After

Mating season had been long over by that point, but she still got breathless as her mind flashed back to that moment, right after she had pulled the trigger. She had dropped the gun to the floor, not in shock or surprise, but as if the gun had simply grown to heavy with the loss of a bullet, and Ash…he had been to her in a flash, turning her and sitting her on the table, lips roaming over hers until she was laying flat and the baby inside her was being disturbed in a way it never would have imagined it could be. It certainly wasn’t the insanity of heat, but better, more satisfying, though while they were pulling their pants on they realized just how strange it was that Giovanni had been staring with his dead eyes wide open the whole time.

“Close his eyes or something,” Misty insisted, snapping her bra back on. “It’s just plain creepy. Ugh, look at that! His mouth is open and everything! That’s disgusting!”

“Oh, and I’m the guy to do it. No way! You’re the ruthless killer here! You go…what’s it matter now? We’re done and everything, so it’s not like there’s a point to it. Just…just ignore him and put your clothes on. Kenny’s still trapped in the basement.” Ash eyed the corpse wearily, the creepiness of the situation finally settling in as the adrenaline went away. It wasn’t every day you went from having tea with your enemy to your girlfriend coming in and shooting that highly hospitable enemy right between the eyes and then, to top it all off and make it just a great day, had some awesome sex.

She stopped, shirt in hand. “Do you think I should shoot him again? You know, for good measure? I mean, he kind of looks…shocked.”

“He looked shocked when you shot him.”

“You know, Butch had the decency to die with his eyes closed. I didn’t see Cassidy, but I bet she would have had the common decency to shut her eyes too. You don’t die with your eyes open…or your mouth open. That’s just, like…that’s wrong.”

“Maybe you should have given him more warning, so he could have closed his eyes and mouth and everything. He probably would have done it too. He was really nice. There wasn’t poison in the food and Kenny has a great room. I mean, when you’re that crazy it’s really rare to be polite. I almost regret you killing him.” Ash glanced as his mouse. “Hey, Pikachu, would you mind closing his eyes for us? Misty already killed him and I don’t want to touch him.”

(It’s an honor to be buried with your eyes closed. Why would you given him that? When he’s buried I hope a rock scratches his eye and it stings all the way into the next world.)

“The key’s around his neck,” Misty suggested helpfully. “Couldn’t you accidentally close them while you’re going to get the key?”

The glare told her that, no, she couldn’t. Still, she rushed off to get the key nevertheless. Giovanni’s body was still warm, but already stiffening with rigor mortis, and she didn’t like having to nose around the nasty smelling thing to find the dangling key. It was a chain too, and she gave a few pokémon swears. She couldn’t gnaw through, but had to use some of her mousey skill to maneuver it over his head. After three failed tries, Misty made a move to help, but Pikachu bared her teeth. On the fifth try, she got it free and proudly dropped it into Ash’s hand.

(Wasn’t so hard.)

Ash made a face. “Ugh, the key’s all warm. What was he doing with it?”

(Kenny.)

“Huh?”

(Kenny, Ash. There’s a boy imprisoned downstairs, a boy that you’re very close friends with. You might want to save him instead of obsessing over the dead guy.)

“Oh, right.” He laughed, closing his fingers around the key and petting his faithful rat’s head. “Thanks, buddy. We need to get a move on, don’t we? Rescuing Kenny…letting Team Rocket find the body and all that. Mew, I’m back on the body. I hope he wasn’t a father or anything. Imagine what the kids would say, if they found out that their father was dead. Oh…Mew, Misty. How many people have you killed?”

“Three. I can count them all on one hand! We know plenty of people who have killed way more than that! This is war, Ash, casualties are necessary. And, to be fair, all the people I killed were assholes and it was all done in self defense except for Giovanni but that was for the greater good. So, technically, I haven’t really killed anyone. There was just death that I caused that led to a better outcome.”

He snorted, and she finished tugging on her shirt. One more longing look at Giovanni, and she couldn’t contain herself. She scrambled to his side and pushed his mouth closed with one hand, doing his eyes with the others. She put him flat on his back, crossed his arms over his chest, and walked away quietly, ignoring Pikachu’s furious chatter and Ash’s questioning glance. She didn’t say anything, because she wasn’t quite sure what she could say without sounding completely crazy. Pikachu probably wouldn’t understand, and the news would only worry Ash.

Despite what he had done, he was still the closest thing she had once had with a father figure. Some part of her still loved him, strange as it was to think it, and it was because of him that all this had happened. If Giovanni hadn’t brought her in, she wouldn’t be who she was. She wouldn’t have her pokémon or her skills, and she had no idea whether or not she would have ended up with Ash if all this hadn’t happened. She certainly wouldn’t have the child in her stomach that she did right now. A different month, a different year, different egg and sperm. Giving him a good final resting pose was the least she could do, she imagined.

The tension that had come and gone and come again, with tea and death and sex and eyes closing, vanished once more with the light laughs and the blissful feeling that it was all over. Misty had her closure with Giovanni, and Ash felt that he’d never had enough face time to even start anything. He was just satisfied that Team Rocket was done for now, without its central leader it would certainly collapse. What’s more, he hadn’t even been the one to pull and the trigger, and he hadn’t even thrown up when he saw the body! Well, perhaps a little bit, but only in his mouth and he considered that quite the accomplishment.

Kenny didn’t seem to share the lighthearted feelings, not when they ran (or, at the very least, sauntered with purpose) downstairs to rescue him. At the news that Giovanni was dead, that Misty had killed him, the shock seemed to wash over him that a very powerful waterfall, the peaceful, quiet life he had been living was suddenly a prison cell, and his rights had been taken away. The man he had grown attached to suddenly seemed like a clear cut case of Stockholm Syndrome, with the dictator being the only person he could grow close to for nearly a year.

“Dead?” he blurted, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “He can’t be dead! He’s Giovanni! He must have had guards and guns and…and pokémon to protect him! He’s been the head of Team Rocket since…since it was founded! You don’t just walk into that man’s office and kill him! He was a great man! You don’t just kill great men like that!”

