Chapter Six: Ransom Note You don't remember but I do You never even tried -Fuel The letter shivered in between her fingertips. Despite its reputation it didn't look like a ransom note. There were no clumsy cutout letters glued in a haphazard pattern across the page. Just a simple printed white sheet of paper with two lines, each consisting of one word. Two choices. And neither made any sense to her. 1. Location 2. Blueprints "I- I don't understand," sputtered Misty. "Money, I could get. But this... I don't even know what they are requesting here. What blueprints? What location?" Giovanni had already cast his persian back into its pokeball while Misty examined the paper. Then he returned to Misty's side with both her bag and Ash's in hand. He dropped them along with Ash's pokebelt next to her, wordlessly. "Wait." She looked up. Her gaze only briefly met with Giovanni before he looked away. Misty pressed on, undaunted, "This ransom note wasn't addressed to me. Or anyone else Ash knows. It was addressed to you... Why would it be addressed to you?" Giovanni chose not to respond. Instead he emptied Ash's pack on the floor. From the mess she watched him sort his way to a makeshift first aid kit that appeared well loved. In it contained a half empty box of band-aids, some aspirin, and a roll of gauze. "How's your head?" "Fine." Misty ducked his attempt of helping her. Instead she took the gauze from his hands and went to clumsily wrapping it around her head alone. Giovanni made no future attempts at helping her. "So do you have any ideas?" Misty asked while she fastened the bandage in place. "About what?" "About what the ransom note is saying. You did read it, didn't you?" Giovanni stood up. Once again he didn't meet her eye. "No." "No you didn't read it? Or no you don't know." "No I won't get involved." "Won't get-..." Misty jerked to her feet. "Won't get involved? You're already in-volved!" "Please understand me. I do regret what happened to your friend and I did my best to prevent it. But I'm not on best terms with the law, never have and probably never will be, and if I were to try to stick my neck in this for a stranger... It's just not very profitable for me, you see." "They probably want something from you that you're not willing to give," said Misty slyly. "Well why would I? He's just a trainer. It's completely ludicrous for them to think of me as a humanitarian. It's like asking a complete stranger to give up valuables for the wellbeing of another said stranger." Misty frowned. His words made sense but the tone- the taste of his voice made Misty question his honesty. "You're right. That is strange. I mean, Ash doesn't even know you. If they wanted something from you, why kidnap a complete stranger? It's not like a criminal such as yourself would give a damn." "I never said the ransom note was directed at myself." "But you also never said it wasn't!" She caught him there. Giovanni stumbled and let another secret fly. "Look," started Misty with some caution. "I'm not asking for your life savings. I'm just asking for your help, maybe just some clarity on what they're asking for. You're at least a witness. If we went to the police..." "No police." "No police? What do you think they'd..." "Not at all. I'm just warning you. The police won't be able to help you," said Giovanni. "They own the police." Misty bit down on her tongue. Though she hated to admit it, he was right. And that's when the despair caught up to her. No one will help us, Misty realized. Her insides iced up as her mental list of help she might have gotten shrank and shrank. She was left with only a handful of names. And each person had no more power than she herself had. In this situation, they would be seen as the criminals. Misty kneaded her hands deep into her lap, fighting back tears of frustration. And all she could seem to think of was Ash's stupid grin and how she might not ever see it again. "Oh God," Misty whispered huskily. "We're helpless." "Yes. We are." Giovanni was holding the ransom note again. Misty hadn't even noticed him take it from her. But her hands were shaking so badly, she reckoned it couldn't have been too hard. His expression was grave. But somewhere in his eyes she saw that he was calculating. "Let's fill the ransom," said Misty with sudden daring. "What?" "White Ice, if anything, should be true to their word, right?" "They are that," answered Giovanni dryly. "We should fill the ransom then. Ash's life depends on it. A location or a blueprint. Neither of those sounds impossible." "You don't understand." "You think they'll take the ransom and not return Ash?" said Misty, voicing her own worries. "No. That's not... important- Look. It's not whether or not. It's what the ransom is. And what they'll do with it... once they... if they obtain it." And Misty stared. His words stabbed a quick shot of fear to her heart. If anyone in the world had the power to do horrible things, it was White Ice. The ones that had eradicated Team Rocket. The ones the police force looked up to. The leading force to the protection against the sudden wild pokemon attacks. The people looked to them as heroes. Ash's voice rang in her head again. Ash had doubted the organization's intentions. And now she knew just what he meant. They had too much power. Everyone had given them too much power. "You mean... something to help them... take over?" Giovanni scoffed. "Why would they need help with that? They're