Waiting for Them to Leave

by shattershell

After a lot of victories and a lot of travel, Ash and Pikachu head back to Pallet Town to celebrate with their friends and family. Ash is also planning to take some time to rest and reflect on his journey before leaving again. But he doesn't know that his next adventure, which will require him to develop in a whole new way, is about to be unleashed upon him.

12. Part 2 Chapter 5

5

Dawn, for her part, had fared only a little bit better than Serena. Team Aqua's Matt and Shelly had taken her as their prisoner. At the very least they'd allowed her to sit quietly on the back of the boat. She was angry, but at least she was free to use her hands as she pleased.

For the duration of the trip to Cataeus, Dawn had trouble avoiding the angry stares that Matt would shoot at her every once in a while. He was a big man, most of his body was hard muscle, and he could make quite a mean face. But he looked at her with an effortless kind of contempt, not like a hunter savoring a freshly caught prey, more like a tired man staring at a physically heavy burden, and an unnecessary one at that. At times Dawn felt like Matt was seconds away from throwing her overboard, luckily for her he didn't move. He only kept intimidating her with his cold eyes in silence.

They arrived at Cataeus, got off the boat and started making their way to the center of the city on foot. Dawn found no other reason to be scared. They didn't treat her badly, considering she was their prisoner. Actually, they made no effort to even acknowledge her presence, although perhaps that was for the best.

Cataeus was settled right above a deep swamp. All the buildings had been laid well above the muddy ground, and many small bridges connected one building to another. The buildings in the middle had more than a few bridges connecting them to the surrounding areas. The whole place was arranged like a circular web, with the buildings as the connecting dots. It was entirely possible to go through the mud to walk around, but the small bridges were understandably the preferred choice.

Dawn lifted her gaze as high as she could, and tried to look past all the roofs, the gazebos, and then the morose trees lurking beyond the city. She could only spot the darkness limiting Cataeus from all directions except the one they had come from, which had the dangerous Rigurea River flowing behind it.

In reality the small piece of land that was Cataeus was surrounded by deeper swamps as well as a thicker, inhospitable jungle. Cataeus resided on the safest zone on that side of the river. That sorry place was the best option that the founders had gotten to settle down. And they had made the best out of it. Unfortunately by the time of Dawn's arrival there was barely anyone left there.

And there wasn't a single pokemon in sight. That place was nothing like Meripa, but even in her situation, Dawn felt a sort of homely comfort while being there, at least when no one was looking at her, specifically Matt. She walked behind him and Shelly as they crossed some bridges and through a few gazebos, until they reached the biggest building located right at the center of them all. It was a dining hall, and was styled like a fancy wedding would take place there very soon.

There were three people already inside the hall. Dawn recognized two of them, even though she had never met either of them personally. They were the Hoenn League Champion, Wallace, and the Kalos League Champion Diantha. Both of them were wearing clothes that seemed almost appropriate for jungle exploration, but which fell short of being truly practical, seeing as they were of very vibrant white and blue shades; it was a bit too much. It was as if they were wearing the jungle versions of their usual, flashy and elegant attires, which were also a bit too much on their own.

Dawn stopped at the edge of the room while Matt and Shelly headed for the champions. She had only seen them in pictures and on tv, many times; she already knew a lot about them. From Cynthia herself, Dawn had learned that the two champions were working together and called themselves The Pacifists. She heard that they wanted to take over the region in order to stop all the violence that went on in there, specially coming from Lance.

And as it turned out, they were working together with Team Aqua, which made Dawn question everything she thought she knew about them.

Shelly walked past Wallace and Diantha without bothering to give either of them a single glance and headed towards the third person who was there, a very scary looking man with a long black beard. He was wearing a blue bandana over his head, which cast a shadow over his eyes, making him look even more threatening. He was slimmer and slightly shorter than Matt, but his muscles were very defined, specially with the tight blue leather suit he was wearing. It had a dramatically high collar and was open at the chest, leaving his pectoral muscles visibly naked, and visibly hairy. Matt, for his part, bothered to at least shake Wallace's hand. Wallace not only took his hand and shook it effusively, but he grabbed Matt's hand and held it with both of his hands for a long handshake, the sight of which greatly unnerved Dawn.

