The Path of Destiny

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 51 – Searching

It was later in the evening when Justin, Katie and Damian returned from the library. All the pokémon waiting for them sat up eagerly, but Snowcrystal could immediately tell from the look on Damian’s face that their search hadn’t been successful.

“Nothing…” Damian sighed as he released his pokémon into the clearing and sat down on the grass.

“There’s still a lot more left to search,” Justin reminded him, sounding a bit more hopeful. “And some of the books we wanted were taken. We’ll just wait until they’re brought back.”

“That was pointless,” Katie muttered. “We only found the same stupid story over and over again.”

“I guess we’ll try again tomorrow,” Damian replied.

“Well, Justin and I are going back to the hotel, then,” Katie said with a shrug, starting to walk in the other direction.

“You are going to help us tomorrow…” Justin began, “...aren’t you?”

Katie mumbled something in reply that Snowcrystal couldn’t hear.

Snowcrystal didn’t know how long they were going to be able to count on Katie’s help, and though she didn’t care much if the human left, she was worried that if she did, Justin…and Spark…would leave with her.

“Uh…Katie!” Justin cried, starting to run after her. Spark began to follow, but paused and looked back at the others.

“I can tell the humans you want to stay,” Arien suggested to him.

Spark hesitated a bit more, but shook his head. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he told them sadly, before hurrying into the trees after his trainer. Snowcrystal wondered if he was acting sad because he hadn’t had a chance to see Stormblade.

Damian looked back at all the pokémon, who were gathered together in the clearing near the tent, watching him. Snowcrystal could hear some of the others talking and wondered if Arien was telling Damian everything they were saying through their psychic link.

With a sigh, she sat down near Redclaw. “I guess there’s not much else to do but wait,” she mumbled.

“We’re making better progress than we were,” Redclaw reminded her. “Now we have access to the human’s knowledge.”

“Yeah, but we can’t do anything but wait around for them to find it!” Blazefang growled in frustration. “Those humans better find something tomorrow.”

Snowcrystal was going to agree, when a flash of light filled the clearing and Scytheclaw appeared in front of Damian. The scizor gave the pokémon gathered there a venomous glare and turned and limped away into the trees.

“Hey!” Redclaw said suddenly, his ears pricked, like he had just noticed something exciting. “Do you think…if Scytheclaw has that healing power…”

Snowcrystal knew what he was going to say. “…Then he can heal Stormblade?” she finished.

“Yes, and Nightshade,” Redclaw replied, a grin spreading across his face. A few of the other pokémon turned their heads in the direction Scytheclaw had gone, looking suddenly just as hopeful as Redclaw.

Snowcrystal sighed. “I tried asking him last night,” she admitted to the others. “He…refused…”

“Then let’s force him!” Rosie growled. “A few flamethrowers to the face and he’ll do what we want! He’d have to listen to us or get his armor melted off.”

“NO,” Arien said firmly, causing the ninetales to look at him in shock. The alakazam stood up to his full height, looking very intimidating. “He is Damian’s pokémon and I cannot allow you to hurt him. And don’t you think your heracross friend and the wild pokémon have hurt him enough?”

“Nightshade-” Rosie sputtered, but seemed too furious to think of exactly what she wanted to say, until she yelled, “Nightshade had to beat him up! And he deserved it! He-”

“Well, then he paid for it,” Arien said calmly. “Now you can all leave the past behind and move on, just as he is trying to do.”

“Now look,” Wildflame began, stepping up beside the fuming Rosie. “Who – besides Rosie – said we needed to hurt Scytheclaw? We just need to…find a way to convince him, that’s all.”

“Good luck with that,” Blazefang muttered, rolling his eyes.

“You can ask him,” Arien said calmly. “But you can’t force him. And if you ask, please at least try to be nice.”

Wildflame glanced at Rosie, and then at the others. “Maybe just a few of us should go,” she sighed.

Damian, who had been watching the argument curiously, but not seeming to understand what was going on, climbed into the tent after a moment’s hesitation. Snowcrystal sighed. She knew she couldn’t be one of the ones to go and try to convince Scytheclaw.

However, Wildflame, of course, didn’t realize that. “Do you want to go with me and Redclaw?” the houndoom asked after a few moments, looking at Snowcrystal.

“I….I don’t think so,” she muttered.

“I’ll go then,” said Dusk the absol, standing up. “Scytheclaw seems fine around us. He might listen to me.”

“Okay, good,” Wildflame stated. She sounded worried, as if she was secretly as doubtful as Snowcrystal was that Scytheclaw would agree to help. “Do you think we should…give him something? Can someone hunt?”

“Why don’t you ask him first?” Rosie muttered, sounding a little calmer. “That way you won’t waste your time…”

“We can promise him something, I guess,” Redclaw suggested. “But I…I don’t know if we should hunt prey when Scytheclaw has plenty of human made food…”

“So what?” Rosie muttered. “Those stupid prey pokémon would kill us if they could. That’s just the way nature works!”

Redclaw gave her a fierce glare. “I thought you said we shouldn’t waste our time hunting for him…” he growled, but Rosie didn’t say anything more.

“I…I don’t know if…” Snowcrystal began, but stopped herself. She didn’t think it was a good idea, but she couldn’t try and stop them before they’d even had a chance to try. She wondered if it would be too soon to ask the scizor after what had happened the previous night, but she trusted Redclaw to keep calm.

“Don’t worry,” Redclaw assured her. “If he refuses, we’ll leave him alone for a little while.”

Snowcrystal was glad he understood that getting angry or trying to force the decision on Scytheclaw would only make things worse, and watched as the arcanine, houndoom, and absol walked into the trees.

-ooo-

Wildflame wasn’t quite sure why she was doing this. It seemed a bit hopeless, but she badly wanted to help somehow. Now that everything in her life seemed uncertain, now that she had nothing to bring back to her pack, and that there was no way she was returning to serve under Firedash again, her future, at least for the time being, lay with this group. Though they had started off as enemies, Stormblade was now her friend. She wanted to help him.

Her thoughts wandered to when she had taunted Scytheclaw, and she hoped the scizor would be calmer than he was then. She was prepared to apologize for what she had said if she needed to. Redclaw seemed wary as well, and she remembered what had happened when they had first encountered Scytheclaw away from the canyon.

‘Why did it have to be him?’ Wildflame thought in frustration. ‘Why not some other pokémon with a healing power?’

They stopped as Scytheclaw’s scent became stronger and the houndoom realized he wasn’t far away. Dusk stepped forward.

“I think I should ask him,” Redclaw told the absol. “After all, Stormblade is our friend.” Dusk hesitated for a moment, but then nodded solemnly and let Redclaw lead them further on until they spotted the clearing where Scytheclaw was resting.

The scizor noticed them instantly. He leaped up, stumbling a little because of his injuries, but if he was embarrassed or angry at his weakness, he didn’t show it. He held up his pincers threateningly as they stopped at the edge of the clearing. He was completely unafraid, as if he was facing a tiny prey pokémon and not two powerful fire types and an absol. “What do you want?” he asked warningly.

“We want to talk to you,” Redclaw told him calmly.

“I know what this is about!” Scytheclaw snapped, his expression even more furious.

“Just listen to us,” Redclaw replied. When Scytheclaw merely glowered at him in reply – Wildflame was surprised he wasn’t screaming at them to leave yet – the arcanine continued. “We’re all willing to put the past behind us. We-”

“Just because you want something from me,” Scytheclaw snarled.

Redclaw decided to get to the point. “We want to ask you to try and heal Stormblade. At least…the Shadowflare wounds. He needs help badly, and you are probably his only chance. We are willing to do whatever you ask for this favor. We can bring you food, the best of our food, every day, and-”

“Damian gives me plenty of food!” the scizor growled. “Why would I want yours?”

Wildflame glanced at Redclaw worriedly. What else did they have to offer him besides food?

“I have everything I need,” Scytheclaw told them smugly. “There’s nothing any of you can do about it. And I haven’t forgotten the way you attacked me…” He glared at Redclaw. “Or what you said after you found out Damian was my trainer!” He gave Wildflame an equally venomous look. “I’m loyal to Damian,” the scizor said proudly, lifting his head as if he thought the intruders to his space were beneath him. “Not to you.”

“Scytheclaw, listen,” Dusk began as he padded forward. “I know these pokémon have wronged you…”

Wildflame had to try to make herself look calm when she really wanted to snarl at the absol. ‘We wronged him?’

“But you are the only one who can help this scyther,” Dusk continued. “I’m not saying you have to or we’re going to force you, but…it would be very noble of you to do so. Damian could buy you any sort of food, or treats, or items you wanted. We’d all be grateful if-”

“The answer is NO!” Scytheclaw shouted, and for a moment Wildflame thought he was going to fly at them and attack, but instead he turned and darted further into the forest. Her heart sank.

“I guess…we’ll have to try again later,” she said hopelessly as they turned to walk back to the group.

-ooo-

That night, the pokémon slept in silence, most of them by themselves. For once, Snowcrystal didn’t feel like sleeping next to the others. She couldn’t help wondering how Stormblade and Nightshade felt, alone in those buildings without the sky above them as they slept. She lay down, feeling the grass prickle against her paws. She still wasn’t quite used to not being around snow or hard stone, and for a moment she thought longingly of her home, wondering how much the growlithe’s territory had shrunk, and what they were doing now. She wondered again if she should have left in the first place. What had her quest accomplished?

‘I’m doing something that’s going to help now…’ she thought to herself. ‘It won’t all be for nothing…I’m going to help the legendaries, and all the pokémon…It won’t be for nothing…I’m sure…’

Stormblade and Nightshade, she thought, would both want her to continue trying to learn about the Forbidden Attacks. Nightshade had even said so. Still, her little adventure hadn’t done them any favors. Yet they had helped her so much…she wished there was something she could do to help them.

Suddenly she sat up. She did know what she could do. For Stormblade, at least. Getting to her feet, she headed over toward where Damian’s pokémon were getting ready to sleep. She needed to talk to Arien.

-ooo-

“So…” Katie began, looking from Damian, to Arien, to Snowcrystal, “you’re telling me the police were wrong all this time, and that Scyther – uh, Stormblade – was innocent?”

Snowcrystal looked at Damian hopefully and he nodded. It was morning, and Katie and Justin had just come back from the trainers’ hotel. As soon as they had arrived, Damian began eagerly repeating Stormblade’s story to them. Unfortunately, Katie just seemed confused, and Justin had been steadily backing away as if he didn’t want to hear it at all.

Katie sighed. “Look,” she said, “I know Stormblade is their friend, and they want him to seem like he was always a good guy…but how do they know the whole story? And more importantly, why does it matter? I mean, maybe it was another pokémon that attacked that girl, but we can’t really know for sure, and-”

“YOU weren’t there,” Justin said suddenly, stepping forward. The look in his eyes made Snowcrystal crouch lower to the ground. He looked, in a way she couldn’t really explain, frightening. “You weren’t the ones the police came to. There was blood on the scyther’s blades. Believe me, the stupid pokémon is making that up. If you’re not going to drop this subject…for good, then I’m leaving.”

Snowcrystal gave Damian and Arien an alarmed look. Justin had seemed so eager to help with their new quest, but the look in his eyes was so serious that she didn’t doubt that he meant what he said. She didn’t think Justin was that valuable an addition to their team; after all, Damian was far more helpful and he could do anything Justin could, but she knew that if he left, Spark might leave too.

“All right,” Damian said reluctantly, looking over at his alakazam, making Snowcrystal think Arien had warned him telepathically not to try and argue with Justin. “We’ll drop it.”

Justin looked satisfied but still angry, and Katie just shrugged, as if the whole thing hadn’t changed anything. Snowcrystal thought she probably had been skeptical because she hadn’t wanted to have any false hopes about Stormblade, and before she could really think it over, what Justin had said must have felt like a confirmation of her beliefs. Snowcrystal felt helpless. She wanted them to know all the details Damian had left out in the quick version of the story he’d told Katie, which he’d stumbled over quite a bit, forgetting important details that Arien had to remind him of and making his story seem less convincing.

The other pokémon who were listening, the ones who knew Stormblade, looked disappointed as well.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Spark said sadly.

“Why don’t you try to get it through your trainer’s thick head that it wasn’t Stormblade’s fault?” Rosie snapped at him.

Redclaw quickly put himself between the two before an argument could break out. “Look,” he growled, “fighting’s not going to help Stormblade. If we want to help him, we need to try to keep the humans together. The three of them can search the human’s information stash faster than just one human can. Maybe after Justin has calmed down, we can try again.”

“And hopefully Damian can tell it without sounding like a babbling idiot,” Rosie muttered.

“Okay, so maybe explaining things isn’t his strong point,” Redclaw replied, “but he and Arien are the only form of communication we’ve got. It’s better than nothing. It may take a while, but the other humans will understand.”

Snowcrystal wished she felt as hopeful as Redclaw sounded.

-ooo-

The next few weeks passed uneventfully, and things remained much the same within the group. Katie, after much thought and discussion with the other two humans, had chosen to stay. How long she would stay, Snowcrystal wasn’t sure, but she hoped she had chosen to stay with them for the entire search. They needed all the help they could get.

So far, none of the humans had managed to find any useful new information on the Forbidden Attacks, and several of the books had stories with details that conflicted with each other. The humans weren’t giving up yet, and insisted that there were many other books they could search through.

That day, however, Snowcrystal was going to go with them. Doing nothing but waiting day after day had, for a while, been peaceful, but her old restlessness had soon returned, and she could no longer stand being unable to help. She wanted to do something, even if that something was just tagging along with the humans for a day, watching them try and find information. She hadn’t been able to go into the city with them much before, and had only been able to see Stormblade one more time since she had last seen him. He wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting much better. But he was alive.

This time, the humans had a new idea. If it worked well, it might mean that she would be able to walk the city streets freely alongside them.

It had taken a few tries, but Damian, Katie, and Justin had managed to die her fur to match the color of an orange growlithe’s. It had at first been frustrating when Justin kept getting the wrong shade of orange, or the humans weren’t careful and messed up, but at last they had succeeded in making her look passably like, as Katie had said, “a normal growlithe.” Runty and with a few oddly shaped stripes, but pretty ‘normal’ looking overall.

“There,” Damian said as he and the others stood back and admired her. “No one will tell the difference.”

Justin frowned. “Some of the stripes look weird,” he pointed out. “And the cream color is a bit too dark.”

“No one’s going to be looking at people’s growlithe to see if they’re actually white,” Katie pointed out. “So she’s small and looks a bit odd. So what? Some pokémon look a little different. No one’s going to care.”

Justin just rolled his eyes and muttered, “Fine.” Without further discussion they were soon on their way.

Spark and Redclaw were accompanying them to the library that day, as well as Inferno the flareon and Todd the Elekid. Spark was used to the city, and it surprised Snowcrystal to see him walking down the sidewalk ahead of the humans, at complete ease with his surroundings. Seeing that Snowcrystal was nervous, he soon came back to join her.

“It’s not so bad, once you get used to it,” he told her.

“Then I wish I was used to it,” Snowcrystal muttered back, scurrying out of the way of a human passing them from the other direction. Even though she was still nervous about being discovered, the human didn’t give her a second glance.

“Just stick with me,” Spark replied cheerfully. “You’ll be fine.”

As they neared the library, Snowcrystal realized that she didn’t recognize anything. The place looked so different from the rain-slicked streets she had wandered through with Sid and Wildflame all that time ago. How long had it been? She wasn’t sure. It seemed like ages.

As they walked through the massive library’s front doors, Snowcrystal couldn’t suppress a feeling of fear as she remembered the last time she had been there, running panicked through the halls as a human chased after her. Trying to ignore the feeling, she walked in with the others, sticking close to Spark’s side.

Inside, the library was just as big and confusing as she remembered it being, though in the light of day and with the company of friends, it was a lot less scary. She paused to give the legendary pokémon portraits around the room a curious glance now that she could see them clearly in the light, then followed Damian and the others.

She wasn’t sure if it was the room Sid had led her into the first time she was there; she remembered there had been pictures of legendaries, but not what they looked like. She let her gaze travel across each one and suddenly remembered that there had been an articuno painting in the room she had first entered. There was no articuno here; it must have been a different room.

She wondered which of the towering bookshelves they were going to look for information from, but the humans didn’t even stop to look at them. They passed through the room without a glance at any of the books, down a hallway and into a smaller room with crude, brightly colored art plastering the walls along with other cheerful decorations. There were a few human children reading from large, flat books while a mightyena dozed peacefully in the corner.

They walked through that room and down a few more hallways, until they came upon a sight that Snowcrystal did remember.

Ahead of her, on the wall in front of them by where the hallway split into two paths, was the large circular mural of the Forbidden Attacks. Strangely, in the now well-lit building, it still looked foreboding, and she noticed that the others, even Inferno and Todd, had stopped to give it a nervous glance before tearing their gaze away and continuing on down the right hallway. Snowcrystal stared at the strange mural a few seconds longer before following them. A memory surfaced of her looking at the painting and hearing the human coming, then running down the left hallway, and she wondered what awaited them at the end of the right.

She followed the others down the hallway and past two wide open doors, and the room they arrived in next was the biggest one Snowcrystal had seen. It was truly massive, and the floor formed a round, even circle. The room had multiple stories, each story having rows upon rows of bookshelves around the circular edges of the room. The center of the bottom floor was a clear space with several chairs and sofas upon which a few humans and in some cases, their pokémon, were lounging upon. On the upper stories, this circular space was a massive hole, so Snowcrystal could see all the way to the ceiling far, far, above, the center of which was comprised of windows, which made up a sphere as big as the openings in the higher floors.

Up above, she could make out a few humans walking around by the rails lining the outside of the center of the higher stories, of which Snowcrystal counted four. She watched a flygon lift into the air from the second story to bring a book to his trainer on the third. Way, way up on the fifth story, a plusle and minun sat on the railing, peering downward and squealing something excitedly to one another. All along the walls on the bottom floor, and probably the upper ones too, were portraits, but in this room, they were not mainly of legendaries. Ordinary pokémon made up a lot of the subjects in the pictures here; she even saw one with a large group of stylized growlithe puppies playing in a field.

“See?” Spark said to her with a grin. “We pokémon are welcome here! Though I sure hope that moron up there doesn’t fall off and get the humans all paranoid about us.” He narrowed his eyes at the tiny shape of the plusle leaning over the rail.

The place was so massive that Snowcrystal could begin to understand just why the search was taking so long. The humans would be meticulously studying any book with even a chance of having something relevant to the Forbidden Attacks for any clue it might offer them, and as they had long since looked through the obviously relevant books, the search was getting harder.

“All right, you two,” Inferno said in a cheerful voice. Snowcrystal knew that he always liked it when he got to accompany the humans. His fur fluffed up and his eyes were bright with enthusiasm as he looked around the room. “Let’s get started!”

Snowcrystal wasn’t sure what the pokémon could do, and she didn’t think they’d be able to do much other than offer the humans some moral support, but that seemed to be enough of a job for Todd and Inferno. They eagerly helped Damian, Justin, and Katie put away books or jumped up to the higher shelves to retrieve one for them. They were in the middle of searching the second story, working their way up to the fifth, Spark explained to her. This room was full of information about pokémon and the world they lived in. While they waited as the humans skimmed through the books, Spark told her of some of the things he had learned from the humans while being there. He told her that they lived in a region called the Inari region. There were other regions too, places called things like Johto and Kanto, and they each had many human cities. Spark told her that by other regions’ standards, theirs was a strange one. It had no species native only to itself, and was home to many species from all of the other regions. Snowcrystal found this interesting, and there were also many pokémon even Spark hadn’t seen that he’d found pictures of in books and excitedly showed Snowcrystal.

Snowcrystal found it all fascinating, but at the same time, it worried her that the library was so rich in knowledge, yet they hadn’t been able to find any further information on the Forbidden Attacks outside of stories that were very likely fictional. Still, she did her best to help, which usually meant picking books up carefully in her mouth and plopping them back on the shelf, while the humans continued to look. Spark told her that none of the computers used to search for books had helped them, and they’d soon given up on that. He also told her that this was a very old and famous library that contained some very old books that might offer better insight than the more recent ones they had been searching through earlier.

It worried Snowcrystal how long it was all taking, but at the same time, she knew that her friends needed the rest. Rosie’s leg was much better now, though she still had a limp, and everyone else was much happier and healthier, and very well fed. They now rarely needed to hunt. Katie was a good enough battler that between her battling tournament money and Damian and Justin doing random jobs for other humans with the help of their own pokémon, they had enough money to feed everyone, even the wild pokémon. Perhaps it was better if they waited for a while. At least here, they were likely getting closer to a discovery, and it would help each of them immensely to take a long, peaceful rest.

Snowcrystal spent the day helping the humans put away books, watching them as they turned the pages to reveal colorful pictures, or lying down and looking up at all the flying pokémon that occasionally crossed the open space in the middle of the tall room. Then sunset came, filtering through the windows and tinting the room a faint orange. It was time to leave.

After Damian’s assurance that tomorrow would probably be the day they found something, which Spark told Snowcrystal that he said every day, they got up and followed the last lingering trainers through the hallways and towards the exit of the building.

“You were a great help,” Spark told Snowcrystal as they made their way through one of the hallways. “Aren’t you glad you got to come along this time?”

Snowcrystal knew he was just trying to make her feel better, so she nodded.

They walked into the small room where they had seen the human children reading. There were no children anymore, just a few adult humans putting away books and talking in a corner. The mightyena from before was also there, no longer snoozing but alert and awake with the coming of night.

As they walked through the room, the mightyena saw them and froze.

Snowcrystal paused, and so did the other pokémon, as the dark type walked over to them. She didn’t bother to give them a greeting, but walked straight up to Redclaw with a look of concern in her eyes. “That collar…” she whispered. “You…you were there too?”

“What?” Redclaw stuttered, looking completely confused.

“The poachers,” the mightyena continued, giving Redclaw a worried look. “The ones that took us from the forest?”

“You mean Mas-” Redclaw paused. “Wait…no. Poachers? Uh…you must be thinking about someone different. You’re talking about a group of humans, right?”

“Yes…” the mightyena replied. “So you weren’t one of us?” She eyed his collar, and Snowcrystal could tell that she longed to ask him about it, but thought better of it. “The humans can remove that, you know,” she continued after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s difficult, but they found a way to do it without setting it off. If yours has an electrical device, I mean. Go to the pokémon center and they’ll tell your trainer who to look for.” She looked over at Katie, Damian, and Justin, who had all stopped to wait while Redclaw talked to the mightyena. “You see,” she went on, “the police rescued us from the poachers who captured us. I have a new trainer now. He works here. He’s very kind. The first thing he did was take me to the humans who got rid of that awful collar. It was so nice to finally be rid of….” Her voice trailed off as her eyes wandered toward Snowcrystal. She stared at her a moment, and Snowcrystal shrank back. The mightyena kept on staring, her eyes narrowed. “You’re not a normal growlithe,” she whispered.

Snowcrystal’s fur stood on end. “W-what? What do you mean?” Had Justin been right about the fur dye?

“Your fur is dyed,” the mightyena continued. “I recognize that sort of dye. The poachers used it to color pelts sometimes…to trick other humans into thinking they were the pelts of shiny pokémon. But it’s okay,” she added quickly, seeing Snowcrystal’s worry. “If you don’t want anyone to know, it’s not that noticeable. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been around that sort of stuff. But are you…are you normally white?”

Snowcrystal wasn’t sure why, but she nodded. No use trying to lie now.

The mightyena’s eyes widened. “Rosie…” she whispered. “I knew Rosie. She said she knew a growlithe with white fur. Snowcrystal was her name. Is your name Snowcrystal?”

Numbly, Snowcrystal nodded.

“Where is Rosie?” the mightyena asked, a worried look clouding her face. “Did she…did she make it? Did she find you again?”

“Yes,” Snowcrystal replied. “She’s safe.” Seeing the relief on the mightyena’s face made her forget her worries of being discovered by other pokémon.

From the other side of a room, a human called to the mightyena. “I have to go,” the dark type whispered. “When you see Rosie, tell her that Eve is no longer with the poachers…that I found a new home.”

Snowcrystal nodded. “I will.”

Eve returned to her trainer and Snowcrystal’s group turned to leave. All the way back, she thought about Eve, remembering a joyful Rosie, who, upon being reunited with her friends, told them a story of how a mightyena named Eve had helped her, but had been unable to escape herself. So Eve had at last found freedom and peace here in Stonedust City. Snowcrystal would make sure to tell Rosie everything when she got back.

-ooo-

Stormblade longed to see the forest and trees again. He wished he could go outside to feel the sunshine, and the cool breeze he knew would be blowing at this time of day. And what a lovely spring day it was. From what he could tell.

He was tired of lying there, helpless in the hospital, either in a daze or too bothered by the pain to sleep. Of course, it was much more bearable now, not like his days traveling while injured, which were all one pain-filled blur to him. But he still felt some of the pain; medicine couldn’t take it all away.

And then there was the loneliness, which was much worse.

Stormblade wasn’t used to being so alone for so long. He was a scyther, a pokémon meant to live in groups, meant to hunt and travel with others. Sure, the nurses and doctors and their pokémon came in multiple times a day, but only to treat his wounds, then move onto the next pokémon. They never had much time to talk to him because of the sheer number of pokémon in the hospital, and the volunteer trainers were only allowed to work with the healthier pokémon. And Stormblade greatly missed his friends.

Snowcrystal had only been able to sneak back in once, and he hadn’t been able to see any of the others. Snowcrystal insisted they were all fine and doing better, but he wished he could see them himself. And Thunder…he could never stop worrying about her. It was terrible, not knowing what was happening to her but knowing that it was something horrible. And there was nothing that any of them could do about it.

He hated the helplessness. Hated that he needed help just to eat, that he had such a large room but he couldn’t even move freely in it. He knew how hard it was for them to care for him, and he was grateful to the humans and the pokémon at the hospital for their help, and everything they did for him, yet at the same time, it deeply saddened him that he needed to have help with these things at all. He was a scyther. He was a fierce apex predator, a strong and noble warrior. Or at least, he used to be.

He wasn’t any of those things anymore.

Though he knew there was nothing he could do, he couldn’t help wishing that he could go back, before the battle with Blazefang’s pack that resulted in his injuries from the Forbidden Attack. Or even back further, so he never would have found that girl and ruined Justin’s dream of being a great pokémon trainer, or maybe still further, so he had never been captured.

And he had made many mistakes even before those ones. In the hospital, he was often alone, simply with his own thoughts. Maybe it was his longing to be wild and free again, or even just to go outside for a little bit, but his thoughts, when they weren’t focused on Thunder and what could be happening to her at that moment, often drifted back toward his days in the wild with Spark…or his swarm days.

Stormblade had tried to put his swarm life behind him. Even when being sent back into the wild after Justin lost his trainer’s license, he hadn’t tried to join another swarm. It was partly because Spark needed him at the time, partly because it would be hard to find a strong swarm with a good leader, as the way scyther swarms were run tended to vary depending on who the leader was and the tradition of the swarm itself, and partly because he didn’t want to relive the memories.

Though now, there wasn’t much else to do, apart from thinking of Thunder, but relive them.

Stormblade’s own swarm had been a very good one for the majority of the time he was a member of it. He was one of many scyther born there, but unlike the other young ones, who were strong and healthy from the start, he had been very sickly when he had hatched. Many swarm leaders would have had him abandoned in the forest, and the kinder ones would have killed him first, but not Bloodscythe. Though many of the swarm scyther believed that a sickly young one would either die soon, and therefore wouldn’t be worth taking care of, or would only weaken the swarm by using up food resources while being unable to hunt himself, the leader refused to have him sent away.

Instead, Bloodscythe himself assisted in bringing Stormblade food, encouraging him to try and overcome the sickness. It was Bloodscythe’s belief that abandoning the weak was a foolish and cowardly thing to do, and that made the swarm weaker rather than stronger. “If we cannot rely on each other in times of hardship,” he had said, “then why are we a swarm at all?” And the weak, Bloodscythe took care to remind the other scyther frequently, would become strong, and serve the swarm diligently when they became so. How could the swarm throw that potential away because of weaknesses such as illness or injury which would most likely be temporary? Scyther were brave hunters and warriors. Abandoning the weak was not something a warrior did.

Some members of the swarm didn’t agree with him, but they obeyed. The injured and sick were taken care of as best as the scyther could manage. Stormblade was, as well, and in his case, Bloodscythe couldn’t have been more right. To everyone’s astonishment, he had grown from a weak and feeble hatchling into a large, powerful fighter, who was bigger and taller than any other scyther in the swarm, and with the strength to match. He had overcome his sickness and proven to be a valuable member of Bloodscythe’s swarm.

Though even still, not all the swarm members were convinced that Bloodscythe’s way was right.

There had been a few scyther who had caught a very terrible disease during the winter, and though Bloodscythe had allowed them larger portions of food than the rest of the scyther got, they didn’t last the winter. One of the scyther in the swarm, Silverbreeze, and a large scyther called Boneslice, who had recently joined the swarm after becoming mates with Silverbreeze, were angry at Bloodscythe for wasting so much food on the ill scyther when they believed it should have been saved for the strong.

They tried to convince Bloodscythe to change the swarm’s law, but he refused, saying that it was still a swarm’s duty to care for all its members, and only then could they be truly strong.

Though many scyther agreed with Bloodscythe, they were forced to change their ways when Boneslice challenged Bloodscythe to a leadership battle and defeated him. When a leader was defeated, the new leader was to choose whether or not the old leader would leave or be allowed to stay. Boneslice had gone further than punishing the old leader with exile, and chased Bloodscythe beyond the boundary of the swarm’s territory, telling him that he risked being killed if he ever again set foot near the swarm.

They never saw Bloodscythe again.

Boneslice, with Silverbreeze right at his side as his second-in-command, changed the swarm’s laws. Sick scyther were left to fend for themselves until they recovered and could return to the swarm, or they succumbed to starvation.

Many of the scyther longed for Bloodscythe to return, but since that was impossible, a few of them challenged Boneslice for leadership. They were failed attempts, and each loser was punished with being sentenced to the lowest rank in Boneslice’s new order. The other scyther became afraid to challenge him, and a few were even talking of deserting when Stormblade decided to challenge him.

No one had expected him to; even Stormblade himself would have never guessed he would be driven to do such a thing. He was no leader. But he was the only scyther who could match Boneslice in size and strength, and then some.

The battle was fierce at first, but then Stormblade quickly overpowered Boneslice, who was no match for him. Stormblade, being furious with Boneslice for what he’d done to the swarm and the fact that he was willing to leave his comrades to die, exiled him permanently from the swarm.

Boneslice’s mate, Silverbreeze, was furious. Although she hadn’t been as against Bloodscythe’s ways and beliefs as Boneslice had been, she tried to rally the other scyther against their new leader. Her efforts were futile; most of the swarm was glad to see Bloodscythe’s ideals returning through Stormblade.

Stormblade ignored Silverbreeze for the most part, and though he didn’t show it, it made him angry to think of her idea of how a swarm should be run, knowing that she would have sent him to die if she had been in charge when he hatched. Stormblade didn’t know how to be a leader, but he did well enough, doing the same things Bloodscythe had done.

Until a new threat came to the forest.

When humans began to cut down the forest, Stormblade had not heeded the warnings from the older scyther who told him they should leave. Instead, he declared that they should drive out the humans, for no one had the right to take a scyther swarm’s territory from them. The result was disastrous, with three scyther captured and several more injured, including Stormblade himself. After their terrible defeat, Stormblade led the swarm to seek new hunting grounds, and almost the moment after they found them and decided on boundaries, several of the scyther, including Silverbreeze, rebelled against him. Silverbreeze herself was the one to challenge him in a leadership battle, and in his injured state, he couldn’t do much to defend himself.

After a humiliating defeat, he was exiled immediately. He staggered around the forest for a few days, in a daze after what had happened and too injured to hunt properly, until he stumbled upon Justin and his pokémon and was captured.

Stormblade knew that Justin had only kept him because he recognized that a pokémon that could fight back fiercely even when injured was a strong and valuable asset to a trainer’s team. And probably, Stormblade thought, because he recognized that Stormblade was bigger than a normal scyther. Justin would have noticed that. Stormblade realized that he must have seemed terrifying to the boy.

He had often wondered what became of Silverbreeze, and now he knew. She must have been overthrown, hopefully by a fair and understanding scyther who would make a good leader, and wandered around until joining up with Cyclone and his army. She must have wanted revenge for what the humans did to the old forest.

Stormblade wondered what his old swarm would think of him now. Bloodscythe would have tried to keep him alive even with Shadowflare wounds, and even if all the others believed him as good as dead, as Blazefang had…like he had, before being captured by Katie.

He’d wanted for so long to go back and fix his mistakes, to make it so that he never challenged the humans, that those scyther had never been captured, but there was no way to do that. The only thing he could do was to move forward. But how could he do that, trapped in a hospital?

He had to find a way. He had to fight his hardest to survive, not just for himself, but for his friends. He wanted to help them, to try and repay them for all they’d done for him while he had still been traveling with them, struggling just to rise every day, and he wanted to help prevent any pokémon from being hurt by a Forbidden Attack again. Those were the thoughts that kept him going, as well as the hope, the probably futile hope, of being able to help them rescue Thunder from Master. It was probably nothing more than a wild, crazy dream, but it was more bearable than thinking of her being trapped in that horrid life forever.

After all, he thought as he closed his eyes, trying feebly to get comfortable enough to sleep, the others had to be trying to come up with a plan to rescue her even as he lay there…

They had to be…

To be continued...

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 52 – Secrets of Stonedust

Despite her worries, Snowcrystal found herself enjoying her time with Damian and the others. It was a peaceful life compared to the one they had been living while on their journey, and seeing her friends grow healthier by the day brought Snowcrystal much joy. Stormblade’s Forbidden Attack wounds had not gotten worse, and some of the injuries not caused by Shadowflare were slowly healing. Rosie had been overjoyed to hear that Eve had finally found a peaceful life, and despite not being much closer to finding the information they needed, the ninetales seemed much happier, especially after being able to meet and talk with the mightyena again herself.

It had now been almost two months since they had arrived at Stonedust City and although Snowcrystal was worried that they were taking too much time, the humans continued to search for information, even though they had probably searched every book in the Stonedust City library. Without wanting to leave for another location without any leads on where to find anything about the Forbidden Attacks, Damian, Justin, and Katie diligently searched over books they had already read or skimmed through, hoping to find some detail they’d missed, or searched other sources, such as the library’s computers or even stories from other humans. They weren’t willing to give up on Stonedust just yet, and neither was she.

Snowcrystal had come to be quite used to looking like an orange growlithe. Damian, Katie, and Justin had perfected the look, and Justin had proudly told her that she looked exactly like a normal growlithe.

As Eve had suggested, Redclaw had gotten his collar removed, and luckily there were no questions asked as to why Redclaw wasn’t in a poké ball at the time. Free of the constant reminder of Master, Redclaw had grown to be happier than Snowcrystal had ever seen him.

Rosie, after much persuasion, and insistence that Eve herself had been given help from humans and trusted them, had gotten treatment for her leg. Her limp was much better now, and she was a much better fighter, too. During the times they were waiting while the humans went to search for information or buy food or battle, the pokémon trained with some of Damian and Katie’s pokémon, learning new techniques from the much more battle-savvy trainer’s pokémon. Damian had bought Rosie some new TMs, allowing her to use moves like flamethrower and fire blast, which she normally wouldn’t have been able to learn after her evolution. They passed a lot of their time in practice battles, sometimes by themselves and sometimes with one of the trainers directing them. Then they talked with each other or simply just relaxed and enjoyed a time when they did not have to worry about traveling or about where their next meal would come from.

Arien and Damian had still been unable to make Justin understand Stormblade’s story, and whenever they brought it up, he refused to talk to them about it and sometimes threatened to leave. They eventually gave it up, although Katie, who had often listened while they tried to explain it, seemed to believe it, or at least was rethinking the idea of Stormblade being a murderer.

There had also been no luck convincing Scytheclaw to heal Stormblade, but there was no more trouble with him attacking the other pokémon. Everyone made a great effort to be as nice to him as possible, and brought food to him even though his wounds were nearly healed, but he still largely ignored them. He obviously suspected they were just being kind to try and get him to agree to heal Stormblade, but in Snowcrystal’s case, the kindness was genuine. Scytheclaw’s behavior showed none of the unfair and cruel leader he had once been; even the arrogance and anger he had constantly displayed toward them in the first few days they had teamed up with the humans seemed to be dwindling. Though he still made no effort to be friendly toward the other pokémon, he showed kindness to Damian and, sometimes, his pokémon team, and he really acted as if he did want to put his old life behind him and start anew. He tolerated the presence of Snowcrystal and her friends, even Nightshade.

And that was the best part. Nightshade was back.

The heracross was nearly fully healed; he only had a slight limp now. He had been able to go back with them a while before, when his wounds had still been healing, but he had been well enough to live outside with the other pokémon as long as he slept in a clean place in Damian’s tent and came to the pokémon center for more medicine and check ups to ensure his wounds had been healing correctly. When he had first arrived, it had shocked the others all over again that Thunder had done so much damage. Though Snowcrystal had felt angry at Thunder all over again, she was glad Nightshade was trying not to encourage the others’ negative thoughts about her.

During the time Snowcrystal wasn’t accompanying the humans at the library or practice battling with the others, she often went off into the forest alone with Nightshade. It was partly because she suspected he was lonely; Thunder may have been rude and awful to him at times even before she attacked him, but she knew Nightshade still considered her a friend, something Snowcrystal wasn’t sure she would be able to do in his position. She also knew he had talked with Thunder about things he hadn’t told anyone else, though what those things were, she had no idea. He had to have been close to her, in some way. Another reason she spent time with him more was because she wanted to talk to him. He was the sort of pokémon she could tell anything to, about how she missed her home, the random, silly things she did as a puppy, the stories she was told by flying pokémon visiting the mountain, or even more serious things such as how she was worried about Stormblade. Nightshade had even told her how much he worried about Thunder, caught by that terrible human again. She had known he would be worried, but she hadn’t known he’d be worried so much. Then again, it did make sense. Nightshade knew of the horrors Thunder had gone through more than anyone else, even Redclaw, and it helped both of them to have someone to talk to. She and Nightshade had spent much of their time together, and were quickly becoming close friends.

He was also, she knew, becoming close friends with Damian as well, and before the constant searching for information had taken its toll on the trainer and what little time he had was spent resting or battling for money, he had also spent a lot of time with Nightshade. However, now that he was becoming so busy and exhausted, Nightshade’s loneliness had seemed far stronger, so Snowcrystal had decided to help him in whatever small way she could.

During their aimless wanderings together, they often went somewhat far from the group. They were confident enough in Snowcrystal’s new trainer-taught fighting techniques, and the fact that Nightshade was experienced enough to be a skilled fighter even without the humans’ training, that they didn’t worry about the wild pokémon. Most of them weren’t aggressive, and they had never had any need to fight, but it was comforting to know that they would be able to if it came to it. The poacher traps had long been cleared out, so they explored the forest in peace, Nightshade sometimes pointing out certain herbs or flowers or berries to her and telling her what they were.

On one such day, when they had walked further than usual, they reached a strange place near the city that looked odd and out of place compared to everything else. It took Snowcrystal a moment to realize why it struck her as so odd. The trees were lined up in a very unnatural way; only a human could have planted them like that. The grass and other plants looked precisely placed as well, and there were odd looking human made things scattered about the area. They were a little more than twice her height, and they had strange openings in the top. She could smell a delicious smell coming from the nearest one, and was about to move closer to investigate, when she noticed that Nightshade was acting strange.

“Come on,” the heracross told her in a voice that faltered a bit. “Let’s go.” He quickly guided her away from it, urging her to move toward a different area. She asked him if there was any danger, but he did not reply. As they walked away, Snowcrystal looked back at the strange place, noting how serene and pleasant it looked, even in the shadow of Stonedust City’s buildings. But she trusted Nightshade and tore her gaze away; if he suspected there was something sinister about it, there probably was.

A few days later, as Snowcrystal sat with the group on a warm night lit by hundreds of stars, she watched Wildflame and Spark play fighting at the edge of the clearing. The rest of the pokémon sat around a small fire where Damian was cooking some sort of human treat; cooking was one of the many odd human things she’d learned about since being there. Justin and Katie had already left, but Spark had stayed behind with them for the night. A few of Damian’s pokémon were talking excitedly with Redclaw, and Blazefang was muttering to Dusk the absol; the two of them had seemed to become friends, or at least as close to being friends as Blazefang would allow, over the past few weeks. Scytheclaw just watched the fire with a forlorn look in his eyes.

Snowcrystal looked past the others and noticed Nightshade by the edge of the clearing, looking up at the stars. It was too early to sleep, and Snowcrystal was feeling restless, so she got up and walked over to him. “Want to walk around the forest?” she asked him.

She was expecting him to say no; he hadn’t wanted to explore the forest near the edge of Stonedust City much at all lately, and they rarely walked through it at night, but to her surprise, he nodded, and they set off through the trees.

“There doesn’t seem to be much hope left for that library anymore,” Nightshade said as they began walking. “Sooner or later we’re going to have to find out where we want to go next.”

He seemed distracted, and Snowcrystal had a feeling that wasn’t what he wanted to talk about at all. “Are you worried about Thunder?” Snowcrystal asked as they walked under the starlight with only the sound of crunching leaves beneath their feet.

“Yes…” Nightshade sighed, obviously not caring to bring up the subject of the library again. “I don’t know what’s happening to her now, but…unfortunately, I have a good idea.”

“Do you think we could rescue her somehow?”

Nightshade looked back at her with a sorrowful expression. “…I don’t know.”

Snowcrystal didn’t know either. It would take a miracle for Thunder to escape again, especially since Master would be extra careful not to let her. And even if they could bring her back, would the rest of the group allow her to stay? Would she be in an even worse state…and would she attack any of the others? They walked on for a while, Snowcrystal lost in her own thoughts while Nightshade stayed alert and watchful.

“Nightshade,” Snowcrystal began after a little while longer, “do you think the humans could do something? About Master, I mean.”

“I’m not sure,” Nightshade replied. “We don’t even know his name. I’m not even sure the police know he’s one of the humans who’s a part of that circle of pokémon abuse. We have no idea.”

“I wish Thunder never tried to attack Master,” Snowcrystal said uselessly. “I wish she never attacked you.” Nightshade didn’t reply, and she continued, “I know some of the others hate her, or at least they act like it, but I don’t think they all do. Rosie saw her rescue Stormblade from the mud. She must remember that. And Redclaw knows some of what she’s been through. And Wildflame…” She paused, for Nightshade had stopped walking. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Nightshade was staring straight ahead, unmoving.

Snowcrystal walked forward and peered into the dark, but she couldn’t see anything that would have made Nightshade stop. She was looking about wildly when she noticed lights above the tree tops. A building. “We’re really close to Stonedust,” she pointed out. Slowly she took a few steps forward, and when Nightshade made no move to stop her, she passed a group of trees and came upon, once again, that eerily perfect area with the all-too-straight rows of trees. She hadn’t noticed it up ahead in the darkness. With a jolt of surprise she quickly backed up until she stood beside Nightshade again.

“Nightshade…” she asked, “what is that place? Why is it bad? Is it dangerous?”

“It could be,” Nightshade replied quietly. “But I don’t think so. At least not now.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, smelling the sweet smell coming from the human made things, but no longer having the desire to go closer to them.

“It is a protected area,” Nightshade told her. “A pokémon sanctuary. Trainers are not allowed to come here. I heard some humans talking about it while in the pokémon center. It’s mostly used for helping to bring back species of plants and pokémon that have become uncommon in these parts of the region. But…that isn’t all I heard. That is a dark place, Snowcrystal.” He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t question him.

Snowcrystal realized, not for the first time, that this part of the wilderness around Stonedust was much more lush and full of the signs of pokémon having recently passed through than the other nearby areas. The place where Damian and the others had set up camp didn’t have nearly as many healthy trees and plants as this area did. And the place didn’t seem as rocky, either, as if all the rocks had long since been cleared away. “Oh…” she replied quietly. “It must seem peaceful to the pokémon here, though. And they must know that the people from Stonedust are in charge of the place.” She looked at Nightshade. “Are you sure it’s not dangerous here? Maybe we should warn some of the pokémon, if it is…” She glanced back at the moonlit area, her gaze fixated on several massive trees that looked quite out of place in a long line next to the smaller, more spindly ones that grew in random places near them.

“I don’t believe they’re in any danger now. And even if they were, there’s not much we can do,” Nightshade replied. “Most wouldn’t leave…some simply can’t. For some species, their only suitable food source is grown right here. And any pokémon who has been put here by the city will not likely have much to worry about. Those who travel here…should be wise enough to not rest here long. But yes…” he added after a moment, “it is safe now.”

Slowly, Snowcrystal ventured out onto the smooth grass. It was odd, planted in blocks, and even though it was overgrown and wild looking, she could still see that it had been put in specific places. Some of it looked recent too, as if the humans had decided the grass was too wild and torn it out, then planted new grass in its place, in that same strange, orderly way. Why a human would do that, she couldn’t begin to guess. She walked up to one of the blocky human things with the sweet smell, and stretched up on her hind legs to try and look inside. She was too short, but the smell was familiar. It was pokéblocks, a human treat she had seen Justin giving to Spark sometimes. Damian had even offered them to her once, but she preferred the normal pokémon food, or, on the occasions the humans brought some back from the city, fresh meat.

She noticed that she couldn’t hear much of any other pokémon, except for a quiet scampering in the tops of the large trees. She turned around to look and noticed Nightshade staring at them, but unwilling to go closer.

“Nightshade?” she asked, walking closer to him. “Is something wrong?” She glanced around quickly to see if any sort of threat had come near, but detected nothing. “Maybe we should leave this place,” she stated in a whisper. “You’re right, there’s something wrong with it…I’m really sorry. We shouldn’t have come. I know you didn’t want to…”

“No,” Nightshade replied. “I did want to come here. I just didn’t expect to come across it tonight.” She noticed that he was staring at one large tree in particular.

“Nightshade…?” Snowcrystal whispered nervously.

“There is no danger, Snowcrystal,” he told her calmly. He paused for a moment. “Do you want me to tell you something?” he asked her, his look calm but serious, with a hint of some other emotion she wasn’t quite sure of. She nodded. “This place…is where I once lived.”

“You used to live by Stonedust?” Snowcrystal asked, surprised. “How long ago?” she questioned, having a bad feeling that whatever Nightshade remembered about this place wasn’t good.

“Many years ago,” he replied. “When I was a lot younger. It’s funny, but it hasn’t changed much since then. It’s as if Stonedust City wanted to keep it looking exactly like a neat and clean human’s park all this time. I didn’t live here for very long, but I still remember what it looked like.”

“Why did you leave?” Snowcrystal couldn’t help asking, but something in the pained look Nightshade gave her told her that she probably shouldn’t have asked.

Nightshade, however, just sighed. “We had to,” he replied. “Those of us who were left. The rest of our group…” His voice gained a more serious tone. “The humans killed them.”

Snowcrystal’s eyes widened in horror. The humans in Stonedust City…the city that had helped her friends so much…had slaughtered innocent pokémon? That had to have changed by now; it was so long ago. Surely the humans were no longer a threat. “What?” Snowcrystal cried, astonished. “How? Why?”

Nightshade looked away, looking as if he was trying to decide whether or not to tell her. He started to walk away from the tree.

“You can tell me,” Snowcrystal told him. “I mean…if…if you want to.” After she said that, she had the horrible feeling that she’d made things worse.

“The humans chose to do it,” Nightshade replied after a moment, his voice icily cold. “No, they were not the sort of humans who wanted to destroy wildlife for their own gain. They…well, I didn’t find this out until later, but they attacked our group of heracross because…because there were too many of us in one area. We were destroying the trees.”

Snowcrystal listened with wide eyes, wanting to say something, but thinking that she shouldn’t interrupt in case Nightshade wanted to say more. She had a feeling that she had been very wrong to ask that question, and was all the more wishing she hadn’t. But Nightshade didn’t seem angry, just lost in memory. Whatever had happened, it had happened long ago, and she had a feeling that Nightshade didn’t often dwell on that part of his memories.

“We didn’t know we were destroying the trees,” Nightshade continued, his calm tone suddenly vanishing as his voice started to shake, and Snowcrystal thought she saw the hint of tears in his eyes, but he looked away before she could be sure. “We just came here because it looked like a better home than the one we’d left. There was plenty of food, or at least…we thought there was. But the humans…they knew we were disrupting the balance in their newly-built reserve…we weren’t supposed to be here, especially in great numbers. So they…they poisoned us.

“I’m still not sure how, exactly, they did it. But they waited until most of us were gathered on our favorite trees, then…they released their poison. They must have made sure it only lasted long enough to poison the heracross there and not any pokémon they put on the reserve after…because when I came back…”

“When…you came back?” Snowcrystal repeated.

Nightshade was silent.

“You don’t have to tell me anymore,” Snowcrystal told him, still in shock over the whole thing. “I understand.”

Nightshade suddenly began to talk again, acting as if he hadn’t heard. “Yes, when I came back,” he said quietly. “I only survived because I had been gone at the time. Usually we all gathered together in the evening, but I had gone off to ask a nearby beedrill swarm for some honey. I wanted some…to give to my children. My mate, Treeflower…it was her turn to watch them at the time. When I came back, they were all lying on the ground. Along with most of the others from the group. Treeflower wouldn’t wake up, and then some of the humans came back.

