How to Train Your Pokémon

A/N: Let's just get on with Chapter 22 so that all this angst and family drama out of the way. Roll it!

Chapter 22

The Heartbreaking Truth

After a few intense minutes of banging their fists against the energy bubbles they were trapped in, the Ketchum kids found themselves back in their own living room. Dawn waved her hand over the shield bubbles, and the bubbles popped, leaving the three kids to plop onto the floor hard.

Their mother started to pace the floor, angrily muttering under her breath. "I should've known. I should've seen the signs that this will happen."

"Mom?" Mari tried to get her mother's attention.

"You lied to me, Mari!" Dawn shouted at her.

"Technically, I didn't lie." Mari admitted. "I tried to tell you before all of this happened. But, oh, it's just all so messed up."

"So everything in the ring? A trick? A lie?" Dawn demanded.

"I screwed up. I'll admit it now." Mari said. "But I did learn a lot about the Pokémon. Their strengths, their weaknesses. The twins did, too."

"It's true, Mom." Luke added in. "We even learned to see things from another angle, and use that angle in battle."

"It's really amazing if you think about it, Mom." Evan came in.

"That still doesn't explain why you three were cheating in the ring!" Dawn retorted, making her children flinch. However, Mari came in between her mother and her brothers.

"Look, Mom." She said. "Take this out on me, not the twins. Be mad at me, but please, just don't hurt Elysia."

"That Electric Pokémon?" Dawn asked, surprised that her daughter named it. "That's what you're worried about? Not about the people you put in danger?"

Mari knew that she was trying to reinforce the lie that she grew up believing in, but she knew it would be futile. "She was just protecting me!" She explained. "She's not dangerous!"

"They took hundreds of us!" Dawn shouted.

"And we took thousands of them!" Mari yelled back. "But you know that's not true!"

Dawn slightly backed away, looking shocked. "What are you talking about?" She asked, pretending to be clueless.

"Cut the act, Mom!" Luke shouted. "We know about all of it! The Pokédexes, about what we really are!"

Dawn's face went a deathly pale white as Evan reached into his satchel and pulled out the three Pokédexes that Mari found in Gary's office. "Wh-where did you get those?" She asked quietly.

"I broke into Gary's lab." Mari bluntly explained. "I had a feeling that he was hiding something." But before Dawn could start reprimanding her daughter about invading someone's privacy, Mari asked her the question that she had been wanting an answer to since she and the twins got entangled with this whole mess. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Mari, I don't-" Dawn started to say, but her daughter cut her off.

"It's true, isn't it?!" She shouted. Tears were starting to come out of her eyes. She then lowered her voice. "All of it."

Dawn looked over at her sons, and they were giving her the same look as their sister. A pleading look teetering on the edge of heartbreak. She finally let out a sigh.

"Yes." She admitted, tears now started to come out of her own eyes.

That simple word was a sharp stab to the heart for the Ketchum kids. They knew the truth, but hearing their mother admit that she had been raising them in a lie their whole lives didn't ease the pain they felt.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Luke asked.

"I was just trying to protect you three." Dawn said.

"Protect us from what?!" Evan shouted, tired of their mother beating around the bush still.

"From getting yourselves killed!" Dawn shouted back, her voice cracking as all of the heartbreak she was feeling from fifteen long years of loneliness came rushing back at her at full force. She collapsed on her knees, sobbing loudly as she buried her face in her hands.

Mari and the twins let go of their anger as they came beside their mother, trying to comfort her. "We're not mad at you, Mom." Mari said. "All we want is know why."

Dawn lightly sniffed and wiped away some tears from her eyes. Slowly, she began to recall her part of the story. "When your dad accidentally transformed me when we were about your age, I knew that he was confused and terrified at what he had done." She said. "I knew that he never intended for that to happen. He was just trying to save me. But as time went by, I learned to embrace my new abilities. Your dad was there to help me get through it all, and during that time, we got closer."

"But then what?" Mari asked her. "We know that you and Dad got together, but how did this war really start?"

"Your dad and I had just gotten engaged." Dawn softly began to explain. "But not long after that, we soon got word that someone was hunting him down. We learned that one of your dad's old enemies, Lysandre, had returned and was now looking to use your father's powers to continue his twisted plan."

Remembering the same story being told by Ash the previous night, the Ketchum kids shared a glance with each other before continuing to listen to the tale. "He had managed to capture your dad again, but I came to his rescue, along with a few others." Dawn continued. "Lysandre was at first surprised to learn that I was a Trainee as well, but then he just smiled darkly at me and knew that only a Trainee can make a normal human one themself. So he knew that your father had turned me into a Trainee.

"We managed to defeat him again, but we still couldn't bring him to justice, for he escaped again. We had sent everyone strong enough to search for him, only taking a day off to celebrate our wedding, which eased everyone right then. Then, we had you, Mari. But somehow, Lysandre got word of you a few months after you were born. He knew that you are the first pure born Trainee in millennia. He sent his goons and their Pokémon to try and capture you, but your dad and I wouldn't let that happen."

