruders look like?"
"There's three of them. A girl, a guy, and a Pokemon."
The king turned to look at the guard, carefully considering this. "Fine. Bring them here, but I swear that if this is a waste of my time and patience..."
The guard took the hint as he signaled to some guards that had been standing in the hallway. The king arched an eyebrow in vague surprise as a group of guards tossed in Jessie, James, and Meowth. The group looked slightly ragged, as if they had accidentally fallen asleep in some bushes, which now that the king thought about it, it might explain the twigs sticking out of Jessie's hair.
"Ow! Not so rough!", one of them, he assumed was James, said as they stood up.
"Quiet James!", hissed Jessie as she reached up and removed one of the twigs.
"What do you idiots want?", the king asked, a vein twitching in his forehead.
"Well, we heard about how you hate those twerp friends of yours-", Meowth started to say, but he was interrupted.
"Don't call them that!", he snapped at them coldly, which caused the Team Rocket trio to jump at the sharpness of his tone. "I've gotten sick of your referring to these people as 'twerps' or whatever it is you call them."
"Well, anyway, we wanted to help you out with gettin' rid of them.", Meowth finished, looking to Jessie and James for backup, but the two seemed to be too scared to say anything else.
"I don't need your help with this. Give me a very good reason not to feed you three to the Houndooms.", he said threateningly.
Jessie and James gulped as they looked back over their shoulders at the now snarling Houndooms. Despite the fact that the king was technically shorter than the two of them, he was still quite intimidating...
"We could steal Pikachu for you.", Jessie offered.
The king looked slightly ill at the thought, remembering how the little yellow vermin had shocked his brains out last time.
"Sorry, the offer isn't very tempting.", he said as he signaled to the guards, who were now inching toward the trio. "Guards, take these three to the dungeons to feed to the Houndoom. I don't want blood spatter on my floor."
"Wait, don't!", Jessie screeched as a guard grabbed her from behind.
"I don't want to be dog food!", Meowth yelped as he too was also restrained.
"We'll do anything!", James pleaded.
The king turned to look at James for a moment, remembering his earlier predicament with Ash's friends. His eyes trailed down to the pokeballs fastened onto their belts before suddenly having an idea.
"Release them.", he ordered. The guards immediately let go of the surprised trio. "You say you'll do anything?", he asked. The trio nodded, mostly in fear of getting eaten.
"Then there is something that I want you to steal for me, but it's not the Pikachu..."
Darkrai. The "Pitch-Black" Pokemon. It can lull people to sleep and make them dream. Folklore has it that on moonless nights, it will cause people to see horrific nightmares...
May abruptly shut the book that she was reading. She had borrowed it from June after their discussion. It was an old dog-eared textbook about the legendary gods. After briefly skimming the first few pages of Ho-oh, who in the book was praised as a "god of gods", she had landed on the page of Darkrai. It appeared to be an artist's rendering of the Pokemon, but the artist had never actually seen this Pokemon for itself. It mostly looked like a swirl of darkness with red eyes and clawed hands that reached out toward its sleeping victims.
May closed her eyes, thinking of the king's cold grey eyes for some reason. What she wouldn't give to see Ash's true eyes, his warm brown eyes...
She closed her right hand into a fist. There had to be some way to get Ash back. To help him fight this.
She sat down on the bed, her eyes heavy with sleep, but her mind was in upheaval. There was no way she could sleep tonight. If she listened closely, she could hear the soft breathing of the sleeping people in the household. She couldn't't help but feel a twinge of anger. How could they sleep so soundly when their friend was in danger? But, she supposed, they would need a good night sleep if they were thinking about confronting Ash the next day. But what would they do when they saw him? Who knew what the king was capable of doing...
Darkrai
But was the king a pawn in this strange game as well? Someone who was being used by this Darkrai? In the end, hurting the one that the king had actually felt something for? Or was it only an excuse that the king was using, but if that was the case, why the excuse? For sympathy? To trick them? Had he really thrown away the one he loved to gain power for revenge? June said that in truth, she had not been there when it happened, but now her sister was gone and the only explanation was that it was the king's fault. And did it explain for the way the king acted to her? Because when he looked at May, he saw his dead wife?
