Please tell her to go away.

Arceus?

Dialga?

Mom?

No, really. I have dealt with crazy men, fought against some of the strongest pokémon in the region, went to places that any ordinary trainer wouldn't be able to survive in for a day, let alone weeks, and my downfall is going to be this ... thing? Some girl I swear to GOD is trying to get into my pants? Cocky? Maybe. No pun intended.

There has to be a reason why she's so nosy, why she's all up in my business. She wants to know me again. Why? The observer does not need to be the observed. There is no deep meaning to me, no inner trauma that needs to be brought up. So butt out, woman.

The faster I figure this out, the faster I can get the hell out of this place and away from her.

...

Eyes: Dark blue.
Bipedal.
Supple, though clumsy.

Note: Buy milk for breakfast tomorrow.

Chapter Four

"Good morning!" she said cheerfully.

He stared at her, unamused. She stood next to him, a cup of coffee in each hand.

"I said good morning," she repeated in a sterner tone, her eyes fixated on him.

"And I said nothing," he replied, still staring.

She broke the awkward gaze by turning her attention toward the cups of coffee warming up her hands. She set them down on the table. "I got you coffee. I thought it'd be nice to have something warm to drink."

He turned his head back toward his work, tapping his pencil on the table. "I didn't ask."

"Yeah, but it's nice, no?"

He didn't reply, flipping through the pages of a heavy book. Dawn set the cups on the table, moved the chair next to Lucas, and plopped herself in it. She scooted the chair back in, making its legs squeak across the wooden floorboards. He gave her a glare–so cold–before snapping his head back down. She gave her cup of coffee a warm smile instead and pulled it in comfortingly, wrapping her fingers around it and breathing in the steam.

His name is Lucas. Did you know that? Dawn knew. She taught him how to catch a pokémon, you know. He was such a nice boy, and he had such a nice smile. Such a helpful kid. He helped find her pokédex once. This was years ago. They were only twelve then – kids! Now they were older–fourteen, almost fifteen ... where does time go?–and he had changed into ... well, whatever that thing is.

Oh, he looked the same, sure. Blue eyes. Black hair. Weird hat. Red scarf. (She always thought it was cute that they both had red scarves.) He was kind of pale and on the gawky side since he hit a growth spurt, a good eight inches taller than her and still growing. He was so much colder, though. A hardened face, hunched shoulders, and bags under his eyes – too young to look so old. Mom said apathy was worse than ignorance. With ignorance, you just don't know. With apathy, you know ... you just don't care. That's what Lucas was, apathetic and ...

Emotionless?

Maybe. There was still a spark, a twinkle, he had back when they were rookies. Something was just ... different. Maybe she imagined that spark. It was discomforting seeing what was once an empathetic child turn into nothing more but an asexual shell. He changed. She wasn't sure if she liked it. Was that what you turned into after three years of journeying?

"How's it going?" she asked sheepishly.

"Fine," was Lucas's stiff reply as he scribbled inside his notebook. He reached for a book placed in front of him and flipped it a page forward.

She guessed he was mad at her. It wasn't her fault, honest! ... Okay, so what if she, after meeting Eldritch and learning of his predicament, offered her help? And so what if she immediately mentioned that "Lucas would like to help too!" resulting in a death glare from the boy? And does it really matter that she forced him, via Professor Rowan, to postpone his travels for another week ... or two ... or four? Surrounded by books ... this was his thing, wasn't it?

She decided to ask. She knew the answer, but she decided to ask anyway: "Are you mad?"

"I don't get mad," was his quick reply.

"Well, do you need help?"

"No," he answered. He pulled the book in closer, his left hand resting on the pages. It was like he was trying to avoid looking at her. Goddammit, she was pretty! She needed to be looked at!

Dawn let out a huff. "There must be something I can do!"

Lucas let out a sigh, stretching his arms above his head, fingers wrapped around his pencil. "You can be quiet," he said, dropping his hands back down and tapping the eraser end in a steady beat.

"I'm a researcher too!" she whined, tugging at the ends of her dark-blue hair. "I can help, you know!"

"Uh huh."

It was Dawn's turn to let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm not as annoying as you think."

"Right."

"Whatever!"

