One more exam left! Yay!
I don't own Pokèmon. I own Nia, Aria, Latto, Pasqua and Naois Genwyn, as well as filler background characters such as the woman in the early part of this chapter. Everyone else is either covered by copyright, or based on real people.
Ebony wasn't in for two days following the banana incident, and Aria was beginning to worry that she'd never be seen again. She was the only one seriously worried, though – she was the only one who knew that the Neko-jin was homeless. But she needn't have been concerned – Ebony appeared back in school on the Friday, her usual self – albeit with a firm resolve never to touch anything from Rydia's lunch ever again.
Aria soon became inseparable from Nannon, Tegg, Wraith, Ebony and Rydia. Together, they became known as the Beautifully Messed Up People, or the Guild of Assassins – it would depend on whom you talked to. The boys also tended to stick together – the boys being: Seig, Zero, Fossil and Haru. Although, Haru, to begin with, insisted he didn't need company, or – dare anyone mention the word – friends. But slowly, they wore him down, and now it was natural to see the half-Zora with the first years.
It was the first Saturday since Aria had started going to Saralli Caira; although, to her, it seemed like a lifetime ago that she hadn't been to the school. In a sense, it was another life ago – a life without Draigas…now, the thought was inconceivable.
Aria used to sleep quite late, then ate breakfast in a hurry and run to her previous school. Well, one of those habits was broken, at least. Aria now woke up early, ate as rapidly as ever and got to school in a hurry.
Now, it being the weekend when Aria woke, she sat up in her bed for a little while. She frowned – wasn't there something she was forgetting? Draigas slid over to her. Aria had become slightly better at understanding the dragon over the course of the week, and she could tell that Draigas wanted to tell her something.
'Family?' the dragon tried. Single words were just about all that got through.
"What about family?"
'Visiting?'
And with a crash, the memories fell into the space that had been a nagging feeling. Aria had made her mum promise to take her to her home world this weekend to visit her family!
Aria tumbled out of bed, grabbing some clothes and hastily pulling them on. Then, she rushed downstairs, almost running straight into her father.
"Sorry, Dad. I'm just excited…" she apologised rapidly.
"I know. We haven't forgotten our promise."
Her mother appeared in the doorway. "You think you're going dressed like that?"
Aria looked herself over. She was wearing a t-shirt and three-quarter length trousers.
"What's wrong?"
"Trust me, it'll be cold. It's winter, and winter in my country means frost at the least. Normally ice, and sometimes snow. Now, go and get something warm on – you'll need it."
The word snow echoed in Aria's mind as she changed her clothes, choosing a vest, t-shirt and jumper. All these layers made her feel uncomfortably warm in her home climate, and even then, her mother insisted that she take a coat. Then, holding each other tightly, Aria's mother sunk into a trance of sorts, and the world around them just melted away.
Aria could see nothing. They seemed to be in a colourless, matter-less space. Then, in an instant, colour rushed back.
Aria let out a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding and took a breath in – only to cough weakly.
"The air here tastes foul," she complained.
"It stands to reason that my people have only polluted the planet more in the time that I've been gone…" Nia murmured sadly.
Aria continued looking at this strange new world, with Draigas huddled close, mostly hidden inside Aria's clothes. Her first thought was of how cold it was, and while she was shivering uncontrollably, she didn't just mean the temperature. The ground they walked on seemed to be some kind of stone, painted with strange white markings. All the houses seemed devoid of life and character, made to one design repeated over and over. These were also stone, painted different colours in a futile attempt to cheer them up. To her left was a small field of grass, but even that seemed somewhat desolate and lonely. Perhaps it was the fence separating it from the road they trod on.
Was the fence to keep people out, or nature in?
But the biggest shock was all the machines. Huge metal vehicles drove up and down the roads at startling speeds – yet her mother didn't even flinch. Aria was finding it harder and harder to believe that her mother came from such a place. While her father eyed it with a distasteful air, it seemed he also accepted the place.
Draigas kept hidden as they walked up the street. It was barely three hundred yards up the slight hill that they stopped, crossed the machine's road and stood on the doorstep of a house that Nia claimed had been her childhood home.
Her family could tell how nervous the woman was, by the hesitant way she pushed the button by the door. She seemed surprised, however, when a young woman in her twenties opened the door.