doing perfectly well on their own I should think." "Then what?" Giovanni didn't meet her eye. She repeated the question. "I'm sorry. I can't fill the ransom for your friend." He held out the letter to her again, but Misty didn't take it. "And I can't tell you why." "Then what am I supposed to do... What will happen to Ash?!" "I'm... not sure. I'm sure they won't... kill him." "You don't believe that! You don't believe they won't kill him! You just won't do anything! You're willing to just let him die, aren't you?" She was shrieking. Frustration and fear, a fear of losing Ash again, was consuming her. She had to do something- anything. Misty grabbed any part of the gym leader she could reach. She latched onto the hook of his arm and practically drug him to his knees. Her nails dug hard into his flesh. The man inhaled sharply at the sudden pain and weight. "You're a terrible man! How could you be so heartless? How could you turn your back on us? How could you act as if it doesn't bother you!" Misty screamed. "Ash could die!!" "He's not my concern!" shouted Giovanni. He swung back and caught Misty in the face with his elbow. He hadn't noticed what had he had done, hadn't felt the blow at all. Misty had collapsed behind him gripping her face that was pouring of blood. Giovanni stared. Misty stared back with watery eyes and forefingers pressed hard against her nose. The action did little to taper the blood flow. Her vision was blurred by tears and the severe pain that was throbbing from inside the bone. Though she did not think her nose was broken, he had done damage. If Giovanni had any remorse for what he had done, his face did not show it. Giovanni continued, but softer this time. "He was never my concern. I've played my part- and I tried... you can't say I didn't try to help... him... Giovanni trailed off. Misty began to wonder if perhaps he lost his train of thought when he suddenly began speaking again, "I wish you luck in finding your friend. But my time is precious and I have pressing business... elsewhere." And all thoughts Misty might have previously had of Giovanni possibly being a good person vanished as he left her bleeding on the floor. "Do you know who Ash's father is?" Gary looked up so startled that he dropped the magazine he was reading. It fell fluttering to the floor in a similar decent to a dying insect. "What?" He rasped. "Ash's father," Misty repeated, feeling an onset of regret. "I don't hear much about him. Maybe... Maybe he would know where Ash was?" It was a pitiful excuse. Misty nervously twirled the loose strands of hair that had escaped from her ropey braid around her fingers. In the heat of summer she was starting to regret growing out her hair again. Temptation to cut it grew with each scaling degree. But she only did it to surprise Ash when he came back home. If he would come back home. It had been an entire year and neither had a single lead or call from him. "That would be impossible," snorted Gary, bending to retrieve his fallen reading material. "How so?" "Because Ash's father is dead. Everyone knows that." "Oh." Misty hadn't. Her remorse grew into a sweltering guilt that rivaled the heat outside. That would explain why Ash never spoke of him. Misty herself had lost parents when she was very young and had thus been raised by her older sisters. She hadn't known the two of them very well when they passed. Taken by accident in an automobile that Misty didn't even remember the color of, much less anything else. Their death was as foggy as they were. For all she knew her memories of those two could have just been made up in her imagination and sheer desire to remember them. It hurt to feel that absence in her life, the loneliness of missing something that she never quite got to have. Misty busied herself with her braid, unraveling and quickly reweaving it. Her eyes scanned Gary's small living room, pausing on family portraits and various trinkets playing the shelves in delightful homey patterns. Clutter littered every free table space imagined but not so much that it consumed the room and its occupants. It was a home friendly clutter- proof that people lived here. "Gary... Did Ash tell you that?" "Hm?" Gary didn't look up from the magazine. Misty glanced at the title, Poke' Daily. The cover featured a rather beautiful photograph of a Dragonaire in mid-flight with a frothy sea licking at her escaping body. Text framed the image with things like New Legendary Pokemon? Latest Findings Inside, and Tips to Make Top Five- An Indigo Challenger Shares Secrets and Poke'Hotties, Hottest Gym Leaders in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Beyond. By just the cover, Misty knew which page Gary would be on. "Flannery wouldn't have you, Gary. You're just not her type. You should go for a quiet girl like Erica or Roxanne." Gary snapped the magazine shut, obviously fighting back a blush. "For your information, it's not just measuring looks. The magazine gives an accurate depiction of what to expect when taking on these gym leaders." "I'm sure that's exactly why they classified females on page 20-22 and males on 23-25. You know Winona and you would make a interesting couple." "Shut up," snapped Gary tossing the magazine bitterly onto the coffee table with all intention to leave it there until the end of Misty's stay. "What were you asking? Something about Ash's Dad again?" Misty's expression fell somber. "Did Ash tell you... that his father