Chapitre Un. Black heart?

The first thing Jessie remembered about that morning was that she felt something that she was unaccustomed to feeling, but had always been there... the second was that she felt James was in some kind of danger.

She rolled over, shaking the sleep out of her ice blue eyes, steeled for a day of evil. She sat up, yawned, and glanced over. James was sleeping quietly, a look of innocent peace on his face, the look he seldom showed besides his sleeping hours. His hand curled near his face, his gentle breaths shifting the small cowlick flopped carefully in his face. Definitely not in any kind of danger, unless you counted nightmares.

She sighed, unused to making such lengthy psychological examinations of people, and got out of bed, preparing herself for the day. Suddenly irritated that James and Meowth got to sleep when she herself had to get up, she whipped around and opened her mouth...

… and then stopped herself as her partner began to whimper. Rolling her eyes, such a wimp, she thought, really, she approached him quietly, completely unprepared for what would occur next, because she knew he was just sleeping.

James cried her name and screamed for help.

Jessie froze.

He never had nightmares this bad. What's going on?

James screamed even louder and began to thrash. His partner immediately grabbed his wrists and shook him; she had never been so scared. But for him, or of him...?

She didn't have much time to contemplate her indecision, because suddenly James stared at her with scared emerald eyes, trembling with sheer terror.

"What... happened...?" she managed to choke out, but he could sense her concern long before she had voiced it, raw with fear and... love?

He turned away, trying to keep a measure of manly pride, despite himself. "It's nothing, Jess."

Meowth yawned loudly and wandered over. "What's goin' on?" he asked, but once he saw the exchange, his eyes slitted. "Anudda nightmare... ?" he muttered.

He hasn't had one since I first spent the night camping with him in our training! And now he's been having them every night. What kind of cruel Dialga or Palkia could do this to him?

Jessie harrumphed, then turned away. "Well, hurry and get up, then," she ordered. "We can't waste any time with extra sleep."

James' eyes softened at the hardening of her voice, something he expected and came to love, since she didn't mean any real harm. "Yes, Jessie, right away," he answered.

A sixteen-year-old boy and a girl who looked to be about thirteen sat a distance away, perched gracefully on top of a tree limb. With them the silhouettes of a Mightyena and a Bannette could be seen, if one looked hard enough. It was one of the girl's triumphs, the skill of hiding in the open.

"They're cursed, all right," the girl sighed. Her soft grey hair grew to her shoulders, while two long spirals of it curled out of the top. She placed a rose in it, fuchsia as poison. Her eye was violet, the right one shielded by an eye-patch for unknown reasons. Where human ears were supposed to be, she had those of a wolf, she even had the tail of a wolf. She wore a long-skirted, frilly doll's dress, black as the night. Emblazoned across the front, like a warning sign, was the familiar red 'R'.

"I can't tell," answered Chev. "I trust you on matters like this, Phi, so I hope you're right."

Phi answered him with a venomous grin. "When, oh when, dear Chevil, have I ever been wrong?"

"No spirits surrounding them or anything, Phi," Bannette piped up. "Are you sure about this?"

"No doubts, just shut the hell up," she snapped.

"Oo," Chev flinched. His hair, half black, flipped over above his eyes, the other half red, spiked to the side. His ears were studded with earrings, and he wore skinny jeans, combat boots, and a Rocket jacket over a too-small white v-neck.

"Someone's got a potty mouth," Bannette mumbled.

Chev sighed, and leaped down after her.

"Be afraid of us, our foes!" Phi cried.

Jessie and James both perked their ears and turned her way. Meowth interjected with a "Hoih?"

"Oh, it's just a talking doll," Jessie said, unafraid. Which was more than could be said for James.

"But, Jessie, that's kind of scary," he whimpered, hiding under his lavender hair and clinging tightly to her arm.

Phi growled, baring her sharp teeth, and shook her fist at them. "I'm not a f**king doll, you twits!" she hissed. "Take this, pastry head... Blaze Kick!"

Pastry... head? Jessie wondered. What the... of all the weirdest... Suddenly she felt herself shoved aside. She looked up to find herself behind James somehow. Facing a hurtling doll with a foot moving so fast it had lit on fire. "James, no!" she screamed, trying to move him. But somehow, he had become unmovable. And somehow, even weirder, he had managed to become a different personality altogether. But a simple change in personality couldn't protect him from this new threat.

"Phi, NO!" Jessie turned at this new voice. James, sensing himself out of danger, passed out, and it was Jessie's sheer luck that she was able to catch him before he hit the ground.

Chev raced after the doll-like girl and was finally able to stop her as they tumbled to the ground together. "Phi, that's the last time I'll allow your temper to hurt someone, I swear! Don't hurt my master!"

"Your... your master?" Jessie and Meowth cried in surprise.

"Chevil, get off of me," Phi said calmly from under her partner's arm.

It was then that Jessie noticed that James' heart had stopped beating.

"James!" she screamed.