Lost in their Past

Chapter 24:- Mariposa and Barrie

"Stairs?"

She nodded.

Dawn was doing the same, stripping until a blue light-weighted swim suit revealed itself. "Catch!" She threw a funny looking device, "come on let's go!"

They took a deep breath and dived inside the tank just like they had done for several weeks. At the start the dim light inside had been a major downside but as time progressed it had become easier.

But holding ones breath for two whole minutes was still nearly impossible. They had no choice, it was the only option.

Dawn quickly found the burrow and was about to take out the shunt when her chisel dropped, sliding to the bottom of the tank.

A look of horror dawned on her as she rushed to get her hands on the chisel before they drowned. While Dawn was busy chasing after the metal, Serena was busy trying to open the shunt with her bare hands.

She kicked the shunt, chipping her nails in order to do so but it wouldn't bulge. It didn't take her long to figure out she was drowning. Her face was cold and so were her hands, she was circling the drain.

Serena had imagined this moment a hundred times ago back in the academy, the monstrous training and the isolation was enough to madden a sane person. But she had survived through it all, the worst was behind her. They had told her that drowning would be the least of her worries, that if she was going to die it would be from stabbing, shooting or from being tortured to dead.

But here she was, drowning in a water reservoir.

Just when her eyes were about to close, a mere pat on the back shook her alive. Dawn had returned with the chisel.

Serena was too weak to smile but still she did, she smiled.

"I thought I was going to die!" Dawn took deep breaths in between coughing water as soon as they stepped into the shunt, "I'm alive!"

Serena was too busy hurling the water to be grateful to be alive.  She laid flat on the muddy ground, staring at the ceiling of the cave they were in.

It had taken them quite some time and sleepless nights to figure out the location of unown. The chamber had sent a country wide wave, there had been fewer answers than they had accepted and this was one of them.

The Unown  was in the factory, beneath it, and the only way they could access it was through the water reservoirs. The engineers had sealed of the cave unaware of what lay behind, it was Dawn and Serena who were going to discover it. Today.

"Here," Dawn passed Serena the reactor, "come on, let's start."

They had been mapping the cave since the day they'd found it, it had been weeks and they'd had no reading. Dawn desperately wanted a reading not because she wanted a ticket out but because she wanted to find one before her Arch Nemesis Gary did.

Only God knew what happened between them in the Academy.

"I... I think I'm getting a reading!" Dawn squeaked, "look it's faint but it's here!"

A groan escaped Serena's lips, "It's the giant furnace in the factory."

"It's not! Here! See the amplitude!"

She ought to have looked but this wasn't the first time Dawn had pulled this stunt, but Serena looked either way because if she didn't, she would never hear the end of it.

"It's the furnace!" She peeked a look.

"But look at the amplitude!"

"Exactly! Look at the amplitude! There is no way an unown can do this, professor told us all didn't he?"

Professor Hale had spent greater part of day teaching about Unown, their nature and their function.

"They play with your mind," he had repeated, "they play with your mind."

That was the last time she saw him, jumbling his papers and instruments. After that he had left with Delia on their own mission and shortly after that Serena and Dawn had left too.

And so had Ash.

It had taken her sometime to get over what had happened in Kalos, but every now and then her mind still slipped back into what could've been.

If only Ash wasn't such a moron and she wasn't so weak. They could've been happy, healthy and back in Kalos. She would be still doing her shows and Ash would still be defeating or accepting defeat from other masters.

They'd have a home to get back to, maybe even a child. She'd have told him she was pregnant by gifting him a T-shirt that read worlds best dad. If it was a girl she probably would've named her Arene, the combination of their names and would've hyphenated the surname.

Serena stopped dead in her tracts.

"What's wrong?" Asked Dawn.

"I—I'm thinking about baby names for my child with Ash."

Dawn tried to be supporting but couldn't help but judge. "Oh... are you... expecting?"

Serena sighed, "I'm thinking about baby names."

"It's... nice to... imagine."

"No," she forced, "I'm thinking about baby names."

It didn't take Dawn long enough to figure out what was going on. "It's here!" She said, "it means the wave... it wasn't the furnace!"

Serena sighed, again. "It was the furnace. My... thoughts were... are triggered when I stood there."

"Nothing but furnace," Dawn said, "I checked the walls and even the ceiling."

Serena looked down and then back at her.

"The floor!" Dawn shrieked, "how could I have missed it!"

As soon as they brought the receive closer to the floor, a satisfactory wave showed up. Dawn was pumped up from happiness screaming 'eat that Garrison'.

Serena was happy too, but afraid of what lay ahead.

"We have to inform the headquarters," she said, "tell the strike team we evacuate at mid night."