Chapter 02: Unsafe Safe

Question: How many Roselia in a row can you battle before going insane? Answer: Apparently 6.

Luckily for Delaney, Annette had decided the best use of her day was to hang out and play with Oshawott. Delaney needed a day to process things, a day to keep her mind active... Mindless tasks to keep her distracted. Sound familiar?

Oh, and for the record? None of those Roselia lasted longer than fifteen minutes in battle with Blitzkrieg. Even as just a time-consumer, it failed.

Due to his teasing attitude and reckless streak, Blitzkrieg terrified the vast majority of the young maids at the Caldwell house, so Delaney had to recall him before she wandered back into the house. Annette was undoubtably still in Delaney's room with her Oshawott, so Delaney figured that was the place to go once she got inside. She jogged up to the front and opened the door, heading straight for the stairs that led to her bedroom.

“Are you going to tell me about this new Pokemon now?”

Delaney hadn't noticed her father in the foyer, but there he stood, now out of his navy suit and into a pair of khaki shorts, white short sleeved shirt and a tan sweater around his shoulders. Though it was hot out, Blake was often cold and kept a sweater on him “just in case”. He stared up at his daughter, who was staring back at him wondering when the hell he got home and how he got to the front without Delaney so much as noticing (probably in the midst of one of her millions of Roselia battles). “We can talk about it over dinner,” she said with a shrug as she began heading back up to her room.

“Wake and I grabbed a bite to eat after our meeting, so I'm not very hungry. We'll talk now,” he stated sternly in his “Mr. Backlot Businessman” voice. He only used it on Delaney when he was of the utmost seriousness, and apparently, that was now.

Sighing a bit to herself, Delaney went back down the stairs, knowing there was no way to avoid this conversation. “In the library, Del,” he said, and began to walk down the west hallway. Of course, the library was where he held the most detrimental conversations, so this was bound to be a doozy. She followed after him and entered the spacious room a couple of paces after her father. It was her least favorite room in the house. Whereas most libraries felt comfortable, like a place to waste the day in a fantasy world in front of a crackling fire, Blake's was more like a second office, a better office than his own official office. His original office at least had traces of him in it, with Pokemon books scattered around and rare, interesting artifacts on display. This had none of those little inserts, just rows upon rows of books Delaney was certain nobody had ever touched. It seemed almost pretentious, which was odd to her because her father most certainly wasn't.

Or at least, her father wasn't. “Mr. Backlot Businessman” was a bit full of himself (though she would never tell him that at the risk of hurting his feelings).

Delaney took a seat in one of the plushy crushed velvet armchairs, hardly feeling worthy to sit on it, much less make herself comfortable and relaxed. She sat up as straight as a pin (like a proper lady, mind you) and tossed her hair behind her shoulder, because it was her father's biggest peeve to not be able to see her eyes when he was speaking to her. She looked him directly in the eye (hoping it wasn't a move she would regret) and simply said, “Ask away”.

“Tell me about the Pokemon I saw you with earlier.” She had said ask away. This wasn't a question. It was a demand. Despite the fact that they were usually on pretty equal footing, as they had been for years, Blake occasionally liked to remind the sixteen year old who was boss.

“It's called an Oshawott. It's a water Pokemon.” At least, she was pretty sure Oshawott was a water Pokemon, but not all Pokemon were so obvious. But even worse than that, Delaney knew her father wanted more information than that, and information was something she just did not have. If Dax was there with his PokeDex, he might have been able to pick up something, but Delaney hadn't been chosen for that honor by Professor Rowan. Apparently taking down Team Galactic and saving the space-time continuum didn't even make her worthy of carrying around a small machine, in the great professor's eyes.

Damn that grouchy old man.

Blake took his daughter's silence to mean that she was searching for things to tell him (which, to some extent, was true). “And it's from Unova.” Another statement, not question.

“Yes.” What more could she say? She didn't know from what part of Unova it came from, if it was rare, how much training it had been through (though he looked very young, so she was guessing not much).