The "Pitch-Black" Pokemon
May didn't notice the darkness of the night sky as it cloaked the town in its wake. She could feel the circles growing under her eyes, but she didn't care. She was holding Ash's hat to her chest, like as if it was her lifeline. The bill of the hat was already wet with her tears. What if they couldn't save Ash in time? And she never got the chance...to tell him...
May glanced out the window, to the woods that ended at the cliff side. For a second...she had heard a voice. But she shook this notion...she was merely tired and now she was hearing things.
It can lull people to sleep and make them dream
May snapped her head up and looked toward the window. She had definitely heard something that time. A voice that seemed to have blended in the winds, but was still there. May stood up from the bed and walked over to the windowsill, still holding Ash's hat to her chest. She leaned her head out, trying to catch the voice again. After a minute of silence, she pulled back. There was nothing there...what was she thinking?
She was about to step away from the window when she heard it again. The voice...it was calling her name. And it sounded familiar.
"Ash?", she asked aloud into the darkness. She didn't get an answer, nor had she expected one. But then...she heard it again. And it was coming from beyond the woods. Without a second thought, she had climbed out of the window and ran toward the cliffs. She didn't even notice that it was a moonless night.
Folklore has it that on moonless nights...
May didn't stop running until she had already passed the trees and was standing in the clearings that were the cliff side. She slowed down as she reached the stone statue that was there. She looked up at the face of April, who despite the fact that in stone she looked sad...there was almost a tiny hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.
"Why...did you fall in love with him?", she couldn't't help but ask aloud.
She didn't receive an answer from the statue. A cool wind suddenly picked up, tearing Ash's hat out of her slackened grip. She panicked as she reached out to catch it, but it moved out of her reach, barely brushing against the tips of her outstretched fingers. May watched as it started to head toward the cliffs. If it swept out into the ocean...
This worry was soon extinguished as a figure at the edge of the cliffs suddenly caught the hat. May stood a few feet from him, puzzled by the figure's sudden appearance. In fact, if she wasn't mistaken...
"So you actually came.", the figure whispered.
"Ash?", she asked. The figure stepped forward. It was indeed Ash, frowning a little as he watched her, his eyes covered by the darkness of the night. She couldn't't help but step closer to him until they were barely a foot away. He didn't step closer to her or back away. May reached a hand out to him.
"Ash?"
Before she could touch his face, he had grabbed her wrist with the hand that wasn't holding the hat and May saw a glimpse of familiar grey eyes.
...it will cause people to see horrific nightmares
"Your voice can no longer reach him where he is.", the king whispered so lowly that she almost didn't catch it.
"You!", she hissed as she struggled to pull her wrist free from his grasp. He suddenly broke into a grin and tightened his hold on her wrist.
"What's the matter? Just a minute ago you were so happy...", he asked with mock concern.
May lifted another fist to try to hit him, but he swiftly caught other wrist, tilting his head to one side, the hat dropping to his feet before being picked up by the wind and falling over the cliff.
"Honestly, I don't know where the brat gets his taste in girls.", he chided, slightly amused at the look of fury that flitted across her face at the remark.
"Why, is it because I remind of you of your dead wife?", May shot back. She was shocked when the king suddenly let go of her, pushing her at the stone statue of April, painfully crashing her back into it.
"My past is none of your concern.", the king hissed at her as she stood back up painfully.
"Why did you do all this? Attacking Ho-oh and getting your wife killed in the process?", May asked.
"We were at war, girl. History is written by the winners, unless its not written at all. Think about it. Why is it that you didn't know anything about this war until coming here? We were losing. Poke'mopolis was in the lead of the arms race-although you can't know how happy I was when I found out that the civilization was wiped out by a giant Gengar and Alakazam. And then Ho-oh turned it's back on us. We were already dying as an empire, so what was one more death compared to saving countless others?", The king explained.
"Even if that one person was your wife?"
"Hold your tongue, wench. Don't speak of things you don't understand.", the king snarled.
