It was three o'clock, and the sun was still shining bright. Richard and Tera were following a dirt path, neither of them knew where it would lead but they followed it anyway. Richard and Tera had given each other tips after the match they had, Tera had taught Richard how to defend himself from Pokemon while Richard taught Tera how to defend herself from humans.

Richard's bruises were now more visible but thankful most of them were on his torso so nobody could see them, not without lifting his shirt up anyway. Tera's soft fur was now covered in dirt but she didn't seem to mind. Richard was thinking about their little sparring match, he kept thinking how agile but powerful she was. He admired it.

Tera began to examine Richard's aura, the depression than she saw in him had almost vanished completely, replaced with happiness. 'Seems I wasn't the only one that enjoyed the fight,' she thought to herself.

Richard's mind went from his traveling companion to money, he only had 125 pokédollars left and that would probably only last one or two days.

"... Hey, did you hear that?" Tera asked.

"Hear what?" Richard replied, puzzled as to what she meant.

"It sounds like water."

Water was all Richard needed to hear. Since the fight, he felt thirsty, really thirsty. "Might be a waterfall or a spring. Can you find out where the noise is coming from?" Richard asked.

"Sure, follow me!" Tera then began running off into the woods, Richard followed closely behind her. They soon found themselves at a small waterfall, the view was amazing and the water defiantly looked clean enough to drink. Richard went over to the plunge pool which the waterfall had made and began to scoop up some of the water with his hands and drink it. Tera's first thought was to wash the dirt off her fur. Richard decided that now was a good time to take a small rest so he walked over to the shade of the tree and sat back on the grass.

After a while, Tera was still washing her fur in the cool water of the plunge pool and Richard was now fiddling about with his combat knife which he had taken out of the sheath at his boot. He examined his stainless steel knife closely, it was just like any other combat knife except that his had the letters 'CW' engraved on the end of its handle. He slid it back into the side of his boot when he noticed that Tera had came out of the plunge pool. Beads of water dripped off her as her wet fur clung to her body, giving him an even better view of her figure. "She looks so beautiful," he barely whispered under his breath. It was only when he let those words slip did he realize that he was attracted to her. However, he decided not to over think it. Richard got up, and decided to move back towards to the dirt road. He didn't want to move, but if he stayed, then he just might have kept staring. That would have been awkward for both of them.

4 hours later.

It was dark, and both Richard and Tera were tired of walking. Still, they followed the seemingly endless dirt road.

"Damn, doesn't look like we are going to reach a town tonight," Richard sighed

"What are we going to do then?" asked the lucario.

"Keep moving and hope we find some kind of shelter," Richard responded. He didn't realize it would be one more hour before they saw something that could be used for shelter. They stumbled upon an old ranger's cabin. "Looks abandoned," Richard commented.

"I wonder why they would leave it," Tera said.

"I don't know, but as long as the roof stays on it I don't really care," Richard said as he opened the creaky wooden door.

Richard and Tera walked into the cabin, it looked creepy, like something from a horror movie, it looked like it had been stripped of anything worth money. Richard didn't like it.

"This place is creepy as hell ,but this is probably the only shelter we are going to get," Richard said whilst moving into the corner of the cabin.

"It's cold in here," Tera said.

"Yeah, but it's better than sleeping outside," just as Richard said this, a cockroach crawled across the floor. Tera gave him a look like she was raising an eyebrow. "... Alright I was wrong." Richard admitted

"Are we even going to find some decent shelter?" Tera asked.

"I don't know but I think sleeping on the dirt road would be better than sleeping in this dump," Richard said as he watched the cockroach scuttle across the floor.

Richard and Tera both left the cabin and continued down the dirt road. Tera talked to Richard to pass the time.

"When did you become a mercenary?" the lucario asked.

"About three, maybe four years ago," Richard said

"So you were about twenty-one or twenty-two when you became a mercenary?" the lucario asked.

"Yeah, around about that age," Richard told her.

"Did you like being a mercenary?"

"No," Richard sharply replied.

"Why did you stay a mercenary then?" Tera asked with a hint of confusion in her voice.