A small smirk–emotion?–that quickly vanished as Lucas scribbled in his notebook. Dawn tucked her legs underneath her rear, making sure to pull down on her skirt so Lucas wouldn't see more than he needed to (not that he cared), and raised herself up to peer over the boy's shoulder. Words. A lot of words in an illegible cursive that swirled and blurred together into fancy language. She narrowed her eyes, staring at the chicken scratch, trying to unwrap the text into something coherent.

"Does that say, 'Buy milk for breakfast tomorrow'?" she asked.

Lucas pulled his notebook away from the girl's view. "No," he muttered.

Dawn lifted her hands up and pulled out one of her barrettes, letting the loose strands brush against her cheek. "Can you at least tell me what you think is going on?" She bunched her hair together and clipped it back tighter.

"Mm ..." He licked his lips. "I don't think Nurse Joy was far off. A severe case of Hypnosis or other sleep-induced attack sound plausible. Maybe the best hope is to wait it out."

So that's why he was so enthralled with that status effects book. "So you think it has something to do with pokémon too?" she asked.

"Not unless something darker is going on in that household."

"What are you saying?" She frowned. "You think Mr. Eldritch had something to do with it? Don't say that! He's such a sweet man."

"Well, it's not that I want to say it nor do I think he would. But you never know." Lucas shrugged and turned the page, revealing a drawing of a drowzee. "Canalave–this south-western area, really–doesn't have many pokémon capable of learning sleep-inducing moves naturally. If there are any, most pokémon use it under threat."

"Are there varying levels of sleep-induced attacks? Like effectiveness?"

He paused, then nodded. "Air-borne attacks spread via spores, like Sleep Powder, are much more effective and common in the wild because of its ability to travel over greater distances. That being said, it is not necessarily strong."

"What about audio?"

"Audio isn't as powerful since other noises can drown it out. It's definitely not as effective as spores."

"So maybe it's audio. Bird pokémon have audio moves and can travel great distances even if they're not common in the area."

"It's possible"–this made Dawn smile triumphantly–"but then again, the victim usually awakens after a hour or so. I'm not ready to rule audio out, though. Same goes for air-borne spores."

Dawn nodded slightly and pulled Lucas's book towards her, staring at the drawing. "So what else is there?" she asked. "Visual?"

"Yes. This, too, can vary. Yawn, for example, is visual. The user yawns, resulting in a chain reaction that eventually lulls its opponent to sleep. Then you also have moves like Hypnosis which are powerful but inaccurate."

"So maybe Lane saw a pokémon using Yawn and the attack hit him later that night?"

"I mean – well, yeah, that could ..." Frustrated, Lucas took off his hat and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. "Sleep Powder, Spore, Yawn, Hypnosis, Grasswhistle, Lovely Kiss, Sing ... All of these, to an extent, are 'curable,' but nothing has worked. So what could it be?"

. . .

Lane scrambled to his feet, toes sinking into the wet grass and, to put it simply, panicked.

"Aw, man!" Hands brushed past elf-like – er, huge ears to the top of his head. He rested them there, flattening unruly strands of hair. He paced back and forth. "Momisgoingtokillme. Iwokeuplate! Test!"

He kicked a rock with his bare foot and grabbed the band of his jeans, pulling them up so they fit snugly around his waist. "I'm already doing bad in spelling! Why do I need to learn how to spell 'rainbow'? That's such a stupid word!"

Squish floated toward him and gave him a half-smile. "What's wrong, Lane?" he asked.

"My test, Squish! My mom is going to kill me if she knows I woke up late!"

"Oh, it'll be okay!" said Squish. He nudged Lane in the head with his own squishy one and giggled.

Lane let out a sigh as his companion oozed out rainbow drops. Squish turned into a cumulus cloud, puffy and fluffy–which Lane wanted to grab and form into another shape–with two watery eyes, except his coloring was highlighter yellow, not white; and he meant the clouds, really, because eyes? They are mentioned too often and in weird descriptors, like orbs, or spheres. Wonder why? But either way, he was being honest and true, like a dart, if darts were honest and had feelings and were not just weapons to be thrown. Also, nun-chucks are weapons.

Squish squeaked and came to rest on Lane's bedhead, letting out a sigh. Moisture seeped through the creature's body and pooled into Lane's hair. He felt a drop of rainbow water run down the side of his forehead.

"What brings you to Darkwood?" asked the squishy one.

Darkwood was a place in the middle of another place. It had trees and also creatures.