Misty shrugged. “Tough as it is to hear, you do. He was a great man when he set it up, but once he got the control he went insane. Some people just don’t know what to do with themselves once they have power. They don’t know what to do with it. All they can think about is how, if they had more power, they could do something with it. In the end, it never matters how much power he had because he would never figure out what to do with it.”

“What do you mean? He did plenty!”

“He didn’t do a thing. Every single thing he did was only to get more power. He didn’t plan on how to keep it or what he was going to do with it. All he thought about was how to get more power. He didn’t think how he was supposed to improve anyone’s lives and he didn’t think how he was supposed to make them worse. He just thought about how he could control more people and thought about how many people were already under his control that he could use, and that’s where his problem was. He forgot to keep a hold on his people. I don’t know if you’ve noticed down here, but Team Rocket’s fallen to fuck.”

“Now, I wouldn’t say it’s that bad,” Ash drawled.

“Butch tried to rape me, okay? It was definitely that bad, Ash. That tops the charts of wrong in so many categories.” She looked back at Kenny. “The man was insane, and you’re starting to go crazy down here too. You don’t know if it’s night or day, you don’t see any people, and worst of all you can’t even spot another crazy person when you see one. Giovanni was a great conqueror, but a terrible leader. You’d be surprised how common his type is in history. He’s history anyway. Dead and gone.”

It was at this point Kenny did the incredibly tough, macho thing – fainted.

Misty, as mature as she was, exclaimed rather mockingly: “He fainted! He fainted because he heard about someone dying, and this is the guy of Dawn’s dreams? I couldn’t handle that. No way. I mean, I can hardly stand it now! Don’t you just want to bash him over the head with something? Just a really good smack to the back of his head, to really give him something to faint over. It’s not like he even saw the body!”

“Misty.”

She gave her beau a sly grin. “But, then again, I ended up with a guy who throws up all the time. Your big accomplishment is only throwing up in your mouth a little bit. Wow, throw that information around with the ladies and I won’t be able to hold onto you. But still, you Rebellion men. Throwing up…it’s more manly but way more gross than fainting. With the options she had to choose from, I guess Kenny’s the better deal. Still not a good deal, but if it wasn’t for the sex and our illegitimate bastard child I don’t think I’d be with you.”

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his head against hers. “That’s alright. You wouldn’t last a night with anyone else.”

“Are you implying something about what I do with you at night?” she asked, straightening her back so she stood as tall as she could.

“Yes. I am. No one else would be able to put up with your snoring.”

“Snoring? I don’t snore!”

“Like a foghorn.”

(Well, I guess I’m the only one who bothered noticing, but there’s a fainted boy on the floor. I think there may be something we’re supposed to do about that. Do you want me to settle your argument? It’s simple. Misty snores, but Ash drowns her out. Could you please move on to something more important? This isn’t over, you know.)

“But that’s the beauty of it all. It is over, Pikachu. I mean, the big fight. It’s over. All that’s left are the aftershocks. We have all the time in the world to get out of here.” Misty beamed, turning in Ash’s arms. “I think we have a little time for playing.”

(No. No we don’t. If you try to have disgusting human intercourse I’m zapping you both. Because it’s disgusting.)

So, mostly to tease Pikachu who was getting extremely impatient, the two had a quick play fight, which no one won but both enjoyed. Neither enjoyed the vicious Volt Tackle they each got from the irritated Jasmine, though it did bring attention to Misty’s burns. Her front side was hardly sore though very red, all except her hands. Those still seemed to sizzle, a were best left wide open, dangling in the air so they wouldn’t touch anything that might send another jolt of pain through her palms.

“You’re not going to be able to carry him up like this. There’s absolutely no way you can do it, not without you in pain or doing more damage. We don’t want them to get any worse. Moltres, what if they rip open? I wish you had told me sooner or noticed while we were” –he cleared his throat- “play fighting. I don’t have anything for this, but we probably could have done a bit more investigating on the way down and there probably would have been something to heal your burns.”

She tugged her hands back. “I’m not touching that crap. My hands will fall off. I can bring him up just fine. I’ve been getting around just fine, killed Giovanni just fine, I’m sure I can tug an unconscious wimp up the stairs. Besides, you’ve got your weird little super strength, can’t you take him up the stairs by yourself.”

“Well, I could, it’s just…however I carry him up it’s going to look…”

He paused, so she pressed him with a firm, “What?”

“Well, it’s going to look really…I know it’s wrong to think but it’s going to look kinda gay and I just don’t want to walk in front of all the kids who used to be my peers with some guy in my arms or on my back, and you’ll look way too casual about it and we’ll be laughing and it’ll just look stupid.”

She sighed. “The key phrase being in front of all our peers. Crap, Ash, you couldn’t get down here without an escort. They probably won’t let us walk out. Walking in was risky enough. I don’t know about you, but I’m not all too keen about killing hundreds of kids with my bare hands, my bare burnt hands, and I’m not going through the vents with my hands the way they are. That, and I don’t want to go past that furnace again. You’ve got a brain in that dumb little head of yours. Use it.”

He grinned. “You really want me to use it?”

“What are you thinking?” she inquired, cocking her head to the side and leaning forward slightly.

And, despite Misty’s grossed out face and mild protests, yet another favor was called in from the trio of Rockets. A bit of sneaking, and Jessie, James, and Meowth were helping the couple drag Kenny around the main floor and out the door, mostly without being spotted and without any major consequences. There were a few inquisitive looks (apparently, even the pill taking was starting to fade) and a brief argument with the trio, bargaining about payment (mostly about how it wasn’t deserving of a pikachu prize)). And then, at the front entrance, they proudly met with May and Drew, who were engaging in the typical teenage act of texting to one another even though they were barely a foot apart.

“You’re right next to each other!”

“But I don’t have anything to say to her.”

“Then why are you texting?”

“Because it’s too quiet if we don’t,” he retorted. “Anyway, it’s good you have Kenny. We’ve called in for a bigger car so we can throw him in the back. Brock’s bringing some stuff to wrap up Misty’s hand. Uh, what else? What else? Oh, May got about thirty texts that she’s going to charge you for because everyone wants to know about the baby and they don’t have your number to contact you. Supposedly, this guy knows you and thinks that you had potential.”

