The Path of Destiny
Chapter 63 - Scytheclaw’s Sacrifice


A heavy silence fell over the clearing after Damian announced to the group what Scytheclaw planned to do. The scizor stood at the clearing’s edge, not liking the sudden attention he was receiving from the rest of the pokémon. He had hoped that they would all focus on Damian instead of him, as futile a hope that was. Instead, all eyes were suddenly fixed on him, looks of shock and bewilderment on their faces. He tensed, already not liking how things were going. He expected them to bombard him with questions, start openly expressing their disbelief, or accuse him of messing with them. But what they did next surprised him.

Snowcrystal, then a few of the other pokémon, began to cheer for him, offering words of encouragement. As he looked around the group, he could see that behind their newfound joy, they also knew the risk it posed to him, and the looks many of them had seemed to say ‘we’ll be right here with you.’ Scytheclaw wasn’t used to such loyalty from other pokémon; even those who had served him when he’d ruled over the canyon hadn’t ever acted like this. It was quite baffling.

“Scytheclaw, I knew you could do it!” Snowcrystal cried, running up to him with her tail wagging. He stepped back before she could get too close.

“Scytheclaw, are you sure about this?” Redclaw asked after the initial excitement had gone down. Though a part of Scytheclaw still considered the arcanine an enemy, he could tell the fire type was worried for him.

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it,” the scizor replied sharply. “But even after healing Damian a few days ago, I don’t have any physical wounds from the ‘healing power’ itself…or the Forbidden Attack, or whatever it is. If I can do this and get it over with, I’ll be fine. But this is the last time I do this. If any of you get a limb ripped off, you’re on your own.”

“Scytheclaw,” Arien began, the alakazam seeming as shocked as anyone else, even though he’d been the first to hear, “you don’t have to feel pressured to-”

“You think I’m doing this because these pokémon were begging me?” Scytheclaw shouted in exasperation. “Don’t be ridiculous. As if they could-” He broke off, sighing. “You know what? Forget it. Think whatever you want. And thanks for having faith in me,” he muttered sarcastically at his teammate.

“I’m sorry,” Arien told him, but the scizor only rolled his eyes.

“Look, I don’t really know this…Stormblade pokémon,” Scytheclaw continued, “but I want to help him if I can. And I don’t want anyone interrogating me about it either. Don’t ask me why, just be grateful I’m doing it and don’t bother me about it. Do you want me to change my mind?”

The pokémon fell silent, though Arien could tell from the look in Scytheclaw’s eyes that there was no chance of changing his mind. He was sure of what he wanted to do and determined to see it through to the end.

“I know some of you are concerned about me,” Scytheclaw continued. “That’s real touching.” The scizor paused to look over the group of assembled pokémon. It wasn’t clear if he was being sarcastic or not. “But I don’t want all of you crowding around me when I do this. I just want Damian, Katie, and Arien…because he can translate for me. Other than that he’d better keep quiet.” He shot the alakazam an annoyed look.

“Okay, Scytheclaw,” Snowcrystal said warmly. “We’ll do whatever you want. And…thank you. You don’t have to do this, but thank you for choosing to.”

“You can thank me after this,” Scytheclaw muttered as he turned away from her to face the forest. “We need to find a good spot where we won’t be disturbed,” he said, more to Arien than anyone else.

“Scytheclaw…I have to admit…I’m worried about you,” Arien began.

“Good. You should be,” the scizor snapped back. “But this is my decision, my risk, and I don’t want your lecture.”

“Then I apologize again,” said the alakazam. “And I know it’s a bit too early, but thank you for what you’re trying to do.”

“And remember, nobody needs to cry over me,” Scytheclaw growled. “Damian was dying when I healed him. This should be easier. If not, then so be it. Tell the humans to fetch Stormblade from the pokémon hospital now.”

Arien nodded and did as he said, speaking to Damian through his mind. Scytheclaw watched him until Damian began talking to the other trainers, so he knew the task had been complete.

It wasn’t long before Katie was mounting her pidgeot to fly back to the city. Justin looked nervous as he watched her, but even he seemed relieved that now there was a chance Stormblade’s suffering would end. He didn’t look excited to have the scyther back though, and he gave a half-hearted wave as the pidgeot took off, launching itself and Katie into the sky.

All around the clearing, the pokémon were talking. Many of them, such as Snowcrystal and Rosie, who had known Stormblade for longer, were practically celebrating. And Spark, who had known him longest of all, looked the happiest any of them had ever seen him.

Away from the part of the clearing where the others were gathered, Scytheclaw settled down to wait.

-ooo-

Not long after she left, Katie returned with Stormblade’s poké ball. When Justin asked her how she convinced the workers at the pokémon hospital to let her take him, she merely replied that she had told them that she wanted Stormblade to see the outside world one more time.

“You won’t get in trouble for not bringing him back, will you?” Justin asked.

“No,” Katie answered, as if a little shaken. “They think that I’m going…to let him pass away here.”

