"I can't believe it… You're back…"

Aamira tilted her head. "Do… Do I know you?"

Quill's heart fell into his stomach. He turned to Aipom who was looking at him sadly. He turned back to Aamira. "No… It can't be…"

Aamira continued to look at him in the same confused way. Then a broad, amused smile spread over her face.

"Hey!" Quill punched her in the arm and Aamira burst out laughing.

"Oh I got you good!" Aamira said through her laughter.

"You scared me!" Quill said. "Don't pretend to have amnesia ever again!"

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I disappear for the sake of saving the world." Aamira said with a smile

Aipom sighed desperately. "Kids… Now there's two of them I have to watch over…" All three of them laughed.

"You're… I just can't believe it!" Quill's eyes filled with tears.

"What? Now I was under the impression that you were happy to see me." Aamira smiled. "So what's with the waterworks, huh?"

"I'm just so happy you're back!" Quill collapsed on the ground and couldn't hold back his tears any longer.

Aamira and Aipom both smiled and looked up at each other. The smile disappeared from Aipom's face almost immediately after she looked up at Aamira.

"Quill…?" She said. "Don't you think her eyes look sort of strange?"

Quill wiped the tears from his eyes and sat up to look up at Aamira. "Hey you're right. They change color sometimes, but they look… familiar."

"Familiar?" Aamira walked up to the edge of the lake and looked at her reflection in the water. She gasped and grabbed her left arm with her right hand when she saw her eyes. "They… They look like Lucario's."

Aamira smiled for a second. She was wearing Lucario's cloak and the Nightmare Gem that Lucario used to wear around his neck. And now her eyes looked like Lucario's. Maybe this was even sort of what Lucario looked like as a Riolu? She tried to imagine what Lucario would have looked like when he was younger and was training with his father.

"You don't think maybe Lucario was the reason that you came back?" Quill said.

Aamira's smile faded and she turned back to him. "How could it? Lucario was sealed inside that staff along with most of his aura."

"Wait, most of his aura?" Aipom said.

"Well I can't use any of my abilities when Lucario's not around. Before I was able to because I had that scarf he made me and that had most of his aura in it. But we left that scarf here and Lucario was sealed inside the Aura Scepter. At first I didn't see how I would be able to save the world without Lucario, but then I realized that Lucario was still helping me." Aamira grabbed the Nightmare Gem around her neck. "The Nightmare Gem has its own aura, but since it was with Lucario for such a long time a lot of his excess aura was stored inside of it."

"So maybe Lucario is the reason you came back." Quill said. "Isn't that possible? Since you still technically had some energy, you could come back."

Aamira shook her head. "I used up all of Lucario's stored aura also. Not to mention the aura from those Lunar Flowers. And besides, if I still technically had some aura left, I wouldn't have disappeared in the first place. It just doesn't make any sense. I know it couldn't have been the Nightmare Gem; its aura doesn't feel like it's been used up at all and this kind of aura seems too unstable to even use."

"So why do your eyes look like Lucario's?" Quill asked. "And how were you able to come back?"

"Maybe we could ask Noctowl." Aamira suggested. "He seems to usually have an answer."

"He doesn't like thinking as much now." Aipom said. "You know, all an Aura Reader really has to do to use their abilities is think. I think what happened to Alakazam is still a little fresh in his mind, even though Alakazam made a full recovery."

"Wow, a full recovery that fast?" Aamira said.

"Actually a few weeks isn't that fast." Quill said.

"A few weeks!" Aamira said. "How long was I gone?"

Aipom and Quill looked at each other for a minute. Finally Aipom spoke. "This isn't exact but… around two months."

"Two months!" Aamira shouted in her surprise. "There's no way it was that long. The last thing I remember was seeing you, Quill, then it felt like I fell asleep or something and now I'm here. There's no way that was two months."

"You know, maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask Noctowl about this." Quill said. "And it's not like we can just go running through town shouting, 'Hey everyone, look who just mysteriously reappeared at Lake Harmony!'"

"Yea, I guess you've got a point there…" Aamira smiled awkwardly.

"Okay, so while you two do that I can get my team and tell everyone else. That way they won't be too surprised when they see the two of you walking down the street. Although a lot of people will probably want to throw a party because the one on the day you disappeared was sort of gloomy." Aipom said.

