Touketsu Namida
part V: Regarding Mahogany
Narrated by Brock; Fanfic written by Sami, aka Suicune3K

Pre-Fic Notes: This is an oddly short chapter of the fic. I guess there wasn’t too much happening at once in this part. Well, be that as it may, enjoy the show..or something.

. . .

   A single, silver drop fluttered to the ebon pool. The ripples, seeming to grow with each passing wave, graced the surface with a quickening pulse. Among the swirling clouded water was the reflection of a man cloaked in shadows, a baneful grin gracing his lips. “I can feel it within me; this thirst that will never cease. This couldn’t be any more perfect!
   At once the dark stranger held out his palm over the sparkling water, in which a faint silver outline of ancient runes began to glow. His hand barely graced the water’s edge as he swept his arm over it in a half moon shape. The circular pool brightly shimmered, as if suddenly awakened and quite agitated. The pulsating power swirled and formed into the shape of a pillar that barely reached his height as it reached its peak intensity; his eyes were wide with cold excitement, almost like a moth drawn to the flame he so very craved.
   As the light calmed, the shape of a woman with shortly cut hair became clearer. She stood on the water; her chilling, emotionless silver eyes snapped open within her deep trance, and she spoke muffled words..


   “Brock!” Misty’s roar brought me out of the daze.
   “..huh?”
   “Jeez!” she loudly muttered, and continued to pack up a few of her belongings. “You daydream more than a rookie trainer nowadays!”
   I embarrassedly smirked, then held a hand to my head. I couldn’t have thought that the wierd dreams would start catching me during the daytime; they seemed to be a videotape playing on loop in my head. But, could someone really dream while they were awake?
   Then I continued to help Aisu roll up my sleeping bag, once she had asked me what was the matter. Her gaze seemed to purposely avoid mine ever since the incident; every time she made the accidental eye-contact, she would simply turn away with a blush. She was noticably concerned, and yet she seemed to know what was bothering me. I shook this thought from my head before any new ones could enter.
   “Heh! I still can’t believe if it’s true, that you fought off a Growlithe!” Ash mused once Aisu and I had finished retelling what had happened; before I fell into the daydream. “You just don’t seem like the ‘Prince Charming’ sort of guy!”
   “And you are..?” Misty muttered with sarcasm; Ash didn’t seem to notice.
   Aisu broke into a wide grin, some color returning to her face. “Well, it’s true!”
   I found myself nodding on without taking any of the conversations in. They continued to talk about those events, while I simply held my head low and packed my sleeping bag. I became more and more aware of the pain from the gash on my forearm, which continued to bleed through the cloth I hastily dressed it with.

   Ash had decided that we should get my wound checked out in nearby Ecruteak once we had finished packing up. Misty had taken my forearm by the wrist, and stared at the gash in a disgusted awe as she unwrapped it. The bleeding was finally easing, but it still resembled something out of those “When Creatures Attack!” horror documentaries.
   Thankfully, Misty redressed my wound with some scrounged bandages she found in her backpack. I couldn’t help but notice how sheepish Aisu became as Misty fussed over my arm; I doubt it was the blood that made her turn away ruefully. She hardly even spoke after we retold the incident.
   “Jeez, genius! How are we going to get back your Pokémon now?” Misty broke the silence with a hint of sarcasm, but contained more sympathy than usual.
   As if my stomach hadn’t twisted itself into so many knots already, it now contained a giant block of ice. “What? I never even got a chance to think of a plan!”
   Misty smirked. “Well, I bet we’ll get ‘em back once those idiots get overly confident and go for Ash and I!”
   “And I bet it was pure luck that got ‘em in the first place!” Ash too joined in to reassure us, finally finishing packing his sleeping bag.
   I began to feel somewhat better; my friends comforting me always helped me to feel more confident and happy deep within myself. However, I found it very odd that Aisu still kept silent, facing away from us with a deep, solemn look. It must have been that I knew her strange secret now, perhaps that she believed that I now saw her for what she saw herself; something she wasn’t. It was even stranger how she kept happy throughout the recalling to Ash and Misty, and then suddenly fell into that melancholic mood, as if she had removed a mask.

. . .