“That’d be Earl,” Ash agreed.

May made a face, looking as if Ash had just acknowledged that he liked to swim in sewage pipes. “Him, Ash? I know you were playing a part, but I figured you’d be able to choose your friends better than that. He looks like a bouncer, drinks like a pig, and now he’s all…ew. He’s just plain disgusting and-ohmemew, I’m an idiot. How’d it all go? What happened? Did I need to call someone? Or text? I can text, that’s what this…this…ohmemew, what’s it called again? Uh…”

“Wait, what have you been doing?” Drew said, turning to her. “You said you texted everyone with all the information five minutes ago. Before we got into the texting argument. Don’t’ you remember? You said ‘on it’ and then you typed for an hour and then you started texting me again.”

“Oh, that. Yeah. I did that. I thought we were updating everyone on the baby.” May giggled and ran forward, putting her hands on Misty’s abdomen. “Wow! I can’t believe you’re pregnant! I could never handle it. I swear, five minutes in and my brain would just explode. I’d break down crying. I mean, I’d like to have a baby one day but I could never handle it now, and I could definitely never do it out of wedlock. My parents would murder me for that. Plus, it’s probably going to be an Eggborn and that’s just-”

Misty snatched up her wrists and pushed them away. “Do not touch my stomach. Ash, do not tell me that people are going to come over and touch my stomach like they’re going to feel a freaking baby inside an egg inside my uterus.”

“Misty, I’m telling you that people are going to come over and touch my stomach like they’re going to feel a fucking baby inside your uterus.”

“Now would be a good time to be protective and beat people off with a stick, father to my illegitimate bastard child.”

“Gio…Giovanni can’t be dead.”

Ash beamed, bouncing a bit. “Oh, look! He woke up. What a convenient subject change.”

A couple hours later and everyone -- including Kenny -- were safely in their homes. Dawn had gone with him, claiming that there was no way he could safely be alone, though they suspected she was mostly worried and mostly interested in giving him a good old fashioned check up without the doctor’s degree. May and Drew, although their true homes lingered somewhere around Hoenn, went back to their apartments. Misty and Ash went to the small country cottage, but the Sensational Sisters weren’t far behind, and Daisy pulled her sister aside.

“Misty,” she said quietly. “I know this is suddenly, especially after everything you’ve gone through in the past couple of days. I understand if you don’t…damn. I don’t know how to say this without you just rejecting it. It’s just…you’ve been gone for such a long time. I don’t know you. I don’t know if you know us. I just…we just really want to get to know you, and there’s only one way I can think to do that, but I don’t know if you’d like it or if you’d want to do it or…or even if you’d be able to do it with the way you are with Ash and everything.”

She sighed, giving a half hearted smile. Her hands wrestled with one another in her lap, gripping the bandaged palms, pulling at her fingers while she tried to work up the courage to say it. “I…I know what you want. You want me to move in with you, don’t you? Move away from Ash and Pallet and have the baby in Cerulean. That’s what you’re asking.”

“I know it’s not an easy choice to make.”

“Obviously,” she snapped, her throat tight.

“And, I can’t lie to you. The biggest reason we want you there is because we want you. We really, really do. I want to get to know my little sister. It’s not because you’ll be better off there or because it’s nicer there or anything. It’s because we’re selfish and we really, really want to know who you are. But, we also know that there’s better doctors in Cerulean, closer doctors. There are doctors that actually specialize in Eggborns. They can help you with the pregnancy and the birth. You may not need one, and you know that they’ll be researching you like nobody’s business, but it’d probably be safer.”

Misty released a shaky breath. “Ash is going to want me to go. When he hears about the doctors he’d going to want me to go.”

“We don’t have to tell him.”

“I couldn’t do that.” She closed her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to get to know you…but being apart from Ash would be hard. Even when I was separated from him, there usually weren’t people around. It’s going to be…it’s going to be weird, trying to get to know someone that isn’t Ash. I mean, Gary was hard enough and he’s still kinda…you know. Not to mention that you guys and me…we’re nothing alike. I can hang out with you but I don’t know how I’m supposed to…damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to go to Cerulean. Damn. I’ve got to, don’t I? I have to see my hometown and I have to get to know my family and I have to do what’s best for the baby.” She squeezed her hands tightly. “I’m not allowed to be selfish and I can’t stay here just because I want to. I have to go with you. Dammit. I don’t want to. Why did you have to ask? This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t fucking ask me.”

They went back and talked to the rest of them later that night. Delia was fine with it, nodding along with everything. Though Ash seemed to be shocked and a little stung, he was just as eager as his mother to send her away. The sisters were ecstatic, and Misty couldn’t deny there was a little exhilaration twisting in her stomach. She wanted to go to Cerulean, she guessed, she just wished Ash could come with her, that she didn’t have to do this alone. The baby couldn’t talk to her, and it honestly wasn’t that great of company, even if Ash did seem to love it already.

“I don’t know how to take care of a pregnant woman anyway,” he laughed, rubbing her still flat stomach as they sat on the couch. “Daisy knows, at least. She helped your mom with the twins and you, and they have really good doctors there. If I was pregnant, I’d definitely see them. Hey, maybe they’re even hot doctors. You can hang out with a hot gynecologist. Won’t that be fun? You won’t even need me there. You’ve got hot guys, a baby and your sisters.”

“You know it’s not the same. I won’t die without you. It’s just…you know. I want you there. I want to battle with you.”

“Well, I hear the gym has a pool, so you can stay fit and you can keep your pokémon okay. I can visit you too, whenever you need me. The drive isn’t that long. I can grab a psychic type from Oak’s lab if it’s an emergency. See, so, I’ll be there whenever you really need me. When I visit, I’m sure we can have a good fight. It’ll…It’ll be fine. It’ll almost be like I never left, like we’re still together. It’ll be really fun.”

She leaned on his shoulder with a sigh. “Can’t you come with me?”