was dead?" Gary exhaled a whistling sigh though curved circle of his lips. He stared Misty straight in the face but fell short of catching her eyes. He spoke to the top her forehead and said, "No. Ash never talks about his father. Not even to me." "Why? I mean, did you know him? How old was he when he... you know? Does Ash remember him?" "I don't know. I don't know... anything, honestly. My grandfather told me he was dead. I assumed he learned that from Ash's mom. I... never met Ash's father." "How long have you known Ash?" "Uh, iunno. Forever it feels like. It's kind of strange... I'm so used to feeling as if he was always breathing down my neck and now, he's just..." Gary chewed on his lip for a moment before continuing. "I've lived here my whole life. Honestly, I didn't really know Ash all that well before I started school... before my parents started arguing. He was my best friend in early elementary school although he always seemed to be trying to make a contest out of everything." Misty raised her eyebrows and Gary couldn't help but smirk. "Yeah well, I guess I contributed in that. We were rather close until my parents got divorced... then well, everything kinda fell apart. "Ash didn't understand. I mean, he never seemed have two parents so he wouldn't know what it would be like to have to chose sides... having the two of them fight over you and your sister like you were some kind of object- some kind of prize... victory to a won argument. He couldn't possibly understand. Hell, I hardly understood it... "Anyway we... separated. Ash went his way and I went mine... I-I might have said things I regretted but... I regret a lot of things I did back then. I was barely nine..." "I'm sorry," said Misty sorrowfully. Her braid had now become unfurled in her nervous habit, cascading like an orange waterfall to her breast. Gary tried not to notice her sympathy. He also tried not to notice that she was quite beautiful. "It's alright. My dad's not too bad a roommate," said Gary with a grim smile. "Me and my sister never got along very well with our mother anyway. She wasn't... really ever around. Obsessed with her work, like grandpa... I may have inherited some of that from them." He laughed. But it was a sad laughter, ringing with unforgotten aches and wounds. Misty carefully guarded her own heart from prejudice. She didn't know Gary's mother and had no right to judge her. "So no, I never knew Ash's father," finished Gary hastily. "I never thought to ask much of it. I assumed it would be bad to mention it. No desire to stir up calm waters, you know what I mean?" "Yeah, I guess so. I just thought... maybe he had something to do with this." Gary chuckled and shook his head while picking up a fashion magazine from the table next to him. Probably belonging to his sister May. "Trust me," he said as he leafed his way through the pages of disproportional model after disproportional model. "Ash's father has nothing to do with this." The sun bled down through pink clouds. It was sunset when Misty walked out weighed down by two bags and the guilt of knowing. She rubbed dry blood flakes between her fingers, ignoring the metallic taste running down her throat. She wasn't bleeding anymore, but she still looked like hell. If someone hadn't known any better, they might have thought someone beat her. She sort of felt like someone had. Slightly worse for wear, she was plagued by not only her own injuries but of a helplessness she could do nothing to heal. Misty glared at the dying sunlight. Tears welled up once more in the corner of her eyes as she tried to think of anything but their current situation. She tried not to think of Ash's fate or how she would have to tell his mother. She tried not to even think of Ash anymore. But her heart wouldn't let her erase his face from her mind. He's dead, she told herself angrily. He's gone. Stop it. But the tears fell anyway. They fell faster then she would wipe them away. She released horrible choking sobs but refused to buckle beneath them. She kept her chin up and cried unashamed to no audience. A muffled melody wafted through her mourning suffixing the weeping to a beat. Misty sniffed, wiped her face as clean as she could manage with the back of her hand, and glanced around for the source of the sound. It took her a few more minutes before she realized it was coming from Ash's pack. She set the bag down on the cobblestone path and squatted down next to it. She gripped the zipper and pulled back- opening the grinning mouth. Music spilled from the opening. She felt anxious as she fumbled through Ash's personal belongs. It certainly wasn't her place to look where she was unwanted. But he wasn't here to stop her and the bag was entrusted to her after all. Misty's fingers hit cool plastic. She snatched the object hastily and yanked it out of the bag as if it might burn her. It was cell phone. Unlike everything else in his belongings, it looked plain and ordinary. Almost too ordinary- rather cheap too. The melodic ring tone it sang sounded suspiciously like a song Team Rocket might have sung to them once upon a time. It was irritating enough to fit the bill. Misty snapped the flap of the phone opened and held it cautiously to her ear. "Hello?" "Hello? Hey, who's this?" A oddly familiar voice echoed from the receiver. "Who are you?" "Who am I? I'm calling to speak to Ash. This is his cell phone right? Where's Ash?" "Gary?" Misty guessed. "This is Gary