Chapter Eleven: Childlike Dreamer

The first thing he registered when he came to was the room.

His head felt like it was stuffed full of a Cottonee's fuzz—it pounded like a herd of Tauros were ravaging his brain, and it hurt. He could only be thankful for the fact that he wasn't delirious yet, but that gratitude could only improve his bad mood so much.

Panic flooded his mind for a moment as he took in his surroundings; he wasn't in a bad room, by any means, but that made him all the more anxious. The place had a style that was distinctly anything but Kalos.

Avis' first thought was to bolt for the door. It was, after all, the most logical choice, and there would be a chance that the frame was unlocked.

When the door clicked loudly, however, and the distinct sound of someone's footsteps sounded behind the wooden panel, he decided against it. If he wasn't alone, there wasn't any reason why the person behind the door wouldn't try to stop him.

He tensed when a hand pushed open the entrance, eyes narrowing as he realised that the captain was coming in and fingers freezing when he realised that the sword that had hung by his side the previous day was missing.

"I thought you would have woken up," the man commented, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "But the drugs did do their work after all. I was able to get you back here."

Avis tensed at his calm tone. "Where is this place? What did you do?"

"You're the complete opposite of your brother," his captain bit back, but the both of them knew that it wasn't quite true. "This is the main Hoenn base in Kalos. Don't worry, you're not going to be seriously harmed."

The Hoenn base...? It took him a few seconds for him to make the connection, and he started to suspect that his sluggish mind was a result of whatever Takeo had slipped into his drink. "So you were the one who killed them?"

"I'm sorry that this happened, alright?" There was a certain frustrated tint to his even tone. "You even tried to defend me—I appreciate everything you did, even if it was on your brother's behalf."

"No, I actually decided to trust you," the boy hissed back, but his head was still pounding far too much for him to do anything. "You were my brother's captain. Why did you do it?"

Takeo settled himself onto a chair next to the bed, letting a nonplussed expression skim over his face for the shortest fraction of a second before deciding to answer. "There's always a reason when someone does something that seems unreasonable," he sighed. "It was orders from higher-ups in Hoenn."

His eyes widened at that, and it felt as if the cotton wool hanging over his consciousness was starting to degrade. "Are you trying to say that—"

The panic that his heart had so carefully controlled came flooding back all at once, like a thousand pounds of bricks crashing down on him and muffling out his surroundings so that the only thing he could hear in his ears was the sound of his own heartbeat.

"I was never part of Kalos' military." His gaze hardened at that, mimicking the usual cold gaze of a Hoenn soldier. "I've been working undercover for a few years now. It was two days ago when I received the order to take out Kalos' main unit."

The man assumed that it was a sign to continue when Avis remained silent. "You haven't seen me kill much, right?" he probed. "It must be a shock to you. I apologise for that."

"Why am I here, then?" Avis muttered. "I know that I'm going to be dead soon, but you could have just let me go."

"You'd be killed or taken hostage if Hoenn found out that the best soldier in the unit was still alive," he countered. "I'm doing you a favour by sparing you. Do you want to spend the last few moments of your life in pain?"

Avis flinched at the accusation, trying to find some way to respond, but all that came to his mind was a mess of anxious words. "That isn't the real reason why you're keeping me here, isn't it? If you're on Hoenn's side, it wouldn't matter to you either way."

"That's also true," Takeo answered. "You know, for your age, you're pretty perceptive. In a different way than Aiden."

As much as he wanted to bite back that he'd had plenty of chances to learn to read people from the shadows, there wasn't any point in telling his former captain that. He wasn't going to admit anything to an enemy.

"On my second year, I got promoted to captain and assigned my first trainee," the man recounted. "That was your brother. Of course, I'm still loyal to my home region, but there's a difference between that and killing the brat you trained for two years."

Avis wasn't sure of the soldier's point until he finished his speech. "You do a terrible job acting as him, you know. It makes me sick to watch you."

"I don't care," he replied, but the nauseous feeling rising in his stomach told him otherwise—because Arceus damn it, he cared too much for his own good and he'd tried far too many times to copy his brother's every action.

"Your face doesn't say it," Takeo shot back. "Which is why you're here. Until you learn to act like your brother, you're not going to leave this room."

He blinked at that, at far too slow a rate to be normal, and he felt cold skin when he curled his fingers into a fist, the pain of the nails digging into his palm doing little to distract him from the man's words. "Excuse me?"

"You're not hard of hearing." The man's voice had become icy all of a sudden. "Listen, one here cares about you. Your right to living has been given up until the time you die. All people see when they see you is your brother."

That made him stifle a wince. He was striking at Avis' sensitive spots; the both of them knew that, but Takeo was doing it on purpose and it made him sick.

"That's not true," the boy argued back, thinking of Yan and Lillian and Fabio, but the words had done their damage.

As much as he tried to deny it, he hated every bit of what his former captain was saying. He knew that his greatest fear was being left alone, and that some irrational part of his mind told him that Yan didn't care about him anymore and that Lillian never cared about anything other than her plan and that Fabio was using him just like he toyed with everyone else—

"I don't get it," Takeo growled, and his voice was low in anger. "You're even more stubborn than Aiden is, and that's a feat in itself. If you want to be noticed by someone in your life, why don't you suck up the fact that you're never going to be loved as yourself?"

