So, back on Earth some superheroes' gimmick is having equipment or superpowers based on animal abilities. Given how similar and how different at the same time the Pokémon world is to Earth, it wouldn't be out of place to see superheroes with power based on Pokémon.
And that's true, if this movie 'The Spiders' is anything to go by. A trio of Superheroes, one buff guy dressed like an Araquanid that can breathe underwater, one short guy dressed as a Galvantula with electric powers, and this poisonous lady boss dressed like an Ariados.
I'll admit, the effects are good. So is the action that mixes Pokémon battling and these three joining the fray every now and again. But the writing...
"Mahahah!" a crazed-looking guy wearing a Drapion-like armor shouts out, one hand gesturing all over the place, the other twirling one of his whiskers. "You are too late, Spiders! Soon my plan will come to fruition and all of the world will be mine!"
Yeah…
Anyway, the final battle proceeds like any other superhero movie, with the added twist of Pokémon fighting in the background. The buff guy keeps the evil guy's minions busy, the other two fight the bad guy, the Galvantula guy takes a blow for the Ariados lady, the Ariados lady beats the bad guy, the two Spiders cry for their fallen comrade only for it to turn out he's just badly hurt and then he and the Ariados lady…
Ugh.
"Ra?" Annette asks by my side.
"Yeah, I don't know why those two are smooching each other all of a sudden." I swear there wasn't a single scene before now that implied they had feelings for each other.
"Oh well," I say as I turn off the TV when the credits roll. I make a few stretches before going to prepare the bed. "You want to rest in the Poké Ball tonight as well, Annie, or-?"
I'm cut off when the TV turns back on, all by itself. At first, the screen shows just static, but then it clears to reveal a cyan screen. And then, to my and Annette's shock, an aura of some kind envelops the whole tv, turning it orange. And after that, a pair of blue eyes and a smiling mouth appear on the TV then unplugs itself and starts levitating toward us.
"Ro!" is the sound that comes out of the speakers.
"Ra!"
I wince as Annette jumps and grabs my arm, holding to it tightly as her entire body shakes with fear.
At least being impaled by her spikes for the upteenth time prevents me from being taken aback by the TV, allowing me to recognize what happened.
"Great," I mutter. "We've got a Rotom infestation."
The TV stops in its...tracks and the eyes on it widen. "Ro?"
"R-ra?" Annette hesitantly asks as she stops shaking.
"That's right, you little bugger," I tell the electric phantom. "I know what you are. And you've got two options: piss off or I'm gonna call the Center's personnel!"
Never thought I'd see a television literally wince but here we are.
"Ro!" it protests. "Ro rotom tom ro!"
"Uh-uh," I respond. "Whatever you just said, not happening. Now, are you leaving on your own or do I have to call-?"
The Rotom doesn't let me finish and returns the screen to static. My immediate first thought is that it heeded my words and is reversing whatever it did to the TV. But then the TV remains orange and the static goes away to reveal…
What the devil?
It's…a room. A very worn down room, with the walls heavily cracked and very noticeable moulds in the corners. The heavily worn down furniture is covered by a thick layer of dust and whatever door this room had has long been unhinged. It's also very dark. So dark the only light seems to come from whatever camera is recording this.
And before long, I also start to hear approaching steps.
"Bloom!" is also heard as a Drifloon enters the room, passing through the doorframe. A Drifloon with its arm-thingies being held back by someone. A someone that arrives shortly after the flying specter, and that I quickly recognize.
Dawn?
Instead of the woman that I've been around these past few days, it's a young girl, dressed with a pink tank top and a black miniskirt. Instead of the fedora she has now, she has a white beanie with a Poké Ball shaped image on its front and a red scarf is wrapped around her neck.
Her outfit from Pearl.
"Here," I hear her say chirply. "Good job, Drif."
Drif?
The screen returns to static for a moment, before revealing the Pokémon's face again. It's not smiling this time. It's just looking at me neutrally.
