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Post by Matkin22 on Mar 20, 2008 13:40:26 GMT 12
This is a sequel to Reaching Out. I hope that you enjoy it.Table of ContentsChapter One: First LightChapter Two: Ghosts of the PastChapter Three: IdentificationChapter One: First Light--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dawn's first light slowly began to creep in through a tight gap in the curtains. It flitted across the bedroom and alighted on the bedspread. The light crawled slowly along the length of the bed, finally halting on a face obscured by mussed black hair. The figure's only reactions to the invasive light were a slight twitch of the eye, and a subtle shifting of position so that the light landed instead on the silky soft brown forelocks of the woman who lay alongside him. The man grumbled as the phone let loose an early ring, disturbing him from a contented sleep. It rang again, and he reached out blindly towards the phone. He lifted the receiver slightly in the midst of a third jangle, before swiftly replacing it. With a contented sigh he let his arm drop against the side of the bed and snuggled deeper under the covers, twisting slightly so that his chin rested against the woman's silky brown locks. He breathed deeply, inhaling the heady scent of her hair that always reminded him of the slightly tropical climate of her native Hoenn. Sleepily, she brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked at him with partly-closed eyes. "Who was on the phone?" she asked with a yawn. "No clue," he shrugged, allowing his fingers to ply dexterously through the folds of her long tresses. "It's too early for a phone call so I just hung up. Probably just another prank-calling kid." She yawned again and managed to drag herself into a sitting position, the pillows rumpling up behind her back. "Help me up?" she asked, trying to ease her bulk over the side of the bed. He caught her by the shoulder and gently turned her back until she was once again resting her head against the backboard. "Not a chance," he said, looking at her distended, pregnant belly with a smile. "There's only a couple of weeks until you're due, and you shouldn't overtax yourself so early when you're so tired." She opened her mouth to protest, but he forestalled her with a wave of his hand. "Besides," he continued, "I was going to make you breakfast in bed today. How does tea, toast, and hot cereal sound?" She sighed and closed her eyes. "That sounds wonderful," she said dreamily, relaxing against the pillows. The phone rang again as he rolled out of bed and pulled on his sleep pants and slippers. "Ignore it," she said, opening her eyes. "If it's important, they'll call back later." He smiled and walked around the bed, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. He moved to the door, pausing at the opening for a brief moment to look back at his wife. Her eyes were closed once more, her arms draped protectively across her large stomach. He felt a shudder of joy at the sight of her, and the small miracle that she carried within. Quietly, he left the room and moved down the hallway of the bungalow, slipping into the kitchen. He leaned against a wall and looked out the window. The sun was still low in the horizon, the sky a pale gold wherever it's shining rays touched. The cool grass shone with an early frost, and a pair of Ledian flew swiftly around the flowerbed one last before beginning their journey south. It was a beautiful day. He had never felt so happy.
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Post by Matkin22 on Mar 22, 2008 17:05:01 GMT 12
Here's the next installment. There are three more chapters to come, but I'll post all of those at the same time.
Chapter Two: Ghosts of the Past
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He carefully manoeuvred his way from the kitchen into the hall, balancing the laden try with difficulty and shaking his head as the phone rang yet again. Who on earth could be so insistent this early in the morning? he wondered. As he made his way down the hallway, the phone cut off in mid-ring and he heard his wife’s muffled voice. Hefting the tray, he sidled into the room sideways and took one look at her white face.
“Ash, honey… It’s the morgue…” she whispered.
The happiness he had felt earlier was abruptly siphoned away as he processed those three words through his brain over and over… The morgue… He didn’t realize when the heavy tray tumbled out of his suddenly limp grasp. He didn’t hear May’s shriek of surprise when it crashed against the ground with the sound of shattering dishes, or feel the scalding tea burn against his leg as it fell. He moved as if in a dream towards the phone, not registering the tread of broken china under his feet or the worried words of his wife. He reached out, blindly, towards the waiting phone.
“H-hello?” he asked, his throat suddenly dry.
“Yes; Mr. Ketchum, I presume? My name is Arata Ukiyo, and I’m an attendant here at the morgue. I’m so sorry to call at this time in the morning, but the body of a young woman was discovered on the riverbank last night and we believe that you can identify her. Can we expect you down here shortly?”
“Um, y-yeah, I guess so. I’ve never had to identify anyone before though…”
“It’s quite simple, Mr. Ketchum,” Mr. Ukiyo said soothingly. “We only need you to state if you know her or not. If it will help you to prepare yourself, I can give you her name now. It’s only whether you knew her or not that really matters.”
“Please tell me,” he whispered. He heard a brief rustling of papers as Mr. Ukiyo flipped through his files, and then his voice once again on the line.
“Her name was Dawn,” he said. Ash jerked his head backwards in surprise.
“Dawn,” he muttered darkly, before returning his attention to the conversation at hand. “Thank you, Mr. Ukiyo, I’ll be at the morgue soon,” he said, hanging up the phone before the attendant had a chance to respond.
