Hey all! Welcome to all newcomers, and welcome back to those who read the first 2 parts of Cara's story. If you are new, I'll do my best to keep things clear. But please feel free to go back and read them for yourself!

This chapter is an awful lot of talking. But I guess that's okay since it reintroduces you to the characters.

Hope you enjoy! As always, I love reading your comments!

Polaris-Ponyta, Addie-Plusle, Embyr-Blaziken, Swamp-Swampert, Sage-Gardevoir, Tahoe-Flygon

Wish on a Falling Star

As the two men skidded to a halt in front of us, I looked back at the boy. His arms were wrapped around whatever he had stolen, and he was hunched over it protectively.

"It's not theirs," he said, meeting my eyes directly. I could tell from his expression and the desperation in his voice that he was telling the truth.

Embyr, I said telepathically to Blaziken, Take Hari and this boy out of the town. We'll meet up with you later.

Embyr nodded and grabbed the startled boy under one arm and Hari under the other. Then Embyr bounded off out of sight with the two boys. Ben, Addie and I remained in front of the 2 men.

"What are you doing?" shouted one of the men in front of me. "Are you trying to help him steal the crystal?"

Crystal? I thought, confused. "No," I said. "But I think this requires talking while the object in question is not present."

"Why do we need to listen to you?" The first man snapped. "Give it back!"

But the second man held up his hand to silence his companion. "Very well," he said. "That crystal is something we're researching. We have reason to believe that it contains the life force of a Pokémon. We need to learn more about it, but as we were bringing it back to the lab, the boy came and grabbed it and ran away."

"Did he have a reason for doing that?" I asked.

"Of course not!" shouted the first man. But the other one raised his hand again.

"Well, he did find the crystal. He was going to take it, but we didn't let him because it has to be researched.

"The boy has no business with Deoxys," snarled the first man. He realized immediately that he'd said too much, as he turned furiously red and took several steps backwards. His companion shot him an annoyed glance.

I froze. Deoxys? The crystal they were talking about… was it the core of Deoxys?

"What would you do with Deoxys?" I asked.

"Not much is known about it," said the calmer man. "We need to research what it's capable of. Ideally, we'd like to find a way bring it back to life."

I wondered briefly if he belonged to an organization like Team Rocket. Were they trying to harness Deoxys's power for personal gain? But he seemed sincere as he spoke. He probably really was just interested in learning about Deoxys. But I wanted to hear the boy's story first.

Embyr, I called. Has Hari talked to the boy at all?

Yes, Embyr responded. He hasn't said everything. It's probably best for you to ask him. But from what he's said, I think it's all right for him to keep the crystal.

Okay. Thanks, Embyr.

I paused for a minute. I was faced with a dilemma. I'd bought some time and gotten some answers out of the two guys. The one at least seemed a reasonable person. Except we weren't going to give the crystal back to them. So, what do we do now?

"Are you going to bring the boy back or what?" Demanded the louder guy.

I exchanged glances with Ben. Although I felt guilty about doing it, it was time to beat a hasty retreat. I jerked my head in the direction that Embyr had gone. Ben nodded in understanding.

Addie gripped my shoulder, and I dropped Tahoe's Pokéball. As it hit the ground, my Flygon appeared and in an instant I was on her back. Beside me, Ben had released his Pidgeot and hopped on board. A moment later, we were flying away, leaving the two bewildered guys behind. I shouted down, "we'll make sure the Deoxys recovers all right!"

"That was a strange maneuver for you," Ben called as we flew after Embyr and the boys. "Why'd we run away like that?"

"I didn't feel like explaining," I shouted over the rush of wind. "Plus we need to find out what the boy wants with the crystal. Apparently Embyr thinks his motive is valid."

A moment later, Tahoe and Pidgeot landed in the trees growing around Mount Chimney. Embyr and Hari were standing on either side of the boy, apparently trying to keep him from running.

