Fear - An Aureliashipping and Lonashipping Story

-25-

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick...

The clock in the laboratory continued its unending call throughout the night. It was the only thing that had the energy to make noise at all. The Nebula Pokémon lost the will to cry out anymore...not that it paid attention to that wretched clock, anyway. The only thing that concerned it at this point was its own thoughts: the determination to get through the painful experience. Cosmog couldn't read the symbols on the clock, but it sensed that it was sometime very early in what humans arbitrarily called "morning".

Tick. Tick. Tick. Beep! Fwoosh.

Well that wasn't supposed to happen. Cosmog's eyes wandered to the door to the lab. A silhouette stood outlined against the bright light that entered the hallway. Cosmog slowly moved itself back towards the rear of its cage. No, it's too early to be experimented on. Now isn't the time to be fighting back pain.

"Pew..."

"Shush, shush, shush!" the shadow quickly said to meet Cosmog's cry. "I'm not here to hurt you...not this time."

Surprise ran through the small Pokémon's mind, but other things did as well. Relief, curiosity, and just for a second, hope.

The shadow moved its way over to the case and inspected the numbered keypad. It quickly began pushing away at the buttons while taking cautious glances at the hallway behind it. "C'mon, c'mon, you stupid machine."

Cosmog took the time to study the figure. Now that it was up close, the Pokémon realized it was a girl. A young one, at that. The purple streaks in her short, dark hair almost convinced Cosmog it was looking into a mirror. She was dressed in all black, with a mask covering the bottom half of her face. Her eyes had a mixture of emotions Cosmog couldn't entirely read, but one thing was for certain: she was terrified. The Pokémon realized that it had seen this girl before: she was one of the Aether employees. What was her name again...?

Ding!

For the first time in forever, the door to Cosmog's cage opened. The Pokémon attempted to drag its exhausted body out, but the girl stopped it. "Here, let me."

She gently picked up Cosmog and wrapped a blanket around it. She stood around for a few seconds, making sure the Pokémon was snug in her arms. The warmth nearly Cosmog to sleep, but it managed the strength to look up at the girl. Was this the savior Arceus had promised it?

A painful smile crossed the girl's face. "There, there," she said. "You're safe now."

The girl finally introduced herself to Cosmog properly. "My name is Natasha," the girl said, tears welling in her eyes. "And I am so, so, sorry..." she choked.

Natasha. Yes, that was it...

----

...

...

...

Alert! Alert! Alert!

----

Pek! Pek! Pek!

"Ugh..."

The Pikipek alarm clock woke up Ash. The Pokémon School had finally opened back up, and that meant class. Pikachu stretched beside him, ready to start the day. The Rotom-Dex flew out of Ash's backpack. "Wakey wakey! It'zzz time to get up!"

Pikachu slapped Rotom out of the way with his tail. "Hey! That'zzz not nice!" it complained. "Pika~..." the yellow mouse replied tiredly.

Ash rolled out of bed and made his way to the kitchen. Professor Kukui was already preparing breakfast. "Morning, Ash!"

"Good morning, Professor!"

Kukui slid over a plate of bacon and eggs to Ash. "You ready for class?"

"You bet!" the boy replied hastily.

"Good, good..." Kukui replied like he didn't really care about the answer. "How's Lillie doing?" he blurted out suddenly. Ash swallowed a handful of bacon before answering. "She's feeling a lot better!"

"How is she with-"

"Touching Pokémon? Still getting there."

Kukui had a concerned look on his face. "I thought she would have made more progress by now..." he said. "I'm not disappointed, there's no rush after all." he quickly added to avoid hurting Ash's feelings.

Ash didn't seem to hear him: the bacon was too good. Kukui allowed himself to smile. "She trusts you a lot, you know."

"Yeah, we're friends after all!"

It had to be him, huh, Lillie?

----

The Aether Foundation was in chaos. Security was getting yelled at. Faba was getting yelled at. Employees were getting yelled at. The readers might as well be yelled at, no one was safe.

A very angry woman slammed her hand down on her desk as she cast a glare at two terrified teens. "Let's try this again: where is she?!" Lusamine barked.

Karen had tears in her eyes. "We really don't know!"

Ethan pointed at the girl and nodded in agreement.

"The three of you are thick as thieves: are you telling me there was no indication this was going to happen?!" Faba asked angrily.

"She was sick all week!" Ethan pointed out.

Lusamine's eyes widened. "Clever girl..."

Faba came to the same realization. Natasha wasn't sick: she was planning this the entire time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Judging by the teens' reaction, they were genuinely surprised as well. That girl had made a fool out of the whole organization.

Lusamine's eyes narrowed back to slits. "I'm assigning you two to find her, now. If you fail, don't bother coming back, we will have no need for you. Go!"

The employees jumped and ran for the door. Faba looked at Lusamine in concern. "Do you really trust them?"

"We have no choice. I need all other resources here, especially now that we are moving to extract Gladion."

Faba nearly fell over. "Madame President, we are in no state to-"

"We failed to retrieve him during the incident at the Pokémon School, all because we refused to send more reinforcements under your advice," she barked back. "I cannot have him going around and potentially intercepting other Ultra Beasts that could be in my collection. No more distractions."

Faba sighed. "Fair. The timeframe for the final project is in a few days anyway."

Lusamine's eyes widened. "So soon? Since when?!"

"I tried to tell you, but you're really fond of staring at yourself in the mirror, Madame."

"But what about the Poké-"

"It is already too late," Faba said with a smirk. "That child may be foolish to steal from us, but she was much too slow to stall my research. The mathematics check out. It is nearly time."

----

Hello, everyone! 

I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who has continued to read up until this point. As of the time this chapter has been published, excluding author's notes, we are about to hit 50,000 reads! This means a lot to me, and it makes me happy that people are invested in this story.

This is also a heads up that in the days after this chapter, there will be some editing done, so please excuse the notifications.

Thank you,

- Royal