Chapter Text
Adrift in the Ocean
Chapter One
To exhausted to move, she let the waves carry her.
The sound of the ocean was strangely soothing one despite the fact that all she knew was that she was about to die. She couldn’t remember anything else and she didn’t know how she had gotten here; she couldn’t even remember her own name.
The earliest moment she can clearly remember were of panic, of struggling in the water trying not to drown until she gave out, exhausted. Somehow, despite the constricting waterlogged clothes, she had found herself floating in the ocean, her head above water, but her energy spent.
That had been hours ago and it had been dark at the time, and now a good day of sun with no drinkable water had not improved her condition.
The waves seemed to be getting rougher though.
Suddenly – though she could do nothing to help or alleviate it – she found herself being tumbled by a breaking wave. Her head went under and she wondered if this would be it, but spite aimed at jaws of death gave her a final push of energy, the energy to struggle, to survive, and the… sand?
Maybe she had imagined it, but as she tried to orientate herself towards the surface, she felt her foot – her shoes long lost to the ocean – touch sand. The possibility, the hope, gave her another jolt of energy, of life, and she managed to break the surface.
Trying to look around while keeping her head above water, she could feel that despite the last reserves of energy, she was utterly exhausted. But not a stone’s throw away was a beach of sand and the lush green of trees a short way inland.
The only thought in her mind now was to reach it and she began to struggle in its direction. She had to reach it.
Suddenly there was a roar of another wave and she found herself underwater again. This time she definitely felt her head, then her back and then her feet hit sand as she tumbled under the water. The shock that this was real was too much and she felt saltwater enter her mouth. She struggled again to the surface.
It was so close, close enough that if she had the energy, she was sure her feet would have touched the bottom if she tried to stand. Instead, she coughed and gagged, getting the ocean out of her mouth, and kept up her desperate paddling. Soon her hands contacted the sand, the rough grit a feeling of safety between her fingers.
Now safe, she lost the drive she had left, beginning a slow crawl out of the water before collapsing on the edge of the dry hot sand, and the cooler still damp sand.
There was nothing left, and she passed out then and there.
o0o0o
“Professor, come quick!” shouted the normally demure Lillie.
Professor Kukui could see her racing towards him, her usual broad white hat missing and her feet barefoot like most of his other students who were while relaxing on the beach over lunch during their excursion to Poni Island.
Professor Kukui jumped to his feet. Whatever had gotten Lillie moving like that had to be important – the sort of important that meant one of his students was in serious trouble.
“Lil –”
Lillie cut him off as she came to a halt, her hands on her knees.
“You have to come quickly!” she got out in a single quick breath.
“What happened?” he asked.
There were three or four breaths before she could answer.
“We found – we found a girl on the shore,” she got out before several more heaving breaths cut her off. “She looked like she washed ashore; she’s not in good shape.”
“Where?”
Lillie looked at him wide-eyed for a fraction longer than her would like.
“Along the beach: half-a-kay, maybe.”
He started running down the beach, pulling his phone out as he went, trying to call the hospital. When he finally got them to send an ambulance and however far down the beach, Lana came running out of the tree line to stop him.
“Professor, here!” she shouted.
He realised he’d almost run past them. Barely noticing the line of footprints in the sand where his students had carried the person up the shore and out of the sun, he followed Lana to the victim.
The girl’s face and arms were bright red, but Kukui wasn’t sure if it was sunburn or a heat injury – it very likely was both. There were empty drink bottles nearby; Mallow had doused the teenaged girl down with water, and was currently sitting on her knees next to the girl, her hand on the girl’s wrist checking her pulse. He racked his brain for more first aid for possible heat stroke.
“Lana, get Popplio out and hose her down,” he ordered.
Lana went wide-eyed a moment, realising that what they should have been doing from the start before quickly releasing her pokémon. With the victim now thoroughly hosed down, he turned to Mallow.
“Is she breathing?” he asked.
“Just,” was Mallow’s short reply. “Her pulse is weak too.”
Professor Kukui realised at that moment that Mallow had some idea how bad that was. Her expression was very controlled, flat. It was very unlike her.
“The hospital is already sending someone,” he told her.
She stared at him a moment before replying with a small nod. Lana must have picked up on the tension because she started looking more worried as well.
“Was she wearing more than this?” he asked.
Lana pointed at the pile of pale blue clothes off to the side.
“She was wearing business pants,” Mallow said.
Kukui tried to remember what the training has said: keep clothes on to retain water and aid cooling, or take clothes off to provide better cooling? It only took a few seconds before he decided it didn’t matter: the lightweight white shirt shouldn’t impede cooling the victim down and getting her cooled down immediately mattered more than fussing over it.
“Douse any dry part of her,” he ordered Lana. “We need to bring her body-temperature down as fast as possible. Do any of your pokémon know any ice-type moves?”
Both girls shook their heads as Kukui internally cursed at the fact he did not routinely carry his Masked Royal pokémon with him; Empoleon could have helped here.
“Keep watching her pulse,” he ordered Mallow.
Popplio was still occasionally wetting any spot of the girl that looked to by drying off. Satisfied that was all they could immediately do, Professor Kukui reluctantly decided they just needed to wait for help to arrive.
Not long after, there was the soft sound of footsteps in the sand behind him. He turned his head to find Kiawe slipping between the palm trees towards them.
“Ash, Sophocles and Lillie were following me,” he said.
Kukui nodded back and Kiawe turned his eyes to the girl.
