Chapter
3 - Difficult Awakening
Silently, Delilah Ketchum carried
her son up the stairs and, lovingly and gently, placed him on his
bed. A part of her mind was surprised to note that he didn't have
even a single scratch on his body, in spite of his desperate race
through the woods that had left his clothes covered with long,
jagged tears.
I suppose I can only be
thankful for this small favour, she thought.
After covering, carefully, her son
with a blanket, she watched him for some time. Ash slept
peacefully, as if he had taken a dose of a strong tranquilliser.
Sighing, she went back down to the kitchen to look for Pikachu
and Chikorita.
The two Pokémon watched her
suspiciously. She watched as electricity crackled around
Pikachu's cheek pads and Chikorita waved her vine whips
threateningly. "Pi-chu-kachu-pika-Pika-pi?" [What have
you done to Ash?] Pikachu asked. He was trying to sound brave,
but fear coloured his tone.
Delilah concentrated and subtly
modified her vocal chords so she could respond as clearly as she
could. "Pika-pi-chu-kachu- pikachu," she responded in
the electric mouse's own language.
"Pi-ka-kachu-pikachu-chu-pika-kachu-chu-ka-pi-pika-pi-pi."
[Ash is unharmed, Pikachu. I will take you and Chikorita up to
him immediately.]
Pikachu and Chikorita both jumped
when they heard this human? Perhaps not When
they heard her speaking in Pikachu's own language. While Pikachu
struggled to understand what this might mean, both for himself
and for his friend, Chikorita barged forward.
"Chik-chik-ori-chi-chikorita-ri-ri-ta-chiko,"
[If you have hurt him, I will make you sorry,] the
little plant-type said threateningly.
Delilah laughed slightly.
"Chikorita-ta-chi-ori-ori-chikorita," she said.
"Ta-chi-chikorita-kori-chi." [I would never
harm him, Chikorita. He is my beloved child.]
Both Pokémon looked at each other
for a long moment before Pikachu finally nodded. He was still
suspicious, but he was also eager to see his friend again.
Delilah stooped and picked her son's friends up. She took them up
to Ash's bedroom and placed them on her son's bed. In a normal
situation, she would not allow that... but this situation was far
from being normal. She was aware of that.
Delilah closed the door of Ash's
bedroom and closed her eyes in an exhaustion that had nothing to
do with physical tiredness and everything to do with an
exhaustion of the soul. Ash would have peace and rest until
tomorrow morning due to the Sleep Wave Attack that she had
applied. But Delilah's knew that her torment was just beginning.
Well, first I have some
important matters to take care of, she thought.
=========
A few minutes later, she called
the only person that knew about her secret. He appeared on the
screen of the videophone, his face reddened and his eyes filled
with sleep.
"Yes?" he said with a
yawn. Suddenly his eyes opened wider and he lurched forward.
"What? Who are you?"
"It's me."
"Delilah! But... but
you are..."
"Yes, I'm in my real form.
The serum wore off and I could not maintain such a complex shape
for long." She breathed deeply. "Ash knows now."
"Oh my God!" The man's
face now was a mask of horror as he took this in.
"When will the new batch of
serum be ready?" Delilah asked in a sharp tone. She really wasn't
in the mood to explain the terrible events of this night at this
time.
"Uh Tomorrow," her
contact responded. "At 1000 hours."
"All right," Delilah
responded calmly. "I'll have Mr. Mime pick it up at the
usual spot."
Her contact nodded, then sighed
and drew his hand through his hair. "Damn, but this is going
to be ugly, Delilah. Good luck with your son."
"Thanks," Delilah
responded, and cut off the call. Good luck.... She would really
need that!
The being made entirely from a
translucent blue gel-like fluid walked down the stairs and
thought deeply about what her next move ought to be. This had
always been her greatest fear; that her son would discover what
she was... Hmm If she re-enforced the Sleep Wave attack,
Ash would be out cold until midday at the very least. If she took
the serum and used all her strength to maintain her 'normal
human' disguise, she could easily pretend that everything Ash had
seen was nothing but a nightmare... No, she could not do
that... Ash had seen her transforming into her real form. What
made it worse was that she was losing the capacity to maintain
her human appearance for any prolonged period, especially now
that the serum was, for some reason, losing its' effect...