"And that resulted in Dad being captured." Mari concluded, her breath being hitched.

"Luckily, Lysandre didn't learn that I was carrying the twins, or he might've captured me as well." Dawn added.

"Which explains why you were more strict with Mari than us." Luke said, crossing his arms.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Evan asked.

"Your dad and I had planned to when you were younger, about 10 years old, so that you can learn about your abilities." Dawn answered. "But obviously, that wasn't what happened. I eventually decided that you were to be raised in the dark, not knowing who you really are and of the life I wanted to raise you in."

"But we are not little anymore, Mom." Mari said. "We don't need to be protected."

"That's what you believe." Dawn said solemnly, turning her back.

"We know it." Evan said stubbornly. "We even found the Pokémon compound when you or all of the other Trainers couldn't!"

Mari and Luke slapped their hands over the youngest Ketchum's mouth, trying to keep him quiet. But the slip up was already made, and Evan clapped his own hands over his siblings', hoping that he could take back his words.

However, much to their misfortune, their mother caught the words. "You, you found the compound?" She asked.

Luke gave his twin a bash upside the head. "Nice going, you goof." He muttered under his breath.

"No, we didn't." Mari tried to cover up the mistake, but the narrowing gaze of her mother finally let her admit the truth. "Elysia did. Only a Pokémon that came from the compound can find it."

After seeing the look in Dawn's eyes, her children knew that she had an idea. And it involved putting Elysia in danger. "No, please Mom." Mari began to plead. "You think you know what you're getting yourself into, but you don't."

Dawn started to head for the front door, but her kids were following her. "There's a lot of innocent lives at stake over there!" Luke added fearfully, knowing very well who in particular was being held there.

"You lay attack there, they could all die!" Evan exclaimed, hoping that their mother would listen, but she still continued moving.

"Mom?" Mari asked. After no response, she finally had it. All of the anger that was searing through her for her whole life came pouring out in one desperate yell. "FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST LISTEN TO ME?!"

She grabbed her mother's arm, but electricity had coiled around her hand from her fingertips and around her mother's forearm until Dawn pulled her arm back with a cry, slightly hurt from the surprise shock.

Mari felt like she couldn't breathe. She gazed down at her hand, wondering what she had just done. The twins just had their eyes widened in horror.

Dawn saw the fear building up in her daughter's eyes, and tears came to her own eyes. Once she was out of the doorway, she waved her hand over the house. "I'm truly sorry for not being honest with you three. But I already lost your father. I won't lose my children too."

Mari went to try and comfort her mother, and then use the guise to make a break for the Arena and free Elysia. But once she reached the doorway, she slammed into something. When she got back and felt around with her hand, she saw that there was a barrier around the entire house. Apparently, generating force fields was her mother's ability.

Mari and the twins banged on the barrier, trying to get their mother to listen to them, but it seemed that she couldn't hear their voices. Gary had come up to Dawn, his eyes flicking over to the kids, who were slamming their fists against Dawn's barrier. Then, he saw the Chieftess trying her best to hold back her tears.

"Get the Electric type." She said, her voice attempting to not break. "And ready the boats. It will lead us to the compound."

"NO!" The kids screamed from inside the barrier, and they continued pounding more vigorously against the energy field that looked like glowing glass, yet it was as strong as steel. Dawn still couldn't hear her children, for she had temporarily blocked all sound from coming out of the barrier.

The blunette woman then took off quickly towards the Arena, not bearing to hear the hard banging against the barrier that encircled her home and children. Now, she let out all of the tears that were threatening to spill moments before. She never wanted to do this to them, for if her husband had learned of what she had done, he will never truly forgive her for that, and neither will she.

*********************************

Minutes had past, and the Ketchum kids still couldn't make a scratch on their mother's barrier. By now, they even tried using their powers to bring it down, to no avail. Evan had hypothesized that their mom can manipulate the shield to whatever she needs them to contain. All in all, it meant that the barrier was specialized for them and their powers.

Mari fired another blast of lightning at the barrier, but like the past 15 times she had done it, there was not even a crack in the field. The twins could tell that she was just trying not to cry, for her breathing was getting heavier and more exasperated. Finally, after they heard a loud horn coming from the docks, Mari ceased her attacks and ran up to her bedroom. The twins followed her, but went into their own room, for both had windows that faced the docks.

Mari watched with a broken heart as the boats began sailing towards the horizon, to Volcano's Gate, or Cinnabar Island. She knew that Elysia was on the boat that her mom and Gary were on. Finally, she broke down on her bed, crying her eyes out. Luke and Evan could only listen to their sister sob loudly, knowing that nothing they could do can lift her spirits up. Their worst fear had become a reality.

A/N: Yeah. You can think whatever you want, but don't give hate comments. At least this was slightly better than disowning. But again, maybe being under house arrest isn't really a party either.

Anyway, I hoped you guys liked this because it was a lot of work, especially with all the family drama. The next chapter will be a little less dramatic.

Until Chapter 23, I'll see y'all! Please leave a comment about what you think!

Got to fly! ;)