   I heaved a great sigh of relief when we walked through the glass doors to the Ecruteak City Pokémon Center. Apparently, we needed directions to get to a hospital. Of course, I felt my face begin to burn; Ash slyly grinned as he impersonated a Pokémon stadium announcer.
   “And here we go, ladies and gentlemen! It’s that time that Trainer Brock’s vocab drops to only three syllables!”
   Misty glowered, and whacked him upside the head. “Knock it off! We’re in a public place, which means ‘don’t make an ass of yourself!’”
   Whenever I go into a Pokémon Center, my face does turn beet-red; no argument there. But this time, among my usual girlish blushing and stuttering, I found myself distracted by Aisu’s sudden straightening up. Her posture was very straight, her hands neatly folded at her lap, and she slightly blushed. A look of nervousness was apparent, and she hardly dared to breathe; somehow, it was like our first meeting all over again.
   We approached the front desk to speak to Nurse Joy, who had Chansey in her place at that moment. Aisu gave the Pokémon a curious tilt of her head, and the impulsive Ash, as always, went for the bell.
   “Oh! Sorry, I was taking a short break!” Nurse Joy came swiftly from the back. “How can I help you?”
   Ash spoke up before I even got a chance. “We need directions to the hospital, so Brock here can get a bite checked out.”
   “Oh..” her bright smile dimmed somewhat. “The hospital’s been overcrowded lately..but I can check out your wound for you if you wish!”
   Trying my best to swallow embarassment and a little giddiness, I let her grab a hold of my left arm for her to examine the bite. Of course, I have never fully mastered holding back my surging emotions; Misty glowered when I let a few “gyaaaa” outbursts slip through the cracks.
   “Dang it, Brock! Quit acting like a six-year-old!”
   Nurse Joy then let out a small gasp as she unwrapped the bloodsoaked bandages. “Oh! This is a bad one. How did you get it, if I may ask..?”
   To my astonishment, Aisu overcame her shy silence and spoke up. “He got it from a silver Pokémon, ma’am..”
   Joy immediately homed in on that comment. “Really? It’s quite odd; lately, there are many reports of attacks upon trainers by these ‘silver Pokémon’..many are quite brutal, actually.”

   Just as she exclaimed, a couple trainers, who were probably about Misty’s age, wandered over to us. One was taller, a bit wiry but seemed to hold a good amount of energy; his light-green eyes, which probably once held quite a lot of confidence, were drowned with a look of stress and worry as ragged and messy brown hair fell loosely over much of his eyes. The other just hardly stood above Misty in height, with somewhat more “meat on his bones” than his companion. His hazelish eyes, naturally filled with compassion but overflowing with anxiety, seemed to draw the attention from his unkept brownish-blonde hair that was kept at bay with a baseball cap.
   “Umm...excuse me, but we couldn’t help but overhear,” the shorter one asked with an obvious stutter. “But, you were attacked by a silver Pokémon?”
   “Yeah,” I was a bit curious as to why he asked.
   The taller one nodded. “Well, one of our friends was attacked also. He was bitten in the neck. By the time we found him, he felt so cold to the touch; his skin seemed almost as white as snow. And even the blood seeping from his neck was eerie..almost frozen. And he’s close to death in the hospital now..”
   As we were hearing this, Aisu found herself holding one of her hands to where the small wound on her neck was. What both she and I still couldn’t understand was, how could it not be worse than what it was?
   “That’s horrible!” Ash exclaimed.
   The other trainer agreed. “That may be so, but he isn’t the only one. We come from Mahogany, and apparently, we haven’t seen anywhere else as bad. The hospital there is so overcrowded, people actually have to get treated in the Pokémon Center now...”

. . .


   “It’s so terrible...” Ash murmured, Pikachu solemnly nodding along. “I’ve never heard of Pokémon doing things like this.”
   Once Nurse Joy had fixed up my wound, we found ourselves just aimlessly wandering the outskirts of the city. Whenever I imagined those gruesome stories within my head, there was a bitter taste within my mouth. What the heck were we going to do? It now just seemed utterly impossible for Aisu and I to get our Pokémon back, as we couldn’t just go blindly looking for Team Rocket in the woods now.
   “I don’t understand..” Aisu continued to hold a hand to her neck; she trembled worse than ever. “I should be dead.”
   “Well, I should be too!” Again, I tried to cheer her up; somehow.
   “Exactly,” her voice was strangely dark. “I dragged you into this..you were only trying to save me..I could have gotten you killed as well..”
   Misty then got involved in this coversation with a slight smile. “You guys have already gone over this many times! It wasn’t anyone’s fault! Hey, if I blamed myself for every time Ash nearly gets himself killed—”
   Her pause seemed odd. Letting out a shiver, she then commented, “You know, it seems strangely colder than usual...”
   “I think you’re right. It is chilly today,” Ash rubbed his arms and held them close to his body.
   For several minutes, the awkward silence overtook us once again as we continued to wander blindly. I could almost hear the deep thought we were clouded in; even the usual chirps of Togepi and Pikachu were hushed. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what I was supposed to do to get my Pokémon back, and still I felt as if I couldn’t concentrate at all. How was I supposed to defend myself now? Well, I can do okay if I faced someone hand-to-hand, but I’d only barely keep from getting beaten too horribly. I absolutely hated that vulnerable feeling.
   “Hey, guys,” Misty suddenly spoke up and broke the long silence. “Why don’t we see what’s up in Mahogany? Maybe we could find out more about these strange Pokémon.”