“Who gave you this Pokemon, assuming you didn't make a morning trip out there to catch one?” Blake asked, leaning forward across the desk.

“A friend,” she nearly whispered. If you could really call him that.

“Dax?” he asked, though he already knew the answer to that question. Delaney knew he knew. If it had been Dax, she would have just said Dax from the very beginning.

Why didn't she just say Dax from the very beginning? Damn.

“No, just another friend that I met traveling,” she muttered, lying through her very teeth. She resisted the urge to pull on the tips of her hair as she often did when she was nervous. He would know she was lying if he saw her do that. It had been her go-to habit since childhood.

“Not a Gym Leader, certainly?”

“No, Daddy. Just another random trainer that I battled one day that I became friends with.”

He was anything but 'just another random trainer'.

Blake, however, knew damn well that Delaney wasn't the type to befriend random strangers on the road. She felt uncomfortable around new people, and it took her too long to open up to people. The only close friend she had was Dax. “You do know who sent it, Delaney?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly. “I know exactly who sent it.”

Blake paused. Delaney could tell as his steely eyes locked with her violet ones that he was decided whether or not this was a battle he wanted to pursue. Yes, there was something she wasn't telling him, but it couldn't be as bad as he thought.

Actually, it kind of was, but he didn't need to know that.

But Blake went in a completely different direction than she expected. “It's not from Lydia, is it? Trying to get you back there?”

The nerves quickly melted off Delaney's faced, replaced with utter repulsion. “Oh Arceus no, Daddy. You know I haven't talked with her in years, not since before I left to challenge Roark.”

Oh Lydia. Hardly a mother.

Not to say she hadn't tried, of course, but her effort was too little, too late. When a thirteen year-old Delaney had begun to receive letters from Unova, she hadn't cared one bit. A page and a half after seeing her once was hardly worth the effort to read and Delaney was too busy preparing to start her Pokemon journey to even try to make an effort to write back. Lydia had written three more letters that year, and then they stopped as sudden as they had started. Truth be told, the letters had hardly crossed her mind until now.

“I just thought I'd check,” Blake said, looking down and letting his steely approach die down. “One of these days she'll realize that she should've stuck around.”

Realization hit the blonde girl like a pick-up truck. “Is that what this whole thing has been about? You trying to figure out if Lydia has been contacting me?”

“Partially,” he sheepishly admitted. “And partially just because I worry. You've had a lot to deal with over the last few months, kiddo.”

“You don't need to worry about me,” Delaney insisted. She didn't add that if one more person said that they were worried, she would likely punch them in the face, considering it was her dad, but seriously. If one more person said that they were worried or concerned, she would likely punch them in the face.

Blake stood up and walked to the doorway, and Delaney followed suit. “Maybe you should go out traveling again. Try your hand at the Battle Frontier, like Dax,” he suggested.

Delaney shrugged and walked out into the hallway. Surprisingly, none of the maids were hanging around, pretending to dust while they tried to listen in to the conversation happening behind closed doors. “I don't think so. Traveling has just gotten boring. I need a break from it,” she stated, surprising even herself. After telling herself that she was needing to recover for six months and distract herself, she realized there was more truth than her words to her father than she had wanted to realize. Yes, she had needed time to recover. She probably should have taken that time right out of the incident at the Spear Pillar, but she had let herself be pushed into finishing up the gym challenge and battling the Elite 4. The first couple of months spent back home were necessary to rest up after all the stress that had plagued her for months.But after that? She could've (and according to Dax, should've) gotten back on the road.

Truth be told, she just didn't want to.

Blake only looked mildly surprised at the statement. “Well I know that if you felt like it, you could probably challenge the gyms again. Wake was just stating today that he's been training hard so that he can ask you for a rematch.”

“I'm sure he has,” Delaney said with a forced smile, but in honesty? The idea of training and pressuring her Pokemon extra hard for rematches made her skin crawl.