"What was… that?" I ask, still bewildered. "Are you trying to say you're Dawn's Rotom? Was that before she caught you?"
"Ro!" it replies, the TV sorta bouncing as it does so.
I let out a huff. "Alright, I won't call anybody." I attempt to cross my arm, but the little cactus lady tied to it makes it difficult to do. So instead I just opt to narrow my eyes and say "Mind telling me what the hell are you doing in my room?"
The Rotom - Roh's answer is another static screen that precedes another recording. One very different from the previous one.
The setting this time is some sort of temple. I think. Several marble pillars - some partially crumbled, others perfectly intact - stand atop a tile floor, with rocky walls surrounding the whole place. As the camera turns upward, the pillars turn out to be reaching out to a nonexistent ceiling, only revealing a sky with… the darkest clouds I've ever seen in my life. A leaf quickly passing in front of the camera in a spiral trajectory is the only hint at the wind flowing in that place.
There isn't any rain or flashes of lightning, but the way the clouds completely cover the sky seems to announce the storm of the century.
"Come forth. Dialga! Palkia!"
Huh?
The camera immediately turns away from the sky and to a blue-haired man wearing a gray and black jumpsuit. His back is turned to the camera man, but the yellow G on it, the way he has his hands stretched out, the words he uttered just a moment earlier and the two red chains forming circles in front of him give a pretty clear idea of who this is.
The two red chains soon start wrapping around themselves into two different shapes, one tall and one large. As they do so, two globes, one blue and one pink respectively, form within those chains and grow as much as the chains allow them to and then turn into two beings. The blue globe turns into a quadrupedal creature with metal plates covering several parts of its body and a blue diamond in its chest. The pink one turns into a bipedal creature with a pearl in each of its shoulders.
The Red Chains instantly tighten around the two dragons, who struggle to break free from them and let out suffering roars, to absolutely no result. And when the crystals on their bodies start to glow, along with veins going all over their bodies, the Red Chains only tighten further. And the man that summoned them simply lowers his arms at that sight.
"R-ra?" I hear Annette ask. I can only blink as the scene unfolds.
"This...this is-"
The man in the jumpsuit turns to the quadrupedal dragon. "Dialga, the master of time!" He turns to the bipedal one. "Palkia, the master of space!" He turns to both and raises a clenched fist. "Give me your power! Create a new galaxy! A new world!"
The Red Chains tighten even further around Dialga and Palkia, so much so I can see blue and pink blood starting to spill around them. As one, the chains and the two Pokémon start glowing and release a shockwave that makes the camera shake for a moment. At the same time, thunder starts roaring above the scene. And as the camera turns upward, lightning has also come. One bolt of which lands in the temple, shattering one of the pillars.
"Ra!" Annette shouts. I barely register the pain as she tightens her grip.
But lightning and thunder are not all that has come. Three floating lights soon arrive and start hovering above the two dragons in a circle. First a yellow one, then a pink one and finally a blue one.
Unfortunately, that seems to do little.
"I should have expected as much," the man mutters impassively as the camera focuses on him again. He then looks up at the three lights. "Uxie, the being of knowledge. Mesprit, the being of willpower. Azelf, the being of emotion."
"Cyrus! Stop this at once!" Dawn's voice, determination mixed with fear in it, comes from right above the camera. And right after that, the man turns his head to somewhere slightly above the camera. Enough for me to finally see his face.
"Dawn," Cyrus monotonically greets as he turns fully. "You are too late."
"Not yet!" Dawn snaps at him. "You had better release those Pokémon! Or I will make you!"
Cyrus doesn't appear frightened in the slightest by her words. In fact, the only thing he does is slightly twitch the angles of his mouth upward. "It has already begun. You cannot fight and win against me before this world is undone. And it takes all three of the Lake Guardians to balance either Dialga or Palkia. But they can't maintain balance against both."
"Now," he says in a lower tone as that faint smile drops and his eyes narrow. He takes a step forward, just as the camera seems to take one back. "You have constantly interfered with my plans, but all will be forgiven. After all, soon you will be stripped of spirit. And your Pokémon. Everyone you know and love. Everyone you've ever met. You will all be stripped of it."