Justin didn’t reply. She walked past him through the stunned group of pokémon. Justin still looked entirely uncomfortable with the whole thing, but Katie ignored him. Whether he believed Stormblade was innocent or not, she didn’t care. They’d deal with him later.

“So where does Scytheclaw want to do this?” she asked Damian.

Damian pointed out the direction, and she followed him into the trees.

They walked farther than Katie expected, and she figured that Scytheclaw must not want anyone to see him like…like whatever he had looked like when he was healing Damian. Damian had told her that Scytheclaw insisted that it was just him, her, and Arien that were present when this happened.

They reached a dismal, secluded clearing that was darker than the one they were currently camping in. Arien already waited there, as did Scytheclaw.

Scytheclaw sat up straighter as the trainers walked toward him, not sure what Katie was thinking about what he would soon try to do. He watched her with wary eyes as she and Damian came to stand in the clearing. Katie held up a poké ball that looked just like his. A luxury ball. Scytheclaw tensed as she released the pokémon inside with a beam of light.

Stormblade’s motionless form materialized on the ground, and Scytheclaw stared at him. The scyther was deeply asleep, whether from a sleep powder from one of Katie’s pokémon or something else, he wasn’t sure. He could tell from a glance that whatever wounds Stormblade had had that weren’t from Shadowflare were completely gone. Despite his curiosity, he was glad the bandages were covering the Forbidden Attack wounds themselves.

The thing that struck him as strangest of all was that Stormblade looked…peaceful, almost like there was nothing wrong with him at all. He knew it was an effect of whatever had put him to sleep, but it was strangely unnerving all the same. It gave him the odd impression that Stormblade was just ‘not-quite-dead.’

“All right,” he began after a few moments, “let’s get this over with. I want you all to stand back.”

“Be careful,” Arien said.

Scytheclaw just shrugged and knelt down by Stormblade. He knew exactly what he had to do. For some reason it suddenly occurred to him how odd it was that he would know how to use the healing power so naturally, even if it didn’t involve any physical movement. It seemed to come from somewhere else. Maybe, he thought, this was what using a psychic attack felt like. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, focusing his energy on calling up the healing power.

As he started, he could tell that it was much like what it had been when healing Damian. A white-hot, agonizing pain spread throughout him, making him feel as if every nerve in his body had been set alight. He gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes firmly closed as he focused solely on his task. He was determined to brave his way through it, and then it would be over. At least there was no raging battle around him this time, and he could already tell that his mind was much clearer. Getting the attack to work was easier than it had been in the underground, as he now had his full attention to devote to it.

While Scytheclaw worked, Damian, Katie, and Arien stood still and waited. The scizor occasionally let out a scream or a growl when he felt his ability to cope with the pain slipping. Damian wanted to be by his pokémon’s side, but Arien had told him that Scytheclaw wanted them to stay back. He could only watch.

Katie quietly scooted closer and unwrapped one of the bandages from Stormblade’s wing. Her eyes widened in shock.

“This is…bizarre…” she said, barely above a whisper.

Damian craned his head for a better look, and realized that Stormblade’s wing looked more whole than it had when he had first seen him; even the parts that had been burned away were growing back. The healing was starting at the edges, moving slowly inward. If he wasn’t so worried for his scizor friend, he would have marveled at the fact that he was watching a Forbidden Attack wound, something that was supposed to never heal, vanish before his very eyes.

Katie was thinking hard, deciding that Scytheclaw must have been right, that healing a wound that was not pushing the victim toward death at that very moment must be easier. She knew from what Damian had told her, according to the pokémon who had been in the underground, that it had been much harder for Scytheclaw to heal Damian’s gunshot wound, and had taken longer to have any sort of noticeable effect.

Scytheclaw wasn’t aware of what the trainers were thinking or saying; he was concentrating on his task alone. He was getting to the point where he knew it would be hard to keep conscious, hard to keep himself from fainting because of the pain. He braced himself for it, knowing what was coming.

Then he started to feel strange.

It wasn’t even that the pain had increased by any substantial amount, just that there was something acutely, disturbingly wrong with him, his mind…or something else.

He opened his eyes, trying to focus on one of the trees or the trainers, wanting to have something to concentrate on to keep him from slipping further into…whatever it was. He almost felt detached from the pain, overwhelmed by fear and confusion at whatever this new strangeness was. A thought raced through his mind. ‘Am I going insane?’

Then everything went black.

The forest vanished. The trainers and the alakazam vanished. Everything was gone, as if Scytheclaw had fallen into some sort of dark void. He didn’t know where Stormblade was, if he was still using his healing power, or if he was even awake anymore or in some sort of crazy dream where nothing existed.

Then whatever small part of his mind was still functioning told him that he was falling unconscious, and he clung to that one bit of reason, realizing regretfully that he had failed, and he would have to try again later.

Then an entirely new wave of pain hit him. This one was far more intense than anything he’d ever experienced before, even when using the healing attack. Scytheclaw felt as if he had been thrown in a volcano, like he was melting down in the hot magma while somehow still being kept alive. He couldn’t tell if he was moving his body anymore, but he was sure that if he was still on the verge of consciousness, he was screaming. His vision was no longer black; there were bright flashes of light and shadows that looked like they might be images, but they were moving far too rapidly for him to see.

