DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon.

A/N: Oh God, I nearly forgot to upload this! Oops! That wouldn't have been good cos you guys were seriously jumping up and down about the old cliffy one chapter back - sorry bout that, hehe. Anyways, read on and find out: what's in the letter?! Dun dun duuunun! Haha.

Chapter Twenty Three - Staking the defense.

I had to wait a painstaking twenty-four hours before Ash came home in total confusion as to what was going on. Brock dropped by again to be there when I handed the letter over to Ash.

"Why couldn't you just tell me over the phone?" he asked before I'd even handed it over.

"Because you need to read it to believe it. I've had to call these people up and ask if this is for real" I sighed.

"Well come on then, I've been awake all night thinking about it, let's see it" Ash demanded. I ran my fingers over the folded paper of destruction before I reluctantly gave it to him. He had a similar reaction to me, though his panic came shining through unlike the calm and collected Brock Slate.

"Your mother is absolutely crazy!" Ash yelled when he'd read the whole thing. "What the hell makes her think she can do this and get away with it? This kinda shit happens in the movies, not in real life!"

"I know" I said quietly. I took the letter back off him and read it again with a sinking heart.

Dear Mr. Ketchum,

I am representing one Maria Waterflower as her solicitor in her claims of emotional damage inflicted by you. The current suing value is $200,000 plus lawyer's fees. A trial has been set for April 14th, unless you are willing to settle the sum of $200,000 before this date. Otherwise, you and your solicitor will be expected in court on this date. Failure to do so will result in a fine to be paid to the court and court officials involved.

Mrs. Waterflower has requested that the trial be held in the District Court of Cerulean City and her requests have been compiled. The trial will take place under the Hon. Judge Matthew Jacobs.

Jonathon McMahon.

"Guys, all I can say is that she doesn't have a case. How can she prove that you have emotionally damaged her? It's not like when you damage a car and the dents are there" Brock pointed out.

"Oh she can. She's a psychopath on a trail of destruction. God, I thought her putting a camera in the bach at Washbay was bad" I groaned. I buried my head in my hands that were resting on the kitchen table.

"It's okay. Like Brock said, she's got no case." Ash sounded like he was trying to reassure himself as he spoke.

"Mom'll think of something, she's so damn smart" I said sarcastically. "How did you alone cause the emotional damage? I thought she would've included me too."

"You can't really worry about that until the trial starts. For now you have to find yourself a lawyer and stake a defense to whatever she claims you've done" Brock said.

"I can't afford a lawyer!" Ash exclaimed.

"On the contrary, you can actually. You've got that bank account that kept your salary from the League. It automatically becomes open to you on your resignation and you get to keep all the funds in there for whatever use you want" Brock explained.

"How do you know all that?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just call me Ash's financial advisor" Brock grinned.

"Okay, so advise me on where I can find a cheap lawyer" Ash groaned.

"No problemo, Ash. That's where this guy comes in." Brock dramatically threw down a copy of the Yellow Pages which was conveniently opened at the lawyer's index.

"I didn't realise there were so many lawyers in Pallet Town" Ash muttered as his eyes scanned down the page. They were all unfamiliar names and they all offered the lowest fees or the best deals. The pressure was barely on and already I felt like screaming. God only knows what Ash was going through.

"I think I should call her" I announced softly. Both Ash and Brock looked at me as if I was crazy.

"Why? What good would that do?" Ash asked.

"I just…I have to do it." I couldn't explain it in words but I think Ash saw the look in my eyes and nodded.

"Okay. But don't you let her upset you. She's full of it." I sighed at his words, managing a weak smile when I turned to leave. Was she? Mom had really pulled out all the stops this time. Emotional damage. I had to snort to myself. That was the most desperate long shot I'd ever heard. Then again, it would do the damage she set out to inflict - this was one stress Ash and I did not need, and she couldn't have timed it better. Telling us just after the tournament, the trial set two weeks before the baby was due…

The ringing tone on the phone sounded just once before Lily picked it up with what seemed like an anxious tremble in her voice. I made my voice sound a few years older (or tried to anyways) and asked for Maria. Half a minute later Mom's voice came through, making me lose any sort of charm or politeness I might have held in front of Lily.

