Okay, people, it's nearly summer and do you know what that means? It'll be the Best Wishes one-year anniversary! You guys all kept reading and got me this far so please, don't let up now! This fic is dedicated to Maboo - 13-07-2008 to 14-03-2012. Also, some credit goes to Eclipse2025, Crossrevolution001 and Hope Esthiem for helping me out with a few parts throughout the fic :) Love you guys! Love you all! Xxxxx

The Riley McCabe Series: Unending Wish
Chapter One

I don't look the same as I used to or act the same. My hair used to be lovely, long and red and my eyes were a bright shade of jade green. Even my tanned skin had become different. Looking in the mirror above the sink of my en suite bathroom, I saw a different woman to the girl I had been looking at a year previously. My hair was short now, only long enough to style it in a choppy manner with my favourite TIGI Bed Head products; I had taken to dying it black instead of the crimson it had been since birth. My once-jade eyes had dimmed to glitteringly menacing emerald. My golden tan had paled out to the innocently pale tone it became without the sun's delicious rays. The bright silver stud in my right nostril added a slightly rebellious feel to my attitude and it matched the tongue bar that held so many memories to spite me but it was way too sentimental to take out.

I furthered the area of the mirror I had wiped the condensation from after my hot bath and looked at the scars on my chest. It looked like a bomb had gone off and shrapnel had embedded in my chest but that was a wrong theory. I had been shot with a sawed-off shot gun and died. My fiancee had given his life to save mine, how I would feel about it be damned. I hadn't wanted to lose him - I loved him too much to even considering allowing him to give up his life for me. The scars were left with me, as were the memories, and both things always reminded me of what I had lost.

A knock at the door startled me. "Riley, sweetie," my mother called through the door, "are you okay in there? You've been in there a very long time."

I snorted. "I'm fine, Mum," I told her, coming out of my thoughts so I could brush my teeth. "Just doing my teeth and I'll be out."

"Okay, baby," she replied with a smile in her voice. "I left your clean clothes on your bed for you to put away and there's two letters on the breakfast bar for you - I think one is from Nick because the return address is in Hoenn and another one is from Kanto."

I shrugged even though nobody could see it. "It's probably either from Grandpa or Dad, Mum," I told her. "I'll open them in a bit when I come down for breakfast."

"Okay," she said again and I heard her leaving my bedroom.

I sighed to myself and brushed my teeth, then cleaned my nose piercing with saline solution, since it was only three weeks old and still prone to infection. Once I was finished, I dragged on my dressing gown and grabbed my fluffy blue towel so I could dry off. I chose to dress in black combats, one of my many pairs of Converses and a black T-shirt with my 'Bite Me' by GrindStore hoodie over the top.

"You know, you could do with getting laid."

I scowled at Corbin, my handsome and extremely blunt anal master Krookodile. "I get laid by you and the boys every night. I don't see why I need to get laid."

He scoffed back at me and rolled his eyes. "Riley, you're still so hung up over N it's unreal, babe. You need a human boyfriend or one-night stand."

"No, I don't," I told him in a growl. "I wish you would stop pressuring me to get a boyfriend, Corbin - none of the others do this. Just you."

"That's because I see exactly how unhappy you are. I'm a Dark type, too, remember? Valerian may be a Psychic type but that doesn't include empathy, which Dark types have. I can sense your emotions and I've always been able to." He got up from my chaise lounge and pushed my dark fringe out of my eyes. "You need to move on. Skye has and he came out of the whole thing worse than you. Scarred blatantly for life and lost his friend. Count yourself lucky."

I had to catch myself before I slapped him. It was such a taboo to angrily hit your Pokemon in temper that I knew Corbin would run away if I hit him now. "Either you stop going on at me," I snapped, "or I stop being your trainer and have you adopted. Your choice. I'm at my breaking point with you, Corbin, so if you still want to be mine, you'll shut the fuck up."

He raised a brow as if daring me but didn't comment, just flopped back onto the lounge - which gave an audible creak of misery under his muscular weight - and continued reading a paperback Karma Sutra with one hand down his jeans.

I ignored him and went downstairs to where Solae and Osian, my Volcarona and Vaporeon, were having a morning competition on the Wii - I think today's Wii Fit challenge was the skii jump. I had a feeling Lorne, my Serperior and starter Pokemon, would be loitering in the backgarden with Quinn, my Haxorus, around the pool. Valerian would most likely be in the kitchen, helping my mother cook bacon and eggs for breakfast - I found the way he always helped my Mum around the house quite endearing and sweet.

"Good morning," purred a voice in my ear as strong, muscled arms pulled me back against a hard, broad torso. Soft, hot lips ran up my neck, making me moan.

