a/n: Yeah, chapter 2, believe it. Not much more to say. I hope to have chapter 3 up by New-Year's Eve.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon (duh)

"Oof... Lore, you alright?"

Draco picked himself up off the ground before looking at her. She lay there, unmoving. This made him nearly freak out, and he reached for her neck. Draco found a pulse, and only then did he realize that Lore was, in fact, breathing.

"Good, just unconscious." He let out a sigh of relief.

Draco would stay here until she woke up, but he intended to preoccupy himself in the meantime. The treasure bag had fallen about five feet away. Draco proceeded to dump it out as he hadn't bothered to check it before they climbed Mt. Bristle. What he found were generic exploration items: a couple of Oran berries, an assortment of orbs, and several different kinds of seeds. What shouldn't have been there though, was the badge for team AuraFlair. After Kindle's death, Draco disbanded the team, but he must have forgotten to turn in the badge amidst all the confusion.

As he was stuffing everything back into the bag, lore groaned. "Lore, are you alright?" Draco repeated.

"Ugh... Draco, where are we?"

"Well, we traveled through time; I believe we're in the future."

"You mean like the future that you and Kindle went to?"

Draco winced at the name. "Maybe, but time has been restored now, so if is the same time, I won't recognize anything."

"How are we gonna' get back?" Lore asked, a hint of fear in her voice.

"I... I don't know." Draco couldn't help but think that all of this was his fault. He remembered what Kindle would have said to that (and then he realized that Lore would probably say the same thing): "Of course its not your fault; if anything, it's mine". And the last thing Draco wanted Lore to think was that this was this was her fault, so he decided not to voice that thought.

Lore suggested, "Maybe we should look around, I mean we might find something to tell us where we are."

"I guess that's a good idea," said Draco, picking up the treasure bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "Can you walk?"

"I think so," she replied, hoisting herself to her feet, slowly at first, and then more quickly as her confidence in her legs grew.

For the first time, Draco took note of his surroundings. He and Lore were in a small meadow completely surrounded by trees. A narrow dirt trail cut through the middle of the clearing and entered the forest on earthier side.

"Well," Draco said, glancing down at Lore, "left or right?"

"Dose it mater?" she asked back.

"No, but we gota' start somewhere, and your guess's as good as mine."

"All right then, left."

"Sure you don't want to go right?"

She glared at him

"Ok, we can go left." Draco said, turning to lead the way. Behind his back, Lore rolled her eyes.

They had not been walking for long, probably no more than ten minutes, when they came into another clearing that was strangely similar to the last one.

"We aren't walking in circles, are we?" inquired Lore.

"No, I don't think so. The last clearing had a couple of large rocks; this one doesn't. Besides, the trees are thicker." Draco stated with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

"What do you think you're doing here?" hissed a voice from the trees across the glade. Though the voice was gruff, it sounded effeminate.

"Who's there?" yelped Draco and Lore.

No response.

Out of habit, Draco immediately started using his aura vision to sense who was talking, but there was no one else anywhere near the clearing. The next moment, a black figure leaped from between the trees to stand on four legs in front of them.

It appeared to be a normal houndoom in all but two ways. First, its aura, as Draco observed, was more like a rock's than a living thing's. And second, it appeared to have stepped out of a black-and-white photo. Although houndoom didn't have much color to start with, their muzzle and underside were usually a red-brown color, but on her, (the houndoom's horns were rather small, indicating that it was a female) they were just another shade of gray.

"We'll just be leaving," Draco announced.

"You aren't going anywhere." snarled the houndoom. As if that was a cue, five houndour, also grayscale, jumped from the trees, completely surrounding Lore and Draco.

The chances of them making it out of here without fighting were next to nothing, so Draco decided to make the first move. He shoved the houndoom backwards, effectively throwing her off balance and making her stumble. This gave him a few seconds to take out the houndour minions. He spun to the right to nock out the first one with a firm punch to the chest, then turned 180 degrees and kicked a second on the flank as it tried to sneak past. It had been a while since he had even tried fighting, though, and he had gotten a little sloppy. Another houndour bit into his out-stretched arm; it felt like it's teeth were on fire, but Draco managed to grab it by the scruff of it's neck, and, using both arms, hurled it into the top of a tree. All of this happened in about five seconds.

Suddenly, he remembered Lore. She was fending off a forth houndour, slashing at it's face to keep it a bay, and Draco charged and released an aura sphere, knocking it back into a tree trunk. Too late to do anything, Draco realized that the fifth and last houndour was charging behind her, but Lore noticed as well. The horn on the side of her head glowed red as she swung around and slammed it into the houndour, knocking it out. Draco found it hard to contain his surprise

This left the houndoom, who had just recovered from falling. Draco charged an aura sphere, and he released it as she leaped at him. She was thrown backwards, knocked out. Then the oddest thing happened: black steam was coming off of her — No! she was turning into the black steam; she was evaporating. Soon, there was just forest flor. Right at that point, Lore and Draco noticed that none of the houndour were here anymore ether; the same thing must have happened to them.

"Wow" said a soft, young voice from behind them.

Draco and Lore turned to the entrance to the glade through which they had come. They had an audience: a riolu, no more than six years of age, with big eyes and a red bandana tied around her neck.

Seconds later, an alakazam appeared farther up the path. "Lore! There you are. You need to stop running away!" Lore was surprised that this alakazam would know her name, and the riolu, startled, spun around and started backing up defensively.

"I'm not running away, I'm exploring" she insisted.

"Well how did you get so far away from Treasure Town?" the alakazam inquired. His voice sounded male.

"Um," the riolu stared at her feet, obviously not wanting to reveal how she got here, "I walked."

"Nice try."

"I took the ferry."

"Did you pay?"

"...No."

The alakazam shook his head and muttered something under his breath.

At this point, Lore realized something. "Your name's Lore?"

The riolu nodded.

"So's mine."

The riolu's eyes lit up at this.

"Did you say you came from Treasure Town?" Draco asked the alakazam.

"Yes."

"Could you tell us how to get there?"

"Yea," he said turning and pointing down the path, "Fallow this. Take two lefts, a right, then another left, and you'll come to a small settlement. You may have to hurry, but you can catch a ferry that'll take you there."

"Thanks"

"Actually, could I ask you a favor?"

"I guess so, what?"

"Could you take Lore back to her house in treasure town? I have some other things I need to do, dangerous things, and I don't want her hurt."

"Her?" Draco asked, pointing to the riolu.

"Yea, all you really have to do is make sure she gets there; she knows the way."

"Sure"

"Name's Derek, by the way"

"Mine's Draco"

a/n: And now I have the problem of two characters with same name. Oh-well, I have the same problem in real life, so I'll be able to handle it. Like I said, I'm hoping to have chapter 3 done by New-Year's Eve, but I wright slow, so it might not happen.
Please review, but read the reviews section in my profile first. And if you see any glaring mistakes, please tell me.