“I did not yet know the others were dead, so I attacked the humans. They must have been surprised…a heracross attacking them, when we’re normally so peaceful, but they sent out pokémon to fight me. They were not very strong, and I took a few of them down; I don’t remember how many. Then when I was wounded they sent out a pidgeot. I was fighting so fiercely that they considered me a real threat, and their pokémon was no longer using the sort of restraint pokémon usually did for trainers’ sport battles to ensure that the attacks did not seriously injure. No, that pidgeot was doing his best to make his attacks as strong and damaging as possible. And so was I. I didn’t care that I was getting wounded; I was too angry. Then, during the battle, I got close enough to Treeflower and my children to see them closely, for longer than the few brief seconds I’d had to see them the moment I first came back. When I looked closely at them during that the battle, it was then that I realized they were dead. And I gave up.

“The pidgeot realized I wasn’t going to attack him anymore and there wasn’t any risk, so he came closer, and used aerial ace…” He ran a claw along the scar over his left eye. “It knocked me out, but only for a minute or two. When I came to, the humans were gathering all the heracross and moving them away, including Treeflower and both of our children. They came for me, but I didn’t try to fight anymore; I ran off. They told the pokémon to leave me alone, that I'd just die off. I didn't realize until later that they must have thought I'd been poisoned too and that it was just affecting me slower than the others. For a while I just stumbled around through the trees and rocks, having no idea where I was going. I found the survivors after a few days, and we traveled further away as soon as we could. One of them, a heracross named Rosethorn, took care of me. I learned most of the healing skills I have from her. The others told me what they saw happen…with the poison…most of them hadn’t seen much, but it was enough for them to understand what had taken place.”

The whole time Nightshade had been talking, Snowcrystal had sat in stunned silence, but now she couldn’t help crying, “What? Why would they do that? How could they…Nightshade, I’m so sorry…” Her voice trailed off. She really didn’t know what to say. When she and Nightshade had talked alone all those days before, she thought Nightshade had been telling her everything that was wrong. But he hadn’t told her this. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if such a thing happened to her growlithe tribe. She didn’t want to imagine.

“I don’t know,” Nightshade replied before she spoke again, his voice sounding weaker than ever. “They could have had trainers come and catch them…but they didn’t. Maybe they didn’t think that enough of them would…that most trainers would want a pedigree heracross from one of the breeding centers in the city. Or maybe they thought what they were doing was the quickest, easiest solution. But no, I don’t know why they would choose that either.”

“I’m sorry,” Snowcrystal whispered. “We shouldn’t have come here.”

“It’s all right,” he replied. “I did want to come here…to remember the happy times in this place.”

‘But we didn’t talk about the happy times…’ Snowcrystal thought miserably. She was sure she had just made things a lot worse. For a while the two of them sat together. Snowcrystal wanted to help him, but she didn’t feel like anything she could say would do any good. For a while they just sat in silence, Snowcrystal wishing she knew what she could do for her friend, and Nightshade with his own thoughts.

Finally, Snowcrystal said, “I think I understand now. I think I understand why Cyclone is doing what he is.”

But when Nightshade looked at her, she saw that the look in his eyes was almost like the look she was used to, before they had come to this place. “No,” he said firmly, standing up again and looking almost offended at what she’d said, his eyes suddenly gaining a cold look that seemed so unlike him. “What Cyclone is doing is wrong. He’s not only acting under the misguided idea that all humans are selfish and evil, but he is dragging other innocent pokémon into it, and they want to harm countless humans and pokémon who have done nothing wrong. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why Cyclone is doing what he is.”

“But…” Snowcrystal began, taken aback. “Those humans you told me about…they did horrible things. Cyclone probably had horrible things done to him by humans too. I mean, I can understand why he’d want to fight them, considering the things they do.”

“Those humans may have done a bad thing,” Nightshade replied sadly, “a very bad thing, but they did not choose badly because they are humans. Most humans, just like most pokémon, are not like them. Most of them are trying their best to do good. Being a human doesn’t change that. There will always be bad pokémon and bad humans; it’s not what you are that determines whether you do good or evil.”

Snowcrystal realized he was right. What Cyclone was doing was the equivalent of a pokémon trying to eradicate all growlithe because the ones he’d known had seemed to only do harm to other pokémon. It wasn’t right. Cyclone might think that he was doing the right thing, in some twisted way, but his hatred of humans, whatever the reason for it, blinded him to the reality of just what his actions would cause to befall upon both humans and pokémon.

“You’re right,” she said in little more than a whisper. “Cyclone is wrong…even if I can understand why he might be angry.” She looked up at Nightshade. “Why did you want to tell me this?” she asked. She hadn’t thought this would be something Nightshade would want to tell anyone, let alone some silly growlithe like her who was completely useless when it came to being helpful.

“Because you are my friend,” he replied. “And… I guess that’s what I’d been trying to tell Thunder. That there is value in having friends, and talking to them about things that are hurting you. I hope she understood that…she would have understood it, had she been with us longer. She’s a smart scyther.”

“I…I think she would have too,” Snowcrystal replied, though truthfully she wasn’t sure. The image of Thunder finally snapping and attacking Nightshade was still too firmly ingrained in her mind. There was something truly wrong with Thunder, and she wasn’t sure it could ever be made right.

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Nightshade said quietly.

Snowcrystal looked back at him in surprise. She felt that, if anything, she should be the one apologizing. “No, it’s okay. If talking to me helped, then I’m glad you did.”

“Thank you,” Nightshade replied with a small smile.

The growlithe smiled in return.

“We should go back,” said Nightshade, in a voice much more like the one she was used to, but still with a hint of sadness. He didn’t wait for her answer, and simply walked away from the human’s protected area without looking back.

Without a word, she followed.

-ooo-

The next morning, Snowcrystal offered to go with the three trainers to the library once again. She was eager to do something to help, even if all she could do was to try. Though Justin had grown extremely impatient and was constantly demanding they find some other place to look for information, and fast, Damian had insisted that there must be something at the library they had missed and that they should look again.

So, after a brief argument, they decided to go, and Snowcrystal went with them. During the journey to the library, she was so busy thinking about what Nightshade had told her, and about Cyclone, that she didn’t speak to any of the other pokémon until they walked through the library’s doors.

“The library is so boring,” Spark complained as they walked down a hallway. “I wanted to do battle practice today!”

“Why didn’t you stay with the others, then?” Wildflame, who had chosen to come along too, asked.

“Justin wanted me here,” Spark told her. “I’m his pokémon. If he wants me to be here, I’ll be here! I just….really think this is boring.”

“You could have just made it clear you wanted to stay,” Wildflame muttered. “Justin isn’t right about everything. Look at how he still won’t stop thinking of Stormblade as a murderer.”

“Hey!” Spark cried. “You…you can’t judge him just because of that! He-”

“Drop it, Spark,” Wildflame snapped. “Let’s do what we came here for.” She turned and sped up to catch up with Katie, who was leading the way down the hallway. Spark slowed down and trailed behind everyone else.

Snowcrystal waited until he could catch up. “Don’t worry about it, Spark,” she told him. “I…I think it was nice you wanted to keep your trainer company.”

Spark acted like he hadn’t heard the compliment. “I don’t know what to think!” he almost wailed. “Stormblade is my friend, but Justin is too, and he’s the friend I’ve known the longest…ever since I was an eevee! He did so many things for me, but…but I don’t know. I mean, I can’t blame him for being angry about losing his license, even if it wasn’t Stormblade’ fault. I…”

He paused, for they had both heard someone calling to him. The growlithe and jolteon whirled around to see Eve running toward them. They had seen the mightyena a few times since meeting her, but she usually stayed in some other part of the library with her trainer or, occasionally, the child humans, and had only really made an effort to meet any of them when Rosie was there. Snowcrystal looked at Damian, who told her she and Spark could catch up later if they wanted. As the humans left, Eve stopped in front of them.

“Back here again?” she asked, and there was a curious look in her eyes. “You come here a lot, don’t you?” she added, glancing at Wildflame and the humans as they walked out of sight.

“Yeah,” Snowcrystal replied. “We’re…we’re trying to look for something.” She took a deep breath. No point in keeping it a secret. “We’re looking for books that mention the Forbidden Attacks. Do you know of any?” There wasn’t much of a chance the mightyena would know of a book they hadn’t looked through already, but she figured it was worth a shot.

Unsurprisingly, Eve shook her head. “I don’t know what any of the books say,” she admitted. “I hear them being read aloud in the children’s room sometimes, but that’s it. And no, no Forbidden Attacks there. I’m sure they’re in the stories for older humans, though.”

“We’ve looked,” Spark told her, trying to sound normal, though his voice shook. “We haven’t found anything that’s helped us.”

“You’ve looked in all of them?” she asked.

“We had to have searched every book in this whole stinking library!” Spark growled in frustration.

Eve looked thoughtful for a moment. “Why do you want to find out about the Forbidden Attacks so much?” she asked.

Snowcrystal didn’t know what to say. Where would they begin? Would Eve even believe them? She opened her mouth, but it was Spark who spoke first.

“Because they exist!” he told her. “We need to find out everything we can. You know that forest that burned down near here? A Forbidden Attack did that! No ordinary fire would have done that much damage. It was a Forbidden Attack! We need to see any book that could tell us anything!”

Eve just stared at him. Snowcrystal was sure she hadn’t believed one word that had come out of the jolteon’s mouth. She probably even thought he was crazy. But when she spoke, she didn’t even mention Spark’s outburst.

“There are…other books in the library,” she said slowly, keeping her voice down as if she was afraid someone – though there was no one in the hallway but the three of them – would overhear. “People aren’t allowed to look at them or check them out; they’re too valuable. You see, Stonedust City’s library contains some very, very old books. My trainer says that most of them are one of a kind. Only certain humans are allowed to read them, humans that study those old times, I think, and then only with certain permission.”

“Books older than the ones on the fifth story we were looking at a little while ago?” Spark asked, his anger temporarily forgotten and the light of excitement in his eyes, which brightened when Eve nodded.

“Much older,” the mightyena said.

“Are there copies of these books anywhere?” Spark questioned excitedly. “You know, have humans rewritten them?”

“No,” Eve replied. “The Stonedust City library doesn’t want them reprinted, at least not fully. I don’t know why for sure; it might be because they want them to stay more valuable or they want the humans who study things to come here. And I’m sure they don’t think they’re important enough to most people for it. To most humans they’re just old stories.”

“Could we get permission to read them? Our trainers, I mean?” Snowcrystal asked.

“No,” Eve replied. “They’d never let a couple of teenagers and some twenty-year-old in the place where they’re kept. I’ve never even been in there myself. But I know where it is.”

“Where?” Spark asked.

“I…” she paused, hearing a human voice calling to her. “I can’t tell you now,” she whispered. “But tomorrow evening, meet me in the big circular room. I’ll explain then. Bye.” She hurriedly ran toward the voice.

Snowcrystal and Spark stared after her in stunned silence. Secret books? That no one but a few were allowed to read? And they were very old…

Snowcrystal was suddenly seized with a brilliant, fleeting hope. Books that old…could have something none of the other books had, even if they were only stories. They could be stories that had some truth to them. They could find what they were looking for at last in those mysterious books…right here in the library they had been about to give up on.

But she also knew it was likely that none of them had any information at all, and she felt that brilliant hope fade. She was probably getting too excited over the idea of the old, all but forgotten books hidden in the massive Stonedust City library.

But even still, as she watched Eve turn a corner and join her trainer, a bit of that wild hope still lingered.

To be continued...

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 53 – Meetings

It was decided, after Snowcrystal and Spark revealed everything that Eve had told them, that they would go to the library in the evening to see what the mightyena had to say. What they would do afterward, no one was quite sure yet. Most of the pokémon were very willing to sneak in to take a look at the books hidden in secret, and so were Justin and Damian, but Katie was unsure. It was morning now, and as soon as Justin and Katie returned from the trainer’s hotel, they began discussing the matter once again.

“Well, Snowcrystal did manage to sneak in there once,” Justin stated. “I guess it wouldn’t be too hard.”

“There were still people in the building when Snowcrystal was there,” Katie replied, obviously remembering what Damian had told them about Snowcrystal once having snuck into the library. “There’ll probably still be janitors, or other workers…and that had to have been before they closed it down for the night. They must have alarms, or…or some other type of security system…”

“Maybe we could find a place to hide in there until late at night,” Justin suggested. “Then we could open a window if we needed one of the wild pokémon’s help, or just use our own pokémon, or-”

Katie sighed. “I…I don’t like the idea of sneaking around at night. We should at least try and explain things…”

“Who’s going to believe you?” Justin told her with a glare. “From what that mightyena said, there’s no way they’d let us-”

“I really think we could pull it off,” Damian began, “if we-”

“Look, Justin,” Katie told him, cutting Damian off. “We shouldn’t sneak around the library…unless we have to,” she added with a sigh. “We should try and explain things first. Maybe they’ll let us look at the books.”

“I don’t see why you’re so worried,” Justin muttered. “We’ve got pokémon! We were in that library almost every day for two months. The only cameras they had were at the front where you first walk in the doors. They seem to only care about people trying to steal books while they’re walking in and out of the front doors all day…”

“If what the mightyena said was true,” Katie said with a glare, “the place with these rare books has got to have some sort of protection. Do you really think it wouldn’t? And you don’t know for sure that the library doesn’t have any other ways of catching intruders. It’s one of the biggest, oldest, and most renowned buildings in the entire Inari region. Surely it can’t be easy to just-”

“Why don’t we wait until the mightyena tells us more about it?” Justin asked. “Her trainer works there, so she should know what happens at night.”

“Why don’t we just try explaining to them?” Katie retorted. “We’ll figure out what to do after that.”

“We should all go today,” Damian said before Justin could reply, picking up his backpack. “If Katie wants to, we could try talking to all the workers we see in the library, and-”

“What about the pokémon?” Katie asked. “Should we just leave the wild ones here?”

“I guess so,” Damian replied.

Rosie growled. “I’m tired of waiting around here!” she shouted.

“Yeah!” agreed Inferno with a shake of his yellow mane. “Why don’t we go and battle?”

The rest of the pokémon murmured something in agreement at the flareon’s words, but they didn’t loudly protest. As tired as they were of being stuck in one place, they knew that what the trainers were doing was important.

The previous night, they had moved their camp to a different area further away from the city after the wild pokémon had spotted a couple of trainers close by and became nervous. Their new camp was a small, rocky ravine with little plant life, and though it seemed more hidden and therefore safer, most of the pokémon didn’t like it.

Snowcrystal sighed as she glanced along the dusty walls of the ravine that sloped upward, gently enough for even small pokémon to climb with ease, but high enough that they wouldn’t be noticed from a distance. They had chosen the spot for that reason; it was hidden enough that trainers wouldn’t be able to see that there was anyone sheltering there unless they were close. At first, moving to a new camp had seemed like a welcome change of pace, but now that they were there, the brown boulders and dusty walls surrounded by a flat rocky plain were bleak and uninviting.

“I want to go to the city,” Alex sighed in frustration as she drew patterns with her claws in the dust. “I hate it here.”

Many of the other pokémon were more vocal in stating their agreement, some asking Arien if they could go with the humans to the library. Damian, who obviously knew what they were talking about through his link with the psychic pokémon, looked thoughtful. “I know!” he said in a cheery voice. “I know what to do. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

“What?” Justin asked, looking excited. “You know how we can get the books from the library?”

“No, not that,” Damian replied, not noticing the disappointed look Justin gave him afterward. “I know where the pokémon could go for the day! The Pokémon Park!”

“Damian…that’s not for wild pokémon,” Katie pointed out. “That’s why we didn’t use it before.”

“Nobody has to know!” he replied. “They’ll behave themselves. Trainers drop pokémon off there all the time. There’s always someone watching in case any trouble happens, and the people who work there will make sure the pokémon are safe!” He turned to the pokémon, who were looking at him with either interest or boredom. “Who wants to go to the park?” he asked them.

Several of the pokémon gave excited cries. Snowcrystal had no idea what the park would be like, but she knew that whatever it was, it had to be better than the place they were resting in now. To her surprise, Nightshade also looked eager to go.

“Damian, I don’t think this is a good idea…” Katie began.

“It’ll be fine,” Justin shrugged. “Just let them know they can’t eat any pokémon there and it will be okay.”

“Don’t worry, Katie,” Damian assured her in a calm voice. “We can leave some of our pokémon there with them. They’ve been there before. They’ll look after them.”

“Okay,” Katie sighed. “But you’re going to be the ones answering to the park workers if something goes wrong.”

-ooo-

After being absolutely sure that Snowcrystal’s orange growlithe markings were spot-on, the three trainers and the wild pokémon who had decided to go to the park – Snowcrystal, Wildflame, Alex, Nightshade, and Redclaw – headed toward the facility. Snowcrystal had never been to this area of the city before, and when she saw the park itself, she was amazed.

The Pokémon Park sat in the center of a wide ring of buildings, an absolutely huge grassy field littered with large boulders and several strange structures which many pokémon were climbing on. There was a vast pool to one side, where she could see water pokémon playing. There was also an area with a cluster of trees, where pokémon were climbing or running around cheerfully.

She was still staring at it in awe when Damian and the others approached the part of the large gate where the entrance was. Snowcrystal figured that the gate was more there to look nice than to serve any sort of function, because she was sure pretty much any pokémon could find a way over, under, or through it. Near the open part of the gate, a human sat at a table.

“We’d like to let these pokémon in,” Damian explained, gesturing toward the five wild pokémon who had followed them on their journey. “And a few others, we-”

The person sitting at the table looked over the edge of the book she was reading and at the pokémon until her gaze rested on Nightshade. It took Snowcrystal a moment to realize that she must have noticed his limp. “Well…” the strange human began in a monotone voice, picking up a small sheet of paper lying on the desk and staring at it. “If your pokémon is injured, you need a note from the pokémon center before entering the Poké Park. You should also-”

“He’ll be fine,” Katie said after a quick worried glance at Damian. “He just wants to climb the trees. He’ll stay up in one the whole time. He won’t get himself injured worse. Could he just-”

“Sure, whatever,” the human said carelessly with a shrug. She threw the paper back down on the table and went back to reading her book. “Just send out the pokémon you want, and if you’re leaving, please sign here and tell us when you’re coming back…” She slid another paper toward Damian, who began writing something on it with a pen he took from a cup on the edge of the table. The worker human droned on. “Your pokémon are not allowed to take food out of the Poké Park. Your pokémon are not allowed to attack or eat other trainers’ pokémon. Don’t abandon your pokémon at the Poké Park. Ill-behaved pokémon will be kicked out and forced to wait in the park building for your return…oh, just read the rules over there.” She gave an annoyed sigh and pointed to a sign.

None of the trainers bothered with reading the rules – Snowcrystal assumed they knew them already – and the human working there didn’t seem to care. Katie sent out her azumarill and shinx, Justin sent out Spark, and after Damian finished signing, he sent out Todd, Inferno, and Scytheclaw.

“Uh…” Katie began, staring after the scizor as he walked through the gate once the other pokémon had excitedly run through it, but instead of finishing her sentence, she just shook her head and sighed, muttering, “Let’s go.”

Snowcrystal turned to watch the humans leave, when the voice of the book reading human made her jump. “Hey, puppy,” she muttered, waving a rolled up piece of paper at her. “Either get in or leave.”

Nervously, Snowcrystal followed the others, seething. ‘I am not a puppy!’

As she walked through the gate, she noticed a few pokémon with blue collars patrolling the edges of the gate and watching the playing pokémon carefully. She thought they must be there to make sure the other pokémon behaved. She glanced at one, a tall mienshao who was watching near the gate, and he returned her glance before nodding toward the open field where her friends were heading. She hurried to follow them.

As Scytheclaw veered off from the others toward one of the areas with trees, Snowcrystal caught up with the rest of the group. “So what are we supposed to do here?” she asked. “Do we…just do whatever we want?” She looked at the other pokémon cluelessly.

“Look at this!” Spark cried in delight. “Food!” He bolted over toward a group of small stands that held containers full of pokémon food. He wasted no time in shoving his head into one of them and gulping down as many of the brown pellets as he could.

“Uh…that’s nice,” Snowcrystal replied, not feeling very hungry. She turned to look around, wondering what area to explore first.

“I’m going to go over toward those trees,” Nightshade told the others, a hint of sadness in his voice. When he was sure they had heard him, he turned and limped off toward the nearest tree group.

“Hey, Spark! Look at this!” Alex cried in excitement, pointing toward a strange construction that had several large tires hanging from ropes. A group of pichu were swinging back and forth on the nearest one, squealing excitedly. Without waiting for an answer, Alex bounded over toward the tires. Katie’s azumarill and shinx glanced at each other and followed.

Inferno looked around at the remaining pokémon. “I think we can trust you guys to do what you’re told. Go wherever you want. Just don’t fight, be kind and respectful, don’t leave the Poké Park, and you’ll be fine.” He and Todd then gave excited yells and bounded off toward one of the play structures.

“Well…” Wildflame muttered in annoyed voice, “so much for showing us around.”

“Well, that means we get to explore the place,” Redclaw replied.

“Great,” Wildflame grumbled unenthusiastically.

Spark walked over to them, licking food crumbs from his mouth. “Do you think I’d get in trouble if I zapped the pokémon in the pool?” he asked mischievously.

“Yes.” Redclaw gave him a cold stare. “Don’t try it.”

“I was only joking!”

“Well,” Wildflame began, “I’m going to go over there.” She angled her head toward a group of boulders. “I’ll see the rest of you later.”

“All right!” Spark called back, before turning and running toward where Alex was swinging on one of the tires, nearly knocking over a baby squirtle in the process.

Snowcrystal looked at Redclaw. The arcanine sighed. “If it’s all right with you, I want to take a short nap first,” he said tiredly. “I’ll come and find you when I wake up if you want.”

“It’s all right,” Snowcrystal replied. “I’ll be fine by myself.”

She left Redclaw as the arcanine went to find a place to sleep and headed toward the tree covered side of the park. Up close, she realized that there weren’t as many trees as she had first thought, just several big ones for pokémon to climb on. It seemed a bit more inviting than a real forest. She couldn’t see any snow covered place in the park, and the only ice type she saw was a glaceon who seemed to be in a race that involved leaping across boulders with a couple of other eevee evolutions. She also noticed, for the first time, that there were a few trainers there, playing and interacting with their pokémon and any random pokémon who happened to pass their way wanting human attention.

She headed toward a place near the trees that seemed to have the biggest collection of boulders, for that reminded her most of her home. As she walked, she heard a human shout toward her.

“Hey, look at that growlithe!”

She froze, and then slowly glanced down at her fur, but it still looked convincingly orange. She turned around to see two young male trainers. One of them was pointing at her.

“It’s really small, isn’t it?” the other trainer asked. Snowcrystal relaxed a bit.

“Yeah…” the first one said, narrowing his eyes at her, not in a hostile way, but merely a curious one. “Wonder why her trainer didn’t get a quality one bred…”

She started to walk away from them, and barely heard another trainer beginning to argue with the two that it didn’t matter where a trainer got their pokémon from. As their voices faded away, she wondered if that was what Nightshade had talked about, how many of the humans in Stonedust City wanted pokémon from breeders. It wasn’t of much concern to her, but it still struck her as a bit strange.

She still hadn’t reached the clump of rocks when another trainers’ conversation reached her ears, but this time it wasn’t about her.

“…As usual there are eevee everywhere,” one of them was saying. Snowcrystal stopped to listen, not sure why, but thinking of Spark as the humans continued talking.

“Pretty much every trainer has them now,” the trainer’s friend agreed.

“And they’re breeding so many of them that there’s still some on the streets. Of course, most of them get picked up by trainers, but it’s still a nuisance. Some of the breeding centers just produce too many.”

‘Humans breed pokémon without knowing if they’ll be wanted?’ Snowcrystal thought, bemused. Of course, she didn’t know much about how humans bred pokémon at all. Damian had told her that some trainers raised their pokémon’s offspring and found new trainers for them, but this sounded like something different. Something more like whatever Nightshade had hinted at when she’d talked to him. Spark had told her a little while ago that he had come from a breeding center, and that Justin picked him out himself. He had told her that the center he’d come from had been nice, and eevee who weren’t picked out were sent to pleasant pokémon ranches, and she wondered if there were other centers that weren’t so nice. If anything, she thought, those two humans should be focusing on trying to stop the humans who were abandoning eevee in the streets. They were humans themselves, so why didn’t they do something?

Turning away from the trainers, she headed on toward the rocks. Upon reaching them, she noticed that the area was a lot bigger than it had seemed. There were several groups of pokémon there. She spotted a graveler talking to a gloom by one rock close to her, and a few marill hopping about on another. And beyond them…was Scytheclaw.

Snowcrystal stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t expected to find the scizor here, and she knew he probably wouldn’t want to see her around. After a moment’s hesitation, she decided to stay, but to keep her distance from him.

Snowcrystal spent the next few minutes climbing about on the rocks. Some of the pokémon stopped what they were doing to watch, a few congratulating her and telling her they’d never seen a growlithe jump like she did. She enjoyed the attention; it was nice to not have to hide all the time, but soon she grew tired of it, so she climbed down and began idly walking among the rest of the boulders, watching the other pokémon.

As she wandered, she noticed Scytheclaw again, standing beside a boulder not far from where she was. She was about to head in the opposite direction, when she noticed that he was looking at a trainer. Standing beside the trainer was another scizor. This scizor was a female, and unlike Scytheclaw, she looked healthy and well groomed. Scytheclaw was looking at her warily, and when her trainer walked away toward where a lucario – presumably one of his other pokémon – was sitting, Scytheclaw approached her.

Now that Snowcrystal could see Scytheclaw compared to another scizor, the only other scizor she’d ever seen, she noticed that he looked a bit different. He was a somewhat darker red than the female, who certainly didn’t have that odd sharp looking edge on the insides of her pincers. She had known that Scytheclaw was different in that respect; he would often spend hours a day making the inside edges of his pincers as sharp as he could.

The strange scizor looked up as Scytheclaw approached. When Scytheclaw spoke, his voice sounded surprisingly gentle and kind.

“So it happened to you too?” he asked.

The other scizor seemed confused. “What?”

“Your trainer forced you to evolve,” Scytheclaw replied.

“What? Oh, of course not!” she replied, looking more confused than ever. That was probably nothing, Snowcrystal thought, compared to how confused Scytheclaw would look. She couldn’t see his face, as his back was turned towards her, but her suspicions were confirmed with Scytheclaw’s reply.

“You mean you chose to evolve?” he replied, his voice filled with disgust.

“Yes…” the scizor replied.

“Hey,” a voice from near the two scizor cried, “believe it or not, not everyone wants to stay in their first form forever.” Another pokémon had apparently heard Scytheclaw’s outburst.

Scytheclaw didn’t seem to be listening. As he began asking, or more accurately, yelling, at the other scizor about why she would choose to abandon her scyther form, Snowcrystal decided that she’d had enough of his nonsense and decided to go see if she could find any of her friends. A few seconds later, she noticed Scytheclaw storming away, looking both confused and angry. She had no idea why he wanted to go screaming at random pokémon, and part of her wondered where the calm, collected leader she had seen in the canyon had gone. She watched the scizor head toward a group of trees before she turned back toward where she was pretty sure Redclaw had gone.

All at once she realized that there was another commotion happening on the other side of the park. She wasn’t close enough to hear what it was about, but several pokémon were fighting and a few trainers, including one of the ones that had been talking about eevee in the city, were shouting orders to them. A few humans and pokémon ran toward the trainers, telling them that battling in the park was not allowed, and Snowcrystal started to walk the other way.

“Hey, Snow!” a cheerful voice cried, and she turned around to see Spark. Before she could even reply with a greeting, he said, “All the workers are distracted by those fighting pokémon over there. We can do whatever we want! But we have to hurry!”

“Hurry for what?” she asked, perplexed.

“We can have battles on the rocks!” Spark replied happily. “Or around the trees! I used to play this great game with Justin’s other pokémon. It’ll be even more fun with lots of us. You see, we split up into teams…”

Spark went on with his description of the game, but Snowcrystal wasn’t really listening. She was starting to wish she were back in the dusty new camp, instead of around all these strange pokémon and humans.

“And then we all try to attack each other!” Spark said loudly. “If a pokémon makes it to the other side without getting hit by an attack-”

They were both suddenly interrupted by the sound of some sort of powerful pokémon attack nearby, as well as an angry shout. “You leave him alone!” the pokémon screeched. “You hear me?”

“I heard you!” an equally angry voice shouted back. It was Scytheclaw’s. Snowcrystal and Spark gave each other a curious glance and then ran toward the noise. It didn’t take long for them to reach the scene.

Scytheclaw stood facing a furious looking feraligatr, while a scared totodile hid behind the branches of a tree. “The little brat walked right in front of me!” Scytheclaw snarled. “I nearly tripped over it. Really, do you think I wanted to touch that disgusting pokémon on purpose?”

“Scytheclaw has such a way with words,” Spark said in a mock admiring voice, a huge grin on his face.

“Uh…maybe we should go…” Snowcrystal began to back away. Several other pokémon were now approaching the scene; some of them looked like friends of the feraligatr, and others like merely curious bystanders.

“Stop lying! You hurt my son on purpose!” the feraligatr growled. Scytheclaw only responded by calling him a very rude name. With a roar the water pokémon lunged forward.

Snowcrystal expected the powerful pokémon to slam Scytheclaw into the ground, but before he even got close, the scizor darted away, and Snowcrystal was suddenly reminded of how he had moved so quickly during his battle with Nightshade. Even after a while of wandering in the wilderness and an even longer time recovering from injuries, Scytheclaw was still a formidable battler.

Without losing any speed, the scizor turned and rammed into the feraligatr, knocking him off his feet and sending him plowing into the ground several yards away. A few of the watching pokémon cried angrily, and some of them stepped forward.

Suddenly several of them – all fire types, Snowcrystal noticed – leaped into the clearing and flung their attacks at Scytheclaw, who dodged the whirling arcs of flame and tried to fight back, only for several more onlookers to jump into the fray.

Snowcrystal watched in complete horror, wondering why Scytheclaw was still so determined to attack. The scizor fought whatever pokémon came in reach, slashing at them with his sharp pincers, but he was quickly tiring, and the other pokémon showed no such fatigue. Still, it seemed like he was doing a fine job of holding them off until one of them managed to score a direct hit with a fire attack and knock him off his feet. The pokémon, a female typhlosion, pinned him to the ground. “I saw what you did, you bully,” she snarled. “Tell the truth and apologize!” Scytheclaw’s only response was to spit in her face. Enraged, she threw him across the ground and launched another fire attack.

Scytheclaw leaped to his feet and managed to avoid the worst of the blast, but by then, several more pokémon had come in to defend the ones he’d been fighting. Scytheclaw struck out at several of them, but they kept him turning around by attacking him while they had him surrounded. Once he tried to strike at one pokémon, several more would attack him from behind. Scytheclaw suddenly didn’t seem to be able to fight as well as Snowcrystal remembered. Maybe he was still injured, or maybe it had simply been too long without practice; Scytheclaw had never joined in when she and the others mock-battled each other. Nevertheless, he stubbornly struck out at the other pokémon regardless of his disadvantages. Snowcrystal noticed the female scizor from earlier watching the battle with an alarmed look.

“Stop!” the bug type tried to yell at the pokémon. “Stop this!”

“This wasn’t the sort of battling I had in mind…” Spark muttered beside Snowcrystal. “We’re supposed to be having fun.”

There was no longer any way for Scytheclaw to dodge or defend himself without putting himself in range of more attacks. He looked almost panicked now, but he kept on fighting.

“Just give up!” one of the pokémon shouted to him.

Scytheclaw’s gaze hardened. “No,” he hissed. He continued to battle hopelessly against the mob of pokémon surrounding him. Snowcrystal had no idea why the park humans and pokémon hadn’t come to stop the fight yet. Were they still too distracted?

When Scytheclaw wasn’t paying attention, an electrike, who had been waiting for his chance, ran up to the scizor and touched a paw to his leg. Sparks leaped over Scytheclaw as his whole body went rigid, and Snowcrystal realized that the electrike had used thunder wave. Then the whole tide of the battle changed. The pokémon were no longer trying to subdue the scizor, but were simply taunting him with small attacks while he desperately tried to swipe at any of them that came close enough whenever the paralysis could wear off for a second.

Spark glanced at Snowcrystal, a somewhat alarmed look crossing his face as the battle neared them. “Well, I’m not sure this is-”

“Stop this!” a voice cried, loud enough for several of the watching pokémon to whirl around and see who had spoken. Others however, continued to attack, just out of the furious Scytheclaw’s range.

Snowcrystal had turned as well, seeing that the speaker was Nightshade, and he was looking over all the fighting pokémon – Scytheclaw included – with a stern glare. A few of the attacking pokémon backed away once they realized their foe was not moving, leaving Scytheclaw paralyzed on the ground and glaring at them menacingly.

Some of the others surrounding the scizor seemed ready to turn on Nightshade when a slowking and a houndoom suddenly arrived, both wearing vests that told Snowcrystal that they must belong to those helping to keep peace in the park.

“What’s going on here?” the slowking asked, and immediately, nearly every pokémon in the area pointed their hands, claws, and paws at Scytheclaw.

“He started it!” one of them exclaimed.

“He attacked my son,” the feraligatr accused, still pointing at Scytheclaw.

The houndoom stepped up to the scizor, who glared at him through narrow eyes. “Is this true?” he asked.

“Yes,” Scytheclaw replied with a hiss.

Snowcrystal couldn’t help but give the scizor a shocked look. She had expected him to deny it, to put the blame on the other pokémon, but instead he had admitted to it, and was now staring at the houndoom as if he was daring him to do something about it.

The houndoom gave a frustrated sigh. “As if that other fight wasn’t bad enough,” he muttered, before lifting his head in a howl.

The slowking stood behind Scytheclaw as if waiting for him to make a run for it, but he didn’t move, and probably couldn’t, due to the paralysis. The houndoom ordered the gathering pokémon to go back to whatever they were doing, and about a minute later, a few humans and more pokémon arrived, presumably to take Scytheclaw to the park building like the trainer at the entrance had stated. Snowcrystal didn’t see much else, as she, Spark, and Nightshade had turned and left, baffled by the events that had taken place.

They spent the rest of the afternoon wondering what would happen when the trainers returned and if Damian would be held responsible for Scytheclaw’s actions. Spark was sure that none of them would be allowed to go to the park again, leaving them to spend their days in the dismal, rocky new hideout from then on. Near the end of the afternoon, Snowcrystal and the others who had been dropped off had gathered together near the entrance, waiting for the return of the trainers.

“I knew he shouldn’t have brought that idiot along,” Wildflame muttered. “Now we’re going to have spend our time in that rotten hole in the ground, waiting for the trainers to-”

“Not if we find something in the library,” Alex replied. “If we find something about the Forbidden Attacks, find out how to stop them, we won’t have to wait here anymore. We can move on.”

Snowcrystal was grateful for the floatzel’s optimism, as hopeless as finding anything soon seemed at the moment. The rare, locked away books in the library were still a chance they could take, and if they did manage to find something, to find out who or what had created the Forbidden Attacks and if they could stop them, or even if there was another way to stop them, they could continue to move forward again instead of simply spending day after day looking for a lead.

“That’s if we can get into the library at all,” Wildflame replied. “We don’t know what Eve’s going to say or if it’ll even be much help to us.”

“Yeah,” Alex started, “but-”

She was interrupted as Spark leapt to his feet, facing toward the entrance to the park. They all saw the trainers approaching and hurried to meet them. As soon as they stood beside their human friends, they could hear one of the park managers sternly talking to Damian about his scizor. Scytheclaw was soon returned, guarded on both sides by some of the working park pokémon, and Damian was told that his pokémon were banned from entering the park in the future. Damian hastily tried to apologize, making a big show of it, which only irritated the park workers further until they were all told to leave.

“That went well,” Katie muttered sarcastically as they walked through the city streets, the sun beginning to set and tinting the sky with bright orange and yellow.

“At least he didn’t kill anyone,” Damian replied without thinking, earning him a glare from the two younger trainers. “Wait…no! I didn’t mean that he would!” he quickly said, and the other two simply turned away and kept walking.

“We’re going to go to the hotel for an hour or two,” Justin said after a few moments. “You can keep walking to the camp.”

Damian only nodded in reply, and Katie and Justin, along with Spark and Katie’s two pokémon, walked off, leaving the rest of them standing there. It was clear to the pokémon, without having to ask, that the humans had had no luck being granted permission to look at the books. After a moment of silence, Damian turned to the remaining pokémon, seemed to realize that it would look odd with him walking around with more than six, and returned Todd and Scytheclaw. He stood silent for a moment, his flareon moving to stand by his side, before he looked back at the others. “I don’t want to go back just yet,” he said. “Do you want to go for a walk? See parts of the city?”

Inferno leaped up in excitement, nudging Damian’s legs with his head as if wanting to get going right away. Alex nodded her head, as did Redclaw and Nightshade. He then looked to Snowcrystal and Wildflame, asking them if they minded, and in answer they shook their heads.

“Eh, if it makes him happy,” Wildflame muttered. “I guess I could use some time to think before we try sneaking into the library.”

“If we end up doing that,” Redclaw reminded her, and followed Damian as the trainer set off in a random direction.

Snowcrystal was surprised to find that in the fading light, the city streets looked almost…beautiful. She had never thought she’d think such a thing about human buildings, but there was something about them that captivated her in a way. She almost felt wrong for thinking so, after hearing what humans had done to Nightshade, but she quickly reminded herself that not all humans were bad. Some were capable of great good, like the ones who were helping her, and like pokémon, each one was different.

After a little while, she realized that they had wandered to an even more beautiful area. The houses were cleaner, more intricate, and most of them very large. Many had beautiful plants in front of them, and when Alex tried to dart into a garden, Damian stopped her, explaining that they had to be careful not to damage anything belonging to the owners.

“What is this place?” Snowcrystal asked, hurrying up to catch up to Inferno.

The flareon looked at her and smiled. “This is one of the upper class neighborhoods,” he explained. “It’s very pretty.”

“A what?” she questioned.

“Where rich humans live,” he said simply.

“Oh,” she replied. “What makes a human rich?”

“Beats me.”

They continued to walk, the sky now beginning to get very dark. Suddenly, Snowcrystal leapt in surprise as, in the nearest garden, dozens of multicolored lights turned on, transforming the garden into a luminous paradise like something out of one of the fantasy stories Damian sometimes read to them at the library. “Wow, that’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, and for a moment she was reminded of the glowing crystals in her home cave, but she pushed the thought from her mind.

“I love coming here,” Inferno was saying. “Lots of humans have gardens like that. It’s been such a long time since I…”

He trailed off, for in one of the gardens, a bush rustled, and a sleek black pokémon walked out. The markings on its body gave off a glow that matched that of the lights that were starting to turn on in the lush garden it had just left.

But something was very different.

The pokémon was, quite obviously, an umbreon, but its rings weren’t yellow. They weren’t blue either; it wasn’t even a shiny. They were a bright, royal purple.

The pokémon turned toward them, and Snowcrystal could see that its eyes were different too; they were a bright ice blue. The pokémon’s face lit up as he saw them, and he bounded over, Damian and the rest of the group looking at the newcomer curiously as he arrived.

“Hey!” the umbreon cried as he stopped in front of Redclaw and Wildflame, his tail weaving back and forth almost like that of an excited houndour puppy. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Where’re you from?”

The two looked momentarily confused about the odd umbreon, but quickly shrugged it off, figuring, Snowcrystal assumed, that he must be from another land, like she was. “We’re just visiting,” Wildflame told him, sounding annoyed. “We don’t live in the city.”

“Just visiting?” The umbreon seemed, if possible, even more excited by this. “Do you travel a lot? Where are you from? What sort of places have you been? Have you-”

“That’s enough questions, thank you,” Wildflame muttered before anyone else could reply. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’d better be going.” She walked on ahead past him, and Redclaw followed, giving the oddly colored umbreon an apologetic look.

The stranger didn’t seem to mind, and was quite content to sit there as Damian petted him and Inferno and Alex eagerly began to reply to his questions. Snowcrystal and Nightshade stood off to the side, watching as Redclaw and Wildflame waited up ahead for them, and after a moment, they told the umbreon that they had to get moving, he said his goodbyes, and they left.

“That’s odd,” Snowcrystal said to Inferno as they walked on, glancing at the umbreon as he stared back cheerfully at them. “I didn’t know there were odd-colored umbreon. The humans don’t think it’s weird?”

“No, of course not,” Inferno replied. “The humans created them. You see,” he continued, noting her look of shock, “he’s one of those genetically modified pokémon. Rich humans here pay quite a lot for one. There aren’t many around, as it’s still a fairly new practice, but there’s bound to be a lot more sooner or later and there’s certainly a strong demand for them.”

“Genetically modified?” Snowcrystal repeated. She’d heard a little about that sort of thing from the books Damian and the others read, but she was still clueless about what it meant.

“Yeah,” the flareon replied. “Human scientists can do all sorts of strange things. They’ve cloned prehistoric pokémon. They even cloned mew. And recently, the ones in Stonedust City began breeding these modified pokémon to sell. They’ve created umbreon with all kinds of different colored rings. They have other species too. Like I said, there aren’t many of them yet, but you see them around in these parts of the city sometimes.”

“You mean, these humans could create their own white growlithe?” she asked hopefully, wondering whether she would be able to walk around with her natural fur colors and not attract too much attention.

“Yes, they could,” Inferno replied, as if knowing what she was thinking, “but they haven’t done that yet. There are no modified growlithe at all yet as far as I know. And naturally strange colored pokémon, like shinies, are sought after even more than the modified ones. If they saw you with your normal colors, and there was no proof that you came from a lab, you’d be in big trouble.”

“Right,” she replied, disappointed.

“Only a select few are allowed to sell these types of pokémon,” Inferno continued. “They keep track of what new colorations they create and they aren’t allowed to pass them off as natural. So…yes, I’m afraid you’ve still got to be careful.”

Snowcrystal sighed as they carried on, and after a while they turned around and started heading back to more familiar parts of the city, calmly enjoying the cool night air as they passed the brilliantly decorated buildings. They soon arrived back at a place with towering skyscrapers, and as they passed a street corner, a couple of adult trainers and their pokémon sneered at them. Wildflame sneered back, and Alex did a much less intimidating imitation, and they continued on.

“I don’t like this,” Wildflame muttered quietly after a moment.

“Huh?” Snowcrystal responded, looking at the houndoom in confusion.

“Staying in this city,” she whispered back. “We’ve already had to move our camp because someone came too close. If we don’t find anything in the library’s hidden books, I say we go somewhere else.”

“Where?” Redclaw asked, striding forward to walk beside her. “To another city?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered irritably, turning away from him and picking up speed until she was further ahead.

Redclaw looked confused, and was about to follow when Nightshade, who had been walking behind him, placed his claws on the arcanine’s leg. “Don’t,” he told him, “this isn’t the time to…” He trailed off, looking to the side at the opposite street, where the two trainers they’d noticed before were watching them.

Redclaw noticed them too, and looked to Damian, who was walking blissfully, completely oblivious. The arcanine felt the fur bristle along his neck as he bared his teeth and glared straight in the trainers’ direction, and the two trainers, as well as their pokémon, a vileplume and a ninetales much older looking than Rosie, glared back but sauntered away. They did not encounter the trainers again, but Redclaw stuck protectively close to Snowcrystal until they reached their new camp. He had not liked the way those trainers had looked at them, and he wondered if their pokémon had noticed Snowcrystal’s fur was dyed, as Eve had. He was starting to think that it was likely far more dangerous than they realized to take Snowcrystal into the city, and he wished they had simply gone back to camp. He was beginning to understand how Wildflame felt.

Once they got back to camp, the pokémon waited near the ravine for Justin and Katie to return, whispering excitedly amongst themselves about what the library could have in store. Redclaw’s unease had rubbed off on Snowcrystal, and she was starting to have a bad feeling about returning to the city. Regardless, her desire to help her tribe back at the mountains made her determined to help out, despite how she might feel.

Damian had let the rest of his pokémon out while they waited, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before they were meant to meet Eve in the library’s circular room. It was decided that only a few of them would go to speak with her, and Snowcrystal felt lucky that Damian and Arien had agreed to let her go.

Looking around the slopes of bare rock, Snowcrystal spotted Scytheclaw a ways away from the others and tentatively padded over to him. “Scytheclaw?” she asked as she approached the scizor, looking up at him warily.

He turned to give her a sharp glare. “This isn’t about healing your scyther friend again, is it?” he asked, his bright eyes narrowing.

“No,” she answered truthfully. “It’s…I just thought it was brave of you to stand up to those pokémon in the park.”

“Brave?” he responded icily, giving her a suspicious look.

“Yes,” she replied, feeling a bit silly as she noticed his reaction, but continuing anyway. “I think you are brave. You don't back down even when you know you can't win. I mean, I think those pokémon thought you were just a coward who would run away if someone stood up to you. But you aren't. You still stood up to them.”

Scytheclaw just stared at her. “You know, believe whatever you want, but I didn’t hurt that totodile on purpose,” he said icily. Then before she could reply, his annoyance came snapping back, and he rolled his eyes. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered. “I’m not going to do anything for you, understand? I’m only helping you with this Forbidden Attack quest to search for answers for myself and help my trainer. I am not your friend, growlithe, so stop treating me like I am.” With that, he turned and stalked away, heading out over the rugged rocky ground. Some of the other pokémon saw him go, but did not try to stop him. They knew that he would be back before they would make their plans to go into the library after hearing Eve’s words.

Snowcrystal felt a bit disappointed. She hadn’t wanted to ask him anything this time. She had only wanted to be more friendly, maybe try to help some of the pokémon be more of a team, but she realized how silly that seemed, and she had to admit, some small part of her had still been hoping he would help Stormblade.

“Ah, give it up,” a voice muttered from behind her, and she turned to see Blazefang walking towards her. “He’s not gonna do it.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Oh, please,” Blazefang muttered. “Why else would you have been nice to a pokémon like that?”

“I…I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly feeling a bit puzzled herself. “I just thought…well…I’m not sure. But I really did think he was brave. Don’t you think that’s the sort of bravery we need to-”

“Ah, I see,” Blazefang responded. “You just want him to do things for us. It’s not much different.”

“I…I didn’t mean it like that!” she cried, but even as she said it, she began to wonder if she had. She didn’t like to think she expected every pokémon she met to help her, but what if she did? “I mean, I thought-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Blazefang replied. “I know what you mean. That’ll be all that useless bug is good for.”

“Scizor,” she corrected.

“Yeah, whatever,” the houndour said with a shrug. “You know, you’re always looking at the good in others. And I don’t mean that as a compliment…no offense. Some pokémon are just, well…not good. Take Cyclone for example.”

“I’m sure the bad things Cyclone’s done certainly outweigh the good,” she stated.

“Well, that’s a start,” Blazefang muttered. “But who cares whether Scytheclaw is brave or not? We could do without him if we had to. Please, Snowcrystal, stop thinking that every pokémon we come across is going to be some great help. We can’t be too careful who we trust these days.” He turned and walked back toward the edge of the ravine, near where the others were waiting.

Snowcrystal realized that he had a point, and that she couldn’t blindly trust any pokémon who seemed helpful. Yet Scytheclaw was a different story. He had a Forbidden Attack, if a strange one, and that made him a part of everything they were searching for. Still, Blazefang’s words had unsettled her, and she decided to put it out of her mind for the time being.

It wasn’t long before Justin and Katie returned, and Katie only hesitantly decided to come with them, curious to know what the mightyena would say, but still not liking the idea of sneaking into the library. She had her azumarill by her side, Justin had Spark, and Damian had Arien. The only other pokémon who were coming with them were Rosie and Snowcrystal, Rosie only coming because she wanted to see Eve again.

The library was almost ready to close as they walked through the doors, heading to the massive circular room where they knew Eve was waiting. As they’d hoped, there were only a few people and pokémon around. They quickly made their way to the massive room they had spent so much time in over the past several weeks, and as they’d expected, the mightyena was waiting for them in the center of the room, sprawled out on one of the chairs.

“Good,” she stated as they arrived, leaping down from the chair and running over to them. “You’re here.”

“Eve!” Rosie cried, racing ahead of the others to meet up with the mightyena, whose eyes lit up with joy.

Snowcrystal watched the two as they excitedly exchanged words and ran circles around a group of chairs, talking rapidly back and forth as they play-fought each other, just as if they had been friends for far longer than Rosie had described. Beside her, Arien folded his arms impatiently, while the trainers and Spark all watched with much happier expressions.

“So, where are the books hidden, Eve?” Rosie asked as the two walked back toward the main group.

“Shh…not so loud,” she replied. “There are still pokémon here. Look, let’s go in one of the hallways. It’ll be quieter. I only told you to come here because it would be easy for you to find me.”

“Hey, we’ve been coming here for weeks!” Spark interjected. “I think we know where everything is!”