He stared into space for a moment. The despair that he had felt from the moment that May had told him it was the morgue had already vanished. Instead of despair, he felt his heart fill with a kind of savage glee. The emotion surprised him momentarily, but as dark memories of the past began to flood his consciousness he felt more and more glad by the news.
“Ash?” May asked, but he didn’t hear her.
“So she’s dead,” he muttered, “gone from my life forever.” He paused, trying to sum up his emotions. “Good riddance,” he spat.
“Ash!” May snapped, jerking him out of his thoughts. He turned and looked at her, a hard expression on his face. He was surprised to see a worried expression on her face. “Who was she, and what did she do to you?” May asked softly. “I’ve never seen you so filled with hate.” Ash gazed into her cool, sapphire eyes for a moment, allowing them to relax him briefly.
“She was a Coordinator from Twinleaf Town,” he said monotonously, turning away from her face. “I met her when I first travelled into Sinnoh, only a few days after you left for Johto. She was a fun kid, and she had lots of energy. She was like a little sister to me. She supported me in my Gyms, and I did the same in her Contests.” He paused for a moment. “And then things changed.”
“I had a rival, Paul. He was the most arrogant person that I ever met. He was very harsh when he trained his Pokemon, and he claimed that it was because they wanted it that way. His favourite technique was to get five of his Pokemon attack his sixth at the same time. He said it made their attacks stronger, having to dodge or counter five attacks instead of just one.”
“He sounds awful,” May murmured.
“He was nasty towards me, always calling me pathetic,” Ash continued. “He wasn’t as bad with Dawn, although he still hurt her feelings on some occasions. For some reason he really respected Brock; maybe it was because he used to be a Gym Leader, I don’t know. Thing is, after a couple of months Dawn began to change when she was around him.
“It started out with little things. When he insulted me, Dawn didn’t get back in his face like she used to. Once, we challenged a Gym at the same time, and she just watched him battle. The next time that happened, she cheered for him. It came to a head one day when I battled against Paul in the countryside. Dawn took his side, over mine. I was hurt, and didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. When Brock and I woke up the next morning, she was gone. The only thing that she left was a note saying that she had fallen in love with Paul, and she was going to spend the rest of her life with him.
“I never saw her again.”
“Oh, Honey,” May sympathized, squeezing his hand.
“For some reason, she decided to keep in contact with Brock. After Sinnoh, when he went back to the Gym, he got a letter from her. She wrote to him every couple of weeks. I never got any mail, even though I tried to get back in touch with her through her mother. I got tired of it eventually, and just stopped trying.”
“What did you do then?” May asked.
“I wanted to know what she and Brock were talking about,” Ash answered. “He’d kept all of her letters, so while he was out one day I went into his room and read them.” He shook his head in disgust. “By the time she was twelve, she was pregnant. She couldn’t handle it, so she went and had an abortion; Paul never found out about that. When Johanna, her mother, was sick with cancer, Dawn didn’t even visit once. Johanna died without seeing her daughter.
“And then, a couple of years ago, she killed Paul. She hit him over the head with a frozen Farfetch’d and broke his skull.”
May’s hands flew to her mouth. “That’s awful.”
“No kidding. There was a criminal trial of course, but somehow she managed to walk away without penalty. Brock was her key character witness.”
“And that’s why you two have fallen out of contact,” May realized.
“Yep. Make no mistake, I hated Paul. I hated who he was, and how he treated his Pokemon. But nobody deserves to die like that, hit over the head by a frozen bird.” He sighed. “I just can’t understand how he could take the side of a killer.”
“I’m sure he had his reasons,” May said softly.
“After all that happened,” Ash continued, ignoring her, “all of her Pokemon left her, even her starter. Some went back into the wilderness; Prinplup was adopted by Brock’s mother, and her Pachirisu by Brock. Her Buneary and Ambipom decided to come and find me.”
“And after all of that, now she’s dead,” May concluded.
“Now she’s dead,” Ash agreed, “and you can see why it’s no small happiness to me that she’s gone. She betrayed her friends, her family, and her Pokemon.”
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Post by LuciferIX on Mar 22, 2008 19:15:20 GMT 12
Hey Matkin why did you change the summary for the version on ff.net? It may have been a little bit of Pearlshipping in it but there was still prevalent Advanceshipping.
Plus you kinda annoyed me when I was first reading it because you deleted them to make the changes while I was moving on to the final chapter. All of a sudden ff.net couldn't find the files and that isn't the best place to stop, especially when the chapter was just there. Either way glad that you got them back up.
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Post by Praetor on Mar 22, 2008 19:17:32 GMT 12
^ It should stay Advanceshipping too. ;D
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Post by Matkin22 on Mar 23, 2008 4:58:47 GMT 12
It does have some Advanceshipping in it, but it's really inconsequential to the plot; that's why I removed it from the summary. After all, this story is really about Ash putting aside years and years of hate to unravel the truth about Dawn's life, and oops, I've said to much since I haven't gotten that far on here yet, .