"I understand that you are a heartless jerk for throwing away someone you loved for power!"
"And you are any different?"
May stared at him, confused by his statement. "What do you mean by that?"
The king put a hand to his forehead, as if pulling a memory to the front of his brain. "Weren't you leaving Ash to go to Johto so that you could become a stronger trainer? To me, that sounds like the same thing."
"That's nothing like what you did!", May shouted at him.
"You can say that if you want, but you know I'm right.", he said, as he turned away, looking up at the sky.
May found that she could not speak, as if her throat had suddenly closed up. The king seemed to ignore her for a minute or two before turning back around.
"But I didn't come here to talk of things of the past. I come with a proposition.", he said as he approached her. May suddenly found that she couldn't't move her legs, freezing up as he was now within a few inches of her.
"I know what you're thinking. You won't accept any deals I make, is that right?", he asked, which startled May, as that had been exactly what she had been thinking.
"But you want Ash back, right? So you would be willing to do anything to get him back.", he stated simply, so close to her that he was only an inch away from her face.
May found her voice again. "Like what?"
"Come to the palace tomorrow night. Alone. Then we can settle this matter once and for all. And afterwords, I might be inclined to give you back your precious Ash."
May looked at him suspiciously. "What do you mean by 'settling this matter once and for all?'"
"You'll see. It's something you don't want to miss, that's for sure. In fact, if you do promise to come tomorrow, then I'll even give you one minute to speak to Ash. Right here, right now."
May's eyes widened at this. "Please, let me talk to him!"
"So you'll agree to come tomorrow?"
"Yes! Now let me talk to him!", she shouted.
The king closed his eyes for a minute, before suddenly opening once more, his grey eyes replaced with familiar brown ones, yet they were slightly glassed over, looking quite sleep deprived. He looked around for a minute, panic setting in.
"W-where am I?"
"Ash?", she asked, hoping to any gods out there that it was really him. He faced her, looking surprised.
"May?", he asked, his eyes widening with disbelief. His voice sounded like it hadn't been used for quite sometime.
"Ash, it is you!", she cried out as she found the movement in her legs again and went to hug him.
"Don't touch me!"
May faltered, looking back up at him, watching as Ash had started to back away from her.
"What's wrong?", she asked.
"It's not real. He's tricking me again. You aren't really her. This is all just some kind of illusion.", he whispered, looking very fearful of her. May could feel tears prickle at the corners of her eyes at this Ash in front of her, a defeated and broken Ash. Now she noticed for the first time how cuts and bruises had appeared over his body and how parts of clothes seemed torn.
"Please Ash, it really is me...you've got to believe me.", she said as she placed a hand on his cheek, which made him visibly stiffen, but then he seemed to relax. After a moment, he looked calmer.
"It really is you. I thought that I was going to be stuck in my own head forever. If that happened, I probably wouldn't be able to continue getting gym badges.", he joked. May gave him a small smile. Even with all this happening, he was still able to joke around.
"Ash, I'm so glad you're ok. I was so worried about you."
"I was worried too. But now everything is o-", Ash suddenly cut off, looking like he was in pain.
"Ash? Ash! Speak to me!", May shouted as she grabbed his shoulders.
"No...not again.", he was muttering to himself. May shook him harder.
"Ash, stay with me!"
"May, I just want you to know that I-", Ash started to say, but then he stopped as his eyes almost seemed to roll into the back of his head before closing.
"Ash?"
His eyes suddenly opened, revealing grey eyes, once more. The bruises and cuts seemed to disappear as well.
"I hope that you had a very enlightening conversation.", the king said, a small smirk playing on his lips.
"What did do you to him!?"
"Let's just say that he saw a few things that he shouldn't have seen.", he replied simply. "Eventually it will only get worse and he will never have a sense of reality or imagination ever again. Heck, he may not even have a mind when this is over."
Darkness started to swirl around the two and everything around them was being pulled into it, until it was only the two of them.
"I'll be waiting.", he whispered as he disappeared into the darkness, leaving only her behind.
"Come back here! I'm not finished with you yet! Ash!!"