The mightyena only shrugged, and they followed her into one of the side hallways, and then to a secluded place near a turn in the narrow passage. Eve sat down in front of a painting of Ho-oh rising from a writhing mass of flames. “Okay,” she began, “listen carefully.” She needn’t have asked, because every pokémon present was listening, and the humans were impatiently waiting for it to begin so they could get a translation from Damian. “All right,” Eve continued, satisfied that their attention was on her words, “the books are hidden in a very small room. You must first go to the room where the battle strategies books are. There’s a door behind the large lugia painting there. It’s locked, but it won’t be hard to open with a pokémon attack. They aren’t exactly too worried about anyone finding it. They assume no one knows and they’re busy worrying about protecting the rest of the library. Go through the tunnel that winds through the walls and you should come into another room. It’s small and has a low ceiling because it exists between a room on the first floor and a room on the second. You’ll probably see a lot of old books there – the workers in the library like to take them up there to read in private sometimes – but they’re not what you’re looking for. Look around and you’ll see a door that’s somewhat hidden, but there isn’t much in the room and it’s not hard to find. Open it and there will be a short hallway, then you’ll reach the door that leads to the hidden room with the books. I’m not sure how hard it is to open without a key; I’ve never seen the door to the room itself. But that’s how you get to it.”

“Hm…” Spark began to muse as Damian relayed the information to Katie and Justin. “There aren’t any…high tech security devices guarding this thing, are there?”

“In the secret rooms?” she replied. “Only the locks. You see, like I said, they know that only a few people know about them, so they won’t be expecting that. Your problem, however, is going to be the rest of the library. You see, they are worried about books in the main library being stolen. They take it seriously…because if a book isn’t checked out normally, they can’t find the person who has it if it isn’t returned, and there are many books here that are very valuable, even in the normal sections of the library.”

“So, are there humans patrolling the library at night?” Snowcrystal asked, remembering her terrifying experience in the library months before.

“The janitors used to,” Eve replied, “though recently they’ve started cleaning during the evenings when there are still visitors. It’s unfortunate, as they’d be much easier to avoid, but you won’t have that window of opportunity. You see…something else guards the library at night, and now, they do it immediately after closing.”

Spark and Snowcrystal gave each other uneasy looks. “And that thing that guards the library would be…” Spark began.

“Ghost pokémon,” Eve replied. “There’s only one camera near the library entrance but they have eyes everywhere else. You’re going to have to find a way to distract them before you try to navigate the library.”

“Yeah, sounds real simple,” Spark muttered sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you,” Eve replied.

“Thank you,” Snowcrystal told her, and the mightyena smiled.

“I wish you good luck,” she replied, standing up. “I must find my trainer now. Remember, sneak in through a side window…have the pokémon who will cause a distraction go first. You can’t be caught on the camera. But at the same time…don’t make the mistake of thinking that being caught by the ghost pokémon is any better.”

With that, the mightyena trotted out of the hallway, and the group was left with her ominous warning. Snowcrystal looked up at Damian after he finished explaining to the other humans. Katie looked back at him in shock, while Justin looked on with eagerness. They waited for Damian to speak, and as he turned and led them toward the end of the hallway, he said, “Let’s get back to the ravine. We need to make a plan fast.”

To be continued...


Author's Note: The purple ringed umbreon and other genetically altered pokémon in Stonedust were actually inspired by a conversation a friend once had with someone on DA. This person was talking about people’s pokesonas and insisted that umbreons that had colors other than blue or yellow rings were “breaking the rules” of pokémon. Disregarding the fact that she was completely missing the point (as pokesonas aren’t always meant to be realistic or serious, and in the end, they don’t have to be), it got me thinking about these “rules of pokémon” she seemed to be talking about. Were these boundaries really where she insisted they were? I decided to think about it and find out.

I soon thought of the idea of having human-created altered colors. The pokémon world has shown that scientists can do pretty crazy things with pokémon, such as cloning them from fossils, creating Mewtwo, etc. So why not create ones with weird colors? When I thought of this, I assumed this would – in the timeline of most stories I’d write – be a fairly new practice, probably with several pokémon who ended up with weird colors in the wrong places or mismatched rings after they evolved before the humans could perfect it, and scientists would need a good incentive to do it, such as a lot of buyers who would pay large sums of money for one. It then suddenly occurred to me that Stonedust City from The Path of Destiny would be a perfect place for these hypothetical scientists to sell these altered pokémon, and I thought it would be an interesting subject to explore, possibly as a separate short story or in PoD itself. Either way, I thought it would be an interesting thing for the characters to come across to show them a bit more of what the city is like.

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 54 – Burning Ambition

Night had fallen upon Stonedust, but the city still shone brightly beneath the night sky. However, the building the group stood in front of was completely dark, and because the structure was so massive, it looked eerie as it towered over every other building around it. No light shone from the windows; the library was definitely closed for the night.

Damian and Justin stood in front of it, glad that there were only a few pedestrians around. There weren’t even many cars passing by. The vehicles were not of great concern to them anyway; there was a pathway leading alongside the right wall of the library that people often took during the day, and it was from there that they planned to sneak in through a window. No one would think it odd for them to be taking a walk down a less-used path should they happen to be seen before sneaking in.

“Damian, are you sure about this?” Justin asked, giving the older boy a worried look. He had been confident about the plan earlier, but now that they were actually close to implementing it, he found he was growing increasingly nervous, and hoped Damian wouldn’t notice.

“Yes,” he replied, a smile on his face. “We’ve got it all figured out.” He tried to give Justin a reassuring look, but Justin didn’t find it comforting. Damian seemed to be completely oblivious to his nervousness, which didn’t surprise him.

“I wish Katie would have come,” Justin muttered under his breath, thinking of how Katie had gone back to her trainer hotel, wanting nothing to do with their risky nighttime excursion.

“Don’t worry,” Damian reassured him, “we have the pokémon with us.”

“Uh-huh,” Justin replied half-heartedly, giving Damian’s pokémon an unimpressed look. However, as Spark rubbed his head against his leg, he felt a bit of his fear retreating and reached down to pet his jolteon, running his fingers through fur that was silky smooth, without a hint of the dangerous spikes it could become if he was angered. Sometimes Spark’s fur would bristle a little if one of the other humans touched him unexpectedly or took him by surprise, but Justin knew that his pokémon completely trusted him.

Damian had brought Arien, Scytheclaw, and Inferno along with him, and each of them, even Scytheclaw, were calm and collected as they waited for orders. Scytheclaw, although sporting wounds from his battle in the pokémon park, held his head proudly and avoided the gazes of the other pokémon. Snowcrystal stood beside Alex. The floatzel had been the only other wild pokémon who had been both fit enough to travel and willing to go, aside from Redclaw, but it was quickly decided that an arcanine was too large to maneuver through the library easily.

“Are we going now?” Inferno whispered, the flareon’s tail lashing in agitation as he looked up at the massive old building of brick and stone.

Snowcrystal turned her gaze toward it as well, and instantly remembered her first experience with the Stonedust City library. Now, however, it seemed even more sinister, knowing what lurked inside of it during the late hours. The growlithe scanned the windows, but she could see no sign of any ghost pokémon.

“Come on,” Damian called to the pokémon, who padded forward after the two humans as they walked into the pathway running along the library’s side. Snowcrystal didn’t recognize this side, and she felt a bit agitated. She was more nervous than she normally would be, knowing what her role in the plan was. Stopping beside a window, Damian examined it, his arms folded as he looked at it thoughtfully.

“Come on,” Justin muttered beside him. “Let’s get on with it.”

“These windows are being watched,” Arien suddenly stated as he looked at the other pokémon. Snowcrystal was sure he was communicating with Damian through his psychic link as well. “But there’s one near here that isn’t. Follow me.”

The alakazam made his way along the path, turning once he reached the back of the library and ducking into a narrow space between it and another building. The rest of the group did the same. There were windows here, and they had obviously been built before there was a large building behind the library to block them. At the moment, the curtains behind the windows were drawn. Arien walked past several of them until he came to one that looked a bit more secluded from the others.

“I can’t sense anything here,” he stated.

“Why is that?” Scytheclaw asked, his yellow eyes narrowing.

“I don’t know,” the alakazam replied. “Whoever was guarding it probably moved to another window for the time being. But it likely won’t last long. Are you ready?”

Snowcrystal realized he was talking to her, and with a jolt she looked at him. “Y-yes,” she stammered.

“Good,” Arien replied before turning back to the window.

Damian leaned down toward her, and brought out a water bottle from his backpack. Together, he and Justin washed off the orange dye disguising her. It had been decided that Snowcrystal would lure the ghost pokémon away in her natural colors, for the library guard pokémon would be less likely to associate her with humans, based on what Inferno had said about there being no human-altered white growlithe. That way, the ghosts wouldn’t be as likely to search for other intruders. It was incredibly risky, but Snowcrystal herself had readily agreed to the idea. She very much wanted to help her friends, and this was a way she could.

The dye, which had been a quickly applied, easily washable type, came off quickly and Snowcrystal stood on the street, shivering a bit before she shook herself dry, her white fur puffing out.

“All right. We are ready,” Arien said in a serious tone, turning toward the window and lifting his hand. There was a click, and it slid open.

Justin’s eyes widened, a surprised look clouding them. “Don’t they usually have something to prevent pokémon doing that?” he asked, feeling that it was all a bit too easy.

“In newer buildings, yes,” Damian replied. “But the library’s old, remember?” He sounded so casual about it that Justin couldn’t help rolling his eyes.

Snowcrystal readied herself to leap up to the windowsill, but before she could make the jump, a blue glow surrounded her body and she was lifted into the air and through the window space by Arien, who then deposited her on the carpet floor.

Taking a moment to regain her balance once the glow faded, she shook herself again and looked around. The hallway was dark, with no sign of any pokémon. She found it hard to recognize anything; they hadn’t often gone this way on their trips to the library, or at least not the ones where she had come along.

Knowing time was precious, she sprinted off down the hallway, distancing herself from the others in the direction they’d told her to run. The humans knew the layout of the library, and if all went as planned, the ghosts would follow her, and the others would be able to sneak much more easily to the place the secret books were kept.

-ooo-

“They’re following her,” Arien said in a worried voice as his eyes scanned the darkness.

“Can you tell where they all are?” Spark asked.

“No…but I could sense some passing by. We need to be careful.”

“Are we going to go now?” Alex whispered as she hopped from one foot to the other in excitement.

“Hey, this is serious!” Inferno whispered to her.

“Oh, right…” the floatzel responded, changing her demeanor to something closer to calm and giving the flareon a knowing nod.

“They’ll notice the window if we don’t hurry,” Justin hissed to Damian through gritted teeth.

“Wait…” Damian replied, his gaze locked on Arien.

A few moments passed and the alakazam nodded. “Let’s go,” he said.

Carefully, the humans and pokémon all slipped inside, leaving the window open a bit to allow for Snowcrystal’s escape.

“This isn’t exactly a top security place,” Justin noted as he looked around the hallway and then at the pokémon. “But I doubt it’ll turn out being that easy. Keep your wits about you.” He gave a glare first at Alex, who was looking around in excitement, and then at Scytheclaw.

“Gotcha,” Alex stated, more to herself than to the human who couldn’t understand her. “We’ll be careful.”

“This isn’t a game, you know,” Scytheclaw snarled under his breath at her.

“Hey, I’m just trying to lighten the mood,” the floatzel whispered back. She still seemed completely unafraid, and Spark, who was beginning to feel nervous, especially for his trainer who, along with Damian, would carry most of the blame if they were caught, couldn’t help but admire her a bit for it.

Alex turned around and peered down the hallway, pointing with her paw. “Let’s go.”

To Spark’s surprise, she was pointing in the exact direction they needed to go, and it occurred to him that Alex actually did understand a lot more about their mission than he’d given her credit for. While she seemed to treat it like a big adventure, at least she knew what she was doing.

Now that their eyes had adjusted to the light, they crept along the hallway, keeping alert. The paintings of legendaries and other pokémon looked strangely spooky in the darkness, and after they passed the row of windows and turned into a new hallway, it was completely dark.

No one dared produce any sort of light with the thought of ghost pokémon around, but Spark and Alex led the way purely by scent and the feel of the carpet and walls, the humans and other pokémon keeping close behind. The jolteon’s heart was beginning to hammer in his chest as a shiver raced through his body. He’d been in dangerous situations before, but as familiar as he was with human buildings, the thought of having to sneak around an enclosed space where he couldn’t use his speed to his advantage unnerved him.

“Stop,” Arien’s voice hissed to them, but he needn’t have said anything. Up ahead, in a small room full of bookshelves, they had noticed strange purple-blue flames.

The flames were at a considerable distance, and as they watched, they circled lazily around the room before eventually moving out of sight.

“Chandelure,” Alex hissed to the others, waiting for a signal from the two trainers.

“We should go a different way,” Spark stated, and Arien nodded.

They followed a side hallway, taking a longer route toward the room dedicated to books about battling strategies that Eve had told them hid the secret door. They knew that Snowcrystal should be leading most of the ghost pokémon to the other side of the building, but they would still have to go out of their way to avoid the chandelure, and it was possible that they would need one of the other pokémon to be a distraction. Spark narrowed his eyes firmly as he walked. If he had any say in it, it would be him. The twisting hallways might slow him down, but he was still the fastest of the group, and he wanted to help Snowcrystal. However, the growlithe knew exactly what to do, and he tried to reassure himself that she would get out through the window again just fine.

-ooo-

The library was dark and eerie as Snowcrystal raced through the hallway, not entirely sure where she was going, but at least knowing that she could find her way back, as she had been making a mental note of the paintings she passed by so she could track her way back to the window. Thoughts of her first excursion into the Stonedust City library, what seemed now like eons ago, filled her mind as she ran. The library had seemed creepy and hostile then, but now it was exponentially so, as she knew what now lurked in the building during the night.

Moving her head from left to right as her paws thudded dully against the carpeting, Snowcrystal wondered how fast the ghosts would be able to move and follow her, and how long she’d be able to keep up the chase before she was driven out of the library. Trying not to think about how well she would do, she focused instead on the others, who were relying on her, and threw back her head in a howl, trying to sound as if she were a lost and confused wild or stray pokémon. Surely, she thought, that would attract the attention of any of the-

Without warning, something darted into her field of vision from her left side, and she had barely begun to turn her head in surprise when a ghostly fist shrouded in dark energy hurtled her way. With a yelp of shock she jumped to the side, and for a split second she thought she would avoid the attack, but then the punch landed harshly against the side of her head, causing her to lose her balance and skid into the wall.

Shaking her head frantically after the impact, she ignored the dull throbbing pain and her own terror as she kicked off the wall and launched herself forward again, hearing nothing behind her but knowing her foe was right on her tail. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the attack the pokémon had used was shadow punch, and if that was why she hadn’t been able to avoid it.

Fear leant her strength as she powered forward, avoiding the temptation to steer herself into a side room or a branching hallway, as she knew making a turn would only slow her down. As she continued to run, sheer terror of the unknown prompted her to take a quick glance behind her, seeing that her pursuer was a haunter, and he was closer than she’d feared. As she saw this, the haunter released some sort of strange, barely visible beam toward her, and she quickly ducked to the side, feeling an odd chill race down her spine as it whisked past her and struck the floor, though from the lack of an impact sound, she figured the move hadn’t damaged it. The beam must have been confuse ray or something similar, which made sense to her, as she knew the pokémon would not be allowed to damage the library. At the same time, however, the possible nature of the attack made her worry grow. Above all things, she needed to keep a clear head.

The hallway reached an end up ahead, forcing her to turn, so she raced into a room off to the side. She felt glad for all the running and traveling she had had to do to survive in her mountain home. It had given her plenty of stamina, and she did not yet feel like she needed to slow down. As she continued to frantically bolt through the room and into another, much larger one, she was glad that she was fast enough for the pokémon to have at least a bit of trouble aiming another beam at her.

As she darted between two towering bookshelves, barely visible against the rest of the room in the low light, she thought of darting up the next staircase to attract the attention of any pokémon on the second or third floors that hadn’t heard her call. The battle strategies room that the others were heading to was on the third floor, and though she was sure her howl had to have reached the ghosts there, she wanted to make sure they’d be distracted when Damian and the others neared that room.

As she emerged from the bookshelves into a wider part of the room, which had doorways leading to several hallways, she was suddenly met with the forms of two other pokémon – a misdreavus and a shedinja. With a cry of shock, she veered to the right, but the haunter tailing her merely sailed through the bookshelf without having to turn around it and struck her with another dark energy punch.

This time, she completely lost her footing, and tumbled tail over snout into the wall near one of the openings to the doorways. Her head hit the wall and for a moment her vision faltered. Through the daze, she could see all three pokémon closing in on her. In a panic, she staggered upright, swinging her head around toward her attackers and releasing a flame wheel at their blurry forms.

All at once the whole room was washed in a warm glow. The ghost pokémon seemed to forget about her as they turned their horrified gazes toward a book shelf. The top corner of the shelf was on fire, but the flames leaped quickly from book to book, beginning to eat up the wooden structure they were resting on.

Snowcrystal stepped back in horror. She had not meant to set fire to anything in the room. The thought that the fire might spread to the area her friends were sneaking through horrified her, and in spite of the seriousness of her situation, she couldn’t help also feeling a twinge of remorse for the books she had just accidentally destroyed. Her time with the trainers had taught her just how valuable they were, not just to the humans but for the welfare of pokémon as well.

Tearing her gaze from the sight as the misdreavus hurried out of her line of vision with the other ghost types just behind her – presumably to get something to put out the flames – Snowcrystal sped into the hallway. If anything, she hoped that some small measure of good would come from her mistake, and it would be a big enough distraction that the ghosts would leave her friends alone for a few minutes or so.

She saw a set of stairs up ahead, and her eyes brightened, glad that she had a clear shot to the second floor. Preparing herself to run up the stairs and immediately search for the next set, she forced her muscles to move faster, her eyes focused on the dim sloping shape in the darkness.

As she neared the bottom steps of the staircase, she was suddenly met with the hulking form of something huge floating above it in the darkness. At first she couldn’t make out what it was, other than that it was large and round and its eyes, small and red, were the only thing visible outside of its basic shape. Her glowing amulet did not allow enough light for her to see anything more. She frantically tried to change direction, but the large shape moved closer and from the corner of her eye, she caught a better glimpse of its form, realizing that the pokémon was a drifblim. She knew this only because she had seen one in a book; she had never come face to face with one before. The pokémon’s massive frame dwarfed her as it approached with an almost unnatural-looking floating movement. As she tried to turn into a small room to her right, a gust of wind blew her off her feet and she slid across the floor, her body tumbling over and over until the wall halted her momentum. Only after she recovered from the initial shock did she realize that the pokémon was not using much force, and she remembered that it was there to protect the library without damaging it, and it likely wasn’t trying to seriously harm her, either.

The growlithe leapt to her feet, taking off again, but she had hardly gone a few paces before another pokémon, one she also recognized from a book, zipped in front of her. This one was a rotom; unlike the drifblim, she could see its form clearly, as it glowed in the darkness. Its oddly shaped body sparked with electricity that lit up its surroundings before a small bolt was launched at her.

She dodged, feeling the fur on her back stand on end as the attack zoomed over her. She gasped for breath as she charged around the rotom and further down the hallway, knowing that if she was paralyzed, the chase would certainly be over. A few more bolts of electricity zipped past her head, the sudden bursts of light making it all the more difficult to see in the darkness once they had passed.

“Go after it!” a voice called out behind her, which she knew was one of the pokémon. His companion shouted something back that she did not catch. “I’ll help the others with the fire. You take the growlithe and make sure it doesn’t leave!”

Snowcrystal’s eyes widened with horror. ‘Make sure it doesn’t leave?’ She had thought the ghosts would simply chase her out of the building, or knock her unconscious and drag her out. She had assumed it was clear that she was a wild pokémon, but she now knew that these ones intended to capture her. If they did, and she was turned over to their humans, she knew she would never see her friends again, at least not without Damian and Justin admitting to what they did and possibly getting arrested by the police. This thought alone was enough to spur her onwards, but even as she did so, she could see more shapes emerging from the darkness out of the corner of her eye. Lots of them. Her plan to lure the ghosts to her section of the building had worked.

She ignored the tiredness that had been building in her muscles since she’d left the room where she’d used the fire attack, and put on an extra burst of speed, hardly believing that she had only just realized how dire her situation actually was.

-ooo-

“Right. We’re on the third floor,” Damian said triumphantly as he watched the others creep quietly up a staircase. They had found the means to sneak up from the last two floors undetected. Arien had done a good job of keeping alert for enemies for a stretch of time, but the alakazam’s psychic abilities were not unlimited, and mentally searching around for pokémon was quickly sapping his strength, especially as he had been required to focus on many at once. They had quickly needed to resort to relying on the eyesight and hearing of the other pokémon instead, and having Arien search only when they were about to cross an open area or a staircase.

Alex surveyed the area at the top of the staircase, her gaze traveling to the hallway Arien pointed out as the correct path. “Haha, we’ve got this!” the floatzel whispered as she crept ahead.

“No, wait!” Damian hissed between his teeth, but nothing appeared to attack Alex as she strode into the next hallway, looking around intently.

“It’s all clear,” she replied. When the others hesitated, she added, “Well, if they were gonna attack me they would have done it already. Come on!”

“Just stick with the plan, okay?” Inferno whispered, lashing his fluffy yellow tail. “We need to be more careful.”

“I got it, I got it,” Alex replied with a roll of her eyes. “Do you think that if I thought there was any danger, I would’ve walked in here like that?”

“I don’t think you want me to answer that,” the flareon said with a sigh.

“Guys, quiet down!” Justin snapped, unable to understand what the pokémon were saying, but knowing they needed to be silent all the same. The boy motioned to Spark, who had been diligently guarding the rear of the group, and the jolteon came up beside him and padded into the hallway after Alex.

Damian turned to his three pokémon, who looked at him with varying expressions. Inferno seemed nervous and wary, and he held his body low to the ground as he hurried after the others. Arien walked calmly and with confidence, and Scytheclaw just gave the other pokémon a sneer before striding beside his trainer after the others.

“The room isn’t far from here,” Arien announced quietly. “I’ll lead the way. Be careful.”

The journey went without incident, and the guard pokémon on the third level of the building did seem to have already moved to the lower floors. Or perhaps, as Justin thought nervously while they continued on through the darkness, they had just had good luck not running into them so far. When they emerged into the large room they recognized as the battle strategies room, all of them immediately felt relieved when they saw windows bathing the room in a faint, dim glow, the space devoid of ghost pokémon, and their eyes were all drawn to the large lugia mural hanging on the opposite wall.

In the dim light of the windows on the wall to their right, which flooded the room with enough light that they could see the work of art clearly, the painting looked more majestic and mysterious than it had when they’d seen it in the daytime. The lugia in the painting was flying above a calm ocean beneath a star-strewn sky, and something about it seemed almost melancholy. The group had never paid the picture much attention before, but now that they knew what was hidden behind it, there was something about it that struck a sort of awe in them.

Looking at a shelf resting beneath the painting, which held some antique-looking candles and other decorations, Spark frowned. “So…is there a special way to open it?” he wondered.

“Whatever it is, let’s hope it doesn’t make any noise,” Inferno whispered back nervously.

“Oooooh, maybe it requires a secret lock or a key!” Alex whispered almost excitedly, causing Inferno to shoot her an annoyed look.

“Um…well…” Damian muttered, walking up toward the painting. Though his footsteps echoed loudly in the room, there were no signs of any approaching enemies. He put his hand on his chin as if trying to appear thoughtful, though to the others, he merely looked confused. “How should we do this?” He turned to the others as if he expected them to begin showering him with suggestions.

“I don’t know. You’re the oldest, you figure it out!” Justin hissed at him, causing Damian to flinch.

“Okay, okay,” he whispered back, eyeing the items on the shelf warily as if afraid his movements would knock them off. “Maybe, we could…take those off before we try to move the painting?” he stated hopefully, looking to Justin for support, but the younger boy only sighed impatiently.

“No, why don’t we just throw them on the floor and see if the ghost pokémon notice!” he shot back sarcastically.

Alex tilted her head as she eyed the picture. “Well, maybe we should just push it gently to see which way the painting swings?”

“Well, someone else should do it,” Inferno replied, his voice still showing a hint of irritation. “Not you.”

“What makes you say that?” Alex replied. “After all this time we’ve-”

“Move aside,” a low voice growled, and both Inferno and Alex were pushed unceremoniously out of the way as Scytheclaw moved past, his yellow eyes on the painting. His wings shot out of their protective casings, and without a word he launched himself upward toward the lugia portrait, sliding it upward along the wall until it clicked into place, revealing a door. Scytheclaw took one look at it, and, still using his momentum in the air, slowed by his buzzing wings, he prepared a metal claw attack and swiped his pincer at the small padlock hanging from the door, severing it with only a small clinking sound. The door swung outwards and a large but clean hole was revealed in the otherwise flawless-looking wall. He then landed back on the ground beside the others, his clawed feet hardly making a sound as they touched the floor, the padlock held in his other claw.

Alex stared at him in wide-eyed amazement. “Wow!” she gasped. “How did you do that? And-and how did you know the painting would-”

“Well, if the library workers wanted to enter, the painting wouldn’t have been designed to move downward toward the shelf,” Scytheclaw spat back. “Having it swing to the left or right would have been problematic as well due to all this junk being in the way.” He motioned his pincer toward the items displayed beneath the painting. “And the shelf is probably only there so the workers can stand on it before climbing into the hole. You really think it was there because they thought the room wouldn’t be complete without those stupid candles?”

“Wow…that was so cool,” Alex stated in an awed voice, hardly seeming to care about Scytheclaw’s tone. She leaned toward the scizor, gazing at him as if she was looking at a legendary. “You have got to be one of the most awesome pokémon alive.”

“Flattering,” the scizor muttered sarcastically. He turned to Arien while the floatzel continued to gaze at him in admiration. “Now, are we going or not?”

“I’d appreciate it if you dropped the attitude,” the Alakazam said disdainfully, before turning to the others. “And it would have been better if you had let me open the painting myself. The pokémon here might have heard that, and-”

“Then you should have thought of it sooner,” Scytheclaw sneered back.

“Hey, hey! Guys!” Damian whispered worriedly, coming to stand between his two pokémon. “Stop arguing. Look, Arien, can you lift us up into that hole? We don’t have a ladder, and I think after all we’ve been through, getting a ladder would be too difficult for us.” He then gave a small smile that seemed randomly out of place.

“Oh, you think we’d want to waste time for that?” Justin muttered.

“I was…trying to make a joke,” Damian replied, sounding a little confused at the others’ reactions.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Justin sighed.

One by one, Arien lifted the humans and pokémon into the opening, and then carefully climbed up himself using the shelf, managing to make it through without causing any of the items to topple to the floor below.

The passage was wide enough for each of them to comfortably fit through, but the ceiling was so low that the two trainers and the taller pokémon had to bend over. It was also completely dark, and after a short while of scrambling into each other or into walls during turns in the passage, Damian allowed Inferno to walk ahead of the others, lighting the area with a small flame.

“See anything up ahead?” Damian whispered as he crawled on his hands and knees after Justin, who was in the lead behind Inferno.

“No,” the boy muttered in irritation, “all I can see is flareon butt.”

“Excuse me?” came Inferno’s angry reply. As he spoke, his flame flickered.

“Hey, just focus on giving us light,” Justin muttered, knowing, although unable to understand the flareon’s words, that the pokémon was obviously annoyed with his comment. “How long does this stupid tunnel go for anyway? Did that mightyena mention it? If so, someone remind me.”

“Well, she-” Damian began.

“I was talking to the pokémon. You’re just the translator,” Justin retorted.

“Sorry,” Damian mumbled. “But…she actually didn’t mention much. Just that the tunnel winds through the walls for a while.”

“Perfect,” Justin growled. “Just who would build a secret passage like this in a library? Whoever constructed this place all those hundreds of years ago had to be insane. Or was this not even intended to be a library at first? Was there some other sinister purpose to it that I should know about? We’ve already got cursed attacks that create irreversible damage and make pokémon lose their minds, so not much else is going to surprise me at this point. I just want to know we’re not going to run into any ancient booby traps or anything.”

“What’s your human going on about?” Alex whispered to Spark as Justin continued to ramble under his breath.

“I dunno,” Spark admitted. “I think he’s just nervous. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

“What?” Alex remarked, clearly surprised, and sounding even a bit unnerved herself at Spark’s lack of confidence. “But I thought you-”

“Everyone…quiet,” Damian interrupted, coming to a halt. “Arien thinks he hears something.”

The entire group froze, Inferno’s flame quickly fizzing out as the flareon shuffled backward toward Justin, who grunted in irritation and shoved him away as the fire type tried to huddle against his arm and shoulder. They waited in silence, wondering just what the alakazam had detected and fearing they would have to battle or make a run for it while in the confined space of the tunnel.

Then, as they waited, the pokémon with the sharpest hearing began to pick up a sound as well.

Spark’s ears twitched as he angled them toward somewhere beyond the left wall of the tunnel. “It sounds like…something burning?”

“Arien!” Justin hissed in fear. “What’s going on out there?”

“I…I don’t know,” the alakazam replied, and Damian gave an equally perplexed translation to the frightened boy. “I can detect several pokémon, but I don’t know what…”

“Are they after us?” Alex asked. “Should we keep going?”

“Might as well before they find out we’re here,” Scytheclaw growled, shoving past the floatzel and then Spark and the two humans.

Inferno quickly produced another small flame and trotted at the scizor’s side as he hurriedly maneuvered through the tunnel. Up ahead, the two could see the small room with a low ceiling. They recognized it from Eve’s tale as their cue that they were almost upon the door to the hidden books.

But something was wrong.

The two pokémon stopped in their tracks as they noticed that the room wasn’t just shrouded in darkness; it was filled with thick, black smoke. Neither of the pokémon were sure where it was coming from, but judging by the fact that there were no flames to light the area, they knew it had to be creeping in from a vent somewhere. Some part of the library was on fire.

The rest of the group, coming up behind them, realized the exact same thing. “We’ve gotta go back,” Justin cried, stumbling backward into Spark as he tried to retreat. His jolteon, just as alarmed, slipped aside to allow him to pass before following along with Damian, Alex, and Arian.

“But…the books! We won’t get another chance!” Inferno responded, whirling around to face the boys and the other pokémon with wide eyes.

Arien stopped, turning to face the flareon, who was still standing beside the equally conflicted and frustrated Scytheclaw. “If they close down the library for repairs we might,” the alakazam responded, and the flareon looked at him in disbelief. “This entire tunnel is going to fill up with smoke; there’s no way we’d have time to get to the room the books are in.” The flareon continued to look desperate, and he continued, “We will die if we stay here. Even a fire type like you would only last a bit longer than the rest of us in that much smoke. Don’t be stupid; come back!”

The flareon cast Scytheclaw a distraught look before following Arien and the others who had begun scrambling to retreat. Even as they hurried through the tunnel, they could feel smoke creeping up on them, the air becoming harder and harder to breathe. None of them were sure which part of the library had caught fire and how fast it would spread, but even though the building was comprised of brick and stone, much of its interior, including the staircases, was flammable. More than just that, Spark could feel the fear and discouragement of his comrades. They had come so close, only to be defeated and sent back at the final milestone. The thought of finding out more about the Forbidden Attacks, and of stopping them, now seemed even more impossible than it had been before, now that their one solid piece of hope had been snatched away before they’d even had a chance to know for sure if it would help them.

-ooo-

Snowcrystal had at first found herself running, more frantically than she had ever remembered running before, through the maze of hallways and up staircases, dodging attacks by ghosts and climbing to her feet again whenever an attack struck her. She could almost feel fainting coming on when she noticed that the pokémon following her had started to pull back. Horrified, she knew that that could only mean one of two things; either the ghosts had found her friends, or the fire she had accidentally caused was getting too much for the other guards to handle. Suddenly terrified that it would spread through different rooms and endanger her friends, she frantically tried to remember how many staircases she had passed and whether or not she was on the third floor. The low lighting made the place look unfamiliar, not that she had had much time to look around or keep track of where she had been forced to flee.

Startled, she turned a corner to see a staircase completely ablaze at the other end of the hallway. ‘The fire’s all the way up here?’ she thought in horror. ‘On the third floor?’ She still wasn’t sure if it really was the third floor she was on, or if she had gone up to the fourth or even the fifth. In her panic, she realized that she had stopped completely, but the few remaining ghost pokémon simply sailed past her, abandoning the chase as they too realized the severity of the situation.

Snowcrystal knew that running towards the flames was a bad idea; even if her fire type would allow her to pass through mostly unharmed, she didn’t want to put herself in the middle of a large group of ghost pokémon. Now that she had a chance to pause, though, she could get an idea of where she was. Noting the paintings on the walls, she turned into a hallway and recognized with relief that it was the third floor. Even more luckily, she knew a quick route to the battle strategies room. She hurried off toward it, hoping desperately that her friends were not in peril.

-ooo-

Justin was the first to reach the end of the tunnel and the door leading into the battle strategies room. He nearly slammed into it in his frantic need to escape, the smoke already making him cough. He quickly fumbled with the handle until he pried it open. Swinging his legs out of the opening, he stood up on the shelf, knocking several of the candlesticks off in the process, and then jumped to the floor below. Damian followed, more carefully, and the pokémon jumped one by one to the carpet below as Justin turned to Damian frantically.

“Snowcrystal!”

“Right,” Damian gasped. “Let’s find her and get outta here!”

Both the humans and pokémon raced out into the hallway, the ghost pokémon hardly on their minds. As soon as they left the room, they could see that the hallway was also filled with smoke, and in the distance they could see the orange light of flames.

“Let’s just leave,” Scytheclaw spat at Arien. “She’s a fire type and she probably already found her way out!”

The alakazam looked to Inferno. “You’re also a fire type. If you could-”

“Go looking for her? With the ghosts around?” the flareon shouted. “But…” He trailed off, noticing that the other pokémon in the group had all turned to him. “I…”

Sensing his obvious reluctance, Arien stood up straighter, pausing to glance at the raging flames far ahead of them down the hallway. “All right. I’ll go.”

“Wait…” Inferno began, looking at the psychic type doubtfully. He then shook his head, stomping a paw determinedly into the ground, his face showing sudden bravery. “No, I’ll do it!”

“No need,” Alex chimed in, beaming as she pointed toward the doorway they had just left. “Looks like she found us.”

The group followed the floatzel as she rushed back into the battle strategies room, meeting up with the panic-stricken white growlithe standing in the center of the carpeted floor. “What happened?” Alex cried. “Did one of the-”

“Ghosts attacked me!” Snowcrystal gasped. “I got cornered and had to fight them, but…but I accidentally…”

Damian, who seemed to have come to the same conclusion on his own, darted in front of Snowcrystal. “You lit the library on fire?” he cried, the fingers on his outstretched hands clenching. He looked truly horrified and utterly bewildered at the same time. “Why did you light the library on fire?”

“I…I didn’t mean to! I…” Snowcrystal trailed off, sensing the growing unease in the panicked group. “Look, there’s no time for this! We’ve got to get out of here!”

Spark nodded to her. “We’ve got to get to the ground floor,” he murmured, “unless Arien can lift us all down to the ground from here?” He glanced toward the alakazam for confirmation.

Arien, however, shook his head. “Don’t have the strength for that now. Let’s go.”

The group of humans and pokémon poured into the hallway again, squinting their eyes against the smoke. Keeping at a brisk pace, they hardly had to bear it before emerging into a big open room. They ran through a set of double doors and down another hallway, and then emerged into the gigantic multistory room where they’d spent day after day studying books for the past two months.

Locating one of the staircases that spanned every floor, Justin rushed toward it and he and the others hurriedly clambered to the ground floor. Seeing smoke pouring in from at least two of the doors, they raced toward the opposite side of the room.

As they ran past, Snowcrystal couldn’t help but glance at the chairs, pillows and sofas they used to sit at while listening to one of the trainers read from a book, the places where many humans and pokémon came to relax. She felt another pang of remorse for the place that had brought so many pokémon and their trainers happiness, and only hoped that at least this part of the library could be saved, and the majority of the books recovered. She then thought of the ghost pokémon, worrying about them before remembering that they could easily phase through walls if they needed a quick escape. As she reached the doorway, she took one more look at the vast room, wondering if it would be the last time she saw it.

The group spilled into the next hallway, Damian pointing out a turn that led into another wide room adorned with many windows. The trainer immediately ran to one and started fumbling with the latch, but Scytheclaw merely smashed the one next to it with his claw and leaped outside, the others following suit.

Damian tumbled out last, looking a bit dazed as he glanced at his scizor. “Uh…thanks,” he mumbled, following Justin as he led the pokémon around the building and into another alleyway between two buildings behind the library.

For a moment, they paused there, hearing sirens as several flashing lights told them that fire trucks had arrived on the scene. Too exhausted to go further for a moment, they merely stood in stunned silence.

“First the pokémon center and now this,” Spark groaned.

Snowcrystal lowered her head, her eyes closing as she realized that the situation was her fault. Then she opened them, lifting her head and turning to face the rest of the group. “I’m sorry,” she stated, watching as each of their gazes turned toward her. “I did something reckless, and for that…this happened.”

Spark shook his head, walking over to her. “Don’t blame yourself,” he told her, looking into her eyes with concern. “You did the best you-”

“I shouldn’t have used a fire attack,” she replied steadily, “That was stupid. But, I promise you, if there’s any way I can help it, I won’t make a mistake like that again. I want you to be able to trust me to help you with these things.”

Spark looked a bit surprised, but then he nodded. “Of course I trust you, Snow. And hey, what’s a mistake if you can’t learn from it, right?” He gave her a nervous smile. “At least we all got out okay without the police finding us.”

“The hidden books have to still be there, right?” Damian mused nervously. “If they were protected so strongly…” The thought of such valuable knowledge being destroyed worried everyone, but they all knew that since the books were so rare and valuable, great care would have been taken to protect them.

“At least it’s the library burning and not us. C’mon, guys, let’s get out of here,” Justin muttered. “We won’t know if we can try to sneak back until the fire’s cleared out. And I don’t want anyone spotting us.”

“Eh-heh, heh, good point,” Damian chuckled nervously. Reaching down for Snowcrystal, he lifted her into his backpack, quickly zipping it almost all the way closed so no one would glimpse her, and they set off into the streets.

They immediately noticed a lot of talking and chaos from the crowds around them. As they walked briskly through the streets, they heard people speculating about another Team Rocket attack. Many people had their strongest pokémon out of their poké balls beside them, and most were clustering in groups. A few police cars zipped past them, heading for the smoke rising into the night sky above the library building. An officer with several arcanine, each larger and much more intimidating than Redclaw, was trying to calm down a crowd. Damian took a turn that would lead them to the city outskirts, noting with a bit of discomfort that it would take them past the library.

“Hey! You with the scizor!” a voice shouted, and he stopped, turning to see the officer pointing at him. He glanced to Justin, who suddenly went white as a sheet, a look of horror on his face as he watched the policeman step toward them. “That area’s being closed off. If your hotel’s on that street, you can stay at another for-”

“Thanks, thanks very much!” Damian called, waving, as he changed course. Justin followed him, looking immensely relieved, but he still gripped Spark’s fur tightly as they passed the policeman and each of his huge arcanine. “Guess we’re going around,” Damian whispered quietly.

“I don’t even want to know what Katie’s going to think about this when she meets up with us back at the camp tomorrow,” Justin huffed as they picked up the pace.

“Oh, right,” Damian muttered, slapping his palm to his forehead. “You’re going back to the hotel, aren’t you?”

“No way,” the younger boy responded. “I sure don’t want to be the one explaining everything. I’ll camp with you and the pokémon tonight.”

They continued through the streets, avoiding the throngs of worried pedestrians. At last, they reached the city’s outskirts and slipped into the trees without anyone paying the smallest bit of attention to them in the confusion. They knew that, since they had moved their camp to the dusty ravine, they had longer to walk before they reached it, but none of them seemed to mind, too lost in their own thoughts and their mission’s failure to focus on it.

They walked in silence until they emerged from the trees into the flat, rocky area that led to the camp. Even from a distance, they could see the rock formation marking the edge of the ravine where they had chosen to shelter from wild pokémon and prying eyes.

However, something was wrong.

Even from their distance, they could see that the pokémon, who had climbed out of the ravine, were agitated. Redclaw paced back and forth, while a group of the others huddled near the outcrop of rock, and as soon as he spotted the returning group, Redclaw let out a worried howl.

Justin and Damian glanced to each other before taking off toward the camp at a run. The pokémon, with the exception of Arien, who kept pace with the trainers, quickly overtook them and reached their friends at the edge of the rocky ravine.

“What happened?” Snowcrystal asked once the humans and Arien had caught up. She glanced from Wildflame to Redclaw and then at Nightshade, but each of them seemed speechless. She looked into the ravine and saw their supplies undisturbed.

“Did you guys…have a battle here?” Spark chuckled nervously as he looked at their wide-eyed faces.

“No, you idiot!” Rosie snapped. “Look over there.” She pointed with her nose toward a place some distance from the camp.

Snowcrystal looked, seeing an odd lump in the middle of the flat stretch of ground, though other than that, she couldn’t make out anything strange.

“I’ll show you,” Nightshade spoke up. He turned to the others. “Everyone, follow me.” Even the fearful or agitated pokémon did not object, and they slowly filed after Nightshade toward the strange object in the middle of the plain.

“Hey, uh, what’s going on?” Justin asked Damian, who only shrugged helplessly.

When they neared the object, it was quite easy to see why it had those who had been watching the camp spooked. It was the massive, charred body of a dead pokémon. The stench was so overpowering that several of them had to take a few steps back, and as Snowcrystal examined the body, she found that it was so damaged, she couldn’t even tell what pokémon it had once been. A part of the ground near the pokémon was even more charred than the rest of its surroundings, a dip in the ground making it look as if there had been some sort of small explosion.

“Who…who was that?” Damian asked shakily, horrified as he stared at the pokémon’s remains.

“Just look at that!” Wildflame growled, flicking her tail toward a smaller object a short distance from the burned heap of flesh, resting in the black dip in the ground. Everyone turned their gazes toward it, recognizing it as the remains of some sort of collar. “That thing detonated when it hit but that-”

“Detonated?” Spark cried. “When what hit?”

“Blazefang used Shadowflare,” Wildflame said simply. The others stared at her in horror. “We’re lucky we moved camp so it didn’t spread to the trees…but we all could have been roasted alive if he’d used it any closer to us!”

Snowcrystal glanced to the others, realizing that she couldn’t see Blazefang among them. If he’d run off, they would have to find him soon. She knew he was probably frantic, terrified, horrified at what he had done, but they could not afford to have him separated from them for long. It already looked as if it was becoming easier and easier for Blazefang to give in to using his attack, and he needed them to, at the least, be voices of reason. She only hoped the attack’s influence over the houndour was not going to escalate further than it had. She turned to her houndoom friend. “Wildflame, what happened?”

“That pokémon,” the dark type began, indicating the body, “was a nidoking that started coming closer to our camp. It was looking for strong wild pokémon. We would figure that out afterward. We were wondering what to do when Blazefang just…stepped out of the ravine and walked toward the pokémon, calmly. It must have thought he was crazy, and it charged him, and then…he used the attack.” She paused, looking to the others, and Nightshade calmly nodded to her to go on. “It looked a lot more powerful than it was before. Burned that nidoking to a crisp. At least he died quickly…”

Snowcrystal felt chills creep over her body at the memory of the Forbidden Attack. If Wildflame could see that it was worse, then clearly that meant the attack was growing in power, and she was reminded all too well of exactly what they were dealing with. This was the fourth time Blazefang had used Shadowflare.

“Well, when the nidoking died,” Wildflame continued, “some other pokémon appeared after the fire, then a trainer. And…and it was Thunder’s trainer.”

“What?” Spark gasped.

“The one she called ‘Master.’ He’d seen the whole thing!” the houndoom shouted.

Confused voices erupted from the pokémon who had come back from the library, and Damian was hurriedly explaining to Justin what the houndoom had said. “And none of you got hurt?” Alex asked, looking over each pokémon in turn. Snowcrystal was still trying to comprehend what had happened and what it all meant. Surely, they weren’t safe there anymore. Would Master come back? Where were they going to go now?

“No, no one was hurt,” Wildflame answered. She then turned to the others, her eyes passing over each of them. “But Master…he captured Blazefang.”

To be continued...

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 55 - Objective

Blazefang shivered as he lay as still as possible, thoughts of what the typhlosion had said about the collar he was now wearing around his neck racing through his head. It would explode after a day if Master didn’t deactivate it each morning, and hitting it with an attack would also bring about the same messy end. Even if he could escape, Blazefang knew that he wouldn’t get far; within twenty-four hours, he would be dead.

For the first time since he had acquired the cursed Forbidden Attack, he had almost wished he could use it, at least at first. In the end, he had quickly realized that without the human to deactivate his collar every day, he’d only be dooming them all.

Yet for some reason, the urge to use the attack never came to him. Blazefang couldn’t figure out why at first, but then he thought back to something that had happened during the initial struggle between him and Master’s pokémon after he was first let out of the poké ball. While he’d briefly tried to run for freedom, one of the pokémon, a machamp, had stuck something sharp into his side. After that, his mind had become very foggy and sluggish, and he hadn’t been able to resist as the fighting type jammed his collar on.

He wondered if the effects of the human drug were suppressing his emotions, dulling his reactions, the things which seemed to be what had begun the drive to use the Forbidden Attack before. The drug’s effects were wearing off now, and he began to get a little fearful at the thought that Shadowflare could take hold of him again. It had been getting harder and harder to resist it, and he couldn’t get the image of the nidoking he had killed out of his mind.

His frightened eyes darted around at his surroundings. He was in some sort of building, some kind of hallway, though it looked nothing like the hallways in the Stonedust library. It was dingy and dark, its ceiling lined with dim rectangular lights that pulsed subtly. There were doors leading to different areas, but they were all closed. And the smells…he wished he could ignore the smells. He could smell fire, blood, and the lingering odor of pokémon of many species, some tainted with illness and infection. And worse than that, almost hidden beneath the rest, but clearly distinctive to his sensitive nose, was the smell of corpses.

Where was he? This couldn’t be Stonedust, could it? Surely that city would not harbor a place as terrible as this. The humans there weren’t even all that bad. Was he back in the abandoned town near the mountain? ‘No…’ he thought to himself, reluctantly taking another sniff of the stale air, ‘there are too many human scents here. This place is anything but abandoned.’ His body gave an involuntary shudder, something telling him that the fact that it was populated was no sign that any of these humans wanted to help him.

He wasn’t even sure how big the place was; he wouldn’t know where to run even if he didn’t have the collar around his neck. And the few pokémon that Master had out of their poké balls were all looking at him like he was a piece of meat. As his eyes met the machamp’s, he pressed his body harder against the cold ground. He remembered how roughly the pokémon had treated him when he put on the collar, how he’d laughed at his cries of pain and slammed him into the ground so that he’d howled in agony. He had heard him and the others mocking him, speculating on how long he’d last, wanting to see him “thrown into the arena,” and Blazefang had a very good idea of what they meant.

Another pokémon, a magneton, seemed to believe he was brought in as nothing more than a punching bag for the stronger pokémon, something that had filled Blazefang’s heart with even more terror. However, the others had pointed out that Master wouldn’t waste a collar on such a pokémon. No, he was here for something important. At least the collar meant that Master wanted him alive for the time being. Yet Blazefang had a strong feeling that, whatever the human wanted, it had something to do with his Forbidden Attack.

Blazefang’s ears flattened against his head as the human approached him. He had never seen a human that scared him as much as this one, and that had nothing to do with the human’s appearance. Though he looked tall and imposing, there was something else about Master that made Blazefang too terrified to attack him. He knew that, for some reason, he would find it hard to fight back even if doing so wouldn’t end with his death one way or another.

Completely unafraid, Master reached down and placed his hand beneath Blazefang’s chin, tilting the houndour’s head up toward him. Blazefang’s body shook as he was forced to stare into the eyes of the man he knew had power even over pokémon like Thunder.

“You look a little unimposing,” Master said in a voice that sounded so uncharacteristically smooth and gentle. “But that can be fixed.” He removed his hand and reached into the bag he had been carrying.

Blazefang’s mind raced with fear. From the looks of the other pokémon, Master’s idea of imposing seemed to mean “covered with scars.” He was sure that he was reaching for another poké ball, preparing to unleash another wound-covered monster on him, to tell it to slice into his body until he looked just like the others.

To his surprise, when Master pulled out his hand, he was not holding a poké ball. Instead, he was holding a fist full of what looked like human candy, in blue shiny wrappers. He scattered them at Blazefang’s feet.

“Eat,” he demanded.

Blazefang stared at the candies. He certainly had no intentions of eating them. Just what had this trainer put in them? If it was to toughen him up, it had to be poison, or something even more horrible. His mind raced with possibilities as he stared at the objects on the ground.

“He said EAT!” the machamp snarled, and before Blazefang had a chance to react, the muscular pokémon grabbed the fur on the back of his neck, pulling his skin back painfully and jerking him upright so that he was nearly hanging, his paws barely touching the ground. His eyes watered as the pokémon’s other sets of hands wrenched open his muzzle, and the first candy was forced into his mouth.

Luckily, the pokémon had had the sense to tear the wrapper off, and Blazefang didn’t have a chance to spit out the candy before his mouth was forced closed. Having no choice but to swallow, Blazefang whined in terror, wondering just what effect the strange food would have on him. Though he could feel fear racing through his body, the sensation was still dulled, his mind still a bit too foggy to feel the full effects. He could start to feel the urge to use his Forbidden Attack rising, but it was more dulled, subdued, just like the rest of his mind, and he was able to fight back against it.

After the second candy was forced down his throat, he began to notice an effect. To his surprise, it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, he had felt this way when learning new attacks back at the mountain. It was as if the candy simulated that in some way, or perhaps it was forcing it to happen.

