Disclaimers from Chapter one (oddly enough) apply here. Notes: Thanks, everybody, for hanging with me—Life has been full and busy beyond belief. Plus, I don't watch Pokemon much anymore. But I want to finish the story and I WILL. It's mostly planned out; I just have to sedate my other plot-bunnies in order to work on this. Dedicated to Chelle-sama, who beta's even when it sqwicks her out. Gomennasai.
Chapter Five: Familiar Faces in a Place I Haven't Been
It was like falling in a dream, all slow-motion blurred colors and the feeling of timelessness. The world was full of dark colors and purple-pink light. The only sources of bright colors were Pikachu and Molly. Ash squeezed Molly's hand briefly and let go, diving after his friend. "Pikachu!" He managed to get his arms around the pokemon and draw it to his chest; he righted himself and reached for Molly just as he slammed into the ground. "Ow."
As he rolled to his feet, Ash saw that he'd landed on a small outcropping of rock. What it was cropping out from was not apparent. He held Pikachu a little closer and stepped back. "Molly, are you okay?" He asked without looking. He took another step back when she didn't answer him. "Molly?" He turned in a circle, looking at the rock he stood on. He was alone. "Molly!" Two of the Unown floated up to him from someplace below. They whirled and blinked and Ash felt something whirl and blink in his head. "Where's Molly?" He demanded. The Unown whirled and blinked again and there was a faint, far-off sound, like music but not. "Where is she?"
The twist in his brain un-twisted as the Unown backed away from him and swirled up. To Molly; who was, somehow, floating above him, surrounded by thousands of spinning, winking Unown. Terror chewed at him as Molly spun slowly in the air, Unown zooming in close to her and then backing away again so that more could come forward. Her eyes were glassy and he doubted that she even knew he was watching her. "I understa…" her voice was slurred and hushed. It was the first time since she'd said the word 'date' that Ash had been scared of hearing her voice. "Then you…I want…" She continued to move slowly above him, the Unown moving around her like a living blanket.
"Pikachu, I'm gonna put you down, okay?" Ash whispered, in case the Unown could hear and understand him. "I've got to try and get Molly down." He set Pikachu gently on the ground and wiped his sweaty palms off on his jeans. "Okay…"
"Chuuuu." Pikachu muttered fretfully as the Unown slid up to and away from him.
Ash nodded. "I know; it's creepy." He felt his friend stand up against his leg and bristle with the faint pulse of electricity. "Easy, we don't want them to spook." This was sort of a stupid thing to say, once he really thought about it. He was about to make a jumping-grab at the girl they were hovering around. "Here goes nothing." He muttered to himself for courage as he jumped. He managed to snag one sneaker; tugging her down felt like falling all over again. She didn't seem to notice anything.
"I don't…you…dying…" Molly continued to murmur softly, eyes fixed on the Unown who whirled around all of them now. Ash felt one brush his cheek and shuddered.
"Pika. Pi-chu." Pikachu tugged on his pant-leg and patted Molly's shoe with his other paw.
Ash shrugged. "I don't know if shocking her would help or if it would provoke the Unown." Keeping one hand on Molly, Ash un-shouldered his pack and knelt next to his pokemon, "Try the radios and see if you can't get Vickie on the line. Anybody would be good right now." He undid the buckles and opened the flap before he got back to his feet and tightened his hold on Molly's wrist, trying to get through to her.
"Molly?" He shook her shoulders lightly, hoping she'd look at him or blink. Heck, he really wanted her to smile at him and tell him he'd fallen off the rope ladders again and had a massive brain injury. "Molly, hey, can you hear me?" She smiled at the Unown and lifted one hand to stroke the one nearest her. Ash felt that odd twist in his brain again. "Molly!" He brought her hand down. "Come on, come on! Come on, Molly, talk to me." She didn't respond for a long moment, and then she turned her glassy, unfocused eyes on him.
"Papa!" She sounded…drugged, was the best word he could come up with. "They remember me. They remember everything since the world started and they can remember me!" Molly's cute giggle had never, ever, before made him want to slap her—but now he was willing to, if it would bring her back to her senses.
He took a deep breath and leaned to his left, trying to make eye contact. "I'd feel a lot better about that if I knew you could remember who I am." He told her. "Molly, can you tell me who I am? And I'll give you one clue…I'm not your father."
It must have triggered something, he thought, because she blinked rapidly and her eyes became a little less cloudy. "Ash?" She frowned. "Can't you hear them? They know us…they know my father and my mother. You don't hear them?" Six of the Unown whirled up between them and Molly's eyes went blind again. "Why…?" Her breathing hitched.
