Chapter 2
By Liv Valle
Ash opened his eyes and looked
around himself carefully. His last clear memory was of an
explosion, flying through the air, and then seeing a beautiful
girl with purple hair who said she would protect him. Who was
that girl? Ash asked himself.
"Pika-pi!" [Ash!] called
a blessedly familiar voice. Pikachu jumped up onto the bed and
hugged the side of Ash's face excitedly.
Probably summoned by Pikachu's
excited cry, Ash's mother suddenly barged into the room, her face
pale and streaked with tears. When she saw that her only child
was awake, she grabbed him and hugged him very hard.
"Oh Ash, I thought that I had lost you!" Delilah cried,
tears streaming down her face. In her joy at seeing Ash awake,
she didn't immediately notice that he was going an interesting
shade of purple.
"Mom... you... are... suffocating...me..."
Ash gasped.
"Oops! Oh dear! I'm sorry,
darling," Delilah replied with an embarrassed smile, a sweat
drop forming at the side of her face.
Ash gasped in a deep breath.
"Air air good," he groaned. Much more of that
treatment and he would have died for real! Again, he
added to himself, it happened far too often for his liking.
Anyway, he could now partake of oxygen again and he quickly
recovered his normal Caucasian skin-tone.
Delilah sat next to Ash and wrung
her hands nervously. "It was too close this time, Ash,"
she said. "Thank God that you are going to be okay! If your
cousin hadn't rescued you when she did"
Wait a minute! Cousin? But I
can't have a cousin! Ash knew that his mother was an
only child and the same for his missing father, Rescue Team
Captain Adam Ketchum.
On that moment, the door to Ash's
room opened and a 15 year-old girl entered. She was dressed in
short jeans and a denim jacket. Under her jacket, she was wearing
a tee shirt with the logo of a red heart with two little white
wings to either side. A Pokéball was attached to her belt. She
also had a pair of roller-blades slung over her shoulder. She had
long purple hair with a pair of sunglasses stuck in it. Chikorita
ran past her, leapt up onto the bed, and began to nuzzle her
'Ashy' lovingly.
"Hi Ash!" the girl said
brightly. "It's good to see you well again, little cousin.
Oh! Aunt Delilah, that orange-haired girl, I think her name is
Misty, is awake in the other room. I think you should see
her." Delilah looked a bit uncertain. The girl looked her
right in the eyes. "I really think that you should go and
see how Misty is doing," she said in a strange tone of
voice.
"I really think that I should
go and see how Misty is doing," Delilah said. She shook her
head and, looking rather dazed, she walked out of the room.
There was a long, uncomfortable
pause in the room. The girl walked over to Ash and smiled at him
uncertainly, literally reeking of nervousness. Ash looked at the
girl claiming to be his cousin suspiciously. Sensing their
Trainer's unease, his two Pokémon fell silent and sat silently
beside him. "Okay, we're on our own now," Ash said.
"Who are you?"
"I I'm your cousin
Giselle!" the girl said, sounding very nervous. Giselle
reached out and tried to ease Ash's suspicions telepathically,
but she ran hard into the Chosen One's formidable mental
defences. Gabriel had warned her of this: The Chosen One's mind
automatically defended him against psychic influences of all
kinds.
"Giselle, if that's your real
name," Ash said scornfully, "my mother and father were
both only children, so you can't be my cousin." Ash
let that sink in before continuing in a far angrier tone of
voice. "So, who are you really? And what have you
done to my mother to make her believe your story?"
"Wh why do you distrust
me?" the girl said, suddenly looking incredibly
sad. Tears formed in her eyes and began to run freely down her
cheeks. "I I'm a failure!" she continued,
stuttering around her sobs. "Five minutes into my first
assignment and, like, my subject hates me already!"
If there was one thing Ash hated,
it was a distressed girl, who was crying her eyes out in front of
him. He leaned forwards, sweatdropping, and grabbed her hand,
trying to reassure her. "No, I-I don't hate you!" he
said. "I just want to know who you really are!"
Giselle stared at the mortal boy
past her tears and tried to think clearly. One thing that is
repeatedly drummed into cadet's minds during 'Serve and Protect'
classes was the absolute need to prevent your subject
from discovering who and what you really are. Knowing that they
had a Guardian Angel could have incalculable effects on their
thinking processes and lead to the person you were trying to
protect self-destructing in some fashion.
However, this was an unusual case.
The Chosen One was a powerful person in his own right and already
knew how to responsibly control and direct the power he had
through his Pokémon. Additionally, the usual methods an angel
could use to cover their tracks simply wouldn't work with him.
She came to a decision.
"Okay," Giselle said at
last, "I'll tell you who I really am." She stopped and
leaned close. "Like, just don't tell anyone that
I've done this okay?" she added quietly. "If the Boss
finds out, I'm going to be in trouble so deep that you can't even
imagine it!"
Giselle stood back and
concentrated, discarding her human disguise. The brightest white
light that Ash had ever seen suddenly surrounded her. Her clothes
changed into a flowing white one-piece robe bound at the waist by
a wide white girdle. Mighty, pure white eagle's wings spread from
her back and a bright golden halo shone from over her head. Some
kind of wind caught her long purple hair (which was no longer
bound back but hanging freely), making it and the skirts of her
robe flow out gracefully. There was an unmistakable sense of
beauty, truthfulness and purity about her.
Ash was frozen on the spot, unable
to believe his senses and sure that he had finally gone
mad. His Pokémon reacted quite calmly to the transformation.
Once you've seen one being evolve, you've seen them all.
[Ah, that explains it,] Pikachu
remarked. [I thought there was something strange about her.]