Aipom ran off to her team's base and Aamira and Quill headed for Town Hall. Quill knocked on the door, not wanting to simply just barge in. The one who answered the door wasn't Noctowl, but Espeon.

She looked at Quill for only a second then noticed Aamira. She stared at her for a bit longer as if deciding if it were possible then pulled Aamira into a death hug. "I can't believe it! How is this possible!"

Aamira, who was having the air squeezed out of her lungs, struggled at first to try to say something but eventually gave up.

"Hey, come on Espeon!" Quill said. "I don't want to lose Aamira again!"

Espeon finally let go. "I'm sorry, I just… I can't believe that… How? How did you…?"

"We have no idea." Aamira said while rubbing her left arm. "So everything is as it should be!"

"I'm so sorry…!" Espeon said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I just got too excited. Well don't just stand there! You know Noctowl would want to see you." Espeon walked into the town hall building and the two of them followed. Espeon shouted up the stairs and Noctowl came down a moment later.

Noctowl stopped halfway down the stairs and stared at Aamira as if he had just seen a ghost. He kept walking down the stairs and never once took his eyes off of Aamira. "How…? It's not possible…"

Aamira didn't know what she was supposed to say. Apparently no one else did either. After a while Noctowl walked to the other side of the room where a Delibird was sleeping in the window.

"Delibird. Wake up." Noctowl said.

Delibird woke up at looked at Noctowl angrily. "I only do night deliveries. Bug one of the other Delibird."

"This can't wait." Noctowl said. "Send a message to Special Services HQ right away. Tell them Aamira has reappeared."

Delibird straightened up and looked around, sure he must have misunderstood. Then he spotted Aamira. "Oh! Right away! Right away!" Delibird flew out of the window laughing cheerfully.

"I didn't realize I would be missed so much…" Aamira said after another moment of silence.

"Next time think about that before you go disappearing on us!" Quill said.

Aamira smiled, though she couldn't help feeling slightly guilty.

"Hard to believe how long ago it was that you were standing here just as you are now." Noctowl said to Aamira. "You were somewhat quiet then, but you got used to life here and as a pokemon. Now you seem to have returned to the way you were back then. It's probably going to take you some time to readjust."

Aamira looked down at the ground. 'There's another reason I'm so quiet, I guess. When I came here that first time I didn't have any memories so I didn't have much of a reason to talk or anything. Now I've reappeared after being gone for two months and I can't even remember what it was like when I disappeared. So I guess it's sort of the same now. Reappearing two months after disappearing… it sort of makes it feel like I'm in an entirely different world, which really wouldn't be too surprising.'

"So do you have any idea how this might have happened?" Quill asked.

Noctowl shook his head. "Maybe if Aamira could remember anything about disappearing."

"Can't remember a thing." Aamira said. "One minute I was with Quill at Lake Harmony getting ready to disappear and the next I'm back on the other side of the lake." Aamira's right hand went to her left arm.

Quill noticed. "Why do you keep doing that?"

Aamira let her arm fall to her side again. "Doing what?"

"I've noticed you do that a few times now. You keep grabbing your left arm as if it's in pain or something." Quill said.

"Maybe because you punched me when I pretended to have amnesia?" Aamira said slyly.

"But I punched you on your right arm." Quill said. "I don't think I'll forget that too quickly."

"You punched your sister!" Espeon snapped at Quill. Aamira and Noctowl laughed.

Now that Aamira was thinking about it, there was a sharp pain in her arm, but it was so slight that she hadn't even noticed it before. Aamira pulled the cloak of. When her arm started hurting worse when she tried to take it out of the sleeve, she started to take it off slower, figuring that she must have gotten hurt somehow. Everyone gasped when they saw why Aamira kept grabbing her arm. Aamira tensed up. Across her arm were three horrible looking burns. The way they were they almost looked like scratch marks.

"This just keeps getting weirder." Quill said. "This is sort of like déjà vu from the first time you showed up here. You had amnesia but you could remember being turned into a pokemon, and you had that scarf. This time you can't remember what it was like when you disappeared, though obviously something did happen, your eyes look like Lucario's now, and you have those burns."

"I think they've actually scarred over by now." Noctowl said. "I don't think they will ever go away."

"Couldn't those scars just be from when the two of you battled that Giratina?" Espeon asked.