Then, somehow, though it all, he heard a voice.

“Failing…failing…”

It was not Damian’s voice. Nor was it Katie’s or Arien’s. He had never heard the voice before, and it seemed to be coming from inside his head rather than from somewhere near him. In spite of his terror, he almost welcomed it, as it was a distraction from the pain. The words it spoke next sounded like they would be almost comically nonsensical if it weren’t for the sheer panic that was racing through his mind.

“It’s failing...it's failing...pass it on...pass it on...”

The images of light and shadow flashed more rapidly across his vision. Everything seemed to grow more twisted, like his mind was trying to make sense of what was happening but failing miserably. He could hardly think due to the pain, and couldn’t even begin to try to understand what the voice was saying.

Then the voice got louder. It shot like a lightning bolt through his mind.

“You are going to die.”

All the lights and shapes in his brain seemed to vanish, plunging him into complete darkness. He wanted to scream – no, to hear himself scream – but he didn’t even know if he was capable of it anymore. He was sure he was beyond help, that the healing power had killed him and these were the last few moments he would ever know on this earth.

“Stop,” the voice said.

Scytheclaw could hardly register it anymore. He just wanted to finally fall completely unconscious, to let whatever happened happen and be away from the pain.

“Stop. STOP. STOP!”

He didn't know what it was telling him or what he was supposed to stop. He wasn’t even aware that he was doing anything, and if he was, his body wasn’t under his own control anymore.

Then, just when he thought he couldn’t take the pain anymore, he finally slipped into complete unconsciousness, and everything went black for real.

“SCYTHECLAW!”

The scizor jolted upright, his eyelids flying open. The first thing he noticed was that it was darker. His armored body was soaking wet. It took him a moment to realize that it was raining. And the voice that had shouted his name…that was Damian’s voice, not the weird one he’d heard in his head.

“He’s alive!” came a gasp from somewhere ahead of him. Snowcrystal’s voice.

“Scytheclaw…” Damian gasped, throwing his arms around the scizor and beginning to cry into his shoulder.

“Damian, stop!” Katie cried from somewhere nearby. Scytheclaw’s vision started to come into focus and he saw her standing there, her pokégear in her shaking hand.

Damian let go of Scytheclaw and backed up, and Scytheclaw found himself slipping back into a lying position. He had no idea how he’d been able to sit up in the first place. However, he felt no pain, just weakness. He could tell that his body wasn’t damaged physically, at least not in the sense that he was injured, he was just incredibly weak and exhausted, like he’d been after healing Damian. Whatever had almost killed him, it was over now. He had survived it, broken out of its hold before it finished him.

“What happened?” he managed to gasp, hoping that someone would give him answers and not just tell him to rest. He didn’t think he could relax without knowing what they’d seen while everything had gone strange for him.

Luckily, Damian seemed to realize this, and answered immediately. “You stopped breathing,” he said. “After you fell unconscious. Everything stopped getting worse once all of Stormblade’s wounds were gone but…if it had taken longer we…we might not have been able to revive you.”

“It was that Forbidden Attack…the healing thing…whatever,” Katie interrupted. She held several items in her hand, which Scytheclaw guessed were revives they had used to try to save him. From the looks of it, they had gone through quite a few before one finally worked. Even then, he knew it must have taken him a long time to wake up; what had happened to him wasn’t a brief fainting period from a pokémon battle. “As soon as it stopped, we were able to do something, but it almost didn’t work…”

Their explanation didn’t quite match up with the voices in his head, but it at least gave an explanation of what had happened to his body while he’d been dead to the world. Scytheclaw was suddenly unsure he wanted to hear more, realizing that the others had no knowledge of any strange voices, and they’d told him the basics of what had happened anyway. He felt like it was all so bizarre, realizing that he should be in far worse shape than he was after such a near death experience. He guessed that the healing power ending, finishing its work, had almost completely reversed the effects. And apparently just in time. A few more minutes and he would probably be dead.

He knew the others must have realized this too, because no one was offering to take him to a pokémon center. He was glad for it, because he certainly didn’t want to be locked away under investigation while the police searched for his trainer.

“What went wrong?” he heard Justin ask from somewhere nearby. “Did that happen because he was trying to heal Forbidden Attack wounds?”

“I don’t think so.” It was Katie that spoke. “The Shadowflare wounds healed like any other…” She glanced down at Stormblade’s poké ball, which she held in her hand. “It worked. All the burns are gone.”

“Well, then what-” Justin began.

“I think it’s like the other Forbidden Attacks,” Katie said. “Well, maybe Scytheclaw has better control over when he decides to use it, but this time when it started, it didn’t stop until it was finished.” The pokémon and trainers around her looked at her silently, the confusion and unease noticeable on their faces. Scytheclaw realized just then that nearly everyone had gathered around him; only Nightshade, Thunder, and Redclaw were missing from what he could tell.