"How's the radio?" Ash refused to take his eyes off of Molly Hale and the Unown pokemon that swarmed around her. He didn't expect good news and he didn't get it. "Molly?" He shook her and then nearly dropped her as a massive Entei reared up behind her and snarled. It shattered into forty or so Unown, all winking and wiggling. "Oh, that is just so creepy."
Molly laughed. "That's how…but you can't…"
"Complete a sentence." Ash snapped, his mouth dry with fear. "Molly, what the hell is going on?" He wanted to shake her again, but didn't quite dare. He didn't have Charizard; he didn't have anybody with him but Pikachu and Flareon. "Pikachu, have we got any rope?" Pikachu produced a large coil of camping line. "Good enough, we're going to climb down and see if there's anything under this rock."
He'd just finished tying the rope around Molly's waist and his own when Molly spoke. Her words were still blurry and soft, but they were coherent. "What are you doing?" He double looped the rope around one of the larger rocks that were lying around before answering.
"I'm trying to get us out of here. We're going to see what's under this rock and if it'll get us home." He knotted the rope quickly and nearly jumped out of his skin when Molly laid one cool hand on his arm.
"But there's nothing under the rock." She blinked, eyes clearing rapidly. The Unown around her moved in pulsing waves,
but didn't whirl, blink or come closer. "The
only reason the rock is here is because you thought it should be."
He pulled the rope until there was no slack, "Yeah, well, I think there should be a way out too, so let's hope you're right."
"Ash, it wouldn't be any more real than the ground we're standing on." She shook her head slightly, frustrated. "Oh, why can't you hear them?" She brought her fist to her temples. "Let me think, let me think…help me explain this to him!" The Unown closed in again and Ash closed his eyes as they brushed and pushed at him. The lashes on the eyes tickled him, but the limbs were dry and brittle feeling. He shuddered.
"Molly…whatever they're saying to you, don't listen to them. We don't know why they brought us here or what they want. Last time we were this close to this many we nearly killed the entire planet." Heart in his throat, Ash looked over the edge and wondered when he'd gone crazy. "I'm going to go down first, if I fall, the rope around you will go tight, so brace yourself so you don't fall, okay?" He smiled reassuringly at Pikachu; Molly's eyes were still closed, and lowered himself down. After a moment his feet hit solid ground again. "Alright! It's not far down at all! Come on down!"
"But it's not real, Ash." Molly said from behind him. The rope was still tied around her waist and she was holding Pikachu, setting him down she crossed to where Ash was gaping at her. "The Unown make things; like Entei and crystal flower-things and pokemon stadiums so that we can understand them. They want to communicate."
He wanted to hope, and Molly certainly sounded like herself, but he couldn't forget the far-away look in her eyes and her desperate hopes that were the reason she studied the Unown. "Yeah, well why don't they just talk? We know they can. Entei could." He folded his arms but after a moment he reached out and touched her hair. "I know that everything seems…promising, Molly, but we don't know so much about them and we're trapped."
"We're not trapped and they are talking. I can understand them. I don't know how or why, but their bodies are like letters to me…and when they spell a word I can hear their voices in my head. They sound…I can't really describe it, but I can feel it when they talk to me." She reached up and caught his hand and he automatically twined their fingers together. "I don't know how to make you understand. They've told me so much since we've left the Ruins."
Ash closed his eyes and thought. "Is this true?" He shouted finally, the Unown moved around him and he heard/felt the crystalline spiraling in his mind. He looked at Molly, she was smiling at the writhing mass. Her eyes were unfocused again. "If it's true, how do we leave?" Beside him, Molly gasped. "We…if you let us out now, we can come back. We can come back prepared, with people who might understand you the way that Molly does."
There was a ripple in the universe around him and Ash had an overwhelming sense of 'there' from a spot three feet to his left. He looked at Molly; she bit her lip and nodded. "Ash…" She trailed off, eyes straying to the pokemon surrounding them.
"Molly." He sighed, unable to believe how stupid he was. "I meant it. We'll come back. If we can leave now, talk about this someplace that isn't right in their…nest or whatever…then we can come back." She smiled and lead the way to the 'there' that he'd felt. The universe melt and ran and Ash was falling again, pitching endlessly forward, colors rushing past his face…all of them too bright, too close , too…
"Hey, are you back?" Molly's voice was gentle and when Ash blinked he could see her leaning over him, blue eyes soft with worry. "Hey," she whispered again as he continued to open and close his eyes. "You took that really hard." She continued. "You just…it's like you fainted, except your eyes were open."
He sat up and his head spun and he was forced to close his eyes on a wave of nausea. "Where are we?" It didn't look like anyplace familiar, red-rock walls that were covered with some weird, glowing plant.