[Yeah, we should have guessed,]
Chikorita agreed.
"Ash Ethan Ketchum, I am
Giselle," the girl said in the most serene and peaceful
voice he had ever heard. "I am a messenger of the Most High
God, one of the beings you know as 'Angels'. I have been sent to
your side to protect you from all danger and see to it that you
attain to your destiny."
Ash opened his mouth to protest.
Okay, so she looked like and angel, spoke like
an angel, felt like an angel and even said that
she was an angel. However, that didn't mean that she was
an angel, did it? It could be a hoax maybe Ash had suffered
a concussion in his fall and was hallucinating or maybe
this was a dream! After all, Angels were a myth, weren't they?
Something to reassure frightened children and pack them in at the
church! Or not?
"Hey! Don't you believe me?
Well, like, I can't blame you for that," Giselle said with a
laugh that made Ash relax involuntarily. Everything is going
to be okay, the sound seemed to say, touching something so
ancient and deeply hidden in the human psyche that only the
holiest people were even aware it existed. "Let me show you
my credentials!"
There was a flash of bright white
light and a scroll materialised in her outstretched right hand
and a Pokéball in her left hand. Giselle broke the golden seal
on the scroll and pulled it open. She cleared her throat
importantly and began to read.
"Memorandum
"To: Giselle Sagan, Cadet Angel, First Grade
"From: Archangel Gabriel, Superior Archangel Committee.
"Ms. Sagan,
"From this date, 24th July, Year of our Lord 2064, by the
direct will of the Supreme Authority, you are hereby placed on
indefinite detached assignment. You will act as Guardian Angel to
Ash Ethan Ketchum of 291 Riverside Road, Pallet Town, Indigo
Island, Kanto Region, Earth, co-ordinates
234/11028956/35516818/61861284, time frame standard.
"You are hereby authorised to use any and all means
necessary to keep your subject safe and well so that he may
fulfil the destiny for which he was born.
"Given the importance of this mission, the Supreme Authority
has authorised the issuing of a Guardian Angel Pokémon to assist
you. His name is Light Hope. While this committee is certain that
you are sufficiently capable to protect Ash Ketchum, we also feel
that the Pokémon will need to protect him from you.
"Your detailed orders and authorisations are attached in the
file 'GA_ORD-5646813.PDA'. Please ensure that"
Giselle cleared her throat.
"Well, it's mostly technical stuff from there on," she
said, rolling up the scroll and dismissing it with a flash of
white light. "Like, I think you get the idea." She was
looking forward to working with a Pokémon Angel, but she really
would like to know what Gabriel meant by 'the Pokémon will need
to protect him from you.'
Giselle returned from her
introspection. She looked back up at her subject and frowned
slightly. He was frozen exactly on the spot, staring at her.
"Ash?" she said gently. "Ash? Are you okay?"
Giselle panicked slightly and reached out to touch his aura.
There was nothing physically wrong with him that she
could detect, no disease and no injury. However, he remained
completely frozen and uncommunicative. "What's wrong with
him?" she asked herself.
Suddenly her Pokéball, which was
pure white except for a golden equatorial bar and recall lens,
split open and spat out a flash of white light. The white light
resolved itself into an Eevee. It was a fairly typical example of
Pokémon number 133 except that it was pure white, had sapphire
blue eyes and had white eagle's wings extending from its' back.
Oh, it was also hovering in the air. Chikorita and Pikachu
squeaked in panic and dived under the bed covers.
"Maybe he has gone into
shock," the Eevee announced in a cultured English-accented
voice. "After all, you have just revealed your true nature
to him, contrary to standing orders may I add, and told him that
he has a destiny that has attracted the attention of the Supreme
Authority Himself. Wouldn't you be a little
shocked?"
"Like, it wasn't as if I had
much of a choice, Light Hope," Giselle complained, feeling a
bit silly.
"Yes, well you can save that
for the debriefing," Light Hope said scornfully. "Until
then, I think we should concentrate on waking your subject from
his current catatonic trance." The Eevee landed gracefully
on the bed and walked up to Ash. He stared into the boy's eyes
and smiled reassuringly. "Hello, Mr, Ketchum!" he said
brightly. "My name is First Commander Light Hope of the
Pokémon-Angels. I have been assigned to assist you, and to
ensure that my good-natured but none-too-bright counterpart
doesn't inadvertently injure you again."
Giselle noted that reference to
the fact that Ash was only in hospital because she had been
somewhat overly enthusiastic about rescuing him
from a collapsing mineshaft. "I told you that it was an
accident," she snapped. Light Hope rolled his eyes in
good-natured disbelief, making Giselle turn away and sulk.
"May I say that it is a
personal pleasure and privilege to meet you, Mr Ketchum?"
Light Hope continued. "The Chosen One: He who tamed The
Beast of the Seas and rode on the back of the Titan of the
Oceans, Lugia himself! Quite impressive for a mortal who is less
than two decades old! Mr. Ketchum? Mr. Ketchum, are you all
right?"
Ash was staring at the pure white
winged Eevee that was talking to him in English with an absolute
horror that transcended anything he had felt before. He tried to
scream. What came out was a strangled gasp. Ash's eyes rolled up
into his head and he fell on his side in a dead faint.
There was a long pause in the
hospital room as Guardian Angel and Pokémon-Angel looked at
their unconscious subject worriedly. "Hmm Maybe this
won't be as easy as I thought," Light Hope remarked. He
turned to Giselle. "Did I say or do anything wrong,
Cadet?" he asked. Giselle shrugged. She had no idea.
To be continued