"I'm not sure," admitted Lane, feeling the top of his head and pressing his fingers against Squish's form. His finger sank in, getting wet. "What about you? What are you doing here?" He pointed his head up toward the sky. It was dark blue and wavy. There was also the sun, a darker orange that Lane didn't remember.

"Princess went missing," was what he heard.

Lane blinked a few times. "Princess ..." he repeated, trailing off. "What happened to her?"

"Kidnapped, Lane!" squealed Squish fretfully and quickly, quivering on top of Lane's head. He floated away from the boy and came within his line of vision. Lane noticed the being's fluffy form turned into a droopier one, his yellow coloring turning gray. "I was running away from the explosion and came across you sleeping."

Questions, so many questions, and where to begin? You must start with the most important one. You came here unaware that life lessons would be passed unto your breast, but they came, and now you are a better person because of it. "What about my test?" Lane first asked.

"Postponed," said Squish. He motioned his entire body toward more trees, trees of no gender, that were brown and dead. "The explosion was in that direction."

"Explosion? From what?"

Squish's eyes focused on the sky. "There." He motioned his head.

Lane was confused. Was it the sky or the trees he was supposed to be mad at?

"There was a bright light that fell from the sky and BOOM!" The creature dramatically floated toward the ground like a twirling leaf in the wind, his form reverting back to its original state: a gray, shapeless blob with two, blue eyes (orbs, mayhap!). He giggled, rolling onto his back so he could look up at Lane. "Princess was there! The light hit her, and she vanished!"

Lane plopped into the grass, the wetness dampening the bottom of his pants, and picked Squish up who drooped and oozed between his fingers like silly putty. "Princess," he repeated for the second time, this time thoughtfully.

A whirring noise–the grinding of metal against metal–caught Lane's attention, making him stand up and look. Bubbles floated toward him and popped against his face, making him flinch. The land rattled, so he held Squish tighter in his hand and ran toward the source of shaking. He brushed past the genderless trees, the air cold and cutting against his face, and he smelled the sea – but too bad there was none near. Or so he thought ...

No, he was right. No ocean. There was a train though!

. . .

Dawn had a piplup: bipedal, roughly a foot high, and weighing in at eleven and a half pounds, give or take a few ounces. Its ability is Torrent, which increases the power of the pokémon's water-based moves when low on health. Its evolution is prinplup, who evolves into empoleon. The breed is terrible at walking but powerful at swimming. They often puff out their chests as they are a prideful species.

Dawn's piplup was puffing out his chest. Also, he was annoying.

"Move your damn bird," Lucas growled, pushing the piplup away with his left hand. The piplup, with an unhappy chirp, deflated and flapped his wings to gain stability only to fall backward. He hopped back onto his wobbly, yellow flippers and poked at the books sprawled out in front of the researcher. Lucas looked up from his notebook to stare at the bird, and the bird smirked back–as good as you could smirk with a beak anyway–filling his chest with air and puffing out again.

"Oh, he's just interested in what you're doing. Pip is such a curious, little guy." Dawn grabbed for the chick and hugged him to her chest, and the piplup cooed, nuzzling against her breast. The bird turned his eyes toward Lucas, and – Arceus, he better have imagined that. Did that bird just glare at him evilly as he pressed the side of his face against Dawn's bosoms?

"Be nice to him," she remarked. "He'll warm up to you once you get to know him better."

Warm up, huh?

"I don't even see why you need to have him out," Lucas said, eyes returning to the safety of his notebook. "And why hasn't that thing evolved yet? You've had him for years."

"You know as well as I do that some pokémon don't want to evolve," Dawn replied. "Why? I don't know. You tell me. Maybe you can figure it out. Either way, Pip doesn't want to evolve, and I don't mind." She smiled and patted her pokémon's head affectionately.

Lucas watched the bird once more, this time out of sheer observation than annoyance. Pip wiggled out of the arms of Dawn and toddled around on the barely-clothed thighs of his trainer, the tip of his slipper slightly underneath the pink cloth of Dawn's skirt. How sweet. How angelic. How innocent the movement of lifting his flipper, shifting Dawn's skirt. How convenient that the piplup's head was pointed down at that moment. It became apparently clear why the piplup refused to evolve. It was cute to be a pervert when you were under a foot tall. Once you become fat, and chubby, and older, and pimply (or prinpuply, if you want to make it a lame pokémon pun), the police are called.