Noticing her discomfort, Diantha headed towards Dawn while sporting a wide smile on her face. Her lips were closed tightly, and as she walked, Diantha blinked slowly and tilted her head to the side, directing Dawn's attention to her striking blue eyes, which were so striking in fact, so cold and at the same time so inviting, that Dawn couldn't help but stare right into them while no thoughts passed through her mind. Dawn wasn't able to react until she had the champion right in front of her, speaking.

"Hey, don't worry, you're safe now," Diantha said, with her soothing actress voice. "My name is Diantha, you may have heard of me, I'm the Kalos League Champion."

"I know who you are," Dawn said cuttingly after regaining full consciousness. "And I know what you're doing here with Wallace. You call yourselves the Pacifists."

"That's correct. Now tell me, what is a delicate creature such as you doing here alone?"

"You should know, your goons attacked us, my friends and I. My mom was there too. So I wasn't alone. Besides, I still have my pokemon with me."

"Oh, believe me, I'm well aware of that. I see it in your eyes. I have stared at eyes like yours for all my life. So trust me when I tell you that this place isn't for you, at least not yet. You are delicate but that's okay, especially if you aim to stop being so. That said, you have skipped a million steps in the learning curve. Have you been to Kalos yet? I assure you it is more suited to your current abilities."

"I have a mission here."

"Oh yeah, what is it?"

"I came here to find…" Dawn stopped herself. She pondered whether to tell Diantha about Professor Copal or not. She couldn't trust her. "…Someone," she finished.

"I see. That's okay, you don't have to tell me. I also have a mission to accomplish here, and I take it very seriously too."

"Is that why you're working with Team Aqua?" Dawn said bravely.

"Yes, that's exactly why," Diantha said with a cheerful smile, then closed her eyes with sass. "I choose to compromise myself in order to achieve my objective. I wish I didn't have to do so, believe me—I wish I could stop this war all on my own. But I'm mature enough to avoid letting my idealism blind me. I can't do this alone."

"I guess I understand that, but why Team Aqua out of all the possible choices?"

"It wasn't my idea," Diantha said, opening her eyes and directing them right at Dawn. She had a pleasant expression on her face. "I brought all of my people with me, and I trust each and every one of them firmly. But even with them I knew my chances were slim. I needed to join forces with someone, and then came Wallace. And guess whose idea was to bring Team Aqua into our little group?"

"I guess that's my cue," Wallace said as he placed himself next to Diantha.

"Watch out, this one loves to talk," Diantha playfully said to him.

"Look, I get it," Wallace said with a lower tone, trying to sound sincere. "These guys caused a lot of trouble in Hoenn. I saw it first hand. But we want to cross the Ghilera River, don't we? So, hey, I don't know about you, but I have no trouble admitting that we need them here. Besides our deal is only temporary. We're merely paying for their services and their expertise. We're the ones in charge, Diantha and I." Wallace put his arm around Diantha and led her closer to him. She tilted her head playfully and let herself be swayed, still smiling. "We care about this place. And we know that it needs somebody to fix it and put it back together. So once we find the Golden City, that's exactly what we'll do."

Wallace and Diantha clearly wanted to convince Dawn of their good intentions and calm her down, but she still felt uneasy; she looked at the ground. She just couldn't forget what Team Aqua had done to her friends.

"You still don't agree with us," Diantha said to her. She didn't have to guess how Dawn felt. "That's okay. How could you understand? You're just a child. Although, judging by your accent, I'm pretty sure it was Cynthia who brought you here. She's a great example of an adult who refuses to leave her childish mentality behind. Listen to me girl." Diantha lowered her head, and got her face really close to Dawn's. "You can't do this alone. This world isn't made for you to do whatever you want however you want. Seriously, what has Cynthia accomplished here so far? She can't save her own people, she can't save a single person. She can't do anything on her own. Grow up. Compromise. Otherwise it's better if you stay in your house with your sweet mother." Diantha stood straight and raised her chin with a very elegant gesture, then she took a deep breath. "Anyway, please feel free to explore the city. There's plenty of food, and we'll have a bed ready for you. I must advise that you don't attempt to escape, as you'll find nothing but mud and dangerous beasts ready to attack you on the outskirts of the city, and it only gets worse from there. Also, if you happen to bump into any of my Gym Leaders, just say you are Wallace's prisoner."