“I need to clean up after Team Rocket. You’re lucky. They won’t let you fight with that stupid baby in your stomach. Me, I have to go off to stupid war and do a bunch of stupid thing and have to be a stupid witness. At least you don’t get off the hook completely.”

“What do you mean?”

He laughed. “You know there’s going to be police and paperwork for you too, right?”

“Arceus damned…” and she sighed again.

Ash came out at least three times a week, more when he could, and treated her a little more gently and a little more sweetly than was necessary, but she appreciated the effort. She really did. She was fond of spending time with her sisters, and actually was growing fonder of them. Different as they were, as much she could hate them at times, she did feel like she was learning to love them and that they did have the occasional close moment. She liked drinking hot chocolate and coffee with them, watching a chick flick. She liked scheming up ways for Daisy to get Tracey to notice her, roundabout ways she was sure wouldn’t amount to anything.

But she loved Ash’s visits most of all. Her sisters knew what she needed, but Ash knew what she wanted. He raced against her in the pool, play fought with her and gave her kisses and hugs when she asked for it. He did her another great favor: he brought her books, magazines, once or twice even managing to sneak her a laptop so she could keep up with all the news. The doctors weren’t too fond of it, wanting as little stress as possible to be put on her in case she could have a live born baby. She didn’t care at that point. She just wanted to find out if everything was going alright. She didn’t care much if it was an Eggborn, either.

“It’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “There’s not a chance that this baby is going to be born live, even if they drugged me up so I was permanently delirious. I keep telling them and telling them but they won’t believe me. They say all it’s about is stress, but they were all dealing with regular women. They weren’t dealing with an Eggborn. Stupid doctors don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, you know that? It’s so stupid. I hate them. Ash, can’t you go beat them up for me?”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“I’m bedridden. Can’t you tell I’m bedridden? I can hardly handle the excitement of everything that’s going on out there.” She paused, biting her lip. “Ash, I really do have a problem just sitting there. I know you’re…you’re out there, running around and getting into all this crap and I can’t stand it. I just want to be out there with you and…and you’re sure you don’t need me?” she insisted, pointing out a magazine article. Troops were storming a town not too far from Saffron City, and plenty of civilians were being killed despite their best efforts to fight. “We studied this area in class, you know. I know it really well. I could help you figure out a strategy. I could probably fight too. Maybe I can even learn some moves, like thunderbolt or flamethrower. I wouldn’t even have to be on the battlefield.”

“You know it’s too dangerous.”

“I’m not made of glass, Ketchum. I can still kick your ass just fine. I did so without a problem this morning. I’m only four months along, and they say it’s developing at a normal rate. So it’s going to be five more months before this thing comes out of me anyway. And, hey, if it comes out in an egg maybe I can ditch it for a while and it can do whatever it is eggs do before they hatch. I can be out there fighting with you.”

“In an egg,” he repeated. “You know, we have no idea the stress this is putting on your body. We don’t know if you end up doing anything more than the daily swim or walking to the bathroom you’ll completely crash. We can’t take the chance, and we need to keep that baby safe. Besides, it’s going to be violent enough without the war. Imagine how bad it’ll if it’s exposed to all that while still in the womb. You don’t really want to take that chance, do you?”

She crossed her arms. “If it’ll get me out of this bed I’d drop the stupid thing right now and run out to the battlefield. How am I supposed to sit here when all this crap is going on outside? You know how much I worry about you. You know that you’re useless without me with you! You barely managed all those years before you met me, and you know that you never would have made it through that undercover mission if it wasn’t for me. You’d have died in a minute.”

“You’re going to stay here and stay rested and worried about me like a housewife from the fifties.”

“And why am I going to do something as stupid as that?”

“Because the baby needs you to do this for it, alright?” He folded up the newspaper and set it to the side, opting instead to pick up her hands in his. “You know if I could switch places I would. I’d rather be the one to stay at home eating bonbons all day with you running around kicking all the ass you feel like but that’s not the way it worked out. Unfortunately, I don’t have a uterus to put the baby in.”

“I know a place where you could shove the egg.”

“It wouldn’t fit.”

“Oh yes it would. I’d make it fit.” She pounced on him, pinning him to the bed and wrapping her arms tight around his chest. “You’d be way better for it too. You’re more motherly than I am, and I like fighting more. You’ll get distracted, thinking about me, and then someone will shoot you and, as strong as you are it doesn’t do crap against bullets. You may be better at attacking but you have the same defense as everyone else. You can’t do this anymore, Ash. Just let me at whoever’s making you do this. I’ll snap their neck and you can come live with me. They don’t need you, Ash, you just make the battle shorter, is all. Please don’t go.”

“I have to go, Misty. You know I have to-”

She cut him off, burying her head in his chest. “Ash, I know how bad this is hurting you. You can’t do this, Ash. It’ll ruin you. You’ve always been thin skinned. It doesn’t matter if you’re an Eggborn or not you know that war is wrong. You know. You’d feel the same way if it were pokémon doing this. They’ve got this stupid idea of what an Eggborn is supposed to be in their stupid heads and they can’t even look at you and realize that you’re not made for war. You’re just not.

“Mew, Ash, please don’t go.”

It was phenomenal, what people could do once propaganda collapsed upon itself. Giovanni had once been immortal, a man that would live through the centuries, guiding and grooming the human race until they were more than they ever could have been. He was permanently the twenty five year old man they had seen him as when he first appeared, when that first signal jammed the radios and TVs and phones. It was that smiling young man they saw in their mind’s eye, when they heard of Giovanni. Then appeared the pictures snapped with camera phones of the body, the breaking news, the online videos and text entries. The immortal man had died.

And he hadn’t died in a horrifying way. The impressive man had died from a gun. There were no wooden stakes or silver bullets. He hadn’t been burnt to death, shredded to death, ripped to pieces by some fanciful beast. He had died at a bullet, like their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, cousins, uncles and aunts had during the old wars and during the little riots that scattered throughout the region. It wasn’t something that was unfortunate and necessary, anymore, done by a god doing his best. They were murders, atrocities, done by an aging mortal man.

