Hey guys!

Don't really have much to say here.

Expect the next chapter to be up really soon!

Enjoy!

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-Cacooks7

Chapter 16

"…And it even has a kind of voice-recognition. Radio on! See?"

"Dawn, all of this showing-off is making me hate you more and more…"

We pulled into Dawn's neighbourhood. The drive to her place was full of teasing, joking, and, of course, her rubbing in the fact that her car was amazing.

As we turned onto her street, I saw someone wearing a black hoodie running down the street we had just turned off of. I couldn't tell who it was, but I didn't think much of it. We pulled into her driveway. She locked her car door and we entered her house.

"So anyways, I was thinking we get the studying done now, then we'll have time to chill, kay?" Dawn inquired.

"Yeah, sure. I'm down for whatever!"

"Okay, but first. We make food. I'm starved!"

She opened up her pantry, and somehow everything in there, even the snacks, looked gourmet. I was starting to think that Dawn's family let their money get to their heads a little bit too much.

She made probably the best noodles I had ever tasted. It wasn't quite pasta, but it wasn't quite Asian noodles. It was sort of a hybrid of both.

They'd better be good. I thought, while looking at the box. $45 for a small box!

"Okay, can we start with physics, pleeease?" Dawn asked, while getting her books out of her bag and putting them on the table. "'Cuz, I mean, we have a test next week, and I have nooooo idea what the hell he's teaching."

"Haha. Okay. So, in 2-D momentum, you have to remember that momentum is always conserved. So the components of the vectors always add up…"

We studied physics for about an hour, and then we moved onto math. She was actually quite smart; she just needed someone to really sink the ideas in. We were almost finished math. I looked at the clock. It was around 5:45 pm. 6 hours and 15 minutes left…

"So, when you're factoring x3 + 2x2 –3, you…"

All of a sudden, there was a commotion going on outside. Someone was yelling in the distance, and more people gradually starting yelling back. We both shared a glance, but decided not to investigate.

A few minutes later, and the yelling seemed to die down. We continued our studies for a little while. She was finally starting to understand the lesson when it started again. But this time, it was really close, and really bad.

"Dawn, I think we should check it out."

She nodded, but I could tell she was a little scared.

We went outside to find out what all the commotion was. I saw a group of people yelling at someone right in front of Dawn's house in the street. In fact, they were yelling at the man wearing the hoodie!

I went down her driveway. She followed slowly.

"…I'm going to call the cops! I swear to god I'm going to call the cops if I don't kill you first!" One of them yelled.

"Ouuuu. Oh no! Call the cops. Please, don't!" said the hooded man very sarcastically, with a surprisingly familiar voice that I couldn't quite put a face or name on.

I walked down into the street. "Hey, what's going on here?"

The group turned to me. "Nothing, nothing. Go away, kid."

"I'll tell you what's going on." The hooded man said. "Yes, Ash. I'll tell you what's going on. If you tell me how your ARM IS ALREADY HEALED!" The hooded man starting dashing towards me. His hood eventually fell off.

It was Paul!

He darted towards me, so I took a sidestep. He threw a punch at where I was previously. I gabbed his arms, pulled them behind his back, and nailed him to the ground. He's got a big mouth, but nothing to back it up with. I thought.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" I demanded.

"He stole all of our families pokemon!" The first man said. "He stole them and killed them! Look!" He opened his pokeballs, only to reveal pokemon who had been beaten and bruised.

I shook Paul on the ground. "What the HELL, Paul. Is it true?"

"That's not the worst part!" The man continued. "He KIDNAPPED my daughter and is keeping her hostage!"

What. The. Hell?

I heard Dawn gasp in the background. I stared at the man with pity at this news. I couldn't believe my ears. "That's… un-"

I felt Paul slip through my grasp and saw him begin to sprint down the street. I immediately got up and started after him. "Dawn! Call the cops! Tell them everything! DO IT NOW!" I yelled as I ran away.

All I could think of was my rage as I chased him down. How could he do such a thing? It was beyond me. But Paul was not getting away this time. Definitely not getting away.

