Notice: I had to take down this chapter and repost it because for some reason it was not working. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Dawn: part 6

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Before nightfall Dawn found a natural diglett-made cavern a bit further in the forest. It was large enough to fit her inside but small enough to go unnoticed by most and relatively hidden from view. She decided that it would be a fine enough shelter to spend the night and crawled inside, letting Jo out of its ball for the night. Darkness fell fairly quickly after that and the anthem sounded. This time there were no casualties. It had been a peaceful day and Dawn was glad for that.

Sometime before sunrise, when it was still quite dark, she was woken by the sound of someone moving in the forest nearby. Her eyes fell open and in less than a second she was wide-awake. Jo stirred on her chest.

It wasn't a human—that much was certain. It was panting heavily and making soft growling sounds every now and then. The noises were too animal to be of human origin, so it had to be a pokémon. Remembering the past games, Dawn reminded herself that it could be a mutt too—a mutated pokémon specifically modeled to be deadlier than normally. Whatever it was, it was obviously far too close for comfort. Sweat broke on Dawn's forehead as she shook Jo lightly, hoping that the piplup wouldn't make a sound.

The penguin seemed to sense the danger and remained quiet, now just as awake as its owner. Dawn wiggled and managed to get the bag's straps on with minimal movement. They were both waiting, ready to bolt at any given moment.

There came a loud growl and mere seconds after it, Dawn was face to face with the largest and angriest looking mightyena she'd ever seen—she barely even recognized the pokémon. It was definitely a mutant.

In the split second Dawn had before the beast lunged, she screamed:

"Jo, ice!"

The penguin wasted no time but spit out a missile of needle-sharp shards of ice. It hit the mightyena in the eyes and it howled in pain, staggering back. Dawn grabbed her brave penguin and dashed off, running for her life. Unfortunately, it didn't take the mightyena long to recover. It probably had enhanced healing abilities. Dawn swore, making a sharp turn towards the lake. It was her best shot at survival.

She was already on the beach when pain exploded on her right calf. She cried out and stumbled down, kicking blindly with her unharmed leg. The beast retreated just enough give her the time she needed and she threw sand on the mutts face blinding it yet again. She scrambled up and limped to the lake. Jo hopped down from her lap and when the mightyena attacked once more the penguin brought up a shield of water that blocked the beast's plunge and sent it rolling to the sand.

Wet and angry the menacing pokémon growled at the pair from the beach but didn't try to attack anymore. It darted off, back to the safety of the woods. A few minutes later Dawn slumped down to the water. She was in shock, probably, because even though she tried to, she couldn't feel the pain from her leg.

Things weren't looking too good for her. Jo looked miserable, trying to nibble Dawn's sleeves to get her attention. The girl's leg was bleeding and she had no proper bandages, nor anything to clean the wound with. She would probably die from blood loss there in the shallow water. It seemed as good of death as any.

Suddenly Lyra's face flashed in front of her, clear as the day. The girl was angry—why was she angry? Dawn tried to think even though it was hard. Everything was fuzzy except the girl in front of her.

"Oh," she breathed out when she realized.

Dawn had promised that she would win for Lyra's sake and here she was, lying on the ground and waiting for death. Not a very convincing champion, not even in her own eyes. Overcome with new determination she dragged herself back on the sand and wiggled free of her back bag. She didn't have anything in there to help her.

She struggled to sit up and shed off her jacket and then her under shirt. It would have to do, she didn't have anything else. Ripping it was hard with her weakened hands but she managed and set to work, tying the strips around the wound. It had been washed in the lake and she didn't have any antiseptics so there was nothing else to do about that except hope for the best.

With the makeshift bandage in place she started making her way towards the edge of the forest on all fours. She curled under a tree head spinning with exhaustion and managed to mumble out Jo's name before blackness took over.

-x-

A cannon shot woke Dawn from her slumber like a splash of cold water on the face. Panic sent adrenalin rushing through her veins like a rocket and she was up before she was even hundred percent conscious. Ethan, her mind screamed and after a second, Lucas. Only after a few minutes, during which she completely scanned her surrounding area in case of immediate threat, she remembered the painful wound on her leg. When she did, though, it became quite hard to concentrate on anything else.

Collapsing back down, she noticed Jo squeaking worriedly nearby. Dawn tried to make a sound, anything to calm the worried pokémon, but her voice seemed to have abandoned her. Her whole body was burning with fever and the wound in her calf throbbed. She managed a broken sob of pain but her body was too dry for tears. She had probably been sweating all night trying to ease the burn.