"Why?"

"Because that's effectively what you are my dear. He wants to trade you with Cynthia in order to get his inept Elite 4 back."

"Forgive me," Wallace said. "Don't worry, we'll treat you so nice that you won't even remember you're supposed to be a prisoner. What was your name again?"

"Dawn."

"Right, Dawn." Wallace paused, he didn't know what else to say. "Well, good luck."

After saying this both Wallace and Diantha turned around and walked away. Seeing as Matt was also there, still, Dawn thought it best to take a look around the city.

The sun had gone down although it wasn't quite dark out yet. It was a rather nice time to take a walk, and also to think carefully about what to do next. While looking for a safe place to rest for a bit, Dawn encountered a few strangers. There was a beautiful woman with shiny black hair and freakish black eyes, both the sclera and the pupil. She asked Dawn what she was doing there using an unnaturally high-pitched voice, like that of a perky little girl. Dawn tried not to freak out too much as she repeated what Wallace had advised her to say. Afterwards Dawn encountered a tall, rotund man with gray hair and a long gray beard, who asked her the same thing. Dawn had to insist that she was a prisoner a few times, until the man, who was named Wulfric, let her go.

In an effort to avoid more awkward exchanges, Dawn traveled all the way to buildings located on the outskirts of the city. She found a big cellar that was open and went in. It was very calm and quiet inside, and there was plenty of light coming from the lamps hanging from the ceiling. There were a bunch of boxes stacked all the way to the roof which occupied most of the space, and most of the buildings around were equally filled with many wooden boxes.

By the time Dawn managed to let out a genuine sigh of relief it had gotten fully dark outside.

Dawn sat on one of the boxes and closed her eyes. She was deeply sad, she couldn't think of a way to escape, couldn't even think properly. The fatigue and stress didn't let her. Suddenly it seemed like Diantha was right, Dawn was still a child after all. A dumb, delicate child who couldn't even save herself, let alone somebody else. If only she were able, Dawn thought, she wouldn't hesitate save everyone she knew. Because, who on their right mind would hesitate to rid the world of all the evil if they could?

If she could, at least she'd save her friends and her mom.

During Ash's party, when Johanna was still trying to get her married to Ash, Dawn could've easily wished for her mom to turn into a voiceless pokemon. In fact she didn't only because her imagination didn't grant her that unlikely possibility. Nevertheless Johanna's festering insistence managed to become so overbearing, that Dawn did wish she'd just disappear forever. Well, things had gotten so bad, that now Dawn wished she was still in Kanto, with her very overbearing, very human mother, still trying to marry her to Ash.

A single tear rolled down her cheek just as someone walked in and saw her. It was an older man, who wasn't ready to deal with such a situation and so he tried sneaking out of there without being seen. Unlucky for him, Dawn heard his steps and promptly opened her eyes and caught him, and wiped the tear off of her face.

"Sorry," the older man said, "I thought this roof was empty, I'll find another one."

"I'm Dawn, I'm Wallace's prisoner. He wants to use me to get his inept Elite 4 back."

"I see. In that case, welcome, I'm Professor Copal. You could say I'm a prisoner too. Nice to meet you."

Dawn opened her watery eyes and looked straight at him. A short man with gray hair styled to the side, unkempt. Kind of tanned but not by choice, he had abundant freckles on the bridge of his nose. He had blue eyes which didn't work very well, judging by the large pair of glasses in front of them. He was wearing a sand-colored suit with a white shirt and no tie, all wrinkly and rough, with dirty brown shoes. And he was sporting a nervous half-smile, with his yellow teeth showing.

"Was that a wrong answer? Why are you looking at me like that?" he said. "I guess I'm not categorically a prisoner, more like a forced guest. I could escape if I really wanted to. But. without the protection of the local champion and Elite 4 members, and seeing as I'd get killed rather quickly if I dared to take one step outside Cataeus, it doesn't seem like an attractive choice to me, at least not right now. Maybe after I finally have enough of the mean stares that Admin Matt gives me, I'll try my luck out on the wilderness once and for all."