All of a sudden, the rumbling of thunder stops. Cyrus turns to look upward, soon followed by the cameraman. The lightning has stopped, but now a new purple glow is coming from within the clouds darkening the sky. And not long after, the image on the screen starts slightly shaking.
"What?" I hear Dawn's voice say.
The camera turns back to Cyrus. Or rather, a shadowy pool forming behind him as he steps back from it. As does the cameraman.
The shaking doesn't relent when the pool stops growing. Nor when two red lights appear within it. Two red lights that blink before the long serpentine body they belong to rises, revealing the shadowy creature that towers ominously over Cyrus and the cameraman, glaring maliciously at the blue-haired man. And as it unfolds its large bat-like wings, it lets out a bone-chilling shriek that makes the place tremble even more.
"The Pokémon banished to the shadows," Cyrus comments, still monotonically. "It matters not. I have harnessed the powers of Dialga and Palkia. I won't have any more interfere-"
Another shriek, much louder than before, cuts off the leader of Team Galactic as the shadowy Pokémon releases a shockwave that shatters the Red Chains and blasts away the cameraman. All the TV shows after is black screen.
Black screen soon cut off by more static and then the Rotom's face frowning at me. And I can take a guess what the frown is about.
I let down a gulp before speaking. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make light of this. Is there anything I can do to remedy?"
Roh's frown relaxes slightly before I am met by another static screen and the TV starts showing a series of clips. I can recognize only some of the people shown as characters from the Sinnoh games and none of the clips last more than a few seconds. But it is enough for them to say one word that is either 'sorry' or 'apologies' or another one like that. The TV then goes back to Roh's face, which is looking at me impassively.
I let out a sigh as I let my head down. "Alright. Come tomorrow morning, I will apologize to her." I raise my head back to it. "Now, can you please leave the TV?"
Roh responds with a mischievous grin. Uh-oh.
More quickly than it had appeared, the aura enveloping the TV disappears as it turns back to just a regular TV. Roh emerges from the back of it and, after it does so, the TV falls and shatters to the ground.
I look at the new mess in disbelief. Then, I turn to Roh, who has one last giggle before turning to the door's direction and zapping out of the room.
"YOU SON OF A-!"
I cut myself off to hiss as new shocks of pain come from my arm. And looking at it, Annette is...passed out. With no apparent sign of waking anytime soon. Or letting me go even when I try to shake her off my arm. With that on my plate, my only option is to hold it together and go down to the Pokémon Center. And hope it's not closed at this hour.
I'm really starting to hate Ghost types.
As it turned out, the Pokémon Center was still open and there was personnel able to assist me. That was the one good thing of the evening, as it turned out Annette had held me so tight her spikes had cut deeper than the other times, with the final result being getting them removed was much more painful and they had to bandage my arm up afterward. Oh, and I had to spend the night down in their infirmary so they could keep an eye on me. Joy.
As for Annette herself, she did pass out, but was not in any immediate danger. They did say they'd be keeping an eye on her for the time being, though.
The following morning I'm woken up by the nurses who change my bloodied bandages with new ones and give me recommendations not to strain my arm too much.
In any case, I'm now sitting at one of the bar's tables, dressed in an hospital gown and waiting for a cup of coffee.
"Good morning."
I instantly turn around and am met by the sight of Dawn looking at me concernedly. Without her hat to cover her head, her disheveled hair is very noticeable, as are the bags under her reddened eyes.
"Good morning," I weakly greet her back. "Have you had a...rough night?"
Way to ask the obvious, genius.
Dawn, however, doesn't seem to take offense, as she replies. "You could say that. I haven't been able to sleep at all. But you," she looks at me from head to toe, inspecting my outfit. "What happened?"
...not sure dragging her Rotom into this is a good idea, since it was admittedly looking out for her.