His fear subsiding, he swallowed the second candy and gasped, “All right. I’ll eat. Just-”

“You will stay quiet NOW!” the machamp growled, and Blazefang’s eyes widened in newfound terror before his body was slammed painfully into the wall.

As stars exploded in his vision, he felt himself being swung back through the air, his side hitting the opposite wall before the machamp lifted him fully into the air, dangling by nothing but the skin on the back of his neck. He whimpered, his legs flailing feebly, astonished at the fact that he hadn’t fainted from the impact. Pokémon weren’t supposed to use that sort of force on opponents smaller than them, not in trainer battles. They weren’t supposed to make their opponents walk away from battle with serious injuries.

Yet he knew that Master was not someone worthy of the title “trainer” like Damian or Katie or Justin were. If Thunder herself was any evidence, these tough pokémon were used to seeing serious injuries…and experiencing them themselves.

As his vision cleared, Blazefang caught sight of Master’s face. The trainer was staring at the scene, impassively, seeming to know that Blazefang could not yet use his Forbidden Attack, or that he would resist it out of fear for his own life. He did nothing to stop the machamp as he was force-fed another candy, still hanging painfully above the cold floor as the other pokémon laughed and jeered at his painful whimpers.

“Look at the little houndour!” they called.

“Fresh meat for the arena!”

“Just a snack, more like!”

“Been a while since I saw a baby pokémon in there. He must be the entertainment!”

“Keep the fighters satisfied for blood before the real battle!”

Blazefang’s eyes widened as their words reached his ears. How could they possibly laugh at this? Weren’t they being subjected to the same thing? What had happened to these pokémon to turn their minds into something so twisted? Here they were, joking and laughing about battles to the death, when back at the mountain, it had been considered a great offense to even make a joke about killing prey, something that was needed for the houndour’s survival. Yet these pokémon seemed to love the idea of him being torn into bits, for nothing more than a bit of sick entertainment. Thunder had seemed positively sane in comparison.

As the machamp reached for yet another candy, and Blazefang began to whimper involuntarily with pain, he thought he heard, from somewhere deeper in the complex, a cry of pain – no, utter agony – from another pokémon in some dark room or hallway just like he was. It was then that it set in, fully set in…

…That he was very likely going to die.

-ooo-

“Where did he go?” Arien asked, the alakazam’s serious gaze sweeping over the pokémon who had remained behind at the camp while the others had gone off to the library.

Wildflame, Redclaw, and Rosie all turned their heads and pointed their snouts beyond the ravine, off into what seemed like just an open, rocky plain, lined with trees after a fairly large distance. There was no sign of any buildings that way, nothing that could have indicated what Master had been heading toward, if anything.

“Did he run back out in the wilderness…just like that?” Snowcrystal asked fearfully.

“Couldn’t have,” said Scytheclaw, his voice angry, but with a tinge of something else Snowcrystal couldn’t identify. “If he was this close to the city, he would have been heading there for a reason. Probably to meet up with some of his little buddies, if you ask me.”

Snowcrystal gave him an astonished look, wondering how someone like Master could ever have friends, or even mere acquaintances. “But…but we first found him hiding out in some abandoned town. That must mean he’s running from something. The police must know who he is!”

“Yes…smart for a wild pokémon,” Scytheclaw said snidely, glaring at her. “Or maybe he’s hiding so that he can prevent them from finding out in the first place. We don’t know.”

“But he was here. We could get the police to find him!” Snowcrystal cried.

Justin, glancing from one pokémon to another in confusion, waited for a translation from Damian. Upon getting one, he looked horrified at the suggestion. “No, no, no, no, NO!” he shouted, his hands moving up to the sides of his head in a frightened gesture. “We can’t go to the police! You know who else the police will be looking for? The people that burned the library!”

At this, even Damian froze. He and the pokémon all stared at Justin as he continued, “They’ll find us. They’ll find the evidence…they’ll be looking at everything! Someone had to have seen us around the building…and it wasn’t like we managed to just sneak out with one book no one would notice was gone unless some famous researcher showed up at Stonedust, we set the place on fire! And did you hear those people in the street? They think it was Team Rocket! They’re going to be serious about this! The police are not going to rest until they find out who did it.” The boy’s eyes were wide and terrified now, in a way none of them had ever seen him before. Seeing this, Spark rushed to his side, rubbing his head on Justin’s leg, but the boy hardly seemed to notice. “They’re going to find us!” he cried. “They’re going to lock us up, take away our…our pokémon, and…and…”

Though Snowcrystal had never thought highly of Justin, due to his treatment of Stormblade in both the past and present, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He didn’t look like an angry, abusive trainer anymore, but instead a clearly terrified and devastated boy who seemed so lost and hopeless. Carefully, she sidled up to him, resting her head on his knee after he slowly slumped to the ground, tears forming in his eyes.

The other pokémon looked shocked at his reaction, and each of them glanced to one another in uncertainty, save for Nightshade and Redclaw, who approached Justin as well. Nightshade sat beside him, while Redclaw curled around the form of the boy, the heracross, the jolteon, and the growlithe. Justin seemed too distraught to continue, and, quite contrary to his usual demeanor, lowered his head and began sobbing.

Rosie glanced to Wildflame in confusion, and Scytheclaw merely stared at Justin in disgust. Alex had gone strangely silent, wondering just what had triggered such a response from the normally confident and collected trainer.

“Justin…” Damian began, kneeling down toward the smaller boy. “We…we can get Katie to talk to the police. She wasn’t involved and…” Realization dawned on him, and he looked at Justin sympathetically. “Are…you afraid they’ll see you aren’t a registered-”

“SHUT UP!” Justin cried, leaping to his feet and knocking Spark, Snowcrystal, and Nightshade away. “Just shut up! That was NOT my fault! Okay, sure, I left Scyther out in the snow. But I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known THAT was going to happen! Okay, so maybe you’re all right and it wasn’t my scyther who attacked that girl, but either way, they blame me, and because of that, my life as a trainer was ruined. Now if the police so much as question us, I’m going to get found out! If anyone saw Katie with me they’ll make her ask me. And you too, and oh, they’ll also find all these wild pokémon here at the scene of the attack, and their arcanine and growlithe are going to find OUR scents, Damian. We can’t bring the police here! We just can’t, okay?” When Damian merely stared at him in shock, he continued, “How’d you like to be in jail once they realize that you match the description of a person someone saw near the library, and they decide to investigate further?” His eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists as Damian stepped back. “I don’t know what they’d do to me, but considering you’re over eighteen…it’d be much worse for you. Think about that before you do something stupid!”

“I…I’m sorry,” Damian stuttered. “I just thought, maybe…”

“No, you didn’t think!” Justin shouted at him, and before any of the others could stop him, he turned and walked away from the group. Snowcrystal thought he was going to run off somewhere alone, but he stopped at the edge of the ravine, staring out in the distance, seemingly at nothing in particular. Spark got up to follow him, but the others stayed put.

“Enough about the pathetic human,” Scytheclaw muttered, ignoring a glare from Arien that was shot in his direction. “We need to find a way to track Master down. No doubt he intends to force Blazefang to use the attack, and if he does use it anywhere near that city, or worse yet, the trees, lots of pokémon are going to die. But a human like that is going to make sure he can’t be followed. He would have had a pokémon use fly to leave the area once he was out of sight.”

“So if the police can’t find him, how are we supposed to?” Wildflame asked.

“We don’t need to find him specifically,” Scytheclaw spat back. “We just need to find the illegal fighting ring.”

“The what?” Alex asked, though the answer appeared to dawn on her a moment after she said it.

“Think about it. Why else would Master risk coming this close to the city with his fighting monsters? There’s got to be a tournament soon, an opportunity to make a lot of money. And he had to be coming here to meet the other scumbags taking part in it. Think he’d risk alerting the police just to wander around with horribly abused pokémon, hoping he’d come across some random powerful wild ones in a ravine?”

The others stared at him in astonishment. What Scytheclaw was saying started to make a lot of sense, and Snowcrystal reminded herself that the scizor had once had another trainer before Damian, before his role as leader of the canyon pokémon.

“There were some shady looking humans around when we were leaving the library tonight,” Scytheclaw continued. “I don’t know if any of you idiots noticed, but-”

“Actually,” Redclaw interjected, “we did see a couple of weird trainers when we came back from the pokémon park. They had a ninetales and a vileplume, and something just seemed…off about them. I thought at first that maybe they’d noticed Snowcrystal’s fur was dyed, but now…”

“A lot of speculation, for something we know very little about,” Arien stated, drawing the attention of the other pokémon.

Scytheclaw’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, and what’s your idea, genius? Going to go up and ask them politely if they’re part of a criminal organization?” He scowled when the alakazam did not react. “I know what I’m talking about!” he spat with sudden anger. “If you’ve got a better theory, I’m sure we’d all love to hear it, but if you don’t, I’d suggest you-”

“No,” Arien continued, his voice betraying worry rather than anger at Scytheclaw’s taunts, “I believe that you’re right about this. But we have no way to tell which trainers are a part of it…and I don’t believe we would get any information out of them at all.”

“But you’re a psychic type!” Rosie exclaimed. “Go try to…sense where they or their pokémon are or whatever it is you do!”

“It’s not that easy or that simple,” Arien replied, “but…even if it was…I’m not the only psychic type. They will have many on their side as well, pokémon who are trained to throw off other psychics used by trainers who would try to seek them out. Scytheclaw is right; we are probably looking at a massive organized crime, not two trainers fighting their pokémon to death in a basement. They will have prepared for something like this.”

“So what do we do?” Wildflame asked, and as Snowcrystal turned to her, she noticed that the houndoom looked far more worried than she had ever seen her. She knew it shouldn’t have surprised her; Blazefang may not be the friendliest pokémon, but he was Wildflame’s pack-mate. “Master wanted Blazefang for his Forbidden Attack. He’s probably going to use it to fight these…battles to the death…and if we don’t find a way to this place, either Blazefang will die, or…”

“Or every pokémon and spectator in the arena could die,” Nightshade finished. The heracross straightened up, his eyes moving over everyone present, even Justin and Spark from where they sat some distance away. “I don’t believe Master has any idea what Blazefang’s Forbidden Attack will actually do in an area where it could spread. He only saw it out here, where there was nothing to burn.” He looked out over the flat, rocky landscape, where the singed ground left a painful reminder of what had occurred there. “We need to find a way to this place immediately.”

“But how?” Rosie asked.

“Yeah,” Alex interjected, standing beside her. “If we can’t go to the police…” She glanced at Justin. “…Then what will we…”

“We don’t have enough evidence to go to the police!” Scytheclaw snarled. “And if they see that…” He waved his claw toward the scorched area where Shadowflare had left its mark. “…Evidence of a fire similar to the one that burned down that forest you told me about, do you think they’re going to ignore that and go after some random trainer, who may or may not have taken a wild houndour from here?”

“We have the collar Master used!” Wildflame growled, angling her head toward the remains of the Nidoking. “They see that, and they’ll know they’re dealing with a pokémon abuser. Look, I don’t like most humans either, Scytheclaw, but if this is the way to save Blazefang, then I-”

“Wait,” Arien interjected, managing to make himself heard as the two pokémon began to bicker. “Scytheclaw has a good point. Pokémon abuser or not, the police won’t have enough evidence to tell where Master went or who he even was. Bringing them here would only result in an investigation of the fires along with the library incident. They’ll be looking for a culprit that is no longer here, and the last thing we want is for the police to be more distracted than they already are. We need to find this fighting ring, and once we do, we can lead the police to it.”

“But…but Justin said…” Alex began.

“Katie can alert the police,” Arien replied simply. “At this point we don’t have much of a choice. Justin can stay clear if he wants to; they’re unlikely to question him just because he may have been seen with Katie. This isn’t something we are likely to be able to do on our own.”

Each member of the group fell silent at these words, knowing that this time, there was probably no avoiding an encounter with the police, in spite of the risks it posed to Damian and Justin. After several long moments, Damian strode over to Justin, likely to relay to him everything the pokémon had said. Snowcrystal watched him talk to the boy, who, contrary to his previous outburst, said nothing and merely stared into the bottom of the ravine.

Snowcrystal knew that, if they were going to involve the human police, they would have to be especially careful. As much as she was starting to think it was a bad idea, she knew that, with what they were up against, it was probably their only real hope of getting Blazefang - and possibly even Thunder, if the group would take her – back.

-ooo-

“Okay, this is all we’ve got to go on until we find out more,” Katie began the next day, several hours after the events of the previous night had been explained to her. To no one’s surprise, she had not reacted well, but luckily, urgency drove her to move on and look for solutions rather than focus on their mistakes. She currently stood near a street on the edge of the city, facing the entire group – both humans and wild pokémon – as they listened attentively. “If we’re going to cover a lot of ground, we’re going to have to split up. If you see or hear anything suspicious, try to find out as much as you can. And above all…be careful.” She turned to Damian. “Let’s hope your scizor is right.”

“He’s got to be,” Damian replied. “There’s something going on around here with Master…and the other trainers…and it’s got to be happening soon.”

“Well then let’s hope we find some information,” she replied, “so that I can go to the police.”

Damian nodded in response. Justin said nothing, but although he did not protest, the others could see from his fearful expression that he was still not at all comfortable with that part of the plan.

“Then we’ll get the houndour back,” she finished, looking over all the pokémon before turning to Damian. “You’ve got your pokégear?” she asked, and he nodded. “Good. We’ll call each other if we find anything. Everyone meet back here by sunset, and we’ll figure out what to do. Justin, you’ve got the phone?” She looked to the boy, who nodded and held up the cell phone they had gotten for him in the city. “Good.” Taking all six of the poké balls she’d brought with her, she threw them in the air, releasing her current team all at once.

The six pokémon formed, revealing Sid the aipom, an azumarill, a quilava, a sylveon, an ursaring, and a scolipede. They all looked to Katie expectantly, having had the plan briefed to them earlier, as Damian released his six pokémon.

“You guys all know the drill,” she told them. “Keep track of where you’re going because you’ll need to find your way back, don’t get in trouble, and…uh…Snowcrystal needs to go with someone.”

Snowcrystal looked down at herself; she’d thought that with the die they’d put in her fur that morning, she looked like a normal growlithe, but part of her did understand why they would want her to travel with another pokémon just in case.

“She can go with me!” Spark offered, and Katie nodded in reply, knowing what his intentions were despite not understanding his words.

“And remember…try to act like you’re all on errands for a trainer, okay?” Katie asked, giving a satisfied nod as the pokémon cried out in agreement. “With all of you searching…let’s hope one of us finds someplace where these trainers could be meeting up.”

After that, the pokémon all began to disperse, many of them carrying cloth bags filled with small items that Katie had bought at some store earlier, making them appear just like they were pokémon running errands. Even Rosie, who, out of all of them, was the least trustful of humans, had agreed to wear one and help search the city for any sign of suspicious trainers that might give them a clue. With the moves she had learned from the trainers’ TMs earlier, she felt confident that she could fend off an attack.

The weaker pokémon were to head toward more populated areas, where they would be helped should they for any reason get attacked. The strongest, such as Scytheclaw and Nightshade, were to search the back alley passageways. Arien could not keep track of them all, especially not at any great distance, so for the most part, they would be on their own.

Apart from Spark and Snowcrystal, that is. The two padded side by side as they left the others and took a path that led to a neighborhood with some pleasant-looking houses. Considering the threat of someone noticing something off about Snowcrystal, she had been told to search the upper class areas of the city, where the houses had very strong and capable guard pokémon, should anything happen to her. Spark was happy to go along with her, even if it meant going to an area where they were far less likely to come across any shady trainers.

For the next few hours, they walked up and down neighborhoods, stopping at one point to eat some pokémon snacks from Spark’s pouch, then carrying on again. At one point, when they had come to a neighborhood where the houses were large and grand, with massive, beautiful gardens surrounding them, Snowcrystal realized that she recognized the place.

This was the neighborhood they had wandered into the previous evening after the incident in the Pokémon Park. As she realized this, she looked around hopefully for the cheerful umbreon with the purple rings, but he was nowhere in sight. She then remembered that he was a naturally nocturnal pokémon, and realized he would probably be sleeping somewhere.

Turning to Spark, she began to muse about thoughts that had been on her mind all that morning. “I really hope we find the arena before this…tournament is over,” she said, remembering what Scytheclaw had told them about what he knew of these types of fighting rings. If Master had come to Stonedust City in particular, it was probably for a big gathering. An opportunity for him to earn a lot of money. If they found the arena after he left, or if he hadn’t come for that reason at all, then they would have no way to find their houndour friend. “We don’t even know what days Master will be battling or how long he’ll stay.”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Spark told her, beaming with confidence. She couldn’t help but feel a bit encouraged by that. If Spark thought they stood a chance at finding him, they probably did.

She hadn’t brought up Thunder the entire time. In fact, no one had. She figured that, at the very least, they could find her and set her loose in the wilderness, though a part of her knew that would not be a good idea; Thunder didn’t even know how to hunt properly. They could turn her over to the authorities, along with any other pokémon they managed to free, but somehow that didn’t feel like a good solution either. It would probably be more traumatic for Thunder, and in spite of the terrible things she had done, Snowcrystal didn’t want her to suffer any more.

Despite this, she found it easy to put it in the back of her mind, focusing instead on finding a trainer who knew about the fighting ring. Then they could do something to help her and Blazefang. They continued walking, occasionally passing another pokémon either playing or lounging in the gardens. They weren’t surprised when none of them had any information on any strange activity. Because there were so few pokémon up and about that day, there wasn’t much to stop and look at, so they covered a lot of ground quickly.

The next few hours passed uneventfully. Snowcrystal hoped that the other pokémon had found something out, and that they weren’t all wasting large amounts of valuable time. She told herself that Nightshade and Scytheclaw had to have found something; as the most powerful pokémon in the group, they were the ones exploring the places in the city where trainers who were a part of the blood sport would most likely be. She was also starting to get hungry, which irritated her, because she certainly did not want to be distracted.

When they rounded another corner in the sidewalk and began walking alongside a white metal fence adorned with carved, painted flowers, they came upon the first unusual thing they’d seen that day. It was so unexpected, that Snowcrystal momentarily forgot her own discomforts.

It wasn’t a suspicious trainer, or even a trainer at all, but a pokémon. A pokémon that was clearly panicked. It was a durant, and it was clearly out of place in such a well kept neighborhood. Its metal armor coating was covered in dust, and it smelled of someplace damp and filled with the sort of dust that reminded her of parts of the library, like it had come from an old or dirty building. However, there were no wounds on its body, no sign of even malnutrition. This certainly wasn’t a pokémon that had a trainer like Thunder, but in spite of that, she felt herself drawn to it, something telling her that this pokémon could have answers. At the moment, the durant hadn’t noticed them, and was skittering at a surprisingly fast pace across the road toward a group of houses.

“Hey, buddy, wait up!” Spark called out to it, and the bug type stopped in its tracks, its head turning toward the jolteon.

“Who are you?” the ant pokémon called, and though Snowcrystal wasn’t familiar enough with the species to tell just by looking at it, its voice gave away the fact that it was male.

“We’re, uh…we’re just passing through the neighborhood,” Spark began, trotting closer to the durant. “But we need some help and were wondering if you could answer a few questions-”

The durant shook his head furiously. “No,” he said, turning and beginning to scurry away from them again. “Gotta get away from here.”

“Why? Is someone after you?” Snowcrystal asked.

“Yeah, hold up!” Spark cried, putting on a burst of speed until he caught up with the bug type. His paws skidded to a stop as the durant reluctantly halted. “Are you hungry? We’ve got a bit of food, and-”

“NO!” the pokémon responded, lowering his antennae as he moved his body closer to the ground. “Please leave me alone. I want to be out of here by nightfall.”

“We can show you the way out!” Spark cried. “We just want to ask a few questions first.”

“Tell me the way out, then,” the durant demanded. “I can get there faster than you can; I have no reason to follow pokémon who can’t even climb up fences.”

“Calm down,” Snowcrystal told him in what she hoped was a reassuring tone. The pokémon seemed incredibly nervous, even though there was no immediate danger. “We’ll help you. We just want to know if you know of anything…unusual going on in the city right now, or sometime soon.”

“What sort of unusual thing?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Any trainers meeting up?” Spark asked. “Talking about something suspicious? Heard anything about a…about a place where pokémon fight to the death for humans?”

At this, the durant’s eyes went wide. “You mean that place my trainer goes to?” he spat, sounding considerably more frightened as he stared at the two.

Snowcrystal’s heart leapt. This was it. This was what they were looking for. A pokémon who knew of the place and could tell them how to find it. But then she realized that the pokémon looked quite frightened, even though he wasn’t hurt, and she felt bad for having to ask him. Yet she knew if she didn’t, even more lives could be lost in that disgusting arena than before. “Uh…yes, I think so. It’s a big underground fighting arena…have you seen it?”

“The arena? No,” the durant replied in a shaky voice. “I’ve never seen the arena…my trainer never let me out there but…” His voice trailed off, and his body started to shiver. “My trainer wouldn’t come around here, you don’t think?” he asked fearfully.

“I doubt any scumbag who goes to dirty old arenas to kill other people’s pokémon would risk showing their face around here,” Spark said reassuringly.

“You’d be surprised,” the durant responded. “A lot of them don’t look like ‘scumbags.’ In fact, some of them probably live here.” He gestured with his head around at all the grand-looking homes surrounding them. “The fighters…the really good fighters…they make a lot of money from the battles there…”

Snowcrystal glanced around at all the beautiful houses in shock, suddenly wondering if any of them housed an abuser as cruel as Thunder’s trainer. It certainly wasn’t what she had imagined when she thought of abusive trainers; she had pictured filthy-looking humans lurking in an alley somewhere.

“My trainer only makes bets, but…” The durant shivered again. “I can’t go back there. He doesn’t even care about pokémon training anymore. Cares more about winning money and buying his stupid alcohol than getting food for his pokémon half the time. Sure, there were always plenty of scraps to scavenge around the city, but…I can’t let him drag me back to that place again. I’d rather go back to the wild.”

“I think you can help us,” Spark said, “and we will help you. Now, do you remember where this place is? How we can get to it?”

The durant shook his head. “I was in my poké ball most of the time…but I know the building is a big department store…I caught a glimpse of it one time when we were coming out. My trainer let me out of my poké ball after we’d walked through a door into the bottom story of the building, but…that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know why you’d want to go there in the first place.”

“What else can you tell us about that store?” Spark asked. “Did it look different? Some distinguishing feature?”

“I…I don’t remember much,” the durant admitted. “This was from one of the other times I was brought there. A while back…but the store sold a lot of clothes.”

“Argh, that could be any of them!” Spark cried, digging his claws against the sidewalk as he threw his head back in frustration. “There’s gotta be something else. Anything else you can remember about it?”

“Er…it had a bunch of blue umbrellas out in the front,” the bug type answered. “At least it did when I saw it. I really don’t remember what it looked like. So many buildings look the same to me.”

“All right,” Spark said with a sigh.

Snowcrystal perked up, an idea suddenly coming to her. “Wait,” she said, “can you tell us where your trainer lives?” She hoped that, if they could find him, there would be some way for them to learn more about where the arena actually was.

A change seemed to come over the durant as he looked back at the two pokémon. He sounded oddly satisfied as he replied, “He’s in the Roserade Hotel. Room 42. Or, if you know any flying types, the fourth window up on the far right of the back of the building. If you can find a way to let the human police or their pokémon know he’s involved…that would be great.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Spark laughed, looking immensely relieved now that they had another source of information.

“I have another question,” Snowcrystal began, remembering that they needed to know how much time they had. “When exactly is this tournament…starting?”

“It already has,” the durant replied.

Snowcrystal and Spark stared in horror for a moment, but Snowcrystal quickly realized that if Master had used Blazefang in the battles, some sort of disaster would have happened already. However, this did mean that he could choose to do it at any time. “When did it start?” Snowcrystal asked. “Do you know how long before it ends?”

“It’s been going on for the past week,” the steel ant replied, his fearful demeanor beginning to return. “But that was more the lower class rounds…the less skilled trainers, I mean. The big name trainers are going head to head starting tonight. That’s when the other trainers really start betting. I knew my trainer was going to-”

“Wait a minute, tonight?” Spark cried, jumping a bit in surprise. “You can’t be serious! We’ve only got a few hours ‘till nightfall, and you’re telling me Thunder’s Master is going to…going to…” He shook his head. “Well, do you know who exactly will be fighting next?”

“All of them, I think!” the durant replied fearfully, startled by Spark’s outburst. “The most skilled trainers fight at least once every time this part of the tournament starts. Winners go on to the next round and losers fight again in the lower ranking tournament. People bet on their pokémon and bet on who will be the last victorious trainer standing. So you’d see-”

“Was there a trainer with a houndour there?” Snowcrystal asked. “Or…or a really scarred scyther?”

“I don’t know!” the durant cried. “I don’t usually see their pokémon! I’m sorry, that’s all I know about it.”

“It’s okay, you’ve been a big help,” Snowcrystal told him, and the ant pokémon looked at her gratefully. “Just one more thing…do you know anything about how your trainer gets into this place?”

“She doesn’t mean what it looks like,” Spark quickly interjected, obviously thinking the same thing Snowcrystal had. “She means, is there some sort of password or something the trainers need to get to the part of the store that leads to the arena?”

“Yeah…” the durant began. “Each of the trainers all have this fake Molten Badge with a small carving of a lugia on the back. Looks normal from the front, but…I think the trainer has to show it to the human at the small counter on the first floor. At least, that’s what River – my trainer’s vaporeon – told me, anyway. I was never out of the poké ball when he did that.”

“Okay, thanks,” Snowcrystal told him, suddenly aware of how quickly they needed to find the others. It was nearing sunset already.

“All right, to get past the city, you just need to keep heading in that direction,” Spark explained to the durant, pointing with his paw past a group of houses. “If you get lost, just follow the street until the houses get smaller, and from there you should be able to see the trees and rocks from somewhere high up. You’re really not far.”

“Thanks,” the durant replied, and before either of them could say anything more, he took off.

This time, instead of following him, the two of them began to race back in the direction of the meeting place, only just realizing how far they had to travel before they reached it. Yet both Snowcrystal and Spark were used to traveling long distances, and they did not tire easily. They were determined to make it as soon as possible.

-ooo-

“Are you sure we can’t go to the police now?” Katie asked nervously as the group of trainers and pokémon, now reunited, stood beneath the Roserade Hotel. Damian and Katie had returned their pokémon, not wanting to make it appear as if they were walking with more than six each. She sighed as she glanced nervously around before staring up at the back of the building.

“That durant didn’t give enough information,” Justin replied. “And it’s not like the arena’s in some abandoned warehouse somewhere; I don’t think the police can just waltz in and search an entire store without any evidence.”

As much as Katie knew Justin was afraid to alert the police, she had to admit that he was right. The word of one pokémon, told through two other pokémon, wasn’t enough to warrant a search, and it wasn’t the sort of thing the police would want to be distracted by with the recent library incident and the ongoing investigation of anything they believed was related to Team Rocket. They probably had no idea if there was even anything major happening in the underground battling world at the moment, and even if they got their hands on the fake badge, it probably wouldn’t mean anything to them. It wouldn’t exactly be much evidence if they couldn’t prove it was connected to the illegal fighting and not just a random fake badge, and the people running the arena weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t still be using them if they were aware the police knew of the connection.

“All right,” she sighed, making an exasperated gesture with her arms. “Let’s do this quick, then.”

“Don’t worry,” Damian tried to assure her, “I’ll be careful. I’ll find some dirty clothes, get to wherever the entrance is, snap a few pictures on the pokégear, then you can show them to the police. Simple, right?”

“Yeah, just like your library plan,” she muttered.

“What if…what if we’ll be too late if we go to the police?” Justin asked nervously. “Or what if the pictures aren’t enough evidence or they can’t head out there immediately? If Master’s going to fight tonight, he could-”

“Surely we can tell them that pokémon are being hurt, and that should convince them,” Damian replied, but Justin looked doubtful.

“Look, I know you’re scared of the police, but just try to relax,” Katie told him. “I’ll tell them I’m the one that took the pictures. You and Damian can be far away. Damian’s only going in because he’s older than us; no way they’re going to let a couple of kids like you or me anywhere near the entrance to the arena.”

Justin didn’t respond, but Katie hardly paid attention. She took out one of her poké balls, releasing the small, purple form of her aipom. “Okay, Sid, this is the only time I’m going to say this, but…” She reached up with her hand, pointing toward the fourth window from the bottom on the building’s right side, which was propped open. “…I need you to sneak into that building and steal something. Find us a molten badge with a lugia carving on the back, okay?”

Sid, who looked more excited than Snowcrystal had ever seen a pokémon look about anything, gave Katie a dramatic salute before turning and bounding toward the building. He climbed up its side effortlessly using the trailing ivy along its walls and within no time, he was on the balcony beneath the durant’s trainer’s window. He gave them an enthusiastic wave before vanishing inside.

They waited, unsure if the trainer was still lurking there, and if the overconfident aipom would stumble upon him. If the trainer was wearing the fake badge, that would definitely complicate things. They stood still with baited breath as they watched the window.

However, no more than a minute or two had passed before Sid reappeared, holding up a small object triumphantly. Damian gave him a thumbs-up, and the others breathed a collective sigh of relief. Sid scampered down to them, handing Damian the volcano-shaped object, which, he could see, looked exactly like a Molten Badge, save for the small lugia engraving on the back.

“Good job!” the trainer exclaimed.

“Good, now let’s get out of here, find some scruffy clothes, and try to find out where that department store is,” Katie muttered, casting a nervous glance at the window. “Before that trainer realizes what’s happened.”

Sid only burst out laughing. “Oh, don’t worry about him! He was passed out on the floor of the room! I stole the badge from his vest!” Not understanding what he was saying, the trainer just stared at him in confusion.

“He won’t be a problem,” Damian told her, giving the briefest translation he could. “But you’re right; let’s go.”

“Yeah,” Justin agreed as they began to sprint away from the building, glancing nervously at the rapidly darkening sky. “We probably don’t have much time. And I doubt that guy would give us any information on how to find the place.”

They wasted no time in getting to the nearest café, while Katie worked searching through images of Stonedust City department stores to find one with blue umbrellas. Damian soon returned wearing some scruffy looking clothes, and he began to work on the computer next to her, searching for the same thing.

“Didn’t the durant say the humans didn’t look…well, like you’d think a scumbag would?” Spark asked, staring at Damian’s new attire.

“Maybe not the real ‘champions,’” Nightshade replied, “but you can bet many of the ones who waste all their money gambling there do. Someone Damian’s age wouldn’t be likely to have much luck.”

“So if he looks like that and shows them the badge, they’ll let him in long enough to take the pictures, right?” Rosie asked.

“More importantly,” Arien interjected, “it will keep him from getting hurt if they find him snooping around. He has to look the part. In his case, someone desperate.”

“If he doesn’t fool them,” Scytheclaw continued, “I wouldn’t put it past them to kill him.” Even Arien, a normally calm and collected pokémon, looked horrified at the suggestion. “I’m just sayin’,” the scizor continued, “he’s putting a lot at risk to help these pokémon and the monsters who force them into that mess. You had all better be nearby for backup in case anything happens.”

“Right,” Rosie replied sullenly.

“Got it!” said Katie suddenly, prompting everyone who’d come into the café to stare at her computer screen. “Here it is…” She zoomed in to the picture, showing them a very large department store. The courtyard in front of it was decorated by blue umbrellas, a couple small restaurants nearby. “And here’s the location. It’s on the other side of town but if we hurry, we can get there within twenty minutes. Damian, you can take the bus. We’ll catch up with the wild pokémon as soon as we can. I don’t think they’d let that many loose pokémon on board.”

They rushed out of the café, regrouping with the wild pokémon who’d chosen to wait outside. Snowcrystal darted over to Damian, a feeling of determination suddenly gripping her. “I want to go,” she stated, and the other pokémon looked to her in confusion. “I could help,” she protested. “If someone attacks Damian, that is. I’m one of the only ones small enough to hide in his backpack, and I know some powerful fire moves. He wouldn’t need to have the time to release me from a poké ball; I could take them by surprise!”

She expected the others to argue, but to her surprise, Arien merely nodded. “That’s a good idea.” Snowcrystal beamed at him, and he added, “Just do not make your presence known unless absolutely necessary. Do you understand?”

Snowcrystal nodded vigorously. Damian, obviously having received the translation, set down his backpack so she could climb in, leaving a bit of it unzipped so that she could easily push the zipper open wider if she needed to quickly escape.

“Wait…you’re bringing the growlithe?” Katie cried.

“Arien thinks it’s a good idea,” Damian replied. “In case I can’t release my other pokémon in time. She may be small, but…I’d like to see someone try to hurt me after taking a flame wheel to the face.”

Katie knew he was partially joking, but she seemed to accept that answer. “True…I guess you need all the help you can get,” she muttered, in a way that made it seem as if she was thinking of everything that could go wrong.

“No one else is small enough to keep hidden and knows attacks like that,” Justin pointed out. “It’s a good idea. And he should take Nightshade too.” When the other trainers looked to him in confusion, he added, “Think about it. Nightshade’s one of the strongest pokémon we’ve got. And well, just look at him. He still looks like he got dragged under a bus. Just the sort of pokémon an abusive or neglectful trainer would have, right? We could dirty up his bandages if we wanted the full effect. He could even try to limp more. And act submissive and scared or tough and angry or whatever it is abused, sick pokémon are supposed to act like. That way, you’ve got an eighth pokémon for protection, and you look more convincing.”

Everyone stared at him in astonishment for a moment, before Spark burst out, “My trainer is a genius!” and Alex gave him a round of applause. Nightshade nodded in approval and stood protectively by Damian.

“Well, okay, you’re right, that’s smart,” Katie admitted. “Take Nightshade with you and head over to the bus stop. We’ll be out in the courtyard in front of the store ordering food or something.”

Justin nodded. “We’ll act like nothing’s up, and the moment you come out, we’ll leave and Katie can go to the police.”

“All right, it’s settled,” Damian replied eagerly. He held out his six poké balls, returning his pokémon team and placing the poké balls back on his belt. “And we’ll make sure they come as fast as they can to help the pokémon tonight before Master has a chance to make Blazefang use the attack. Good luck!”

“And hope they’re not too late,” Justin muttered. As he watched Damian running off, Nightshade flying right behind him and Snowcrystal peering from the backpack, he added, “And you’re the one who needs the luck.”

-ooo-

It wasn’t long before Nightshade and Damian stood in front of the department store. It certainly wasn’t Stonedust City’s biggest, but its size was still impressive, especially compared to the smaller shops that Damian had been used to in many of Inari’s other cities. It was part of a large strip mall, many other buildings and shops set up around and near it. A large courtyard in the front housed tables with blue umbrellas, where many trainers were currently enjoying food with their pokémon. He could feel Snowcrystal moving around carefully in the backpack, trying to get a better look. Nightshade looked calm and collected, but Damian could tell that he was worried.

Knowing that it would take a while for Justin and Katie to catch up with the wild pokémon, he took a deep breath and strode off toward the department store, the heracross at his side. He had the fake molten badge pinned to his vest along with his other badges, and he hoped he wouldn’t look suspicious to either the fighting ring trainers or random passerby. A couple trainers on the bus had already expressed concern over Nightshade’s filthy bandages, and he began to wonder if making him look like an abused pokémon had really been a good idea after all. But now, there was no turning back.

They walked into the front doors, seeing nothing odd or amiss. It looked like any normal department store, and for a moment Damian wondered if he’d somehow messed up and came to the wrong one. He reminded himself that looking normal was probably its entire purpose, and turned back and forth to get a good look at the place, trying to figure out where the smallest counter was.

It certainly wasn’t an upscale store, and no one seemed to object to him or his tattered clothes. It was fairly crowded, and he began to feel a bit anxious as he started walking, keeping an eye out for the counter and whoever he was supposed to show the badge to. As he walked, he looked around for any trainers that looked as if they were up to something, but it proved fruitless, as everyone seemed to look and act very normal from what he could see.

As he moved toward the back of the store, he felt a tug on his sleeve and looked over to see Nightshade pointing toward something. Following the heracross’s gaze, he noticed a small, sectioned off area of the store that appeared to sell DVDs and other small items. There was a single counter there, with one cashier waiting behind it and a second worker standing by.

Damian headed over it, reminding himself that he shouldn’t look too excited or eager. He needed to act like this was a regular thing. He could see Nightshade beside him, and knew that Snowcrystal was waiting in his backpack. He also had six other pokémon ready to defend him if something went wrong, and he felt his confidence returning.

As he walked up to the counter, the cashier gave him a strange look – which he hoped wasn’t one of suspicion – and asked him in an irritated tone, “What are you looking for?”

The question surprised Damian enough that he wasn’t sure that he’d walked into the right part of the store. Then he remembered that, of course, the place catered to normal customers as well. They couldn’t hide an underground fighting ring with a store that never sold anything.

Feeling silly, he replied, “Well, actually, I’m…” He fumbled around with his vest, taking a bit longer than he would have wanted to unhook the molten badge and hold it out to him.

The cashier took it from him, turning away and staring at it with his hand behind the counter, as if in precaution should any bystander look in their direction. He was silent for several long moments, and Damian wondered if he had done something wrong, if they had seen right through his attempt to pass as another patron of their crime establishment. He probably didn’t look or act anything like the other trainers who took part in it, and he began to realize that they had likely noticed right away. His hands shook as he watched the worker, expecting him to scream at him and force him to leave, or maybe even turn him in to the police if he had chosen the wrong department store and the workers somehow knew what the badge meant.

Instead, to his surprise, the worker just sighed. “Great. Another weirdo,” he muttered. Turning to Damian, he stated in a matter-of-fact way, “Okay, down there. You know the drill.”

He pointed toward a door off to the side, hidden partially by a jutting section of the wall as he handed Damian the badge back. The door was labeled as a bathroom, but it had an “employees only” sign on it. Damian was momentarily confused. “But I don’t have to-” Then, it came to him, and he grinned, hoping they’d take his comment as a joke. “Er, I mean, thanks! I get it…” He gave the cashier a thumbs-up and tried to walk discreetly along the wall toward the door, which caused the other worker to give an irritated sigh and glare at him before opening the door and motioning for him to hurry it up.

“They let any old trash in here these days,” he heard one worker mutter as he stepped through the doorway.

“Well, they’ve got money,” his partner replied, before shutting the door behind Damian, leaving him in a dimly-lit hallway passage.

This certainly was anything but a bathroom; in fact, it looked as if this part of the building had once housed office rooms or something of the sort. A few disused rooms could be seen through open doors, and up ahead, the hallway seemed to twist and curve. A sudden fear gripped Damian as he realized that the trainers who owned the fake badges were supposed to know where to go, so there was probably a hidden entrance somewhere.

And he had no idea where it was.

He fumbled with his pokégear, knowing that he had to find it as quickly as possible so he could snap a clear picture for Katie to show to the police. Then he had to get out as fast as he could before any of the people responsible for the fighting ring could realize what he’d done. The hallway was empty, and though he was worried this meant that he could be too late, and the fights had already started, it did give him an opportunity to contact the others.

He called Justin’s phone, and almost immediately he heard the younger boy’s voice on the other end. “Damian? Where are you?” He sounded very worried.

“I’m in some disused part of the building,” Damian whispered, creeping down the hallway as he looked left and right for any sign of movement. “I haven’t found the entrance to the place yet, but…”

“Send me a picture,” Justin demanded.

“There’s nothing to take a picture of,” Damian whispered back. “It’s all just empty rooms!”

“Then find something.”

“I’m trying!”

He kept going as he listened to Justin ramble, finding that most of the old office rooms were being used as improvised storage rooms, but there was nothing that looked like it belonged to anything related to criminal activity. As he turned a corner in the hallway only to meet another empty room, he was about to take one of Justin’s many suggestions and have Nightshade or even Snowcrystal split up and look in different areas when he heard the sounds of footsteps.

He slammed his pokégear closed just in time as three men walked into the empty room he was standing in, joking and laughing in a way that made Damian realize that they were probably drunk. One of them turned to him, his expression a bit amused.

“You lost, kid?”

“Uh…n-no, I…” Damian began, but he didn’t have a chance to finish.

The other trainer laughed and marched over to the far wall, pressing his hand against a section that looked just like any other, yet it moved inward as he touched it. Damian’s eyes widened as sections of the wall separated and moved apart soundlessly, revealing a dark passage lit only faintly with rectangular lights attached to the ceiling.

It had been so easy, and Damian knew that if he could snap a picture of this, it would probably be great evidence for the police. Yet he also knew that he was surrounded by three trainers in an organization that probably would have no qualms with hurting him should they think he was threatening their livelihood in any way. Drunk or not, there was no way these strangers were going to let him get away with that.

“Well, go on,” one of the trainers said in a jesting manner, as if they found his uncertainty amusing. At least, he thought, for one reason or another, they were completely oblivious to the fact that he was an imposter. They seemed to think he was some clueless trainer who wanted to gamble and was new to the whole thing, or had forgotten how to get in. Damian knew he would have to walk through that door, or risk a high likelihood of them finding out he was only there to infiltrate the place.

“Oh! Haha, thanks!” he began, giving them a nervous grin as he edged his way backward toward the improvised door, Nightshade at his side. He turned around abruptly as he reached it, glancing down to Nightshade, who was doing a good job of acting like an angry, disgruntled pokémon. Damian thought that was probably a good idea; he wasn’t sure he could pull off the “abusive, controlling trainer” look as well as he could the “clueless, horrible battler who didn’t take care of his pokémon” one.

After he walked through, two of the other trainers followed, but the third stayed in the empty room. “I’m gonna stay behind and wait for Max, alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” one waved dismissively toward him, and to Damian’s horror, the trainer waiting outside pushed the panel into the wall again, and the door sealed shut behind him.

Damian barely stifled a gasp of fear as he realized that his escape had been cut off. There was someone waiting outside who would definitely know he was up to something if he decided to leave right after he’d arrived, and he didn’t even know how the door opened from this side.

“What’s the matter kid?” a condescending voice asked, and he turned to see the amused smirk of one of the men that had come in with him. “Why so nervous? You owe someone money?”

“Uh…yeah?” Damian replied, and the trainer burst out laughing.

“Well, looks like you’re in trouble. Well good luck, just don’t bet on any a’ Jason’s pokémon! Ahaha!”

Damian had no idea who ‘Jason’ was, but as the two men on his side of the passage walked off laughing, he frantically pushed against portions of the wall, but nothing happened. He wondered if the door could only be opened from the outside, and if they were all meant to exit through different areas. Perhaps it wouldn’t make sense for everyone to come out through the department store after the fighting, late at night when the store would be closed, so they avoided letting people do so by making a one-way door. As his heart raced, he tried to remain calm. Surely there were plenty of escape routes in the event the police found the place. He’d just find another way out.

The two other trainers had vanished around a dark corner up ahead, and the wall where the door had been looked thick enough that the man on the other side wouldn’t be able to hear him, so he redialed the number of Justin’s phone. “Justin?” he whispered, as soon as the voice answered on the other end.

“Damian, what happened?” Justin nearly shouted, causing him to cringe.

“I’m in the hallway that leads to the arena somehow. Some guys appeared. But they’re gone now…I mean, sort of. Well, I can talk to you right now, but-” He broke off, hearing the sound of something like loud static, combined with something else altogether that he couldn’t quite pinpoint, over the pokégear, drowning out Justin’s angry replies. “Justin?” he asked.

It was several long seconds before the younger boy’s voice returned, sounding more alarmed than it had before. “Something’s messing with your signal! Argh, they probably have some kind of machine or psychic pokémon screwing things up. You’ve gotta get out of there. You’re in big danger. Those people could-”

Damian heard no more as the signal interrupted, more fiercely than before. He realized that if he was going to send them a picture, it would have to be fast, but he wasn’t sure what good a picture of an empty hallway would do in convincing the police of anything. The signal on his pokégear was now flickering in and out, telling him that Justin was definitely right about the interference. Of course the ones in charge wouldn’t want anyone to be able to contact the outside. He tried to stand closer to the door, but it did nothing to remedy the problem.

Suddenly, Justin’s voice came snapping back, frantic and scared. “Damian, get out of there! Call the police…something!”

It was then that the situation fully dawned on him. Here he was, having been forced to enter an underground crime ring, and one that probably involved hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. It was run by people who were probably just as ruthless as Thunder’s Master, people who probably had more than just pokémon blood on their hands after years of working to keep their activities a secret. His hand shook, making it hard to focus on the pokégear screen, as he realized that his very life probably depended on keeping his true intentions hidden.

“Justin…I had to go through a secret door and there’s someone outside…” he began, hoping his voice would be heard through the flickering connection as he readied his hand to dial the number of the police after he got through to Justin. “I can’t get out.” He looked around fearfully, seeing Nightshade’s own concern reflected back at him in the heracross’s yellow eyes. He thought that, while Nightshade was probably a strong enough pokémon to break down the wall, there was no way he could do that and escape detection from both the trainer on the other side and the ones in the department store. They would have prepared for anything; they would have thought of every way to deal with an intruder.

Justin’s voice was nothing but a garbled mess that transitioned between seconds of absolute silence. Then, in one moment where his voice came through clear enough to understand, it was a frantic shout.

“CALL THE POLICE NOW!”

Damian didn’t have a chance to reply before Justin’s voice cut out.

The signal was dead.

To be continued...

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 56 - Stonedust City's Underworld

Damian’s eyes widened as he stared at the pokégear in shock. His hand shaking, he rapidly jammed the buttons over and over, hoping it would somehow bring the signal back and allow him to contact his friend, or the police, or anyone. However, the signal remained dead; no information was going to leave his pokégear as long as he was in these subterranean passages, and his only way out was blocked by an unmovable door with an enemy just behind it.

“Oh no…oh no, no, no…this can’t be happening!” Damian gasped, collapsing partway against the wall as strength left his legs. Nightshade ran over to steady him, and Snowcrystal opened the backpack wider so she could poke her head out and give the trainer a tentative lick on his face. Damian, however, didn’t seem to notice. “They’re gonna kill me…they’re gonna kill me!”

“Damian…Damian, listen to me,” Nightshade began, gripping Damian’s tattered vest in his claws. However, he realized immediately afterward that, while Arien was in his poké ball, there was no way for the human to understand him. He also knew that if Damian was seen walking with two powerful pokémon, it could start to look suspicious.

It became clear to Nightshade that Damian was totally out of his element. He was used to dealing with threats he would come across while in his travels in the wilderness. Down underground beneath the city, he wouldn’t be able to use his usual methods to escape. Nightshade knew he had to help Damian calm down so he could think more clearly and focus on the situation.

Damian sunk to his knees, his breathing quickening as he stared blankly ahead. Unfortunately, he had neglected to remember Snowcrystal, still hiding in the backpack, and the growlithe was pushed against the wall as he leaned back. “What am I going to do, Nightshade?” he cried, looking at the heracross with panicked eyes. “Maybe I could…Arien…Arien could find a way out! Or find Blazefang! No, no…too many pokémon here…he wouldn’t be able to find him…and, and they’ve got psychics on their side so one alakazam won’t break through their defenses and they’re probably-”

Nightshade grabbed Damian’s arm, holding him still as he tapped the poké ball on the trainer’s belt that contained Arien. Damian stared at him in confusion for several moments before he realized Nightshade wanted to speak with him. Shakily, he picked up Arien’s poké ball and released the alakazam.

“Arien,” Nightshade began as soon as the psychic type had formed, “do you think you could teleport us out of here?”

“I’m not sure…” the alakazam replied. “Something’s not right…” He glanced around, seemingly looking at thin air, and Nightshade saw nothing when he followed his gaze, wondering if whatever Arien was sensing was really something he could see at all. “But I’ll try.”

Giving the message to Damian through their psychic link, the alakazam reached out and grabbed the trainer’s hand, then Nightshade’s claws. Both Damian and the heracross could feel Arien’s psychic move begin to take effect, but before they were transported, it suddenly died down, leaving them both feeling as if nothing had happened.

“It’s no good,” Arien muttered. “They’ve done something to this place…whether it’s other psychic pokémon or something else, I can’t use teleport.”

“So…we really are trapped?” Snowcrystal asked, peering from the backpack at the alakazam.

“Try to blend in and find another way out,” the alakazam replied, ignoring her. He turned to Damian, looking as if he were communicating with him again. Snowcrystal watched as the trainer shakily reached out with the poké ball and returned him.

“What was that for?” Snowcrystal asked Nightshade. “Arien could have stayed out and helped us!”

“It would look suspicious if he had two powerful pokémon out at once,” Nightshade replied. “It would look like he was using us as bodyguards. And we don’t know who else is going to come through here.” He glanced uneasily toward the door.

Damian’s moment of calm suddenly broke, and he began to pace back and forth rapidly, his eyes darting from side to side. “What’ll happen if we don’t pass as gamblers? Er…I mean, that I won’t…heracross don’t gamble…you know what I mean… But if they catch us, we could-” He backed up to the wall again, slowly sliding down to a sitting position.

Before Damian could continue with his ramble, Nightshade reached forward and gently gripped the boy’s shoulders, stopping the rocking motion he was beginning to make. The heracross’s eyes were worried as he stared into the trainer’s. “Damian, please try to focus,” he said. “We can do this.” He hoped his meaning would get across despite the lack of a translator.

