Chapter Text
How in the world can they miss a RED Gyarados when water is blue? It’s huge. It’d stick out like a sore thumb.
Dawn turns off the TV, annoyed with how little sense newscasts have. It’s only morning and she’s already run out of interest. Too bored to even play her Switch, but she turns the TV back on anyway and logs another hour on her newest game before boredom hits differently and she turns that off as well.
She heads downstairs, guessing it’s late enough that her mom’s awake. Either way Dawn tiptoes on the staircase in case she’s still sleeping (Pearl, the family Glameow, is certainly asleep). Nearly fourteen years and she hasn’t renovated the house to add a room for herself. To be fair, her mom doesn’t complain and Dawn never asks about it. Dawn doesn’t ask for anything all that much.
Her mom is awake and from the way she greets Dawn with a wider smile than usual, she must have something for her to do.
“Dawn! Barry came calling for you a while ago. I don’t know what it was about, but he said it was an emergency. He left before I could ask what it was...” Her mom frowns, but brightens in less than a second. In other words, it’s nothing. “Anyway, I made you breakfast! Eggs and toast, just the way you like it!”
You mean the way you like it, Dawn thinks, then thinks that’s a little mean. She likes anything her mom makes, but that doesn’t change the fact that her mom acts likes she has preferences when she doesn’t. Mom thinks she knows my favorite foods more than I do.
She nods and takes a seat at the kitchen counter, facing the door as always. She doesn’t like surprises, even though her best friend is Barry. The difference is that Barry is a predictable surprise.
Speaking of predictable surprises, Barry’s going to burst into her home and rush upstairs without seeing she’s at the counter in exactly eight minutes if she doesn’t meet him first. As amusing as that would be, eggs and toast doesn’t take eight minutes to eat and she doesn’t feel like washing dishes today.
Five minutes later, Dawn waves goodbye to her mom, and on the first step outside her house, she realizes this morning is the third morning in a row she hasn’t said a word to her mom.
It’s not that she hates her mom or anything—she just doesn’t have anything she wants to say. She’s not the curious type and usually goes along with what someone asks of her. Her mom has a chore for her—she nods and does it. Her mom tells her not to do something—she nods and remembers it.
That’s probably why she gets along with Barry so well compared to the other kids. She recalls being confused why he talked to her when they first met, and then she realized it was because none of the other kids could be around him for long. The kids called her a doormat for a few months, like it was supposed to be an insult.
Is being a doormat so bad when no one steps on you? Her mom’s requests make sense, and Barry’s her only source of entertainment in the small town. She never has to come up with ideas or games to play because Barry’s stuffed full of them. She can count the number of times she actually wanted to refuse on one hand.
She reaches his front door at seven minutes and waits outside for a second before hearing a noise from inside that sounds like Barry speeding down the stairs. For some reason, she doesn’t move, even as she expects he’ll barge out the door and run into her, which he does two seconds after that thought. She only stumbles back one step, and Barry jumps back a foot after the sudden contact.
“Oh, hey, Dawn!” Barry greets, unfazed. “I’m going to the lake! You’re coming too!” He starts a dash, not waiting for her, but soon halts and turns around with an irked expression. “Jeez, I forgot something! I’ll meet you at the edge of town—and I’ll fine you a million if you’re late!”
As usual, he doesn’t wait for her response before the door slams behind him and she hasn’t moved an inch in the meantime. She could simply stay until he runs out again, but she figures she should get a move on. It could take between ten seconds and ten minutes for Barry to find whatever he’s looking for.
On the way out of town, she reminisces on the first time Barry fined her. She paid him back in Monopoly money, completely serious, and it ended up also being the first time she had ever doubled over laughing. She smiles fondly to herself, ignoring the passerby that gives her an odd look.
Despite heading to the outskirts of town earlier, Barry’s there before her. That’s how she knows they’re best friends. He’s so impatient, but he always waits for me.
He’s staring off into the distance, so she pokes his shoulder to let him know she’s here.
“Hey, you saw that news report? ‘Search for the Red Gyarados?’” Barry says, facing her with a knowing grin. “That got me thinking: what if there’s a pokémon like that in our local lake? That’s why we’ve got to check!”
Dawn nods, though Barry’s already off to the lake before he sees it. She follows him at a leisurely pace, and for all his speeding, he’s never that far from her. He does get tired of waiting, eventually, and she ends up dragged by the wrist to run with him. She doesn’t mind—it’s the most exercise she’ll probably get all day.
They pass the spacious grove marking the entrance to the lake. There’s some pokémon milling about, but it’s safe. The pokémon usually stick to the shadier parts of the grove, and sleep most of the time.
Oh, to be a Bidoof under the sun...
“What’s going on...?” Barry’s voice takes her from her wistful thoughts, and they spot a pair of people at the edge of the lake, an old person and one seemingly as young as her and Barry. An odd combo. She’s not seeing a family resemblance with the perpetual frown on the grandfather.
The pair walk towards them, or rather, the grove, and Barry looks struck with something. It must be interesting if it’s leaving him speechless as the pair leave without interruption. The young boy darts his eyes between her and Barry as he passes, but that’s it.
After they’re gone, Barry says, “Those two...” He shakes his head and looks out to where the pair had been standing. “Huh? Dawn! Let’s go check this out!”
Dawn takes a step forward without thinking, but freezes when she notices the tall grass where Barry is pointing. It reaches to her waist, high enough that she wouldn’t notice an ambush from a pokémon, or so her mom says. Dawn’s never gone in the tall grass to find out.