"Jo," she rasped out. "Water… Please."

The penguin answered by spraying heavenly cool bubbles all over her. It felt fantastic for a moment, before the pain took over again. Jo tentatively sprayed more water on her face and she drank it as well as she could.

It was dangerous, she knew, lying there in the open but it wasn't like she had much to say on the matter. Her legs wouldn't listen and her arms were barely usable… only her mind began ticking again with the water. Moments passed and she listened to her own breathing slow down and the pokémon rustling restlessly around her. Anger flooded into her with every passing second and she soon felt strong enough to climb into a sitting position and after a while she stood up.

Her right leg couldn't wholly support her when she tried but it was good enough to allow her to limp forward. Steeling her mind she began to make her way towards the lake, where she removed the bandages and washed the wound again. She was trying to figure out whether to use the same bandages or to make new ones with what was left of her shirt when she heard a familiar chime.

Looking up she saw a Chimecho floating towards her. This time it dropped its package right above her and Dawn, unprepared, barely caught it. Inside was a tin of some kind of a salve and a note from Cynthia:

Use this and get away from there before they make you get away.

She smiled and murmured her thanks to the sky before plopping down to apply the salve to her leg. Amazingly enough the pain seemed to subdue almost immediately and she let out a sigh of relief before thanking the sponsors once more. Redoing the bandages she slipped the note from Cynthia to the pocket where the previous one still was and got up, smiling despite the slight pain. It was all for the cameras, all a part of the show that could help her survive.

"Let's go see if my bag's still where I left it," she muttered to Jo before calling the pokémon back to its ball.

Not that surprisingly she was able to find her bag untouched on the shore, right where she'd dropped it the previous night. Throwing it on her back she set out and decided that she would follow the shoreline to the same direction as Ethan had. She didn't walk out in the open like the boy had but instead ventured to the woods while keeping an eye on the lake that soon narrowed down into a river. At first the wound made her wince on every step but soon enough it became easier to bear until it completely stopped aching. Whatever the Capitol people had sent her was very powerful, maybe a full restore even. She had seen some trainers receive those in the past games but usually they were used on injured pokémon, not on the trainers themselves. She figured that must've been very lucky to get such an expensive and rare gift.

Sometime later when she stopped for a short break Dawn tried to guess what time it was. She had most likely been out cold for a good part of the day, sleeping out the fever. Dawn shivered at the thought that she might as well have been unconscious for days but it seemed unlikely. If she had, they probably would've killed her off during that time.

Lost in thought she continued onwards until she was suddenly snapped into full awareness by a sound. She froze, reaching for her belt and grasping Jo's pokéball. Someone was moving in the forest and as far as Dawn was able to tell, it was a human. Concentrating fully on listening she made a guess that it had to be a lone trainer, unless the others were moving really quietly.

Carefully she began to sneak towards the sounds. She couldn't run with her leg and even if she tried, she definitely wasn't fast enough to outrun someone who seemed to have no trouble moving about by the sounds of it. Her best bet would be to trudge quietly to the trainer's back and surprise them. In her mind she prayed that whoever it was wouldn't stop to notice that they weren't alone in the forest, like she herself had done.

Fully alert she worked her way through the bushes, taking care to avoid rustling leaves or stepping on twigs that would make a noise. She could make out a figure of a boy moving behind some more trees. Fear swirled in her stomach but she forced herself to move forward. She was doing this. She couldn't afford to be caught.

The trainer was closer now. Dawn hid herself behind a tree and held her breath as he moved past her. She then leaped out of her hiding place, throwing out Jo's ball. The boy swirled around, surprised, and Dawn's order to the penguin died on her lips before she had gotten it out. Instead she gasped.

"Lucas?"

-x-

For a full long minute they simply stared at each other cautiously. Lucas looked more pale and sickly than Dawn had ever seen him look and there was a fire in his eyes that told her he might do something rash if endangered. It was like Lucas wasn't completely there. Dawn tried to imagine what her own expression must've looked like, torn between fear, pity and hope. She offered the boy a hesitant smile and he seemed to relax slightly, answering it with a grin of his that was missing its typical energy.