The boy stared at us as we landed. He was still holding the crystal very tightly in his arms. And now that I knew what I was looking for, I could see the smooth lavender surface of Deoxys's core.

"Let me go," the boy shouted as Ben and I approached. "I need to leave!"

"That's not very polite considering we just helped you escape," Ben said, crossing his arms.

"Do you even know what that is?" I asked, pointing at the crystal.

"It's a Pokémon," he replied.

"That's the core of Deoxys," I said. "It's a Pokémon that traveled here from outer space."

The boy glanced down at the crystal. He didn't seem to know what he'd been holding.

"Why are you in such a hurry?' I asked.

The boy glared defiantly at us. "Because," he said. "Because I have to catch Jirachi!"

There was a stunned silence.

"What?" I ask. "What does Jirachi have to do with Deoxys?"

"Why do you want to know?" He asked.

"We can help," I announce. "You want to Deoxys to recover, right?"

"I don't need… your help…" he said, trailing off at the end.

"You sound like you do need help," Ben said, judging from the boy's tone of voice.

"What's your name?" Hari asked, staring at the newcomer in that big-eyed way that only Hari has.

The boy took a step backwards, unnerved by Hari's eyes. Hari, amazingly, realized that he wasn't helping the situation, so he backed away.

"It's Kyle," he said. He looked at Flygon and Pidgeot. "You have flying Pokémon. Did you say you could help me?"

"Let's hear your story first," I said.

Kyle hesitated, and then nodded slowly. The rest of us relax, reassured that he wasn't going to try and run away.

"A comet came down yesterday," He said.

I wondered why none of us had noticed a comet fall, but come to think of it, we had been on the opposite side of Mount Chimney yesterday, so it wasn't surprising.

"I went to look at the crater," Kyle continued. "I wanted to try to get the meteorite. Except a bunch of dirt had fallen into the crater, so I couldn't see anything. I went down to try and dig it out, but then this strange patch of light or somethin' comes floatin' out of the dirt in the middle of the crater. It circled me a few times and stopped in front of me. It sort of flicked towards the crater, like it was askin' me to dig down. I think it was askin' for help. So I starts digging, but I don't get very far. And then all these guys drive up and chase me out and start digging down themselves. But the light ball stayed with me. I waited around, and then when they finally dug out the crystal, the light ball vanished. Then a little while ago, they started to take it to Lavaridge. So I ran in and stole it."

"And what does Jirachi have to do with this?" I asked.

Kyle eyed me warily. "Well," he said eventually, "Jirachi grants wishes, right? 3 wishes, cause of the 3 tabs on its head. So I can wish to bring Deoxys back, and I can wish for a good partner Pokémon, and I can wish for my parents to let me go on a Pokémon journey."

There was a stiff silence.

"Who are you?" Kyle asked. He glanced at Ben and Hari. "Are they your brothers or something?" He asked me.

"Oh, no. They…"

"Then is he your boyfriend?" he asked, pointing at Ben.

Pause.

"Uh, this is Ben. And this," I said, gesturing to Hari, "Is my pet." Hari grinned broadly.

Kyle stared at me oddly.

Let's see. Jirachi. If Jirachi grants wishes, maybe it could regenerate Deoxys. I sure didn't know how else to bring the crystal back to life. But that presented a different problem. Didn't Jirachi only wake up every thousand years, or something?

"Do you know where Jirachi is?" I asked.

"They say that there's one sleeping on Mount Chimney," Kyle said. "Only there's no way for me to get there. It's rocky. But you have flying Pokémon, so you might be able to."

I looked up at the towering form of Mount Chimney above us. There was a tram to the top of the Volcano, but it didn't access all areas of the mountain. Flying would definitely be best.

"How would we find Jirachi on an entire mountain?" I asked. "And even if we did, how would we wake it up?"

"I know how Jirachi wakes up." I looked over, surprised. It was Hari that had spoken.

"How do you know about Jirachi?" I asked, startled.