right?" "Who's this?" "It's me, Gary. It's Misty." Her friendly tone changed when she realized just what she had discovered. "You had Ash's cell phone number and you didn't tell me-us... didn't tell us? Ash's Mom, Tracy, Brock and everyone else?" "Uh, I'm really sorry. I mean, I would have but he told me not to tell you... But hey- that's not the point... what are you doing with Ash's phone?" "Um... Actually it's kind of hard to explain." Misty closed her eyes for a moment. She hoped she could find some sort of courage behind their blind oblivion. But the sunlight still seeped in like blood beneath her lashes. She had nowhere to go. Reluctantly Misty opened her eyes again. "I'm listening." Light from the computer monitors sprawled across his face unattractively. It lengthened the shadows already nestled in the shallow valleys of his features. Face fixed with a purpose, Giovanni scanned rows upon rows of scrolling text. His fingers anxiously flirted with the keys, the push becoming more and more forceful as the minutes grew longer. Then all at once his anxiety subsided. It was done. The screen went blank and with it- so did the light. He regrettably flinched as a sudden ringing pierced the silent atmosphere. Giovanni suspected who the caller was without even checking the ID- not that there was one. He hesitated. What would happen if he turned back now? He didn't have to go down this road. There was still time to save himself and keep out of this. He picked up the receiver. There was no visual on the other line, just a voice. A snide condescending voice of a champion who's come back to rub shit in the loser's face. "You've wiped your computer. What a shame. It was fun having a closer- more personal tab on you." "Hello Andromeda." The voice on the line was anything but feminine. Deep and scratching, it sounded more robotic than human. Which was perhaps precisely the point. But he knew her. Nothing could mask her presence. He had been expecting her call ever since he had received the red envelope. "Gio-darling. I'm touched you knew it was me." He had hoped that she wasn't the one who'd unraveled his own best kept secret. He'd have rather anyone had found out before her. "Don't bother tracing the call. Or recording it. I'm on a secure line." Giovanni moved his hands away from the keyboard. "I guessed it would be too good to be true." "Give me some credit, Gio-baby. I did steal your enterprise out from under you with little to no effort..." The tone changed to one more sinister. "And your son." Giovanni said nothing but his knuckles whitened as he gripped his armrest unnecessarily hard. "No clichˇ and overdramatic comeback? Come on, Giovanni. You take the joy out of gloating." "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction." "I bet you're really wondering how I figured it out, huh?" Giovanni said nothing. "Since you wouldn't help us in our cause, I figured we'd have to give you incentive. Destroying your organization and depleting your finances didn't do it. So it had to be a hostage. I knew you had a relationship with that little whore of yours but she'd be kind of hard to kidnap. Especially with all the work you did in erasing her from media and public existence. "You don't care about yourself. And she was inaccessible. So who was left? Well no one. It was quite frustrating really. I couldn't ruin you completely or else you'd lose your value wouldn't you? I was an impasse. "But then a miracle came to me in the form of Cassidy and Butch." Giovanni groaned unintentionally. Their treachery wasn't taken well. They were popular and several underlings, that while useless alone made up of a large portion of the Team Rocket population, went turncoat with them. "Yes, you remember them don't you? Rather useless recruits but they did supply me with a tidbit of information that made them quite worth their worthlessness. "It was those missions that you occasionally assigned to them in the vicinity of said Agents Jessie and James. Possibly the saddest and most miserable agents in your whole arsenal. It was just a brief mention. But it was evident that any time these agents met up with the other agents their missions failed. "At first I wrote it off as it being the influence of the other two said agents. Until I noticed how lenient you had been about punishing these failures. Out of curiosity I discovered something else. The crucial detail. Agent Jessie and Agent James had been on the same unsuccessful mission for the past seven years." Giovanni gripped his chair harder, repressing the urge to destroy the telephone, the computer, the speaker, and anything else connected to the woman's phone call. She was on. She was dead on. How could he have been so stupid to leave such an obvious trail? "Seven years is a long time for any mission. Much less a continually unsuccessful mission," continued the bodiless voice. "And after a pikachu. A special pikachu, the mission reports say. Over and over there is mention of this special pikachu. But I never once read any detail to why this pokemon was so spectacular. Just that Giovanni thought it was special and wanted it. "It was curious. If it were such a special pikachu why not get better agents out to capture it? Those idiot agents ate up your funds on expensive equipment to capture a single pikachu. Again and again the attempts to capture it were foiled. But you went to no attempts to get different agents on the case. "Then I