Ash's Gift By MegamanZero Part Thirteen: Frustration Takes Its Toll nmc_512@yahoo.com AAMRN

A/N: Haha. It's been almost two years since I updated. Hahaha. Ha.

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Meowth awoke with a jolt. Voices, thoughts, and memories; beliefs that weren't his flowed through the Pokemon's brain at the speed of light. It was as if he had awakened from a nightmare into a nightmare.

Though Meowth could barely tell what was going on, he could feel a different presence inside his body; a presence that was not his own. In an instinctive move, he attempted to jerk his head around, trying to take stock of his immediate surroundings.

His neck wouldn't budge an inch. Aw crap, its just stiff, he thought, about to raise his hands to crack his neck.

I assure you, cat, that your neck isn't stiff in the slightest, a voice thundered. Here, I'll even show you.

Meowth's eyes couldn't even bulge out in horror as he felt his neck swish and whirl around without his brain's command. He could feel his toes wiggle, his paws flap, and his lips making smacking movements as his body just seemed to govern itself. He had no control over anything.

His body was no longer his own.

Panic set in.

LET ME OUT!!

Light. A large, burning bright light, closing in on him; the sun couldn't even compare to the intense glare. More memories flashed, phasing in and out of his mind like a lost spirit, trying to find its way home. Love, hate, anger, happiness, forgiveness, vengefulness; it seemed as though every conceivable emotion known to the universe had began a massive onslaught on the crumbling remnants of his consciousness.

Then the burning began.

It started out as a gentle warmth, almost soothing, tingling his way through his mental self. He felt as though somebody had drawn him a refreshing bath; he relaxed. Soon his relaxation turned to horror when he realized that the invisible hand controlling the water pump had gone insane, the feeling of warmth skyrocketing to scalding.

He screamed. No sound came out of his mouth as he thrashed about wildly in his nightmare, hoping to somehow shrug off the terrible heat. The burning didn't cease, and it started a crescendo from boiling to volcanic. Soon the burning engulfed his entire being.

Death seemed like a blissful release at this point. He didn't care anymore. He wanted death! Death's cold hand would surely quench this fiery burning! In his last ounce of strength, Meowth called out to Death, begging him to take him, to release him.

He received no release. Instead, he received something else. Like rapture, millions of years worth of knowledge seared itself into his mind and heart like a brand on a Miltank's hide. Soon the burning didn't matter anymore. In fact, the agony he was going through seemed like a distant memory, fading away like the waning moon. What seemed to be both forever and an instant, everything seemed to make sense.

Meowth then woke up to the fact that he knew each and every crevice of the galaxy inside and out, from the tiniest quark to the largest black hole. He knew the past, present, and future of his captor. No, he knew the past, present, and future of everyone. He even knew when the first spark of life ever appeared the history of the Universe.

He understood. He knew.

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They kept a brisk pace as they made their way through the thick brush, listening to the bug Pokemon rustle about in the bushes. Ash and Sabrina walked front, speaking to each other in hushed voices. Misty and Duplica Misty took the rear, listening in on the conversation between the people in front of them. Jamie was still slung over Ash's shoulder. Brock's broken form still lay in Duplica's arms, his head lolled to the side in a grotesque manner.

"So you felt it too?" Ash asked her, his voice quivering. He wondered if he would ever get over the trauma of the last few hours. Then he asked himself if he would even last the night.

Sabrina glanced at him, carefully stepping over a protruding root. "Ash, I'm sure everybody felt it." They were referring to the strange radiation that Ashura was emitting not too far away from them. "Naturally, I wanted to know the source of power, so I did a meditation. It was through that meditation that I found you, and them." She nodded her head towards the others behind them. "I couldn't just let you be hurt. I owe you, after all."

Ash was taken aback by her words. "Owe me? For what? I don't remember ever helping you with anything." It certainly wasn't understandable why she would go out of her way to help him. After all, it had been several years since the two even had contact again.

