And right now
I have you, for a moment I can tell I've got you
Cuz your lips don't move
Something is happening
Cuz your eyes tell me the truth
I've put a spell over you
~Spell by Marie Digby.
Having got used to aches and pains when I woke up, I ignored the one in the inside crease of my elbow for a little while. It wasn't until I properly registered the pain did I realise this wasn't a normal ache of exertion. It was a new, fresh pain that was being caused right at that moment. I opened my eyes to see Dawn sat across me, her hands causing the pain.
"What are y-" I stopped when I zeroed in on the object in her hands.
"Just shut up and let me finish this." She muttered, squeezing the syringe down slowly.
"Get that out of me!" I tried to move her hand away with the arm not being injected, but she'd already anticipated me doing that, so she placed a protect over herself and my arm. I tried to move the arm being injected, but she was sitting on it.
With nothing to do, I simply glared at her. What was she doing? What was that stuff? Why was she injecting me with something dingy and yellow?
But then I noticed a few tears dripping down her cheek. I placed two and two together.
"Is that... An Antidote?"
She nodded slowly, clamping the last of the liquid out of the syringe and pulling the needle out of my arm. I winced at the tug in my skin, but she was already there to stop the bleeding with a cotton pad.
I sat up and took the cotton. "Well this is great!" I don't think I've ever sounded so enthusiastic in my entire life. "Why didn't you say straight away?"
She pursed her lips and backed off the bed. I blinked stupidly and began crawling after her. She looked guilty. I couldn't understand why.
"Have you already done it to yourself, or do you want me to do it?" I tilted my head slightly.
"I can't..." She muttered, her eyes suddenly at my knees.
I didn't understand. "Why?"
No reply.
"Dawn?"
Barely audible, she muttered; "There was only one Antidote." She met my eyes hesitantly, then they dropped back down when she saw the frozen expression on my face. "I'm sorry."
"I-" I didn't know what to say. So I did what I always did when confused. I exploded; "Are you mad?"
She flinched away from me; "I'm sorry! I knew you would act like this!"
"Because you're bloody stupid! Why didn't you just use it?"
"Hear me out-"
I interrupted her; "No. You should have used it on yourself, you stupid, stupid girl!"
"I know! I'm selfish!" She cried; "I can't bare to lose you Paul! I'd lose anything else in the world if it meant saving you."
I stopped what I was going to say. I was never good with empathy skills, but I could suddenly put myself in her shoes.
"And I thought about it... You changed long before I did, Paul. You had less time than me. It only made my decision more definite." She hiccuped a sob, curling around herself. I looked at her pitiful stance and stumbled forward without a thought. She was shaking, and her hands clamped onto my shirt.
"I'm sorry Paul, I was frightened." She mumbled.
I rubbed her back comfortingly. "I know..."
But this left me in one hell of a situation. I wouldn't be able to tell what stage Dawn was at, now I was locked in this stage. "You should have left it, Dawn. I'd rather be cured or take the pain together."
"I know you would have forced me to use it." She shook her head as she wiped her eyes.
That made me chuckle; "Yeah, good point."
She smiled weakly, watching her fingers as she twiddled them.
Trying my best to be rational, I sighed. There was nothing I could do about it now, no way to transfer it to her. No point in crying over spilt moomoo milk. I placed my hands on her shoulders, but she jolted away from me upon contact and hissed.
"What? What!" I hovered around her, careful not to touch her again. Were my hands boiling? Had I sent a funny reaction through her because of this antidote?
"It's nothing, Paul. Just aching. That Altaria packs a punch." She assured me, rolling her shoulder gently.
I frowned, watching her as she turned to leave the room. That Altaria didn't touch her. She could detect away from anything, couldn't she? I shrugged it off, maybe I'd missed something. Can't expect her defence to impenetrable, just damn handy.
"Hey! I was wondering when you two would get up." Ash smiled, suppressing a yawn. Dawn tapped his arm to get him out of the driver's seat and took his place. "You should go to bed, you look awful."
"You don't know how to drive this thing." He frowned.
"There's not much to crash into, is there..." She rolled her eyes, gesturing to the vast ocean.
I scoffed; "And if you managed it..." He shot me a glare, but I always got a kick from annoying him. Sad, I know, but humorous nonetheless.
"Fine. Come and get me when you see land. You won't be able to park it." He narrowed his eyes at me, then shouldered me as he passed. We were back to that tired old thing? I scoffed again, reminding myself that I'd probably dislocate his arm from the socket if I did it to him, now that I was unnaturally twice as strong as a body builder. Perhaps more so now too, I hadn't tested my limit recently.