"I don't think so." Noctowl said. "Look at her. Not a single scratch or bruise. Just those scars. And don't you think one of us would have noticed if she had an injury so bad that it would have turned into this after all of that time?"

"I guess we'll never really know who you are." Espeon said to Aamira with a smile. "But I guess that's for you to find out now, isn't it?"

Aamira smiled.

Espeon turned to Quill. "And I think the same thing goes for you. I doubt you two won't continue Team Sleuth now that Aamira is back."

"Of course we are!" Quill said. "But I don't know what we're going to do about our team base. It was almost burned down in that fire and it might collapse at any minute."

"Why did you insist on staying there all of that time?" Espeon asked.

"Too many memories to leave behind I guess…" Quill said. "It would still be sort of sad to leave it behind, but we can't run an Investigation Team from there."

"Well if my message gets to Pacis soon, Team Sleuth might be asked to join Special Services." Noctowl said.

"Oh yea." Quill said. "I forgot. They got a new leader after they found out about Mismagius being evil. I think it was Electivire. Team Sky saved him a while back so it's no wonder they were asked to join."

A Delibird flew through the window panting really hard. It was a different one than the one that had taken Noctowl's message to Special Services. "I've got a letter for Team Sleuth." She took a letter out of her bag and handed it to Quill.

"Hey, why don't you read it?" Quill handed Aamira the letter.

"Okay." Aamira opened the letter and read aloud. "'Dear Aamira and Quill. Hi you two! It's been a while. It's Eevee. Surely you remember me. Well anyway, let me just say I couldn't believe it when we got word that Aamira had just suddenly reappeared. I was sure that someone was playing a joke on everyone else; a lot of stuff like that happens around here when everyone has free time. But after a while we realized that it wasn't any joke. I wanted to be the first to send you a message and Electivire said it was okay as long as I added that he wants you to join Special Services. It would be so cool if you came to work here. And guess what else has happened since we last saw each other? Actually, it happened right before Delibird came in with Noctowl's message. I finished that machine I was working on! You know, the one I said would change the way a lot of pokemon lived? I asked another team to test it and if it goes well I want your team to be the first to try it out officially. Anyway, I hope to see you soon. Your friend, Eevee.'"

"Wow, Eevee got his machine working!" Quill said. "Hey Espeon, do you know what it is that he's been working on?"

"I do, but I want it to be a surprise. I know you'll probably like it, Quill." She said.

"Well let's go right away!" Aamira said. "We wouldn't want to keep Eevee waiting, would we? He seems pretty fired up about this machine of his."

"Yea, he sure does." Quill said. "We should go find the rest of our team then get ready to leave."

"Hold on a second." Noctowl said. "Aamira, I have to ask you to try to hide those scars. Something like that could probably raise a lot of questions. After everything that's happened, I think it would be best not to attract too much attention. For now just wear that cloak and try not to touch your arm too much."

"But it hurts my arm trying to take the cloak off." Aamira said. "I can't keep putting it on and taking it off if it makes my arm hurt and I can't wear it all the time either."

"How about this?" Quill said. "You wear it again until we leave for Pacis to get to Special Services then take it off again after we leave, bandage up your arm, and just say that we ran into some trouble on the way there."

"That's a good idea, Quill." Espeon said. "But you know, I'm going to miss seeing you all of the time. Maybe I'll come by to visit every now and then."

"That would be great!" Quill said, obviously trying to force back tears.

"Oh and one last thing, Aamira." Noctowl said. "You remember when you gave your scarf to Persian in exchange for the Emit Rings?"

"Yea." Aamira ran her finger over the ring, which she was still wearing. "Did he lose my scarf?"

"Something like that." Noctowl said. "Right after you disappeared, strangely enough so did the scarf. I don't think he was lying. Since you and Lucario were gone and took his Emit rings, he didn't have any reason to lie about it."

"I guess when Lucario said that scarf was made for you and wouldn't work for anyone else, he wasn't exaggerating. Without you I guess that scarf had no reason to exist at all." Quill said. "Same with Daisy. I think you were the only reason she was sticking around here so after you disappeared she wandered off somewhere."