“What happened to her?” he asked, his eyes scrutinising the scene.
Kukui wanted to know as well.
“Lillie, Lana and I spotted her lying face down in the sand, right by the water,” Mallow answered as Lana nodded along. “Lillie ran off to get you while Lana and I carried her into the shade. We poured our water over her to try and keep her cool.”
That sounded to Professor Kukui like the best they could have done under the circumstances.
He pulled out his phone again to ask where the ambulance was. He knew he should have kept the line open but it had barely crossed his mind when Lana had jumped out of the tree line.
“What’s her pulse like?” he relayed to Mallow.
“Steady, it’s not getting any worse.”
He stayed silent as Mallow’s lips silently moved, counting the girl’s pulse rate. Once it was done, he again relayed the info to the hospital.
“They’re two minutes out,” he announced. “Kiawe, get out there with Charizard so they know where to we are.”
Kiawe nodded and not long after Professor Kukui heard the tell-tale sound of a pokémon being released from it’s pokéball.
“Charizard, flamethrower!” Kiawe ordered.
Glancing over his shoulder, Professor Kukui could see a decidueye land and Nurse Joy get off. She carried a bag of supplies, quickly pushing through the palms towards them.
“The rest of my team will be here soon. I asked your student to wait by the beach to guide them in. They’ll be coming by wailord,” she quickly said.
She pushed past him.
“Tell your pokémon to stop, please,” she said, releasing a primarina who quickly used icy wind to cool the area.
Professor Kukui and his students shuffled slightly uncomfortably in the sudden chill as Nurse Joy used a hand-held device to check the girl’s temperature. She winced slightly at the result before ordering primarina to lower the temperature more and began inserting a cannula into the girl’s arm.
“Hold this up for me,” she ordered of the professor, making him hold the bag of IV fluids being fed into the girl’s arm. “What happened?”
Mallow quickly repeated the explanation.
“Did she have anything on her?” Nurse Joy asked.
Lana and Mallow glanced at each other before shaking their heads.
“She had that pair of pants on,” Mallow said, pointing at the pile of clothes.
“I’ll check them,” Lana said, going through the pockets.
After a few seconds of searching, Lana pulled out a shrunken pokéball. She set it aside and searched some more, but found nothing.
Nurse Joy began hooking up a device with several wires to the girl at that point, cutting open her shirt. Professor Kukui turned away uncomfortably at that point. He watched the small patches of sea visible as there was another order of flamethrower and not soon after two more medical personnel arrived with more equipment and a folded stretcher. They shooed everyone else out.
Stepping into the sunlight of the beach, Professor Kukui found Ash, Lillie and Sophocles waiting for them. The three looked like there were carrying all of the things he and Kiawe had left behind. Lillie and Sophocles were red in the face, looking like they had done more physical exertion than they preferred. Lillie had also recovered her hat, though from the way it sagged it looked like it might have been blown into the ocean.
Pikachu followed them up, looking like he had relieved Ash of the burden on carrying him given Ash was carrying two bags and Kukui’s portable blackboard he’d used to teach some lessons here on Poni Island. Rotom Dex was ambling around excitedly.
“What’s happening, professor?” Ash asked with concern.
Professor Kukui glanced in the direction of the girl for a moment, hidden by the tropical palms.
“Lillie, Lana and Mallow found a girl washed ashore.” Lillie looked grim at the mention. “Nurse Joy is with her now, they’re taking her to the hospital. No idea who she it though, she had no ID and the only thing on her was a pokéball.”
“Should I let the pokémon out, professor?” Lana asked, holding the pokéball up.
Professor Kukui shook his head.
“We’ll check with Nurse Joy first, and if she asks me to look after the pokémon we’ll let them out back at the school.”
Everyone turned at the sound of moving palms, and soon Nurse Joy and the rest of her team came out, carrying the stretcher with the girl strapped to it. Nurse joy was carrying a bag of IV fluid and the monitoring device she had hooked up to the girl while the other two did the actual lifting over the loose sand, the pair not even bothering with the foldable legs and wheels.
Kukui thought he heard Ash mutter something in shock… it almost sounded like a name.
“Ash?” he prompted, wheeling around the face his student.
Ash’s eyes did not move from the figure being carried down the beach to the ambulance wailord, narrowing as he tried to make them out. He looked worried, like he didn’t want his next words to be true.
“I think I know her,” he said after several seconds.
Professor Kukui had no idea who the girl was and the looks Ash was getting from the other students said plainly that they had no idea who she was either. But it was their only lead so far.
“Come with me,” he said.
It took two seconds for Ash’s eyes to leave the figure and recognise what Kukui had said to him. Kukui started to stride towards Nurse Joy and the prone girl when Ash dropped the things he was carrying and raced to follow, Pikachu on his heels.
Nurse Joy’s eyes met professor Kukui as he got close, and clearly were telling him that he better not be about to waste her time.
“My student might know her,” he said.
There was a fraction of a second and then she nodded, Professor Kukui motioning Ash to step closer. Ash’s expression of worry turned to dread.
“That’s Anabel,” he said quietly.
Ash pulled off his cap, his hands going through his hair as Pikachu climbed up Ash’s back to his shoulder. Pikachu made a sound of sad agreement.
“Who?” asked Nurse Joy.
Ash’s eye met hers.
“Her name’s Anabel… she’s a Battle Frontier Brain.” Ash’s eyes started to water, his voice dropping to a whisper. “She’s a friend…”