She gave a small smile. "Because you released me, Ash. Remember that little girl that was always sitting on my lap, the one that disappeared after that last time?" Sabrina shuddered at the memory, but kept going. "That little girl was me, Ash. She was my lost childhood, my happiness, given physical form by my powers." She tapped her head twice.

"I had so completely disassociated myself from my happiness that I had rejected her from my very being. But she never left. She kept on hanging around the gym, begging me to go outside and play, or have a tea party with her. Of course I ignored her, and continued to progress my psychic powers." She gave a bitter smile. "My powers were all I cared about at the time."

"Overtime she realized that she could control me, and the happiness and childhood innocence was eroded away from her. Soon I became her puppet. I wasn't allowed to laugh, cry, or show any emotion. She was the only one who could be happy or smile." Her smile melted from bitter to genuinely happy. "Then you brought me laughter, Ash."

He gave her a confused sidelong glance. "I brought you laughter? Ok, now I'm really confused."

Sabrina chuckled, to which Ash's eyes widened in alarm. Chuckling and smiling certainly weren't things that Sabrina did often. Then again, he hadn't seen her in a long time, so who knows what other drastic changes she had been through?

"You brought me Haunter, Ash." She said, her eyes giving off a pleasant glint. "I swear, there hasn't been a day where the Pokemon hasn't driven me up the wall, but he truly is the ray of sunshine in my life. . ." She trailed off as she fixated her gaze to the thick woods before them.

"I'm such an idiot. In my haste to try and help you, I didn't even think of plausible escape plan." Her eyes slanted forward into a glare. "That little teleportation stunt I pulled wasn't easy to do, and I won't be able to do anything of that magnitude for weeks." Sabrina's voice shrunk into an ashamed whisper. "I should've let Haunter and Alakazam come with me. . ."

Sabrina's heart nearly shattered when she then realized that tonight's events might've damaged Ash emotionally and mentally. Her fears were then confirmed when she noticed that his eyes had taken on a glassy, glazed texture, staring off into the darkness as he trudged along the forest floor like a zombie.

"Oh lord, Ash, are you going to be ok!?" She cried, feeling a sharp pang of guilt for speaking out her own problems when clearly the boy walking next to her had way too many of his own.

He regarded her with a half-hearted, broken smile. "Heh. . .sure, I'll be fine. . .really. . ."

That was a bald-faced lie. She knew it, he knew it. Of course he wouldn't "be fine". One of his best friends was clinging to life with several serious injuries behind him, and the brother he never knew he had wanted nothing more than to kill him and brutally torture the people he cared about. Worse yet, he began to wonder if every aspect of his life was a lie as well.

His only purpose for existence was to serve as the ultimate living weapon, to conquer, pillage and destroy. Even his mom knew about it.did that mean that Professor Oak knew about it? Every Gym leader? Brock? Misty? Had every singly person he met along his journies been part of some kind of grand conspiracy to watch his every move? Was Silph right for wanted him dead?

His humorless, chapped grin grew wider as he spoke. "Yeah. . .I'll bet that one day I'll look back on this whole thing and have a good laugh. . .heh heh. . ." Then he glanced sharply at her with that same horribly vacant smile, as if daring her to laugh along with him. Sabrina, however, had never seen a less humorous sight in all her life.

Meanwhile, Duplica and Misty were caught in a kind of deadlock, each of them exchange murderous glances at the other, seeming as though any second they would be at each other's throats. A silent war of the eyes raged between them as they continued to assault one another with icy glares, neither one of them backing down for even an instant. Pikachu, who was resting on Misty's head, shifted uncomfortably in her hair. He could almost feel the hate radiating between the two as their deadly gazes fixated on each other with unrelenting fury.

This red-headed human bitch Duplica thought to herself as she maintained her scowl. I could break her in half with my pinkie. Just what does Ash see in this little weakling? Her thoughts softened a bit as they drifted towards Ash. Although I have to admit, she gives one hell of a staring contest.