"Now that's a way to make my morning better," I smiled, looking up at Lorne, whose long, vampiric fangs were literally dripping. He was hungry - his fangs only dripped with his saliva when he needed to feed. I rolled my eyes and tipped my head to the side. "Go for it," I murmured, feeling him lick the intended bite area slowly, sensually.

The bite was so quick I did't have time to even flinch or feel very much pain. One moment he was licking and the next he was sucking. All the two small punture wounds left was a large love bite on my neck - not that I minded. Lorne was mine and I was his, my very first Pokemon. I loved him in a special way more than my other Pokemon, a way that was just between the two of us. I had read on the internet that Serperior, although vampiric in feeding, only feed from those they love the most. Solae and I were his choice of flavour, so to speak.

He gently laved the twin cuts with his tongue as he finished, kissing the general bite area reverently. "Thank you," he whispered, turning me towards him so he could kiss me deeply, his hand tangled in my hair. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I replied, stroking his gorgeous face before we journeyed to the kitchen where two letters and my Trainer: International magazine lay on the breakfast bar. Mum placed a mug of milky, sugary tea in front of me and a plate of buttered toast.

I opened the first letter to find, as my mother had predicted, it was from my cousin Nick Frey. He was living in Hoenn (for now) with his fiancee Quinn Dubois, a breeder who had bred Osian with her best Vaporeon for a set of Eevee eggs, one of which I had in Mum's incubating room. I read the letter.

Hey baby doll, how's things? I'm sorry I haven't called or anything lately. Quinn and I have had our hands full with the ranch, since it's birthing season for the Dragon types and the Ninetails so things are seriously manic here. For Arceus's sake, I barely even had time to pen a letter! Anyways, I hope you're well and say hi to your boys for me. Loads of love, Nick.

Short and sweet - the usual Nick letter. It made me smile that he was working his ass off alongside the woman he loved. I reached for the other letter and, to my surprise, it was Skye Davies's handwriting that greeted me.

Skye was one of my best friends. We had met in Nimbasa City before all the shit that caused both of us scars and the loss of N Harmonia. I remembered his sandy hair and blazing blue eyes fondly, as well as the irrepairable scars to the entire right side of his body he had sustained when he saved my life.

I unfolded the letter and something made of card dropped onto the side. When I looked, it was an airplane ticket to Kanto's Viridian City on a flight for the following Monday afternoon. Frowning, I read the letter.

Hey, Riley! How's things, sweetie? You know my dad got remarried two years ago? My step-mum, Elma Sinclaire-Davies, works with Region-Fly and got me a ticket for you to come over to Kanto. I already dicussed things with your grandpa and your dad said that he hasn't seen you in ages and put some cash towards a discount ticket so you could come out here for a holiday. Now I'm just praying you have an in-date passport, haha. (I already know you do - I asked your dad.) My parents have already agreed to let you stay here but if you want to stay with your dad, we understand but the offer stands for the duration of your stay. Love you loads, babe. From Skye.

"Holy. Fuck."

Mum whipped my shoulder with her damp tea towel. "Watch your mouth," she told me with a grin.

"Mum, where's my passport?" I asked, smiling in a borderline psychotic manner.

She frowned. "It's in the documents drawer in my study. Why do you ask?"

"I'm off to Kanto next week." I held up the ticket for her inspection. "Skye and Dad pooled together to get me a ticket over there."

She suddenly grinned. "That's good, because I've got a ticket your father mailed me last month for the same day."

Oh crap. My mother and I on a cramped airplane? Not a good combination move.

I flicked my tongue bar between my front teeth and tugged it lightly. This was going to be one long-ass trip.

However, the day progressed nicely. I got some training done with my boys (once I had found my passport and had given Corbin the chewing-out of a lifetime) and the day became an evening of swimming in the pool with Osian and Lorne whilst Solae lounged on a sunlounger. I loved the water, just soaking in the chlorine-infused water.

"Why does Corbin seem to think you need a boyfriend?" Solae asked when I came up for air. "I mean, you have us. What do you need another guy around for when we already give you the best sex you've ever had?"

I smirked at him. "He thinks I'm not over what happened to N yet," I told him as Lorne jumped out of the pool and sat on the side, soaking his feet. "Which is half true but at the same time, I still don't want anyone but N in my life romantically. I love all of you in a different way to how I loved N."

It was still very hard to talk about N or even the time we spent together but it was getting easier. The more I talked about it, the less it hurt. I still cried at night when all of my boys were asleep and nobody was around to hold me while I slept but it was getting to be an easier burden for me to carry alone. None of my boys missed N as much as I did but they were still saddened by the loss, simply because it made me sad.

But on the horizon was a trip to Kanto, and a long one at that. Perhaps there I could find something, anything, to completely ease the ache.