Love in the Time of Turbulence

Chapter 15: A Change

That moment you realize everyone has been talking about going on vacations...and then you notice you haven't been on one since you were 10...16 years ago...On another note, glad to see that I surprised everyone last chapter. But now is not the time for that chapter! Time for Chapter 15!

Chapter 15

A Change

His mouth was open, but no sound could come out. His eyes were staring, but he couldn't believe just what he was seeing. His ears were listening, but what was being said made no sense. None. Not a single speck at all.

But it was true.

Merle had never been real. She had never been a human. Every single interaction he'd had with who he thought was Dalton's daughter...it all seemed like a lie now. Ash swallowed, his head going light for a second. It was too much to take in. Way too much to process...even if it made some things make sense. Like how she could fight Greninja to a near draw, or smash cases open with a punch.

Or how Dalton never called her his daughter. Not once.

Ash turned his head, looking to Seamus, wondering how he was taking this sudden revelation that had floored him. The blond was standing there, stock still, his arms shaking and his lower lip quivering. His mouth was parted in an expression of shock as he stared at the Zoroark. For its part...or maybe it was still a her...this whole thing had just turned Ash's brain upside down. Either way, Zoroark, now that it had dropped its illusion, looked healthier. It was easily possible that most of its energies had gone to maintaining its form no matter what, but now that it wasn't needed, it was perfectly fine. It explained why it had been so feral earlier.

"I'm sorry, Seamus..." Dalton was speaking, and finally Ash could hear something more than the wind and the brimming energy. Seamus still wasn't saying anything, his eyes bulging as it looked like he had been winded by this particular reveal. "I know how close you and Merry were."

"She's...she's..." Seamus gasped out, and he appeared to clutch his chest, looking very much like he wanted to vomit right then and there. Ash couldn't blame him. "She's dead?"

"Yes," was Dalton's simple reply. "I didn't want to tell you, quite honestly. I wanted to spare you that kind of pain."

"You...you thought it would spare me pain?" Seamus said. Ash looked down a little, noticing that his fist was clenching.

"Merle was dear to you." Seamus looked to be buckling under devastation, or possibly grief, but Dalton seemed to pay no heed to that. Or maybe he did, and just felt the need to explain himself. "I needed her for the role she needed to play, though."

"Did Travis...Did he know?"

"No one knew except for us two," Dalton concluded. That itself was a brick to the chest. He hadn't just kept it from Seamus but from everyone on his own team. "Maybe I didn't want to admit it to them, or maybe it was because the truth would seem so self-serving. I'm not sure, but it worked to our advantage. In the end, though, I caused you the kind of pain I didn't wish to cause."

"How long?" Seamus finally asked, his voice deeper and darker than it had been before. "How long were you deceiving everyone, and why?"

"Why? That's easy. Information leaks can be everywhere...like a certain Sinnoh Elite Four member that we purposely targeted," Dalton explained. Ash watched now as light briefly wrapped around Zoroark and it turned into the form of Aaron of the Sinnoh Elite Four before turning back once again. "As for how long...shortly after the incident at Monsu Island...Zoroark must have felt my grief with me. No surprise considering how much she loved Merry as her own mother...she transformed into her, even when she was a Zorua, to keep me company. It all just escalated from there."