"Oh… Hello. Sorry to disturb you, but would you happen to know a Julia Jones? She used to live here…"
The woman bit her lip and a shadow of sorrow crossed her face. Aria could see the bad news on her face before she even spoke.
"I'm sorry. She died close to two years ago," she said quietly.
Aria's mother was silent with a numb disbelief, which slowly died to a torrent of despair. Aria's dad awkwardly enveloped her mum in a hug, and she cried on his shoulder. But Aria just felt awkward and guilty – how could she mourn a grandmother she'd never known? As her mother sobbed, all she could do was watch. It felt weird to see an adult cry, much less her own mother. It was eerily unnatural, and if Aria could help it, she never wanted to see it again.
Eventually, her father took some control over the situation.
"I apologise. She wasn't expecting this," he explained, while still gently comforting his wife.
"I understand. She's Nia Jones, isn't she?"
Nia whipped round at the sound of her name. "How do you know?"
"When you ran away, there was a massive media attempt to try and find you, partially because Stephen Atkinson had run away so recently. You were almost as well searched for as that Madeline some-body-or-other that disappeared in Portugal…"
"But, that was around fourteen years ago! You can't remember news from that far back!"
"Well, I suppose I remember it because of the history in this house…"
"Speaking of which, how long have you lived here? Who did you buy it off?"
"Six months. And…Durell…"
"…Gareth Durell?"
"Yes – you know him?"
Nia sighed. "My stepfather…so, he's still alive…"
"If you want, I could give you his telephone number," the woman offered.
"I suppose so," Nia said unenthusiastically.
The woman looked at her watch for a while, pressing small buttons around it's edge. "If you wait a second, I'll send the number via Dentcrimson-"
"What?"
"You know, Dentcrimson?.." the woman failed at the puzzled look on all three faces. "Where on earth have you been?"
Nia attempted a smile. "For now, just assume we've been living under a rock on the dark side of the moon."
"My cousin's got a villa on the moon – nice for stargazing, not too much pollution…" she stopped when Nia stared.
"Oh, not literally…" she realised. "You really have no idea about…anything?"
"Nope, nothing at all in the past fourteen years," Nia confirmed.
"Well, Dentcrimson is…um, was Bluetooth around when-?"
"Yeah," Aria's mother broke in.
"Well, this is a faster version, with far more uses and a larger signal radius. I can send something to just about anywhere in the UK from here, instantaneously."
"Well, sorry, but we don't have anything 'Dentcrimson' compatible…" Nia apologised, only for Aria's Pokètech to buzz loudly.
Aria quickly checked the screen – 'receive transmitted data?' She pressed yes, and was rewarded with an eleven digit number.
"I stand corrected. Aria, can I borrow it, please?"
Aria nodded, handing her mother the device. After a few awkward button presses, Nia got the gadget to ring. A gruff voice picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Gareth speaking?"
"Yes. Is this for the I.A.M?"
Aria had no idea what I.A.M meant – she later found out it was a group called the Institute of Advanced Motorists that taught people the advanced techniques in motoring.
"No. It's…me, Nia…"
There was a sound of something crashing – to Aria's ears, it sounded like a china mug, and Nia could hear liquid dripping and splashing around.
"Good God, it isn't?"
"It is…do you think that you could give us your address so we can speak in person?"
"'Course."
Gareth then proceeded to give complicated directions using place names Aria couldn't recognise, or easily pronounce. However, her mother seemed happy enough with the directions, so Aria didn't worry. A few seconds afterwards, Nia hung up with more than usual enthusiasm.
"I never could stand him for long…"
"Oh, before you go, I think we still have a box of your stuff up in the attic. Do you want it?" the woman politely asked.
"I'd like to see, if that's alright."
"Of course, come in," she invited.
The family tentatively stepped over the threshold, and climbed the stairs. Back when Nia had lived here, the floor had been bare floorboards as a result of a half-done DIY job. Now, a thick, lush carpet covered the floor, and Aria was suddenly very conscious of her shoes, and how much mud they may or may not have on them. Nia idly wondered whether the carpet had been laid before or after the house had been sold. She supposed it didn't matter, though. On the landing, there was a technical looking panel built into the wall next to the light-switch. The owner of the house tapped a few buttons and panels and a ladder came out of the ceiling.
"Well, that's definitely a new addition…" Nia said, attempting a joke.