"Well that's too bad. Daisy came from the human world like I did so at least we sort of understood each other, in a way. As for the scarf… Oh well, I guess. I guess I'll just keep wearing the Nightmare Gem." Aamira pulled the cloak on again painfully. "Well, let's get going. I bet it's probably going to take a while since Aipom told everyone in the city that I came back. They'll probably be staring at us and following us the whole time."

Quill laughed.

Aamira was right. Not only were they bombarded with questions as soon as they got out of the door, but everywhere they went they were followed or stared at. It was especially annoying when a group of kids spotted them. Apparently they all wanted to become Investigation Team members and kept asking them the weirdest questions about what it was like. They met up with the rest of their team at Kangaskhan's storage.

"Aamira!" Machop took Aamira's hands. "It's been too long, my love, I—."

Before he could finish Aamira grabbed Machop's hands and flipped him onto his back. "He'll never learn…"

Haunter cackled and turned over in the air. "I missed you doing that! But it's not like I haven't been torturing him and Nuzleaf in your place."

"I told him he had to be more opened towards someone if he liked them." Nuzleaf started laughing. "You wouldn't believe how much trouble he got into that way. He took me way too seriously."

"Neither of you get it at all, do you!" Aamira snapped at Nuzleaf and Machop. "I'd be surprised if either of you ever got a girlfriend!"

"Hey!" Machop got to his feet. "I guarantee that one day you will be my girlfriend! I don't care how many times you turn me down."

"And do I have a choice in the matter?" Aamira asked him. Machop seemed to be considering this. Aamira used Force Palm and blasted him halfway across town square. "You idiot!"

Nuzleaf shook his head. "Mr. Sensitive, everyone!"

Machop sat up and rubbed his head. "Was it something I said…?"

"That's low even for you…" Quill said to him.

Aamira opened her mouth to say something, but instead just sighed and shook her head.

"What is it?" Quill asked.

"Wasn't Machop the one I was forced to fight a while back when we were on our first messenger job? Then didn't he nearly kill me? Then invited himself to join Team Sleuth?"

"You've got a point…" Quill said. "Not exactly a good first impression."

"Yea? Well we're going to be traveling all the way to Pacis together, so too bad." Machop said.

"You need a math lesson." Nuzleaf said. "Four pokemon can travel together, and there are five in our team. That means one of us won't be able to travel with everyone else."

"You can't expect me to go to Pacis alone!" Machop said.

"Right. So Nuzleaf will be going with you." Aamira said.

"What!" they both said at the same time.

"You can't expect me to babysit this guy the whole time!" Nuzleaf said.

"Good point." Quill said. "Haunter, you go with them."

Haunter cackled. "With pleasure!"

"No!" Both Nuzleaf and Machop shouted.

"Alright, let's get moving." Aamira said.

When they got to the entrance of the first dungeon, Aamira took off the cloak again and put it in her bag and bandaged her arm just as they planned. By the time they got to Pacis, the bandages would probably be dirty enough to look convincing. The dungeon was pretty easy; a nice change of pace for them. At least that's what Aamira thought before she found out that Quill had stopped going on missions because he couldn't get into it and kept getting defeated every time he stepped foot into a dungeon. Of course since it seemed like their battle in Origin Tower happened only yesterday to Aamira, it was a nice change of pace to her.

Night was falling by the time they reached the planes of Pacis. In the distance they could see a city and the Special Services building. The stars were shining brightly above them in the sky, which for once they could see without any trees or mountains in the way. Somehow Quill and Aamira were able to get to Special Services HQ at the same time as the rest of their team. Eevee was waiting there for them.

"It's true! It's true!" He said while jumping up and down. "I can't believe you're actually back!"

"None of us can really." Quill said. "So what's this about that machine you were working on?"

"Oh yea." Eevee said. "The team that volunteered to test it out just finished a while ago so I couldn't resist coming out here to wait for you. It works great! It didn't even blow up the first time! Come with me and I'll show you." Eevee led the way through the door and they were immediately greeted with cheers from one side of the room.

On that side of the room was a bunch of their friends. There was Weavile, Houndoom, Gliscor, Charmeleon, Typhlosion, Infernape (who wasn't much of a friend), Sceptile, Meganium, Venusaur, Crawdaunt, Croconaw, and even Pikachu, Plusle, and Minun of Team Sparks.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard that you came back!" Charmeleon said. "It's great to see both of you again."