Unfortunately, the meaning seemed to be lost on Damian as the trainer let out a small whimper and placed his hands against the sides of his head before suddenly jumping to his feet, which startled both Nightshade and Snowcrystal. “We’re trapped! What do we do…we can’t go back! We’ve gotta…we’ve gotta think of something…act the part, yes. We’ve…oh no, how are we gonna get out of here?”

In a panic, he flung his arms around Nightshade, pulling the bug type closer to him as he clenched his eyes tightly closed. Nightshade looked a little surprised, and Snowcrystal rapidly tried to think of something they could do to help Damian, realizing that although he had been very confident when they had first met in the wilderness, she knew that he didn’t know how to handle things when his plans went wrong. She wondered if there was something she could do, but before she came to a conclusion, the boy’s eyes snapped open. He backed away from Nightshade, extending his hands out toward him as if he were pretending to be disgusted. “No, no, I’m in an underground crime ring of pokémon abusers…can’t show affection…” he mused to himself. A moment later, he collapsed to the floor again, sobbing, “They’re going to kill me!”

Nightshade was beginning to think that Arien should have been left out of his poké ball a little bit longer. The heracross moved closer to Damian, butting him lightly with his horn to get his attention. When the terrified trainer looked at him, Nightshade made a mock-fighting movement, as if he was pretending to ram invisible enemies with his horn. He turned to Damian again, making a protective stance and giving him a confident nod. He gave a short statement of encouragement, which to Damian merely sounded like “Herra-croh!” but this time, the meaning got through to him.

“Okay,” he began, stepping forward. “I just gotta act natural, and if anything goes wrong, I’ve got a powerful pokémon on my side, right? Right…” Still filled with obvious fear, he took a few more tentative steps forward, eyeing the dark tunnel ahead.

Nightshade stayed by his side, also looking into the gloom. The lighting was so poor that it was hard to see which direction the tunnel turned at its end. He was glad that, at least, the other trainers who had walked ahead of them seemed too far away to have heard any of Damian’s outbursts, and since there was no activity from behind the door, it was probably soundproof. That made sense, as this was a place that was meant to be hidden.

“Nightshade?” Damian asked in a frightened voice, prompting the heracross to turn to him. “If…anything goes wrong and it’s too much for you to handle, I’ll catch you and Snowcrystal. They can’t hurt you if you’re transported to the PC system.” His expression changed from one of small confidence to one of barely-concealed horror. “Unless their psychic pokémon have barriers to prevent that…” he added uncertainly.

Further conversation was made impossible as the door behind them suddenly opened, and two trainers – the one from earlier who had stayed behind, and a second they didn’t recognize – walked through. Damian, without thinking, started to move toward the open doorway, but was stopped by the unfamiliar trainer. Damian realized as soon as his escape was cut off that this trainer was far bigger and stronger than he was, and likely had strong pokémon to match.

“What are you thinking?” the trainer growled at him, shoving him back. “The store’s closed; you can’t go back that way. Get moving!” Damian winced as he heard the door closing behind them, sealing them inside.

“Max, calm down,” the first trainer stated, his voice still sounding as slurred as Damian had remembered it from when he’d first heard him speak. “He’s probably just running from someone he owes money to. He’s not doing any harm.”

The larger trainer, Max, reeked of alcohol even stronger than his friend did, and Damian found himself backing even further away as the man’s eyes bored into him. “I don’t trust him…he’s shifty looking,” Max grunted.

Beside him, Damian noticed Nightshade tense up. Though he still appeared – to the other trainers at least – relaxed and aloof, Damian could tell that he was prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. He edged a bit closer to the heracross, hoping the other two men wouldn’t notice.

“Oh, come on!” shouted the first trainer, an impatient whine to his voice. “They’re already starting, let’s just go.”

“He’s-”

“Look at ‘is heracross! Does that look like a trainer who can skillfully command a pokémon?” He pointed a finger at Nightshade, or more accurately, a bit off to his left, swaying a little on his feet.

“Lots of people here have hurt pokémon,” Max growled.

The other trainer only laughed. “You think he’s been in an arena fight? You’ve gotta be kidding me! A pathetic trainer like him wouldn’t end up with a pokémon walking out of a fight looking as good as this one does.”

The trainer jabbed his finger at Nightshade, and Damian suddenly wondered what pokémon who survived the arena usually came out looking like. He edged even closer to Nightshade.

“He’s just another crummy trainer,” the more easygoing of the two men continued. “Now come on, let’s go.”

“All right,” Max agreed, and Damian nearly sighed with relief as the two walked toward the hallway. “…But he goes first. I don’t like him waiting around here.”

Damian realized that Max was staring right at him again, gesturing for him to walk down the tunnel ahead of them. The last thing he wanted to do was walk with those two at his back, but he realized that he had no choice. Max already found him suspicious, and he couldn’t risk giving himself away until they at least found another escape route. Nodding numbly, he walked into the gloom with Nightshade trailing behind him.

They walked down the narrow hallway, the dim, pulsating lights above them giving the place a chilling, uneasy feel to it. Damian repeatedly told himself that Nightshade was right behind him, and Snowcrystal would definitely be useful in a pinch, as she had an element of surprise that the two other trainers were unaware of.

They carried on down the passage, and both Snowcrystal and Nightshade could pick up the sound of shouting...no, cheering…from somewhere down below. And then came the smells…the smells of death and decay, of blood and smoke. It made each of them want to gag, but Nightshade strode on confidently in spite of it, and Snowcrystal covered her nose with her paws, trying not to make sudden movements that could alert the other trainers to her presence.

They passed many doors, but each of them were closed. The trainers made no indication that they were to enter any of the doors, so they were sure they were meant to keep following the hallway. And then, when it seemed like the hallway would never end, they came upon a dingy-looking elevator.

The machine looked rickety and unsteady, little more than a metal platform surrounded by beams. However, Damian only hesitated momentarily before he remembered he had to act like this was something he had done many times before. Reluctantly, he stepped onto the structure.

It was surprisingly stable, and didn’t even rattle as he and Nightshade stepped onto it, followed by the two trainers. He watched Max press a button on a panel at one end of the elevator, and the metal beneath their feet shuddered and began to descend.

The ride was oddly smooth, and they passed several floors, most of which looked empty. One only seemed to contain what looked like the remains of a massive storeroom. More rooms passed by and the elevator came to a halt on the bottom floor. Damian wasn’t sure how far underground they were, and he had a feeling this wasn’t the deepest part of the place.

They stepped off the elevator and into another hallway. Damian glanced over his shoulder as he heard the elevator shudder again, and saw it rising upward of its own accord, waiting for whoever would use it next. He turned around, noticing that Max was still eyeing him suspiciously. Trying hard not to appear nervous, he carried on.

The hallway was much shorter than the previous one, and soon, they stepped into a much brighter area. Damian realized he was looking at a massive room at least three stories tall, with various doors edged around one side of its interior. There were metal walkways on the upper floors, doors ringing those stories as well. There was a large square booth in an area situated away from the doors, where several trainers and powerful-looking pokémon were waiting. Damian assumed it was a betting booth.

However, his attention was quickly drawn back to the sets of doors that went three stories up. He could hear pokémon cries behind them…pokémon who were not fighting, but merely scared or hurt or angry. For whatever reason, some of the trainers were keeping their pokémon behind those doors. His heart raced; that was where he needed to go.

“Well, come on!” a voice called, but when Damian turned, it was merely Max’s friend addressing the more irritable trainer.

Damian wondered if he should ask him what the pokémon were doing in those rooms. Yet he was afraid that if he did, he would be revealing that he didn’t know something that might very well be common knowledge to everyone else with access to the fighting ring. In the end, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

Knowing that the trainers at the booth had a clear view of the entire room, and he couldn’t sneak off to find the pokémon behind the doors that way, he was left with little choice but to follow the two drunken trainers into a hallway situated in a wall opposite where the doors were. The hallway was much larger and wider than the others he’d been through. As they walked through it and reached another, far larger elevator platform, the sounds of hundreds of voices reached their ears.

They boarded the elevator and it lowered, passing a dark wall of concrete at least a few stories high before Damian and the others suddenly found themselves standing above a truly massive room, putting even the previous one to shame. Staring at it, Damian, Nightshade, and Snowcrystal could feel nothing but a surreal sense of horror.

Rings of stands almost as big as the ones he’d seen for Pokémon League battlefields, and towering nearly as high as the massive room itself, circled the entire room, and in the center of them, was the arena. The elevator was too high up for them to get a good look at what was happening below, but Damian could see that the arena was surrounded by blindingly bright stadium lights, and massive television screens were set up, hanging from the center and every corner of the ceiling. Damian didn’t give them more than a glance, as from his position on the elevator, he couldn’t see the screens on the ones closest to him, and his attention was drawn more to the people in the stands.

There were hundreds of trainers. The stands were absolutely packed, and both Damian and the pokémon could now see all too clearly that the “big name” fighters like Master were certainly a big deal. As they were lowered closer to the ground, which was more like a small upper ‘floor’ from which they could walk down into the stands, the noise of the cheering audience became deafeningly loud. Damian was nearly knocked off his feet as the elevator came to a stop, having been so focused on the arena stands that he hadn’t noticed they had reached the floor of the upper walkway. He quickly made his way over to the nearest sets of stairs, wondering if he could quickly get a seat and then pretend to slip away while the other trainers were too focused on the battle.

As he moved downward, he made a point not to look at what was in the arena. He could see that Nightshade was doing the same. Neither of them wanted to know what was happening to whatever pokémon were locked in battle below them.

Snowcrystal had a much more limited view, only able to see through the gap in the backpack’s zipper. However, she could see enough to know that Damian was going to have a hard time finding a seat; every single space on the benches seemed to be taken up by a trainer.

Suddenly she felt herself and the backpack be knocked against Damian’s back, and realized that Max had pushed Damian forward by shoving him in the back. Damian stumbled, but managed to regain his footing, and Snowcrystal gritted her teeth, reminding herself to move only very carefully, so no one could tell she was inside.

“Hey, look at this!” the less hostile of the two trainers that had been tailing them cried. “Someone left us front row seats!”

Snowcrystal peered through the backpack’s opening, and luckily Damian, sensing that she was trying to get a look, thought to turn his body enough to give her a view. The trainer was pointing to a group of seats very close to the edge of the arena itself. It was still far below them, but even from a distance she could see the other two trainers, who had questioned Damian when he’d come near the secret entrance, waiting beside the bench. They were saving more spots at the front, and Snowcrystal had to wonder how they’d managed to get them.

“Yeah, why don’t you sit with us?” Max’s taunting, drunken voice reached them, and he gave Damian a barely-concealed glare. “Then you can see a real pokémon battle up close. You can pay us back later.”

“Uh, well, uh…sure,” Damian mumbled, his voice barely heard over the sound of the crowd.

Snowcrystal had the sinking feeling that these trainers were going to demand a very large amount of money from him later in exchange for the seat, which would cause trouble when he wasn’t able to pay it. She wished Damian had thought it out more before answering. She reminded herself, however, that they planned to sneak away and find out where Master and his pokémon were before the trainers would get a chance to try to take money from Damian.

“Oh, what’s wrong with your heracross, little boy?” a jeering, condescending voice sounded from beside them. Damian nearly stopped walking as a rather mean-looking woman with a well-groomed delcatty by her side gave him a fake pitying look. “Did it get hurt? And are you sure you’re in the right place? You look a little lost,” she continued, imitating the sound of a concerned adult having found a lone child. A moment later, she burst into raucous laughter at the sight of Damian’s shocked face.

Damian quickly turned away, and though Snowcrystal couldn’t see his face, she could sense that he was scared. Nightshade could tell, too, and as he looked up at Damian, he noticed the boy’s eyes darting from side to side, finally noticing that it wasn’t just that one woman staring at him; many of the trainers in the stands on either side of the stairs were as well.

“I don’t think I’m fooling anyone who’s not drunk,” Damian whispered, only loud enough for the two pokémon to hear.

Snowcrystal was worried. Damian may have passed for a gambling trainer – albeit an odd one – at the department store, but here, she knew that his fear and uncertainty was probably plastered all over his face. The other trainers could sense something was up.

Nevertheless, Damian walked until he came to the bottom rows of the stands, the two trainers who were friends with Max and his pal having saved a section of the bench right by the stairs for them.

Luckily, Damian was allowed to let them go first and sit on the very edge, giving him a quick route to the stairs whenever the moment to escape should arise. Snowcrystal didn’t think it would be easy. To get out, they would have to walk back up past all those suspicious and cruel-looking trainers.

Nightshade stood in the stairway by Damian’s seat as the trainer slung his backpack around to his shoulder in order to more comfortably sit. Unfortunately, this gave Snowcrystal a view of what was lying below them, and suddenly none of them could avoid looking into the arena any longer.

Two trainers were standing on raised platforms above the arena itself, which lay in a huge, oval-shaped pit in the center of the room. Two pokémon could be seen near the middle of the pit. The first was a kabutops. It was standing almost in the direct center of the arena, where a poké ball shape had been drawn in black lines, as if in some sort of sick mockery of the Pokémon League stadiums Snowcrystal had seen in books in the library. The kabutops was covered in wounds she knew would rarely, if ever, occur in even the most serious of League battles. One of its scythes had been broken off at the halfway point, and she was so close to the arena, she could see the pokémon flinching in pain even without looking at the television screens overhead, which she could now tell were showing all the grisly details of the battle.

Or, more accurately, the battle’s aftermath.

The other pokémon was a heracross that was lying in a pool of its own blood. Its body was nearly severed in two, its lower half attached only by thick strands of flesh. The pokémon’s claws weakly scrabbled in the sticky red liquid, unable to cry out due to its mouth being filled with blood. The kabutops merely stood back, still awaiting a command from its trainer that didn’t seem to be coming as both humans watched the heracross in its death throes.

Damian couldn’t help letting out a horrified cry, which he luckily managed to stifle quickly. From what Snowcrystal could see of him, he looked frozen, as still as a statue and unable to turn away, his face etched in shock and horror.

Feeling just as horrified and utterly sick, Snowcrystal turned away from the sight, pushing her head against the backpack’s zipper until it opened wider so she had more room to look in other directions. She looked at Nightshade, who was staring at the heracross’s human, and flinched in surprise. This was the first time she had ever seen Nightshade look murderous.

After what felt like an eternity, Snowcrystal heard rousing cheers from the audience, and she glanced at the arena again to see the heracross go completely limp. There were also many shouts of anger, and several trainers threw cans or trash into the lower stands in fury. Snowcrystal remembered with utter revulsion that the humans had been betting on these battles, hoping a certain pokémon would die so that they could get a payoff.

An announcer’s voice rang out from several points on the ceiling above, and suddenly all the television screens showed the kabutops’s triumphant trainer. The man’s hands were in the air as he joined in the cheering, not even glancing at his wounded pokémon below. Three poké ball symbols flashed beneath his image on the screen, showing a kabutops, a victreebel, and a hitmontop within them. The hitmontop’s shape, unlike the others, was shown in black and white, and a large red X covered it. Snowcrystal realized that this had to mean that the pokémon had lost. This trainer’s pokémon had died, yet he was celebrating his victory as if it hardly mattered in comparison to the win. Snowcrystal wondered how any amount of money could make a human act this way. She turned away from the screen as it then showed an image of the heracross’s severed body, some brightly colored words racing along the top of the screen.

Snowcrystal turned her attention to the real trainer of the kabutops, a small figure standing on a platform instead of a giant image on a screen, who reached out and returned his pokémon to its poké ball. Afterwards, the ball was placed in a machine on the platform that was just the right height for the trainer to easily reach with his hand. Snowcrystal was close enough to see a poké ball sized indentation on its small surface, and sure enough, the trainer placed the ball right in that spot. Electricity seemed to jump over the poké ball before it vanished.

And she saw, for a split second, a holographic screen pop up in front of the machine, and the image of a cage-like structure, then the kabutops being released inside that structure, flashed across it. She was sure that if she was further back in the stands, she wouldn’t have been able to see it. Though almost as soon as it had appeared, it was gone. The trainer, who had been staring right at the screen when it happened, seemed nonplussed.

“What was that for?” Snowcrystal whispered to Nightshade, who looked as if he’d noticed the same thing.

Nightshade spoke lowly, his head lowered close to the backpack. “Those pokémon cries we heard from behind those doors? I think that’s where all the contestants’ pokémon are held during the battles. To prevent cheating, I imagine.”

“But why put them in cages? Why not leave them in their poké balls?” Snowcrystal whispered back, glad that the noise of the crowd would prevent any of the other spectators’ pokémon from hearing them.

“Part of it’s probably so that they can be treated for injuries,” Nightshade replied. “But what I think the main reason is…” He paused, watching as the kabutops’s trainer proudly walked down from the platform, and his opponent made a stiff, less enthusiastic descent from his. “I think it’s so the people running this thing can see everything. The pokémon is in their sight before and after the battle, so the trainers can’t try anything funny, or leave any item in the poké ball that could give them an unfair advantage. This would also give them a chance to check each pokémon physically, to see if the trainers used any…illegal means to strengthen them.”

“So Blazefang and Thunder are somewhere in that room?”

“I think they are,” Nightshade replied. He and Snowcrystal glanced to Damian, noting that he seemed to have come to the same realization after seeing the screen. He looked like he wanted to make a break for it right then and there, and Snowcrystal didn’t blame him; after all, they had no idea how long it would be before it was Master’s turn to battle. Nightshade continued, “That would mean they’re only in their poké balls for a few seconds – to and from the arena – and the rest of the time they’re waiting around in a cage.”

“We’ve got to get there now,” she whispered.

“I know,” Nightshade replied, with a worried tone to his voice that she was not used to hearing. “But it won’t be that simple. The cage area has got to be crawling with human and pokémon guards working for the ones who run the arena. These battlers aren’t stupid; if they’re entrusting their pokémon to this system, it has to be extremely secure.”

“…Right,” Snowcrystal said in a whimper. She suddenly realized just how impossible their task seemed; she didn’t have any idea how they would even get near the cages. She wasn’t even sure the police officers and pokémon she had seen in the city streets would have stood a chance against something like this.

Snowcrystal felt the backpack being lifted up, and caught the gruesome glimpse of a conkeldurr dragging the heracross’s body off the arena floor and into an opening that had appeared on the far end of the pit. She could see nothing but darkness in it, and as the conkeldurr disappeared with the heracross, she imagined the bodies of brutally killed pokémon, carelessly thrown in a heap after their defeats as if they were garbage. She didn’t imagine their meat would even be fed to other pokémon; it was a completely pointless death that stripped the pokémon of any dignity after they had passed away.

She braced herself as the backpack was slung over Damian’s back, and he stood up, much to the protest of the people sitting behind him. Damian, unable to hide the terror in his voice, stuttered “I…I-I’m, going to g-get…something…” as an excuse before stepping onto the stairs.

As he began to walk, shakily, up the stairs, ignoring the stares of the other trainers, Snowcrystal heard the announcer voice again. The first was for a trainer named Gregory Terroe, and a very thin man stepped up to the platform where the heracross’s trainer had been, his image flashing across the television screens with three poké balls – with no image of the pokémon inside them this time – appearing beneath the words she thought were probably his name. Several seconds afterward, a second name was announced.

“Nathaniel Mausk!”

Another trainer stepped up to the opposite platform. This one was also tall, but looked more muscular than thin, and was wearing clothes that she could tell by human standards were very nice. Snowcrystal only got a glance at the figure as Damian tried to scramble up the stairs, and it was only when that second trainer’s image flashed across the television screens that she saw him clearly. And her blood ran cold.

It was Master.

Nightshade had obviously seen as well, because he reached out and gripped Damian’s arm in his claws, nearly knocking him off his feet as the boy tried to step forward.

“Nightshade, wha-” He broke off, having whirled around to look at the heracross only to catch sight of the television screens. “Oh no…”

“What are we going to do?” Snowcrystal whispered to Nightshade, who merely looked back at her with an equally terrified expression. She couldn’t get a good look at the arena anymore; Damian seemed like he’d frozen solid.

“Hey, sit down!” a voice yelled, and before Snowcrystal could try to look at whoever had shouted, she and Damian were roughly shoved.

This time, Damian lost his footing and tumbled down the stairs near where they had been sitting before. A few pokémon in the stands hissed or growled at them as Damian crashed to the ground, and the trainers around them didn’t seem pleased either. Nightshade rushed over to Damian, helping him back on his feet. Looking up, they could see that the first round of the battle was about to commence.

“I have an idea,” Damian gasped as Nightshade led him back to the seat, wary of the attention they were attracting from the other viewers. He lowered his voice so only the heracross and growlithe could hear. “If he sends Blazefang out into the arena…I’ll let Scytheclaw out…he’s the fastest pokémon…he can jump down there, get him, and get out. And then we’ll…” He trailed off. “…Think of something to do when everyone sees us stealing a pokémon...”

Snowcrystal turned toward Master, or Nathanial Mausk, realizing that if he planned to use Blazefang, any hope they had of stopping him was already gone. All they could do now was hope that they could somehow rescue Blazefang – and get out of there in one piece – before he could use Shadowflare. She realized with a sinking feeling that Damian wouldn’t even be able to capture the houndour before he had a chance to use the attack; he belonged to Mausk now, and therefore already had a poké ball. Whatever happened, she knew that they couldn’t afford to leave their place so close to the arena itself; it was their only hope of getting to Blazefang in time.

With the sound of a loud, blaring horn, the two warring trainers sent out their pokémon. Snowcrystal gave a sharp intake of breath as the light from Master’s poké ball formed into the shape of a pokémon, but to her relief, it wasn’t Blazefang. It was a green, serpent-like pokémon she recognized as a serperior. The grass type was so covered in scars, it reminded her greatly of Thunder. She remembered how much the scyther hated being around most other pokémon, and suddenly wondered if any of the longer scars on the serperior’s body had been caused by Thunder herself.

The serperior slid anxiously around its half of the arena. As the cameras zoomed in on it, showing its image on the screens above, Snowcrystal could see the crazed look in his eyes. A look that reminded her all too well of how Thunder had looked when she’d attacked Nightshade.

The other trainer’s pokémon was a poliwrath. The water type looked less agitated than the serperior, and stood, almost completely unmoving, while he waited for the battle to start.

“Not exactly a fair matchup,” one of the trainers in the crowd near them chuckled. “Mausk is going to wipe the floor with this guy!”

Snowcrystal glanced to the poliwrath’s trainer, who looked visibly worried, glancing into the arena and at the machine on his platform as if he didn’t want to look straight at Mausk. She had a feeling that it was more than just the type disadvantage that had him so nervous.

“If the opponent is not much of a threat, he may not send Blazefang out,” Nightshade whispered to her, but she could sense a tone of immense worry in his voice, and she could tell it wasn’t just for Blazefang.

The sound of a second horn, even louder this time, signaled the start of the battle. Snowcrystal found herself unable to look away as the serperior launched itself toward the poliwrath with agility impressive even for one of its species. The end of its tail lit up in a bright glow, something Snowcrystal recognized as a leaf blade attack. She noticed that Master hadn’t even needed to shout out a command.

Before the poliwrath could react, the leaf blade connected with a force Snowcrystal was sure would kill a lesser pokémon. She winced and looked away a sickening slicing sound met her ears, followed by the splatter of blood.

She opened her eyes, her gaze turning almost involuntarily back to the battlefield, suddenly wishing she could close up the backpack further. The poliwrath was on its feet, and had managed to grab the serperior by its neck and lower body. The grass pokémon thrashed, and a flurry of leaves appeared around both of them, prompting cries of agony from the poliwrath. Still, it did not let go, and Snowcrystal watched as the froglike pokémon delivered a crushing brick break attack to the serperior’s back.

She was sure it would have broken the serperior’s spine had it not twisted its body in just the right way when the attack hit. Dazed, the snakelike pokémon slumped to the ground, and the poliwrath gripped its neck, delivering a powerful punch to the grass pokémon’s face as it tried to strike with another leaf blade. Before the poliwrath could deal much damage, long vines appeared from the serperior’s neck, wrapping around the frog pokémon and holding it still.

The other trainer seemed to realize how much trouble he was in, but still managed to call out, “Poliwrath, surf! Now!”

A wave of water tore the serperior from its grip, sending it crashing toward the opposite wall of the arena. Snowcrystal had never seen the move surf in action, so she didn’t have much to compare it to, but something about that massive wave looked far more dangerous and wild than what she’d imagined the attack to be. It hit the opposing wall with a deafening crash, loud enough to make her want to cover her ears. Water shot up the sides of the pit, but as soon as it reached the level of the floor above, it continued upward in an odd, restricted movement. It was then that she saw faint flickers in the air around the wave, and it hit her.

There was a force field.

‘Of course there is a force field,’ she told herself frantically. ‘How could they not have one?’ She knew the pokémon could jump out of the arena and go on a rampage if they were not contained, and she knew that stray attacks from these brutal fighters would be disastrous to anyone sitting too close.

The water cascaded downward almost as powerfully as it had risen up. For a moment, the whole arena was nothing but a gigantic, writhing mass of water, more choppy and wild than any river Snowcrystal had ever seen. Then, gradually, the water level began to lower, as if it was being drained out.

As soon as the two pokémon appeared, she could see that the serperior looked horribly beat up. It was thrashing, writhing in the water as it made its way to the surface, hissing in fury. She could see a distinctive kink in its tail as it moved with the water toward the poliwrath; it had obviously been broken when it smashed against the wall. There was also a large, bleeding spot on the grass type’s head, but the pokémon was undeterred, and shot toward the poliwrath, its body still moving in a graceful motion despite its injuries and the water surging around it.

The poliwrath met the grass type with some sort of powerful fighting move, slamming the serperior through the water and into the ground. Snowcrystal could have sworn she saw blood float to the top of the water as the pokémon’s skull met the hard floor of the arena. The poliwrath punched again, and the serperior writhed, its slashing tail trying to find its enemy. However, with its injury, it was unable to land an accurate hit. After a third punch, its movements started to slow, and the poliwrath continued to hold its head underwater. Snowcrystal could hear shocked gasps from around her; it seemed like Master’s pokémon was the one who was losing.

Then, the serperior burst from the water with a strength that shocked Snowcrystal, her friends, and the rest of the audience. Snowcrystal wanted to look away, but found her eyes fixed on the scene as the snakelike pokémon wrapped its body around the poliwrath, squeezing so tightly that the water type could hardly move. Snowcrystal got glimpses of some sort of grass type attack assaulting the poliwrath, and she shut her eyes, not wanting to see what was making the pokémon cry out in agony.

Beside her and Damian, Nightshade looked away as well. He did not want to look upon the pokémon who were suffering or their cruel trainers. Instead, he focused on the machine beside Nathaniel. That machine teleported poké balls to the place where the pokémon were being held, where both Blazefang and Thunder probably were at that very moment. If he could get to it, perhaps placing one of Damian’s poké balls into it while under the guise of a pokémon who had snapped and was going on some sort of rampage, then perhaps they would have a chance. Such an idea was incredibly risky, far more risky than anything he would normally consider doing, but with what was on the line…

He was interrupted by a shocked gasp from several of the nearby audience members. Instinctively, he jerked his head toward the scene of the battle. The water had completely drained from the arena, leaving the floor and the two pokémon completely exposed. The poliwrath, still partially entwined in the serperior’s coils, stood over a twitching and defeated grass type.

Even the poliwrath looked surprised, and Nightshade could tell that the pokémon was barely standing. Its blue skin was shredded by the grass type attacks, blood smeared all over its body. It looked to him that, if the pokémon did not get help immediately, it would die.

However, no one made a move to retrieve the poliwrath while the serperior still lived. Now, he could see what was wrong. The snakelike pokémon’s neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Its coils slipped from the poliwrath’s body. It was completely defenseless now. From the look on the poliwrath’s face, Nightshade suspected that the injury had been an accident – a fluke – and that the water pokémon had thrashed around and broken the serperior’s neck either against the wall or with its own weight. As Nightshade caught a glimpse of a television screen out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Mausk looked livid beneath the calm, collected mood he was trying to portray. From the shouts and talking in the audience around him, Nightshade guessed that Mausk did not usually lose.

“Dynamic punch,” the poliwrath’s trainer instructed.

The frog pokémon delivered a well-aimed punch to the serperior’s skull, and with a sickening crunch that could be heard by all who were close to the arena’s edge, the serpent pokémon went still.

Snowcrystal poked her head out of the backpack as the painful cries of the wounded poliwrath faded away and the pokémon was returned to its poké ball. Nightshade normally would have been worried about the growlithe drawing attention, but in the midst of the crowd, no one seemed to notice her. He realized there would be little use for an element of surprise here; there was no way they could fight so many trainers.

“Nightshade, what do we do if he sends Blazefang out? We can’t get to where they’re holding the pokémon in time!”

“I don’t think we have many options,” he replied grimly. “I don’t think any pokémon could break through that force field…” He suddenly trailed off, his eyes lighting up. “But we could find a way to shut it down.” He looked up toward the ceiling. “Someone’s probably controlling it either from up there, or down beneath in a lower room,” he whispered.

Snowcrystal tried not to look at the conkeldurr dragging the serperior into the dark opening that appeared in the wall as she replied, “How would we get there without anyone seeing?”

“I’m not sure…” Nightshade said grimly. “First we have to find out where the controls would be. Look around, see if you notice anything.”

Snowcrystal nodded, and as she and Nightshade began to carefully examine their surroundings, she noticed that Damian looked confused and conflicted as well, and wished there was a way to communicate with him that wouldn’t make him look suspicious by releasing another pokémon.

She scanned the huge room, knowing that at any moment, the trainers would begin their second round. Most of the upper reaches of the room were too dark, locked in shadow beyond the blinding stadium lights, and she couldn’t make out if there was any sort of platform up there. That part of the ceiling was higher up than the place where the elevator had dropped into the room; they wouldn’t have seen anything even if they had been looking at it from up there. She wondered just how they were going to find something, especially if the arena’s controls were in a place below the arena or in another room entirely.

Both the pokémon and Damian were interrupted in their desperate race to find a plan of action as the two trainers above the arena readied their second poké balls. Snowcrystal tensed up, afraid that she would see a houndour form from Mausk’s, a houndour that would be forced to use an attack that could obliterate the arena and the audience with it. She suddenly wished that Damian would flee, but the trainer remained frozen, and she knew that if Blazefang did appear, then they would need to risk everything to get him out of the arena.

Then, the poké balls were thrown. The one belonging to the trainer facing Mausk was the first to hit the ground, and a furious-looking, massive tauros appeared. And then, out of Mausk’s, came a scyther…a thin, scarred scyther, and there was no mistaking who it was.

“Thunder…” Snowcrystal breathed, leaning forward out of the backpack. She could see that Nightshade had a similar reaction, his expression as fearful and horrified as she imagined her own was. They had both realized upon the instant she was released, that they were going to either watch their former friend die, or watch her brutally kill another pokémon for humans’ entertainment.

As soon as she was released, Thunder darted around her side of the arena, her scythes slashing at the walls as if in frustration or anger. Her gaze darted to the tauros on the other side, which looked even more enraged, but remained still, pawing at the ground instead of running. Now that Snowcrystal got a good look at it, the beast was positively terrifying; it was covered in enough scars to rival Thunder herself, and it was bigger than the tauros she’d occasionally seen with trainers in Stonedust City. The look in its eyes was mad…desperate. It was in pain, and it wanted – no, needed – to kill.

Thunder’s burst of energy didn’t last long. After a couple of seconds, she came to a halt, pacing back and forth in a tiny patch of the arena floor. Though Snowcrystal and Nightshade could see the look on her face fairly well from their distance, they couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

As they looked, however, Nightshade noticed something. “Thunder’s not wearing a collar,” he whispered. “Not like Master’s nidoking was. Of course she can’t wear it in battle…the nidoking’s exploded when it was hit with the attack.”

Snowcrystal suddenly realized that the serperior hadn’t worn a collar either; none of Mausk’s battling pokémon would have one on during the tournament. She could see the light of hope in Nightshade’s eyes; if Thunder was missing her collar, there was a chance they could get her out safely once she was teleported back to where the pokémon were being held. That is, if she won the battle.

Snowcrystal couldn’t focus on trying to find a way to disable the arena’s force field. There had been nothing to see, anyway; there was no way the humans would have the controls out in plain sight. And at the moment, she and her friends seemed unable to do anything but watch.

Now she would have to see what Thunder’s life had really been like.

To be continued…

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 57 - The Fighting Ring

Thunder could see the stands, the hundreds of jeering trainers. She could see their excitement and smell their food and drinks over the scent of blood wafting around her in the arena. They were waiting to watch her make a kill, but not for the purpose of hunting as would be normal for a scyther. She would not be allowed to eat her defeated opponent, even though the tauros was a prey species. She was starving, but she knew the body would just be dragged away like the others after the fight. This only drove the point further as to how cruel and pointless the pit fights were. It was a disgusting mockery of both nature and pokémon battles.

She could see Master, and the tauros’s human, standing above the arena on their platforms. She could smell the blood even stronger as she paced, but the scent of it didn’t make her hungrier as it normally would. It made her furious.

The floor of the arena was wet, as if one of the pokémon who’d last fought had been a water type. From the look of the blood smears, it seemed as if one of the fighters had been slammed into the ground. Perhaps that was how that pokémon had died.

However, as she continued to take in her surroundings, they started to register in only a distant, mechanical way. Even her anger subsided, giving way to what she could best describe as indifference. This was a situation she had been in countless times before, yet this time, she realized, something was different. When she had first been sent out of her poké ball, she had raced around her half of the arena frantically, but more at the opportunity to run and move around than anything else. Now, it was all too clear what she was actually facing, the place she had hoped she would only ever have to return to in her nightmares.

This was just one of the arenas. They were all the same to her. She couldn’t even remember which battles she had fought in this particular one, and she didn’t think it mattered.

As the trainers readied themselves, her thoughts still drifted back to the day Master had captured her again, those same events that repeated in her head over and over every day since it had happened. And perhaps it was the taste of freedom she had found when joining the growlithe and her group, but there was something about being recaptured that made the thought of being under Master’s control even more unbearable than she could remember. At least, it had at first. Now that she was actually here, she felt numb, disconnected. She couldn’t even bring herself to fear for her life as she stared at the tauros on the other side of the line breaking the arena up into two halves. The whole thing suddenly seemed incredibly pointless, an endless cycle of pain and misery for her, that tauros, and every other pokémon forced into this terrible place.

And she knew at any moment, the horn would go off and she would have no choice but to fight. Growling, she raised her scythes and stared at the tauros, but it was a halfhearted effort, and the pokémon did not seem intimidated at all. As Thunder tried to prepare herself for what she was about to do to the pokémon, images flashed through her head of the last time her blades had cut through a pokémon’s flesh.

It had been Nightshade. The heracross who, she had come to realize, was probably the only pokémon she had ever considered a friend.

She had attacked him. She might have even killed him. Yet even now, she couldn’t help but wonder why she had done it. She had told herself that she had lost control, slipped into the ‘attack mode’ Master had forced into her since she was barely older than a hatchling. She had told herself it was something she couldn’t control.

But that wasn’t right. Some part of her mind had given her that instinctive reaction, but it had been her choice to act on it. She had barely even made an effort to hold back the rage, the drive to wound and attack that Master and his pokémon had taught her so well. She had begun to realize this one day several weeks ago when she had recalled something Nightshade had said to her. He had told her, days before the attack happened, that she did not have to be a slave to Master; she could make her own choices, and she would always have that ability. She had thought, back then, that he was just stating the obvious, the things she already knew. But the meaning of those words had dawned on her. She had chosen to attack her friend. And she had regretted it even the moment after she’d done it. It was the worst mistake she had ever made.

As she waited for the horn to sound, she caught a glimpse of one of the television screens overhead. Master’s three poké balls were clearly laid out beneath the image of his face on the screen; her, his serperior, and a third unknown pokémon. Yet what caught her eye was that the serperior had a red X over its poké ball image. The match had just started and Master was down by one. One more loss, and all the money he had put into the tournament would be lost.

One more loss…Master would lose the fight.

Her eyes narrowed in hatred at the man standing on the platform above her. Her claws dug into the ground. She was done fighting for him. He would not own her anymore. Thunder did not want to die, but she didn’t want to continue serving that cruel human either. And if there was one thing she could do, she could bring him down in his moment of glory, even if it meant that defying her Master would be her final act.

The sound of the horn came suddenly, and Thunder realized that what had seemed like several minutes had really been a much shorter period of time. She caught sight of the tauros charging toward her, its eyes filled with the same boiling rage she was sure had filled her own eyes when she attacked Nightshade.

Before, she had always been afraid for her life during these battles. She was sure it didn’t show; to anyone else, she was just another crazed, violent pokémon out for blood. Yet that was what they all appeared like. There was rage in these pokémon, yes, but it masked the fear. Even in Master’s other fighters, the ones who supported and praised him. The cold blooded killers these humans wanted to see were not what pokémon were really like.

Now, however, she felt only a strange sensation. It wasn’t quite calmness, and it certainly wasn’t peace. Maybe it was just satisfaction, the thought that she was doing something to make things harder for her tormenter, even if only temporarily. Maybe it was the satisfaction of messing up the rules of their stupid little game. But when the tauros came at her, all she felt was that strange, weak sensation of satisfaction of how she was exerting what tiny amount of choice she had. And she let the pokémon hit her.

She barely registered being thrown into the air over the tauros’s horns, but she felt the impact when she hit the ground. She had managed to avoid landing on her scythes, but one of her wings was bent beneath her. She flexed it; it seemed functional enough, not that she planned to use it.

“Thunder!” Master cried from somewhere beyond the arena walls. “Get up! Now!”

She ignored him. The tauros struck again, this time catching her side with its horn as it flung her over its head again. Thunder didn’t know if she was hurt badly or not; she hardly cared. There was nothing more she could do anyway, unless she wanted to give Master his victory.

The maddened stomping of her opponent caused her to glance in the tauros’s direction, and it was then that she realized that, in tossing her, the bull pokémon had gotten one of its eyes slashed by her blades. It whipped its head from side to side, shaking droplets of blood onto the arena floor. Its trainer shouted some angry words, and Thunder couldn’t help but notice that, compared to Master, he sounded incredibly inexperienced. How he managed to get this far was a mystery to her. Perhaps his tauros was one of his lesser-trained pokémon, because the normal type certainly didn’t look like it was prepared for an arena fight. If that was true, it would be all the more humiliating for Master when he lost.

Thunder stood up, but kept her scythes lowered as she watched the other pokémon. Then, hoping Master was watching carefully, she looked away from the tauros and casually glanced around, scanning the trainers in the arena as if she was simply admiring a pleasant day. She didn’t even listen to Master’s increasingly infuriated shouts.

And then, to her shock, her eyes locked onto someone familiar. No, two of them. She stared incredulously as she spotted, in the stands, near the edge of the arena itself but raised enough above it so that she could see, Snowcrystal and Nightshade. She could recognize Nightshade anywhere, and he was alive…injured, but alive. And Snowcrystal…Snowcrystal was orange now. Some human thing must have been done to her, Thunder figured. But there was no mistaking her eyes. Both members of her former traveling group were looking at her, a mixture of horror and sadness on their faces. Not for their own sake, but for her.

And then, in a split second, Nightshade’s words, from what seemed like so long ago, came back to her mind. And for the first time, she thought she understood them.

It wasn’t like what she had figured out all those weeks ago. She’d known that it had been her own choice to attack him for a while now. This time, the full meaning of those words was clear.

Nightshade was right; he had been right about that. And probably many other things too. She was not some twisted creation of Master’s; she never had been. Her actions, her choices, were her own. Maybe even Nightshade didn’t believe that now. Maybe he had come to believe, like many of the others, that Master had warped her mind beyond any sort of redemption, turned her into something evil. She wouldn’t blame him if he did. But he had been right before. She had the ability to choose for herself. Not even Master could take that away.

She did not have to kill this tauros. And she did not have to die.

Her attention snapped to the charging beast that was now barreling in her direction. She braced herself, and then, at the last instant, darted to the side and let the pokémon charge past her. It whirled around, charging again, this time readying a hyper beam. However, the blood in its eyes and resulting loss of vision caused it to misaim, and Thunder had no difficulty dodging the new attack as well.

As she continued to dodge attack after attack, she caught glimpses of Master’s barely-concealed fury, could hear the shouts of both humans as they tried to spur their pokémon on to greater efforts. It was to no avail; the tauros was tiring, and the loss of vision seemed to be inciting a sort of panic in the pokémon; its attacks were more and more off target.

Then, when Thunder felt as if she had dodged a hundred attacks or more, the tauros came to a sudden stop. Thunder waited in anticipation, but the pokémon only drew in shuddering breaths. It looked exhausted, and she then noticed that some of its scars were actually wounds – fresh ones – as if it had been in recent battles. Perhaps the tauros wasn’t inexperienced, but instead a victor who had been put through too many consecutive fights. Maybe its trainer did not have as many pokémon as Master, so to compete in the tournaments, he needed to reuse some of them soon after a battle. Well, that worked to her advantage.

“THUNDER!” Master shouted, his fist pounding on the rail surrounding his platform. His eyes were wide, the usual calm and collected attitude he presented to other humans completely gone. “Listen to me! Attack!”

Master looked so comically enraged, so utterly helpless to do anything to her while he was up there, competing in a tournament with rules set by other humans, that Thunder couldn’t help but smile. It was an odd thing for her to do; in fact, she wasn’t sure she remembered the last time she had smiled. She hoped that Master could see her smirk.

“Tauros, attack the scyther!” the other trainer shouted, sounding just as stressed as Master.

Obediently, the tauros turned toward her, but its movements were clumsy, and it stumbled, falling onto its side. At further demands from its trainer, it climbed heavily to its feet.

“Go ahead,” Thunder told it. “Try to attack me. I’ll only dodge again. I’m not going to fight.”

The tauros stared in her direction with its one remaining good eye, blinking as blood obscured its vision again. Then, it gave a weary sigh and kneeled on the floor of the arena.

Thunder’s head jerked up as the horn sounded out again. After it faded, she could now make out the angry shouts and booing from the audience around them, which only drove Thunder to stare in defiance at the stands. A few trainers threw pieces of garbage at them – empty bottles, cartons that once contained food, or styrofoam cups – which only bounced off the arena force field and shattered or crumpled at the feet of the trainers in the front rows.

A booming voice sounded out over the arena’s intercom system. “You have thirty seconds to get your pokémon to attack. If you fail, you both forfeit.”

Thunder wasn’t sure this had ever happened in the arenas before. At least, it hadn’t in any event she had heard about. She knew that most of the pokémon acted out of fear of death or fear of what their trainers would do to them if they performed poorly. But in the grand scheme of things, nothing Master could do to her would be worse than living in the hell of the arenas again and again for the rest of her life. And now, with this one act, she was sure she had likely ensured that Master would never use her in an arena battle again. His hold on her had slipped, and he would not want to take the gamble of sending her into a fight he had poured a lot of money into ever again.

The tauros seemed to have realized that attacking his opponent would only tire him out at best, and at worst, finally provoke an attack. He knew that he would have lost; he had been weakened, he was exhausted, and he could hardly see. He looked so weary of the fighting. Even as Thunder watched him, he gently lay his head down on the ground and closed his eyes.

Amidst the angry cries of the battling trainers and the hundreds that surrounded them, another horn sounded. “Trainers, return your pokémon,” the announcing voice said, and Thunder stared defiantly at Master as he, shaking with rage, held out her poké ball and the red beam surrounded her.

-ooo-

It was clear to Nightshade, Snowcrystal, and Damian that Mausk’s humiliating defeat was not something anyone in the audience had expected. He could hear cries of rage from trainers who had bet money on his victory, and excited shouts from those who had bet on trainers other than the two standing at the arena. The television screens showed the two opponents side by side, before their images turned to black and white, signaling a double loss, which triggered an enraged uproar from the crowd.

They watched as the tauros’s trainer angrily stormed off the platform. Mausk, however, stayed where he was, Thunder’s poké ball still in his hand and his eyes wide in disbelief as he gripped the rail of his platform. He looked as if he wanted to murder the nearest person, and if the three of them hadn’t been so relieved for Thunder’s sake, they probably would have been afraid of such a look.

Another trainer, wearing a uniform that set him apart as one of the people running the arena, climbed up onto the platform next to Mausk. Even through the noise, Snowcrystal and her friends caught a few of his words.

“Mausk…your pokémon…what was that…”

“I paid money for this!” Mausk shouted back, rounding on him. “Three pokémon! I paid to battle three pokémon. You let me fight one more battle…I will impress you!”

From what they could see, the other trainer gave Mausk an amused smirk. He grabbed a small microphone he carried with him, suddenly taking over as the announcer. “Did you hear that, folks? Mausk says he wants one more round. Three rounds per trainer is what you paid to see, right? So how about this? He shows us something truly impressive and wins? He can carry on. How about that?”

The cheers that erupted from the stands were deafening. Snowcrystal glanced to Nightshade in alarm. “Why are they letting him fight again?” she asked. “I thought they just said he lost!”

“That trainer overrode the decision,” the heracross began, looking in the direction of the human who had spoken to Mausk. “The trainers weren’t happy when both battlers were disqualified. This place runs on their money too, so the people who run the fighting ring want to keep them satisfied…and to do that, they need a winner. They certainly realized that as soon as all these people started reacting badly to them both losing.”

Snowcrystal nodded numbly, tensing up in anticipation as the tauros’s trainer returned to the stand. She felt Damian grip the fur on her head tightly, but she didn’t object. He pulled her closer to him, taking the backpack with her, and she leaned out further to lick the side of his face.

Snowcrystal watched as Mausk placed Thunder’s ball into the machine that would teleport it. In a moment, it vanished, and Snowcrystal knew that Thunder would be sent to where the other pokémon were being watched over. She only wished there was a way to get there, but at the moment, they had to wait and see what would happen; they couldn’t afford to leave just yet.

The horn sounded, and the tauros’s trainer sent out a new pokémon, a male pyroar. This one looked at least in better shape than the tauros had, and let out a thundering roar as soon as it emerged. Though Snowcrystal knew the roar was fake, just some trick its trainer had taught it rather than something the pokémon did of its own bidding, she still felt chilled to the bone at the sound of it.

Instead of releasing his pokémon immediately, Mausk stepped forward, closer to the edge of the platform. Grabbing the microphone attached to the center of the rail, Mausk stated, in a very eerily calm voice, “This is what I’ve been waiting to show you. I hope you’ll all be…impressed.” Taking out a poké ball, he held it up for a few seconds, as if admiring it himself, and threw it at the force field.

Instead of hitting it, the poké ball opened up before it reached it, but the beam of light passed through it, and a pokémon formed on the arena floor. It morphed into a tall, four legged black shape, and within seconds, a canine pokémon was standing there. Its head, adorned with large, curved horns, was lowered, and its body shook. It was a houndoom, a houndoom with red markings in contrast with Wildflame’s orange. A houndoom that immediately jerked its head up, its gaze darting around the arena in terror. Snowcrystal, Nightshade, and Damian each took a horrified look as their worst fears were realized.

The houndoom was Blazefang.

Like Thunder and the serperior, Blazefang was also collarless. He looked dazed and confused, as if he didn’t know where he was. However, it didn’t take long for him to figure it out, and at the sight of the pyroar, he yelped and backed up toward the arena wall, his tail tucked between his legs. This prompted more angry shouts from the audience.

“What is he playing at?” some trainer near them called out. “That houndoom doesn’t look like it could beat a caterpie! And against another fire type?”

“He doesn’t even have a mega stone!” another cried.

“Is he kidding?” a third grumbled. “That pokémon looks too scared to move!”

Snowcrystal could easily tell that the rest of the audience felt the same way. She had no idea how they would get Blazefang out of there, and she saw Nightshade tense up, as if he was about to fly off and try to break through the arena’s force field himself. Luckily, he did no such thing, but she could see him scanning the room for any sign of something that could possibly help them. However, she didn’t have long to focus on that, because it wasn’t more than a few seconds before the horn signaling the start of the battle went off.

With a roar, the pyroar barreled toward Blazefang, who gave a high-pitched yip and dashed along the wall of the arena, trying to circle around the enemy pokémon. However, the pyroar easily outpaced him, and, knowing his fire attacks would not be as effective, picked up speed and charged toward the dark type with a crushing take down attack.

With a panicked shout, Blazefang darted to the side, and by some small miracle, managed to get out of the way. The pyroar, however, stopped the attack, and with hardly a break in his stride, raced after the fleeing houndoom again.

Blazefang looked panicked, as if he could clearly hear the pyroar right behind him, but he didn’t dare look behind as it approached. Snowcrystal watched in horror as the big cat pokémon got closer and closer, and then chomped down on Blazefang’s tail.

Blazefang let out another yelp as his momentum was suddenly halted, his claws skidding uselessly on the floor as he was pulled back. He glanced over his shoulder at his long tail as if only just remembering it was there, and his eyes widened in horror as he met the pyroar’s glare. Snowcrystal really feared for him, the Forbidden Attack momentarily forgotten, as she thought about what the fire attacks of a trained killer could do. Regardless of Blazefang’s own type, all fire pokémon had a limit, and even if the pyroar couldn’t reach Blazefang’s limit with fire moves, he still had devastating teeth and claws.

Blazefang’s attempts to pull himself from the pokémon’s grasp were useless as he was dragged backward by the tail. His legs slipped out from under him and he crashed to the ground. The pyroar took this opportunity and released Blazefang’s tail before lunging forward and sinking his claws in the houndoom’s back.