"Right?" Dawn said very effusively all of the sudden. "I know that he hates me. He doesn't have to keep reminding me with his face literally all the time."

"Indeed, that's exactly how I feel."

"Wait, Professor Copal!" Dawn stood up and got really close to him. He took a step back timidly, she took a step forward in return. "It's you! I've been looking for you. I came to Sicaum just to search for you."

"Oh dear, what did I do? Wait, please don't tell me. I don't have any money."

"No, that's not it. You see, Samuel Oak told me about you-"

"Ah, Samuel Oak. Yeah, I know him, great guy, honest guy, how is he?"

"-He's fine, listen… Wait! He isn't fine, that's the problem. See, like a week ago Professor Oak, as everyone calls him-"

"Yeah, I get it. My first name is Andy but everyone calls me Professor Copal."

"-Yes, no I totally get it. But anyway as I was saying, like a week ago he created a machine that helped my friend Serena bake her sweets faster—because they wanted to feed a bunch of people so that they'd leave the party sooner—it was a whole thing. So, he used his knowledge about pokemon to build the machine, he actually explained this to me but I didn't understand. What matters is that the sweets that came out of the machine somehow ended up turning people into pokemon. The quantity of pokemon features they got depended on how many sweets they ate, to the point that whoever ate a lot of them was turned fully into a pokemon. That said, the process isn't really clear. Professor Oak himself was turned fully into a Herdier, although he retained his ability to speak. And he said he only ate one of the sweets. Although, come to think of it, he might have just lied about that."

"Sounds relatable. So do you have any of those sweets with you?"

"Not on me, my friend Serena has some samples that she wanted you to have."

"And where is she?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. Professor Oak and her, along with the rest of my friends and my mom, were first captured by Matt and Shelly. Then a group of weavile and lopunny appeared and forced them to escape, taking me as their only prisoner."

"Weavile and Lopunny you say?" Professor Copal cut himself off. He knew about them, therefore he knew it'd be better to stop talking of them altogether. "It's such a shame, err, that you don't have the sweets on you I mean."

"I know."

"Would've loved to have one right about now. Did they taste good? They don't feed us well here."

"I didn't have one myself. The whole reason we wanted to find you was so that you could help us find a way to revert the effects they caused. Professor Oak said that because of your field of expertise you'd be the best suited for the task."

"Is that all he said about me? Anyway I understand, it's just—haven't you heard; how does the saying go? 'When in doubt, take a bite' or something like that."

"I've never heard that."

"That's okay. But yeah, I can definitely help you with that. I've studied many cases of people who, for various different reasons, got turned into pokemon, and who were then able to successfully turn back into humans. Of course some cases weren't that successful, and other times the subjects willingly chose to continue living as pokemon. Although that's not necessarily my area of expertise, but mine does overlap with this, um, I guess it's more of a practice—people turning into pokemon and vice versa. It's a known phenomena, which, believe it or not, is common enough to have steps to follow already generally agreed upon by the scientific community. And seeing as you came all this way to see me, I guess I should tell you about my area of expertise, of which, perhaps, there's only one thing to say."

Professor Andy Copal cleared his throat. It was obvious he intended to keep talking, so Dawn sat down on a wooden box and prepared to listen. She had no idea of what to do next, nor she had anything to do for the rest of the night, anyway.

"So," Copal said, with his eyes looking up, left hand in his pocket, and right hand open and raised up to his head, "I've been fascinated with pokemon ever since I was a little kid. Even before I could speak, I would stare into their lively eyes which seemed to be both always jolly and alert, and so different from humans. With that said, it is true that the more we learn about them, the more we realize just how similar pokemon are to us, nevertheless there's a careless satisfaction to their countenance that I'm sure humans could never replicate. But anyway, what fascinated me the most about them was their wondrous ability to rearrange their molecules to such a vast extent, not only to evolve, but to fit inside a pokeball as well. There are so many of them, and between each other, even between members from the same species, there are a million differences. But what doesn't ever change, is that a pokemon cannot be a pokemon if it cannot be kept inside a pokeball. Perhaps that's the only real difference between us and them. It is an incredible ability, and I wanted it. For myself. I wanted it so much that from very early on in my development I decided I would dedicate my life completely to find out more about this ability in order to make it mine. I got so invested in my research, that for a very little while I became the world's leading pokemon physiologist. I got a job teaching at university right after graduating, published papers for which I won a myriad of academic awards. Got a wife and kids, a big house, tenure, a retirement plan, and not one, but two master balls. Everybody told me I had all I could ask for. But I never forgot why I had done it all. I wanted to know why pokemon could look so calm and so eager to experience life in whichever way it came to them, all without worrying about the mundane things people choose to worry about every single day, most of which make no sense if you just think about them a little bit. So, when I realized that the capacity for a pokeball to work depended solely on the structural appearance of the pokemon it pretends to hold inside, I decided to do some testing. On myself."