Delilah paused at the bottom of
the stairs and gathered all her strength. She tried to morph into
her "human" form. For a few moments her skin flushed to
a more human shade and her hair darkened to red. In less than a
second, and long before she could refashion her body into the
appearance of clothing, the stress became too much and she had to
allow her body to flow back into its' natural liquid blue
appearance. Delilah sighed and hugged herself tightly. As
comfortable as her 'default' shape was, she had no desire to lose
forever her ability to look well normal. Well,
maybe its' just because I'm tired, she thought, trying to
cheer herself up.
Delilah nodded firmly to herself
and came to a decision. She had to explain what was
happening. She had seen the panic in Ash's eyes when he saw her
transformation... And she didn't want to imagine what
would happen if he saw she morphing into her real form again...
She sighed and fell in the sofa of
the living room, at the same time, resigned and afraid.
She had to tell her son
the truth. She owed him that... The problem was that she
could not tell him the entire truth...
Delilah stood up and went up to
her own bedroom. She stood on her bed and removed a hidden panel
in the roof, from where she pulled a small black box. The mutant
woman opened the box and she took its' contents in her
translucent blue hands. There were two old photos and a necklace,
well more a collar really, with electronic circuits on it. These
were Delilah Ketchum's only remaining connections with her past.
The first photo showed two
red-haired women, one wearing a Team Rocket white uniform. The
scenery in the picture looked like a hospital ward somewhere. The
oldest woman, in the uniform, was her, Delilah, in happier days.
The younger redhead, in the bed (whose hair was a strange shade,
almost purple) was her younger sister. She held her baby girl in
her arms, a child less than two hour old when this picture had
been taken. A tear escaped from Delilah's alien green eyes as she
remembered that happy moment.
The other picture was of her with
a young man with black messy hair, wearing a Red Rocket uniform.
They were hugging in a way that made it clear that their
relationship went way beyond just friendship.
Delilah looked at the photos with
contradictory feelings. If, on the one hand, they evoked memories
that cheered and consoled her, they also remembered her of a past
that she could not tell to her son... she could not
tell... she could not tell...
Shaking her head, as if to get rid
of the weight of her past, she went to the bathroom, to wash her
face.
"I only hope Ash forgives
me..." she murmured to the alien liquid blue face in the
mirror.
He will never forgive you. You
have deceived him for his entire life. Her cold inner voice
told her.
"He will understand.
I know that much."
He won't. He is now a danger
for you. The voice continued.
"No." she murmured,
shaking her head.
He is a danger...
One that you should eliminate!
Immediately! Now!
"No!" She
screamed. She punched the mirror, hard, smashing the
glass to shards and punching right through the wall into the
closet on the other side. Delilah stepped back and watched as her
hand slowly morphed back to normal, losing the vicious spikes on
the knuckles. A normal human would have shattered every bone in
their hand even trying to punch through a brick wall like that. God
how I miss being able to bleed, she thought to herself.
Delilah staggered back and
collapsed to the floor of the bathroom, crying helplessly.
=======
Delilah's eyes reacted
automatically when the first sunbeams filtered through the window
of the bathroom, waking her up. It was the dawn of a new day, but
for Delilah, it was the day that she had lived in fear of for the
past thirteen years.
Resigned with her destiny, she
went to Ash's bedroom, to wait until he woke up...
======
Slowly, Ash opened his eyes,
confused and disoriented. Where was he? The last thing that he
remembered was seeing his mother changing into some kind of
monster...
He blinked twice to clear his
vision. Now completely awake, he saw his mother's face hovering
over him... a face made of a gelatinous clear blue fluid... Ash
immediately did the last thing he wanted to do before he went to
sleep last night. He screamed as loud as he could.
Delilah winced. "Ash, don't
be afraid," she pleaded.
Unhappily, that was a request that
he could not grant at this time. Ash's scream degenerated into a
panicked whimper. His mind strained, desperately instructing his
body to move to escape from that... nightmare,
but he couldn't so much as twitch a finger. He decided that she
... it was using Paralysis to keep him in the bed.