Blazefang, who was watching from a place further away from the others, shrank back against the bushes. Fear showed clearly in the houndoom’s eyes.

“And I think,” Katie continued, “that like the other Forbidden Attacks, it gets worse every time it’s used. Only this one gets more and more destructive to the user.”

Silence fell over the clearing again.

“I don’t think it was bad for Scytheclaw in the underground because Damian’s wound was killing him,” she went on. “I don’t think the severity of the injury matters. The point is that it gets harder each time, takes more energy, until it gets dangerous.” She took a deep breath, absent-mindedly shoving her pokégear back in her pocket. “This time it almost killed him. And next time it will.”

“Wait…” Scytheclaw rasped, realizing he had to tell them what he’d experienced. “Before I blacked out I heard a voice.” He paused to catch his breath, suddenly finding it even more exhausting to talk. After a moment, he felt a small bit of his strength return. “The voice said it was failing…by ‘it’ I guess it meant the Forbidden Attack…and that I was going to die.”

“I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean,” Arien began. The alakazam folded his arms as he stared at the ground. “But Katie’s right. Next time it will fail, and you will die. You can’t afford to use it again. Ever.”

“Believe me, I won’t,” Scytheclaw growled, feeling a bit of annoyance that Arien would have to tell him that. “But I’m asking…why did it work? Why is Stormblade healed if it was supposedly failing?”

“I don’t know,” Arien said quietly.

“This doesn’t make any sense…” Scytheclaw mumbled, barely above a whisper.

“Blazefang!” Wildflame shouted, whirling around to the houndoom. “You have a Forbidden Attack…have you ever heard any weird voices?”

The eyes of the pokémon, who could understand her, turned to Blazefang, who turned his gaze toward the wet ground. “…Yes,” he muttered.

There was a stunned silence as the others stared, no one saying a word until Wildflame blurted out, “Well, what did it say?”

“Nothing like that…” Blazefang whispered. “It was different. I heard a voice once. Just once. When I first got the attack. It said ‘Shadowflare’ and that’s it. I never heard it again.”

“Did that happen to you?” Wildflame asked Scytheclaw.

The scizor shook his head weakly. “No…this is the first time I heard it.”

“Yeah, otherwise we’d know what his Forbidden Attack was called, wouldn’t we?” Spark mused. “That’s really weird…”

“Well what did you expect was going to happen?” Rosie shouted suddenly. Spark and Wildflame looked at her in confusion for a moment, before they realized she was mainly addressing Scytheclaw. “It’s a Forbidden Attack! Of course something would go wrong when you used it!”

“Are you even sure?” Blazefang interrupted, taking a step closer to the rest of the group. “What Scytheclaw described sounded weird to me, and I’ve lived with my Forbidden Attack a lot longer than he has.”

“It almost killed him!” Rosie called back. “Look, I’m glad Stormblade’s okay, but we all knew we were messing with something that’s-”

“I’m not saying it’s not dangerous!” Blazefang growled. “Just that something’s off. Something’s missing here. I wouldn’t have thought it would kill him either, based on what he’s said. Scytheclaw was never like me; he didn’t slip and lose control. He could always control it. That doesn’t sound like a Forbidden Attack to me.”

Rosie’s shoulders slumped, as if all her anger had suddenly left her. She just looked confused and lost. “Well…well, that’s because it works differently. It doesn’t attack, it heals. It was probably created to be allied with Forbidden Attack users.”

“Then why would it kill the user, huh?” Blazefang cried. “Why didn’t it do something like take the life force from some other nearby pokémon to heal? That would sound more ‘Forbidden Attack’ to me.”

“No one knows!” Arien almost shouted at the others, who quieted and turned their attention to the alakazam. “Right now, we need to get back to the camp.” He looked to his trainer, sending him a message through their psychic link, and Damian nodded.

“Scytheclaw, return,” Damian said in a shaky voice, holding up the scizor’s poké ball, which incased him in a beam of light before drawing him back inside. The other pokémon stood up from the muddy ground, letting Arien and Damian walk ahead of them, and the group headed back.

-ooo-

It rained harder that night. Scytheclaw lay inside Damian’s tent with the rest of his teammates, minus Fernwing. He let the others celebrate Stormblade’s newfound health, after they had been sure that he would be all right. Scytheclaw knew that all he needed now was rest.

He felt relieved that it was all over, that he’d done it. That he’d saved a pokémon from what was probably a fate worse than death. He couldn’t use the healing power anymore, and he could only hope Damian wouldn’t ever need it again. In spite of how awful it had been to use it, not being able to made him feel a bit scared, knowing that he would be helpless if something awful happened to his trainer again.

Another part of him felt a bit weird that he’d used his last chance to heal anyone on Stormblade. He didn’t even know Stormblade. He barely knew why he had been so determined to heal him. But what was done was done, and he realized that if he’d been using the healing power in another dangerous situation like in the underground, the trainers wouldn’t have had the chance to revive him.