The howls that Blazefang released shook Snowcrystal to the very core. The fear, pain, and hopelessness in that howl was unlike anything she had ever heard from another pokémon. It spread through the arena, seeming to prompt nothing but jeering shouts or angry cries from everyone but her and the two friends beside her.

They could only watch, helplessly, as claws tore through Blazefang’s black fur. Luckily for the houndoom, the bony ridges on his back deflected the worst of the slashes, but the pyroar soon had his shoulder in his teeth, and bit down hard, causing blood to flow to the ground and Blazefang’s shouts to grow more frantic and desperate. Then, in one blessed stroke of luck, Blazefang managed to pull free and limp away from his attacker.

The houndoom truly looked like a wreck; the pyroar’s claws had sliced him all over his shoulders and back where his bonelike armor couldn’t protect him, and the skin on one of his hind legs was badly torn. He was staggering, as if barely able to keep on his feet. He was far beyond the stage where the battle would have been considered lost in a normal trainer battle. Shadowflare had to have been triggered, but Blazefang seemed to be fighting the urge.

“Blazefang…” Snowcrystal whispered as she watched his wounded form race away from the pyroar again. “Nightshade, what do we do?”

From Nightshade’s expression, he was clearly thinking the same thing she was. If something was not done, either Blazefang or countless innocents could die. Blazefang was too weak and inexperienced to pull off a stunt like Thunder had, and the pyroar was far from exhausted. “Stay here,” he told her, the back of his armored shell opening to reveal his wings.

“Nightshade, wait! They could kill you!” Snowcrystal shouted, but the heracross had already flown off directly toward the arena. She knew that a pokémon who actively tried to interfere with a fight would be dealt with severely, and these humans certainly didn’t value pokémon life. At worst, it could give Damian away as well.

Already, she could see trainers shouting and pointing at Nightshade, and a couple of the humans who looked like they were in charge were sending out pokémon to detain him. She knew there was no way Nightshade could find the arena’s controls in time, but that did not stop him, and he instead headed toward the platform Mausk was standing on – where the trainer was gripping Blazefang’s poké ball.

She saw Thunder’s “Master” turn and give the heracross a furious look, reaching into his pocket – probably for a pokémon he had not entered in the battle – as the arena workers’ pokémon who had been called to stop Nightshade closed in. At the rate they were moving, they would reach the heracross before he ever had a chance to take Blazefang’s poké ball.

Neither Master nor the pokémon from the arena had the chance to strike Nightshade. For at that moment, everyone in the audience had noticed a sudden change come over Blazefang.

To Snowcrystal and Damian, time seemed to slow down as she watched Blazefang whirl around, facing the pyroar that was charging toward him from the other end of the arena. His eyes were closed, his body relaxed, as if he were completely at peace. But there was something strange, unnatural about it, and for the brief second she saw him like that, Snowcrystal felt as if her whole world was crumbling beneath her. She knew exactly what was about to happen.

The houndoom’s eyes shot wide open. Now glowing an eerie yellowish-white, they seemed to pierce through even the light provided by the stadium lights above them. And then he fired his attack straight at the pyroar.

Snowcrystal had seen Shadowflare before, but this time, the inferno was much larger, a raging wildfire that raced through the air above the surface of the arena, causing the ground to crack from the heat. The light was so blinding that she wanted to look away, but found her eyes glued to the scene before her. The massive inferno of blue-white and purple-black flames completely engulfed the pyroar, and Snowcrystal didn’t even hear a shout of pain as she saw the shadow of the lion pokémon’s body jerk once before collapsing to the ground in a heap of warped flesh.

Yet Shadowflare did not stop. The flames reached the other end of the arena. Having nowhere to spread, some of the fire flickered out, but the topmost flames raced along the upper part of the wall, leaping into the air.

Snowcrystal watched as the force field suddenly revealed itself, and a high-pitched alarm-type sound went off as she watched giant holes eat through its surface, allowing the white-hot flames to catch and race up the platform toward Mausk.

Mausk, however, had sent out a talonflame the moment he’d realized something was wrong. He leapt on the pokémon’s back and it took off moments before the Shadowflare flames jumped to the machine where the poké balls were transported from. The machine burst into flames, its metal coating melting from the heat, as the fire began to spread around the innermost circle of the room around the arena. It found purchase in anything flammable, namely the wires and machinery connecting the platform to the ground above the arena. Snowcrystal saw something on the other side of the platform catch fire, and the Shadowflare flames raced along a section of the ground that led to the groups of seats lining the front row.

The trainers in the stands had stared in shock for the first few seconds, many probably not even aware of what it was they were looking at. But they soon broke out in panic and scrambled from their seats, knowing that the fire was about to connect with the wooden benches of the stands. They scrambled over one another, trying to get to the exit, but it was so crowded, only those who had brought flying pokémon with them were able to leave in any sufficient frame of time. Damian had already stood up, and he grabbed the backpack where Snowcrystal was still waiting, and slung it over his shoulder as he fumbled with his belt to find his tropius’s poké ball.

Nightshade, who had been forgotten by the arena workers’ pokémon in the sudden confusion, attempted to shield his eyes from the strange blue smoke that was pouring from the Shadowflare flames and filling the room at an alarming rate. It stung his eyes, and he could only hope the pain was temporary, and that it wasn’t causing damage that would never heal.

Nevertheless, he spotted the hazy shape that was Blazefang, standing in the midst of the billowing smoke in the arena. He dove down, his wings buzzing as rapidly as they could, picking up speed as he shot toward the houndoom’s shadowed body.

As he neared the worst of the smoke, he closed his eyes, unsure what sort of damage could be done if he didn’t. If he were blinded, he would never get himself or the others out of the arena room. He felt his claws meet short fur and thick, bony ridges, and he wrapped his arms around the houndoom’s belly. Blazefang gave a weak, fearful cry, likely thinking Nightshade was an enemy, but it was clear that the dark type’s energy was too spent to fight back. He did not struggle as Nightshade lifted him into the air.

As soon as he felt the worst of the smoke lift from him, Nightshade opened his eyes and spotted Damian and Snowcrystal down in the stands. Damian’s hands were shaking so much that he was having trouble unclipping his poké ball. Nightshade flew straight for him, shifting Blazefang’s weight to one arm as he reached out for the human.

As he scooped up Damian as well, knowing that he already had Snowcrystal and the backpack in his hands, he heard sudden screams as he realized that the fire had hit the wooden stands. He faltered in midair, halfway to the upper walkway where the elevator was currently being crammed with trainers desperate to escape. He suddenly jerked around and flew downwards, aiming for a few trainers who were trapped in the middle of the room, caught between the burning rows at the bottom of the stands, and the blazing edge of the arena.

“Are you crazy?” Blazefang shouted, struggling in the heracross’s grasp. “You’re going to get yourself killed! Take us up there! Get us out of this place now!”

Nightshade ignored him, making a beeline for the trainers. There were three of them, and as they didn’t have the uniforms the workers had, Nightshade assumed that they were trainers who had been participating in the battles or had some special seat closer to the arena than the rest. While they were standing on concrete, the Shadowflare flames seemed to be building higher and higher; the heat would kill them before long. Flying high enough to clear the flames, he focused on the group of trainers before landing in the clear patch.

He momentarily released Damian, and the trainer stood upright, shielding his eyes from the smoke. They each felt as if they’d stepped into an oven, and they could tell that if they stayed any longer, the flames would be large enough and close enough to do real damage; the room was rapidly heating up already. Snowcrystal, even as a fire type, flinched in pain at the heat. Only Blazefang was unaffected.

“Fernwing, help anyone you can find!” Damian shouted, releasing his tropius, who took a look at her surroundings and cried out in terror, but nonetheless obeyed, flying over the wall of flame as Damian indicated. The young trainer turned to Nightshade. “They need all the help they can get,” he explained. “You can take us all out of here...right?”

Nightshade nodded, and motioned for Damian to climb onto his back, and once he did, two of the trapped trainers had raced toward him, not seeming to care who he and Damian were. Nightshade grabbed the smaller of the two, allowing the second to climb up on his back behind Damian, where he gripped the pieces of the heracross’s shell that served as wing covers, not having much else to hold on to. Nightshade winced as he aggravated the still-tender wound Thunder had left on his exposed back, but remained still.

He lowered his head toward the third one, who was running toward him from the other side of the arena, indicating that the human should climb behind his horn. He knew it wasn’t an ideal solution, as there wasn’t much room for any of them to hold on, but he knew he was strong enough to lift them, as long as they could get a good enough grip for the several seconds he’d need to fly up the elevator shaft.

Snowcrystal watched the wall of fire as it spread rapidly through the stands around them. She had no idea how many humans had gotten out, how many were close to the fire, or worse yet, how many had already perished. She knew the only reason the flames hadn’t consumed the entire room yet was that there were sections of solid concrete between each row of stands, slowing Shadowflare down. But once it reached the elevator…she knew the deadly fire would begin to creep through the other rooms of the underground. She didn’t know how far it would spread before it reached the underground’s sealed doors and ran out of things to burn.

As the third trainer finally reached them, Snowcrystal suddenly realized that this was the trainer who had sent the heracross into the battle earlier. From her position at Damian’s shoulder, she could see that Nightshade recognized him too, and from the look in his eyes, she was suddenly almost certain that Nightshade was just going to take off and leave him there. She could tell that her friend was no longer sure he wanted this human to be saved.

Yet, after a moment’s hesitation, he lowered his horn, allowing the trainer to try to climb awkwardly behind it. Nightshade was sturdy enough to carry him, but there was simply too little room for another trainer to ride. When his attempt to find balance failed, the frightened man desperately wrapped his arms around Nightshade’s horn, clinging on for dear life as the heracross lifted off the ground, this time heading straight for the elevator shaft.

As they passed the flames and emerged into more open, less heated air, Snowcrystal could now see that the majority of the trainers were crowded at the topmost part of the room, waiting for the sole elevator to return. The elevator itself was massive, but it certainly wouldn’t be able to carry all of them. Fernwing was nowhere in sight; she had to be carrying trainers up to the higher floors. Looking at all the ones remaining below, Snowcrystal didn’t think there was any way for them all to get out in time, and she could only see a few other flying pokémon trying to bring trainers up; most of the humans had fled and left the rest behind.

Even though these people were responsible for horrible things, she wasn’t sure they deserved to be burned alive. She remembered that part of the reason they had come here in the first place was to prevent deaths by Shadowflare, even if the lives they were saving weren’t exactly innocent.

She could also see that the Shadowflare flames were growing bigger. They had been quite small when they first made the leap out of the arena, but as they found more to burn, they were steadily growing to be a raging inferno. The fire was taking far less time to leap from row to row now.

Her view of the fire vanished as Nightshade darted upward toward the one exit. He zipped by Fernwing as he began to fly up the shaft, passing the massive metal frame of the elevator as it slowly, far too slowly, made its way down. He hoped Fernwing could lift several trainers at once fast enough; the tropius was bigger than he was, but not nearly as strong.

Luckily, Nightshade cleared the distance to the upper room fast, depositing Blazefang and the trainer he was carrying onto the floor. He flicked his horn, dislodging the arena heracross’s trainer, who sprawled to the ground in an ungraceful heap. He then straightened himself so that the other slid off his back. Damian carefully dismounted, holding his backpack which was now halfway open, Snowcrystal’s head in full view as she stared around with wide eyes. The heracross gave all three of the trainers an unusually fierce glare as they ran off down the hallway. Snowcrystal could see that he still looked a bit conflicted about saving them.

“Nightshade, we’ve got to get out of here,” Blazefang barked, looking at the heracross with a panicked gaze. The houndoom looked frantic; he wasn’t able to be hurt by Shadowflare, but he clearly wanted to leave its devastating remains behind.

“Blazefang, we came here to try to save them from Shadowflare; we can’t…leave them to die,” Snowcrystal replied before Nightshade could answer. She knew that Blazefang was unaware they had come for any reason other than just to retrieve him. The idea that they would want to save all those trainers from such a fate probably would strike him as very strange. The way the underground was built, strategically modified so that it was cut off from the levels above ground by large amounts of concrete and metal, the Forbidden Attack would die out before it reached the surface, much like it had out in the rocky wilderness beyond Stonedust City. Blazefang probably wouldn’t understand why they would risk so much to stop Shadowflare from killing the spectators of a bloodbath, trainers who he probably thought deserved such a fate.

Blazefang looked at her with a mixture of surprise and astonishment. She expected him to protest, but instead, he gave her a pleading look and mumbled, “What do you suggest, then?”

Before anyone could speak, Fernwing reappeared, a few trainers clinging to her back and neck. She faltered, unable to fly properly while carrying so much weight, but managed to land safely beside the others to let the trainers descend from her back and flee down the hallway.

“Nightshade, you can’t go back down there!” the tropius cried. “It’s like a furnace! All of a sudden, half the stands were up in flames. Any second now it’s going to-”

“What about the ones still down below?” he asked.

“The elevator should be big enough to carry them out…they’re getting on right now. But you don’t understand…we have to leave now!”

“But the elevator-” Nightshade began.

“Er…if it’s all the same,” Blazefang interrupted, sounding uncharacteristically timid, “I’d prefer they didn’t die in, uh…that…”

As the houndoom continued to stutter, Nightshade turned his attention to the cables that were pulling the elevator up to their floor. They were attached to a massive pulley that he could see resting on a ledge jutting from the wall above them, forming a partial upper story above the main floor of the hallway.

Flying up to it, Nightshade gripped the pulley in his claws, using his strength to try to rotate it faster and bring the elevator up to the higher floor at a quicker pace. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Shadowflare flames reached the machinery at the bottom of the shaft and either set the elevator ablaze or sent the whole thing crashing down.

He was surprised when he was suddenly joined by other flying pokémon – a pidgeot, a staraptor, a charizard, a salamence, and a braviary – pokémon he didn’t even recognize. Whether they were here on orders from their trainers or of their own accord, he didn’t know, but he was grateful for the help regardless, especially in a place where he expected the pokémon spectators to be as cruel as their trainers.

“See if you can fly beneath the elevator and push it up,” he told them. “Fall back if the heat is too much!” He watched as the pokémon nodded, and vanished down the shaft.

Damian, Snowcrystal, and Blazefang watched anxiously, their instincts screaming at them to run as smoke began to trail up from the massive room below. But like the flying pokémon, they held their ground. The other trainers had all fled down the hallway into the larger room where the betting booth was, but the flying pokémon remained there. Even Fernwing, despite her terror, had vanished down the space that served as the elevator shaft with the other winged pokémon.

Nightshade gave the pulley another push, straining against the weight of the elevator machinery. He could tell that the entire thing had malfunctioned and come to a stop, and it was only himself and the flying pokémon pushing the elevator upward now. Despite how many pokémon had joined in to help, he knew that pushing such a massive frame of metal crammed with countless trainers was still a tremendous feat of strength for all of them.

Snowcrystal and Damian watched as the elevator climbed upward, much faster than it had previously; Nightshade and the flying pokémon were doing their job. Within seconds, the elevator had climbed high enough for the trainers on the side of the platform facing the hallway to leap up, grab the upper floor’s edge and haul themselves out.

As soon as the elevator was level with the floor, the remaining trainers raced out into the hallway, many of them leaping over the rails of the elevator instead of using the usual entrance space. As soon as they had all fled, the flying pokémon abandoned the platform and quickly swerved through the space in the shaft not occupied by the elevator. All of them, save for Fernwing, flew off down the hallway toward freedom.

“You can let go!” Snowcrystal called to Nightshade, who released the pulley and allowed the elevator to drop a few feet before it came to a sudden stop and held still.

“Fernwing, return!” Damian cried, and a red light enveloped the tropius, bringing her back inside her poké ball. He knew that there would be little space for a large flying type to maneuver in some of the smaller hallways.

Nightshade flew back down to them as they began to back away from the elevator shaft, already feeling the heat climbing at an alarming rate. Damian chanced a look downward, seeing that flames had enveloped the machinery near the bottom of the elevator, and were steadily climbing up anything they could find to burn. He was sure that the only reason the whole place hadn’t gone up in flames yet was because Shadowflare had been slowed down by having to leap from row to row in the arena stands. Now, however, it was probably a raging inferno, and even if the main flames were contained, he didn’t want to see what would happen to the rest of the place as smaller fires began to spread.

“Are any of the humans still down there?” Blazefang asked, his voice still sounding terrified.

“If they are, there’s nothing we can do for them now,” Snowcrystal replied grimly.

“Let’s get out of here,” Damian muttered, unable to understand what the pokémon were talking about. He secured the backpack containing Snowcrystal tighter around his shoulders before he, Nightshade, and Blazefang took off.

It was immediately apparent that Blazefang was having trouble. He was limping badly, gasping for breath as he tried to keep up. One of his hind legs as well as his shoulder were badly wounded. Damian turned to him, concern making him instantly reach for an empty poké ball.

However, he quickly remembered that Blazefang technically belonged to Mausk; he couldn’t catch a pokémon who was already caught, even if he was separated from his trainer.

“Slow down,” the houndoom gasped, his breaths coming in labored wheezes. “I can’t keep up.” He was shaking, and looked as if he could pass out at any minute.

“No need for that,” Nightshade interjected, lifting the houndoom over his shoulders and ignoring any protest Blazefang made before hurrying after Damian.

They soon emerged into the large room which contained the betting booth. To their surprise, there were still a few trainers there. A few were arguing on the side of the massive room that contained the three stories of doors – presumably leading to the fighting pokémon – and several were rummaging around in the betting booth, heedless of the danger that could be heading their way. Damian stared at them in shock. There were primitive, open electrical wires wiring the lights together in all the hallways and rooms, and he was sure that was all a Forbidden Attack would need. It would stop at the sealed exits, but no one was safe inside.

Snowcrystal noticed that the humans paid Damian no heed as he shouted to them, though after a few moments the arguing ones seemed to have settled their dispute and ran out. The ones trying to loot the betting booth merely shouted back angrily, but seemed aware enough of the danger and the risk they were taking.

Seeing there was no convincing them, Damian and Nightshade, carrying the canine pokémon with them, headed toward the stairs that clung to the wall and led to the first level of doors. Upon reaching the first door, Damian gripped the handle, only to realize with dismay that it was locked. A panel next to the door had a device that was clearly meant to read a card, along with a keypad of numbers.

“Uh…” he muttered, turning his head and gazing all around the massive room. “We need someone with a key, or someone who knows the code…but we’ve gotta-”

With one powerful swing of his horn, Nightshade knocked the door clear off its hinges, sending it clattering to the ground and leaving the way clear.

“Or use a pokémon,” Damian continued as they raced through the doorway.

The room was full of large, cube-shaped containers. They looked almost completely clear, but Damian knew that the force fields blocking them were far stronger than they looked. To his relief, there seemed to be no guards in the room anymore; they must have fled when they heard about the fire.

Yet there were no pokémon either.

All of the cages were empty, many of them not even having an active force field at all. The room was eerily silent, driving that fact home even more.

“We’ve gotta get to the upper floor,” Damian stated, making a beeline for a set of stairs positioned on a wall opposite of them, Nightshade obediently following. “Maybe there are some pokémon up there!”

After clambering up the second set of stairs, they were met with another empty room. Going up to the third floor, however, brought them close to the fearful cries of panicked pokémon.

Around half of the cages were full on this floor. Pokémon were pacing back and forth, aware that something was wrong but unable to escape. They could hear human voices as well, but they were coming from the direction of the doors leading out of the room, and they were fading away.

“They’re abandoning them,” Nightshade whispered, as the sound of the trainers grew more and more distant.

“Their trainers?” Blazefang responded, shocked.

“The guards…the ones who can open the cages,” the heracross responded.

“Well, break them open, then, oh mighty fighting type,” the houndoom said tensely.

In response, Blazefang was placed rather unceremoniously on the ground, and Nightshade opened his back shell and spread his wings, heading for a cage that held a scared-looking blastoise. Picking up speed, he rammed into the force field. The impact knocked him backward, causing him to wince in pain as shockwaves ricocheted through his horn and down into his body. He hovered in the air, shaking his head to clear the momentary dizziness that accompanied it, and stared at the force field ahead of him, which remained completely undamaged. “I thought so…” he growled.

As Damian caught up with him, Snowcrystal wriggled her way out of the backpack and leaped to the ground, running until she stood beneath the heracross. “Well, there’s the control panel,” she said, pointing to a small square made up of buttons positioned at human height on one half of the force field. “Let Damian get a look at it. He could figure it out.”

Blazefang and Damian reached them, the houndoom taking more time as he trailed behind. Damian watched Snowcrystal motion up toward the buttons, and shook his head.

“I don’t know the code,” he said desperately.

With a growl, Blazefang reared up on his hind legs and, using what little strength he had, rammed his curved horns into the device as hard as he could. A few sparks littered the ground, and when he stepped back, several of the buttons were crushed, but the force field did not weaken or change.

“That won’t do any good. What we need to stop is the power source…” Damian stated.

“And if it’s not on this floor, we won’t have time to find it,” Blazefang growled, despite knowing the human couldn’t understand him.

“Well, we’ve got to try,” Snowcrystal interjected. “No one’s paying any attention to us; we could split up!” She took off running down another line of cages. “Let’s find a pokémon who knows something!”

“Hey, Snowcrystal! Wait!” Blazefang called, a clear message of concern behind his frantic words. “You can’t just-”

Snowcrystal didn’t hear what he had to say next. She had stopped dead in her tracks, realizing that the force field several cages down the row contained a scyther. Turning her head, she cried, “Thunder! It’s Thunder! Over here!”

The other three came running; this time Blazefang wasn’t complaining when Nightshade lifted him up to carry him. The white growlithe sped toward the cage containing the scyther, desperation spurring her onward. Thunder had done some horrible things in the past, yes, but she had also done great ones. And Snowcrystal refused to let any pokémon die such a horrible death if she could help it.

However, when they reached the cage, it was clear they’d been mistaken. This scyther wasn’t Thunder at all. For one, it was male. For two, it was missing an arm. That wasn’t what surprised Snowcrystal the most. What surprised her was that she recognized him.

“Darkfang?” She asked incredulously.

Darkfang, a scyther they’d met shortly before reaching Articuno’s mountain, the pokémon who had told them that Articuno had flown there in the first place, was trapped in one of the cages along with the other pokémon. He looked even worse than Blazefang did, with various wounds all over his body, and Snowcrystal realized that he had to have been in the arenas too.

“Growlithe…” the scyther said weakly from behind the force field, turning to Snowcrystal. “I recognize you, growlithe…”

“It’s me, Snowcrystal,” she began, suddenly not sure if Darkfang would remember any of their names in his state. “My friends…Nightshade and Blazefang are here. Do you know how to open the cages?”

“Friends…” Darkfang began, seeming as if he was totally lost in thought, or even half asleep. He swayed a little, his gaze focused on nothing at all. Snowcrystal wondered if he’d had some sort of head injury, or was merely so weak he was close to passing out. “The swarm…” he continued. “How long ago was it…before the battles…it couldn’t have been that long. I need to stay and train the pokémon who are going into the arena. I need to stay here in this cage so they can practice on me before he sends them out…even the other scyther…”

In the midst of his ramblings, Snowcrystal noticed two things. One was that Darkfang must have been taken from his swarm, probably sometime soon after they’d left it, and possibly with some of the other swarm scyther too. He hadn’t been taken to this place to battle in the arena. His purpose was to be nothing more than a punching bag for stronger pokémon, as Redclaw once was. The underground arena probably had a practice room somewhere, and this room served to hold the pokémon used as target practice for the stronger ones as well. The second thing she noticed was that the trainer that had captured him was very likely Nathaniel Mausk.

“The other scyther…” she said, pressing her paws against the force field. “What was her name? Where is she? Is she here? Was her name Thunder?”

“Thunder? Yes, I think that was her name…” Darkfang continued on, retaining his listless gaze.

“Snowcrystal, look!” Blazefang’s voice interrupted, and she looked to see him and Damian pointing toward a cage behind a row of others that she could barely see. “We found her!”

She turned around followed Nightshade, who had headed in the same direction, toward her friends, but not before turning back to the one-armed scyther and whispering, “We’ll be back.”

They wound their way around multiple cages before coming to the one containing the female scyther. Thunder was backed up in the far side of her cage, her blades raised at Damian and Blazefang. She didn’t seem to recognize the houndoom, and Snowcrystal realized with a sinking feeling that Thunder had never even met Damian; she would have no reason to trust him.

“Thunder!” Snowcrystal shouted, skidding to a halt in front of her cage. “Thunder, you have to listen to us! You have to trust this human.” She motioned toward Damian. “But we need your help. Do you know what powers the cages? How we can shut it down? There’s a fire coming and-”

Thunder, however, was looking straight past her at Nightshade as the heracross landed in front of the cage. Her gaze took in his bandages and her eyes widened. However, it was only for a second before she looked to Snowcrystal again after her gaze briefly flicked back to Damian. “Past this row of cages. There’s a generator. An electric pokémon could probably destroy it but there’s always guards.”

“Not anymore there isn’t,” Nightshade assured her, and turned to Damian, pointing in the direction Thunder had indicated.

Getting the point, Damian released Todd and Scytheclaw, who looked around in confusion. “Head over there!” he shouted, pointing down the row of cages. “Find a generator and shut it down. Hurry, there’s a fire.”

The eyes of both pokémon widened, but they didn’t waste time trying to question their trainer. Scytheclaw sped off toward the other end of the room, the elekid following him. Snowcrystal, Blazefang, Nightshade, and Damian remained.

Blazefang backed uneasily away from the cage. “I’m not sure we should let her out…” he muttered.

The others ignored him. Damian, sensing that Thunder was uncomfortable with his presence, backed up to stand beside Blazefang. Snowcrystal could see that Thunder was far less intimidated by Damian once she got a good look at him, or she was simply so desperate to get out that she didn’t care. The scyther turned her attention back to Nightshade.

“Nightshade,” she asked, her voice sounding demanding but beneath that, somewhat scared. “Is…Stormblade still alive?”

Nightshade nodded his head. “Yes.”

Thunder was silent for a moment, her expression leading Snowcrystal to believe that she didn’t quite know what to think of that. She looked conflicted, and Snowcrystal suspected there was more than just Stormblade on her mind. Then, Thunder looked Nightshade straight in the eyes, looking as if she wanted to tell him something. But a moment later, she turned away, shaking her head.

Before anyone could say anything else, the force field comprising Thunder’s cage suddenly vanished. Snowcrystal turned around in time to see all the force fields on the cages shutting off, the pokémon immediately fleeing their prisons. Thunder was no exception. She darted out of the cage area, glancing left and right as she tried to find the nearest exit.

“That way!” Nightshade cried, pointing toward the stairwell leading down to the room below. “Go down both stories and head away from the arena! Find a way out!”

Thunder ran off before any of them could even see her reaction. Only moments afterward, Todd and Scytheclaw reappeared, looking startled.

“I heard shouting,” Scytheclaw told the pokémon uneasily. “I think the fire’s spread to other rooms. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Blazefang muttered.

The scizor shot a glare at him. “You! You’re the reason we’re trapped in this-”

“Scytheclaw, stop!” Damian cried, stepping between the two pokémon. He took out a poké ball, aiming it at his elekid. “Todd, return!” The electric type vanished in a beam of light, and Damian replaced the poké ball on his belt. “Scytheclaw, stay out here with us,” he instructed. “We might need…”

His voice trailed off as he caught sight of something moving further down the row of cages, many yards from where they stood. As it stepped into view, he could see that it wasn’t a pokémon, but a trainer. A trainer he recognized as Nathaniel Mausk.

“…Protection…”

To be continued…

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 58 - Underground Hell

Damian and the four pokémon stared in horror as Nathaniel Mausk stepped closer. He had a talonflame by his side, and the fearsome sight of the pokémon made both Scytheclaw and Nightshade’s eyes grow wide with horror. Suddenly neither bug type pokémon looked eager to fight, a sight that only served to drive home what a dire situation they were in. That talonflame was a trained killer. A pokémon that was part bug and steel, and another that was bug and fighting, did not stand a chance. The normally brave Nightshade and the normally rash Scytheclaw were both taking large steps backward.

Blazefang whimpered and began to back away as well. “Nightshade! Scytheclaw! He…he has my poké ball,” he whispered. “Don’t let him come near me!”

Mausk stepped closer, his gigantic scarred bird by his side. He showed none of the fear that the other trainers had of the fire, and they knew it was not due to ignorance. Mausk knew the underground well, and he had a fast and capable flying type; he knew he could make an escape at any time, and he was not going to fall to panic like the rest of the trainers.

“Well, boy,” Mausk’s deceptively calm voice came to him from across the room. “What happened to the generator? Where is my scyther? My training pokémon? Hm?” He took a few steps closer. Although little distance was closed and he still stood fairly far away, Damian and the pokémon quailed.

“Look,” Damian stated, doing a horrible job of concealing his fear. “There’s a fire. We need to get out-”

“I know that very well,” Mausk’s dangerous voice responded. “We’ve got time.”

“N-no, you don’t understand,” Damian stuttered, now backing up along with the pokémon.

“I understand perfectly,” Mausk replied, still moving closer. “You see…” Suddenly, his features became less calm and relaxed, an expression of disbelief that soon turned to anger replacing his previously composed look. He looked Damian in the eyes, and Snowcrystal could tell that, now that Mausk was close enough to see clearly in the dim lighting of the room….

…He could recognize him.

Mausk’s eyes narrowed. All false politeness was gone from his voice as he stared Damian down, snarling, “You.”

Damian backed up, and Snowcrystal knew that he was thinking about the time he’d faced this man before. When they were still out in the wilderness, he had rescued Snowcrystal from his clutches, stopping Mausk from capturing her. She knew it had infuriated the man greatly, especially since a white growlithe would fetch a lot of money, and she suddenly feared for their lives. She was glad that at least Mausk didn’t seem to recognize her with the orange fur dye, or simply wasn’t paying attention.

But he knew Damian. And not only did he know that Damian had stolen Snowcrystal, he could also see that he’d just set at least two of his pokémon loose, and that the houndoom who’d destroyed the arena was standing right beside him. With the trouble Damian had caused, and from what they knew of Mausk, Snowcrystal knew that he probably wouldn’t need much of an excuse to kill him. She doubted he would even feel any remorse, or see Damian as anything other than an annoying pest to get rid of.

Mausk raised his hand and pointed straight to Damian. “Firestorm, attack.”

With a screech, the talonflame launched itself at the group with startling speed. Damian and the four pokémon had no choice but to flee around one of the cage structures. However, without the force fields, they only had one solid wall – the others now just empty space – and it would offer little protection.

“Scytheclaw, Nightshade, do something!” Blazefang shouted as they raced across the gap between rows to the next line of cages. The houndoom, in spite of his wounds, had found strength through pure adrenaline, and Snowcrystal was relieved, realizing that that most of the wounds probably weren’t too deep or damaging, as nasty as they looked.

“Are you crazy?” Scytheclaw shot back. He was interrupted as a blast of wind from a flying attack launched in their direction, causing him to have to scoop both Snowcrystal and Blazefang out of the way. “I’m a scizor! I don’t want to get melted today!”

They ducked behind another cage wall, and it was then that Damian noticed that the talonflame, despite being airborne, had to maneuver around the cages as well. Each cage, without the force field, was comprised of a single wall and a roof. It was within that “box” area that the force field was formed. The other two corners had thick metal bars reaching to the ground, also providing an obstacle. The roof of each cage was high enough, and the ceiling low enough, that the talonflame had no room to fly above the cages without being considerably slowed down or risking crashing into them. He had to resort to dodging around them. Taking a quick note of the number of cages in the room, Damian had an idea.

As they ran to the next wall they would use as a shield, Damian grabbed a poké ball, giving it a worried glance before releasing Fernwing, his tropius. “Fernwing!” he hissed between clenched teeth, already having to run again as a screech sounded behind him. “Distract it! Just…don’t…get…hit!”

The tropius didn’t even need Damian to finish his sentence; she had shot off toward the talonflame, startling the bird pokémon and swerving around a wall toward another group of cages at the last second. Distracted, the talonflame sped after her, screeching a war cry. Damian bit his lip, hoping with all his might that he hadn’t just sent his tropius to her death. He knew that none of his pokémon stood a chance against one of Master’s trained killers. Fernwing’s only chance was to out-maneuver the talonflame. If she couldn’t, he and the rest of his pokémon, along with his wild pokémon friends, would all be killed.

“Nightshade, carry him!” he shouted, motioning to Blazefang.

The heracross nodded in response and grabbed the houndoom, scooping up Snowcrystal in his free arm as he did so. Then he, Scytheclaw and Damian spotted the stairwell leading to the two lower stories, and bolted toward it.

Damian frantically wished he could have Arien teleport them, even if the psychic type could only manage a short distance. However, he knew that even if there weren’t devices or psychic pokémon powers in use blocking such abilities, there was no way Arien would be able to teleport him, Blazefang, Snowcrystal, and Nightshade all at once. It would simply take too much energy, more energy than the alakazam had. And it wasn’t like Damian had the time to try to stop and catch Snowcrystal and Nightshade to send them to the PC system; even just getting out spare poké balls would waste valuable seconds. Gritting his teeth, he kept running.

-ooo-

Fernwing glanced behind her at the talonflame. He was always right on her tail, but always a moment too late. Even though each of the cages only had one wall, the walls were arranged in a different place in each row. Fernwing could see the pattern, and a look of determination etched across her features as she planned exactly what to do. She also took note of the poles on the corners of the cages that didn’t have a wall attached; those could be used to her advantage too.

She could hear the talonflame’s frustrated cries behind her, its screeches filled with the desire to rend and tear, to sear and slash. Yet, like her, he had to work around the cages instead of pursuing with a normal flight pattern, and Fernwing had spent her entire wild life learning to fly through thick jungle. The talonflame obviously had no such experience.

Fernwing knew that her species was large and bulky-looking, which was why she always found amusement in surprising others with her grace and agility. Maybe she was a bit slow or clumsy on land, but in the air, she was in her element, and the confined spaces provided by the bars and walls of the cages almost felt like home when she pictured them as tree trunks and thick vines.

Fernwing twisted and turned, darting from row to row and turning at the last second in front of a wall or series of poles. More than once, she heard a frustrated cry as the talonflame smacked his wing into one or grazed his side on a wall.

She knew that once Damian and the others reached the stairs, they would be safer for a short while, or at least have a head start. From what she could see of the stairs from brief glances, there was no way there was room for a talonflame to fly after them. Yet if she tucked her wings in at the right moment, she was sure she could maneuver her body enough to slip through the stairwell and onto the second story, where she’d meet up with the others. It would be a tight squeeze, but she’d preformed such feats back in her old jungle home.

She couldn’t catch sight of the others, but she knew they would probably be entering the stairwell soon. She continued to swerve around the cages, using the one wall each of them had as a shield whenever an attack was fired. She calculated it, always making sure that the talonflame would end up running into a wall when he tried to get to her using the quickest route. When he avoided that and attempted to catch up with her in a roundabout way, Fernwing only put more distance between them. The more she flew, the more she felt confidence surging through her. Maybe she couldn’t match this flying type in combat, but she could do this.

Briefly glancing over her shoulder, she called back, “Never tried an obstacle course, have you?” She heard the talonflame give a wordless screech of fury. “Used to having a clear shot at the pokémon you’re trying to kill? Well try this!”

Tucking her wings to her sides, the tropius dove down low to the floor. She spun around a group of cages and banked just before she struck a cage wall, turning her body upwards so that her belly faced the ceiling and she shot over the astonished talonflame’s head. She heard a satisfied clang as he struck the wall, not having seen it until too late as Fernwing’s body had been blocking it from view.

In a flurry of angry feathers, the bird pokémon kicked off the wall and zoomed after her, but Fernwing had already darted further into the maze of her own making. With the way she used the walls to her advantage, there was no way the talonflame was going to get a clear shot at her from a distance. He was forced to stay behind her, which was exactly where she wanted him.

A sudden shout from somewhere to her left distracted her, and with a look of horror, she realized that the talonflame was no longer alone; a dragonite and a houndoom – one much more frightening looking than Blazefang – were racing toward the stairs where she presumed the group had gone.

Abandoning the talonflame mission, she sped up, passing over the heads of Mausk’s other two pokémon and flattening her wings tightly to her body as she neared the open door leading to the stairs.

She felt the blast of some sort of attack pound the wall over her head as she shot through the opening, twisting her body so that she could shoot past the stairs and into the door leading to the second story. However, she miscalculated, and her side bumped painfully against the wall, scraping one of her wings. She winced, but her momentum allowed her to move through the narrow passage and burst out of the doorway into the second story of the pokémon cage rooms.

“Damian!” she cried, picking up speed as she spotted the fleeing trainer and pokémon. They were heading toward the next stairwell, which was located along the same wall as the one they’d come down from, but on the other side of the room. “There’s more coming!”

She realized a second after she’d shouted that Damian wouldn’t have a clue what she was saying without Arien, but he seemed to understand her warning well enough.

“Damian, I need help!” Fernwing cried again, knowing the two pokémon upstairs would find their way down at any moment.

Hearing her desperation, Damian grabbed another poké ball, releasing his absol. “Dusk, help Fernwing distract them!”

Dusk shot a glance at Fernwing, who nodded to him. “Don’t worry,” the tropius assured him. “I know what to do. Follow my lead.”

“All right,” the absol replied with a grim nod. Turning to his trainer and the pokémon, he shouted, “Get going! Now!”

After a moment of hesitation from Damian, the group turned and raced toward the doorway, leaving the absol and tropius to put whatever Fernwing’s plan was into motion. They shot down the staircase leading back to the first story. They emerged into yet another room filled with empty cages, and Damian quickly spotted one of the doors that would take them back to the big room that contained the betting booth. “There,” he rasped, pointing across the room at the door, and he and the pokémon raced toward it, Nightshade still carrying the houndoom and growlithe.

They didn’t get halfway there before the door that would have served as their exit was torn away by thick, muscled arms. Damian, Scytheclaw, and Nightshade came to a panicked halt as a machamp, clearly belonging to Mausk, forced his way through the opening. His bulky body was riddled with massive scars, and he wore no collar, no weak spot for them to hit should they be left with no other choice.

There was no sign of Mausk or any of his other pokémon, but each of them knew that Mausk was familiar with the building and they were not. The machamp had probably been sent out almost as soon as the talonflame had, but instead of following them, the pokémon had located the doors leading to the metal platforms in the betting booth room. Those platforms connected the three stories from that one room, but the stairwells only connected the cage rooms to the floor immediately above or below, with no quick way to access the next set of stairs. It would have been easy for the fighting type to cut them off.

The muscular pokémon was dragging something behind him. As he stepped into the room, he lifted it up.

It was Darkfang. The group could only stare in horror at the sight. Darkfang’s one remaining arm had been torn from his body, the blade embedded so deeply in his chest that it stuck out the other side. Even in death, the scyther’s eyes looked wide and terrified.

“Look what tried to stop me,” the machamp said with a manic grin. “This a friend of yours?” He shook the body as he advanced, causing Damian and the pokémon to scramble backwards in shock. “Well, is it?”

Having nowhere else to run, as the machamp was between them and the doors leading to the betting booth room, they had no choice but to flee back toward the stairs they had come down from. Nightshade and Scytheclaw fell back, letting the trainer run ahead of them, and the heracross set Blazefang and Snowcrystal down, urging them to follow Damian. This way, he and Scytheclaw would bring up the rear, placing themselves between the weaker members of the group and the grinning monster behind them.

Snowcrystal glanced over her shoulder at the bug types as they kept pace behind her, Blazefang, and Damian. She could see the machamp steadily walking toward them after throwing Darkfang’s carcass onto the ground, but for some reason she couldn’t guess, he wasn’t chasing them down. Hearing a shout, she flicked her gaze back toward the way ahead, where Damian had nearly reached the stairs.

“Everyone!” he cried. “We need to meet up with Fernwing and Dusk. From there we can-”

He broke off suddenly, just as he’d reached the stairwell and set his foot on the first step. Snowcrystal and Blazefang came to a halt several yards behind the human as they clearly saw what had caused his hesitation.

Mausk himself was standing in the stairway.

For a split second, Snowcrystal saw Mausk lock eyes with Damian, who she knew probably looked horrified. And then, before Damian could move, before she or the other pokémon could intervene, Mausk reached into his coat, pulled out an object she recognized as a gun, and shot Damian point-blank in the chest.

She vaguely registered Scytheclaw shouting something from somewhere behind; her eyes were on Damian. She hadn’t even seen the bullet go through his body, but the enlarging red spot on the back of his vest told her all she needed to know.

Damian faltered a bit before he stumbled backward from the stairwell, hitting the floor with a loud thud. She saw his eyes roll into the back of his head and his limbs jerk once before he went limp.

As the pokémon stood, momentarily frozen in shock, Mausk returned the gun to his pocket before turning around and climbing back up the stairwell he’d appeared from. “Finish them,” he stated simply, obviously addressing his machamp, but speaking as casually as if he were commenting about the weather.

As Mausk vanished, Scytheclaw gave a strangled cry as he raced to the limp form of his trainer. “Damian! Damian, wake up! Wake up!”

Hearing a battle cry, Nightshade tore his gaze from the scene as the machamp thundered toward them, all four of his arms outstretched and ready to pummel and tear anything in his path. Whirling around, the heracross charged toward the new foe, pointing his horn downward as he did so.

As the two fighting types collided, Scytheclaw reached Damian’s side. Snowcrystal ran toward him as well, knowing that if she tried to interfere with the machamp and Nightshade’s battle, she could either be crushed, or she could hit the heracross with a fire move. She looked at Blazefang, who was crouching low to the floor, frozen in terror. Considering the circumstances, she couldn’t blame him, especially as he was worse off than either she or Scytheclaw.

“He can’t be dead…” she heard Scytheclaw whisper desperately. “I have to use the attack, the healing attack…”

She watched the scizor tearing part of Damian’s vest to get a good look at the wound. Running up to Damian’s face, she froze at the sight of him. He looked so pale and still that for a moment she wasn’t sure if he was dead, if Scytheclaw was going to waste energy trying to use his power when it was too late. But then she realized she could see him breathing, faint and shallowly, but breathing all the same. “He’s unconscious,” she told the scizor.

Scytheclaw stared at his trainer in pure terror. “The bullet…” he murmured. “Have to get it out before I close the wound…” He glanced toward his large pincers and a look of horror crossed his face as he realized how useless they would be for such a thing.

Snowcrystal didn’t understand why Scytheclaw would think being a scyther would be any better in this situation, but she could tell he wasn’t thinking rationally. “Scytheclaw! The bullet’s not inside him! There’s blood seeping out his back!” She saw Scytheclaw glance down to the puddle forming beneath Damian. “Heal him! Now!”

Scytheclaw gave her a panicked look before he nodded, leaning over his trainer as he narrowed his eyes in concentration. To her surprise, there was no visible indication that Scytheclaw was using his power, no glow, no sound, no change coming over the scizor at all. From what Scytheclaw had told them about his attack, she knew that healing wounds was extremely painful for him. She hoped he would be able to concentrate enough to get the job done, and that no real damage would come to him.

“You and Blazefang,” Scytheclaw said through gritted teeth. “Watch them!” He angled his head toward Nightshade and the machamp before turning his attention to Damian again, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

Snowcrystal had no idea what Scytheclaw expected them to do if the battle came too close, but she did as she was told and turned around, placing her small body protectively in front of Damian and the scizor. Immediately she could see that Nightshade was in trouble. The heracross was one of the strongest pokémon in their group, but it was clear from the start that Mausk’s machamp was more than a match for him.

With lighting-fast movements, the machamp pummeled his four fists into the heracross’s body. At first, it seemed to have little effect on the fighting type bug pokémon, but after several blows, she could see that Nightshade looked dizzy, his gaze unfocused as he tried to stagger out of range, one of his eyes half-closed from pain.

This machamp was no ordinary pokémon. This was not a pokémon who competed in normal trainer battles, who knew how to restrain himself before he severely hurt or killed his opponent. This was a pokémon who had been one of the few to survive Mausk’s training methods. This was a pokémon with power strong enough to kill even another fighting type with his attacks. Nightshade was doing his best to fight back, but every attempt left him on the wrong end of a brutal beat-down. Though most of the damage to the heracross wasn’t readily visible beneath his armored shell, Nightshade’s movements gave away the fact that he was hurt – and in real danger. She wanted to run and help him, but she knew that if she did, she would be killed.

A painful shout from Scytheclaw distracted her, and she turned to the scizor, still crouched above the prone form of his trainer and his only friend. The scizor’s eyes were wild with pain and terror. His gaze was focused on Damian, who still lay unmoving, the pool of blood beneath him steadily growing. Snowcrystal realized with a terrible dread that either Scytheclaw’s power wasn’t working, or it simply took far too much time and energy to heal a serious wound…time that Damian didn’t have.

“Keep trying!” she shouted to Scytheclaw, coming up beside the scizor and pressing herself against his side for comfort. She knew that Scytheclaw normally would not appreciate such a gesture, but he did not protest this time, and focused harder, his breathing becoming more and more rapid. “You can do it!” she told him. “Just focus!”

To her surprise, the scizor didn’t snap at her, but just nodded to her once, his breathing beginning to calm a little. She moved closer to him, feeling his body shake with the pain she knew he was feeling as his Forbidden Attack – or whatever it was – was set in motion. She stared at Damian’s chest, her eyes widening in fear when she realized that Scytheclaw’s efforts still didn’t seem to be helping, or even slowing down the blood flow, despite the fact that the scizor was obviously gripped by pain from using the healing move.

From somewhere a few yards away, she heard Blazefang shout in terror. As she looked toward the injured houndoom, she suddenly felt Scytheclaw’s body torn away from her side. She jumped back in terror as she stared at the large form of the machamp, standing over her with Scytheclaw’s neck in one of his fists. Scrambling backward, she looked around for Nightshade, and saw the beaten heracross several yards away, staggering weakly on all fours as blood trickled from his mouth.

“This who you were trying to protect?” the machamp shouted into the room with a booming voice, swinging the scizor in Nightshade’s direction before tightening his grip on the steel type’s neck. Scytheclaw’s life would have ended right then and there if the scizor hadn’t brought his pincer up to the fighting type’s jaw at the right moment. Taken off guard, the pokémon stumbled backward from Damian’s body, and the scizor broke free of his grasp.

But only for a moment. With a mighty swing of two of his other arms, the machamp grabbed Scytheclaw’s arms, jerking the scizor back toward him before lifting him up and slamming him into the ground.

Scytheclaw’s armor was even stronger than Nightshade’s, but the blow still left him reeling. The machamp lifted his foot and slammed it down on the scizor’s head twice, stunning him. Then he reached down and gripped Scytheclaw by the neck again, heaving him upright.

“No…no, please…” Scytheclaw wheezed, his pincers weakly gripping the machamp’s arm. The fighting type didn’t even seem to notice as the sharp edges cut into his flesh. Scytheclaw seemed too weak to do anything more; even such a short time of using his healing power had sapped a huge portion of his strength, despite the fact that Damian was still lying bleeding on the ground and looking no better than before. “Please don’t…”

The machamp ignored him, grinning as he hissed, “Let’s see how strong steel pokémon really are.” He gripped the scizor’s head and forced it to the side. Scytheclaw shrieked in pain.

Snowcrystal let loose a flame wheel attack, knowing that some of it was likely to hit Scytheclaw, but having no other option. To her shock, the machamp barely even registered the burns, and responded by slamming his foot into her side, which sent her tumbling head over heels.

She crashed painfully against the floor, her head spinning. She noticed Blazefang approach her, the frightened look still plastered over his face as he nudged her to her feet.

“Are…you okay?” he asked.

“I…I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling her body sear with pain. “But Blazefang! Stay back!”

Blazefang looked confused for a moment, before what Snowcrystal meant finally set in. “If I use Shadowflare…”

“We’ll all die!” Snowcrystal cried. “Please…stay back…”

The houndoom nodded and backed off, and Snowcrystal, fighting the dizziness, staggered toward the struggling scizor and his attacker. Scytheclaw was gripping the arm that held his neck, clamping as tightly as he could with his razor-sharp pincers. However, his strength just wasn’t there, and it didn’t do enough damage to force his attacker to release him. With a jolt, she realized that Scytheclaw was likely mere seconds away from death, and if that was true, not only would he be killed, but Damian would bleed out as well. And she couldn’t watch either of them die. Taking a deep breath to try to clear her muddled senses, she hurled herself toward the fray.

Yet someone else got there before she did.

With the force of a steamroller, Nightshade hurled himself at the machamp, ramming his horn into the pokémon’s side and knocking him off balance. The large four-armed pokémon staggered backwards, but didn’t lose his grip on Scytheclaw. He glared at Nightshade, but instead of charging toward him, he tightened his grip on Scytheclaw’s neck again. He grinned at Nightshade as he tried to force the scizor’s head to the side enough to break the armor around his neck, while his two free arms readied to fight the heracross once he tried to attack.

Nightshade staggered forward, his eyes narrowed. In normal situations, he would prefer that fights were fair. However, there was absolutely nothing fair about this fight, or what the machamp was trying to do to kill the currently weak and helpless scizor. He charged in a straight line, anticipating the machamp’s movements, and as the two arms came toward him for a punch, Nightshade ducked beneath them at the last moment before lifting his head up and ramming his pronged horn right between the machamp’s legs.

With a howl of agony, Mausk’s pokémon dropped Scytheclaw like he was a hot coal. The scizor crashed to the ground, groaning as he reached toward his neck. Nightshade stood protectively in front of him as the machamp floundered into the wall containing the stairwell, smashed a fist into it so hard that the concrete cracked, and then charged toward the heracross again.