At the end of the hallway, Blake made a sharp right, bypassing the stairs in favor of the door that led to the elaborate back garden. “I'm going into my trophy garden,” he said with a gleeful little grin. It was slightly adorable how obsessed her father was with going and playing with the baby Pokemon in the back. “Call me if you need to, Delly.”

By that point, Delaney was halfway up the stairs, relieved that the conversation was over. “Will do, Daddy!” she called back down, and then ran down the hallway to her room.

She cautiously opened the door... Only to find an incredibly adorable little otter Pokemon rolling around her pink rug with a Pokemon treat in his hand. Annette sat on the floor, cross-legged and wearing a pair of cutoff jean shorts and a white off-the-shoulder shirt. It was clear she was off-duty, which made it all the nicer that she had stayed to entertain Delaney's Pokemon (though it looked like it was Oshawott who was entertaining the young golden-haired girl). “Looks like you two are having fun,” Delaney said with a chuckle. The Oshawott stopped rolling around and looked up at Delaney with big, black eyes, blinking as if he was confused as to who she was.

“Oh, he's darling!” Annette squealed eagerly, clapping her hands. “He's been so much fun to spend the day with! It was like I was hardly working!”

She had been hardly working, but Delaney felt no need to point that out. She was just grateful that somebody had taken the Oshawott off of her hands for the day so it didn't remind her of...

Ugh.

Annette hopped off the floor and grabbed her purse that was laying next to where she had been sitting. “I hope you don't mind, Miss Delaney, but I need to leave.”

“Not at all!” Delaney said, smiling. “Thank you for helping me out today.”

“It was my pleasure,” Annette said, beaming. “Maybe tomorrow I can help you out again!”

“I would appreciate that,” Delaney said, kicking her shoes off by her bedroom door. “Have a good evening, Annette.”

“You as well, Miss Delaney!” she said with a bright, cheerful smile and with that, she opened Delaney's bedroom door and began to walk out. The Oshawott ran as fast as it's flipper-like feet would allow after her. Delaney scooped him up and placed him on her bed.

“You'll see her tomorrow,” Delaney irately told the Oshawott, puzzled at his behavior. He hadn't shown one bit of affection towards her, yet he was chasing after Annette.

He probably thinks Annette is his trainer.

Delaney nearly facepalmed herself at the obviousness. Annette had spent the whole day playing with him and showering him with affection, while Delaney spent her afternoon running, swimming and battling countless Roselia with the help of Blitzkrieg. It made perfect sense why he wanted to leave with Annette.

That didn't mean that it didn't still sting Delaney a bit though. “I guess I used up some of my avoidance on you, too,” Delaney said softly to him. “I'm sorry, little guy. The circumstances you came with aren't your fault.” She lightly scratched him behind one of his navy ears. “I promise I'll be better tomorrow.”

“Wott!” he exclaimed cheerfully, as if excitedly accepting her promise. Delaney smiled a little bit, and continued absentmindedly stroking his head.

“I bet it sure is different for you here. Alex said you came from a lab... No offense, but that sounds kind of boring. At least here there are lots of Pokemon to play with. Tomorrow you can meet Blitzkrieg, and Marvel, and Bellby...” Something is not right. Something that she had just told Oshawott was off.

Well, two things, if you wanted to be technical. The first was that Marvel, her brave, kind-hearted Togekiss, was no longer around for Oshawott to meet, thanks to Cyrus. The second was the realization of the fact that she had just spoken Alex's name out loud for the first time in six months.

Both made her rather sad.

Oshawott closed it's eyes, laying it's head into her hand, totally blissful. Delaney continued to alternate between softly stroking his head and scratching him behind his left ear. “If only you had been here back when I was traveling, Oshawott...” she said, thinking out loud a bit. “You would've liked me a lot better then. You would've had more fun too. Back when I liked to battle, I used to challenge everyone I saw. Now you're just going to kind of sit around here like I do. Hopefully you like to run... But I think you'd have a hard time with that with those short little legs of your's. Maybe we can go swimming together. There's a pool at the back corner of the backyard. It's fenced off so that trainers visiting Daddy's garden can't go in it.”