It failed miserably. The family climbed up the ladder at the woman's invitation. Nia saw it at once – for one thing, it was the only thing in the attic, and for another, it was marked with her name.
Nia opened the box with trembling hands, and gasped as its contents were revealed.
"Hey, Kratos. Have a look at this. It's so bizarre…like looking at a visual representation of my childhood…"
She handed a plastic case to her husband with a nostalgic smile. "Tales of Symphonia…why does this seem so familiar?" she said sarcastically.
Aria could tell it was supposed to be funny, from the half-smile on her father's face, but she didn't understand.
"And Aria, you should have a look at this…"
Aria peered into the box, to find a myriad of Pokèmon goods, from small electronic games to posters, cards, magnets, figurines and pictures.
"I thought you said that they didn't have Pokèmon here…" Aria started uncertainly.
"They don't have…alive Pokèmon. They believe that Pokèmon are just a figment of someone's imagination. A game…a television programme…just entertainment. They don't believe it."
Draigas shrank further out of view.
"But…" Aria protested, although she couldn't find words to protest. Something about it just seemed wrong…
"Cheer up. If we know the truth, that's all that matters, isn't it?"
Aria nodded, the feeling of ill ease at bay, temporarily, at least.
"Right. Now, I think this should be yours," Nia said, handing the box to her daughter.
"Huh?"
"You'd find it funny, some of the stuff they made… Look, I'll put it in our wing pack," Nia said, and a few seconds later, the box seemed to disappear.
Aria had seen this before – they'd made the box incredibly small, so it fit into a bag of sorts. It would hardly weigh a thing either, so it would be perfect to transport.
"I believe Gareth is waiting for us?" Kratos interjected.
Aria made a mental note of this tactic her father used – he didn't directly order or remind, but suggested things subtly – she'd have to watch for that in the future.
They left, thanking the woman for her time and generosity, and breathed in the icy, polluted air of this world.
"I'm just thinking – which would be the fastest way?" Nia pondered to herself. "And should we walk? We haven't got any money for a bus or train…"
Aria trembled. "You say you have this power with air…couldn't we fly or something?"
"I wouldn't want people to see, and to go above the clouds in this weather, the air would be very thin up there," Nia explained after a short moment's pause. "Besides, I'd need to see where we were every so often – we'd be dipping in and out of clouds all afternoon…"
"Okay…" Aria admitted with a small shivering sigh.
"You're really cold, aren't you?"
"N…no…" she lied through chattering teeth.
Nia handed her daughter her coat. "Here, I can keep myself warm."
"T…thank you, mum."
The family walked through the lifeless urban streets.
"Where is everyone?" Aria wondered, as they encountered hardly any people.
"Probably watching television," Nia said contemptuously. "I can understand why they wouldn't come outside though – there are really high levels of nitrogen and sulphur as far as I can sense…if they stayed out for too long, especially in the rain, they could end up doing themselves serious damage."
Nia said all this in a choked voice.
"Mum, you're…crying…"
"I'm just so glad that you weren't born in this world…I'm so thankful. A world where everyone has to stay inside…where people must isolate themselves…it's become a shell of its former self – and it wasn't brilliant to begin with. This is just what it has become in the villages – in the rural areas. What will the cities be like? All those people…"
Kratos drew her close – not quite a hug, but as close as they could get while still walking.
"I know your pain. All you can do is bear it. For now, you can do nothing," he whispered soothingly. "You feel all the problems of the world as if they were your own…I know how it feels, but you must let go."
Nia took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'll be alright. Now for something far more upsetting – meeting Gareth again."
"What's he like?"
Before Nia could answer, she found her husband was looking at her warningly.
"What?"
"We'd like the version without the profanities…"
"You know me too well… He's the most irritating person I have ever met, in all the worlds I have ever been to. He is always right, even when he's wrong, and no one or nothing could make him change his view. He's a little bit self-centred, couldn't live without his computer and very controlling – he always got worked up over little details. And that was fourteen years ago…if he's followed the same pattern as this world has…we could be entering the first circle of hell…"
As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as Aria's mum had said. It was worse.
He lived in an old industrial town about a mile from the village that they'd started from. This didn't seem too bad, but the countryside was all either hills or busy tarmac roads, so Aria's feet ached after the short walk to the man's house. It was a fairly small, grey house on the corner of a winding road. Just beyond the house were large fields, pale with frost, despite the lateness of the day.
