"Alright, it's finished!" Dawn and Paul looked over at him from their beds. They stood up and walked over to him.
"What'd you find out?" Paul asked, leaning close.
"Well, watch the video." Cheren pressed play. The three watched Dawn shout at Paul and then turn to the targets. A light appeared under her.
"What is that light?" Dawn muttered, squinting her eyes. She watched the target get pushed back and break.
"A golden light, not uncommon for you guys, but it is strange." Cheren paused the video and rewound it. "Normally you don't glow when you use your moves."
"But that wasn't one of my moves," Dawn said.
"Wait, pause it." Cheren did as Paul said, pausing the video on a glowing Dawn. "What's that?" Paul pointed at something on Dawn's belt.
"I-I don't know." Cheren zoomed in on the image. "It's a crystal."
"Is it just me, or is something on it?" Paul asked.
"No, it's not just you." Cheren zoomed in on the crystal and focused on the image. The three watched as the pixelated image slowly sharpened.
"That's Mesprit!" Dawn shouted in shock. "But what is she doing there?"
Paul straightened and hummed. "It's cause she's yours." His soft mumble was almost missed by the others.
"Hers?" Cheren asked.
"On the ferry you said that you and Mesprit bonded, didn't you?" Paul asked her.
"Yeah, I was able to call on her despite never catching her," Dawn said. Her eyes widened in realization. She ran over to her bag and fished out the crystal pokéball. "Mesprit! I call upon you!" The ball popped open and a white light streamed out of it. A golden ring of light surrounded it and slowly encircled the white light, turning it golden. The two lights molded together, taking on the form of Mesprit. The pokémon looked around, smiling when she saw Dawn.
"Dawn!" Dawn giggled as Mesprit flew into her arms.
Cheren watched in shock and awe. Paul smirked and gently slapped his head. "Don't look too shocked. You know what we can do." He walked over to the windows and quickly closed the curtains. "Alright, it's time for answers.
Dawn hummed and looked up from Mesprit. Paul gave her a knowing look and Dawn gasped lightly. "Oh yeah, that's right." She turned to Mesprit and smiled. "Mesprit, can you tell us something?"
"Sure! What do you need to know?" Dawn carried her over to the laptop and showed her the picture.
"What does this mean?" Mesprit hummed and looked it over.
"Do you really not know?" She flew out of Dawn's arms and looked at them curiously.
"We don't know very much about our powers," Paul told her.
"Alright, give me a second, I know someone who can explain it better than I can." Mesprit glowed faintly, her eyes whiting out. A faint light appeared beside her, forming another creature.
"It's Uxie!" Dawn said with a smile.
"Hello, Legend Catchers." Uxie bowed his head in respect.
"Uxie presides over knowledge, so he should be able to answer any questions you have." Mesprit smiled and settled herself on the bed next to Dawn.
"Well first, we'd like to know what that is all about." Paul said, pointing at Cheren's laptop. Cheren quickly pressed play, letting Uxie observe it.
"Interesting, to be able to call on a legendary and not even know what you're doing." Uxie flew through the room, using his abilities to dig through Dawn's backpack. He pulled the journal out and handed it to her. The book flew open and rested open.
"'Calling and Summoning'." Dawn read the title of the page.
"Yes, it is what happens once a legendary has been captured." Uxie's red gems shown and an image appeared on the wall. It was showing figures Dawn catching Mesprit. "When you catch pokémon using the crystal balls they essentially become yours. In a sense, you are our trainers. However, you use our abilities and powers differently from the pokémon in your possession." The image changed to a picture of Mesprit coming out of the crystal pokéball, causing the image of Dawn and Mesprit to cheer silently. "You have the ability to summon us from wherever we are, bringing us to your location."
"But Dawn uses the words 'I call', so wouldn't that be 'calling' and not 'summoning'?" Paul asked.
"Indeed she does, however that probably has something to do with Mesprit herself." The emotion pokémon laughed and rubbed her head.
"I will admit I was excited when I felt Dawn awaken to her power. I wanted to fuse with her as soon as possible, so I may have influenced her words." She admitted bashfully.
"'Fuse'?" Dawn repeated.
"Correct, we call this, 'calling'." The image changed to Dawn in her other form. Mesprit appeared beside her The two fused together. Dawn lashed out with an unseen attack, hitting a few targets. "You call upon the powers and abilities of a pokémon in your arsenal without summoning them. You already instinctively do this when you transform. The pokémon on your person fuse inside your body, allowing you to transform. No pokémon, no transformation."
"Well that's good to know," Dawn said. Uxie nodded.
"Normally, it takes a lot of energy to fuse with one of us. Not only do you need energy, but you need a great bond with the chosen pokémon. Since you have the greatest bond with Mesprit, she instinctively reached out to help you, allowing you utilize her powers without calling on her." Uxie explained. "Normally, calling would cause the two of you to fuse into one entity, unless a Catcher is using more than one legendary."