In the end, he decided that he was too tired to think about it, and curled up in his own corner of the tent. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep.

-ooo-

A little ways out into the forest, while the others slept, Stormblade, Spark, and Snowcrystal walked alone. Stormblade had wanted to speak to the pokémon he was closest to first. Snowcrystal watched in awe as Stormblade walked so easily, acting as if he had boundless energy. It was like every ill effect from his injuries, or from staying in the pokémon hospital, was completely gone. The scyther himself still seemed in a daze, barely able to process what had happened, like he thought he was still in a dream. The first thing he had done was thank Scytheclaw after everything had been explained to him, although the scizor had seemed a bit annoyed with the attention.

“Well, I honestly don’t remember much,” Stormblade was saying as they walked through the trees, ignoring the rain that splattered down on them from above. “Just bits and pieces. I don’t really remember you visiting me in there. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” said Spark with a shrug. “Not your fault.”

“I remembered something about Thunder being captured…couldn’t remember where I heard it from…I’m just glad she’s back now,” Stormblade continued, though he still sounded worried for her.

Snowcrystal doubted that Thunder would warmly welcome him. At least she was confident, as Nightshade was, that she wouldn’t do anything to harm him, even if she somehow felt she had a reason to.

“Even all those days traveling are a blur,” Stormblade mused. “Like a bad dream. Now that it’s over, I feel like I’ve just woken up or something. Or…”

“…Like you were raised from the dead,” Snowcrystal finished without thinking. She realized a second later that that was probably an awkward thing to say. Stormblade, however, just looked at her seriously and nodded.

“Well…yes.” He stood up straighter, surveying the forest. “Well, maybe not like that. But from certain death…I still can hardly even believe it happened. I didn’t know anything about a healing Forbidden Attack. It’s like I…” He paused, trailing off, and Snowcrystal and Spark turned to see what had caught his attention.

It soon became clear, and appearing from the bushes was another scyther.

Thunder.

Snowcrystal hadn’t been expecting to run into her; she would have thought Thunder would have given any of them a wide berth. It only just then occurred to her that the other scyther didn’t even know about Stormblade’s reappearance and Scytheclaw’s healing.

“What are you doing here?” Thunder asked, warily stepping closer until she was a few paces from Stormblade. She examined him, confused, before apparently realizing it must have been Scytheclaw’s doing. She stepped back, still looking at Stormblade in disbelief, probably thinking back to whatever Nightshade had explained to her about Scytheclaw’s healing power. “You’re still coming with us?” she asked, the tone of her voice indicating that she wasn’t sure what to think.

Stormblade looked happy to see that Thunder was much healthier now; she only bore the wounds from her fight with the tauros in the arena, and none of them were severe. He seemed like he wanted to speak to her, but was keeping quiet out of fear of irritating her.

“Just don’t mess with Nightshade,” Thunder growled as she turned and began walking away from them. “I’m not going to hurt you or your friends, but I don’t want you bothering us either.” Then she darted away and was gone.

“Nightshade?” Stormblade questioned, barely overcoming his shock at Thunder’s sudden appearance. “What-”

“Uh…wow, that’s a long story,” Spark sighed. “We’ll fill you in though. A lot’s happened in the two months you’ve been gone.”

“Two months…?” Stormblade repeated, giving Spark a surprised look. “Was I really gone that long?”

“Yeah…didn’t you-”

“I…I don’t remember much from after Katie took me to that fancy pokémon center. Bits and pieces here and there…but I thought…it couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks.”

“Didn’t you notice it was summertime?” Snowcrystal asked.

“Sort of…” Stormblade mused. “I’m not sure. I thought it must have gotten warmer early or something…”

“It’ll take some time to get used to everything again,” Snowcrystal told him. “Don’t worry about it.” She knew that being put in the pokémon hospital must have been a confusing experience, and Stormblade had probably spent most of his time sleeping. It was no wonder he didn’t remember much. Though Stormblade himself seemed perplexed at the whole thing, she knew, she could just tell, that he had returned to normal. Any memory issues he had wouldn’t last long, and in fact he was probably healthier than all of them after being healed by Scytheclaw’s power.

“Well, maybe it’s a good thing I don’t remember much,” he chuckled lightheartedly. “But at least we’re all together again. Along with those new pokémon and humans, who seem-”

“And Justin?” Spark asked suddenly, sounding worried himself.

“I’m not worried about Justin,” Stormblade said wish a shake of his head. “The things he’s done…I forgive him. He doesn’t have to apologize to me or even associate with me. He’s helping all of you guys, and I say that’s evidence enough that he’s changed.”

Snowcrystal knew that Stormblade would probably find it hard to feel anger after having just gone from near death to pristine condition in the space of a few minutes, but his comment still took her by surprise. Then again, she realized, Stormblade was right. Though she still thought Justin had a lot to answer for, he had begun to change his ways. He now wanted to help them instead of trying to harm or capture pokémon for his own good. It wasn’t enough to make up for what he’d done, but it was a good start. She felt her respect for Stormblade grow.

