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Broken Diamond VI: Free Fall The bleeding heart felt his world crumble in time with the clip of the helicopters wings. He was pushed up against the wall. There was a window - not wide enough for me, no lock to open - just next to him. Images of a city on fire. Ruins of what once was Cerulean, now punctuated with the occasional crater, indifferent signs of a…Impressions of a city that bled. Reminding him of the girl that loved him too much. The Pokémon Master that couldn't…who was he kidding…wouldn't accept his own father's invitation to…No. He was right there. His father was in the wrong. But just for a second Ash wondered why his father had left him. Wondered if his reasons were justified. Wondered if, in contradiction to what he felt in his heart, that he was wrong. It tore him in two. Without warning the helicopter banked to the side and then shuddered and swayed and distanced and dived. Somewhere near him, a section of the wall was buckling. Ash tried to shove the great man he was sitting next to. The one that was pushing him against the wall. "Let him go" came a guttural swipe from the cockpit "Worst he can do is save us" The man dashed to the source of the voice, alarmed, as Ash was taken from his feet. The helicopter shook again. And glowed. Blue, astral blue, azure. The bleeding man felt his body roll across the ground. Yelled out in his mind for Misty, for the person he used to be, for…even for his father. Death would come, as it had for Pidgeot, now lying stiffly in its Pokéball. But just for a second he imagined he was kissing Misty again. And this time, even though it was in his mind, it meant something. Even though he was going to die. Even though he didn't have anything worth living for. Even though he might give all he had for nothing. He would never lose hope. Not to Team Rocket. Not to Death. And not to himself. So Ash Ketchum traced the source of the light, as he felt air pressure leak and fly, the helicopter drop like a stone… He held out his hand. Looking for another way. As he always had. As he always did. And the chopper split itself on the ground, spinning fire to the air. But Ash Ketchum had been split in two before. This time he reached for the light, and was free. Teleported away.
"Ash…are you alright?" His eyes opened, his mouth hung ajar, his words…his word… "Pidgeot…" His failure. David felt his son's pain, flexed his hand on the child's shoulder. Felt it twist out of the way. "Why? You saved me. Why?" "Would it make any difference if I told you?" "It might" David inhaled. Ash…exploded. "It might make a difference if you stop dropping questions on me, stop making things more complicated. Give me one answer. Why did you leave me?" "The day you can deal with the answer is the day you don't need to ask the question" "Or it’s the day you've got the guts to tell me!" "I'll tell you alright. I've got a few questions myself" But the one at the front of Ash's mind was…why? Why Pidgeot? And he knew David didn't have the answer. Only one person did. And that was the reason, the question for which both of them had to survive the crash. "We need to find that helicopter" "Over there" David nodded into the distance … Ash considered it…how close it mirrored the broken wings of… "What happened up there?" "My Dragonite fired off a Hyper Beam in its vague direction. The idiot pilot was meant to avoid the first one, the second and third should have forced him to land. But instead the first one punctured the rear. Alakazam teleported you out here" It didn't really matter. But the one thing that still did… "Y'know I don't care why you left me. You just did. You took away a part of me when you did that, leaving me incomplete and empty, wounded. You killed the Ash Ketchum that could have been" Ash stood, turned, walked away. "Where are you going?" "Would it make any difference if I told you?!" he snapped back, quoting his father "It might" David raced after him, hand on his shoulder. He couldn't escape the feeling that they had just switched places. That David was becoming more like the Pokémon Master that had consumed Ash's identity and that both of them were incomplete without the other. Just like Ash said. "Listen" David said "You said to me once this was the biggest dilemma of your life. Well let me tell you about the biggest dilemma of my life. I never meant to…" He cut himself off, changing his line of thought. "well?" Ash said "It always comes down to this. Us. We argue, we go off in our own directions and meet again, in worse condition than before. Only together can we rescue your friend" "Is that it? You start explaining something, suddenly stop and expect me to just forget about it?" "Yes. No. Yes, I do. Who are you?" "The Pokémon Master" he flashed back, automatically. An instant later he felt like he'd trapped himself. "Then you're bigger than the conflict that's between us. And now there's a situation that’s bigger than either one of us. But not together. We may be outnumbered, we may be outgunned, but we're unstoppable if we work together" "If" Ash repeated. And then he slugged him. His father staggered back, hand on lip. The second blow diagonally crossed his torso, followed by another and another and… Suddenly Ash's hand was frozen in the air. He tensed its muscles, shook it, but it couldn't move, like it was being held there by an irresistible force. David gripped his wrist before it could connect again. "I'm trying to help you Ash, and selfish pig that I am, help myself. You don't know the frustration of having you fight me like this at every turn" Ash feigned another swing from his other hand, a cover for his foot to rise and… …immediately bounce back from David's palm, before it blocked his other hand. Even as Ash tried to attack again, his body twisted over his father's shoulder before he was thrown to the ground. Up and down, the pain shot through his back. "I thought you wanted to help me!" he cried, panting "I did. And I'd like to think were our positions reversed you would too" "What?" "Ash, I'm not your punch bag. You think I've done you wrong. But you've never given me a chance, and just there you punched your own father. Now who's got problems?" "I only have two problems. You and Team Rocket" "I can see a third, can't you? Ash Ketchum, you're losing yourself. All I've known from you this short time is hate, and I know there's more to you than that, hidden deep. You want to rescue your friend? Rescue yourself first" "I'm the master, I…" "Oh for crying out loud, you're just as vulnerable as everybody else on the planet!" David shouted back at him, feeling his own anger finally rise. Ash froze. His hand suddenly clutching his neck as he felt his breath fly free or suddenly disappear, choking him. "What's wrong?" David said, true concern in his voice Ash broke down and cried. "Pikachu…they've got Pikachu…no…not…" "Come on, we're getting him back" "I can't! Not without Pikachu, I'm nothing! I don't expect you to understand!" At the back of Ash's mind, images of a younger, weaker trainer that could do what he could not, had done what he could not. Many times. David's mind bled in sorrow, felt every tear as if it were his own. Because he felt like nothing too. Without his son.