And yeah, I did take the three chapters down (sorry). I realized, taking a quick look over them after I'd posted them up that FF.net doesn't have a perfect convertion when uploading from Works, so I had to do some fast format changes.
Chapter Three: Identification------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He raised his arm to knock on the door, but paused. He swallowed nervously and closed his eyes for a moment. Even though she was gone, he hated Dawn. He hated her for what she had to done to her family, her friends, and her Pokemon. But although he was glad that she would never cause harm or trouble to any more people, beneath his wrath a small prick of sympathy and affection remained for his fallen friend. No matter how much he inwardly raged at her past actions, he didn’t want to see her lifeless, unmoving body outstretched on that cold, steel table in a clean, white body bag. He opened his eyes, trying to banish the demons from the past that kept flitting to the forefront of his mind. Unbidden images stole into his mind’s eye. Running past a frightened girl in a pink skirt, distracting Team Rocket from attacking her with a tentacled machine… Comforting her after a devastating Contest loss… Running up a long, winding staircase with her at his side, both desperately trying to reach the top and stop the mad battle of two legendary Pokemon… trading her his Aipom for her Buizel, a trade that they had thought marked a true, unshakeable friendship… Darker memories began to pour in, and though he tried his hardest to tear his gaze away from those nightmares, he couldn’t avoid seeing his past. An exclamation of delight when a Magmar’s Fire Punch collided with Staravia… a heated argument, leading to his sleeping in the next field over… a sharp slap colliding with his face that seemed to resonate within the woods… shouting that made even Pikachu run for cover, flying flecks of spittle landing on both their faces… waking up one morning to discover that she, along with her tent and sleeping bag, had vanished during the night, leaving only a short note weighted down with rocks; the only sign that Dawn had ever existed as a member of their travelling group… The memories, both good and bad, flooded his consciousness until at last, eventually, they vanished, leaving him standing alone on the doorstep, white and shaking, as a cruel breeze whistled around his body. He had tried for years to forget that past, but he realized now that it was time to confront his demons. He couldn’t hide forever; he had run, and the past had caught him. Now he had to put it behind him forever, and if the only way to do that was to see her dead body gazing emptily towards the ceiling, then so be it. He raised his hand firmly and knocked on the door twice. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “In here, sir,” Arata Ukiyo gestured, unlocking an old, metal door to their left. Ash followed him inside and gazed around the large, dark room with sadness. His eyes alighted on a dark mass at the centre of the room, and when Ukiyo flicked on the lights he saw that it was a white body bag resting on a long, stainless steel table. He approached slowly, nervously, trying to brace himself for what he knew was next. Ukiyo moved to one side of the body bag and rested his hands on the zipper. He looked up at Ash, compassion in his eyes as he asked the next question. “Are you ready, Mr. Ketchum?” Ash took a deep breath, trying to fight down the inner terror that was rising within him. Nodding, he steeled himself for what was to come. “Yes,” he said. Ukiyo grasped the zipper and drew it swiftly downwards, stopping when her head and neck was uncovered. Ash gazed down at the dead girl and felt something within him break. Tears began leaking out from the corners of his eyes as he saw her familiar blue hair, her empty blue eyes. Despite himself, he almost smiled as he looked down on her. Even in the moment of her death, she was smiling the familiar grin that rarely left her face. “Do you know this person?” Ukiyo asked softly. Ash looked down on her a moment more before responding. “Yes.” “Can you identify her for the purpose of a death certificate?” “Yes,“ he said. “Her name was Dawn Gold.”
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Post by LuciferIX on Mar 23, 2008 5:08:45 GMT 12
I can see you reasoning for that but I still personally think that it should be in there. As the author you have the final say, but it wasn't inconsequential to the plot as you might think considering that it was because of that relationship that Dawn ended up in the situation that she was in. It was because of Ash's heart already belonging to May that she started the chain of events that led to the ending.
I've probably said too much for the version here. But thats just my view of things, not as an Advanceshipper but as a general reviewer. And even if you don't put it back in there this will still be one of the best stories that I've read. And don't worry about taking them down yesterday, the real problem was that it still said complete after those chapters were taken down so I was wondering if they were even going to come up again at all.
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Post by Matkin22 on Mar 23, 2008 5:36:01 GMT 12
In the story, Dawn believed that Ash had already given his heart to somebody else. It's true that he ended up with may, but it's never explicitly stated that she was the one he was in love with ;-) I can definitely see where you're coming from with that, though. And yeah, I know that it still said Complete. I was hoping that the formatting wouldn't take long to do, which is why I didn't switch it back to "In Progress"
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Post by LuciferIX on Mar 23, 2008 6:08:16 GMT 12
Okay so now you're cutting corners with that, but I completely understand. Darn my logical thinking, it interferes with what I actually want to make true. But I can't really continue the argument any further, so this will be the last you hear from me about this. As the author you have the final say and you have a larger idea of what really happened so all I can do is make suggestions. At least I got a good point out.
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Post by Matkin22 on Mar 23, 2008 17:25:57 GMT 12
You sure did,
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