Good god this girl is stupid. What Lucas–and any other normal human being with the semblance of a brain–saw as perverted action, she saw as cute, sweet, ooey-gooey, kissy motion.

He was tempted to tell her, but he had doubts that she would believe him.

With a sigh, Lucas reached up and took off his hat, letting the ceiling fans dry off the sweat built up on his forehead. He looked toward the window and watched a flock of wingull fly by in a crooked v-formation. "Enough distractions," he murmured, staring down at his markings and putting his hat down next to it. "Do something. Particularly something that does not involve me."

Dawn picked Pip up and pressed him against her stomach as she stood up, boots scuffing the wooden floorboards. Shelves and shelves of books, she thought, and all of them boring as heck. Her eyebrows furrowed together. She used her free arm to run a gloved hand down the dusty tomes. No gossip magazines? No histories of trainers? Just boring data collected over the years and shuffled into leather hardbounds? Must Lucas pick the most boring floor to reside on?

Ah, a good book finally. Pokémon Myths and Legends. The title was simple, yet it effectively caught Dawn's attention. She pulled it out, sending up dust that made her nose twitch and Pip sneeze and jump out of her hold to waddle on the floor. The book was out of place unless they were in some bizarre library universe where the alphabet went A, B, L, C, D. Wait! It made sense now! This is why Lucas wanted to study on this floor! He wanted his name to be in front of the alphabet! The fiend! The devil!

Wait. Aren't books organized by last name? What was Lucas's last name? And hell, what powers could you possess by messing with the alphabet? If you acquired a power that everything you touched turned into chocolate simply by messing with the alphabet, Dawn would do it. She totally would.

"Lucas, what's your last name?" she asked, laying the book flat on the palm of her left hand and flipping the cover open with her right. She leaned on her left leg, popping her hip.

"How 'bout no?" he muttered, turning a page.

"That makes no sense."

Lucas didn't reply, making Dawn sigh for about the hundredth time today. The boy was a frustrating creature, yet he really didn't do anything to bother Dawn in the first place. Maybe that was the problem. All he did was sit and read and write. He didn't like to joke around, let alone talk.

Now let's be honest here. Like dart honest. As much as Dawn wanted to help the Eldritch family solve their problems, there wasn't much that she could do other than regurgitate the same information those in the medical field already knew. The chances of her solving this mystery were slim to none. Her credentials? She barely had any. Oh, right. She was Rowan's apprentice for the last three years. Had she learned anything? Outside the useful tip here and there and a memory or two that she will tell her future kids (two boys, one girl, two years apart in age with the girl being the youngest. Also, she wanted to live in Hearthrome, and her husband would be a successful researcher or businessman or whatever who also fought the evil rope villain on the side. Oh, and he would cry at the end of romantic comedies and not be afraid of emotion), her apprenticeship was, dare she say, pointless – at least until she could use it on some résumé for an equally crappy job. But that's beside the point.

All things have a second motive. The surface motive was helping Lane. The real motive was to get her friend back. She knew Lucas was a well-respected trainer and researcher despite his age. She knew doctors and Nurse Joy and all the experts in Canalave would ask his opinion had they known he was in the area. He wouldn't do it of course–at least by free will–so that's where Professor Rowan came into play. Professor Rowan would make Lucas stay, and here they sat.

Dawn was a friendly, lovely child. Dawn knew it, too. While she had her moments of ... denseness, she knew when she wasn't wanted, and it never really mattered; there were plenty of others who liked being around her. Lucas didn't want her around. But for some reason, she didn't want to give up. She wanted to get to know him – then immediately change him into something that would fit him better. It must be a girl thing.

She slammed the heavy book on the table and pulled the chair back, sitting in it. She cleared her throat, flipped her hair behind her shoulders, tapped her fingers on the tabletop, and grinned at the annoyed researcher next to her. Lucas quickly lowered his head back to his notebook.

Dawn was a stupid, noisy child. Lucas knew it, too. She was always dense–the stupid way she bit her lip as she read the table of contents, like a book without pictures on every page boggled her mind–and he didn't understand how anyone could stand to be around her. He didn't want her around. But for some reason, she didn't want to give up. He knew she wanted to get to know him. Why? He had no idea. It must be a girl thing.