"Come on Pikachu."
The mouse pokemon slowly fell of the other chair in the room, and waddled after its trainer sleepily. It must have been awoken mid-slumber. Couldn't blame it being grouchy, even though I'd been woken being stabbed by a needle.
I took the now-vacated seat, staring out to the ocean. So vast, and the gentle rocking sent me off day dreaming, until my imagination landed at Kanto. I'd never been there before, but it was supposed to be hotter than Sinnoh, and had much more complex cities to explore.
That made our mission that much more difficult. As if it wasn't hard enough trying to spot a needle in a haystack. Now somebody had placed that haystack in several others.
"Where do you think we should go to start off our trail?" I muttered.
Dawn shrugged; "the first person I thought about was professor Oak. He has a lot of knowledge about the different laboratories, and has quite a few contacts..."
"But can we trust him to keep us a secret, or are we going to... You know... Be experimented on too?"
She shuddered at the thought.
"Then what about Gary Oak? I know we can trust him. He'll look after us, and maybe he can talk to his grandfather..." She seemed pleased with the idea, and then suddenly laughed; "I'm sure Ash would like that."
"Are you being sarcastic?" I asked, unsure.
She laughed harder; "Of course. There are only two people in the world who annoy Ash to the point of bursting, and that's Gary Oak and yourself."
That sounded fun. I missed the times where I'd bugged him to the point where he exploded. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from Gary Oak.
"You shouldn't look so pleased with yourself, Paul." She scolded me, breaking me out of my thoughts.
"But that makes it all the more pleasing." I retorted, she pouted. "Oh come on! You're saying you've never wound him up for the fun of it?"
"No." She said sternly and surely; "Never, I have a heart."
For now.
The thought flashed through my head, and I was sharp enough to bite my tongue before I replied with it. I must have paled, because Dawn glanced at me worriedly.
"I didn't mean you don't have one, Paul. It's just..."
"It's alright." I wasn't bothered if she thought she'd insulted me, which in truth she hadn't. I preferred her feeling guilty over something trivial like that than being reminded of her fate if we didn't find her an antidote.
We fell silent for a long while, and I think I may have dozed for a little while until Dawn suddenly let out an outburst. "KANTO!"
I jumped to sit up straight, then leant over the dashboard to see the land clearer. Just a peak of a mountain, Coronet, if I had my geography correct, but it was exciting for Dawn. She jumped about in her seat; "Go get Ash! Go go!"
I hurried out as she continued to chant at me. A spark of hope had ignited in her again, and I was beginning to dread them, because each time they fizzled out, the life in her eyes drained more and more with it.
There wasn't any need to fetch Ash though, he was already wheeling around the corner excitedly. This was, after all, his home. Home meant a lot more to him than mine did to me. He didn't even seem bothered by my appearance, sleep must change his attitude drastically. Plus the fact he wasn't one of us, life was pretty good for him at the moment. Scowling, I stepped aside for him to rush past and squeak something at Dawn, who squeaked back in that annoying "OHMAHGOSH" kind of way. Whether to go in or not didn't take much thinking about, I headed to the back of the boat where I could hear either of them. As grateful as I was for Ash's help, he didn't half annoy me. I sat on the boat's edge, the late-morning winds whipping my hair away from my face and cooling my overly heated body down in the process.
I hated to admit it, but Ash had found a new talent in driving this thing. He parked in a mass of other boats, having barely any space by the two boats he was parking between, and still not even scraping the paint. He hopped out, and began locking things. I wanted desperately to get my bike out, but there was three of us, and I couldn't drive that many of us on it. Instead, I sighed heavily and hopped of the front of the boat onto the deck, it rocked slightly upon impact, which made me slightly nervous. Still, I looked up and took Dawn's hand, she smiled graciously and slipped off the boat a lot more elegantly that I had. She seemed to be able to walk on her leg a lot better today, maybe we were fast healers too?
Looking at my arm, where the needle had penetrated the skin in the inside crease of my elbow mere hours ago, and realised my theory was correct. Not even a mark indicating I'd been injected remained, just new skin, glistening with a light sheen of sweat from being under the high peaked sun.
"Well..." Ash grunted as he leapt off the front of the boat and tied it to the decking. "Where to next?"
I apologise for the fillers. They're completely necessary and building up to the final climax. :)
Had troubles writing at all recently, don't know what's wrong with me. Thanks for sticking with me when I'm being such a pain in the arse. XD