May sat upright, panting hard. Looking around, she discovered that she was back in the guest room of June's house. She shakily raised a hand to her head, trying to recall what had happened, her other hand still closed around Ash's hat. Had she been dreaming?
No...Ash had been in it...she had even talked to him...and the monster that had been possessing him...
She turned on the lamp next to her, picking up one of the pokeballs that she had brought with her.
Yes, she would come to the palace. But the king would be getting a fight in return. If he really expected for her to play his sick game, then he was in for a surprise.
But what she didn't notice was that a few of the pokeballs were missing.
The king twirled a pokeball on his index finger, pleased with his handiwork. How idiotic could the girl be? To think that he wouldn't expect something like this of her, that she would think of challenging him to a battle. After all, when invading a person's waking dreams, you could see their mind like an open book. Admittedly, he had been slightly hesitant about letting her talk to Ash, after finding him in the darkest depths of his mind, but for all the either of them knew, the conversation never took place.
"I look forward to fighting you, dear May...", he chuckled to himself in the dark, as a streetlight outside splashed it's light across the window, illuminating a lunar calender that was laying in front of the king.
Tommorow there was to be an eclipse...
Ash blinked, seeing that he was once again lost in the darkness that spread around him, stretching on forever and ever. He placed a hand to his cheek, wondering if he had finally lost it and had imagined the whole thing. It seemed like a blur, one minute he had been wandering around, the next he had been pulled out into the real world, but as quickly as it had come, it had gone, and all the details of what took place were draining away from his memory. The only thing he could remember was a few fragments of May. He had questioned if this had been a trick, and now he still wasn't too sure. But then, for the first time since being stuck in his own mind, he smiled.
Even the king couldn't fake something like the warmth of her hands.
(AN: I was going to end it right here, but I couldn't help but add this next bit!)
Meanwhile, there was an event taking place at New Moon Island.
Deep within the forest, a lone puddle that nearly covered the entire forest floor sat. It was always a mystery why this puddle was there, one that no one had ever found an answer to. The only explanation that people could give was that when it rained, there wasn't a way to successfully drain all the water. And yet, it didn't explain why it never simply evaporated.
A ripple suddenly formed in the middle, spreading out until the entire puddle was shaking. A reflection of a black creature was visible, a figure with blue eyes that were as blue as the puddle itself. Even though it's mouth wasn't moving, a single word escaped the puddle.
Finally...
At the same time, not too far from New Moon Island, was Full Moon Island.
Unlike New Moon Island, it was similar except that the puddle in the forest was in a distorted shape of a crescent moon. And unlike the figure in the puddle, this figure was sleeping over top of the crescent puddle. It had flourecent veil-like wings that curved at an angle similar to a crescent moon. It's head looked like a moon split in half, curving it's bird-like face. The creature opened it's eyes, which were a bright ruby color. But they looked alarmed, as if sensing a powerful danger approaching.
"There's something strange...an odd taste in the air."
"It's him, isn't it?"
The creature turned to look at the ghostly girl that had appeared at it's side. The girl had long brown hair that framed her pale face, in contrast to her bright pink dress and her green eyes. And yet, she was see-through, as the forest background could be seen behind her. The creature considered her carefully before speaking.
"I'm afraid it is. I never thought that he would come back. Not after what Ho-oh did.", the Pokemon said, it's wings shaking a little.
"...What should we do?", the girl asked. Her voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away.
"Hopefully Ho-oh has sensed the danger as well. But because of the eclipse tommorow, Ho-oh will be much weaker. I may have to step in and intervene, seeing as how I'm the only other one that has the power to stop him."
"But the new moon weakens you as well. And it is a factor in the eclipse tommorow. And besides, are you sure that you will be able to go against him, Cresselia? Because you loved him?"
To the girl's surprise, the Pokemon chuckled.
"I could say the same to you, April..."
But the girl smiled.
"The only difference is that I still love him."
I know, incredibly confusing, but everything will be explained soon! I'll try to answer any questions you have.
May vs. King? Place your bets! And it looks like even Darkrai had some trouble in the love department! And April is a ghost?
R&R