Desperation lent power to his efforts. He managed to move his
head enough to see Pikachu crouching on his pillow.
"Pikachu... Thunder-shock!" he ordered, his
voice just a degree away from a scream.
Delilah didn't move, but as Ash
watched, her entire body flowed and suddenly turned a slate grey
colour. It was as if she had turned to stone. Pikachu's
attack washed out over her body, but electrical attacks are
useless against rock-types. Delilah wasn't even inconvenienced by
the Thunder-shock.
The Pokémon Trainer and his
mother looked at each other as Delilah's skin flowed back into
blue fluid. Even though he was desperately afraid, the surge of
panic had exhausted itself now. Ash noticed that the eyes of the
being before him were filled with a deep sadness. He saw that she
was feeling a great pain.
Swallowing dryly, he spoke, trying
to sound defiant but failing miserably. "Well, what planet
are you from and what did you do with my mother?" he asked.
Sighing, the woman before him
answered. "It's me, Ash. Your mother!" Delilah
didn't blame him for not believing her. If she were in his
place, she would not believe either...
"Well 'Mom,' if you are
who you say that you are, then.... How did I capture
Togepi?"
She seemed surprised. "You
didn't capture her, Ash. Togepi hatched out of an egg that you
found, and, when she saw Misty, she thought that she was her
mother."
Right answer, he thought,
unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "When I was
born?"
"On February 14, 2050, right
here in Pallet Town." Delilah smiled at such a simple
question, and she decided to make her answer as complete as
possible. "Your blood is Type O Rhesus Negative and you have
a birthmark: a stain in form of waxing moon behind your left
shoulder."
Right again. Now it was
time to ask the decisive question. Only his mother could know the
answer to this question. No one else had been present. Ash drew
in a deep breath to fill himself with courage before asking the
question. "Well, when I was seven years old, I suffered an
ugly fall on the stairs and I had to go to the hospital. That
night, I had a nightmare and I woke up. Well then, what was the
song that you sang for me in that night?"
Delilah looked at Ash in surprise.
Did he want her to play the singer now? Well, if that
was what he needed if he was to believe her Delilah closed
her eyes and began to sing.
"To dream the impossible
dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong
To be far better than you know
To try when your arm grows too weary
To reach the unreachable star."
As he listened to this impossible
being singing the correct song so unmistakably in his mother's
voice, Ash could only stare as his mind realised the impossible
truth: she was his mother.
Ash was silent for some minutes
until he could sufficiently gather his wits to speak.
"Then... since when you are like Mystique?"
Despite everything, Delilah
laughed: she did look a bit like that character in the comic
books Ash loved as a child. "Well... this is due to a
genetic mutation." She saw the way Ash stared at her. "Yes,
as in the comic books."
"Are you a human being or an
alien?" He asked, looking her up and down in disbelief.
"I am completely
human," Delilah replied sharply, and then reproved herself
silently for that. "The only thing different about me is
that I have a few special abilities that most humans don't have.
Nothing more than that."
Ash was still not convinced. Not
that anyone could blame him for that. "Nothing more than
that," he repeated in disbelief. "Well then, what would
you do if I decided to go to the Security Police and
told them the truth about you?" he asked in a challenging
tone.
She lowered the eyes and, when she
answered, it was in a murmur. "Nothing. I would ask you to
not do it, but that is all."
Ash couldn't believe that he had
heard that. "Wouldn't you try to stop me?"
"No," Delilah said
quietly. "Because I would prefer to be destroyed or
to spend the rest of my life as a prize specimen in some
laboratory than to see you hurt, Ash." Delilah lifted her
alien slitted green eyes, and he saw in them her love and
honesty.
He could only look at his mother
in silence.
=======
Unknown to Delilah and Ash, a spy
satellite that, by a million-to-one chance, had been over Pallet
Town that night recorded their night flight, and sent the image
to the headquarters of the organization that was its' creator and
owner. In a few days, that image would create a stir unlike any
previously known in the organization known as Team Rocket...
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Review!
To be continued...