More and more riots broke out, protesting the Rocket rule with whatever they had. Poles, sticks, hand guns that were carefully hidden in drawers and under mattresses were beaten into Rocket scalps, and blood was running through the streets faster than Misty could run, and thicker than Ash was on an off day. There was rarely a place that could be found without a mysterious, screaming baby in the background, without moaning men and women laying on the hot asphalt, without doctors rushing about to see who was dead, who needed to be taken back to the hospital, and who needed a mercy murder.

Ash was getting sick of daily being sent place to place to break it up, him fighting alongside pokémon instead of the masters behind, giving commands. Not that thought it wasn’t necessary, these sorts of things always were. They had gotten mixed up in it. This was their cause. They had to help their cause, didn’t they? But he didn’t like that his murder count had quickly passed Misty’s, doubled, tripled hers in no time flat. He supposed it was more like he didn’t mind aiming the gun, but wished he didn’t have to be the one to pull the trigger.

He didn’t want to have to look at those people fall. He didn’t like having their faces haunt his dreams. He didn’t like thinking of those screaming babies and mothers and fathers while he snapped a man’s neck or crushed a woman’s skull against a brick wall. He didn’t like the looks the children gave him as he walked off the battlefield. The same look they gave the guns. They knew he wasn’t there to harm them, but they couldn’t help being frightened. If they were frightened of him, even with their parents thanking him and giving him whatever trinkets they had on hand, what would his own child think?

It was his troubled thoughts that had him wandering down his hall, out his house, down the road. He twisted the handle and pushed the door, breaking both locks rather quietly. A couple of clicks on the keypad, and he had turned the quietly beeping alarm off. Just another resident of the house, coming home, turning the alarm back on and going to find…who was he going to find? There were only two people in the house, and he couldn’t be close to either of them. There couldn’t be anyone he was looking for tonight, could there?

“Gary?” he called. His own voice surprised him, but it sounded right. It felt right. That’s who he could talk to. He wasn’t Misty, but he would do. He could probably help, better than her. He had connections, didn’t he? He knew about people and war and death and pain and all of it, didn’t he? If anyone could fix his problems, talk him through it, it was Gary. Gary was always rational enough to figure out what to do.

That was why there was a knock on the brunette’s door in the middle of the night, late one night, to be more accurate. A glance at the clock told him it was morning, to be more accurate still. But, it was Ash, and rivals as they were, Gary couldn’t exactly turn him away. So he went to the door and let Ash in, the two sitting on the bed in silence for quite some time. Considering he had come so late, Gary thought, he sure didn’t have an awful lot to say. He was about to ask him to leave, about to kick him out.

When the words came tumbling out. “Gary, I can’t do this anymore. I…I can’t keep fighting like this. I’m constantly sick. I don’t know if Oak told you, but I have to sleep with an IV. I’m getting dehydrated because of all the…and my throat and my teeth hurt all the time because I’m constantly…I can’t sleep. I can’t keep anything down. Mom and Misty keep saying that I’m pulling away, that we’re not close anymore and all this is…I need to fight, Gary, I know that, but I can’t do this anymore. If this keeps up, I think I’m going to…I think I’m going to have to get a gun and put it through my brain because I can’t…”

“A lot of starting and stopping,” Gary said when he had finished, “but the message got through.”

“What am I going to do?”

“Getting the hell out of the war, I’d say. You’re obviously not cut out for it. That’s the reason most of us didn’t want you in the Rebellion in the first place. The majority of us aren’t cut out for war anyway. They’re not in the war and you shouldn’t have to be. It doesn’t make any sense. You shouldn’t be there. I don’t know who put you on the list. Probably some idiot politician who got elected through lying to the public and fixing the votes. Mew, that’s crap. Ash, get to Cerulean in the morning. You’re going to land yourself in the hospital if you keep this shit up.”

“You think you can just pull me out? Like that? I’m the only Eggborn they have. I’m a human weapon. You can’t switch me out anymore than you could take a tank. You’re not that good, Gary. You’re just a researcher.”

“Well, I don’t just research pokémon, Ash.” Gary smacked the back of his head. “Don’t underestimate me or anyone else in this mixes up house. Blackmailing a mayor or two isn’t the hardest thing to pull off, alright? The guy that’s starting to take over government wise has had more affairs than an asshole in a chick flick. His wife’s a bimbo, but I don’t think she’d be too fond if someone spelled it out for her. I’ll call up your mom and tell her it’s time to get you out. Can you drive yourself to Cerulean or you need me to get someone for you?”

“I can do it myself. I’m not that bad. I can drive, damn it.”

“Fantastic. Just try not to throw up while you’re going.”

The next morning, Ash’s name was crossed out from its top spot on the list, promising that a soldier near death is no good in war and should never be returned to it. Misty was seven months pregnant, and he retired to her side. Both were a little bit happier, and the baby continued to do just fine. The baby was almost better than fine, in fact, the growth rate seeming to pick up with the husband around. The doctors worried that it’d be born a month early, or be too big when it finally came, but Ash couldn’t seem to grasp why a big baby would be a problem, and Misty was on some sort of strange, endorphin high.

“It’s weird,” she murmured, her hands dancing above her. “I know I’m supposed to get moody, but the closer to the date it gets the more…relaxed I feel. ‘Specially since you got here. It’s like all my troubles faded away. I don’t worry about the war or about what’s going to happen to this little parasite inside me that’s sucking me dry. I’m just really happy and you’re here and the baby’s fine and we’re going to be great parents. Well, unless you keep throwing up as much as you do. Would you mind stopping that? It’s really annoying.”

“I can try, but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“You’re still having nightmares,” she accused. Her hands fell to her sides, as she was getting dizzy and the world was beginning to sway. She never liked this part, a twenty minute dizzy spell that happened about four minutes a day. The doctors, while monitoring her, claimed that the egg seemed to be turning inside her, during those dizzy spells. She said that it was interesting, and wondered if they could give her medication. They said they weren’t exactly sure how to treat it, and she had proclaimed that they were absolutely useless then, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted useless doctors, and she certainly didn’t want to pay them.

“Dizzy?”