He shrugged. "Latias and Latios taught me about some of the legendary Pokémon. They said that Jirachi will wake from its thousand year sleep if you sing to it in a pure voice."

"Singing is for girls," Kyle said flatly.

"Not true," I said. "Guys can be excellent singers. It's not a girly thing at all."

"You do sing though," Ben said to me. "And Hari's not bad either."

That was true. Hari had a surprisingly sweet singing voice. He must have had a lot of practice when he was growing up in the woods.

"But it'd still be hard to find Jirachi on that mountain," I muttered.

I can help, Said an unfamiliar voice

I looked up to see a sparkling prism float out of the crystal Kyle was still holding. It was Deoxys. Or at least, the consciousness of Deoxys that was active while it was in its crystal form.

It hovered in the air, examining us humans and Pokémon.

Hari, like me, could talk to Pokémon. But while I had weak psychic powers that let me use telepathy, Hari could understand their spoken word. He was raised by Pokémon and so knew their language.

"You can help us find Jirachi?" Hari asked.

Deoxys bobbed in reply.

"How?" I asked.

"What's going on?" Kyle asked, glancing from Deoxys to Hari to me.

"We can hear what Deoxys is saying," I explained. "Hang on for a minute while we talk."

Kyle stared at us.

"Don't worry," Ben sighed. "I can't talk to Pokémon either, so I'm just as lost as you."

I ignored him.

"Deoxys, do you think Jirachi is the best way to return you to your normal form?"

Deoxys thought for a minute. I'm new to your planet, actually. So I don't really know.

Judging from the voice, Deoxys was female.

"So, if you regenerate, are you going back into outer space?" I asked.

I don't know, she admitted. I've been asleep during most of my trip. We sort of go dormant when we travel to a different planet.

That sounded like science fiction, all right. Putting a crew to sleep as the space ship traveled years to get to a different planet. Did Deoxys often travel to other planets? Were they like space voyagers?

I might explore this planet while I'm here, she finished. But I lost all of my energy during my trip, so I can't regenerate.

"We'll do what we can to help," I assured her.

Deoxys bobbed, as though bowing in gratitude, and then vanished.

I quickly relayed to Ben and Kyle what Deoxys had said.

"I've heard," Ben said, "that there's this lab somewhere researching Deoxys. Apparently some high-power machine would be enough to regenerate a Deoxys core."

"Can you build one?" I asked automatically.

Ben snorted. "Are you kidding? It would take a team of people months or years to build something like that."

"Even with an engineering genius like you on the team?" I smirked.

"Let's go with Jirachi, huh?" Ben said, glaring at me. "I already have enough to think about. I have to finish that program on my laptop so I can send it off to the Professor."

"Program?" Kyle asked blankly.

"Ben has been designing some computer program things," I explained. "I don't get how he does it. It would drive me crazy. You get these long lists of numbers and letters that you have to type in a certain order, and if you get even one wrong, the thing doesn't work at all."

Ben pulled his laptop out of his bag and turned it on. Interested, Kyle came over to look, relaxing a bit.

Ben brought up a page of solid text. It looked like gibberish to me, but Ben spoke his gibberish well.

Kyle's mouth fell open as he saw the codes. "This does stuff?" He asked.

"If you get it right."

Hari leaned forwards to look and Ben quickly snapped his computer shut.

"You are not aloud within 3 feet of this computer, Hari," Ben exclaimed.

Hari tended to wreak destruction among computers. Having never seen one until just a year ago, he didn't know how they worked. We tried to teach him about them, but he did something that made the computer freeze and lose all of its data. It took Ben several hours to salvage what little he could. Hari is now banned from touching computers. Not that he minds. There's plenty of other stuff to amuse him.

I glance up at the sky. It was just past noon. There was plenty of the day left.

"Well," I said, turning to Flygon and Pidgeot. "Why don't we get going now? We can fly to the summit, and Deoxys can help us look for Jirachi. What do you say?"

For the first time, Kyle grinned. "Okay!"