Secrets Exposed
Part 4 : Lost Love, New Travels
By Freakachu
::Authors note:: Contains scenes of graphic violence.
Ash sat on a rock while Brock sent Misty to go fill up the water canteens which were almost empty. Secretly, he wanted her to leave for a bit, so he could have a talk with Ash. Something was really bothering him, he wouldn't eat and he barely talked which was completely unlike him.
"Ash are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He muttered with his head in his hands, and pikachu on his back.
"You don't look okay. Does this have something to do with Lilja leaving?" Brock questioned.
Ash sighed.
"Yeah. She left okay? She didn't tell me where she was going, didn't leave a note," He glanced around quickly to make sure no one else was around, "And, and I love her."
Brock was shocked. He knew that maybe Ash had just a tiny crush on her, but he didn't think he was that far gone. Now that Ash told him, Brock could see in his eyes how he felt. He also had a feeling that Ash didn't want Misty to know how strongly he felt about Lilja. Brock knew that Misty dreamed over Ash, and she wanted him real badly. He sighed. What could he say?
"You don't even know why she left? She never said anything to you that night?"
"No, except, oh, nothing. Wait a minute! Damn!" Ash's mind flashed back to that night. Misty had kissed him! Has Lilja seen? Impossible, she'd been sleeping. Anyway, he hadn't wanted Misty to do that, she was just being her usual compulsive self. Lilja had told him that she loved him. And before he could tell her the same, she had passed out. He didn't get the chance to tell her, and now that she was gone, he'd probably never find her to tell her.
Lilja sat at hte breakfast table, the morining sunlight streamed through the big window with a golden glow. Blaine was already down at the gym, leaving her to sleep in because she was so tired the night before. She spooned the now soggy cereal into her mouth, her hair hanging in her face which was damp from that mornings shower. Two Freakachu sat on the table, one eating spilled cereal off the table, the other with it's head in the box. She probably looked as horrible as she felt. After eating, she made her way to Cinnabar Gym, still feeling depressed, and three Freakas following her. Only the thought of the awaiting Pokemon League lifted her spirits at all.
"Hi Lilja!" Jerry called. Lilja turned around and Jerry jogged up to her. The sun reflected off his brown hair, and made it shone. He held his arms wide, obviously wanting to hug her. She waved to him, and tried to excape but he tackled her in a vice grip.
"I missed you." He replied in response to her squirming. Of course, Jerry was her friend, but he was going overboard. Jerry seemed to like her alot more than a friend, and didn't mind showing it. Finally he let her go, and she went into the gym.
"Maaaaaagggg!" Magmar droned, happy to see her when it saw her enter. It ran up to her and hugged her leg. She grinned halfheartedly at it, then went to find her uncle. She found him in the barn, with the other pokemon.
"Uncle Blaine? You were going to tell me about the league?" She asked.
"Ah, yes I was. You didn't go to the Indigo League did you?"
Lilja shook her head.
"I thought not. Well, you can either go there in two months, or you can leave right now and start collecting badges for the Jolt League or the Rainbow League. The towns in the Rainbow region are rather nice if I do say so mys-" He was interupted by Lilja, who was getting impatient. One of the chus was tugging on her pants.
"Rainbow League? Isn't that west of here?" She asked.
"No, it's to the east. The Jolt League is to the west."
Lilja thought about it. As much as she wanted to stay now, she equally wanted to start training again. Finally, she consulted Blaine again.
"Which do you recomend?"
"Well, the Jolt League is pretty good. But mind you, so is the Rainbow League. It's really up to you." So much for help from him.
Lilja decided on the Rainbow League. It sounded glamorous enough. She escaped back home, Magmar and the chus chasing her, and jumped on her computer to look up the Rainbow League.
Interesting. The only league that has a Miko (Priestess) to start the ceremonies. Only for the last 9 years, there was no Miko since the last one had disappeared.
She turned on the pokemon depsition/withdrawal system beside the computer and the program used to run it. She withdrew all her pokemon. Tossing clean clothes and the like into her backpack, she then ran out the door with six of her pokemon with her, the rest left home to wander around, and started out the door on another journey.
Nyarthashi impatiently waited for the right time to break out of the compound she was being held at in an underground lab in Viridian. She couldn't see the scientist in the other room, the mirrored window prevented that. But her hearing had become very acute, and she could hear the slow steady breathing one uses when sleeping. Nyarthashi looked at waht she was wearing. Soft soled sneakers, jeans that were a bit too big (must have once belonged to one of the scientists's kids), and a long sleeved blue shirt. The time was right.