“Well, how about you two tell me what’s been happening,” Stormblade continued, looking at the growlithe and the jolteon expectantly.

“It’s not all happy stories,” Spark warned him.

“I figured,” Stormblade replied. “But I still want to learn what the rest of you have. At least if I know what’s been going on, I can help you move forward.”

“Well,” began Snowcrystal, “we don’t actually know what we’re going to do next, but we think we might start searching for more legendaries. When we figure out where to go next, I’m sure we’ll have a much better chance with you by our side.”

“That’s right!” Spark enthusiastically agreed. He and Snowcrystal exchanged glances as they walked through the forest, both of them thinking of how to begin explaining all the events that had taken place during Stormblade’s absence. “Now, as for what’s happened since you left…”

-ooo-

The next morning, Scytheclaw woke early. Staring up at the roof of the tent, he could see sunlight outlining the drops of water that clung to the material. He sighed, realizing that someone was going to have to patch up the cover of branches they’d hung over the clearing; it must have shifted if that much sunlight was coming through.

He sat up, having to lean against the tent wall for support, and realized that his trainer had already left. The four of his other pokémon that were small enough to fit in the tent were all asleep except for Arien. Ignoring them, Scytheclaw thought back to the previous day. He was amazed at how he only felt tired and weak, and even that was fading. However, he knew that last night had been the last time he’d ever be able to use the healing power.

Arien noticed him stirring, and turned to him. “Are you having second thoughts about what you did?” the alakazam asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Scytheclaw muttered sarcastically. “I should have left that guy rotting in the pokémon hospital until he died.” He shot Arien an angry glare. “Geez, nobody thought I would die if I used it, but I’m alive now and he’s alive and we’re all one big, extremely dysfunctional ‘family’ like the stupid growlithe said. Let’s move on already!”

“I was just asking,” Arien responded politely.

“I was kind of sick of doing things I regret,” the scizor told him angrily. “So when I made the decision, I made sure that I was as certain as possible that I wouldn’t regret it. For a psychic type, you seem pretty bad at reading my motivations. And honestly, I’m sick of everyone talking about it, and it hasn’t even been a day.” The scizor glared at him silently for a few moments, and then he continued. “Most of all, I’m sick of everyone assuming that I do nothing but make mistakes, and that every decision I make is going to be something I regret.”

“All right, I’m sorry,” the alakazam sighed. “I know you have your reasons.” He paused. “Though you could be a little nicer about it.”

“Look, this is me being nice. If I weren’t being nice, you’d have your face bullet-punched in right now.”

“I’m sorry if I bothered you,” Arien said sincerely. “I didn’t mean it. You don’t have to explain anything if you don’t want to.” He turned away from Scytheclaw, and, figuring the scizor probably wanted to sleep more, got up and headed toward the tent exit. Then he heard Scytheclaw speak again.

“You thought I was healing Stormblade because they told me to. Why didn’t you think for even one second that…you know, maybe I wanted to do something good for once? …Like Damian.”

Scytheclaw wasn’t even facing him anymore, so Arien reluctantly turned away before stepping outside.

-ooo-

Damian returned to the clearing after collecting more berries, adding them to the pile of lum berries Scytheclaw and Alex had brought for him the day before. Some of the pokémon ventured closer, and he watched Fernwing scoop up a mouthful and start chewing happily.

He smiled at his tropius, about to tell her where he’d found several more plants growing when the sound of arguing from Justin and Katie started to reach him from across the clearing. He cringed, hoping that this time, whatever it was would be resolved soon.

“Okay, I get it, you don’t like scyther,” Katie was saying. “But if Stormblade wanted to kill you, he had plenty of chances while you were his trainer. You know that’s irrational, right?”

“Well…maybe, but I can’t see how you’d trust-” Justin began.

“Okay,” Katie sighed, rolling her eyes. “So the big blade-armed bug thing is going to kill us all, but the four-legged white thing with a blade on its head that is Damian’s absol isn’t? Come on, plenty of trainers own scyther.”

Damian knew the argument was only going to escalate, so he stepped in. “Justin, you don’t have anything to worry about, trust me. We’ve got plenty of pokémon to protect you. You’ve got Spark. He’s fast like a scyther too, and he’s got a type advantage.”

Justin still didn’t seem happy about Stormblade coming back, but he visibly relaxed. “Yeah, I guess,” he muttered. “But we’re going to have bring both of those scyther along, aren’t we?”

“Well, yes,” Damian said. “If Thunder wants to come. But-”

“Well, we’d better find out where we’re going in the first place,” Justin interrupted. “Do you still have that thing’s poké ball?” he asked Katie.

“Yeah. Damian told me Stormblade and Arien talked about it and Stormblade wanted me to keep it around for now,” she explained. “But I’ll release him whenever he wants me to.”

“Good,” Justin muttered under his breath.

“You know, we do need some more supplies,” Damian interrupted. “Maybe you should go back to the city and get some more pokémon food, Katie?”