Nightshade stepped away from Scytheclaw and the others, not wanting them to get caught in the crossfire, as the machamp collided with him. Nightshade had no chance for a similar shot; the machamp wouldn’t fall for that trick twice. Lowering his horn toward his foe, Nightshade attempted to push him back, fighting through the pain of the blows the machamp was landing on his back. He managed to push through the attacks enough to get a grip on the fighting type’s waist and lift him off his feet.

Machamp were powerful pokémon, and Mausk’s certainly had stronger typed attacks, but no machamp could match a heracross in pure physical strength. Gritting his teeth as pain seared through his wounded body, Nightshade hurled the machamp at the wall, hearing a loud crash as the pokémon collided with it.

Gasping painfully, Scytheclaw dragged himself back to Damian’s side. His trainer looked pale, lifeless…the sight made Scytheclaw’s breath catch in his throat.

“Scytheclaw, hurry!” Snowcrystal urged, and he turned to see the growlithe looking at him with concern. “You have to keep trying…”

The enraged cry of the machamp stole both of their attention as the fighting ring pokémon stood up again. He was currently facing Nightshade, but Scytheclaw knew that he could go for one of them at any moment. This pokémon seemed to enjoy killing pokémon in front of their companions, like he had tried to do with him and Nightshade. “Snowcrystal…” he gasped, surprised at how horribly weak his voice sounded. “Arien…get Arien’s poké ball.”

Snowcrystal nodded as Scytheclaw began the process of using his healing move again. She nudged aside part of Damian’s bloody vest until she could see the poké balls on his belt. Luckily, he was lying in such a way that it wasn’t hard for her to pick out the one she recognized as Arien’s. Gripping it in her teeth, she managed to unhook it off the belt after some struggling and set it on the ground, pressing the button in the center.

The alakazam formed, looking immediately alert and ready to fight, but when he saw the scene before him, all color drained from his face. “D-Damian…what…” he stammered, his arms lowering as his eyes moved along his trainer’s bloody body, seeming oblivious to everything else around him.

“Sh-shut up…a-and st-stay back!” Scytheclaw growled at him, his eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted in pain.

“Put up a shield!” Snowcrystal instructed. “A protect barrier!”

When Arien just stared, unresponsive, Blazefang shouted, “Hurry! Unless you want that machamp to kill us and him!”

Arien seemed to snap out of it, now fully noticing the battle between Nightshade and Mausk’s pokémon. He also seemed to note that both Blazefang and Snowcrystal were injured, and while Snowcrystal still looked like she could fight, he knew that such a small pokémon going up against one trained for the fighting ring would be suicide. “Where are Damian’s other pokémon?”

“We’ve only g-got Inferno and Todd,” Scytheclaw hissed.

“Send them out,” Arien ordered, and Snowcrystal nodded obediently, working to take out their poké balls. “S-Scytheclaw, do you think you can handle a teleport?”

“We can’t teleport here, remember?” Snowcrystal cried, shocked that the normally logical and intelligent alakazam would have forgotten the failed attempt he’d made at teleporting when they’d first realized they were trapped underground.

“Stop talking and help me!” Scytheclaw shouted at both of them. “I just need you to buy me time!”

Arien nodded, narrowing his eyes in focus as he formed a translucent shield in front of Damian and the scizor. It would not protect them on all sides, but it would be better than nothing.

Snowcrystal was still new to the world of pokémon battling and attacks that weren’t something growlithe could use, but she had learned enough from being read stories at the library and from the practice battles she’d seen Damian have with the wild pokémon to know that the move Arien was using – protect – didn’t last long. It took up a lot of energy, and Arien would have to put all his focus into forming a psychic barrier big enough to have a chance at shielding them from the worst attacks.

She turned to Scytheclaw, hoping that by some miracle he could speed up the healing process, but despite the scizor’s clear efforts, the wound didn’t seem to be healing. She knew it wasn’t for lack of trying or that the power wasn’t working; Scytheclaw was clearly in pain, enough that she could see a tear starting to trickle down the side of his face. It was a sight that, just hours before, Snowcrystal would have never thought she’d see from a pokémon like Scytheclaw, but now, considering the situation, she couldn’t even find it strange.

She was about to focus on sending out Damian’s other pokémon when she realized that Scytheclaw had suddenly become less alert, his eyes unfocused. His body started to lean forward, and Snowcrystal could tell that he was close to fainting.

“No! Stay awake!” she cried, rushing to the scizor’s side. She knew that if Scytheclaw passed out, it was over. There was no way Damian would last long enough to get help from some other source. She placed her paws on Scytheclaw’s arm, trying to shake him into alertness. “Stay…awake!” she cried.

Scytheclaw remained listless for a few moments before he snapped to attention, shaking his head as if to clear it of dizziness. He looked at Snowcrystal in confusion for a moment before everything seemed to come back to him. “I told you…” he growled. “Get…the poké balls.” In response, the growlithe nodded and stepped away.

Within moments, Snowcrystal managed to get Todd and Inferno’s poké balls, releasing the flareon and elekid. Almost as soon as she did, she heard a growl from the direction of the door the machamp had first entered the room from. A houndoom, one that looked far more muscular and powerful than Blazefang, growled as he stalked into the room. The new intruder ignored the fighting that was going on between Nightshade and the machamp as the four-armed fighting type slammed the weakening heracross into the ground again and again. The houndoom noticed Damian and the pokémon around him and let out a growl.

“We need to distract him! Now!” Snowcrystal told Inferno and Todd, not giving them time to fully react to the state they now found their trainer in. “Scytheclaw’s healing him,” she said to try to reassure them. “Come on!”

The two pokémon nodded, and then they, as well as Snowcrystal, darted away from Damian in three different directions while Arien strained to keep the protect barrier working. Snowcrystal hoped that Mausk’s houndoom would go after her, but instead it chased Todd, who was forced to run up the stairwell in order to get away.

“No! Todd!” Inferno shouted, stopping in his tracks before shooting toward the stairs as well.

Snowcrystal followed, and reached the base of the stairs before the flareon did. Hoping the houndoom hadn’t caught up with the elekid or that Todd’s paralyzing attacks had worked, she raced up the steps. She only cleared three or four before the houndoom suddenly reappeared, lunging at her with jaws open wide.

Snowcrystal felt sharp teeth sink into the back of her neck. The fangs tore through her skin, causing blood to run onto her shoulders. For an instant, she was sure her neck would be snapped like it was a twig by this powerful pokémon.

But, for a reason she didn’t fully understand – perhaps in a startled reaction to the foul taste of the dye on her fur – the houndoom’s grip loosened, just for a moment.

That was the only moment she needed. Lashing out with her front paws, she managed to slice the houndoom’s muzzle and nose with her front claws, twisting her body in the same moment so that the houndoom only had a hold on the loose skin of her scruff.

With a snarl, the dark type hurled her back down the stairs, and she collided painfully with the cold ground and lay in a battered heap. She heard Inferno shout something as well as the sound of two sets of paws thundering up the stairs before both the houndoom and flareon vanished. She could hear Scytheclaw shouting with pain as he focused intently on Damian’s wound, but the sounds of an even bigger fight than the houndoom’s quickly turned her attention to Nightshade and the machamp.

Nightshade was losing the fight. He had quickly lost the upper hand, succumbing to the machamp’s powerful attacks again. He was dizzy, there was blood in his eyes, and he found it a struggle just to stand after being pummeled so many times by the machamp’s fists. Horrible pain gripped his body, the worst pains being internal, and he did not know how much longer he would stay conscious. He suspected the only reason he hadn’t passed out already was sheer willpower. He watched the machamp swing another fist toward him, but his vision was so blurry, it looked as if there were three machamp, and his brain couldn’t process fast enough to figure out which image to attack.

As he weakly tried to fight the pokémon again, he felt another blow before the machamp’s fist closed around his horn. He had barely registered that before he was torn off his feet, held dangling in the air in front of the machamp’s face. He winced as he felt his back being slammed against the concrete wall, preventing him from opening his wings.

The enemy pokémon was staring at him with a fury he had never seen in another pokémon’s eyes before. The grip on his horn tightened, and Nightshade could only weakly reach up to try to slice the machamp’s arms with his claws. Since his feet were off the ground and his wings currently unusable, his strength would be of no use to him in this position even if he wasn’t injured and weak.

The machamp grinned at him, though the muscular pokémon’s eyes were still narrowed with pain. He had realized that Nightshade had nowhere else to go, and so little fight left. “Well,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, obviously pleased that he had stopped Nightshade’s attack in its tracks. “I’ve never fought a heracross before. Never seen one die, either.”

Nightshade’s eyes widened. “N-no…” he gasped, coughing and spraying flecks of blood in his enemy’s face. “Listen-”

In response, the machamp lifted him from the wall momentarily before slamming him back into it. Nightshade gritted his teeth; he could have sworn he felt the back of his shell crack. His terrified eyes stared into the eyes of Mausk’s pokémon, fearing that within moments, his life would be over. “Please…listen…”

“Shut up!” the pokémon snarled. It was clear from the look in his eyes that he did not intend to show any mercy. The machamp’s mouth twisted into a sadistic grin. “You know what I’m going to do to you?” he growled. “I’m going to rip your limbs off one by one…just like children do to real bugs.”

Back near Damian, Snowcrystal and the others watched as Scytheclaw, finally seeming to make progress, struggled to heal the trainer’s wound, but they were distracted by an ear-splitting shriek from Nightshade. Snowcrystal shot bolt-upright, having not expected such a sound to have come from her heracross friend.

What she saw horrified her. Nightshade was pinned to the wall, the machamp holding him up by the horn, as one of his hands was pulling on the bug type’s arm, clearly trying to rip it out of its socket. From the sounds Nightshade was making, Snowcrystal knew that the machamp was likely very close to accomplishing that goal. She hoped it was her imagination, but she thought she could pick up a tearing sound as her ears perked up in alarm, adrenaline putting her senses on high alert.

To her surprise, she saw a flash of black and red race by her, and saw Blazefang charging toward the machamp. The houndoom’s jaws filled with red-hot flame, but the machamp only responded by holding Nightshade in front of him, right in Blazefang’s line of fire. Instead of giving up, Blazefang extinguished the flames and ran closer, but as soon as he got within range, the machamp grabbed one of the houndoom’s horns and flung him across the floor, where he crashed into the ground and did not get back up. He had managed to fight against using Shadowflare, but he was now unconscious.

The machamp slammed Nightshade against the wall again, resuming the attempt to tear the heracross’s arm from his body. Nightshade’s shrieks grew to a wail of agony.

Hearing him, Snowcrystal tried to force her bleeding body to run, when another screech pierced the room. And this time, it wasn’t Nightshade’s cry of pain.

From another door further down in the room, one that opened up into the large betting booth room, a green blur appeared, darting swiftly between the rows of cages. Snowcrystal gave a gasp of shock as she recognized the thin, scarred frame of Thunder charging toward the machamp and shouting at the top of her lungs.

“You hurt Nightshade!” the scyther screamed. “You hurt my friend! I’ll kill you…I’ll kill you!”

The machamp only had seconds to turn toward the source of the shouting before Thunder struck him, leaping clear onto his back and driving one of her blades into his shoulder, slicing with the other. With a howl of agony, he dropped Nightshade, staggering backward as he tried to tear the scyther from his back.

His efforts only barely managed to keep Thunder from slicing his neck as the scarred scyther clung on, shouting furiously as she hacked at the fighting type, sending droplets of blood spraying onto the floor. Nightshade couldn’t see them; his eyes were staring at the ceiling as he lay on his back, his breathing coming in ragged gasps as he clutched his injured arm.

Snowcrystal could hear the machamp still screaming in anguish as he blundered further away from the group and toward the groups of cages. She could still hear Thunder’s shouts; the scyther was screaming over and over again, but Snowcrystal didn’t pay attention to the words. This time, the scyther was the one who had the advantage; unlike the rest of them, Thunder was no stranger to the arena or to the strength of Mausk’s other pokémon. Snowcrystal saw the machamp, blinded with agony, race through one of the doors into the main room with Thunder on his tail.

“It’s…it’s working…” Snowcrystal heard Arien whisper. She angled her head toward the alakazam, seeing that his psychic barrier had already vanished. He was facing Scytheclaw, who was holding his pincers out weakly toward Damian’s body.

This time, the scizor didn’t just look pained, he looked in agony. She had always known Scytheclaw as a very tough pokémon, so to see him in such a state was startling, to say the least. His whole body was trembling, his eyes wide and his breathing quick and sharp. Though she could see no physical wounds on the steel type’s body, the look in his eyes was a look she’d expect from a pokémon who was burning in acid. He shook his head, in some vain attempt to distract himself from the pain, or to keep himself conscious.

Yet despite the side effects of the healing move, he had remained focused, and Snowcrystal could see that the blood flow from Damian’s wound had stopped. Scytheclaw had also torn the trainer’s shirt enough that she could now see the wound, and to her surprise, it had almost closed. Damian still remained unconscious, though she could see him breathing, much steadier than he had been before.

Scytheclaw had done it.

To be continued...



Author's Note: For those concerned about this, no, Scytheclaw's attack will not be an easy instant solution for everything. In fact, I usually hate instant healing and this is the first time I've used it in a story like this. Scytheclaw's healing attack is plot-relevant, but it won't be an easy or often-usable thing. This will be shown in future chapters soon. I did my best to show that it was, for one thing, very difficult here.

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 59 - To the Surface

“Scytheclaw! Arien!” a pained voice shouted, and Snowcrystal looked toward the stairwell to see Dusk the absol limping toward them, Todd the elekid and Inferno the flareon at his side. Though Dusk had obviously hurt his front leg, the three of them looked surprisingly unscathed otherwise. However, their eyes were wild with fear. “There’s fire in the room above!” He angled his head toward the stairs. “It looks like Shadowflare!”

“It is Shadowflare,” Arien hissed at the absol. “Where’s Fernwing? We need to get out of here.”

“She’s up there,” Dusk replied with another flick of his head. “Those pokémon who were attacking us just left. I’m not sure why but I think their trainer must have called them back somehow.”

“Is anyone else hurt?” Arien asked, eyeing Dusk’s paw.

“No, Fernwing got them to chase her. She gave them the slip until they suddenly left.”

“Good,” Arien responded. At least for all their ferocity, Mausk’s pokémon didn’t seem to be used to thinking and making decisions on their own, if they had made the error of going after the tropius together.

With a shuddering crash, Fernwing appeared, pounding down the stairway until she came to a stop in front of the others. As soon as she did, she noticed that Dusk had suddenly gone rigid with fright, his eyes locked on his unmoving trainer. “What the-what…what happened?” she cried, stumbling backward. “Is he…he’s not…”

“Quiet!” Arien cried, not wanting the grass type to start a panic. “Scytheclaw’s helping him. Stay calm.”

“It’s done…” Scytheclaw gasped, his voice sounding smaller and weaker than any of them had ever heard it before. They all turned to the scizor, who was slumped over, looking barely conscious.

Peering at Damian’s wound, Snowcrystal could see that it was now hardly there at all. As much trouble as he’d had, Scytheclaw seemed to have repaired the damage, or at least the worst of it. Looking at the scizor, however, Scytheclaw only had a moment to look relieved before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. Snowcrystal had no idea what sort of side effects using the healing power would have on him, or if it only involved pain, but she knew they had to get back to the surface before they could assess him.

Suddenly Damian’s eyes flickered open, his breathing becoming rapid and strained as he stared at everything around him, seeming completely lost. “Where am I?” he gasped, his words sounding confused and slurred. He didn’t even seem to realize that he was lying in a puddle of blood.

Arien stepped over to him, helping him sit upright. Damian didn’t cry out in pain, and the alakazam breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that Scytheclaw’s attack had really worked. Damian did nothing but stare in confusion at the pokémon gathered around him, not seeming to fully register what he was seeing.

“He may not be badly hurt any longer but he’s lost a lot of blood,” Arien said. “We have to get him out of here as soon as possible.”

Snowcrystal was sure Arien was explaining things to the trainer through his psychic link, but Damian hardly seemed to react. Whether he was in shock or simply too dazed to respond properly, Snowcrystal wasn’t sure, but he didn’t seem to have too much difficulty as he shakily reached for his poké balls, probably at the instruction of Arien, and returned all but the alakazam and Fernwing.

“Scytheclaw…he did this?” he mused aloud in response to Arien’s telepathic words as the psychic tried to help him stand up. He stared ahead blankly as he mumbled, “He saved me? Oh…all right. Okay, I think I get it.” He staggered upright, but swayed so much that he had to lean against the alakazam. From the look on his face, Snowcrystal didn’t think he’d remain conscious much longer.

Arien turned to Snowcrystal. “Can you walk?” The growlithe nodded. “What about you?” he addressed Blazefang this time, and the houndoom, just waking up, shakily climbed to his feet. “Nightshade?”

The heracross tried to stand up, but it was clear that he was in very bad shape. He clutched his useless injured right arm to his side, and his eyes had a dazed, unfocused look.

“Can you walk?” Arien asked him.

“I’ll try,” Nightshade wheezed.

“Fly?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Just keep up then,” the alakazam replied sternly before turning to Damian again.

“Let Damian climb on my back,” Fernwing offered, angling her neck toward the group. “The injured pokémon too.”

“You can’t carry all of them,” Arien replied. “And the hallways up ahead are going to get too narrow. We’ll keep going on foot.”

The tropius looked as if she was about to argue, but after a moment nodded reluctantly. Damian, obviously having been told the conversation, weakly held up her poké ball and returned her.

“Come on,” Arien cried. “We don’t want the Shadowflare smoke to catch up with us.”

Even though Snowcrystal knew that the fire was forced to crawl through the building at a slower rate, with so little to burn, smoke and fire had already started pouring into the upper stories, according to Dusk. They didn’t have time to waste.

Even though Damian had at first seemed as if he was recovering enough from the incident to stand, he was swaying now, and after a moment of trying to retain his balance, he slumped over, unconscious again. Arien caught him before he hit the floor, holding the trainer up with the help of his psychic powers. “What are you waiting for?” he called to the others, who were looking at Damian with worry. “I can carry him. Now MOVE!”

Now that the worst of the danger was over, Snowcrystal realized that she could smell the smoke and the flames – and they were not far off. She limped over to Blazefang, who was also limping, but had a steady enough pace. They followed Arien as he headed toward the door the machamp had come from, which led into the larger betting booth room. Nightshade followed last, his breathing labored and heavy as he trailed after them.

Snowcrystal tried not to look at Darkfang’s body as she passed it, looking instead at the doorway ahead of them. She did not want to be reminded of the scyther’s grisly death; even though she had not known him well, he had died trying to save them. When they emerged into the betting booth room, her eyes widened as she noticed that part of the booth itself was on fire. It took her a moment of panic before she realized that it had already died down; there was nowhere else here for Shadowflare to burn. Yet smoke was already piling up near the ceiling, and more was seeping in through the hallway leading to the arena. The smoke would spread through the rest of the underground until the fire completely burned out. She didn’t want to find out what kind of harm prolonged exposure to it could do; they had to get moving.

A shout from somewhere near the opposite wall caught their attention, and the group turned to see Thunder facing Mausk’s machamp, who was backed against the far wall of the room and clearly losing the fight, only barely managing to defend himself as Thunder ruthlessly slashed at him, clearly aiming for the throat.

“Thunder!” Snowcrystal shouted. “Follow us!”

She saw the scyther glance at her, but then ignore her, facing her cornered prey once again.

“Thunder, leave him!” Nightshade called to her, as loudly as he could manage. “We have to get out of here!”

Thunder hesitated, but, miraculously, Nightshade’s words seemed to change her mind, and she turned away from the machamp, who scurried into another hallway. Snowcrystal was not sure where he was going, but she figured that since Mausk had left him alone to fight them, the machamp was probably meant to meet up with him somewhere else. She figured that Mausk himself had probably already left the building.

Beside her, Blazefang tensed as Thunder walked purposely toward them, each of her movements stiff and calculated, as if she was on high alert. Blazefang shook his head, muttering, “No…not her…this is the last thing we need…”

“What are you doing with that human?” Thunder growled, her gaze piercing into Arien’s.

The alakazam was unfazed. “This is my trainer, and I’m bringing him to safety. Now get out of our way.”

Snowcrystal winced; Arien obviously had little idea about Thunder’s personality and mannerisms, having only what the group had told him about her to go on, as he had never met her before. However, to her surprise, Thunder didn’t try to attack or argue with him, and instead just glared at him, seeming unsure what to make of the psychic type.

“Do you know a way out?” Snowcrystal asked before Arien could make demands of Thunder again.

“Master never showed me directly,” the scyther began, her furious gaze still fixated on Damian’s unconscious form. “But there are plenty. Just find one. And…leave that human here.”

“Damian’s not one of them!” Snowcrystal cried. “He was the one who got us here! He helped you get out of your cage, remember?”

An explosion from somewhere deep in the hallways of the underground shook the walls and floor around them. Snowcrystal realized that the fire must have reached deeper into one of the cage rooms, and to the machinery inside them. “Thunder, we’ll explain later…let’s just get out of here!”

To her surprise, Thunder said nothing and instead turned to one of the hallways branching off from the rooms. Snowcrystal hoped she remembered Damian’s actions and had decided to trust him, but she also knew that Thunder could just be desperate to get out of the building too.

The group followed after Thunder, and though Snowcrystal could feel her strength returning in spite of her wound and Blazefang was keeping up well enough, Nightshade was lagging badly behind. She slowed down, allowing him to catch up while keeping an eye on where the others were going. She wished that Damian were awake; if he could catch them, they could probably get to a pokémon center from the lab within minutes.

She felt the air getting hotter, harder to breathe. She could see the blue Shadowflare smoke beginning to choke the room, and she was glad when they left it and walked into a wide hallway.

It didn’t take long before Thunder, at the head of the group, came to a door. Snowcrystal could tell that it was usually sealed off, but someone had left it open in a hurry. It led to a very narrow hallway ending with a set of stairs rising steeply upward. She gave a worried glance to the heracross, knowing the climb would be difficult for him.

Thunder, who, compared to most of the others, still had a lot of strength, bounded up the stairs in a heartbeat and turned to watch the rest of the group catch up. She still cast a suspicious glare at Arien as he carried Damian, but she did not confront him.

Snowcrystal got to the top of the stairs and stood beside the alakazam and his unconscious trainer. Blazefang followed her, breathing heavily and limping but managing to make his way up to them without much trouble. Down below was Nightshade, who halfheartedly tried to lift himself in flight before realizing he was too weak and resolving to climb the stairs. He tried to climb on all fours, but seeing as he only had one usable arm, it was difficult.

Thunder vanished for a moment, and after Snowcrystal and Arien had watched Nightshade struggle to climb his way to the top for the space of about a minute, she returned.

“Nightshade, there is a way out,” Thunder called down the stairs toward the heracross. “Follow me.”

“Can’t you carry him?” Snowcrystal asked Arien, angling her head toward Nightshade. She wished she could help, but she knew she was too small to be of any use to the much larger heracross. She knew Arien was partially lifting Damian with his psychic powers, and hoped he would be able to help Nightshade as well.

“No,” the psychic type replied. “I need the energy to bring Damian to safety. He’ll have to walk by himself.”

Before Snowcrystal could reply, Arien set off in the direction Thunder had indicated, and Blazefang limped after him. Thunder, however, remained at the top of the stairs, pacing back and forth anxiously as she watched Nightshade.

When the heracross finally reached the top, the scyther turned and walked into the hallway she had discovered, and when Snowcrystal followed, they soon saw Arien and Blazefang waiting for them impatiently.

“Nightshade, hurry it up!” the alakazam growled at the heracross, gritting his teeth as he looked at Damian’s prone form.

“I’m trying!” Nightshade snapped, shooting an uncharacteristically angry glance at the psychic type.

“Good,” he replied tersely. “Don’t stop trying.” With that, he turned around and walked briskly into the hallway.

Thunder sped up so that she matched Arien’s pace. “We don’t care what you have to say!” she growled. “Go on by yourself if you want to, but stop bossing us around like you’re our master.”

The alakazam, not breaking his stride, shot a furious glare at the scyther. “I am trying to get us out of here!”

“Well you’re doing a pretty poor job of it,” Thunder snapped back. “I’m the one who found the way out.”

“Just do as I say,” Arien said lowly, his eyes taking on a dangerous glint. “Then we’ll be out of here and you can go wherever you want.”

Thunder gave him a mocking laugh. “Do what you say? Who died and made you leader?”

“We can’t exactly afford to wait around,” Arien replied through gritted teeth, lifting his head toward the smoke that was beginning to creep through the hallway. He looked over his shoulder. “Nightshade!” he yelled. “Move it!”

“I see…” Thunder replied, her voice laced with disgust, “…you just like the feeling of ordering other pokémon around. It’s some sort of power trip isn’t it? Like Master.”

“Don’t you dare compare me to trainers like him!” Arien shouted, his normally calm voice distorted into a shout that made Snowcrystal step a few paces back in alarm.

Thunder, however, wasn’t fazed. “Is that another order, your majesty?”

“Guys…” whimpered Blazefang in a pained voice. “Please stop. Let’s just get out of here.”

Snowcrystal had to agree with him. Luckily, Arien was the one to see sense and, ignoring Thunder, he continued onward. She wasn’t used to seeing the alakazam act this way, even if he was usually strict when giving orders. She knew it had to be his worry for Damian that was driving him to act in such a manner toward the other pokémon. Yet the arguments were nothing but a waste of time, and she didn’t like the way he was treating the injured Nightshade.

Thankfully, they didn’t have far to go before they reached another elevator platform, this one much smaller than the massive one leading to the arena. The pokémon took a short, but welcome rest as it carried them upward.

“The door’s at the end of the hallway at the top,” Thunder was telling Nightshade. “It takes us outside.”

In response, Nightshade only nodded numbly.

Snowcrystal moved over to Damian’s still body as the elevator lifted them up, watching the faint light patterns from the dim lamps above them move across his face. She slowly reached down and licked his cheek, wishing that he would wake up. She wasn’t sure how Thunder would react to that, however, and reluctantly admitted that it might be better that he was unconscious – and therefore not someone she would consider a threat – for the moment.

“Does that trainer still have Stormblade?” Thunder asked out of the blue, obviously referring to Katie. The scarred scyther hadn’t been present when Katie had joined the group, but she had been there when Snowcrystal had first informed everyone else that she’d seen Stormblade’s capture.

“Yes…” Snowcrystal began, “and that trainer’s travelling with us.”

Surprisingly, Thunder didn’t say anything in response to that. Instead, she just looked deep in thought. Snowcrystal had a feeling that it wasn’t just about the human. Thunder had rejected Stormblade’s friendship even more so than she had Nightshade’s, and Snowcrystal couldn’t help but wonder if she was having second thoughts. She did seem to be friendlier toward Nightshade at the moment, even to the point of defending him, in her own strange way. Yet Snowcrystal knew that Thunder was unpredictable, and told herself that it was probably only brief; Thunder would likely go back to berating and insulting him along with the others soon. She wondered where Thunder would go now, if she refused to get along with the rest of the group, especially the humans.

They reached the top, and Thunder had been right; a hallway branched off from the area occupied by the elevator platform, and at the end of it they could see a door, partially ajar, letting in streams of moonlight. When Snowcrystal reached it, she saw that it led into a secluded alley. She couldn’t tell from where she stood, but she assumed that it was near the department store they’d first entered the underground from.

Immediately upon reaching the alley, Arien set Damian down, leaning him against the alley wall. As he waited for the other pokémon to make it through, he grabbed Damian’s pokégear and activated it.

“Let’s get out of this disgusting city,” Thunder muttered, ignoring the alakazam.

“Thunder, we have to wait for the others,” Snowcrystal insisted. “We need to-”

She was interrupted when Justin’s voice sounded from the pokégear. The boy was clearly panicked, and frustrated that Arien was the only one on the other end of the call. The alakazam took the pokégear, walked outside the alley, and presumably used the device’s video feature to show Justin the location, because she heard the boy say “I’ll be right there,” before the call ended.

“I don’t see any of the trainers from the fighting ring,” Arien mused as he returned. “There’s hardly anyone around, and no one seems to be noticing anything unusual, either. They don’t know there’s a fire down there.”

“It…won’t find a way to spread, will it?” Snowcrystal asked.

“No, it’ll run out of room to burn underground,” the alakazam replied. “The building walls didn’t catch fire, so it will be contained.” He looked back toward the alley’s exit, at the brightly lit buildings of Stonedust City. “It’s odd, though…no one out and about seems to have noticed hundreds of trainers coming through…those gamblers must have a method to ensure they all leave the arena without attracting too much attention.”

“Well, let’s hope we don’t run into any of them,” Blazefang muttered.

Suddenly Damian let out a groan and stirred, staring groggily around at the pokémon before he leaned forward, trying to sit up. “Where are we…” He trailed off, looking just as confused as he had when they were underground.

They must have been very close to the department store – and therefore the rest of the group – because they suddenly heard footsteps, and Justin and Spark appeared at the alley entranceway, followed quickly by the rest of the wild pokémon. Katie, however, was missing.

Thunder tensed up, and Nightshade shook his head, lightly touching her arm to get her attention. “No…Thunder…they’re my friends…” he said weakly. Thunder merely growled in response, but made no hostile movements toward the trainer as she backed further into the darkness of the alley.

“What happened?” Justin cried, rushing to Damian’s side without paying the pokémon any attention. “Katie went to get the police a while ago, but she hasn’t come back and…” He froze, suddenly noticing the blood on Damian’s vest. His eyes widened, and he stepped back, a look of horror crossing his face. He looked about to say something when his gaze traveled over the other pokémon and rested on Thunder’s shadowy form.

“A scyther!” he cried, scurrying frantically backward toward the alley’s entrance. “Pokémon!” he shouted, looking over his shoulder toward the group of his companions behind him. He rushed behind Redclaw. “St-stop it! It tried to kill Damian! It-”

“No…she didn’t,” Damian wheezed. His voice still sounded listless and distant, and his eyes were half closed. “It was…something else…her trainer I think…”

Redclaw and Spark stepped forward, standing protectively in front of Justin as he watched Thunder, which seemed to make the boy calm down a little. He could realize that Thunder had no incentive to turn hostile with so many pokémon willing to defend him. The scyther was already backing away from the crowd of pokémon, either on the defensive or just out of pure displeasure at being around so many others. She soon stood at the back of the alley, looking anything but ready to attack. Still, Justin continued to hide behind Redclaw, gripping handfuls of the arcanine’s fur as he stared warily at the blade-wielding bug type.

“Damian,” Justin began, “you need to get to a hospital.”

Damian shook his head. “No…I’m not hurt. Scytheclaw must’ve helped me. I’m just tired…”

Justin peered at the tear in Damian’s shirt, the area the blood spots were centered around, seeming to realize that there was no longer a wound. He sighed nervously. “Fine. Whatever. Let's just go...somewhere else.” He gave Thunder another fearful glance.

The scyther, however, didn’t move. She was aware of all the hostile glances thrown her way by the pokémon she had once traveled with. She made no move to attack, but instead stood still.

“You can tell us what happened later,” Wildflame spoke up as she addressed Snowcrystal and Blazefang, walking further into the alley toward them. “We need to get to a pokémon center.” She approached Blazefang, sniffing his wounds. “I have to say,” she began, trying to lighten the heavy mood, “you look great as a houndoom.”

“Sure,” Blazefang muttered. “Let’s just get to the damn pokémon center.”

“Right,” Wildflame replied nervously. She looked at Nightshade, an even more worried look coming to her face. “Nightshade?” she asked, approaching him and taking in his beaten state and the blood that coated parts of his body. “You’re…hurt bad, aren’t you? Where are you bleeding from?” The heracross, however, didn’t seem to be able to give a proper answer.

“She’s not coming with us, is she?” Rosie spat, interrupting them. The ninetales glared daggers at Thunder. “I can’t believe she’d show her face around us again, that-”

“Now’s not the time, Rosie!” Arien called. He gripped Damian’s arm, helping him to his feet. The trainer had to fully lean against the alakazam, unable to stand properly on his own.

“Thunder can go wherever she wants,” Redclaw huffed. He approached Nightshade, showing no fear of the scarred scyther. “What happened to you?” he asked incredulously, taking in Nightshade’s battered state. The heracross was leaning forward as if unable to stand fully upright, and his breathing was shallow.

“Save it for later,” Arien called from ahead.

Redclaw lowered his body enough for Nightshade to climb onto his back. The heracross shakily clambered up to the arcanine’s shoulders. He clung to Redclaw’s mane with the claws of his left arm, his injured right still useless. After making sure Nightshade was secure, Blazefang limped out of the alley, supported by Wildflame.

Spark brought up the rear as they left the alley, giving Thunder a challenging glare. The scyther glared right back, but did not follow them. The pokémon emerged into the moonlit streets, deciding to keep to the shadows so that no other late night pedestrians would notice the bad shape Damian and Nightshade were in. Justin, meanwhile, held up his phone, trying to get hold of Katie.

As the pokémon slunk away from the alley, glad that there were currently only a few other humans out and about in this part of the city, Nightshade slipped from Redclaw’s back and crashed painfully on the street. The pokémon and trainers turned their heads to him, but before Redclaw could help him back up, a green blur came to a halt a few yards from the heracross.

“I want to talk to him,” Thunder demanded.

“No way!” Rosie shouted, darting forward as her nine tails arched above her head. “You just want to finish what you started!”

Thunder shook her head, and, to the others’ shock, lowered her blades and crouched down, assuming as unthreatening a pose as possible. Wildflame and Blazefang exchanged confused glances as Thunder continued, “I won’t hurt you. I want to talk to Nightshade. Then I’ll leave you alone if you want.”

“What are you standing there for?” Justin demanded, the fearful glare returning to his eyes as he looked around at the pokémon before pointing to Thunder. “Attack it!”

No pokémon moved.

“Spark?”

The jolteon shook his head, prompting a shocked expression from Justin.

“If she attacks,” Redclaw began, “we will fight. But not until then.”

As Damian mumbled a quick translation to Justin, Nightshade looked into Thunder’s eyes. Though he remembered all too clearly the pain she had inflicted on him, pain that had lasted for months, and he was hesitant to put himself in a position that might lead history to repeat itself, something in the look of the scyther’s eyes told him that she was telling the truth. Slowly, he nodded his head, and warily stepped closer, steadying himself with his uninjured arm.

“We won’t kill you, Thunder,” Wildflame was saying in a low tone, “but if you hurt him, we’ll make you wish you were dead.”

Though Thunder had argued with the others time and again, she said nothing this time, and merely stepped a bit further away so Nightshade could follow her. At the insistence of Redclaw and Wildflame, however, they only walked a few yards from the main group; the others would be able to see and hear everything.

Nightshade straightened up as much as he could and looked at Thunder uneasily, his eyes resting on the blades she had used to so badly wound him merely months ago. He closed his eyes, trying to drive the memories from his mind before he looked at her again. Blinding pain was searing up his injured arm like fire, and the rest of his body was hardly any better off. He was well aware of how vulnerable he was, wounded to the point where he could hardly stand, staring straight at a pokémon that was trained to kill and could snap with little provocation. Yet he knew that his friends would jump to his rescue should anything happen, and after Thunder had saved his life, he didn’t think she would be quick to attack him.

He wasn’t sure exactly what the scyther wanted to tell him, and when she spoke, it came with the same bluntness that Thunder usually used to express her views, yet what she did say greatly surprised him.

“I’m sorry,” Thunder said. “About hurting you. And I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to change.”

Nightshade could hear the confused murmurs from some of the pokémon behind him, but he ignored them. “Thunder…?” He looked at her incredulously, wondering what could have prompted her to say such a thing.

“I…was wrong about you,” she said, interrupting him. “I thought you were using me like Master did. But…I know you wouldn’t be standing in front of me wounded like that if you only wanted my attention for personal gain. So, I think that…I understand now.” She gave him a serious look, not sounding at all ashamed or embarrassed over what she was about to say, only clear and straightforward. “You are a friend.” She paused. “And…I did a horrible thing.”

Nightshade looked at a loss for words, before he asked her, weakly but just as seriously, “Why the sudden change? What made you-”

“It wasn’t sudden,” Thunder replied. She paused to glance toward the waiting pokémon and trainers, but the look in her eyes was one of annoyance; it was clear that she didn’t care what they thought. “I realized it was a mistake right after I attacked you,” she said after a moment. “And once I got captured again…I started to really realize things. Maybe it was more accepting than realizing. You were right about a lot of things.”

Her voice betrayed to Nightshade the fact that Thunder found it hard to admit these things, but something had driven her to the determination she was showing now. And he knew that if Thunder had thought things over and was willing to change, he was willing to accept it.

“Thunder,” the heracross began, trying to keep his thoughts straight in spite of the pain. Immediately the scyther focused on him, looking intensely interested in what he had to say. “I would welcome you back to our group…but I won’t allow you to hurt any of us again.”

The other pokémon cast Thunder skeptical glances, knowing all too well how she had reacted to others telling her what to do in the past. Rosie backed up toward Redclaw, as if she expected Thunder to attack someone in a rage. Redclaw stepped forward protectively, wondering how Thunder would react. Nightshade could hardly enforce such a thing in his current state, and the arcanine hoped that would be enough to keep Thunder from getting angry.

Thunder looked Nightshade straight in the eyes. “Good. I won’t hurt any of you again, but…if I did…I would want you to stop me.”

Nightshade tried to straighten up again, giving her a small smile. His voice was weak and strained. “Thunder, I understand that what you’ve been through was terrible…and that that…had an effect on…”

Thunder shook her head firmly. “No, Nightshade. You don’t understand,” she stated. “You’re not listening to me at all.” She paused, and though the group of pokémon standing beyond Nightshade waited expectantly, Thunder acted as if they weren’t there. “…It was not Master who hurt you. It was me. I was the one who did it. And trust me; you were not the one to make a mistake.”

Nightshade’s eyes widened at this. He knew that in the past, Thunder would have jumped to blame the pokémon who had triggered her anger one way or another. He was unsure just what had made such a change in her, and he stared at her in bewilderment. He looked lost for words as Thunder continued.

“Being captured by Master again made me think…realize that not all pokémon are like the ones he trained. I sure knew you weren’t.” She glanced around Nightshade toward the group of pokémon and humans waiting for her. “I’m not sure about the others…but if you trust them…” she began, a bit hesitantly, “…I guess I could try to trust them too. Even the humans, if you want.”

It was clear from the tone of her voice that she still didn’t approve of Justin or Damian being there, but she looked much less hostile toward them than before. Perhaps, Nightshade thought, she had come to realize just what Damian had risked to go into the fighting ring, and remembered that he’d helped set caged pokémon free without capturing them for himself.

“I don’t want to be like I was before,” she continued, her voice not small or meek, but direct and honest in a way that Nightshade could tell showed she was telling the truth. “I don’t want to be like I was when I attacked you. I want to be a better pokémon…friend.”

To Nightshade’s astonishment, Thunder lowered her head and body, crouching down as she assumed a submissive pose, bowing her head. The pokémon who were watching the spectacle could only stare in disbelief. Those who had known Thunder knew that in the past, she would never have acted like that toward anyone willingly. She had refused to do such a thing even toward her Master, even when refusing meant a punishment. Yet there she was, showing submission to a badly injured heracross of her own free will.

Nightshade just smiled as he knelt down, reaching out with his good arm and lifting Thunder’s head. “Come on,” he said gently. “Stand up.” Thunder looked at him in surprise, but got to her feet. “That’s better.”

As the two of them faced each other, the heracross found himself once again thinking back to the time Thunder had attacked him. This time, it was his own reactions to the incident that surfaced in his mind. He thought back to the morning after Thunder had attacked him, a time when even he, for all the patience and understanding he’d thought he had, had momentarily given up on Thunder. The words he’d said to Snowcrystal came flooding back to his mind…

"I don't blame Thunder," he had said on that day. "I blame her master for turning her into the pokémon that attacked me."

Realization dawned on him as he understood that what he’d said couldn’t be further from the truth, further than Thunder’s actions now. In all the time he’d known her, he’d always known Thunder to be honest, despite her other flaws. She always said what she was thinking, even if she kept many things hidden. Yet even if he hadn’t known that, he could tell through the scyther’s words and actions in this moment that she had been telling the truth. And at that time he, much like the others, had thought that Thunder was beyond any sort of help. “Thunder,” he began, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “I thought...when you attacked me...that Master really did have a hold on you that couldn't be broken. I was...very wrong.”

“But…” Thunder began, giving him a smile that looked a bit unnatural, but Nightshade could tell it was only due to the fact that Thunder simply was not used to smiling, not any intended malice on her part. “You were right about me before that, right?”

“Thunder, you saved my life,” Nightshade continued, looking sincerely at Thunder even though he was still struggling to stay standing in his weak state. “I know you mean what you say. And I forgive you.”

To his surprise, Thunder leaned forward and gently butted his horn with her head, which he knew, coming from Thunder, was probably the most genuine show of affection the scyther could show anyone at the moment. Thunder still had a long way to go…but now, she was willing to change, and from what it looked like, willing to let him in instead of shutting him out.

“It was incredibly strong of you to face these things,” Nightshade said. “And if you want to change, well, you’re already well on your way. And I’ll be right there beside you.”

Thunder nodded in response. “Okay, Nightshade.” She stepped past him, giving the rest of the group an unsure look.

“Did Thunder get hit on the head or something?” Blazefang whispered, leaning in toward Wildflame.

“Er…I think she got un-hit on the head,” the other houndoom responded.

“Well, I think we were wrong about her,” Redclaw said with a smile.

“I’m not so sure…” Rosie growled.

“I’m willing to give her a chance,” Alex cried, clapping her paws together. “Hooray, Thunder!” The floatzel immediately stopped clapping when Thunder shot her a glare.

“Uh…in case she’s lying,” Blazefang began, “Arien, you’ll be able to use your psychic powers to tell us she’s about to attack or something, right?”

“Not exactly,” the alakazam replied, “but I don’t think it would take a psychic to know to be wary if she seems agitated or angry. I suppose we can give her a chance, but we’ll need to be careful. If she really will change…time will tell.”

Snowcrystal, however, wanted to trust in the scyther’s judgment. She had never known Thunder to be a lying or manipulating pokémon; she stated whatever she thought. She had said many terrible things about the other pokémon in the past, but that was because she had, or at least thought she had, believed them. But now, it seemed like she was finally seeing through that confusing haze, starting to see her real thoughts for what they were.

“So…are we all buddies now or what?” Spark asked, giving Thunder a grin.

The scyther gave him a faint scowl. “No…” she began, “…but…” She addressed the entire group in particular – minus Nightshade – as she finished. “I’ll come with you again.” She positioned herself close to Nightshade, but still seemed reluctant to step toward the other pokémon.

Justin, who’d been frozen in fear the whole time Thunder had been near them, turned to Damian. “Okay…I know Arien told you everything they said. That…that scyther’s not coming with us, is she?” He glanced around nervously at the few passersby in the area, seeming nervous about the fact that none of them were close enough to the alley to see what was going on.

Damian, however, seemed on the verge of unconsciousness again, but Spark answered for him, nodding his head.

Justin’s eyes widened. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…”

“Well…if she wanted to hurt us, she would have done so already,” Damian said quietly, and everyone’s attention turned to him as he tried to stand up again, using Arien for support. “Now…come on, we should get to the pokémon center…maybe that scyther could come too.”

Justin only stared hatefully at Thunder, but the presence of Spark seemed to calm him enough, and he stood warily by the jolteon’s side, his hand on Spark’s back.

Nightshade looked Thunder over. She had a large scrape on her side from the tauros’s horn in the arena fight, as well as several bruises, but compared to when he’d last seen her, she looked positively healthy, despite being so thin. He knew that he was the one who looked like a wreck. He wasn’t sure that an experience with the pokémon center would help Thunder much at all; it might cause too much stress to be worth it. But if she trusted him, it might be better that she stay nearby. Perhaps he could convince the nurses’ pokémon that accommodations be made so that she could be more comfortable.

“Now, I know you don’t like this city, Thunder,” he began, “and you don’t like being around humans…but if I go to the pokémon center…well, I’m sure they could help you too, if you wanted.” It seemed to cost Nightshade a lot of strength to speak, and he had to pause several times, but nevertheless continued with his message. “I spent a few months in the center myself, and I promise, the humans are very kind and they know how to deal with pokémon who aren’t used to it. They need to do what’s necessary, but if something bothers you, they will stop if you tell them to. They will bring you food whenever you ask for it, whatever kind you’d like. When I was there, this one chansey always brought me-”

“Nightshade…” Thunder interrupted, giving him an annoyed glare. “That’s a stupid idea. There’s no way I’m doing that.”

“But, Thunder…”

“Argh!” Justin cried out, causing all the pokémon to look at him. “Katie’s not answering her pokégear!” He shook the phone in his hand, looking as if he was ready to smash it into the ground. “What on earth is so damn important that it’s worth ignoring us for?”

“She’s probably…talking to the police,” Damian mumbled.

At this, Justin froze, his eyes widening. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” He cast a nervous glance in the direction of the closed department store, knowing that the police would probably be there soon, if they weren’t there already.

“Stay close to us, Thunder,” Nightshade told her as Redclaw came over to help him onto his back again.

“You don’t need his help,” Thunder mumbled, looking at Nightshade disapprovingly.

“Actually,” he replied, climbing unsteadily onto the arcanine’s back with his one working arm, “I do need it. Just like you needed us to free you from that cage.” He gave her another small smile.

Thunder just muttered under her breath, coming to stand beside Redclaw. She gave the arcanine an uncertain look, but said nothing to him.

Redclaw sighed, turning and following the group as Justin began to lead them away from the department store. He knew they’d soon reach parts of the city where they would encounter lots of people, and they could attract unwanted attention if any other trainers got close enough to see Damian and the injured pokémon outside of their poké balls. He hoped no one would question them; they just needed to get back to the camp and to the pokémon center as quickly as possible without being bothered. At least it was nighttime, and there wouldn’t be as large a crowd as usual. The arcanine walked carefully, hoping he wouldn’t aggravate Nightshade’s injuries, but it became to clear to him that avoiding that was impossible. He gave the heracross an apologetic look over his shoulder as he followed the others.

They walked through an alley that led them to a street with open shops, and therefore, trainers. Redclaw watched as Thunder backed warily away, her blades raised in defense. The arcanine wished he could simply give her directions to their camp so she could fly there quickly, but he wasn’t sure he wanted Thunder running off by herself. Nightshade may have gained trust in her, but he wasn’t quite so sure.

“Finally…” he heard Justin mutter on his breath, and glanced at the boy, who was at the front of the group, furthest away from Thunder, with Spark at his side. He was looking at Katie’s image on the small screen of his phone. “Where were you?”

“Trying to convince the police to come,” Katie’s voice retorted. “Someone gave them the idea the fighting ring was in a completely different location, and without any pictures we didn’t really have evidence. Apparently they thought I was ‘just another kid trying to confuse them.’ These people must have trainers running around giving the police wrong information or something.” She gave a frustrated sigh. “Plus a lot of the officers and their pokémon were really busy investigating the library incident.”

“So they’re on their way now?”

“Yeah, should be,” she responded. “What happened down there? Everyone’s fine…right?”

“Uh…no one’s dead,” Justin replied. “Look, we’ll explain later. I don’t even have a clue what happened and I’m not sure I want to know, but I’m not going to feel safe until we get back to the hotel. But first we need to get the pokémon to a center, and Damian wants to go back to camp…” Suddenly, he felt something bump against his leg. He looked down to see Spark looking worriedly up at him. “What?” he muttered.

Spark gave a small whine and angled his head toward a large shop across the street from where they were standing. Justin followed his gaze, unsure what had caught his pokémon’s attention until he noticed the flashing images on a large television screen set above the shop’s doorway. It was currently set to some news station, and the Stonedust City Library, followed by shots of burned shelves in its interior, scrolled across the screen. The next image was of a newscaster, standing outside the front doors of the building. Despite the noise of the streets, her voice rang out loud enough for the gathered group to hear.

“After analyzing fingerprints left behind recently in several parts of the library, including a passage not available to the public, it was found that these matched up with the IDs of two trainers…”

Both Damian and Justin felt their blood run cold as, suddenly, the images that had been used for both their trainer licenses appeared on-screen. Below Damian’s, several pictures of pokémon were listed. Justin’s had none, as he was no longer technically a trainer, and Spark was not registered.

The pokémon under Damian’s, however, were not his current team. They were listed as ‘Recently Caught Pokémon,’ and as the group scanned the images, they saw a generic picture of a growlithe, an arcanine, a floatzel, a houndoom, a houndour, a ninetales, and a heracross. “If a trainer is seen with any of these pokémon,” the lady on the television continued, “particularly with more than one, please alert the authorities if anything suspicious…” As the screen showed brief close-ups of each pokémon species, it paused on the heracross image, which, unlike the others, was not a generic image after all, but an actual photo showing a close-up of the scar over the bug type’s eye, a trait that the newscaster pointed out.

“What? That’s Nightshade’s scar…” Justin began, pointing a shaky hand toward the screen. “How did they get that image?”