"Wait a minute," Dawn said. "You wanted to put yourself into a pokeball, so that you could learn more about pokemon?"

"Aha. Nobody wanted to help me, but nobody cared to stop me, so I retired to the woods to try it out. I covered myself in all sorts of pokemon fluids and made myself a suit out of the skin shed by many pokemon, specially poison and water types. Then I encountered my first setback. I couldn't throw a pokeball at myself, no matter how hard I tried. Perhaps my arms are just too short. Anyway that issue was quickly resolved once I built a throwing machine. Then my second setback showed its face, and this one turned out to be much more difficult to solve. When I set the timer to activate the throwing machine, and placed myself in front of it, while I was wearing my pokemon suit of course, a young trainer appeared and decided to catch me. I had no time to explain the situation to him, and seeing as I had developed no fighting experience whatsoever, and I hadn't had a single physical altercation of any kind, it was very easy for him to catch me, and he did so with his first throw. The only words I could utter before being captured were, 'Wait! You don't!' And so, seeing as on the surface I appeared to be a previously undiscovered pokemon species, this trainer decided to call me Waitjudon, which became the official name of my species. He took me to his local professor, and both he and my trainer were very excited about having discovered a new species of pokemon. More specifically, thinking that they had done so. They looked so, so happy, that I just couldn't tell them the truth. So I pretended to be a pokemon for a while. Won a few battles, lost a lot. It was a different life, a fine life I might say. Very quickly I realized that it was the opportunity I had been waiting for all my life. To learn what makes a pokemon, a pokemon. Let me tell you, there are a lot of things that humans do, that I didn't have to do during my time as a pokemon, which now make no sense to me whatsoever. One has to wonder if pokemon got it right and we got it wrong. I wrote a few journals in secret while my trainer slept. It was my way of retaining my humanity. Sure, fighting was hard, but my trainer cared about me and tended to my every need. When I sustained injuries it took me a long time to recover. As you know Pokemon Centers are called so for a reason, they aren't for treating humans. And so this trainer, his name's Randy, he's still around. He entered his region's league with me, a waitjudon, on his team, and together we reached all the way to the final. Sadly, we lost when the other guy pulled out a rypherior. I was Randy's last pokemon, he knew I was his weakest one and so he hoped that he wouldn't have to use me, though he still wanted me to be on his team. Bless his heart. Meanwhile the rypherior was the other guy's third pokemon. I had no chance of winning, the rypherior exploded my spleen. There was blood everywhere, both inside and outside of me. I almost died. Somehow I survived and managed to make a full recovery without the aid of doctors, it was nothing short of a miracle, and Randy bowed to continue his journey and never give up. He traveled to a few other regions and I continued pretending to be his pokemon. I did that for a few years."

"Wow. Wow. Did he ever find out you were a human the whole time?"

"Yes he did."

"And how did he react?"

"Badly."

"Oh no."

"Yeah, he was pretty angry."

"It must have been awful."