thought, what if the pikachu isn't the target at all? What if these idiot agents had a more important purpose? What if these idiot agents were placed there to never capture said pikachu but to keep track over a person...? "Genius really. What better way to keep track of a person than to look like you were their enemy- attempting to steal from them? By making at sure that it would always fail? You were training this person to fight you. You were training this person from a distance to be strong. "The question then became who? Well the other two children traveling along with pikachu could easily have left the pikachu at a drop of a hat for other obligations. It could only logically be the trainer of the pikachu that you were tracking. And imagine my surprise when I found what his name was... Ash Ketchum. The same last name as your whore. Turns out there are consequences to one night stands, huh Giovanni?" Giovanni had gritted his teeth into a grimace. His will to stay silent had given out to rage, "If you hurt him, even a little... I swear, I'll-" "Please, Giovanni. I'm no longer in the mood for clichˇs. Besides, your baby boy is perfectly safe in our care. So long as he stays a good little boy, we won't have a reason to discipline him... so long as you are a good little boy too." "You mean if I fill the ransom." "That's exactly what I mean, Giovanni." "The location is not yours to know. I would go to my grave before I told anyone." "Would you let your son take your place then?" Giovanni chose not to answer her, "The blueprints you ask for. I'll destroy them if you don't give Ash back to me." "Well in that case... I'll give Ash back to you in a long wooden box." The voice laughed a high unnatural laugh. "You tried that before Giovanni. Destroying the machine so I couldn't steal it. Honestly, it's too precious a machine to erase its existence completely. Deep inside you want to know too... if it will work." "I could easily give you a fake..." "And I could easily kill your son. Look Giovanni, sweetheart. You've lost. Give me the location or give me the blueprints. If you don't, I'll kill your son. Simple as that. Give me fakes, I can easily find the boy again. Or your little whore. It makes no difference to me." Giovanni sucked in a breath. The negotiations were over. He had no more choices than he started with. "I'll give you what you want. Just don't hurt Ash." "Very good. Very good. You'll get your rendezvous in a week." "A week-!" "I'll keep in touch. Ah, and Giovanni... please. I just want to hear it once." He ground his back teeth. "What?" "You know. I just want to hear it." "That you're a dirty sonva-" "No the other one. You know it. Come on, I know you it." Giovanni forced himself to speak just for Ash's sake. "You'll never get away with this." She laughed shrilly and loud. Giovanni slammed the receiver back so he didn't have to hear her anymore. Her laugh still echoed in his ears. But she didn't realize that he meant it this time. Giovanni wasn't a man to cross twice. She told him everything. The tale was spoken uninterrupted. It unraveled slowly at first. Guilt pushed her faster and faster until the words were practically being vomited out of her. Gary said nothing for several minutes after she finished. Perhaps he was taking it in or accessing just how crazy Misty was. It did seem a fairly farfetched tale, that was if you didn't know Ash. If you knew Ash, then you had probably lived through more unthinkable ones. "Are you alright?" He said at last. It wasn't what Misty expected. She sniffed and wiped away at her damp cheeks. She hadn't realized she had been crying until he asked. "I'm fine." But she sounded unconvincing. "I just don't know what to do. I mean- I just found him Gary. After all this time! I found him again and I thought I could... Oh God, Gary... I never told him and now he might... he might not ever... he might..." "Misty, I want you to take a deep breath." She did, reluctantly. "Another... Good. It will be alright. I promise we'll rescue Ash. So don't cry anymore." "Where are you?" asked Misty weakly, rubbing her face free from any leftover tears. "Believe it or not, just short of Pallet. I was on my way home when I called to check up on Ash. I was even in the Viridian Center this morning for a quick break. Geez, you know I must have just missed you guys." Gary must have sensed how still truly upset Misty was, for he quickly added. "I'll be up there in an hour at the most. Fearow can fly viciously fast when I need him too. Just wait in the pokemon center, breathe, it will all be okay. Ash has been in worse shit over the years. Believe me." Misty nodded even though he couldn't see her. She couldn't quite muster up the strength to answer him. "I'll see you in a few." "Fly fast." Gary chuckled in response then hung up. The dial tone poured its monotonous song over Misty like a dying waterfall. She listened to it out of comforts sake. It somehow reminded her of the ocean. When she finally put the phone away, her hand graced something just near the top of Ash's clothes. It was a paper- a photograph, Misty corrected herself when she pulled it out. And it was a photograph of both her and Ash. No one else. He was in her chokehold, both of them smiling with perfect timing to the camera flash. Ash's smile to her had always looked forced until now. They were barely eleven. It brought a smile to her face. And a plan to her mind. To Be Continued... Please R+R!