"What the hell are you playing at, Mom?!" I shrieked. "Emotional damage? Goddamn, you're really clutching at straws this time Mom. It's not even very valid, it's a desperate excuse for -"

"I should've charged against you too. You're causing me emotional damage as we speak" Mom announced. There was a pause when I heard a commanding voice in the background. I frowned in confusion.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Oh, so you can hear that huh? Well that's a man ordering strangers to take away our most valuable things. There goes my antique silver photo frame, the television went the other day…"

"No! Please don't take my stereo!" That was Violet's voice that pierced through my heart. She loved that stereo.

"What's going on?" I barely whispered.

"Since your departure we've had nearly half our things repossessed. The girls' show sales have decreased even further and it looks like we're going to have to move out." Mom's words stung me and I stood there in silence. "Yes, move out of this gym that I've worked so hard on, hand it over to strangers, be ridiculed by the press. Now you tell me why that's not emotionally damaging and I'll drop the charges."

"Mom, I…" Something stopped me from continuing. Come on, tell her it's not your fault, it's not Ash's fault! "It has nothing to do with Ash."

"Misty, if I remember correctly, he was the one that sent you back here a useless misery when you were thirteen, he's the one who's got you and us into this situation, and if I can't charge him with statutory rape I'll go for the next best thing. It's all he deserves."

I had to stay calm. I'd heard all these insults on Ash before so it wasn't them that were killing me. It was the sound of valued possessions being hauled off into the unknown.

"I'm sorry Mom." It was the first time I had sincerely apologised to her but I only had it slapped back in my face.

"I said you would be." And once again I was hung up on as another horrible emotion invaded me - guilt. A solitary tear slid down my cheek but I refused to let any more fall. It was the most pathetic level to be on when my mother made me cry, even though she had done it numerously.

"I knew you shouldn't have called her." I turned around to see Ash leaning against the door jam, his arms crossed but not looking smug.

"I had to. Because I just found out something that probably should've made the trial focus on me and not on you." I rubbed at my eyes and tried to walk past him before he grabbed my shoulders.

"Misty, you have to talk to me. I don't like it when you're this distant from me."

"I'm not being distant" I said feebly. It was a lie. I was being extremely distant and having Brock there made it so much easier. Even now I couldn't look him in the eye.

"Yes you damn well are. I know you too well and I know that right now you're keeping your distance. Why? That fight was stupid and I apologised, I've put it behind me, why can't you?" Ash asked. His voice sounded almost hopeless and I sighed wearily.

"Because I'm making things worse for you, so maybe you should've just let sleeping dogs lie and stayed up there."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ash asked in astonishment.

"The trial, you're being charged with emotional damage, you alone, when really a lot of it is my fault. Mom wants to charge me too but it's too late and now it's my fault that their stuff is being repossessed and that they're moving out and you're being charged with something that is a mutual mistake and I -"

"Misty, you're rambling" Ash gently interrupted. I paused, thinking over my words. Hmm. I did seem to be repeating myself. "As for their things being repossessed, well that is not directly your fault. If the public can't understand that this is you and you're separate from your sisters, then that's their problem. It's not yours. Do you hear me?" His grip on my shoulders got tighter and I nodded but with my eyes still on the ground. "Do you love me?"

"What?" I asked in surprise. It was the only sentence that caused me to look at him directly.

"Do you love me? I don't know these days" Ash shrugged.

"Of course I love you. I'm just so confused, I'm so upset about all of this. It's like she can't leave us alone, she has to be out to get us or else her life isn't fulfilled. I know she's mean and destructive but I think somewhere inside her something is…sad." I sighed in a mingle of emotions. "She can't be happy if she wants other people, her own daughter no less, to be unhappy."