“You’re still having nightmares,” she said, making her hands dance above her again. She decided that this was much more fun anyway, much more exciting to watch them move when she wasn’t quite sure what they were doing. “We should probably have you see someone about that, Ash. I want you to go see someone about all those nightmares. I think there are people who specialize in those traumatized by war. They might charge extra though. They shouldn’t charge…you’re still having nightmares. You never answered me whether it was yes or no. Tell me I’m right, that you’re still having nightmares.”

“Not every night,” he argued, rubbing her shoulder. “Maybe once a week, and the therapist says that I’m making a remarkable recovery. He thinks I might not ever get over it, but I might be normal by the end of the year. That’s insanely fast, he says. It’s probably from…it’s probably from being an Eggborn. We even heal those scars quick. What’s going to happen when we have the baby. Are you worried about the baby, that it might come out as something…evil?”

“Terrified.” She nodded once. “I’m absolutely terrified. Evil baby. You have a psychiatrist? I forgot. Damn. I usually don’t forget. Have I been forgetting a lot lately? I can’t remember. All I can think about is you and the baby. And you’re going to take care of me, you’ll take good care of me until I have the baby, right? I don’t need to worry about anything. You’ll keep me safe. You’ll be my soul mate forever. You’ll be my penguin, won’t you? Penguins mate for life, you know. They really do. I’d say you should be my angler fish, but then you’d just be a sperm producing organ on my side. That’s no fun. You can’t protect me then.”

“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?”

“I know what it is.” She giggled. “I don’t want to tell you what it is. It’s a secret, Ash. You’ll find out what the baby is soon. When we have it! It’s coming out soon. I hope it’ll be a good baby. If it’s a bad baby, we’ll have to kill it, and I wouldn’t want to kill it. Wouldn’t that be depressing, if we’d have to kill our first born baby? That’d really bum me out. If nothing else, we could always put it up for adoption and then some family will have a terrible surprise when they find out they adopted an evil baby. If it is evil, should we try again or should we just adopt a nice baby? We’d have to make sure it wasn’t an evil baby, like ours might be. Are you really scared it’s going to be evil?”

“Terrified.”

“Good answer.” Her hands froze above her. “Ash, I’m getting really hungry. Could you go get me something to eat?”

“You just ate. You’re not really hungry again, are you?”

“No. But I don’t really have anything to say. Nothing exciting has happened. Everything’s so boring. Well, except the war, but I’m not allowed to be in the war because I have a baby inside me. I have an evil baby inside me and you’re not allowed to know if it’s a boy or a girl. Does it annoy you, that you’re not allowed to know whether it’s a boy or a girl? It’d annoy me, but a lot of things annoy me. Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant with an evil baby. Maybe it’s…it’s Giovanni’s baby. Maybe I had an affair and never told you. What would you do if I was having Giovanni’s baby?”

“I’d faint.”

“Like Kenny!” she shouted, and collapsed into helpless giggles. She rolled onto her swollen front, burying her head in her pillow and doing her best to quiet them. “You’d be just like Kenny! Fainting! That’s just silly. I don’t want you to stop throwing up and then start fainting like Kenny. Oh! Oh! That reminds me, Ash. You never tell me anymore. Are you still having nightmares? I bet you are. Tell me I’m right.”

“Not every night.”

Her sisters came in later, to ask if Misty was doing any better. Was she still acting strangely? Acting drunk or high? Was her memory loss still that bad? Did she still get dizzy? He told them yes, and it seemed to be getting worse. He said it was his fault, and if he wasn’t there, she would be back to her old self. That’s what the experts said. With him there to protect her, the body was relaxing itself, shutting down whatever it could to give all the energy to the baby inside her stomach. Oh, there was no doubt that that baby was much stronger than her, than either of them. There was no chance it would be normal.

They wanted to study it, and, at this point, Ash wasn’t sure whether or not to say no. He didn’t know if he wanted something that was doing this to her, that was messing with her head so badly, but what was he supposed to do? Kill it the second it came out? Demand the doctors rip it out of her? He couldn’t stand just leaving her, selfish as it was. It was two months, he told himself. He could stand this for two months. The doctors said that it would probably stop after the birth, and all the chemical balances would settle back to normal. He hoped it was true. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if it wasn’t. He didn’t have Misty anymore. Whatever was in that room…it wasn’t Misty. That much was for sure.

At exactly three in the morning, Misty was all alone in her room. She calmly stood up, and began to walk around the room. The happy feelings were completely gone now, replaced with simple need and knowledge of what she had to do. At the moment, she had to move. She had to stretch so she wouldn’t cramp, because she couldn’t stand cramping with everything else she was about to go through. Birth hurt, last time she checked. She didn’t want to make it even worse. So she bent and stretched her legs and her back and her arms and everything she knew how to stretch, and then she settled back on the bed.

At exactly three twenty one, her water broke. She remembered thinking it was rather odd for her water to break, as she was about to have an egg, not a baby, but shrugged it off. Things didn’t make much sense at this point. She definitely didn’t want to have a team of researchers watching her every move. Made her feel like she was being hunted at an extremely vulnerable time. She couldn’t fight while she was giving birth, she bet. At least, she didn’t think she’d manage to do it well.

The birth took until exactly four fifty four, when she gave a final push and the egg finally plopped onto her sheets. Definitely big enough to fit a human baby, she was sure. But what was she supposed to do now? She was sure she wasn’t supposed to crack it, and as much as she had the urge to do so, she really didn’t want to eat anything that had just come out of her, no matter how nourishing every nature special she had ever heard assured her it would be.

It got a little stranger, because she was sure there was an umbilical cord. She switched on the light, picking up the thing and snapping through it with her teeth. It led to the egg, into the egg, and she had never seen anything like that on a nature channel. She didn’t like that. That seemed like something from another planet, something that was going to jump out and eat her for all of the nutritious nutrients she would supply.

She quietly picked up the phone and called her lover, who was currently in a very important meeting regarding who was going to come into power.

“Misty, sweetie, now is not the time to tell me how many fingers you have. It’s still ten, Misty, I promise you it’s still ten.”

“I had the egg.”

“What?”

“It came with an umbilical cord attached.”