"Hi Dawn," he greeted her nervously. His voice was raspy enough to sound painful. He was obviously suffering from some sort of a disease, possibly caused by an injury even though none were visible. "I didn't notice you there… I was a bit preoccupied, you see, because I'm trying to get away from the twins. They might still think I actually went looking for those berries they asked for, but not for long, so I need to find a place where they won't find me."

Once he had started he went on with his rambling like a mad man. Dawn nodded along politely, but her mind was flying as she tried to think of a place to hide. She seriously didn't want to face the two trainers from Unova.

"I was in alliance with them, kind of… honestly it was more like they were using me for whatever I was good at and otherwise I was left to my own devices. At least they kept me alive, which is lucky, I guess… oh!" His eyes brightened like he had suddenly remembered something. "I never thanked you! For the first day, I mean! You saved my life!"

"Well… yes," Dawn said, feeling a bit proud when she managed not to wince at the memories. "And I'm going to save it again, because you don't seem to have a clue on where you're going or what you're doing." With that she strode forward and took a hold of his arm. "Come on then, let's get going before they catch up on us."

"Oh, yeah, right," the boy mumbled. "They took my pokémon… ate it, actually. I didn't even get a bite, can you believe it? I didn't even get a taste of my own turtwig."

"All too well," she replied sourly and pulled the boy along.

They walked in silence for what must've been hours before Lucas started making a sort of a wailing sound, which Dawn figured meant that they had to stop or he would start howling in pain. Finding shelter for two people was even trickier than it had been alone, but she couldn't just leave the boy. That would've been as good as killing him on the spot and she had more or less promised herself that she wouldn't kill the boy. Besides it wasn't like she could have even if she'd wanted to. It felt too horrible even thinking about killing someone who'd in a short time become an important part of her life. It was true that they hadn't talked as much as they could've but the games had knit them together extra-fast. Killing Lucas would've meant killing someone who as dear to her as a brother would've been.

It was Jo who finally stumbled upon bushes that were similar to the ones where Dawn had spent her first night on the arena. They were thick and provided good cover after they had crawled underneath. It was dark already by then and Dawn was anxiously waiting for the nightly announcement of the day's victims. It hadn't been Lucas, which she was relieved about, but there was still Ethan. She idly realized that she shouldn't be so worried about the boy, who, despite his loyalty to Lyra, would undoubtedly kill her if it came down to that, but she couldn't help it.

Lucas passed out minutes after he had lied down. He seemed feverish as Dawn watched him, trashing slightly in his sleep. The girl only hoped that his slight rustling wouldn't attract any beasts or any of the other trainers. She brushed some stray strands of hair from his forehead wincing slightly at how hot it was. His infection was getting worse, it seemed. It was likely that the next day he would be too weak to move around but maybe they could spend the day there in the bushes. She could try and find those herbs Lyra had told her about, the ones that brought down fever.

She was roused from her musings by the anthem. She shuffled around trying to poke her head out of the bush. On the sky was the face of the boy from Kanto, the silent one with the scary eyes that hadn't been so scary after Dawn had talked with him on the rooftop. She felt bad. The thought that it could've been Ethan, who'd caused the boy's death, made her physically ill but she soon realized how ridiculous it was. After all, that was what they were in the arena for.

To kill the other trainers until only you yourself were standing—that was the point of the games.

-x-

Dawn slept blissfully into the next day without any unwished interferences and Lucas was, against all her expectations, in a better condition than the night before. It seemed that fortune was smiling down on them, especially so, when a chimecho arrived soon after they'd crawled out of the bushes to eat some breakfast. The package contained bread baked in the fashion of their home region.

Lucas was shocked to silence by the chimecho. He hadn't yet received any packages from sponsors and he was fairly sure it was all meant for Dawn, saying that he couldn't take any of it. Dawn called him off on his nonsense and split the bread in half. There was no note in the package this time and it could've just as well been from Sinnoh instead of the capitol audience, so she reasoned that it was important that they share it.

While they ate Lucas tried to explain how his time on the arena had gone by so far. It seemed to have been a series of dreadful events after another and the boy wasn't yet completely ready to talk about it. He got a slightly manic look in his eyes trying to, and Dawn hugged him and told him that he could tell her some other time. Secretly she doubted he'd ever have the chance to reveal all of it but brushed off such pessimistic thoughts.

From what she gathered, Lucas had been caught by the twins while running away from the initial bloodbath and they had forced him to ally with them. They'd made their fortress on the cornucopia after driving off Leaf, the girl from one, and May, who had tried to challenge the careers hold on the area. After that the twins had taken away his pokémon and cooked it just like Lucas had whined the previous night. For the past days the careers and Lucas had held their fort and made short hikes around it, trying to map the surrounding area and catch any oblivious trainers.