"Yes. After that I decided to go back to being a scientist. I worked together with Samuel Oak actually. He read my journals and asked me a lot of questions. He wrote a full book about my experience and my observations, and got a lot of awards for it. As for me, I got nothing from that actually. His investigation was all about my behavioral patterns and that's not my area of study. He did give me half of the money he got, but I had to give it all to Randy because he was suing me at the time. He didn't like that I was a human pretending to be a pokemon, traveling with him all of that time. And so he got all of my cash. I can't blame him for that though. He did a lot of things for me that no human teenager should do for a human adult, especially one that he doesn't even know. After that I couldn't go back to my old life. I was presumed dead and my wife had married my cousin, and my kids were all grown up. All of them were really nice about it though, all things considered. A couple of years after that whole debacle happened, we had like a party where they all said they forgave me and I cried a lot. It felt like I had been redeemed, because after hearing what they had to say, about what I'd put them through, at first I did feel really guilty. Also, my cousin was nice enough to let me live in his house for free, because I had no job at the time. But it was a bit too weird for me to stay there, so I left after a few years and took the resident professor post in this beautiful region. I was able to get it because nobody else wanted to come here. You can guess why. It was actually going pretty great though, I had my tiny little lab on Habuec, a really small village located south of Cataeus. I would stay inside all day just chilling. But then one day this girl, Cynthia, arrived looking for the Golden City. She was desperate to find it before anyone else, said she wanted to dump whatever she found on the sea, so nobody could get their hands on it. She made me show her around the whole region looking for it. We didn't find anything of course. By the time I came back to Habuec the whole place was gone, some douchebag called Lance had hammered everything to the ground, thinking the Golden City was buried somewhere around there. He was desperate too, don't know why. He went around hammering everything down. That's when the whole region descended into chaos. Honestly, I was having a pretty good life here, on a land where nobody knew me, where there's mortal danger everywhere, and I was doing it all on my own. It was a good life, and now it's probably going to end violently, while I'm basically a prisoner, seeing as I'm going to have to go to the Ghilera River pretty soon."

"What! Why?"

"Because Wallace and Diantha are making me go. That's why I'm here. I was living in a hut on the ruins of Habuec when they arrived. They said they knew who I was and wanted me to guide them across the river in search of the Golden City. I told them I was done with that and they said that I wasn't and I was going with them. And so now I'm here. They said the same thing to the Sicaum League Champion and at least one member of the Sicaum Elite 4. They're here too, look."

Copal pointed to his left. Effectively, a woman and a man were standing there quietly with very dispirited postures, and gloomy expressions on their faces.

"That's Ketz, the Sicaum Champion," Copal said. The woman waved and smiled with a defeated air. She had greenish black hair, and a very striking pair of deep green eyes, like those of a predator. She had olive skin. She was wearing a yellow dress, with a considerable cleavage window; she was very voluptuous.

"And that's Diego," Copal then said. He pointed at the man, who was wearing a red cape. He had long hair and a beard.

"Hey, how are you?" Ketz and Diego said in unison.

"Hi," Dawn said, with an eyebrow raised. "You're prisoners too?"

"Yes," they said in unison once more.

"Of course, they are out of work right now," Copal said. "The local league has been suspended for a while, in account that most of the local gyms have been destroyed. You know, for such a dangerous region, you'd think its League Champion and Elite 4 members would put up more of a fight against foreign champions."

Both Ketz and Diego lowered their heads and looked at the ground.

"This is unacceptable," Dawn exclaimed. "There's four of us now, so let's stop them. At least let's steal a boat and go back to Meripa."

Copal laughed lightly, angering Dawn.

"There's little to do in our situation," he said. "Waiting and observing is probably more useful than any other plan we could come up with."

"I don't think I can just sit here and wait," Dawn said.

"You won't. As I said we're all going to the Ghilera River soon. Diantha and Wallace are looking for the Golden City, and the three of us are supposed to guide them. If they have a plan for you, then I'm sure you're coming with us too."

"Not if I stop them first. It doesn't matter if they think they are right, they shouldn't treat people like this. Trust me, none of them, Wallace, Diantha, Lance, none of them will get away with this."

"Wow Dawn, you're pretty idealistic," Copal said. "You really think things can change, don't you? Let me tell you something, hold on to that dearly and firmly, don't become a cynic, it's freaking worthless. Seriously, don't lose your idealism."

"That's exactly the opposite of what Diantha told me to do."

"Really? Well, she's an actress anyway, what does she know."

"I don't know," Dawn said. Then she released a long sigh filled with frustration. "I just don't know."

Dawn went outside to grab some air. She looked up and saw a light on the sky. It was as small as any other star on the nightly sky. But this star was red, and it was moving very fast. Out of nowhere she thought of Kalos, for some reason. Then she remembered something that Ash had said when they were still in Meripa. He said that some friends of his were on their way to help.