“What?”

“It’s freaky as hell. I know. I just thought I’d let you know that I gave birth to our demon spawn and it’s in an egg and I really don’t think I’m supposed to break it open. I don’t know what you want to do about it. I’m guessing we just raise it until we know for sure it’s evil, then we can drown it in holy water. I think that’ll work out nicely. I mean, you know people who can get hold of holy water, don’t you? I’m sure Gary does, if you don’t.”

“What?”

“You’re the father of a freak of nature demon spawn. Congratulations!”

“I’m a dad!” Ash shouted to the room. The mayors of all major cities glared back at him, obviously not too concerned, but the few friends he had there cheered and whistled and clapped for him, and that was all he paid attention to. “So, Misty, are you going to sit on the egg or…?”

“Yes, Ash. I’m going to sit on the egg after carrying it inside me for eight months. No, Ash, I think it’s still warm from my uterus. I’m not going to sit on it, I’m going to call the doctors so we can put it in an incubator and wait for it to hatch.”

“So you’re back to normal than.”

“Screw the incubator, I swear I’m going to shove the egg up your ass. I’m not joking. Do you know how much everything hurts? I think I tore parts of me, Ash. I think I tore my vagina. Do you know that happens about eighty percent of the time? I ripped something I never imagined could rip. I would have rather thrown up that baby. They can stitch up my mouth. Can they…I don’t care if they can. I don’t want them putting needled down there. I’m tired and I’m angry and I haven’t gone for a swim in forever.”

“You can’t ditch the egg to go for a swim.”

“I promise to come back for it. I don’t have post partum depression. I’ll come back for it. I’ll set it on the edge of the pool while I swim. I won’t, you know, let it die.”

“You can’t ditch the egg to go for a swim.”

So Misty did the only thing she could do: she took the water proof egg into the pool with her for a nice long swim. It seemed fine, despite Ash’s complaints when he got home. She could hear the baby moving around inside, and when she rolled it ever so gently she couldn’t hear any water sloshing around inside. It probably wasn’t the safest thing to think, but she couldn’t help imagining that everything had gone perfect. There wasn’t anything wrong with her baby, demon spawn as it was supposed to be.

Misty loved Ash. Ash loved Misty. They were both fond of the egg, but it was hard to be parental towards something that didn’t have a face. There was no cooing baby mouth, no big baby eyes, hell, there wasn’t even a soft spot on the egg they couldn’t touch in case they killed it. There was a simple, pale egg with a red spot where the umbilical cord had been trimmed shut. The doctors wanted to break it out, the parents wanted to leave it in, and the baby seemed perfectly content in its egg. It must have had some kind of food in there, they imagined, or else it surely would have been dead by then. It had already been about a month.

In the meantime, Misty caught up on everything she had missed while delirious. Her sister had managed to get Tracey on a few dates, and they were now pretty close to going steady. Or, as Daisy liked to put it, a hop, skip and a jump away from wedding rings and cradles. The other two sisters were single, though Lily did tend to flirt with Gary and Violet did occasionally spend more time than necessary at Brock’s. Still, the girls were happy and had plenty of work in the post war drama, computers and salons and things to be done. Money was never in short supply, though time was something they could have used a little more of.

Drew and May were back in Kanto, attempting to start up a contest competition, which was catching on rather quickly. People eagerly raced to buy tickets to watch, though there weren’t that many interested in entering. Those that did still weren’t quite there, contests still more of a display of power than beauty. Rome wasn’t built in a day, they would quip, and some progress was better than no progress. They fact was that people were trying, trying hard to get back into the swing of things. Creativity was already popping up, in little bursts, because May had never imagined that a person could manage to make a ratata cute. Her new friend, Sally Walker of Saffron City had managed the task easily, and was well on her way to becoming the first champion of Kanto’s contests.

Dawn had gone back to Sinnoh with Kenny, competing in her contests again, but would fly in whenever she got a call. She was also always eager to send funds, with her father thrilled that a new region had opened up so he could promote…whatever he was selling. Dawn had confided in her friends she wasn’t quite sure what her father sold, but she imagined that he might have secretly bought up every major chain in Sinnoh. They agreed that there were a lot of Sinnoh chains popping up, but weren’t quite sure if the connection could really be made.

Gary’s research was getting published, most likely because it was based on Ash. The black haired boy was insanely cranky that he was being studied like a lab rat. Gary informed him that, if he didn’t shut up, he’d be forced to study their mating habits as well. After all, now that Misty had an egg, there was no reason for her to stay out of heat anymore, was there? While Ash was nervously preoccupied with that, Gary took blood samples and did tests and soon knew more about Eggborns and pokémon (and, he supposed, people) than his grandfather did.

Delia and Oak were married. And that’s all there was to say about that.

“Your mom married the professor? How weird.”

“Didn’t you call me here for something?”

“Sure. But I think we need to talk about this. I mean, I know they were dating and probably you knowing and other disgusting stuff, but I never would have thought they would have ended up getting hitched. How do you feel about it? I mean, does it gross you out? It probably grosses everyone else out. Did you storm their private wedding at just the right moment, giving a plethora of reasons why their disgusting union should never take place? That would be embarrassing for everyone.”

“I can leave, Misty. I have things to do.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t have anything to do, you liar.” She sighed and held up the egg. “It’s all about this. I can’t tell you why, but I’m pretty positive it’s going to hatch today. I know it’s going to hatch. I wouldn’t even give it an hour. I thought now would be a good time to choose a name. I’ll suggest a boy name and a girl name, you’ll suggest a boy name and a girl name, and we’ll take the best ones and that’s what we’ll name the kid. I know we should have done this earlier but, well, I wasn’t exactly up for it at the time.”

“You already know the gender.”

“Yes, but you don’t.”

“But you already…” He sighed this time, loud and long. “Why do you have to be such a bitch about it?”