"After the world was saved we decided to restart Team night." Weavile said. "And we ironically decided to join Special Services."

"Hey, hey! You guys can talk later at dinner." Eevee said. "For now you have to see my machine!"

"Does it really work?" Charmeleon asked.

"Sure does." Eevee said. "You can try it out after Team Sleuth if you want." Eevee led them through a door and down a long hallway. At the very end was a door that had a strange green-blue light coming from behind it. Inside was a large capsule-like machine that was hooked up to a computer. "Well, here it is! The pokemon evolution machine!"

Machop laughed. "Evolution machine! You expect me to believe this actually makes pokemon evolve?"

"It sure does!" Eevee said. "And they're the proof."

Standing next to the machine was an Ambipom, a Butterfree, and a Primeape.

"Hiya, Quill!" Ambipom said.

Quill stared at her for a minute. "Aipom! Is that you?"

"And Mankey." Primeape said.

"And Caterpie too." Butterfree said. "We've only met once, but surely you remember me?"

"Yea, I remember." Aamira said. "So it really works! The three of you were able to evolve."

"Hey, I want to try this out!" Machop said.

"You were just saying you didn't believe it worked." Nuzleaf said.

"Whatever. You just imagined it!" Machop walked inside the machine. "Hey! What are you waiting for!"

"Alright." Eevee walked over to the computer. "I'm doing this for free specially for your team, so any of your team members can evolve whenever they want." Eevee started typing on the computer, but stopped with an awkward expression after a minute.

"What is it?" Quill asked.

"It looks like Machop's level is too low for him to evolve." Eevee said.

"What!" Machop ran over to Eevee. "Some genius you are! We still need to be a certain level?"

"Afraid so." Eevee said.

"What a shame." Nuzleaf sneered at Machop.

"Why don't you evolve then?" Machop said to Nuzleaf.

"I can't." Nuzleaf said. "Not because I'm too weak but because I would need to have a Leaf Stone to evolve."

"I want to try this out." Haunter floated into the machine and waited for Eevee to start it up.

Eevee started typing on the computer again. "You need a Link Cable to evolve. Well since this is my gift to Team Sleuth, I guess I can let you use the one I have, but I don't have any more evolution items currently." Eevee put some sort of box into a side compartment on the machine and started to type on the computer again. "Alright, you're all set." Eevee pressed a green button on his computer.

Haunter started glowing and in a few seconds he changed into a larger pokemon that had arms and legs and a large smile on its face. Haunter stepped out of the machine and looked into a mirror that was on the wall next to the machine.

"Hey it worked." He said. "So for now on, you can all call me Gengar!"

"Nice to meet you, Gengar!" Aamira said.

"So what about you?" Quill asked Aamira. "Do you think you want to evolve?"

"I don't know…." Aamira said. "If I did evolve, I would turn into Lucario… No, I don't think I want to…"

"Oh, yea. I get it…" Quill said. "Alright, well I'm going to try it. I want to be a Typhlosion like my dad!"

"You might want to get used to being a Quilava before evolving into Typhlosion." Eevee said. "Typhlosion is pretty different from Cyndaquil, so you might want to get used to Quilava before going into a big change like Typhlosion. I let Caterpie evolve into Butterfree because Butterfree's so different from both Metapod and Caterpie that it didn't matter either way."

"Okay, Quilava first then." Quill stepped into the machine.

"Alright, get ready." Eevee started typing on the computer again, but when he pressed the green button, nothing happened. "Huh?"

"Is something wrong?" Quill asked.

"Wait, don't move." Eevee said. "I'm going to do a scan to see why it's not working." Eevee started typing on the computer again and a few different screens all came up. "This is so strange… Hey Aamira, if you don't mind, would you take Quill's place in the machine real quick?"

"But I don't want to evolve." Aamira said.

"I know, don't worry. You wouldn't be able to evolve anyway without a sun ribbon. I just want to do a scan on you to see if you have the same problem."

"There some sort of problem?" Aamira stepped into the machine after Quill came out. "What do you think it is?"

"I'm not sure yet. That's why I want to do a scan." Eevee started typing on the computer again and like before a bunch of different screens came up. They made no sense whatsoever to anyone there, except Eevee apparently. "This is so strange. Both of you seem to have an abnormal molecular structure."