He was only about 10 metres in front of me. I could see wherever he turned. But it was an even battle. He got ahead at points, and I caught up at points. I chased him down at least 6 streets, and I must have been chasing him for at least 10 minutes.

He finally hit a dead end. He had nowhere to go, so he went up. He began climbing the wall. I had to go after him, so I began climbing too. He actually made it to the top of the wall, and then jumped down. About a second after he jumped down, I heard a loud CRACK and I heard him moan. This was my chance.

As I made it to the top, I saw him. Both his left arm and leg were broken, so there was no way he was getting up. The drop was definitely too high, so I decided to stay posted at the top of the wall and call the cops. I called quickly and told them where we were.

Paul lay there, moaning and groaning. "I'm not going to jail! I won't! My father will do something about this!"

"Don't hold your breath Paul. Now answer my questions, Paul. Who did you take hostage?"

He spit. "Fuck you! I'm not telling you. Plus, you don't know her!"

"Unless you want me to jump and land on your face, asshole, answer my questions. Did you do anything to her? Did you rape her?"

I braced for the answer.

Paul paused for quite a while, until finally answering, "I tried. But I didn't. She's just tied up in my basement."

"And the pokemon. Why did you kill them?"

"Because!" He cried. "I'll never be a pokemon trainer! All of my pokemon ran away from me! I HATE pokemon!"

"So you killed innocent ones?" I couldn't believe this. "You're psycho!" I cried. The sounds of sirens downed out my cries. "You're crazy!"

After returning to Dawn's house, we sat in her living room talking about what had just happened for about 2 hours. We got occasional phone calls from the police station informing us about the situation. On the positive side, the girl was released back to her parents, with hardly a scratch. On the negative side, all the pokemon were confirmed brain dead.

Dawn's mom had just came home. "Oh my gosh, Dawn, Ash, I just heard about what happened! It's horrible! I can't believe Paul would be one of those people. Paul!"

"Yeah, mom. I always knew something about him was wrong."

"Honey, does Ash know?…"

Dawn nodded.

Dawn's mom smiled "I had a feeling you'd tell him. It's okay dear."

She hugged her. "I will do everything I can to make sure the marriage is waved off."

Dawn stood there, shocked. She slowly lifted a smile, and a single tear trickled down her face. She then turned to me.

"Well, we did it!" I smiled. "I told you I'd get it done! Paul's done!"

She ran towards me and kissed me. Our lips locked. This was the right time. It felt like the right time. It was the right time. I finally did it. I finally did it.

Dawn looked right into my eyes. "Ash." She said softly. "We've been through a lot. I'm sorry that I didn't realise this sooner. Ash, do you want to take a chance with me?"

"Yeah, sure. Dating sounds good." I said jokingly to relieve the tension and nervousness from her words. She smiled and we kissed once more.

We watched a short movie for the rest of the time. It was next to complete silence as we watched, but not because we were angry, or awkward, or speechless. I think that none of us wanted to ruin the moment.

Dawn wanted me to stay the night. Whether or not she wanted to have sex with me, I'll never know. But what I did know was that it was already around 8:30, and I only had 3 ½ hours to fall asleep, so I decided to go home, and I told her that I would see her tomorrow at school.

When I got home, my mom interrogated me about what happened. I didn't tell her, and no one knew but Dawn and I, that I chased him down. I didn't need that attention. We had a conversation over dinner that lasted about an hour. Yes, I was actually counting. I really needed to fall asleep on time.

Finally, it was around 10 o'clock. I decided it was time to go to sleep. I brushed my teeth, got ready for bed, shut the lights and tried to sleep. But how was I to fall asleep with everything that happened today? Paul, and Dawn?

It was already 11:00 o'clock and I wasn't even showing any sign of becoming tired. I was thinking too much about what had happened today. How was I not to?

11:30 and still nothing. I was starting to become worried. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. You know those ideas that seem brilliant when you think of them at night but are completely stupid later? Yeah, one of those.

I headed downstairs into my basement. I got the tranquilizer gun that my mom used back home when we had rodent problems. And, yes, that's right. I tranquilized myself to sleep.

But it worked. I shot myself in my bed, and almost immediately I faded into the dream world once again, where the unknown voice greeted me once again.