"We saw the boy from one, y'know, the one that was killed," Lucas said between bites. Dawn had offered him some of the dried meat she still had left because he looked like he needed the salt more than she did. "But we couldn't catch him. He was fast, even though he seemed to have lost his pokémon… I think it was either the girl from his district or the boy from two who ended him."

Dawn nodded and managed to stop herself from shivering with the dread of having her suspicions confirmed. In her mind Ethan was the more likely suspect behind it, simply because she couldn't imagine what kind of a person could kill someone from their own home region—someone who they had shared an apartment with for a week. It was true that May had done it, burning the boy from her region along Lyra, but somehow Dawn believed that Leaf wasn't like that. Not to the same extent, at least.

Lucas had gotten ill the second night from some sort of berries the twins had made him try out for them. He'd had some sort of hallucinations and a high fever but he had pulled through and decided that he would escape. So the next day he'd wandered off with the excuse of finding some berries and that had been how Dawn had found him, lost and still struggling with his illness.

"I can't ever thank you enough," Lucas told him for the umpteenth time. "Without you I probably would've turned around in my daze or fallen down somewhere and then some wild pokémon would've eaten me."

No, Dawn thought, it's me who can never do enough to help you, because in the end I will have to let you go. There can only be one winner.

With breakfast out of the way the two trainers set out towards what Dawn hoped was the direction of the river. She had led them away from it, because she had figured that if the twins were really coming after Lucas they'd follow its trail closely. In daylight she figured that for both of their survival, being near water, where Jo was strongest, was their best bet.

"I think we need to get a bit closer to the others, even if it's not a pleasant idea," Dawn reasoned the boy who still felt like going to the river would be a risk. "I mean, the game makers will want to have more action soon enough, since the games have been slow-paced so far and I'd rather face that action knowingly than unprepared."

Dawn was repeating Ethan's thoughts to the boy who seemed equally taken aback by them as she herself had been at the time.

"I guess if you put it that way…" Lucas agreed. "But, let's not go to the cornucopia just yet, alright?"

She promised him that they wouldn't. The day passed without incidents and before dusk Dawn began to feel a nervous feeling creeping to her mind. There hadn't been any deaths that day, not yet. The lack of action was worrying because it would mean that the game makers would have to intervene. She didn't want to have a repetition of the incident with the mutt just because the viewers were getting bored. Her wound had transformed into a scar abnormally fast, but it was a painful reminder of just how close she had been to losing her life.

They were in the process of finding themselves a place to spend the night in when a cannon shot fired. Not ten minutes later there was another. Luckily for them, it seemed that the action had taken place elsewhere but that didn't stop Lucas from crying out at the sound of the second cannon.

"Dawn!" he exclaimed far too loud and the girl clamped her hand to cover his mouth, making shushing sounds. Lucas made an apologetic expression and continued with a whisper. "Five trainers are dead, five! Do you understand?"

Dawn looked puzzled. "There… are still five left?" she asked unsure. Honestly she had no idea what the boy was raving on about because there were far too many possibilities. She had even feared that his fever had returned, but his face wasn't all that hot.

"Exactly!" Lucas nodded furiously. "Only one more to go… only one more and we're in the elite four."

Dawn's eyes widened. She understood all too well why the boy was both excited and frightened. Almost always as soon as six trainers had lost their lives the game makers forced the remaining four, the elites, together. Being in the final four meant that your chances were diminished into nothingness if you were afraid of confronting the others. And Dawn was. Really, she could full well admit it—she was afraid of facing May and the twins, because she was nearly hundred percent certain that the cannon shots hadn't been any of them.

"We'll have to go to the cornucopia," she whispered. Lucas whimpered. "I mean… we'll have to think of a plan, because we have to separate the twins. We don't stand a chance against them if they're together."

Lucas hesitantly resumed to his nodding.

"You're right," he agreed. "And I think I know how we can do it."

-x-

This time on the Trainer Games: near-death experiences and reunited friends!

Yeah, that more or less sums it up. My life has been pretty hectic for the past days, so I just hope this isn't too rushed. I tried to spot all the mistakes but there maybe a few (or many) that slipped my attention. Sorry about that.

Next time: Lucas' mystery plan in action!