"I've gone without my parents acknowledging my existence for most of my life." A scowl etched itself onto his face. "What makes you think that you're any different?"

A sigh of relief threatened to escape his parched lips when he felt his two Pokeballs hanging on his belt—they had been covered by his cloak the entire time.

"I have things to do, so leave me alone," Avis snarled, pressing the button on the sphere and watching as his brother's Klefki emerged from the compact device. "Quit it with your strange obsession over my brother and let me go."

"You think you can win a fight against a captain just because you're using Aiden's Pokemon?" A Heracross appeared at his master's side as the man released his own creature. "The look in your eyes tells me that you've never fought in a proper battle before."

That much was true. He'd never seen the need to participate in a fight; he'd always accepted Pokemon battles as part of their culture, but working regular hours and not having any Pokemon except his mischievous Doublade stopped him from learning.

"Iron Head," he blurted out, too inexperienced to know any of the Pokemon's other moves, and Takeo took that chance to react.

"Close Combat." His voice was calm as he commanded the monster forward, watching as the Heracross caught onto the small Kalos creature with ease before slamming it into the ground. "Your Heliolisk wouldn't stand a chance too, by the way."

Avis narrowed his eyes at that, recalling a fallen Klefki to its home, and as a last resort, he slid his legs over the side of the bed, hoping that Takeo would be too distracted to stop him if he ran.

His hope was crushed as soon as the older man turned to stop him.

A fist grabbed on to the fabric of his brother's cloak, causing him to let out a halting gasp, and the captain rammed him into the wall with far more force than necessary.

It was all he could to to let his initial hiss of pain quiet to a trickled whisper through his lips as he felt something in his shoulder crack—knowing the man's strength, it was probably bone—but whatever it was, the agony let him stay still for long enough for Takeo to do his work.

"Did you really think that you could get past me?" The man glared at him with anger in his brown eyes. "I could do much worse than break your arm."

He let out a grunt in protest when he felt a cold pair of handcuffs being slipped around his wrists. There wasn't much he could do; another fleeting wave of pain was sent down his arm as he tried to struggle, paralysing him until the cuffs were locked around his hands and chained to the bed.

"If you comply with what I do, I won't have to hurt you further." His voice was gentle all of a sudden. "I'll have to make a report to the general now, so you'll stay here until I get back."

His tone made it clear that it was an order.

§

He wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep, but the shift in surroundings was disorienting.

Though his mind had cleared, Avis still had trouble piecing together his environment—he was back in his house, and it was morning, as if everything was normal and it was just another uneventful day where he would go to work and while his time away.

The only question on his mind was burning away at him; which one was the dream and which was reality?

His question was answered as his brother walked through the door of their bedroom, slipping off the cloak that his job mandated and setting his sword on the ground next to his bed.

It was all eerily unsettling—and it was then that he knew that he was dreaming, because his brother was dead and it was impossible for him to come back until April was over. And by then, he would be the one to die.

"Hey." The greeting felt foreign in his mouth; he didn't know when the last time he had bothered to acknowledge Aiden, but even if he was in a dream, he didn't want to regret not saying something good to his brother in his life.

He couldn't stifle a blink when Aiden stood up, passing him without a single glance, and the absentminded expression on the teenager's face showed that he hadn't even noticed him.

That was strange. Though he knew that he was in some kind of dream that bore an uncanny resemblance to his life, his brother had never walked past him like that before—if anything, he was the one who tried to avoid him most times.

Avis stood up from his bed, feeling his feet tense against the ground, and he approached the front door with an apprehension that he shouldn't have been experiencing.

His mother strode past him from the corner of his eye, but he ignored her and tried to focus his gaze in front of him. She was a stranger to him, and he'd thought of her so few times that his subconscious couldn't piece together any concrete image in his mind.

Holding back a panicked huff for air, he slipped outside, keeping his eyes on the ground for a moment and waiting for his composure to return.

The first place he headed to was Yan's herb shop—after all, if time was reset in his dream, then he had to assume that everything in his friend's house was back to normal. That she was alright and not dragged along into whatever crazy mess Lillian had made.

"I'm ready for work." The sentence slipped out of his mouth without him realising it, but it was a dream and he could blame it on that. "Is there anything I need to do?"

There was a strained moment of silence between them; she looked at him for a few long seconds, and he did his best not to stumble back in surprise when she replied. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I know who you are. You must have gotten the wrong person."

"Ah." He lowered his gaze, mouthing a quick apology and backing out of the store. "I think I did."

§

Avis woke up then, with the weight of the cuffs firm around his wrists, and he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not.

He drank the cold air greedily, desperate for whatever short relief it would bring him. The biting wind did little to sooth his mind, but it was cold and stung at his head and he was fine with that. It felt better than thinking of the images in his mind.

It was then that he knew what he'd been so scared of—

—he didn't want to be forgotten after all.

§

late update sorry

i might be taking a one week hiatus. there's not going to be another update this week and i won't be very active on wattpad because of exams and other personal reasons

i'm pretty sure i got bitten by an aedes mosquito while writing so if i get dengue or zika i'm going to blame this ahaha

Thank you guys so much for 4.2K reads and 685 votes!! :0 You have no idea how much this means to me <3

As always, votes, comments and critiques are very appreciated °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

~ nyxia/miya