Nia looked at her family, almost as if willing them to force her to knock on the door. Then, with a sigh, she rang the doorbell. Three seconds later, Gareth appeared. He was a balding, slightly overweight man, in his early sixties, who was a good head shorter than Kratos, and at Aria's eye level – he was one of the few people that she didn't have to look up to see.
"You didn't tell me you had a family. Come on, come in," he said warmly.
Aria looked at her mother – Gareth seemed friendly enough, for all that Nia had warned them about him. And her mum had always been a good judge of character.
The three entered the house, and it took all of Aria's self control not to start coughing. The air was thick with white smoke, which Nia whispered was from a cigarette…or many cigarettes… He gestured for them to sit on a lumpy brown sofa. This was when Aria noticed the constant hum of the computer in the corner. Aria looked at her father – he seemed to detest the smoke-filled room. He had keen senses – as Aria knew from experience – so the disgusting smoke must have affected him far more. This gave his daughter the resolve to hold back a coughing fit.
He seemed stuck for anything to say, so Nia took the initiative.
"How did she die?" she asked suddenly and bluntly, keeping her voice even.
"…Julia?"
"Who else?" Nia said quietly, but certainly.
Aria knew that the quieter her mother was, the more dangerous and angry she was.
"…It was a terrible accident. Her car was stationary in front of a level crossing, but the car behind failed to stop in time, pushing her onto the track in front of a train…"
Both Nia and Kratos visibly flinched, while Aria went wide-eyed as she tried to imagine how that would feel – twisted metal cutting into your skin, crushing you and broken glass…
"She died from blood loss. An internal injury to the abdomen – she may have lived if not for that…"
Nia kept her face calmly composed. "What was the funeral like?"
"A small gathering – family only. She was cremated."
"Did your son go?"
"Yes," he said, now perplexed.
Nia narrowed her eye with a dangerous glint in them. "I see. Was he sorry?"
"For what?"
"You know what for!" she growled in a low tone, causing her daughter to shrink back away from her mother. "Was he sorry?"
"I don't believe he was remembering that far back," Gareth replied, at his most impassive.
"Where is he? I'll make him remember if I have to…"
"He followed your example. Ran away. Wasn't seen alive after that. He died in two weeks – he fell into a hypoglycaemic coma miles away from anywhere."
Nia's hand made a light fist, before uncurling itself, its owner knowing it was futile to threaten somebody already dead.
"Don't you dare try and blame this on me. It's what he would have wanted."
By know, Aria was thoroughly confused, and her mother seemed slightly calm, so she asked.
"Who's 'he'?"
"Siôn…he threatened my mum repeatedly with a knife when I was just a bit younger than you are now. I hated him after that, with good reason…eventually, we refused to have him live in the same house as us, so both him and Gareth moved out. He was diabetic – he needed injections of insulin to keep his blood sugar under control. A hypoglycaemic coma is when your blood sugar drops too low. If you are in it for too long, it starves your vital organs of the energy they need to work."
Aria allowed these facts to sink into place, and some of Nia's hate for her stepfather was explained.
"So," he coldly attempted light-hearted conversation. "How was your life after you ran away?"
"I met the most wonderful man in existence, fell in love and had the best daughter anyone could ever hope to ask for. We're comfortably well-off, and Aria goes to the most exclusive school in the area," Nia was also pretending to be civil, yet there was a savage pride in the way she talked about her life, as if daring him to disagree with her.
"Was it worth leaving Julia behind?" he suddenly asked, showing strains of anger.
"Don't talk as if I wanted to run away! You know nothing! You've always been ignorant of what's right in front of your nose!"
Kratos reprimanded his wife with a look, but she hardly paid attention. To her, Gareth had ruined her life until she'd run away and built her life for herself, far away.
"Mum…let it go…he's not worth it…" Aria protested weakly – the cigarette fumes had attacked the back of her throat, making her voice rough and painful to use.
Nia had mistaken her daughter's choked voice for tears, as she immediately lowered her tone.
"Sorry," she apologised to Gareth. "It's a painful topic at the moment. I ran away to protect her, but you wouldn't understand."