“Gladly,” she answered, walking to the edge of the clearing where she released her pidgeot.

“But, Katie, wait a minute!” Justin cried, but to no avail as Katie and her pidgeot had already taken off. He sighed, having wanted to at least talk to Katie about keeping the scyther in his poké ball whenever possible. Now, however, her quick flight away left him wondering just how long she was even going to stick around to help them. He and Damian were the ones who got them all in trouble, not her. He wasn’t even sure she had much of a reason to stay.

As his friend vanished from sight, beyond the small patch of sky he could see through the clearing’s makeshift covering, he staggered backward. He felt like he was reminded once again that while Katie could return to the city, he and Damian could not. Worst of all, he wasn’t sure how long they would be able to avoid the police either.

-ooo-

Katie walked briskly through the streets of Stonedust City. She had dismounted her pidgeot further away from her destination than usual, wanting to take her time with the walk. She wasn’t keen to return to the clearing and argue with Justin about Stormblade so soon.

She could hear whispers among the people walking through the crowd that moved between the buildings. She was used to the City’s residents acting strange after the library incident, but this time they weren’t talking about that. They were talking about an underground fire, exchanging unsettled words about how the last of it had finally gone out completely.

Katie knew they were talking about Shadowflare, but if anyone recognized what it was, no one in the crowded streets around her seemed to know. There was no mention of ‘Forbidden Attacks’ or anything like that. She was a bit confused, wondering why the underground fire had suddenly caught everyone’s attention. Maybe something had been leaked about its strange nature or the amount of time it took to burn out, and it had spooked them more than the library fire had. Or maybe it was the combination of both events, plus the attack on the pokémon center a few months ago, that had gotten them so afraid.

It made sense, she realized, and she wondered why she had even questioned it. Of course they’d be afraid of any one of those things. She and the others had been so caught up in the fear of the Forbidden Attacks and trying to stop them that she’d never really thought about how ordinary civilians felt. They had seemed so safe in comparison – no fear of crazed pokémon ripping the world apart with Forbidden Attacks, no madmen trying to kill them – but she knew that if she were in their place, she would feel afraid too.

She heard a few words about the fighting ring being closed down too, people being arrested, though she knew better than to assume Mausk had been caught. If anyone could make an escape, it was him. She doubted either he or the fire itself would have left any traces of his identity in the underground tunnels, and she wasn’t sure if the police even knew who he was by name. From what Damian had learned from the pokémon, Mausk did most of his dirty work training his killer monsters in some abandoned town a ways north of Stonedust. Or at least, that’s where they’d first seen him. Who knew where else he went. That was probably only one place of many.

Katie’s mind stopped wandering when she began to notice something strange. There were no signs, no news broadcasts, no talk at all of Justin or Damian. It wasn’t just the people who walked by who seemed to have forgotten it. As she passed by some newspaper stands, she couldn’t see any headlines about them or the library. There was nothing on the screens covering the larger buildings either.

She would have thought something like the library incident would still be big news, that they would be broadcasting the information on the culprits as often as possible until they were found…or at least until a more sufficient amount of time had passed than a few days. Had the search for them been called off?

Maybe, she thought, they were just too preoccupied catching the pokémon abusers from the underground fighting ring. Either way, she wanted to be sure it was safe for Damian and Justin to return before she told them to risk coming back to the city.

She made a mental note to herself to check with someone, maybe the people who were working on repairing the library itself, and ask them what was going on after she was done getting supplies.

She soon reached the little shop that she bought supplies from, a tiny building dwarfed by the skyscrapers that was run by a kind elderly couple. They sold both pokémon food and medicine and knew her by name, and she always made a point to give them as much business as possible.

She stepped inside, the bell on the door ringing and alerting the owners waiting behind the counter. She could see that, at the moment, she was the shop’s only customer. She exchanged a brief hello with them before walking over to the medicine shelf. After she’d gotten what she needed and picked up some more food as well, she stopped at the shelves displaying pokémon treats.

As she looked through them, she noticed the television in the corner of the shop was starting to blare news about the mysterious underground fire. Deciding she was sick of it, she straightened up. “Hey, can you turn it to something else?” she asked, trying not to sound too rude.

“Oh of course,” the man said, pointing with a remote and switching the channel to another.

Katie resumed looking at the pokémon treats, reading their labels and stopping at a shelf that held small containers of a sweet jelly-like substance that was labeled for heracross and pinsir as well as other bug types that ate sugary foods. She picked one up and examined it, wondering if Nightshade would like it.

As she continued to glance along the shelves, she began to pick out words from the background noise coming from the television on the other side of the shop. Curious, she turned around, realizing that it had been changed to another news station, but one that wasn’t as depressing.

“Just three days ago, explorers returned from a strange land lying to the northwest of the fabled Stonedust City,” the reporter was saying.

Katie felt a bit of panic at the thought that the white growlithe, Snowcrystal’s tribe, lived on a mountain north of the city. But she quickly saw that the images on the screen showed not a barren snowy mountain, but a dry and dusty desert. Relaxing, and feeling a bit intrigued, she walked closer to the television set.

