A Jewel in Water
Part 27
A/N: I just use these chapters as a way to exercise my imagination, so excuse me once again for the crappy storylines and the horrid typos dotted everywhere. If this every becomes a good story (unlikely) I will have to go back and fix everything…
Misty pushed Rudy into a storeroom and slammed the door shut after switching on a light. He stood silently as she looked at him. Slowly she raised her hand but seemed unsure of what she was doing, and soon lowered it again.
"Not going to slap me?" Rudy asked.
"I don't know if what you did justifies a slap." Misty replied shortly, "I'm just going to tell you what you know I want. Keep quiet about what happened between us. These are my friends and I don't want them to know about what we did."
"Misty… Do you know how spiteful you are being to me? Am I really so disgusting to you?" he finally replied, the hurt evident in his voice. Misty felt guilty. But she only let herself feel guilty for a second.
"Your tricks won't work on me anymore. I may not remember everything from that day, but I remember enough to know what you really want. Money and power. It's all you've wanted from the moment I met you." Rudy let out an exasperated grunt and within a second had Misty pinned up against the wall. He looked her in the eyes and whispered.
"Princess. It seems like you view me in red tinted glasses, as anger seems to shroud your view whenever you see me. But no matter how much you struggle, no matter how much you loathe and detest me, I will always love you. Nevertheless, I hope you can give me a proper chance in this stupid game you are playing at the moment. I wish you could see how much more I care about you than the others. I only want to make you happy, not hurt you, so please give me chance." Mistys face was pale with shock as he talked. He leaned in to kiss her but she shut her eyes tightly as if to make the whole scene disappear. Then she heard him chuckle and felt a soft peck on her cheek. By the time she opened her eyes, Rudy was gone, and she was standing alone in a, rather warm by now, dark storeroom.
The evening then drew to a close and the late hours of the night were fast approaching. Everyone not already there was heading to their own rooms to unwind and retire for the night. All apart from Ash. Ash shut his suitcase and made sure that all his pokeballs were accounted for. Pikachu yawned a childlike yawn, indicating that this was no time to be running around the city, but Ash paid no attention. He scribbled on a sheet of paper; a note that he was going to give to any one of the staff on night duty to deliver to Misty. It would have been too awkward to have delivered himself.
"Pikachu, you ready buddy?" He asked. Pikachu sighed, there was no hope in convincing him otherwise. But Pikachu felt something different. After becoming Pokemon master… no, actually even before he became one, he seemed to have lost his joy for battle. Once he decided not to travel with anyone any more, and train in isolation he matured fast. But he also lost some of the fun that Pikachu used to enjoy. Pikachu was not ready to grow up, so he missed child Ash a bit. Pikachu perked up a bit and bounded up onto Ash's shoulder.
"I knew you'd be! Lets go!" And with that Ash leapt out the door, suitcase in tow, straight down the stairs and out of the main doors.
Dawn had just reached home after saying goodbye to Kenny. She called out Piplup and placed him on her lap.
"Piplup, you okay?" she asked rubbing its head. It tweeted indicating it was fine. "Makes you pumped up losing to May, huh?" Piplup started jumping in agreement. "Well, tomorrow morning you and Buneary need to be ready, we missed a whole day of practice for the Hearthome contest next week!" She paused for a few seconds and smiled dreamily. "Well, at least we got to see Kenny for a bit," she chuckled. Piplup sighed.
"Ahem, well we saw Ash too! He was looking better than ever today." She sighed, "I wonder if Kenny got jealous? Ugh, I wish I liked Ash more than a celebrity crush, he's so much cooler than Kenny. But Kenny…" she stopped talking and started giggling. She looked down on her lap to see Piplups' reaction but he was softly snoring. She smiled and put Piplup back in its pokeball. Across the street, Kenny was also having a chat to Empoleon. "Do you think I made Dawn jealous today? I've been pretending to like Misty for so long, do you think Dawn has lost interest? She's so difficult to read though, and why was Ash even there today? It would have been a much better day if he hadn't stolen away all her attention! If only she came with me that day I asked her… Imagine how different things would be by now…" he let out a tired cry, shocking Empoleon, who rushed to him and patted him on the shoulder. It was going to be another emotional night.
Morning came quickly the next day, but not everyone was well rested. Misty lay in her bed with her eyes wide open. She hadn't been able to sleep well at all last night. Every time she shut her eyes she would see Rudys face, just inches from her own, with his eyes looking into hers. She was not sure whether it made her excited or scared. This was a guy that she couldn't help but detest, but why was he pretending to be so gentle now. Or was he pretending? Would it be so bad to get swept away by him now? Whilst she was contemplating the struggles in her lift, out of nowhere and burst of water splashed her on the face. She immediately yelped and sat up.
"Marill, what are you doing!? I was already awake!" Marill also yelped apologetically and ran out of the room. Misty breathed through her anger and decided to get up. Now that her bed was wet she had no excuse to sleep in and not to meet Rudy. Maybe if she saw Ash she would feel better about this whole thing.
After getting all the mirrors back in his room, Rudy was checking himself out as he was primping himself. Last night he realised something, when he watched Misty splash herself to stop him from talking, and stopped herself from slapping him. She was gentle. And gentle girls didn't really like being treated rough. He used soft words to catch her off guard, and he had to admit that kissing her on the cheek last minute was inspired on his part. No, he didn't really love Misty. Or maybe he did, he really had no way of knowing, because he had never been aware of being in love before. But there was something about Misty that he liked. Actually, it was more like he desired something about her. Maybe it was her power. Maybe it was her money. But he had time to work it out. His main goal from yesterday was to gain her heart. As long as she liked him more than he liked her, she would always be in the palm of his hand. He couldn't afford to lose her to Ash. He had to poison her towards Ash at all costs.