“Because it’s funny to watch you squirm. If it’s a girl, I like the name Alison. If it’s a boy, I like the name Gary.” He laughed at his glared, and corrected, “Alright, alright. In truth, if it’s a boy I like the name David. I think they’re nice names. I mean, they don’t mean anything, I just think they sound nice. If you can think of one that actually means something, or if you want to name the baby after someone, that’s fine. I mean, it’s probably nicer to actually name the baby after someone or something, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve ever named a baby before. My name doesn’t mean anything. Obviously yours does, since it’s got to do with water and the gym and all that. I just got named Ash for the heck of it, I guess. If it’s a boy, I really would like to name him after my dad. If it’s a girl…I don’t know. I don’t want to name her something stupid, like Misty Junior. Sorry, but that’s just…ugh. We can’t even name her for anything because we don’t know what she’d be like.”

“Isn’t naming the kid Cypress putting him up to some big tasks? Not saying it’s a bad name, it’s a good name. However, you’re assuming it’s a girl and not a boy. Maybe you shouldn’t be putting so much stress on the girl’s name and focus a little more on the boy’s name.”

“Should I?” he asked, peering closely into her face.

She smiled and countered, “Should you?”

“Dammit. I can’t tell if you’re lying or not. Alright I say…if it’s a girl, we’ll name her Delia.” He paused. “If the baby has black hair, we’ll go with my names. If the baby has red hair, we’ll go with your names. That’ll work out, right? There’s a chance the baby could have red hair. My grandmother on my mom’s side had red hair, so it could happen, I bet. I mean, it probably won’t, but I think we’ve already beaten enough odds, don’t you think?”

“And if the baby ends up with brown hair?”

“Coin flip,” he decided with a wave of his hand, then froze. “Wait, do you know what color the baby’s hair is?”

“Mew, Ash, you can be such a-”

“Oh, come on, you know the gender, is it really that farfetched to think-”

“Ooh, farfetched, but you wouldn’t know that great word if it wasn’t a-”

There was a very loud, very quick cracking sound from the egg, and the argument stopped dead in its tracks. It definitely had come from the egg. That meant the egg was definitely hatching. They were about to be parents for real this time. There was going to be a button nose and baby fat and their very own soft spot on its head they weren’t allowed to touch. It’d be a bouncing baby boy, a bouncing baby girl, and Eggborn child. The first in Mew knew how long. They would have to raise it and care for it and feed it and protect it and teach it, and that suddenly wasn’t a far off dream, but a reality crashing down on their heads.

(Baby!) Pikachu chirped. (Haven’t seen one of these things hatch since Aoko!)

“Oh, Arceus,” Ash moaned nervously. “What if it comes out of there like the Tasmanian devil and tries to kill everything?”

“We’ll kill it first.”

“And what if it’s not and we actually have to take care of it?”

“Then we’ll find a way to do it.” She crawled forward, a quick peck on the lips before she settled back. “We can do this, Ash. It’s not going to be easy, but we have to try. If anyone can do this it’s us. I promise you that I won’t run away, and I know you won’t run away, and it’ll always be two against one. We’ll have our friends and family to help us. We’ll have a baby, Ash, but we can handle it. We took down Giovanni and helped each other through our worst times. We’ve done way bigger things than this, Ash, all that’s left to handle is the crappy sequel, alright? We can do this, Ash, I know we can.”

She brought the egg to her lap, gripping a chunk of shell, eager to rip it off. The baby was tumbling around in there, too coordinated, too rational to be normal, even the fact that it was in an egg aside. It needed help to get out, though. She could just as easily leave let inside, let it pass on. No one would ever know. It was an accident. They didn’t know when to let it out, when to leave it in. Even if it wasn’t, everyone would probably understand. She could just as easily say that the tightness in her throat wasn’t fear of the responsibility, but the knowledge that what was just beyond her grasp was something wicked and evil.

But she did rip it, hard and quick, declaring: “It’s going to be hard work Ash, but we’re going to get that stupid happily ever after.”

So, this took forever. Sorry. I'm also sorry because it's probably riddled with grammar errors and typos. I offer this:

Fun Facts (or “The Corpses of My Ineffectual Dreams”):

The entire story was originally going to take place in the school, Ash was on a one man mission to destroy it. That was stupid, didn’t make sense, and made Ash a Gary Stu, and we all know how he’d hate being anything like Gary.
I plotted that friggin’ rubberband since, like, chapter three, and it was so not as epic as I dreamed it would be.
Eggborns didn’t exist until chapter two.
Ash wasn’t an Eggborn until Dawn appeared.
Dawn was, originally, going to be involved much more in the story as a protest to their love, but I figured once was enough and if she kept popping up it’d be annoying.
May was going to have a bigger role, hating Misty, not because she was dating Ash but because she was a Rocket. It wouldn’t have worked as filling the story with pointless character interaction would have lengthened it pointlessly and made it boring as hell.
Aoko was going to do…something more important. I forgot what the hell it was by the time she finally hatched, and she went from “conversation topic” to “giving Misty something to be motherly towards” to “plot device and character development device”.
There was originally an AGM love triangle, to show that Ash and Misty didn’t just fall in love because that was their only option. I thought a simple conversation worked better as Eggborn was thought to be a condition/illness, I thought that Oak would stop at nothing to fix his grandson.
Misty learned to play the electric guitar with Gary, but she only knew three chords. She used this and a pair of headphones to ignore people.
Ash and Misty’s child is famel, as decided by my iPod shuffle setting. The first half (A-N) would be male, the second half was female. The song was “Pushing me Away” by Linkin Park. If you want to write a sequel using the nameless beast you’d better A) be prepared to write like this thing was a wolf in a Jack London book B) ask me. I say this because I don’t want people bugging me about a sequel. I don’t want to. I’m not the sequel writing type.
Misty’s number was my author ID number. Ash’s number was the ID of this story. This is ironic, because the story was more about Misty than Ash and I’m more like Ash than I am Misty.
Although filler could be nice, this is mostly bare action with no extra crap because I hate it when I read a book and have to turn through pages of imaginary politics.
Rereading this story, I hate it so much I want to delete it. XD
Ash and Misty’s child is Alison Delia Ketchum Yawa. She’s got brown hair and green eyes.

Thanks so, so much to everyone who read and reviewed!

Hugs and Love,
Natty