The Master and the Counterpoint tread between broken ship and broken sand. Three bodies would mean an end to this, two meant Jup was still alive. Ash pondered the twisted relief that dwelt within him. David gave burial to burning bones. "Thank you for flying with Indigo Airlines" "Whatever" Another fire still raged - one that couldn't be handled with water or love. Ash's father sighed a futile response, hopelessly defeated yet still fighting for his sons attention, affection, answer. "It's bad enough you insist on following me around!" Ash snapped "I'm a full grown adult now by the way! Just don't start talking to me too. Man, you've done enough of that, it's getting pretty dull now. I've a lot more on my plate right now than you realize, alright, a lot more responsibility on my shoulders than you know so just leave me alone ok?" Ash caught it mid-sentence, but continued regardless - his father smelt it too, both having spent most of their lives outdoors they knew the difference between the scent of licking flames and the stench of evil. And from the voice, they knew where it came from too. "You two are just so predictable. Pokémon Masters indeed. Oh: Thanks for burying my men. What goes around comes around, yadda yadda yadda. Man I'm an evil dude." Jup, Jup Zing. And a half dozen other men…seven Pokéballs snapped open. Seven rifles clicked. David Ketchum pushed his son to the ground and flew into action. "Steelix! I need you! Dragonite, Tauros, Alakazam, Starmie, Exeggutor!" The metal beast was blasted with puff of heat and chime of shrapnel. Ash dived beneath and clung to its hide, tears in his eyes. He knew the next few seconds would be his last, punctuated with bang, bang, bang and to that all his life would add: scream, thump. He appreciated the beauty of his grim tragedy: Boy conquers world, boy becomes man, world crushes man underfoot. Dragonite dispatched a handful of firing mechanisms with Bubblebeam. "Electrode! Gengar!" Ash didn't hear Jup shout the order but barely made out a sphere in a thicket of smoke - smiling! - distorted by tears. He witnessed the cold hard final song of a single bullet screaming toward him…death… …he smelt it's fire ricochet a full inch from his face. Alakazam's Reflect…had only prolonged the inevitable and he hated him for that. How strange it felt to be waiting for life to be snatched away. As if in answer, Alakazam quickly fainted - no chance of teleporting away he realised, too late. Ash was thrown violently to the ground as Steelix bucked into a hail of bullets striking like bomb flash…he landed face in sand, immediately trying to find his feet but locked instinctively while his tears tried to drain the stones of granular terrain from his eyes - he was temporarily blinded. Bang, bang, bang. When he opened his eyes he stared into a song of darkness - red with eyes black with the characteristic texture of the Ghost type and a laugh that even silently could never be more chilling. "Psychic!" Suddenly sound was gone, his ears were a high pitched vacuum. His body completely enclosed in a blue tunnel of sickly penetrating light - wisps of pain, reflections of feelings, agonising power, and opposite him, in here too, Gengar, laughing. And she/he/it showed Ash Ketchum why…
It seemed an ordinary sunshine to the grass and from the sky but something about it had been defiled and was essentially evil. It seemed an ordinary gathering, the four Cerulean gym leaders, crowded clusters of one hundred or so people but for gibbets and soldiers. There was a noose wrapped around the four necks and there was an instant madness of terror in Ash Ketchum, from the middle of a battlefield to here as Gengar blasted these images into his head. He knew them to be true. "At ten o clock, Misty Waterflower will die. Her sisters shall watch. An hour later, one of their number will die. The remaining two will watch. Two hours later it will be morning, they will be cut, and made to bleed to death" A man sighed. A dog barked. He mourned the words and the resolve in Misty's eyes. She was determined to die sooner. And perhaps willing because of what he'd done to her. He stared into her eyes, not truly there, not truly seen, but grasping neither would recognise each other given opportunity. She…was defenceless…couldn't…fight…whereas he wouldn't…
His father was right: he'd lost himself. His heart bet sporadically, tearing itself apart, guilty it had taken so long to miss Pikachu, guilty for Pidgeot, guilty for Misty, guilty for someone else, guilty for himself…tearing itself apart, changing itself…he shuddered in the blue shrill of Psychic. It pummelled him, breaking down to his knees, spilled with tears and screams. Gengar used his strongest emotions to crucify him…he caught on to one and it seemed to say "Focus"… He had to rescue Misty. Had to do that now. Desperately yet reluctantly like a master swordsman driven to a hated weapon he grabbed an epitaph and only truly understood what it meant now, between the bangs that filled his ears again, growing louder and louder - more urgent. He hated it, but truly understanding it he was driven to its arms one more time, the epitaph, the hero… "…the Pokémon Master"
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