"One entity?" Paul repeated.
"Yes, it seems like that was what was about to happen in the video, but something suppressed it, instead causing Mesprit to appear as a crystal on her belt. Which is another topic in itself." Uxie said. The image on the wall disappeared and he floated in front of Dawn. "Tell me, what was going through your mind when it happened?"
"Well...I was so angry that I felt a power wash over me. I didn't know what it was so I tried ignoring it, and a burst of energy came out and attacked Paul. Then it happened again with the targets. It was stronger this time, but I still ignored it." Dawn said. She frowned and wrapped her arms around her torso. "I didn't mean to hurt him. I didn't want to do that at all. It just happened."
"It was a backlash," Uxie said. "It's completely normal when you ignore and suppress the call. However, as you saw, it can cause a great uncontrollable backlash. Your lucky that it only hit Paul. He can take the hit, since he is the same as you. But you could have hurt so many more people. Next time you must let it envelop you, transform you once more."
"Is it permanent?" Paul asked.
"No," Uxie answered. "At best this transformation will last a few minutes. It is normally used as a last resort. However, since Mesprit is so desperate and eager to please Dawn, it seems that she's accelerated your learning."
"I'm sorry brother," Mesprit said, bowing her head.
"Hey, you did nothing wrong," Dawn told her. She picked Mesprit up and held her close. "Thank you for trying to help me."
"But she did do wrong," Uxie said. "Mesprit you need to remember that calling is a joint effort. Your feelings were overpowering Dawn's. If she had let them control her she might have been in great pain."
"I'm sorry." Mesprit sniffled and nuzzled into Dawn's shoulder.
"It's okay, I'm fine." Dawn said.
Paul and Cheren looked over at Dawn and Mesprit, who were fast asleep on the bed. Uxie was floating next to them.
"So that's what's going on," Cheren said. He frowned at the two of them.
"In all honesty those two are dangerous," Uxie said.
"Dangerous? Why?" Paul asked.
"To have the Empathy Catcher and the Emotion Guardian bonded as they are," Uxie answered. He used his powers to move the blanket on the bed over the two. "Two beings of such strong emotions like they are, they will be eternally at war despite how in synch they are. In all honesty it would be better if Mesprit was caught by another, but once one has caught a legendary, that legendary will stay by their side until one of them, Catcher or Pokémon, perishes. Loyalty plays a big role in all this. We can't just simply be traded or released like normal pokémon. We will follow you until the day we die, or we deem you to have become unworthy."
"What if Dawn were to release her?" Paul asked.
"It may work," Uxie said. "But if Mesprit is not willing to go, she will not be released."
"Would Mesprit be willing to go," Cheren said.
"Did you unhook him?" Paul asked.
"I think so, by accident," Uxie said. Cheren rubbed his head and hissed slightly. Uxie frowned and bowed his head in apology. "He is back."
"What did I miss?" Cheren asked.
"Nothing really," Paul said with a sigh. "Just that Mesprit probably won't part with Dawn, so she can't be released." He looked over at Dawn and narrowed his eyes. "So, is there anything we can do?"
"No," Uxie said. "However, I will talk to Mesprit. Hopefully I can talk some sense into her."
"Good luck with that," Paul said. He covered his mouth as a yawn suddenly overcame him.
"Perhaps I should be going, it is getting late," Uxie said.
"What about Mesprit?" Cheren asked.
"I shall take her home." Uxie flew over to his sister and gently nudged her awake. Mesprit hummed and looked at him with bleary eyes. "Time to go."
"Don't wanna leave," Mesprit said, snuggling further into the bed.
"Mesprit, we must." Mesprit groaned and flew up sluggishly.
"Fine." She turned to Paul and Cheren and bowed. "Thank you for having me. I'll see you some other time." She took Uxie's hand and the two disappeared.
"In the end, we didn't get any training done," Cheren said with a sigh.
"Oh well, we'll train tomorrow." Paul yawned again and climbed into bed. "Goodnight."
"Night." Cheren frowned as Paul turned the main light off. He shook his head and prepared for bed as well.
"In the end, we didn't get any training done yesterday." Paul sighed and looked down at Oshawott and Joltik. "How the hell are we supposed to train when these things keep happening?"
"Very carefully," Cheren said with a smirk. Paul turned to him, glaring. "Sorry, that was a bad one, wasn't it?"
"What do you think?" Paul huffed and turned back to his pokémon. "Alright, no catcher training today. We need to train our actual pokémon so we can be ready for the gym."
"I'm back!" Dawn shouted, walking towards them. They were in the park at one of the training fields.
"Where have you been?" Paul growled as she moved closer. He paused, taking in the stack of books in her hands. "And what's with the books?"