Leaping into the air, much higher than a normal 12 year old could, she planted a swift kick on the mirror/window and sent a spray of glass into the next room. The scientist didn't have time to wake up and react before Nyarthashi's arm sliced through the air and connected with his neck, making a sick cracking sound. He hadn't any time to scream, or alert the others, but instead, crumpled to the floor in a heap. She noticed the computer on the desk and wondered if it held information about her she didn't know. Flicking it on, she did a search on her name. It was a good thing she was a fast learner, she knew about computers. She knew more about them than the guy she had just finished, and he had worked with them for quite a bit longer than she had lived. She saw one document on her, and it was long enough that she would be hours readin it. She pulled open a desk drawer and looked inside. Paperclips, blank notepads, pens, and a box of floppy disks. Nyarthashi pulled one out and stuck it into the machine. She copied the file to the disk, wiped the file from the harddrive then turned it off. She slipped the disk into her pocket.
'It wouldn't hurt to destroy the whole damn computer, but I've got to get out of here. Now.'
She wiggled the doorknob and found it locked from the outside. Obviously it was a safety precaution. This man on the inside had a set of keys. Nyarthashi realized that they had only known a fraction of her strength. She was much stronger and dangerous than they thought. Which meant, she had a huge advantage over them. She slamed her body against the door, and it splintered off its hinges. Looking left and right revealed to her that there was no one around at this time. Her eyes were acustomed to the dark. She could see in the dark even better than she could in the daylight. Choosing left as the way to go, she ran down the hall at a fair speed. Halfway down the hall, she remembered concidering to break the computer, and realized that wouldn't do much. There were more computers, one of them the master of a network. That same file as she deleted from that computer was probably on the whole network. Really, she should total the master computer. But yet, for the same reason as before, she decided not to.
"Oh my! What are you doing out?!" A woman hollered as she rounded the corner and came face to face with her worst nightmare.
It was unfortunate that these people at the lab worked for Giovanni. Nyarthashi had met him once, about a year ago, and didn't like the man. He was evil, and wanted to use her for his own evil purposes. Nyarthashi grabbed the womans arm and twisted it behind her back, her other hand over the womans mouth.
"If you promise not to yell, I'll release you, ok?"
The woman nodded and looked like she was about to faint. Nyarthashi slowly took her hand away from the womans mouth.
"You must show me the way to get out of here. Can you do that?" She hissed.
Almost in tears, the woman choked out her answer.
"No, I can't. They'll kill me to get to you if they have to. You aren't safe."
Nyarthashi thought about it for a second, and finally came up with a plan. A length of rope was on a cart nearby.
"Bind my hands and pretend you're taking me to another place." She handed the woman the rope. Trembling, the woman took it and started wrapping it around her hands. When finished, they started down the hall, the whole time the woman looked as if she were going to weep.
They entered the main room which had the door to the outside. The whole time down the hall, they hadn't run into another person. The reason for this was simple. Most, if not everyone, was in this room. They saw her immediately and started towards the two, knowing something was wrong. About half drew tranquilizer guns, and aimed them at her.
She snapped the rope tethering her hands together and swung her leg up to gain momentum. Her second leg then rose to connect with the jaw of one man, and down he went. While everyone stopped, stunned, she swiftly reached for the next nearest person and snapped their neck around. People started screaming and the next person met a cruel fate when Nyarthashi grabbed a steel rod from nearby and poked it at them. The rod went straight through, and they dropped to their knees, gasping, drowning in their own blood.
Before she could slaughter anyone else, she saw a window close by. Jumping up, she grabbed onto a metal water pipe going the length of the room and swung her feet towards the window. The second she felt the glass collapse, she pulled down hard on the pipe and went sailing out the window into some bushes, leaving whoever was alive in the building to have a freezing cold shower.
Lilja had gotten one of her Freakachu and Taichu to teleport her as far as they could, her teleporting also, and ended up in the middle of Cerulean City. She entered the Pokemon Center and went straight to the PC.
*Bling* The computer made it's friendly noise telling her it was ready and willing to do what she wanted. The first thing it asked for was her licence number. She punched it in, and hit enter. A picture of a happy PC popped up in her face, along with a little note. 'Bills PC upgraded! Now contains Win98 and internet!'
Lilja still wondered who Bill was. She didn't know the guy, yet was using his PC. Strange.
"WHO THE HELL IS BILL?!" She shouted to herself, no one else was in the center to hear except a very annoyed Nurse Joy.
When she was finished exchanging pokemon, she logged out, and left the center, taking a northern path.