It was Misty who finally broke the silence. "Just who do you think you are, Duplica?" She seethed, her words cold and filled with malice. "Or is that even your name? In fact. . ." Her voice grew steadily louder as she spoke. "How are we supposed to know you really want to help us or not? Do you expect us to believe that you completely toss your beliefs and allegiances out the window in hopes that you'll get into Ash's pants!?"

Sabrina's head whirled around and gave Misty a shocked look. Pikachu squeaked in alarm. Duplica only hardened her icy expression, and Ash just walked on in a rather robotic fashion, acting as if he weren't even listening.

It was a blow below the belt. Misty didn't know that Duplica's love for Ash was genuine, nor did she care. She was running on pure, jealous rage now.

"I don't really care what you have to say, girl," Duplica hissed, giving Misty a look that would put a Rhydon in a coma, "Believe it or not, I actually don't want to see Ash get hurt, and if you don't believe me then that's your problem."

Misty only continued to look back into Duplica's eyes with a look so sharp that it could cut down a tree. Duplica fought the urge to cringe, as Misty's disturbing stare felt like she was peering into her very soul.

She was finally able to gather her words. "I don't trust you." She said simply. "Not even for a second. Not around me, not around Ash, not around anybody."

"You're not required to trust me." Duplica replied with a triumphant sneer on her face. "Ash is the one to make the last word on that."

"It would be really cool. . ." a voice cut in like a rattlesnake's strike. Everybody's heads jerked into Ash's direction to see him addressing the group, his eyes still focused before him. "Ya know, it would just be great if you guys would stop talking about me. . ." He was turning around to face them now, with the most bloodcurdling, spine-tingling haggard expression on his face that said only two words: pissed off. "As if I WEREN'T FIVE FUCKING FEET AWAY FROM YOU!"

As if a gag were forced upon the mouthpiece of the wilderness, the ambient sounds of the forest seemed to be swathed in a blanket of silence as Ash's protest roared through the trees. Nobody moved, nobody even dared to breathe.

"Do you think I LIKE being referred to as a piece of meat to be fought over like a bunch of wild Houndooms? Do you think I ENJOY nearly getting killed way too many times in a row in one night!? Do you think I get a KICK out of hearing two girls bitching and moaning over stupid crap behind my back when there are more important things to worry about!? Like making it through the night ALIVE, maybe!?"

His fiery grimace shifted onto Duplica, making her feel as though he were boring a hole through her skull with his eyes. "YOU. Just where do you get off thinking that you're off the hook just because 'you've joined up with us'!? That still doesn't change what you are. You're part of the same organization that's been making my life a living hell since I was ten years old! Do you think that a few apologies and a really disgusting, sloppy kiss will make up for all the years of misery and heartache and LIES that your kind has put me through!?"

Before Duplica could stammer a response, Ash's wrathful glare trained onto Misty, who looked like she would love nothing more than to sink into the ground right then. "And YOU. Am I some kind of piece of property to you? Gee, you must certainly care me because your incessant whining and bickering really proves it. I can't believe I was falling in love with you."

Ash might as well have ripped out her heart and fed it to a Grimer. Her words wretched their way out of her as violent sobs. "But Ash. . .I love you. . .we can't trust her. . ."

"I don't trust anyone," he spat, his words as cold and hard as sharpened knives. Misty kept weeping out slurred murmurs and Duplica kept on sputtering. Ash only turned around and started walking again, as if turning his back on everyone.

"By the way," he added, stopping in his tracks one last time, "I'd really like it if you would stay the hell out of my head, Sabrina. Do you want me to rip off all your clothes and stare at your naked body? Because that's what it feels like when you poke around in my mind." With that, he continued walking with Jamie still hanging over his shoulder.

The rest of the group followed silently behind him, each of them feeling lower than dirt.

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Chapter End Notes (this is replacing "A/N)" at the end of a chapter: Yeah, Ash is getting all pissy and weird. Well, wouldn't you be just a tad annoyed if events such as these happened to you? All in one night, no less? I rest my case.