Nia got off of the sofa, and looked out the window with a sigh. "This whole world is wrong. When Stephen died, half of the balance of this world disappeared. When I left, all the balance of the world…just went haywire. And all of that is not all humans' fault…but this pollution just makes it worse. This world will die…whether it's in a few months, a few years or a couple of decades. There's nothing anyone could do, short of getting help from another world, and even then, things would be difficult…"
"Another world? Nia, you've become delusional…"
Kratos suddenly stood up, giving Gareth a glare that simply told him to shut up if he liked his neck the way it was now.
"Kratos, it's fine…most people in this world would think I'm mad for saying things like this," Nia admitted, easing her husband back into his seat. To Gareth, though, she replied, "That's always been your mentality, which is why you've always been ignorant. There's one thing I want you to accept before the end of this conversation. This is not the only world in existence."
"And how do you expect me to believe that?"
"I can travel to other worlds. Why do you think there's been no trace of my existence for fourteen years? And Stephen Atkinson, too?"
"There are ways of evading the government and police."
"For fourteen years? While having a family?"
"It's always possible."
Nia groaned, and Aria saw this as a perfect time to swallow her silence and add, "I was born in another world and lived there all my life."
Gareth seemed to ignore Aria – either he disregarded her point of view, or couldn't come up with an argument against her.
Draigas growled; having listened to the conversation so far, and suddenly slinked out of Aria's many layers of clothes and slapped Gareth with the tip of her tail.
He was stunned into silence, before fainting.
"Why did he do that?" Aria wondered, surprised by the man's actions.
"What? Faint? It's because he was trying so hard to block out what he saw as not real, and this was the easiest way for his mind to do it," Nia explained without any sympathy.
"In short, he fainted because of his own stubborn nature," Kratos summed up.
Nia was now looking at the computer in the corner of the room, without any regards for the unconscious figure. "I don't believe this – he's still running Vista on this machine – it must be, what…fifteen years out of date?"
She clicked on icons on the screen too fast for Aria to follow – she'd never seen a proper computer before, and it stunned her to know how easily her mother used it, even with fourteen years of it's absence.
"Let's see…oh, God, I have several hundred thousand e-mails…all of them spam…" she muttered to herself. "…And let's have a look…Yahoo's owned by Microsoft…Ebay has finally died…although Fanfiction-dot-net is still very much alive…funny…hmm…what about a map of Britain?…Oh, London's half underwater…England's looking very thin – that must have been the icecaps melting…Wales doesn't look too bad though, the hills must've saved us…"
"Nia, you're muttering," Kratos pointed out, with the air of someone who had pointed out the same thing several times.
"Oh, sorry." Nia surfed in silence, until… "Hey, look at this! It's a newspaper report from when I ran away! Oh, wow, mum did find my note and she opened a bird sanctuary…that must have been a lot of work for her."
"Bird sanctuary?"
"Yes, the last thing I said in my letter is to look after the birds in the area – I thought she'd just leave out some bread or something, though…"
"But with you mum…not being here…who's running this bird sanctuary?" Aria asked.
Nia typed in the name of the place into the search engine on the screen, and came up with the official website. "Pretty professional looking for a small place," Nia commented, lightly…before shouting excitedly.
"My Grandmother's still alive!! Grandma's still alive!"
Nia hit print, then almost ripped the paper out before the printer had finished.
"I take it we're going to see her, then?" Kratos asked.
"Of course! That is, if you two are okay with that…"
"You don't need to ask my permission to visit your own family," Kratos assured.
"And I was the one who wanted to meet my family in the first place!" Aria exclaimed.
Nia broke into a broad smile. "Well, it says here that the sanctuary is up the Black Mountains – that's only a short walk. So let's go!"
Kratos had a sincere smile on his face, too – how could he not be happy when his wife was so overjoyed? Aria, however, frowned; the 'Black Mountains' seemed to be a very foreboding name…
An extra long chapter – during the exams, too! Wow…
Siôn (pronounced exactly the same as Shaun) and Gareth are based on real people and events, to a certain degree. (the hypoglycaemic coma hasn't happened, but it's only a matter of time…although, a hyperglycaemic coma is far more likely to happen…) Anyway, if you are upset by any of the themes in this chapter…I'd like to give you a Helpline to call, but I don't have one. Just send a review, instead. Sympathy isn't a must…I've probably exaggerated…but, maybe not…you decide.