Staring out into the cool blue expanse of ocean in the far distance, sitting on a rock by his house, Ash felt lonely. He wasn't really, Misty and Brock were with him all the time, but it wasn't the same. He almost had someone he could confide in with other stuff, like love for instance. Of course, he had known Misty for a long time, almost 2 years. But he never had any real romantic interest in her. Oh, he knew for a fact that she liked him, and she proved it too. Maybe if he hadn't met Lilja, he wouldn't have minded that kiss. But he did. He wanted it to have been Lilja, not Misty. He leaned over, and picked up a smooth round stone that was in the grass and hurled it as far as he could. He could make out a land mass, far on the horizon. Cinnabar? Surely. Lilja lived on Cinnabar. Maybe she went back there. He ran into the house and grabbed a phone book.
"Ash, what are you doing?" Misty asked, annoyed, as he ran by and bumped into her.
"Nothing!" He called, as he raced up to his room and closed the door behind him. His mother had met Lilja the time they came back to visit after Ash went to Viridian again to win his earth badge, and before they went to Prussian Town to visit his friend Arti, who was also Gary's girlfriend.
He rapidly flipped through the pages until he came across the section for Cinnabar Island, and from there, found the number for the Cinnabar Gym. His fingers were itching, and he rushed back downstairs to use the videophone to punch the number in.
The phone started ringing, and Ash impatiently swayed from one foot to the other.
"Hello?" Blaine appeared on the video phone.
"Blaine? Is Lilja there? I have to talk to her, it's extremely important!" He hissed, half whispering, half yelling, if it was possible to.
Blaine looked at Ash as if he had never seen him before. A minute later, he seemed to recognize him, and smiled.
"Sorry, Ash, but she left for the Rainbow League a couple days ago."
Ash glanced down at his feet.
"Oh. Well, thanks anyway. Bye."
"Bye Ash."
He hung up the phone and looked out the window. A thought occured to him. Maybe instead of going to the Indigo Pokemon League compititions, he'd go join the Rainbow League.
Three of her Freakachu waddled beside her, along with her Liquiot, and jibbered back and forth to each other while they walked.
"Whats this?" Lilja looked up and in front of her was a lighthouse on a high cliff. She'd been walking for a while, rather than teleporting again. The scenery would be nice along the way, so she'd decided to walk the whole distance there. It had been a week since she had left Cerulean, and had also been sleeping on the ground. Not something she prefered, but there were no houses around that she had passed once she had gotten out of town. The lighthouse wasn't surprising, since the ocean was nearby, but still, Lilja wondered if it had a keeper, or if it were one of the newer computerized lighthouses.
It was starting to get dusk and also raining. Lilja was tired and hungry. Hopefully someone lived there, nice enough to give her shelter for the night. She rapped on the large wooden door, just as one of the Freakachu fell asleep at her feet. There was no answer. Lilja shrugged, and picked up a large rock. Vandalism was throwing rocks through windows, not using one to bang on a heavy door. So that's what she used it for. The door opened and a green haired young man looked out.
"Can I help you?" He looked her over, noticing that she was soaked.
Lilja shivered and nodded, picking up the sleeping Chu. The other two seemed jittery in the rain, but Liquiot liked it.
"Oh my, you seem like you need a bed for the night. Come in right away before you freeze!" He exclaimed.
The interior of the lighthouse was composed of mostly expensive wood furniture. Except for its enormous size, it felt like a cozy cabin. A fire blazed in a gigantic fireplace on the opposite wall. She sank down in a soft chair with wood framing.
The man held out his hand to her while she sat.
"I'm Bill." He smiled. Lilja gasped, and despite her tired legs, she jumped up in surprise.
"Bill? THE Bill of "Bill's PC"?!" He nodded, and she grinned. "So you're who Bill is! I've been wondering who the Bill who owns Bill's PC is!"
Bill laughed. He stopped when he noticed the Freakachu and Liquiot sleeping on the floor and his eyes widened. He knelt down and put his hand out.
"May I?" He asked her.
Lilja nodded, and Bill picked up a sleeping Freakachu. He turned it around to look at it's back, then turned it again to face him.
"Well, I've never seen such a wonderous pokemon!" He breathed, "Where on earth did you get them?"
Lilja went on to explain to Bill how she ended up with Taichu and then Freakachu. She also explained about her Liquiot. Soon after her story, Bill left, and returned with bedding.
"You can sleep here, on the sofa. Tommorow you can tell me more about these wonderful creatures!" Bill looked as if he wouldn't get to sleep that night, or ever. He was so excited about the prospect of studying a new and unusual pokemon that he didn't seem tired at all.
After the frenzy of finally meeting the owner of "Bill's PC", Lilja fell asleep with thoughts of the Rainbow League, and also, dreams of Ash.