Chapter 11

Dash's Move

Sparky wakes up to find that Dash isn't in his bed. Penny and Fireback are still sleeping. Sparky quietly and quickly leave the beds. She walks outside. The sun has barely risen over the horizon. The shadows are long and the visibility level is very low because of the light fog. Sparky starts a little ball of light. She has the ball of light fly around as she follows it. She sees a figure and she moves the light near the figure. Sparky see that the figure is Dash and she sees Dash staring. Dash quickly puts something away and stares at the floating ball. Sparky sits next to him.

Dash asks, "What is that?" He points to the flying ball of light.

Sparky answers, "That's a ball of light."

"Well, where did it come from?"

"Me."

"How?"

"Light magic."

Dash looks at Sparky, "You know light magic?"

"Yep! I self-taught it to myself."

"Ah."

"Light magic doesn't affect others like dark magic."

"Because it's safer in the light. Some can't survive nor be comfortable in the dark."

"Then why learn something that prevents you from meeting others?"

"My dark magic is weak so it doesn't affect anyone. Plus your light magic may turn others away from you."

"Not really."

"You may not see it but it could be true."

"I guess but oh well, we can't please all."

"Ya."

"So what were you looking at?"

"Nothing."

"You were looking at something before I got here."

"My hands."

"Why would you be looking at your hands?"

"Thought I saw something on them."

"Why are you lying?"

"Because I don't trust you enough and I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

"What have I done to hurt you?"

"You killed Scouter."

"You knew once you entered this war that there would be death and pain. You had the chance to leave but you didn't. Dash, you can't change the past."

"You're right. I can't change the past and I should be happy for the time I had with him. I being in this hole isn't going to bring him back."

"Ya. We only have the future to look forward to."

"Let's not worry about the future. The future is too uncertain and if we plan for the future and live with our future plans, we'll miss so much."

"That's pretty deep."

"Yep."

"Do you still hate me?"

"Well, I really don't know anymore."

"Come on Dash; you should know if you hate me or not. It's your heart."

"Is it really my heart or just a toy everyone plays with?"

"Who is playing with your heart?"

"You and Penny."

"How am I'm playing with your heart?"

Dash looks at her and starts to talk in an annoyed voice, "Either you're blinded by the light you represent, or you're just completely stupid not to see. I know you like me. You make that obvious. I'm not interested in you. Those who believe in 'love at first sight' are stupid. Come on now! How can you like me in the short time we know each other? Those who follow 'love at first sight' are in for a short relationship or are in a very long unhappy relationship. How do you like me when you really don't know me?" Sparky starts to cry but Dash ignores the tears and continues, "Are you really that desperate? So desperate that you are willing to ask any guy that joins the group? Are you?"

Sparky's tears flow down her face. The tears were so thick that Dash could almost see his reflection in them. Dash still stares at her with a mad look but those tears were very powerful to one's feeling. Slowly other feelings of Dash take over. Dash was no longer angry or annoyed. He slowly gets up, sneaks another look at the broken down Sparky and walks away. Sparky sits there still crying when Fireback walks out. Sparky immediately tries to stop the flow of tears but the rapids were too strong to stop.

Fireback looks at her, "Are you crying? What happened?"

Sparky doesn't answer.

"Tell me Sparky. How can I help you if I don't know what happened?"

"You can't repair what happened."

"Then let me help what I can repair."

"How can you repair what can't be repaired?"

"Who said I was going to repair the unrepairable? I'm going to repair what can be repaired?"

"What can be repaired?"

"Your feelings."

"No, you can't."

"Feelings are only temporary, so they can always be repaired."

Penny walks to Sparky still crying. She sees that Fireback is still comforting Sparky. Both Penny and Sparky make eye contact and from that little contact, Penny had a good idea what had happened. She walks away into the forest. Dash is not the best at covering his trails. She looks at the ground to see an oshawott footprint here and there. She looks at the freshly broken branches. She stands still and listens. There are movements in the trees, which is normal for an active forest but Dash wouldn't be in the trees. There are movements all around her but there is one thing she is listening for. Water. She knows that if she wanted to find Dash, he'll most likely be at the water. She stands still, silences her breathing, and listens deeply. She hears that little trickle of water running from the huge river nearby. She walks through the tree brush to get to the river and she searches around. "Dash is usually easy to predict." Penny thought to herself after a few minutes of searching. She goes back the footprints she saw earlier and saw that they weren't going to the river this time. She follows them but they ended in the grass. She climbs the nearest tree. Penny sees the little blue fur ball in the distance on a fallen tree. Penny climbs down and walks in the direction of the blue fur ball. She finally sees that it is Dash. Dash is sitting at the log facing away from Penny looking at his heart scale. Penny quietly walks towards Dash and sits next to him. Dash doesn't hide his heart scale this time. A few minutes past without anything said. Penny finally said, "Looking at your heart scale eh?"

"Yep," Dash answered not looking up from his heart scale.

"Who do you see in there?"

"Where?"

"The heart scale."

"No one."

"Whatever happened to you seeing me in there?"

"My heart changed."

Penny stares at the heart scale, "It looks the same to me."

"To the untrained one."

"What's different about it?"

"It's damaged from being played with."

"Well, you let them play with your heart."

"Funny hearing that from you."

"What do you mean?"

Dash looks up from his heart scale, "Because, just like Sparky, you also played with my heart."

"How?"

"You're just as blind as that sponge aren't you?"

"Dash, feelings are hard to understand. Why do we feel? Why do we have passion?"

Dash looks at Penny, "I don't know."

"If we didn't feel, we wouldn't be alive. No feelings mean no happiness. No pain. No love. No hate. Without feelings, it's pointless to live. One that cannot feel is already dead." Penny grabs Dash's heart scale and Dash gives it up without resisting, "We need to feel to survive. Even pain, sadness, and hate all have a purpose. They may be negative feelings but they improve us. They show us who we are and what we want to be. They make our spirits stronger." Penny looks at the heart scale, "Now love. Well love is a different feeling altogether. Those who put happiness and love in the same sentence don't understand love. Love, well, is happiness, sadness, and everything in between. Love is the only feeling that involves two. Not one, but two. Many use the word 'love' instead of using the word 'like'. You can like someone and that other one may not like you back. Love is two ways and only two ways. If you do like multiple pokémon and treat them all like you 'love' them, then you better be ready to face a very heavy consequence usually ending in losing all the feelings you had. Dash, I'll be honest with you, I did play with your feelings but not because I hated you but because I didn't understand what love was and with me not understanding this new feeling, I pushed away with fear. I know it sounds stupid to be afraid of love but I was. The way I was able to get around that feeling was to play with your feelings and I am terribly sorry and I do regret it. These may seem like just word but they do come from my heart." Penny looks into the heart scale. She tries to hand it back to Dash but Dash doesn't take it. "Dash, don't you want your heart scale?"

Dash sits there a few minutes. Penny can see that Dash is really thinking a lot and really hard and she doesn't want to interrupt his thinking so she reminds silent. Tears form in Dash's eyes but Penny can tell that these tears were different from the normal ones. Still they were mixed with the normal tears though. Penny wipes those mixed tears. Dash looks at Penny. Penny, still holding Dash's heart scale, tries to hand Dash his heart scale back but again he refuses. Finally Dash replies with, "No, I don't want my heart scale."

"Why not?"

"Because you took my heart." Dash smiles, "And I want you to have it."