She had no idea why she was babbling so much. Maybe she just liked the idea of being able to talk to somebody again. She hadn't been able to ramble so much since...

Oh Arceus, Delaney, just say it. You already said it once.

Fine. ALEX.

Dax liked talking himself far too much for Delaney to sit there and jabber at him. Instead, he expected her to listen. Alex wasn't much of a talker though, and he always said Delaney's life was so much more interesting than his. He liked to hear her stories. He didn't mind when she told him about the silly things her Pokemon did, like the time Blitzkrieg had sparred with a small Starly until its angry mama Staraptor flew over and gave the (then) Monferno a piece of his own medicine, or when Marvel had been a Togepi who had been a little too fond of the fires he accidentally started using Metronome. He told her that she reminded him of a time when things had been far less complicated and far more fun.

Thinking about these talks made Delaney rather sad. They reminded her of a time when things had been far less complicated and far more fun.

She herself was starting to fall asleep as she sat there with her Oshawott. “You know, I feel like I need to give you some ridiculously cool name,” she told him. He opened one eye slightly and then closed it, as if to tell her to leave it until the morning. She sighed. “Okay, I get it. I think. It's been a long day. Maybe it's time for bed.”

Oshawott seemed to happily agree with her. She threw off the white shorts and purple t-shirt she had been wearing since getting out off the pool and pulled on her trusty pair of pink cotton pajama pants, with one of millions of random white camisoles she had lying around. She picked up Oshawott to get him out of her way and crawled into bed under the covers. She put him down on top of the blanket and attempted to make herself comfortable.

To Delaney, there was a magic moment that came each night, the moment where one is just between sleep and dream and the world is all peaceful...

“Delaney!”

At first, she thought the yell was part of a dream, and she was rather pleased that she was dreaming about something besides a certain incident that had happened two hundred and two days prior. After she heard it again, though, it became all too real that somebody- no, not somebody- her father was about to wake her up and disturb her magic moment.

She shut her eyes tightly and mentally told him to wait until the morning. Blake, though, wouldn't listen to his daughter's unspoken reason and barged in without even knocking on the door- something he had never once done before in all of Delaney's life. He flipped on the lights, to the dismay of both his daughter and the tired Oshawott laying to the right of her. “Delaney Christa Caldwell, I know you're awake, or at least somewhat awake. Sit up.”

Delaney begrudgingly followed instructions, but that didn't mean that her pillows weren't directly behind her, supporting her elbows as she leaned back as far as she could without her head actually hitting the pillow. “Can't this wait until morning?” she asked sleepily.

“If it could, it would have,” came Blake's quick reply. “I think you need to get out of here.”

Delaney sat straight up. “Excuse me?”

“There have been reports on every channel, from Pokemon Watcher to the late-night news. There's been an incident at the prison on Canalave.”

No.

“Cyrus is gone, and so are fifty or so Galactic grunts. They managed to capture the commander before she got away.” Mars. Cassy. Cassy is her name. Alex and Reina had managed to avoid capture.

You need to leave Sinnoh immediately.

Alex knew about this. She knew he had to. He wanted her to get out before Team Galactic gained back their power, whatever power they had gained, at any rate. The Oshawott was an incentive to get her to Unova.

The time will come when you won't be able to.

Blake must have thought her crazy, not responding to a word he said, staring blankly ahead of her as she processed the letter in her head. “Delaney, you get what this means, don't you? They'll come back to power. Nobody demolished their headquarters, or their Eterna building. They don't care about privacy. They'll go right back as if nothing happened.”

Sinnoh would be back to the days of having your Pokemon stolen as you walked down your street, or Galactic recruiters trying to convince you to follow the almighty Cyrus. Delaney remembered too vividly a day when a couple of punkass grunts had stolen the PokeDex of Rowan's assistant, Lucas. Actually, she remembered a lot too vividly.

The three legendary Pokemon- Mespirit, Azelf and Uxie. Imprisoned and tortured.