"I know what you mean. But you don't have to let that influence how you feel about me, or how you think I feel about you. Because I love you, no matter how much nastier your mother gets every day. She doesn't worry me. You, however, do" Ash smiled weakly.

"Why don't you worry about yourself? You've got a trial coming up, a trial that puts all the blame of everything on you, and you're worrying about if I'm being distant or if I still love you. I do, I swear I do, but my mind is running in a million directions. How do we, two sixteen-year olds, defend ourselves against a woman as powerful and cunning as my mother?" I asked hopelessly.

"We do it because we can get through anything. We're getting through a huge obstacle, we got through possibly one of the worst fights we could ever have and now we're going to get through this. I promise." Ash kissed my forehead as he finished speaking and I smiled.

"I'm sorry I signed the papers."

"Just don't even talk about that, I don't care. We've gotta be focused for now. Come on, let's get back to those yellow pages." Ash grasped my hand and led me back to Brock who was jotting down names and phone numbers.

*******

Let me tell you a few things about going up for trial at the age of sixteen. Ash could tell you better, but from what I experienced it was nothing but pure hell. First of all you have to get yourself a lawyer, who charges about $500 an hour - okay, maybe that's an exaggeration but nonetheless it would be coming close - and then you have to do the background work. As in, why the hell Mom was doing this to Ash.

So once you've got your background stuff sussed and you pretty much know the jist of the prosecutor's claims, you have to come up with some kind of defense.

Here's a task for you all. Try defending yourself on the terms of emotional damage. It's not easy, is it?

Mom's claims were pretty much what we expected them to be - the shows decreasing since the news leaked, Ash breaking up with me when we were thirteen, his apparent neglect at leaving me alone until I was three months pregnant…stuff that was 99% lies. We weren't even sure if we had all of it nailed, and our lawyer warned us that some surprises could come during the hearing.

Our lawyer was very cool. Jenny O'Brien was young but experienced and had even seen her sister through a teenage pregnancy so she knew what we were going through. She agreed that the claims were stupid and downright desperate, and she vowed that there was no way Mom could win this. We had a valid defense for everything we knew and we were pretty much set.

Brock was a saint sent directly from heaven. He sorted out all the finances (which we couldn't have done ourselves, neither Ash nor myself were strong in math) and organised meetings for us. Sort of like a walking talking agenda. Not to mention the fact that he had some good points when it came to our defense.

Meanwhile Junior K (as we had nicknamed the baby) was kicking all the time, to the point where I felt I would topple over from the force. The foster parents thing wasn't cemented by the time we reached court but to tell you the truth it was the last thing on anyone's minds. I hadn't heard from Sarah, nor had I made any attempt at all to contact her. My focus was to get out of that courtroom alive. We could settle on the foster parents once this was over with.

Dad's emails also became very scarce. When once he had been emailing me every day, I now got the occasional catch-up once a fortnight. He told me that they had moved to a smaller house and were keeping well, despite everything that was going on, and that he was looking forward to seeing me when we came up to Cerulean.

So for nearly two months we worked our asses off to make sure we wouldn't be coughing up two hundred grand to mother dearest. Ash wasn't short of money, his title had seen to that, but money was something we had to keep in perspective. Lawyers, airfares to Cerulean and the many long-distance calls we made to my hometown slowly ate away at our funds.

We were set to leave for Cerulean on April 10th, as we had a settlement meeting to attend on the 11th. No way were we settling. Ash wasn't going to pay Mom $200,000 for something that had hardly been his fault and for something so stupid. Sometimes we both swore it would be easier but we couldn't do all this work and end up giving her what she wanted.

Delia and Brock came to Cerulean too, like we were all one big happy family or something. I don't know, I wasn't in a very good mood when we touched down and this was expressed the minute I set foot in my hotel room.

"Right, so now that we're at the home of all drama and dramatics on earth we can expect the baby to pop out any second. Wouldn't that be a nice way to kick-start our journey from here on in?" I said sarcastically as I flopped down on the bed.