Barry stops a step after her and says with confidence, “I get it, you’re worried about tall grass. No problem, we won’t be in there long enough for a wild pokémon to come out.”
Still, she doesn’t move right away. Her mom’s words echo in her mind, and she wants to listen. But Barry is with her and she wants to go along with him too. She doesn’t have her conflicting thoughts sorted before he’s dragging her into the grass with him, and she sticks to him in case anything does pop out.
Barry isn’t wrong—they’re hardly in the grass before they’re out of it, looking down at a briefcase that the pair must have forgotten.
“We should return it, but I don’t know who they were,” Barry notes, deep in concentration. “I heard one of them say ‘professor’...”
A sharp cawing sound interrupts him and chills run down Dawn’s spine as she spins around and sees two Starly surrounding them, and more aggressive than any Starly she’s seen on the TV. She’s frozen in place, but Barry’s jumped back at the cawing and ends up tripping over the briefcase.
“Wah! P-Pokémon!?” Barry shouts, scrambling to get to his feet at the same time he looks down. “Whoa! These are pokéballs!”
The Starly flap in hesitation at the sudden noise Barry’s making, and he takes the second to grab one of the pokéballs and hold it out towards the Starly. “Dawn, let’s battle using these pokémon!”
Battle? I’ve never battled before!
Maybe she can leave this to Barry. Maybe the pokémon in his hand is stronger than two Starly. She changes her mind when the Starly caw scarily and create gusts of wind that hurt like paper cuts. As she swipes the nearest pokéball, she spies Barry and a small pokémon with a flame for a tail taking the attention of one of the Starly. It’s probably not strong enough for two Starly.
Copying the trainers she’s seen on TV, Dawn presses the button in the center and out pops a green pokémon with a twig on its head. The Starly retreats slightly, but isn’t deterred and caws painfully loud.
Now what?
But before Dawn can panic, the pokémon screeches back in a nearly as painful shrill. She’s not sure how its going to attack an airborne pokémon, so she steps back until her foot hits the briefcase.
Three pokémon on our side are better than two.
However, she never gets to pick up the last pokéball. She immediately cowers when the Starly dives down blinding fast and flinches at the sound of impact, but feels nothing. Lowering the hand over her face, the Starly looks worse for wear and the green pokémon seems more than ready for another attack. It doesn’t even know me but it’s defending me.
“Scratch again!” Barry yells from the side, and Dawn glances over. He appears excited compared to her frightened self. Her mom’s words echo, but they’re drowned out by his commands.
Another impact rings and she turns back to her own fight. The pokémon are both weary, and her ally in this looks back to her expectedly. It doesn’t know whether to attack or try scaring again. She nods and opens her mouth.
“Okay... attack!”
The pokémon launches itself headfirst into the Starly, which thankfully seems too weak to dodge, and lands with a triumphant stance when the Starly hits the ground with a final thud. Dawn peers at it from a distance, observing the rise and fall of its fainted body for a second.
“Wow! Your pokémon totally rocked!” Barry hops over, and Dawn can’t spot the other Starly. “But my pokémon was way tougher than yours!” She tilts her head, not in agreement nor disagreement, and his grin soon becomes troubled. “Oh, but these aren’t our pokémon. Those people won’t mind, will they? I mean, we had to!”
Dawn nods and Barry is reassured, his grin returning. Not a second later, they hear a gasp and the young boy from before rushes to the briefcase. “There it is—what’s this?” The boy skims over them and the pokémon at their feet, eyes widening. “Oh no! Did you use the pokémon that were in here?”
“Yeah, b-but we had to! Right, Dawn?”
The boy reacts before she can affirm. “Oh no, you did! What’s the professor going to say?” The boy moves in a hurry, taking the briefcase and fleeing without warning. Another Barry? She can’t see herself being best friends with him, though.
“What was that about?” Barry scratches his head, and takes her hand to bring them out of the grass. Dawn keeps holding his hand even when they’re supposedly safe. “Let’s get out of here. My pokémon got hurt in the battle. I don’t know if it can take another one.”
He takes a step forward, and then one back, in the span of a second. “You go ahead... I know we have to return these pokémon. They’re not ours. But I want to spend a little more time with them...”
Barry gets on one knee, patting his fiery friend with affection, and it bounces happily, not knowing they’re about to be separated.
There’s a nudge at her leg and the green pokémon makes a sound (a churple? she can’t describe it). It looks beat up but content, and Dawn can’t help but feel attached to it as it returns her small smile with another churple.
She pokes Barry’s shoulder and starts walking into the grove.
“I know, I know,” he sighs and stands up. The fiery pokémon leaps a bit higher, reaching for his hand before it follows. The dejection on Barry’s face is clear, even if he’s trying to hide it, because he walks slower than her pace.
Ahead of the duo, Dawn stops at her destination, a stump in the middle of the grove, and sits down, the wood warm from the sunlight bearing down on it.
“Dawn? What’s this about?”
Dawn pats the spot next to her, and the green pokémon climbs onto the stump to lay on its belly. She pets it with one hand and points to the other side of the stump. Just a little more time.
It doesn’t take long for Barry to understand, and he plops down with a huge smile and the fiery pokémon in his hands. It’s peaceful, the kind of peaceful Dawn enjoys the most, with an enthusiastic pokémon running circles around them, her best friend getting dizzy trying to keep up, and a mellow pokémon yawning beside it all.
“If we get in trouble, I’m telling them it’s your fault,” Barry says after they have to leave, gratitude laced in every word.