“Well…” Damian began, sounding a bit more alert than he had been previously, as if seeing the pictures on the screen had somehow jolted his memory, “remember when I had to catch the pokémon…to bring them to the city when I first met them? Well…I knew the lab workers could tell what was in the poké balls that were sent through the machine.” He paused as he wavered a bit, trying to steady himself with his pokémon’s help. “I got to the city and was able to switch them out, then release them before the workers in the lab sent them out on the ranch. But Nightshade…” he glanced toward the heracross. “They get notified when a pokémon is in really bad shape. I had him transferred to the pokémon center as soon as I could, but they would have sent him out immediately to examine him at the lab. They must have taken the picture-”

“Then this is her fault,” Rosie growled, throwing a glare at Thunder. “She’s the reason he was hurt back then-”

“Stop it!” cried Wildflame. “Don’t you think we have enough problems without you starting something?” She glared at the ninetales, who glared right back.

“What’s going on?” Katie’s voice cried from Justin’s phone. “What happened? Is something wrong?”

“Y-yeah,” Justin stuttered, his eyes focused solely on the television screen across the street. When he’d taken the risk to invade the library, he’d never dreamed something like this would have happened. No one would have noticed a single book was missing for a while, and even then, he wasn’t sure how readily the police would launch a full-on investigation because of it. Yet since the building had caught fire…all of that had changed. “I…I…there’s a problem,” he whispered, his face white as a sheet as the newscaster’s voice blared from the television screen again.

“Again, the names of the perpetrators are Damian Cooke and Justin Mitchell.”

To be continued...



Author's Note: Thunder's apology to Nightshade and his forgiveness is probably my favorite scene in the entire story.

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 60 - The Resting Place

Moonlight shone across the surface of a vast lake, but with the shouts and cries of hundreds of pokémon gathered there, the spot was far from peaceful. Swimming nearly every inch of the lake, swarming the shores and patrolling the fields around it, and circling the air in mismatched flocks, were pokémon of every shape and size. Some of the stronger ones made their way through the throng of agitated creatures, shouting orders, shuffling groups around or welcoming returning hunting parties or gatherers.

On the far side of the lake, on the edge of a rocky outcrop, stood a vaporeon. The water type’s gaze was fixated on the shape of a tall mountain in the distance.

“We can reach the mountain in a day if we move quickly,” a voice spoke from behind him, and the lithe shape of an espeon moved forward to stand next to the other eevee evolution. “There’s no mistaking it,” Solus continued. “Some of the scouts have seen for themselves; that’s where Articuno is.”

“And where the electric stone is, right?” a female voice asked from somewhere behind him. Cyclone angled his head toward the speaker, one of his fin ears twitching. The speaker was the scyther Silverbreeze, a pokémon who had proved loyal, despite some of her misgivings regarding Solus’ torture methods. “And you’re certain that’s the one?”

“Very sure,” the vaporeon responded, turning away. “Silverbreeze, help organize the others down there. The psychic pokémon can’t keep track of everyone.”

Wordlessly, the scyther stepped down from the ledge onto the rocky path that led from the outcrop of the boulders down toward smooth ground. She gave Solus a nervous glance as she did so, but the espeon didn’t notice.

As soon as she was gone, the two eevee evolutions heard pawsteps approaching them from higher up in the rocks.

“It better be the right one,” a pokémon growled, huffing as she came to a stop behind Cyclone and Solus. “I’m done waiting. I want my stone like the others have.”

Solus raised his hackles and gave a slight growl at the sight of the other pokémon, but at a look from Cyclone, he forced himself to relax.

The speaker was a manectric, a canine pokémon with spiky blue and yellow fur, and a pointed yellow crest on her head. Yet there was something disturbingly wrong with her. Over large portions of her body, she was completely hairless. Where she did have fur, it was thin and brittle looking, and rather than having a vibrant sheen like a normal manectric’s, its color was dull and faded. The lack of fur showed skin that was rough and dry, either bleeding or caked with dried blood in several places. It was also weirdly discolored, having a deep, sickly green to it that gave off the impression she was seriously ill. But the manectric’s eyes were bright and alert, and Solus knew that her nasty-looking appearance was the result of a human experiment, not illness. Nevertheless, he hated having to be around her. She was disgusting, and her skin looked like it was rotting. Her attitude was even worse.

“It will be, Itora,” Cyclone assured the manectric, his voice uncharacteristically warm. “We’ve confirmed it.”

The pokémon gave another irritated growl at these words, sparks flying off the tufts of yellow and blue fur clinging to her shoulders as she paced back and forth. “If any of them were wrong I hope you claw their throats out,” she growled. “It took us long enough to get here.” Itora gave Cyclone a piercing glare. “If it were me, we wouldn’t be stopping by this lake. We’d be heading straight to the mountain now.”

“If we rest for the night, we can be at the mountain by the time it’s dark tomorrow,” Cyclone said calmly, acting as if he hadn’t noticed the manectric’s display of disrespect.

“By the time it’s dark? How would that help? You think we could surprise the bird?” Itora cried mockingly. “From below a mountain?” She laughed. “You must be crazy! Unless the real reason is that you want to give all those lazy jerks down there a rest. That shouldn’t be our problem. The strongest are going to have to endure worse than that if they think they’re going to swipe an Attack stone right from under Articuno’s beak.”

Cyclone didn’t respond to the manectric’s question. “You want to kill off some humans, don’t you?” he asked calmly. “You’ve waited this long. You can wait another day for this.”

“Fine,” Itora grumbled. “But what are we going to practice on first? We won’t find any humans out here.”

“I know,” Cyclone replied gently. “We won’t be encountering humans for some time. But I want your attacks at full strength for when we do. When we reach the deep caves, you can practice all you want on prey pokémon.”

“Right, right, don’t destroy pokémon habitats. I get it,” the manectric muttered. “But don’t pokémon live in the caves?”

“Not as many,” Solus replied, giving the electric type a sneer. Itora stared right back, her eyes narrowing to slits.

“You got something to say to me?” Itora snapped at the espeon. Solus gave her a dangerous glare and looked away. Itora smirked. “I didn’t think so.”

“Itora, I want you to stay here with the others,” Cyclone stated, giving the manectric a respectful nod as he climbed down the rock ledge and moved toward the group of pokémon.

“Sure, Cyclone,” she replied with a shrug.

Itora peered over the edge, watching as Cyclone moved toward the center of the resting army. Groups of pokémon parted as he passed them, none of them even daring to lay so much as a scratch on their leader, even the ones who had been forced into joining. They knew that if Cyclone was threatened, he just might use his Attack, and it would be all over for the aggressor. The manectric pressed her claws against the rock in frustration. She wanted that sort of power. She wanted what was promised to her. She had waited long enough. This was her first chance at something good – no, wonderful, and if anyone messed it up for her, she would make sure Cyclone made them pay for it.

“Itora, try to be calm,” a smooth voice stated, and the manectric turned her head toward the small but spooky looking form of a misdreavus.

The blue-green ghost type floated gently above a wide ledge next to another pokémon, a yanmega. The large flying bug type was resting, his six legs gripping a pointed spur of rock that tilted slightly upward, which gave Itora a good view of the thick scar that ran perfectly straight along his underside, starting from beneath his neck and ending almost to where his tail met his body. Smaller scars criss-crossed it, showing that it had once been stitched together with some human implement.

The misdreavus, however, bore no scars, yet she hated humans just as much as either of them. Both she and the yanmega had glowing stones hanging from tough vines that hung around their necks, a symbol of the power Itora was anticipating so badly. The misdreavus gave Itora a concerned look, and the manectric sighed. The large yanmega turned his head pointedly in Itora’s direction, even though he didn’t need to do so in order to see her.

“Shut up!” Itora growled at them. “You two already have your Attacks. I’m just a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that we have to go through a legendary to get this one.”

“Cyclone must have a plan. And we’re not even going to be heading to the deep caves yet,” the misdreavus went on. “Yenn and I won’t be able to use our attacks before then either. You aren’t going to fall behind. And there are probably others waiting for Attacks as well.”

“Yeah, but Cyclone hasn’t picked anyone else, has he?” Itora shot back. “We don’t even know where any of the other stones are! Well, apart from the one that houndour has, and supposedly someone’s got the pokémon with the ice attack locked up somewhere. But hey, I actually want to become a part of bettering the world. Put the humans in their place, you know? I can’t just sit down and do nothing after what they’ve done. And I don’t care what pokémon I have to hurt to get there.”

“And neither do we,” the misdreavus replied. “But we can’t do anything until we have enough Attack users to stand a chance.”

“It’s a bit hard to wait after what they did to me, Ashend,” Itora growled.

“Believe me,” Ashend continued, “before this is over, the heads of thousands of humans and their pokémon are going to roll. We’ll make sure of it.”

The yanmega leaned down to where one of Cyclone’s underlings had brought him an offering of several small prey pokémon. He grabbed the limp body of a sandslash in his jaws and snapped through its neck with his fangs, shaking it once so that the head became dislodged and rolled down the rocks to Itora’s feet. “Like that,” he stated. “But picture it happening to some idiot trainer.” He gave a small satisfied laugh.

The electric type smirked. “I can’t wait to see you do that to a real human,” she remarked. “A live one.”

“Neither can I,” the green bug type replied.

“And when we’re ready for that stage of Cyclone’s plan, you can do that, Yenn, but for now…let’s focus on the journey ahead.” Ashend’s eyes flashed with an eerie glow as she turned toward the mountain.

She heard Itora give a yelp as Yenn took to the air, nearly knocking the manectric back with the force of his take off. Ashend assumed he just needed to burn off some energy, but instead he only moved toward the edge of the outcrop beside her. He was looking to the mountain, she presumed, though it was hard to tell, given that his eyes could see in so many directions at once.

“Yeah, it’s easy for you two to wait,” Itora grumbled from behind them, resuming her restless pacing. The yanmega and misdreavus exchanged a wordless glance before looking disdainfully down at the gathered pokémon of the army.

“Worthless idiots…” Ashend muttered, her gaze turning toward a group of cowering new recruits, obviously reluctant to enter Cyclone’s growing army. Beside her, Yenn gave a nod of agreement.

Solus, who had been trying to block out the conversation between the three other pokémon, flattened his ears in annoyance. Cyclone may possibly have picked good candidates in Yenn and Ashend, but he was already fed up with Itora. Still, there was nothing he could do about it, and he had made a point to ignore the manectric when he could. Sighing, he jumped down from the rock and began to make his way through the gathering of pokémon toward where Cyclone had gone. The army’s leader sat near the center of the throng, where the pokémon had cleared a wide circle in the grass. The vaporeon was surrounded by several other high ranking members of the army. Solus had no trouble getting there; the pokémon parted and cleared a path as he walked by as well.

“Cyclone, is everything ready for tomorrow?” he asked as he walked into the center of the makeshift clearing.

Cyclone nodded. “Yes,” he replied, not giving any further explanation.

A rhyperior, looking a bit too unnerved about the whole thing for Solus’s taste, shifted his feet uncomfortably. Solus remembered him. A new recruit. One who had been allowed to join this small circle of high-ranking members through sheer strength and the fact that he’d sought out the army on his own. Unfortunately, he hadn’t shown to be the smartest of pokémon. “And what, exactly, are you and the others going to do when you reach the top of that mountain?” he asked. “How do you expect to slip past Articuno long enough to get to the stone?”

The vaporeon straightened up, letting his cold glare wander over the assembled pokémon. Solus noticed that the scyther, Silverbreeze, couldn’t help but flinch a bit.

“We’re not,” Cyclone said. “What we’re going to do is simple.”

A hushed silence fell over the group, seeming almost eerie despite the noise of the army surrounding them on all sides.

“We’re going to kill a legendary.”

-ooo-

Under the same moon and stars, a gloomy clearing lay empty, untouched by wild pokémon save for a few small rattata foraging in the night. Tall, battered-looking trees surrounded the secluded area on all sides.

Through the bushes on one side of the clearing, a teenage boy fought his way through the leafy vegetation until he emerged from the gloom to stand in the patch of moonlight filtering through the treetops. A nervous jolteon followed him, coming to stand at his side and casting a forlorn look at what was to be their new resting place.

Justin leaned over and gasped for breath, throwing his backpack onto the ground. Spark walked forward into the clearing, pacing anxiously around as he cast several glances to the patch of sky overhead. “It looks big enough,” the pokémon’s trainer muttered. “Go get the others.”

Spark nodded and shot off into the trees, leaving Justin alone.

The boy crouched down, backing into the shadows beneath the trees and toward the shelter of a large bush. He shivered against the cold, his thoughts drifting back to the warm hotel he and Katie had spent their nights in since arriving at Stonedust City. It seemed like much more than a few months since he’d last camped out in the wilderness, and at the moment, he couldn’t fathom why Damian preferred to sleep out in the open.

Katie was going back to Damian’s old camp, retrieving his supplies and tent. She had already picked up their own supplies from the hotel; Katie had been smart enough to realize that there would be trouble if she was found and questioned – being Justin’s roommate – by the police. She had gone back for the supplies the moment they’d informed her of the situation, and luckily had gotten in and out without any trouble. She had left behind just enough unnecessary items to give the impression she still planned to stay, thus, hopefully, removing suspicion.

Justin still couldn’t believe what had happened. The image of the television screen above the city shop was burned into his mind. His worst fears had become a reality, and not for the reasons he’d thought they would. Almost subconsciously, he turned toward the darkness of the forest, longing for his jolteon’s return.

This place was further from the city than any of their camps before. It had to be. The police would expect them to flee into the wilderness. They hadn’t merely vandalized something; they had damaged, possibly irreparably, one of the most important historical buildings in the Inari region, and the rare and valuable information kept inside.

The bushes behind him twitched, and Justin jumped, only to breathe a sigh of relief as Spark came bounding back to him. He managed a small smile as the jolteon nuzzled him gently with his head.

Alex the floatzel darted in next, followed by Rosie and Wildflame. Justin found himself backing up toward them, knowing that the newest addition to the ragtag group of misfits was a scyther. One of those nasty fighting ring pokémon, too. When he found himself standing in the bright moonlight again, his thoughts shifted to wondering if the police had sent out flying types to search for him. He decided he was more afraid of the police than he was of scyther, and edged toward the undergrowth again.

However, the next pokémon to appear were Snowcrystal, Blazefang, and Arien. Both Snowcrystal and Blazefang were limping, but the growlithe seemed more exhausted than hurt. There was blood on the back of her neck, but the wounds only went as deep as her skin. The houndoom was a different story, but from what Justin could see, his wounds didn’t look terribly deep. The bony ridges on his back seemed to have blocked most of the blows. However, he was walking on three legs; one of his shoulders was still glistening with blood. Justin had never liked the houndour – or now, houndoom – but he still felt worried. Would being injured make him weaker mentally, make it easier to trigger the Forbidden Attack?

As the two canine pokémon made it into the clearing, Arien arrived, walking slower than they were. The alakazam had no wounds, but he was still supporting Damian, who looked to be in a state of either shock or near unconsciousness. Justin wasn’t sure which, but whatever the cause, Damian wasn’t reacting to much of anything around him.

Justin turned away to let the alakazam deal with trying to find a place for his trainer to rest. He sat warily beside Spark, dreading the scyther’s appearance yet opting to focus on that rather than on his more pressing fear.

Redclaw appeared next. The arcanine was moving as carefully as he could so as not to agitate the injured heracross on his back, but it was clear that it was proving to be a futile effort. Justin didn’t know how badly Nightshade was hurt, but he didn’t want to think about it. Nightshade was one of their strongest pokémon; they couldn’t afford to lose him.

Once Redclaw had stepped into the clearing and lowered himself to the ground, Justin caught sight of movement in the darkness of the trees. He saw a flash of wicked blue eyes staring in his direction, and the shape of a scyther moved off, slinking away into the forest.

Spark, reluctant to leave his worried trainer, turned his attention away from Thunder, instead looking to the rest of the group. This was one of the times he wished his beloved trainer could understand his words; perhaps he and the other pokémon could reassure him somehow. But with Damian unable to respond much, and Katie currently fetching supplies, no one could help with that at the moment. But Spark could still be there to comfort Justin in whatever way he could, and when he felt the boy grip his fur tightly, the way he did whenever he wanted support, he knew that he was helping, even if only a little.

“So…what’s the plan, Arien?” Spark asked, looking from one pokémon to another, wondering if they had any input as well.

“First, we need to conceal the camp,” the alakazam responded, leaning Damian back against a thick tree. “Katie has a flying type, but all we’ve got now is Fernwing to help create a canopy. Anyone else able bodied, use whatever you can find to hide this clearing from all sides.”

No one objected, and slowly, the uninjured pokémon got up, trudging into the unfamiliar forest. They vanished into the trees, leaving the wounded pokémon where they rested. Spark hesitated.

“Look,” the jolteon began, “we’ve gotta find food. We have no idea where we are, and we need to know where the best hunting spots are if we’re gonna-”

“Katie will get food from the city,” Arien responded, cutting him off. The alakazam didn’t even look at him; his attention was on Damian.

“And how long will that last?” Spark cried. “If they find out she’s helping us they’ll stop her. And for all we know, there could be hostile pokémon in this place! We didn’t come this way when we left from Snowcrystal’s mountain. We have no idea what we’re up against here!”

Wordlessly, Arien released Fernwing from her poké ball, giving her the instructions. The tropius didn’t argue, but merely nodded and flew off to find branches or vines she could stretch between the treetops surrounding the clearing.

“The least we can do is not leave this place unguarded,” Spark continued. “We’ve got several injured pokémon here. I don’t think I should-”

“Go,” said Arien. “I’ve got Inferno and Todd to help as well.”

Spark huffed, but stood up, feeling like arguing with the psychic type would be a waste of time. “Come on, Justin,” he sighed, nudging the boy’s side as a wordless means of communication. “Let’s find bossy-pants some sticks and stuff.”

Justin didn’t need a translation to understand where Spark wanted him to go, but both of them halted in their tracks as a dark shape soared above the clearing. For a moment, Spark and Justin both prepared to dart into the cover of the trees, but as the pokémon descended, they both recognized Katie’s pidgeot.

The bird pokémon was carrying bundles of supplies in his talons. Luckily, they seemed to have managed to get all of Damian’s belongings. Pidgeot set the items down on one edge of the clearing and then landed. Katie hopped off his back and ran toward Damian and Arien.

“He’s…going to be fine, right?” Katie asked.

The alakazam nodded, but motioned for her to leave. Katie ignored him, crouching down so that she was level with the other trainer. “Damian, what-”

“I’m just tired,” Damian said softly, barely lifting his head to look at her.

“He…no longer has any severe injuries,” Arien began, “but….” He trailed off, remembering that Katie could not make any sense out of his words, and he had no psychic link to her.

“That scizor did that?” she mused, straightening up. “Healing him, I mean? He can…really do that…”

“If it’s a Forbidden Attack,” Justin stated, “he shouldn’t.” Katie gave him a glare and he froze. “I meant that he shouldn’t do it again…obviously it’s good that he did it that time!”

“What about the pokémon?” Katie asked, watching her pidgeot converse with Fernwing as the tropius returned with branches. She then ignored them to look at the group of injured pokémon, currently three pitiful-looking shapes lying in the grass. Damian’s pokémon were all back in their poké balls.

“We can’t take them to a pokémon center,” she continued. “Or at least, not the growlithe or the heracross. They know what Nightshade looks like and he has that recognizable scar. And Snowcrystal…well, that goes without saying. Anyone who examines the wounds will see her fur is dyed.”

“So what about Nightshade?” Justin began. “The growlithe isn’t that hurt. But you take the others. Ignore any weird questions they ask. Say you found them in the wild or-”

“They know I was your roommate at the trainer hotel, Justin,” she began. “If I turn in a heracross that looks just like the one that was registered to Damian…they’re going to think I was connected to this. More importantly, they might find out I’m helping you both hide. But that’s not the only reason I can’t take him.”

“What else, then?” Justin asked.

“Because he could get confiscated at the center,” she began.

Justin remained silent.

“If they think a pokémon is connected to some crime or some criminal, they can confiscate it – keep it under their watch wherever they deem fit – until the whole thing is sorted out. He’d still be at the center but he couldn’t…well, couldn’t be set free. I think they usually put those pokémon up for adoption for other trainers if they turn out to have no owner or the trainer is deemed unfit. We couldn’t do that to Nightshade without his consent…”

“So you’re worried the heracross will get a trainer he doesn’t like?” Justin blurted out. “Why don’t you step in line to adopt him or something? We-”

“Did you not listen to what I was saying before?” she cried. “If I caught Nightshade, or wanted to adopt him, that would just give them another reason to be suspicious of me. I already had to be careful coming to find you out here without being seen. And don’t you think it would seem really strange, bringing in that same heracross the very day they found out the names of the two trainers who set fire to the library?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And honestly, I don’t know what happens to the pokémon they don’t put up for adoption,” Katie continued. “Sure, the people at the pokémon center are great, but in these cases, pokémon that have any connection to crimes are taken away until everything’s found out. And if everything’s found out, they’ll know I was helping you get away. Nightshade wouldn’t belong to me anymore. He’d belong to the city.”

“So why couldn’t we-”

“You don’t hear a lot about what goes on in that place, do you?” Katie snapped. “And no, I’m not talking about the fighting ring. I’m talking about the other things that go on. Not every pokémon facility is a reputable place like that breeding center you got Spark from. A lot of bad things are done to pokémon there and I don’t just mean by the criminals.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Justin growled, his eyes narrowing.

“Plenty of abuse goes on in that city. And…and you know what happens if there are too many of certain wild pokémon too close to the city? They kill them. If you don’t believe me, I can look up the article on my pokégear because as much as the officials don’t want you to hear about it, it’s-”

“Okay, I get it!” Justin cried. “But don’t you think it’s kind of a stretch to assume they’d kill off Nightshade because-”

“No, I don’t,” she began. “An injured, possibly permanently disabled pokémon? Among the thousands of heracross they breed there for trainers? Why wouldn’t they?”

Justin shook his head. “The nurses at the pokémon center wouldn’t allow it.”

“It wouldn’t be up to them,” Katie responded, turning away.

“You know, you’re speaking right in front of them,” Justin stated, gesturing toward the huddled forms of Blazefang and Snowcrystal, and nearby, the prone form of Nightshade. “We might not understand them but they can understand us. I don’t think you’re helping.”

Katie looked ready to argue, but after a brief moment she merely turned her head and sighed. “Look, there are just too many risks. Including risk to you…and Spark. You’re not supposed to be a trainer…what would happen to him?” Justin looked to her in shock, and she could tell that at least she had driven her point home.

“We’ll take care of them ourselves,” she said, walking over to the group of pokémon. “Damian knows the most about treating pokémon wounds; he can help us tomorrow. And I can still buy supplies from the city.”

Katie examined Snowcrystal first. Running her fingers through the growlithe’s fur, she found nothing but bruises, and quickly determined that they were not serious. The bite on her neck was a bit more worrying, but like Justin, she quickly realized that the puncture wounds hadn’t gone deeper than her scruff. “This’ll be easily fixed,” she said to Justin. “I think she’s mostly just exhausted from the fighting.” She smiled a little as Snowcrystal licked her hand.

Katie moved on to Blazefang, who was lying in a heap beside the growlithe. She wasn’t used to seeing the dark type in his much larger houndoom form. His new size made it a bit harder for her to maneuver him in order to see his wounds, but she managed it with little complaint from the houndoom.

“Most of these cuts aren’t as bad as they look,” she said after a moment. “At least…I don’t think they are. We’ll have Damian check in the morning. He’s got a bad wound on his leg but I think it’s mostly just the skin that’s damaged. But his shoulder…that might pose a problem.”

She stood up and walked over to Nightshade, suddenly dreading what she might find. The heracross’s body was smeared with blood in places, and she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Now that Fernwing and Pidgeot were making a thick canopy overhead, there wasn’t much light to see by. She took out a flashlight, flicking it on and turning it toward the motionless bug type.

“Turn that off, someone’s going to see us!” Justin hissed in a frantic tone.

“No they won’t,” she replied, annoyed at Justin’s paranoia. “Not unless they were standing right outside the clearing. Now, be quiet.”

She shined the flashlight over the heracross, realizing at once that his worst wounds had to be internal. There wasn’t much she could see just by looking at his body, and she knew that the tough shell and dark coloring would make it hard to see even the injuries that were close to the surface. She could see many of what looked like the beginnings of bruises, but it was hard to tell in the darkness.

“It’s hard to tell, but I think he’s got some really bad internal injuries,” she reported, addressing Justin rather than the pokémon around her. “And I think I’ve found out where the blood’s coming from…” She moved the flashlight over the areas of Nightshade’s body where his shell had been cracked, unable to properly analyze the open injuries due to the drying blood covering them. She didn’t think it was a good idea for her to try to clean the wounds on her own. “Damian will have to deal with this,” she said sadly.

Damage like this to a heracross’s shell was more serious than a cut in a pokémon like growlithe or houndoom. She remembered vividly how long Nightshade had had to stay in the pokémon center when they’d first found him, after he was attacked by Thunder.

However, he had sported bad wounds before that happened, according to the pokémon. Scytheclaw had been the one to give them to him, and she knew the scizor’s pincers could cut through just about anything. Nightshade was a tough pokémon; he had dealt with things like that. What worried her were the wounds she couldn’t see. The cracks could possibly be signs of worse damage underneath.

Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to try to take him to the pokémon center. Justin didn’t really understand what could happen, but he understood that it would make it far more likely that the police would follow her back to the camp. At least that would shut him up for a while. Maybe in the morning, when Damian could properly talk to them, they could really see how the pokémon felt about everything.

“I’m going to go back to the city to get some supplies,” she told Justin, standing up. “I’ll find the place again somehow.” She looked up toward her pokémon. “Pidgeot, we’re flying back now!”

Justin turned away as Katie mounted her pokémon, casting another nervous glance into the woods where that scyther was still lurking somewhere. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep well with that creature slinking about, in spite of all the protection he had. The only one who seemed to have any power to reason with it was the heracross, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything in his state. Perhaps, he thought, in the morning, they could use Arien and Damian to talk back and forth with him. Maybe he could convince the scyther to leave. She sure didn’t seem like she wanted to stay.

Yet underneath all that, the biggest problem screamed at him loud and clear, and his mind was once again brought back to the fact that he had no idea what they were going to do next.

-ooo-

Snowcrystal woke up just as the sun was beginning to rise. Despite her fitful night’s sleep, she was immediately alert, but she felt as exhausted as if she hadn’t slept at all. Images of the previous night were still racing through her head – the fighting ring, the jeering trainers watching, the pokémon forced to kill and be killed, Darkfang’s lifeless body, being forced to watch helplessly as Nightshade was beaten within an inch of his life, Damian getting shot in the chest – it seemed like some sort of twisted nightmare. But it had been all too real, and she had the wounds to prove it.

The previous night, Katie had treated her wounds to the best of her ability. She wasn’t as old or experienced as Damian was, but she had taken care of Stormblade for a time, so she had obviously known what she was doing to some degree. The bite marks on her neck had been cleaned, and she had been given some strange tasting medicines to help with the pain and stop infection. A bandage had been fitted around her neck, and her amulet could still hang from her neck safely.

The center of the clearing seemed to have become a sort of infirmary for the group. Beside her was Blazefang, who was still asleep, curled up with his tail resting over his nose. Katie hadn’t been sure what to do with some of his wounds, other than to clean and bandage them. She had seemed confident that he would heal in time, however, as long as infection was kept at bay. Across from the houndoom was Dusk. Damian’s pokémon had all been sent out of their poké balls and looked over sometime during the previous night. The absol’s injured paw had been treated, but instead of returning to his poké ball, he had decided to sleep outside with the others. There would have been a fourth pokémon joining them, but Scytheclaw had certainly not wanted to sleep near them, instead choosing to return to his poké ball. There was also Thunder, but she hadn’t shown her face near the camp since they’d arrived.

Nightshade had been moved away from the others, near the corner of the clearing where two trees had grown very close together. Katie and a few of the other pokémon had quickly made a bed for him out of dead leaves the previous night, and when Katie got supplies from the city, she had brought back a thick blanket for him to lie on. As Snowcrystal looked in his direction, she could see him lying completely still, almost like he was a dead pokémon.

For a brief moment, alarm flared through her body, and she suddenly wondered if it were possible that Nightshade had died during the night. No one had really been able to assess his wounds properly, and they couldn’t be sure what sort of internal damage he had sustained. She rushed over to him, heaving a sigh of relief when she realized that he was still breathing.

Though she realized the way she had reacted was probably silly, she couldn’t help but notice that the heracross looked a lot worse than he had the previous night. Katie had obviously done her best to treat the wounds on the surface, but there wasn’t much they could do for the internal ones other than to wait for them to heal. Nightshade didn’t look like he was asleep, merely too exhausted to move.

“Don’t worry, Nightshade,” she told him. “You’ll be all right.”

Nightshade opened one eye weakly for a brief moment. “Thanks, Snowcrystal,” he said quietly.

He looked so tired that Snowcrystal didn’t want to bother him further. She quietly crept backwards and looked toward where Damian was sleeping.

The trainer was no longer there. Worried, Snowcrystal walked to the spot where he’d last been, noting that his scent was still fresh. Wherever he had gone, Arien had gone with him, and as she looked around the clearing, she realized that Katie and Justin were gone too. She heard a noise from somewhere nearby and saw Redclaw returning from the forest with Alex. The floatzel had a goldeen in her mouth, but Redclaw carried no prey.

“Where’s Damian? And Justin and Katie?” Snowcrystal asked them. “I think we need to-”

“Katie went back to the city for supplies,” Alex stated, setting down her prey. “You know, for Nightshade and the others. I think the other trainers left so Arien…well, Damian – since he’s Arien’s translator – could tell Justin what happened without bothering the pokémon who were asleep.”

“Oh…that makes sense,” Snowcrystal replied, though she wished they would come back soon. She knew that a lot of this would be news to Damian himself, as he was unconscious during the fight with Mausk’s machamp. Nightshade now certainly needed help, though at least Blazefang and Dusk didn’t seem to be in any danger or debilitating pain. “What about Scytheclaw?”

“I dunno,” the floatzel shrugged uneasily. “I haven’t seen him out of his poké ball. From what Arien told me he should be fine in a while though…at least I hope.”

Snowcrystal was about to reply when she heard footsteps coming from the woods, and the sound of Justin’s voice through the trees.

“You sure that lunatic isn’t going to come after us?” he was saying, almost shouting it, and causing Blazefang to jolt awake and turn his head warily in their direction. “As if the police aren’t enough, now we have to worry about some madman too?”

“He…he thinks I’m dead,” came the reply from Damian. The trainer still sounded weak, but significantly less so than the previous night.

“But he probably realizes Blazefang’s not,” Justin responded. He emerged from the bushes into the clearing, Spark at his side.

“But he tried to have his pokémon kill Blazefang,” Damian cried as he stumbled into the clearing after him, Arien beside him. “He obviously had no use for him, or else…”

“I don’t know,” Justin interrupted, “but I don’t like it. We should get out of here as soon as we can.”

“And go where?” Spark blurted out, realizing an instant later that his trainer could not understand. He looked to Arien as if hoping he would translate, but the alakazam was focused only on helping his trainer walk back to the clearing.

“Where are we going to go?” Alex asked, but neither the growlithe nor the arcanine had an answer for her.

Justin pointed over to where Nightshade was resting on Katie’s blanket. He turned to Damian. “You’ve gotta do something. You’re the one who knows how to treat pokémon wounds out in the wilderness.”

At this, Damian seemed to snap back into full alertness. He left Arien’s side and walked shakily over to the heracross. From the look of horror on his face, Snowcrystal guessed that he hadn’t been able to get a good look at Nightshade before Justin dragged him into the woods to explain things. “What…what on earth happened?”

“I thought Arien told you that,” Justin replied. “He was fighting that Mausk guy’s pokémon-”

“But he didn’t say…” Damian trailed off, looking down at Nightshade. The bug type was almost completely unresponsive.

“That heracross is the reason you’re still alive, so do something.” Justin said. He looked down at Nightshade with what Damian guessed was a forlorn expression. “We don’t know what to do.” He paused again. “And we can’t take him to the pokémon center either.”

“And why not?” Damian snapped, turning to glare at Justin.

“Because they’re looking for any of your pokémon and they have a picture of him. That scar on his face is kind of a defining trait…it’s not like he could easily be confused for some other heracross.”

“So what?” Damian retorted. “I don’t care if it’s going to be a greater risk for us; we have to get him to the pokémon center.”

“Katie says that if we do, Nightshade would be connected to the crime because he was once registered as your pokémon, and he’d be confiscated…she isn’t sure what they’d do to him after that.”

Damian hesitated, as if what Justin was saying had started to sink in, and he was now unsure how to respond.

“Why don’t you and your psychic type ask Nightshade?” Justin continued. “See what he thinks, since he’s the one going to be affected by all this.”

Damian turned his gaze downward. “Okay,” he said, obviously trying to sound calm. “But later.” He knew that Nightshade needed more rest before he could answer questions. “Right now, we need to do whatever we can to help him. Justin, grab one of the pokémon’s water dishes and go find some water. Have Alex show you.” He gestured to the floatzel, who still carried the goldeen.

As Justin left, Damian shakily reached a hand toward the injured pokémon, but the moment he touched Nightshade’s shoulder, the heracross flinched and drew back. Even though he had treated Scytheclaw’s injuries in the wild, Damian was beginning to feel a bit unsure of himself. He could clean the wounds where Nightshade’s carapace had been broken or cracked, but most of the injuries were internal, and there was little he could do for that.

He looked over Nightshade, realizing that Katie had left one of her blankets for him to lie on, though now it was stained with blood in places and had several tears from Nightshade’s claws. The heracross opened his eyes slowly, giving him a dazed look. Damian reached out and placed his hand on Nightshade’s head. “It’s all right…” he said, “you’ll be all right. We’ll figure this out.” After a moment he stood up, walking to where his supplies had been dropped off the previous night. He came back with another blanket, which he draped over the heracross. “You can have it. I don’t mind if you tear this one up too.”

From where he was sitting, Blazefang tilted his head in Damian’s direction. “Does he expect us to just stay here?” he asked Snowcrystal, giving the growlithe an alarmed look. “How are we going to get back to the library now?”

“Maybe Katie will-”

“Have you both forgotten that the library was set on fire?” Rosie asked, her frustrated glare traveling over the growlithe and houndoom. “What’s there left to find?”

“It wasn’t burned to the ground,” Blazefang growled in protest. “All we’d need to do is wait for them to repair the damage and sneak back in.”

“And until then, what are we going to do?” Rosie snapped. “Watch you incinerate everything that looks at you the wrong way until you’re as mad as that Cyclone freak?”

“Stop!” Blazefang growled, his lips drawn back in a snarl. “If you have some sort of brilliant plan, I’d like to hear it. Otherwise-”

“Don’t fight!” Snowcrystal cried, running between them. “I know you’re worried, but...we’re all on the same side here. We’ll think of something, but we’ve got to work together, not against each other.”

Blazefang gave a small snort and rolled his eyes, turning away from the other two fire types and curling back up on the grass.

Rosie watched him and huffed, but didn’t try to argue further. “Fine, Snowcrystal,” she stated. “I’ll put up with these pokémon if I have to…but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“All right,” Snowcrystal sighed, and the ninetales turned around to head to the other side of the clearing.

The sound of human footsteps stomping through the underbrush distracted her, and Snowcrystal turned around to see Katie walking back to the clearing. Her azumarill was beside her, helping to carry bags that she knew contained supplies for the pokémon. Blazefang immediately perked up, sniffing the air as he caught the scent of some sort of tantalizing pokémon food. Snowcrystal could smell it too, but at the moment she was a bit too worried to be very hungry.

“I brought food and medicine for the pokémon,” Katie said, directing her words at Damian although she didn’t look him in the eye. “You’re the one more experienced with this stuff. What do we do?”

Damian remained crouched by Nightshade, thinking back to when he’d treated Scytheclaw’s injuries out in the wilderness, before meeting Snowcrystal and the other pokémon. “Well,” he began, “we can keep the wounds from getting infected, and give him medicine for the pain…but that’s about it unless we take him to the pokémon center.”

“We can’t do that.” she replied.

Damian turned back to the heracross. The wounds in Nightshade’s shell were not cut cleanly, as the wounds he had gotten from Scytheclaw and Thunder had been, but instead were cracks created with a lot of force. If this was the damage on the outside, it was much worse on the inside. However, Nightshade didn’t appear to be in any major danger, simply exhausted. Damian beckoned to Katie to come help him, and the two trainers readied themselves to do what they could.

Snowcrystal heard a sound coming from the bushes, and for a moment thought it was Justin returning with the water, but when she turned toward the sound she saw nothing. She heard a shout from Nightshade, presumably in reaction to the sting of the humans’ medicines, and a blurred shape suddenly exploded from the underbrush.

“Back off!” a furious voice shouted, and Snowcrystal’s eyes widened in surprised as she realized that Thunder had darted in front of Nightshade, and was staring down at the trainers furiously. Damian stumbled back frantically as Thunder made a warning slash in the air, but the scyther did not attempt to harm him.

“You’re the one who needs to back off!” Wildflame growled, racing to stand protectively in front of the human. “He was trying to help.”

Snowcrystal bristled, fearing that another argument was about to take place. “Thunder…” she began, trying to remember how Nightshade had spoken to the scyther. “They’re just trying to help Nightshade be in less pain, okay?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Thunder spat, her eyes narrowing to slits.

The other pokémon in the clearing had begun to gather warily around the trainers, each of them watching Thunder with a sense of great unease. As much as she wanted to trust in Nightshade’s judgment, a part of Snowcrystal didn’t blame them for not trusting her.

“Thunder…” Nightshade’s weak voice came from the leaf pile he was resting on. “It’s all right…they’re helping…not making it worse.”

Thunder stiffened at the sound of his voice, looking at the heracross uneasily. Snowcrystal wondered if it was because of how weak he sounded at the moment, after the exhaustion of the previous night had caught up with him.

To her surprise, Thunder gave a brief nod before backing off, moving several paces back and allowing the trainers to approach Nightshade again. However, she kept a wary eye on them, and Snowcrystal could tell that she didn’t trust them.

Thunder looked more stressed than she had when they’d left the arena the previous night, and she had an idea that it was because of Nightshade’s condition. The scyther seemed worried, anxious, and as Snowcrystal tried to remember what Nightshade had said, she realized that Thunder probably wasn’t used to feeling that way about another pokémon. Perhaps she was in some way worried that Nightshade was going to die, the way weakened pokémon always had during the course of her life as Mausk’s slave.

Several of the other pokémon had started to close in around the trainer and Thunder, as if readying themselves for any sign of attack. Arien walked forward so that he was standing beside his trainer. He turned and gave Thunder an unreadable look, and when he opened his mouth to speak, Snowcrystal braced herself for another argument.

To her surprise, the alakazam seemed very calm, not at all tense and frantic like he had been the previous night. “Your friend will be taken care of,” the alakazam tried to reassure her.

“Then they better do a good job,” Thunder hissed in reply. “It’s bad enough that we’re stuck with the humans. And you had better treat us with respect, understand?” She stepped forward, her blades lifting upward a small bit toward the psychic type.

“I understand,” Arien replied calmly. “I’m sorry about the way I treated Nightshade earlier.”

“Apologize to him then!”

Further talk was cut off at the sound of a pokémon approaching, and Alex burst into the clearing, followed closely by Justin, who was carrying a bowl of water. The moment Justin stepped into the open, his eyes locked to Thunder and he began backing away, a horrified look crossing his face. Spark raced to his side, his fur bristling to spines. Snowcrystal knew that the jolteon was not going to hurt Thunder, and it was merely a way to reassure his trainer that he would defend him if the need arose.

“Calm down,” Katie sighed in exasperation. “She’s not doing anything. Give me the water.”

Justin moved around the clearing in a wide circle, making sure to keep the other wild pokémon between himself and Thunder, until he was close enough to Katie to hand her the water.

Thunder glared at Justin, obviously noticing his unease, and the boy crouched lower beside Spark and backed off. They watched as Damian went back to tending Nightshade, waiting nervously as the tension between Thunder and the other pokémon slowly began to die down.

-ooo-

For the rest of the morning, both the pokémon and trainers rested, foraged for food, or helped set up the new camp in sullen silence. Once Nightshade had been left alone, Thunder had vanished into the forest again. Redclaw had taken up a role as the group’s guard, and no one was quite sure whether he was looking out for hostile humans and pokémon, or for Thunder.

The whole clearing was dark and gloomy, even in broad daylight, thanks to the covering of branches the flying pokémon had woven above the clearing. Snowcrystal didn’t like it. She was used to open sky. Even throughout most of their journey, they’d been in places where they’d had a lot of space to run. This felt too much like the caves they’d wandered through while trying to escape from Cyclone’s army. Though logically she knew that the forest was much friendlier, she couldn’t help but feel just as trapped. And she was worried for Nightshade; even though Katie had brought back several types of sap and honey from the city, the heracross hadn’t even touched the bowls she’d poured it into. Snowcrystal had been around Nightshade enough to know that heracross fed often throughout the day, so she could tell this wasn’t normal.

“Um…everyone?” Came a nervous voice from somewhere over near the heracross. Everyone in the group turned their heads as Damian stood up and walked to the center of the clearing. “Can I have your attention?”

“Hmph…what else have we got to do around here?” Blazefang muttered from where he lay, painfully shifting himself so he had a better view of the trainer.

“I…well, I just wanted to say…” Damian began, before pausing long enough that Katie and Justin shot him irritated looks. He sighed. “All right…I'm sorry for being incompetent. I'm sorry for ruining your lives. I'm sorry that I stink at heists, and impersonating gamblers, and…and not getting shot... I'm sorry for doing stupid and dangerous things and then not being able to come up with a solution when it goes wrong.” He cast his gaze over the watching people and pokémon. More than a few of them had looks that seemed to demand him to go on. “I'm sorry that I helped burn down countless years worth of knowledge…and put us at risk of burning to death in the process.” He paused. “And I'm also sorry that my pokémon got you all banned from the Pokémon Park. Scytheclaw has behavioral problems; I'll admit that now."

From beside Katie, Justin stood up from where he’d been kneeling. All the terror that he’d shown the group – of Thunder, of the police – was gone now, replaced by anger. “You…idiot!” he hissed through gritted teeth. He pointed an accusing finger at Damian, stepping forward. “This is all your fault!” he yelled. “You were the one who had to sneak into that library! And you didn’t think they’d find our fingerprints? You didn’t even think to bring gloves, you incompetent moron?”

Damian looked taken aback. “I…I didn’t think they’d actually arrest us for-”

“You set the library on fire! You let a fire type become our distraction, against ghost pokémon who were willing to attack her! How did you think that was going to turn out?”

From where he was resting, Blazefang let out a growl, obviously not in the mood to have whatever peace and quiet he could find be disturbed. “And you agreed with him, dim-witted human,” he growled, but his words were more out of frustration than anything, as Justin couldn’t understand him.

“I think we’d all be safer with that psycho scyther than you!” Justin cried.

“Stop. Arguing. Now,” Katie cried, glaring at Justin. “Or I’m going to fly right back to the city where I don’t have to deal with this anymore.”

At that, Justin went quiet. He gave Katie an unreadable stare. “What’s stopping you, then?”

Katie didn’t answer, but instead walked toward Damian. The pokémon watched her in silence until she came to stand beside him. “It’s nobody’s fault,” she announced. “Snowcrystal didn’t mean to set fire to the library…nobody meant for any of this to happen. But we can’t start arguing about it. We need a plan.”

Damian looked to Katie with grateful surprise, but after a moment lowered his gaze to the ground and shuffled his feet awkwardly. As Snowcrystal watched him, she realized that deep down, he probably knew that Justin was right, that he and the others had every right to be angry with him.

“I’m going to go look around,” he mumbled to no one in particular, walking toward the trees. As he did so, he sent out all his pokémon, all of whom but Arien had been resting in their poké balls for the majority of the morning. “All of you, stay here.”

“Hey,” Inferno muttered, turning to his companions. “Where’s he going?”

Scytheclaw shot the flareon an irritated look. “He told you to stay here, so it’s probably none of your business.”

“Sorry,” the fire type murmured sadly.

“Be careful, Damian,” Katie said to him as he reached the edge of the clearing.

Scytheclaw turned away from his teammates, still kneeling on the ground. The scizor looked completely drained of energy, and it looked to Snowcrystal like he was only still kneeling out of pride; it seemed like a wonder he didn’t topple over. She could see dark bruises all around his neck from where the Machamp had grabbed him. The steel type watched as Damian walked into the forest, and then stood up.

“I’m going with him,” he announced.

“Good,” Rosie stated, obviously not taking into account his weakened state. “It’s probably dangerous in this rotten forest.”

“Yeah,” Spark chimed in, a grin spreading across his face. “Trainers should always remember to bring safety scizors!” Though most of the pokémon didn’t understand his joke, it got a laugh from Rosie.

Ignoring them, Scytheclaw took a step forward. His leg immediately buckled, and he stumbled to the ground, too weak to even catch himself. He lay on the ground, his eyes widened in surprise as if he hadn’t expected to fall that easily.

“Scytheclaw?” Snowcrystal asked, running up to the scizor and giving the side of his face a few quick licks. “Was it this bad before, when you-”

“Leave me alone,” Scytheclaw hissed, and the growlithe backed up.

“Hey, uh, she was just trying to help,” Spark spoke up, the joking tone in his voice gone. When Scytheclaw didn’t answer, he turned to look at Rosie, who made her way over to him. “Everyone’s sure in a rotten mood,” he began, “but we shouldn’t take it out on each other.”

“Yeah,” Rosie agreed, flattening her ears as she came to stand beside the jolteon. “Take it out on Mausk and his awful pokémon.”

“Yeah. Let’s just hope we don’t run into them again,” Spark replied with a half-hearted chuckle, nudging Rosie’s shoulder. She managed a small smile in return.

-ooo-

By the time night had started to fall, no one had yet come up with any sort of plan of action. Yet they didn’t seem to mind, most of them too exhausted to do much of anything. Everyone seemed willing to let that discussion happen another day. Damian had returned from the forest, bringing a few plants with healing properties he had managed to find, as well as several types of berries and fruits. She could tell Damian was doing his best to put his knowledge to good use.

Katie walked slowly over to Nightshade from across the clearing. She had gone back to the city just before dark, bringing back more supplies as well as food for the pokémon. Snowcrystal looked up from the bowl she was sharing with Blazefang, Spark, and Rosie. She left the others to the food and crept up behind the trainer.

Katie was holding another blanket in her hands, one that looked a lot newer than the others the trainers kept with them. She moved the one Damian had given him, wrapping it around his front limbs, and carefully spread her own across the heracross’s back. “It’s going to be cold tonight,” she said, and Nightshade tilted his head up a small fraction to look at her. Katie reached down to where he was lying and ran her hand across the back of his head, and he closed his eyes. She then glanced toward the bowls of food she had left out for him, which remained untouched. She sighed as she stood back up and then walked back toward her tent.

Snowcrystal quietly moved toward Nightshade. He had hardly moved the entire day, except when he needed to crawl into the forest to relieve himself. She knew the humans had brought him pain medicine from the city, stronger than any of the berries or herbs they might find in the forest, and though it helped greatly, it still wasn’t enough.

Nightshade heard her coming before she reached him, and opened his eyes. She was surprised – and glad – to see that he didn’t look distraught, or stressed. He mostly just looked tired. She could tell he was still in some pain, despite the effects of the medicine, but he looked surprisingly calm, even peaceful, especially in comparison with the rest of the group.

“Snowcrystal?” he asked quietly, wincing as he looked up and accidentally shifted his injured arm. “Is something wrong?”

“No…I…just wanted to make sure you’ll be okay tonight,” she said.

He smiled at her, looking genuinely touched that she was showing him concern. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. His voice was weak and raspy, yet still warm and gentle. “I’ll get well. It will just take some time. The trainers will take good care of me.”

Snowcrystal hadn’t mentioned that she was afraid that Nightshade’s health would take a rapid decline from the state it was already in, but he had seemed to guess exactly what she was thinking. Still, even if Nightshade was beginning his long road to recovery, she couldn’t help being concerned. “I’m still worried about you,” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said reassuringly.

“I know that,” she began, a bit confused. “But…of course we’re still worried. You would be, if what happened to you happened to any of us, wouldn’t you?”

Nightshade stared back at her a moment before replying, “Yes…yes of course I would. But Snowcrystal, you should-”

“It’s not really bothering me,” she said. “I just want to help. And besides, you spent so much time trying to protect us. Now it’s our turn to do the same for you.” She gave Nightshade a small lick. “We’re family now. That’s what families do.”

Nightshade looked to her in silence for a moment, and this time, his look was filled with joy, despite his tiredness.

“I just wish you hadn’t had to do that,” Snowcrystal sighed.

“We’d probably all be dead if I hadn’t,” Nightshade replied. “But it’s okay. I’m glad I could protect my family this time.”

Snowcrystal looked at him, remembering what he’d told her when they’d wandered to where he and the group of heracross he’d lived with had once called their home. But Nightshade didn’t look sad. Underneath the pain and tiredness, he looked happy that they were safe, grateful for Snowcrystal’s concern.

And for the first time that day, she could truly believe that they would find a way through the new threats that had arrived. They always had, and she knew she wouldn’t want to face a new threat alongside any other pokémon than the ones that rested around her. She realized that, despite the relatively short time they’d had to get to know each other, she felt just as at home with them as she did with the growlithe tribe back at the mountain.

Yawning, she took another look around the clearing, seeing Wildflame, who was standing guard, give her a nod, and Rosie smile at her from beneath a leafy bush. Then she curled up beside Nightshade, and soon they had both fallen asleep.

To be continued...