"Don't say things like that, Mist. It might very well happen" Ash said worriedly, glancing at my stomach. I was thirty eight weeks along. There's approximately forty in a normal pregnancy. But with my few experiences of normality, I was expecting something abnormal.

"At least it would delay the trial. Maybe the kid's gorgeous face would woo the jury and they'd all be so smitten that they'd acquit you and we could all live happily ever after" I sneered. "And Mom could go to hell" I added.

"Misty…" Ash said warningly.

"I'm serious, Ash! Look at what she's doing! What she's done! You can't sit there and tell me that my mother deserves to be happy after everything she's put us through."

"You still shouldn't talk about her like that. She is suing me for two hundred thousand dollars here, she doesn't need more provoking from her youngest daughter."

"I've said worse about her. How would she find out anyways?"

"Uh Mist, let us not forget a little incident with a video camera" Ash reminded me.

"Oh yeah." I paused before shrugging my shoulders. "I don't see anything round here so I'm not worried." I directed my eyes to the ceiling. In less than 24 hours I would be reunited with my mother. I hadn't seen her in six months but in that time she had managed to spill everything to Mark, lead me on a huge guilt trip and sue my boyfriend.

Wonderwoman? Wonderbitch.

"What's on your mind?" Ash asked as he sat beside me.

"Basically everything that's happened since I was reunited with you. I can't believe I'm still sort of sane" I grinned.

"Yeah, sort of" Ash laughed. I punched his arm and laughed with him when he fell down beside me in mock pain. "Oh woe is me, I can't feel my arm…"

"Oh shut up" I giggled. A familiar thought suddenly crossed my mind and I frowned in worry. "Random question - do you think you'll win?"

"Misty, I went two years in the League undefeated, lost you but got you back and fielded media circuses during the most trying times of my life. I haven't done all that in order to lose to some deranged power-hungry woman. I will win, and when I do I'll take you to the fanciest restaurant in town to celebrate" Ash proclaimed. I eyed him in surprise. The confidence practically oozed out of him and it was what I needed to hear.

"I don't have a nice enough dress to wear out" was the only reply I could give him.

"Well we'll find some way to celebrate. I'd rather spend the two hundred grand on you than your mother." Ash grasped my hand and looked at me with eyes that spoke of conviction and determination. "We will win. We've beaten your mother before, won't make any difference inside a court room." I nodded at his words and smiled weakly before there was a knock on the door and Brock came in.

"Hey, Jenny just got here, she wants to go over the settlement decline procedure."

"What impressive jargon" I mused as Ash helped me up.

"You don't have to come with us, Mist. Maybe you should take a nap or something" Ash suggested.

"Don't be stupid, I'm fine" I snapped. Ash shrugged and helped me on our way to the meeting room where Jenny was waiting. What I really wanted to say was that I was my turn to stand by him as he had done for me so many times before, but I got this niggling feeling that Brock was getting a little sick of our romantic interludes. I wouldn't blame him - since the forgiveness over the fight it had been nothing but mush mixed with legal dealings in the Ketchum household. Poor Brock. As wonderful as it was for me to be a part of, being an observer must have been tiring.

The meeting outlined everything we had to do in order to decline the settlement, which included signing papers and telling Mom front up that we weren't gonna pay her without a fight. We had nothing to pay her for and nothing owed to her.

I tossed and turned that night for reasons unknown to me. I wasn't hugely stressed but I didn't fall asleep until about 2am, all alone in a big double bed. I sighed. I wished Ash was beside me but he had been sent to the couch to keep Delia's dignity in check. Well, it wasn't her dignity, but you know what I mean. Her household rules didn't change in a hotel.

Oh Mom. In a few days, you would pay for everything you'd ever done to me.

A/N: Eeek, outta words. Speechless, if you will. Another one tomorrow and thanks for all your words, kind, critical, nasty, blah blah blah…until tomorrow everyone!