“While they did not find the vibrava colonies they had set out to study, they got some very interesting footage that some believe might be confirming rumors about a legendary pokémon in the area.”

“A legendary…” Katie breathed, quickly flipping up the screen of her pokégear and holding it up to the television, immediately starting to record a video of the screen. It was one thing if the news was just reporting rumors, but if they had footage of something that might be a legendary…

For about a minute the channel simply reported on the expedition itself, the search for some random group of vibrava. Then the actual footage was brought onscreen, this time showing the dry, cracked earth suddenly jutting out into space, forming the edge of a massive cliff.

Though it was hard to tell from the angle the video was taken, it looked like the drop off could go down for hundreds of feet. Right on the edge of the cliff was a stone arch, looking like it was just big enough for two rhydon to walk through side by side. However, if any pokémon did, they would plummet to their deaths; the steep drop was right on the other side.

However, this arch was the focal point of the video footage, and Katie kept recording. She wondered how, in such clear daylight with nothing around but dust and rocks, anything in the recording could be mistaken for a legendary. She almost set down her pokégear, but decided to wait and see what happened.

She could hear muffled sounds of the explorers talking, wondering if the vibrava were down on the cliff side somewhere, when the footage cut to a view over the cliff, where the desert gave way to some grassy plains far below, looking fresh and green in the early summer. The next portion of it was skipped over, following, for some reason, the path of a starly flying toward the desert from out over the plains. It fluttered over the explorers’ heads, seemed to be frightened by them, and flew back toward its home, swooping beneath the arch.

Where it vanished.

Katie stared at the screen, knowing that what she’d seen hadn’t looked like the pokémon had simply been edited out. It reminded her a bit of how psychic pokémon used teleport, but there was something different about it. No sign of the powerful energy psychic types used to transport themselves and others.

“Rumors about the mysterious ‘vanishing arch’ have been circulating for years, but this is the first clear video footage ever taken,” the news reporter continued. “Cases of pokémon vanishing into thin air have been recorded for decades…”

“Do you need anything?” one of the shop owners called over to Katie.

Katie shook her head. “No, I just want to see the rest of this and I’ll be done.” She turned back to the screen.

“This is no psychic type move. This seems to be something else entirely,” one of the scientists being interviewed on the news station said. “None of our psychic types detected any sort of psychic energy at all. We tried for several days to get anything else through the portal – if that’s what it is – without any success. None of the flying pokémon who went through were whisked away like that starly. I never believed any of the rumors until I saw it that day. And I really do think that this could have been made possible through the involvement of a legendary.”

Then it was back to the regular reporter again. “No one is sure what lies on the other side of the arch, or why only certain pokémon vanish. The people who took part in the expedition believe that certain conditions must be met. One such condition may be the time of day, or the type of pokémon, but we simply don’t understand…”

Katie stopped the recording, realizing that she wasn’t going to get any supposed legendary footage. She felt disappointed, wondering if the video had been staged and if she’d been crazy for thinking it might help them. And yet…

Something about it felt right, like it might hold answers. She felt strange, like something was somehow drawing her to the land she was seeing on the screen. It was almost like a voice, or a feeling, inside her was telling her there was something there.

And that that something could help them.

She didn’t know what the cause of that inspiration was, but she felt like she should listen to it. And whatever the reason was, she could figure it out later. Turning around, she headed toward a small section of the front of the store that held books.

There were a lot of exploration guides for trainers, but it took her a while to find one that showed anything of the lands north of Stonedust. She wasn’t surprised; few trainers ventured so far into the wilderness that they’d be days from a pokémon center, and though the book she found only had a basic map of the fields and forests and deserts – and Snowcrystal’s mountain – beyond Stonedust, she took it to the counter anyway.

As the old man rang up her purchases, she felt a bit of relief that at least the small tribe of growlithe hadn’t been discovered yet, and no one even knew to go up there to look for strange-colored pokémon. Yet with the snow melting on the mountain and Articuno missing, she wasn’t sure what would become of them in the future.

After she paid for her items, Katie dashed at the door, fumbling for her pidgeot’s poké ball as she thought about what she’d tell the others. Somehow, she’d have to convince them that this might be where they would have to go next, and she hoped they would trust her judgment well enough.

In less than a minute she was soaring above Stonedust City’s skyscrapers, heading back to the forest. She knew they couldn’t just wait around any longer. Blazefang didn’t always have a good hold on his Forbidden Attack, and they needed to find a way to put a stop to it before he got worse. And they needed to do it soon. Leaning in close to pidgeot to avoid having the wind resistance slow them down, she kept her eyes fixed on the small line of trees in the distance, where her friends were resting.

She was so enthralled with her discovery that she forgot all about asking people about the lack of news coverage on the library incident.

To be continued…



Author’s note: And this means…no more instant healing! Any wound a character gets will have to be dealt with (if possible) the old fashioned way, because if Scytheclaw tries to heal anyone again he’s gonna die.