Molly looked around. "West of the West End, I'd say, after looking at the geological structure and the flora." She grinned. "Schistostega pennata, otherwise known as 'Cave moss' and 'Goblin's Gold' is pretty rare. It only grows in Greenfield." She brushed his hair out of his face. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine." Though he was pretty clammy, he thought after he brushed his hair out of his eyes again. "Talk. Tell me about what happened back…wherever that was." He called himself crazy.
Sitting back against one wall, Molly appeared to ponder. "That was…it's not a place, really. It's sort of like a place-holder." She shook her head and made a wry face. "That sounds dumb. Let me start where they did." She rubbed her hands over her eyes. "Do you know the story about Pokemonopolis?" She asked after a minute. "The Giant pokemon that were the first ever recorded in history?"
"I've met some." Ash laughed and scooted over to sit next to her. "I know the story."
After shooting him an askance look Molly let out a deep breath. "Okay…um, well, the Unown pre-date them. At least, they can remember a time before the Giants were here and they can remember when the Giants came. They tried to make contact with the Giants and the people who worshipped them, but the people couldn't really see them and the Giants were busy fighting with each other. When the giant Pokemon were gone…the Unown tried again." She leaned her head back against the wall and avoided his eyes. "They killed everybody in the city."
"WHAT?" Ash shot to his feet and barely missed braining himself on the ceiling. "You're telling me that we spent how long in the company of…of…and I promised to take you back because you didn't want to leave?"
"ASH!" Molly leapt to her feet too, moving to stand in front of him. Her blue eyes were shining in earnest. "Ash, they didn't mean to. It was like what happened ten years ago—an accident that they tried hard to stop!" She held up her hands in front of her, pleadingly. "Please, listen to the rest of the story, okay?" She waited for his nod before she sat and this time, Ash sat across from her. He wanted to be able to watch her eyes, in case something was affecting her. He was sure that he'd see it in her face if the Unown were doing something to her.
"So they accidentally killed a city full of people?" He could hear the interest beneath his sarcasm.
Molly must have heard it too, because she kicked his hiking boot lightly. "They had found somebody like me, who could hear them, and they tried to talk to him. And they did talk. They found out about how people were trying to find a means of training pokemon, trying to befriend the ones who weren't vicious like the Giants. The Unown wanted to help…so they tried to train with the boy that they found and some of the others who could hear them. But they, like me, couldn't control the powers that the Unown could raise and the Unown…they couldn't stop without the help of the trainers. The Unown had never used their powers before, not really and they had no clue that it could…that things would turn out the way that they did. They wanted to learn to control their powers, they wanted to be trained, but they couldn't. All the people who tried ended up destroying towns and people and themselves. The Unown wanted to stop, but people kept coming, wanting to be the most powerful trainer…"
"Like Team Rocket," Ash muttered when she trailed off. "Without the stupid motto." He hoped to make her smile and she did, slightly.
"Sort of." She agreed. "The trainers wouldn't stop coming, and so the Unown left. They made…a gate. They made a world out of themselves but they couldn't take the real world, they couldn't form a world of their own without killing the world they were leaving and so they gave up Time. There world is made up from time. And they create things, people, pokemon…they sort of draw them from a time that they existed in the world. And once they've used it or done what they want with it, they return whatever it was from the time that it came from. Like that rock we were on. They took it from a beach someplace and once you climbed down they put it back in it's place—before they even took it. Nobody would even have noticed it being gone because it's like it was never taken."
It was incredible. "Their power must just be amazing." He whispered.
Molly tilted her head and considered. "It's strong…but at what a price?" She looked at the small shaft of sunlight that made the moss glow. "They can't communicate with anybody…locked away in their world. They've tried to contact people before me and my father, but it's hit and miss because they don't know when these people are or when they'll arrive at the Ruins."
"The Ruins are their gate, right?" Ash asked. "Then when people with the right sort of communication gear, don't laugh" he ordered when she snicker, "when those people come along they open the gate and hope for the best?"
"It's harder than that. It's like trying to catch a ball when you can't see the ball. The Unown listen for that one ball, while listening to every ball that gets bounced in the Ruins. All of them. And they have to guess where the right ball is, by listening."
Ash let out a low whistle. "And they manage that?"
"Apparently." Molly agreed. "They have several places where the gates are and when the right person reaches a gate, they open it. If they're listening to that time."
It was Ash's turn to rub his hands over his face. "And we were able to find our way in. I always knew we were special, Pikachu." He grinned at his friend and then felt his blood freeze in his veins. "Molly?" She looked up and arched one eyebrow. "Can we get back there? Back to the place we just were? Soon?"
"I think we might be able to. We should call Vickie and Dana and Disco first, to let them know we're okay before we try to go back." He watched in detachment as Molly scanned the cave they were sitting in. "Where's your radio? I left mine in the West End."
Ash swallowed and managed to speak even though it felt like choking down sand. "With Pikachu. In the world of the Unown."