"What happened to your friend?" she asked, sliding a finger underneath the thin leaf of the book and flipping it to the next page.

Friend?

"What friend?" he questioned back.

"You know!" Dawn tore her eyes away from her book and made motions with her hands. She petted something imaginary above her head and extended this motion toward the sides near her ears. "This guy!"

This must mean something meaningful. Something like the imaginary airspace is metaphorical for the huge amount of crazy the girl had stored in her head, and she was trying to pat it down, only for the crazy to explode forth like a volcano, spewing forth its hot, molten, crazy hate of craziness.

"I'm not following."

"You know!" she repeated with more enthusiasm. She simulated jogging in place while remaining firm in her seat. She puffed out her cheeks.

That answers it. She, indeed, was a mad, volcano-like woman on the verge.

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Use words."

"Oh, I don't know his name. That blond kid you hung out with. He ran off after we let him keep that chimchar. You two screamed like sissies when a flock of starly attacked you. Remember?"

"Oh, Barry?" He smiled, and he noticed it caught Dawn off-guard. "And starly can be fierce in flocks, you know."

"Uh huh. But either way, what happened to him?"

Lucas shrugged. "I don't know. I lost track of him after ..." He trailed off. Repress it, Lucas. It's over.

Dawn gazed at him worriedly and nudged him in the shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Lucas blinked a few times, nodded, and recapped his sweaty hair. "We just ... drifted apart I guess. Last I heard he was going to the Battle Frontier. I was going to head there, too."

"But?"

"But I was roped into staying here for a week or so for a whimsical research project," he muttered.

"Oh." Dawn beamed as Pip hopped onto her lap. "Rope is evil."

"Quite."

. . .

He had no idea what happened, why he was doing it, and where he was heading, but Lane knew he had to get on that train. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it but whatever.

"That train always leaves earlier than its departure time," remarked Squish in a shaky voice, quivering in Lane's sweaty hands.

The genderless trees swung at him (or maybe he imagined that), and he dodged the fiends like any good hero would, ducking and weaving while Squish screamed. The train was pulling out of the station, he noticed, and was picking up speed, bubbles flying out of the train's stack.

"Wait!" Lane yelled, pushing his legs to run faster. He held his left arm up and tried to wave it down.

The train was made out of steel, wheels grinding against the tracks with a rhythmic thunk, THUNK! He ran closer to it–which in all reality probably wasn't the safest thing but whatever to that too–with his left hand still thrust forward, fingers wiggling and grasping at the cold air. Passenger car after passenger car painted in an array of blue shades rushed him by, and all seemed hopeless until something grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him up so his feet were no longer on the ground but swinging forward in a wild flailing of limbs. The being dragged him into the train, and Lane rolled in, resting on the flat of his belly. Squish was flung out of Lane's grasp and groaned tiredly a few feet away.

Lane had been on a train once. He was about six, and he was with Mom to visit Dad who was stationed in another city further away. He remembered the train with its loud honking and its brakes screeching, and he got out of his mom's grip and ran toward the edge of the platform and peered forward when it was pulling into the station. He slipped. He fell forward. He remembered the bright light from the train turning into a streamed blur and hands gripping and pulling him back by the shoulders, and the honking noise was multiplied by five. He remembered Mom freaking out. She was crying for some reason and sat him in her lap when they got on the train, and she constantly kissed him through his hair. It bothered him. He was old enough to sit on his own! He also remembered candy–lots of it!–and the landscape rushing by the window.

"Never again," she kept breathing into his hair. "Never again."

He didn't know why he remembered that, or why he was remembering that particular moment in this peculiar situation. Either way, he did.

"Th ... thanks ..." Lane managed to breathe out.

There was a giggle followed by a response. "You're welcome, Laney!"

Something collapsed on top of him. He didn't move, partially bewildered and partially exhausted from running and almost killing himself like any good hero, and let whatever on top of him rest there, pressing its face against the nape of his neck. Something stringy but soft draped around his head. Was it hair?

"Want to wrestle?" The voice giggled again. It pulled at his elf-like – er, pointy ears, making him flinch.

He shook his head no, managing to shake off the being's grasp.

Wait. Laney? Oh, sweet mesprit, no ...

Lane managed to squirm enough to roll onto his back and thus stared into the wild face of Julie.

Last Revised: April 27, 2011