"A surprise visit from a Ghost Pokémon." Dawn furrows her brow. "It got into my room, broke the TV there and spooked Annette to the point she clung to me so tightly her spikes cut deeper this time."
At hearing that, Dawn closes her eyes and lets out a huff. "That ghost was Roh, wasn't it?" she asks while massaging the bridge of her nose.
Whelp, looks like she got you. I'd say I'm sorry, but between the TV and my arm that wouldn't be true.
"Can I sit with you?" Dawn then asks as she looks at me pleadingly.
I gesture to the chair in front of me. "Of course." Better we get this out of the way right now.
Dawn takes my invitation in stride and quickly sits across from me, her arms crossed and an uneasy expression on her face.
I take a deep breath before opening my mouth. "So-"
"I'm sorry about yesterday," she cuts me off. "I didn't mean to snap like that. It's just…" Her face twists into an uncomfortable grimace and her words come out more frantically. "I had some personal reasons to quit the position of Champion and leave the competitive scene of Pokémon training. Having to rejoin it after so long is off-putting, but it's not a good reason to snap. So, my apologies."
It is now my turn to fold my arms. "That is not what had you snap." Dawn instantly tenses up at that. "It was not what I was talking about before you snapped. And you are not talking about the real reason why we've been told to do this."
Dawn does not reply to that and turns her gaze away from me.
"You have nothing to apologize for," I continue. "I'm the one who should apologize. I was inconsiderate toward you and I made light of something that weighed on you. And for that I am sorry."
Dawn lets out a shaky breath. "How do you think you made light of it?" she asks, her voice colder than I'm used to hearing from her.
I take a deep breath. "Team Galactic," I say, causing one of Dawn's fingers to start tapping nervously. "I'm used to thinking of them as what they were back in my world. A group of idiots with over the top goals that could be beaten without too much effort. But for you, who actually lived through all that they did when you were still a child...it wasn't as simple as that, was it?"
Dawn doesn't answer my question. She keeps looking away from me. As I wait for her to break the ice, my coffee finally arrives. I manage to drink it all before Dawn turns her gaze to me again, eyes emanating all her wariness.
"What did Roh show you?" she asks.
No beating around the bush, I suppose. "What happened at Spear Pillar."
Dawn's eyes widen for an instant. "Oh...that."
I nod. "Yeah. It looked...bad."
Dawn snorts. "'Bad' is one word for it. And it wasn't just what you saw." Her hands clench into fists. "I failed to stop them from capturing the Lake Guardians. I failed to catch Cyrus at Veilstone. And I failed to reach Spear Pillar before Cyrus could summon Dialga and Palkia. Had it not been for Giratina, Cyrus would have won."
Uhm…
Dawn narrows her eyes at me. "Do you have any idea how frightening it is to watch reality being torn asunder? How helpless it feels to know that all of it is happening because everything you could do was not enough?"
"...no. I do not."
"Precisely."
We both fall into an awkward silence after that exchange, each just looking at the other. I have no idea how to continue this conversation from here. As for Dawn, if she's in the same boat or is just waiting for me to say my piece, I have no idea.
As the silence drags one, only one thing to say comes to my mind.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Dawn twitches at the question. "Excuse me?"
"Do you want to talk about it? Not just about that day, but everything else too. Talking might help."
As I say that, however, I'm internally smacking myself. What the hell am I thinking? I'm not a psychiatrist, I don't know the first thing about this!
Dawn looks down to the table after hearing my question, the expression on her face unreadable to me.
"Today, no," Dawn finally says, even if she doesn't look up right away. "Maybe some other day. If I feel I can tell you about it."
I nod. "That's fair."
Dawn then takes a deep breath and tries to muster a small smile. "For now, let's just focus on the tasks ahead." She offers me an open hand. "Agreed?"
I grab and shake that hand. "Agreed."
And chapter, where we learn some new details about Dawn and how the events of Platinum shaped her.
Special thanks to Softandhappy and Geolight164 for betareading. You can find us at the Fanfiction Treehouse discord server at: 9XG3U7a
See you next time!