"For your information, we were at the gym!" She set the books down on a bench and sat down, rubbing her arms. "It's a museum with a bunch of text books, including a bunch on ancient history, myths, and the legendary pokémon."
"And I'm guess that's the topics of these books," Cheren said, picking one of them up.
"Hey! No books!" Paul jumped up and snatched the book out of his hands, glaring at him. "You can look later, we need to train!"
"Wow, you're more stubborn on training than Ash," Dawn muttered, watching him.
"Take that back." Paul turned towards her, glaring at her. He held the book up, silently threatening her. "Right now."
Dawn blinked and looked between his face and the book. She grabbed one of the ones in the stack and quickly opened it, avoiding eye contact.
"That's what I thought." Paul lowered the book, tossing it onto the stack.
"Honestly, you are such a brute towards her," Snivy said, sniffing.
"She's childish!" Joltik argued.
"No, you are the child," Snivy said. "Just look at your response."
"Enough fighting!" Oshawott said. "If you wanna fight, do it right!" The otter pokémon smiled and took his shell off his chest, swinging it like it was a sword.
"How brutish." Snivy crossed her arms and turned up her nose at the display.
"Oh! That sounds like fun! I wanna play too!" Tepig cheered, oinking in excitement.
"Enough arguing." Paul glared at them, causing the pokémon to jump back, cowering in fear. "Come on! I'm not even using a move." He sighed and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Cowards, our pokémon are all cowards."
"They're just children," Cheren said.
"Yeah, and you can be intimidating," Dawn muttered, not looking up from her book.
"Coming from the troublesome one!" Paul glared at her and grabbed the book from her. "At least tell me you found something out about the leader."
"Lenora," Dawn answered. "The leader is Lenora and she uses normal types."
"Do you know her pokémon?" Paul asked.
"One of them," Dawn answered. "Herderier, he's one of the guard dogs."
"That reminds me, how'd you get those books?" Cheren asked.
"Apparently Emi had some of these books on reserve," Dawn said. "After calling her I was able to check them out for her. When I told her I'd be returning with two challengers she said that I'd have to return them then."
"Okay, so how long are we gonna train for?" Cheren asked, turning to Paul.
Paul sighed and turned to Dawn. "How long will that take?"
Dawn hummed and looked at the stacks of books. "Two or three days." She blinked and tilted her head when she saw the boys, and their pokémon, giving her blanks looks. "What?"
"Dawn, those books must have at least 500 pages each," Cheren said.
"Five hundred ninety two," Dawn corrected. "The smallest book has 592 pages. The largest has 1,534."
"You've got six books with between six and fifteen hundred pages," Paul said. "There's no way you can possibly read all that in three days!"
"You're right," Dawn said with a sigh. "I'm saying three days to give you guys time train and put space between us and Ash. I could have all these read by this time tomorrow."
"There's no way," Paul said simply.
"Have you ever heard of the name Berlitz?" Dawn asked.
"Wait, I think I have," Cheren said. "There was a scientist a couple years ago with that name, but he died."
Dawn nodded. "That was my uncle. My grandfather was a scholar, and my grandmother was an archeologist. I think my aunt was a researcher of some kind, or doctor, but she died before she graduated from college. And that's just on my mom's side. The Berlitz have a long history and pull in the science and historical fields. They were sorta known for their photographic memory." As if to push her point, she smirked and tapped her head.
"You lying little cheat," Paul stared at her in awe, a smirk forming across his face. "Giving us til tomorrow is generous! You just have to flip through the pages!"
Dawn laughed, and nodded, looking back at the books. "Yeah, I could be done by tonight if I wanted," she confessed. She rubbed the back of her head and laughed. "But what I said is true. My mom's family is well known for being geniuses."
"What about your dad?" Cheren asked.
"Uh, I don't really know," Dawn said, frowning. She rubbed the corner of the page between her fingers. "Mom said he was a scientist, an inventor, he was supposedly a genius and a child prodigy, but, she never really talks about him. He left when I was about four or five and we haven't heard anything from him since."
Cheren's face fell when a somber aura fell over Dawn. "Uh! I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to bring up something painful like that."
Dawn shook her head and looked up at him, smiling. "It's not your fault. You didn't know." She opened her book and started reading it again. "Besides, how can it be painful when I barely remember anything about him?"
"Will I bring up anything if I mention your parents?" Cheren looked nervously at Paul, who nodded.
"My mom and dad both disappeared one day, no note, no body, no trace," Paul told him. "Assumed dead, have been for twelve years."
"And Emi's?" Cheren asked.
"Died in a house robbery," Dawn answered.
"Tragedy just follows you guys, doesn't it?" Cheren huffed and hung his head, refusing to look at either of them.
"It's part of the job." Paul shrugged and turned back to his pokémon. "Now, let's start training."