"What does that mean exactly?" Quill asked.

"Well some pokemon who are around a certain environment for a long time either can't evolve or are born in their final evolutionary form. But I don't think that really applies to the two of you. Even if it were because you were in Atra and Desolo before, I don't think you were in either long enough for your molecular structure to change. It's sort of understandable for Aamira since her molecular structure was changed when she turned into a pokemon, but I still don't really understand why Quill's was changed." Eevee sighed. "Oh well. I knew this couldn't be it. It wouldn't be any fun without something to research anyway. I'm just sorry that what was supposed to be sort of a welcome back present for you ended up just giving me more work."

"That's alright." Quill said. "It sort of gave us more things to think about too. And what's an Investigation Team without a mystery to solve?"

Eevee smiled. "Well, it's almost dinner, so let's go to the café. That's where we get all of our meals. Just follow me and I'll show you where it is."

The café was actually below the main building in a kind of cave setting. There were fires all around and instead of lunch tables or something like that, there were chairs and couches and coffee tables all set up in front of the fires. In spite of being in a cave, there was a nice relaxing and almost homey feel to it. After they were done eating Aamira curled up on one of the couches that was right in front of a fire and fell into what was sort of like a relaxing half sleep.

A while later Electivire came down and Team Sky introduced him to Team Sleuth.

"So this is the famous Team Sleuth I've heard so much about from Noctowl." He said. "Doesn't look like a very lively bunch."

"I like it down here…" Quill said. He was the only one who seemed fully awake. Machop and Gengar had completely fallen asleep, Nuzleaf was playing a leaf whistle song and Aamira, of course, was still half asleep on a couch. When she saw Electivire, all she could manage to do was yawn.

"It is pretty relaxing down here, isn't it?" Electivire said. "Anyway, since your Treehouse was nearly burned down in a fire, I'd take it that you wouldn't mind joining us."

"We'd love to." Quill said. "We were supposed to join before we knew Mismagius was evil, but a bunch of weird events sort of kept us away from here."

"Great. We'll send you on your first mission tomorrow and if everything goes well you'll be official members of Special Services. Oh, and that reminds me, a few of our members think that in light of what's happened we should come up with a new name. Do any of you have an idea?

Aamira yawned and sat up rubbing one of her eyes. "What about the Investigator's Brigade?"

"I like that one." Electivire said. "Alright, that one will be added to the poll. The new name should be chosen soon." Electivire turned to leave and shouted to one of the other pokemon. "Kricketune, would you mind showing Team Sleuth to their new room?"

"No problem." Kricketune walked over to them. "Just follow me. Since you're from Sylva and you're used to being in a Treehouse, your rooms on the top floor."

"I don't wanna walk!" Machop groaned when Kricketune woke him up.

"And one more thing." Kricketune said after a while when they got to the top floor. "Because we have so many members, every team shares one room. It might take some getting used to." He spotted Aamira's bandaged arm. "And maybe I should send up a doctor?"

"Oh, no, it's okay." Aamira said. "We just ran into a little trouble on the way here. It's nothing serious."

"Well alright, if you're sure." Kricketune turned and left.

Their room was pretty small. It only had six bunk beds and a table in the center of the room. On the table was a note from Kricketune.

Aamira picked it up and read it out loud. "'Hello new members. I am Kricketune the housekeeper. Until we get the kind of beds that you're used to sleeping in, you'll have to sleep in bunk beds. Work starts at dawn and only ends after you've completed a mission. Also, you won't be official members until you complete your first mission. At that time, your room will be turned into the sort of room that you're used to sleeping in.' Great. This should be fun." Aamira looked around the room. "I call the top bunk next to the window!"

Gengar had already fallen asleep on the bottom bunk of one of the other beds and Machop and Nuzleaf were arguing over the top and bottom bunk for the other bed.

Aamira stared sadly out the window at the starlit sky. It wasn't that she was sad to be back. In fact it was great. But it sort of felt like this was the beginning again. It felt like they would have to redo everything that's already happened. Or was it just a feeling? Then again, maybe Aamira was just paranoid at this point.

'It really does feel like an entirely different world.' She thought. 'Maybe it is a different world. Either way, at least by coming here we're all starting off again on even footing. So I guess for now all I really have to worry about is what our mission will be tomorrow…'