She had seen things that she could never unsee, as much as she wanted to (though the Spear Pillar was mostly a giant blank to her).

Blake sat on the edge of her bed, concern turning into annoyance, lines popping up on his forehead where there had not been lines before. “Don't you understand? You're their number one target. They're going to want to make sure you don't get in their way again. Cyrus has a score to settle with you.”

Finally, something caught her attention. “I'm even stronger than the last time I battled them, Dad. I can take them on again.”

“I know you can, Delaney,” he began, pacing his words as if that was the only chance he had of keeping calm. “But you won't do such a thing. I won't allow you to put yourself in that position again.” This, once again, was a statement. Just as he had earlier in the library, he was exerting his dominance and reminding her that she was the child and he was the parent.

“What are you talking about?!” she cried. “Who else do you think will do this? I'm the only one that can beat them.”

“The authorities can handle this. Trained professionals who have made it their job to bring down criminals. Not a sixteen year old girl who is clearly still traumatized from all that happened before. You need to leave Sinnoh immediately before they regroup and take over like nothing ever happened.”

“Just like the authorities dealt with it before, right?” she said snarkily, losing her cool. “They didn't do a damn thing. They left me to do it. They only had to clean up the damage done after it was all over.” It was a sore subject for her, even to this day. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to regain her calm. Her father was doing the same apparently, trying to keep from yelling back at her. He always had been the calm one in the family anyways. “Leave Sinnoh,” she said disbelievingly, more to herself than anybody else. Her father obviously hadn't been the first to suggest it (not that he was suggesting anyways- he was demanding), but the idea sounded just as crazy coming from him as it had coming from Alex. Delaney had lived in the same house all her life. She had never left Sinnoh, not even on vacation. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Unova sounded so far off, almost like the lands of fairy tales. She couldn't just pick up her life and move there. “Where would I go?”

A look of pain crossed Blake's face, one that Delaney knew only came up when it came to one subject. He opened his mouth to speak, but Delaney beat him to the punch. She knew exactly what he was going to say, and the idea was so preposterous, so absolutely ridiculous, that she couldn't let the words be spoken aloud. “No,” she stated. A statement, not a question. “Don't even think about it. Not gonna happen. No how, no way. No no no.”

“Delaney, don't act like a child,” Blake snapped, finally losing patience with her. “This isn't a question, it's a statement. You're going.”

“I will not go,” Delaney argued, blatantly disregarding her father for the first time in her life. “Anywhere but there.”

“They won't find you there,” Blake insisted. “If they cross over to another region, it's likely that Hoenn will be the first targeted. They have a lot of underwater caverns that can be utilized, like back in the days of Team Magma and Team Aqua. You remember hearing about that on the news, right? Mass chaos for months.”

“Then send me to Johto or Kanto. Don't send me to Unova!” she pleaded, despite the fact that Alex was there... If he even was there. What if he had just told her to escape to the first place that popped in his head that wasn't Sinnoh? What if he was actually laying on an island beach in Kanto (if Delaney remembered correctly, they had a rather famous island chain that was said to house a legendary bird) or working at a harbor in Johto? What if he was part of a Hoenn takeover? Then she'd just be simply stuck in Unova. With her.

“You're not going to change my mind, Delly,” Blake said sadly as he got up off the edge of her bed. “I don't want you to go either, but as much as I'd rather keep you here, I'd much more rather get you out of this mess before you're knee-deep in it. One of the maids will help you get ready tomorrow.”

“Annette,” she said automatically. “I want Annette to help me. Oshawott likes her.”

“Whatever you want, Delly. Good night. We'll talk more in the morning.” Blake kissed her on her forehead and then slowly walked out of the room, turning off the light as he left.

If she had been younger, Delaney might have screamed that what she wanted was to not go to Unova. She might have thrown a fit and turned blue from yelling. She might have argued just a little bit more. But Delaney knew that this was one thing (and probably the only thing) that she couldn't argue her way out of. Blake had made up his mind.

To Unova she would go.