"Because…" Richard thought about what he was going to say, would he tell her the truth and say he stayed on because he wanted to die? Because his life was worthless? He had to choose what to say.

"Because… do you remember when I told you about my friend? The one that died because I was too damn slow to react?" Richard's voice had both anger and sadness in it.

"Yes, I do," Tera replied.

"I stayed on so I could protect him." This was partly true, Carter was the most calm and level headed mercenary leader he had ever met. All the others were savages, or just plain stupid. They killed innocent civilians if they got in the way of the mission and just called it collateral damage, but not Carter. Richard figured if he kept Carter alive, then he could save lives that would be taken if the mission were carried out by one of the other merc leaders. But he mostly protected him because he became his friend over the years. His only friend.

"You stayed on risking your own life to protect your friend?" Tera asked.

"Yes."

"Didn't you care about your own life?" Tera asked with a vague look of shock on her face.

Richard thought about his answer again and decided it was best to tell the truth, he decided to tell her why he didn't care about his life.

"No. I was brought up in an orphanage so I didn't know of any family, so nobody was going to miss me if I died. When I reached eighteen I got mixed up in gangs, some of the members were talking about joining mercenary groups, but I didn't join. The next year fled the area after I killed most of the gang. I spent the next year traveling, surviving on whatever food I could find and sleeping in caves. Sometime later I knew that I wasn't going to last long living like that so I joined up with the mercenaries. On my first mission we were sent to take out a club owner in one of Johto's city's, Carter was leading the mission, the club had about fifteen big bodyguards all armed with pistols and machine guns. A lot of those bodyguards were ex-military, so they knew their way around a gun. We were a team of eight, and only three of us got out alive."

Richard paused for a moment, thinking back to that night. "Carter saved me on that mission, I had ran out of bullets and it was only me and this big bouncer guy in the room. Carter was fighting some other guys somewhere in the club with Dwayne who also survived that night. Anyways the big bouncer guy charged at me and pinned me to the wall, I sent my foot right between his legs but that just made him more angry, he grabbed my head and slammed it against one of the tables, I was stunned, and down on the ground. The bouncer then kicked me a few times in the stomach. The bouncer when off some where and I heard some glass breaking, I heard his foot steps coming towards me again but just as he reached me a gunshot went off and I heard his body hit the ground and before I knew it Carter was picking me up off the floor. I turned around and I saw the bouncer with a hole where his eye used to be and in his hand was a large broken vodka bottle. I owed Carter my life, so I promised to myself to always watch his back. Over the next few years we became like old war buddies, swapping stories, knocking back a few drinks. Hell, he even gave me a birthday gift."

Richard stopped his story to grab his knife. He nearly always had it on him. "Stainless steel, his initials are engraved at the end of the handle. Carter Wilson was his full name."

"Why did you kill the gang members?" Tera asked, still confused and intrigued by his personal history.

"Because they kidnapped a small girl… she was only six years old, she was frightened and wouldn't stop crying. The leader tried to stop her from crying… by punching her. When I saw his fist raised against that little girl, I lost control. I threw myself at him, pinned him on the ground and bashed his face in with my fist. I slammed his head against the concrete floor too. There was only me, the leader and one other gang member in that room, the other gang member tried punching and kicking me off him but I didn't move. I noticed that the leader had a pistol on him, so I grabbed that and shot the other gang member in the chest. The other gang members heard and came rushing in with weapons, mostly pipes, knives and wood pieces, thankfully there were enough bullets for all of them and I managed to get out of there alive. A lot of them ran away, but if they had kept on coming, I might not be standing here today. I dropped the girl off at the first police station I could find and ran off to flee the city."

Tera looked at Richard, stunned by his story. 'He's been through so much, but only cares about others,' Tera thought to herself, she could see justice and determination in his aura and she admired him for it. "You're a strong caring person Richard, don't think otherwise," she said to Richard, hoping it would cheer him up.

Richard raised his head a little, he was glad she thought of him that way. "Thanks," he said before giving a little smile. Both Richard and Tera looked onwards and now began to see a town in the distance.

Author's note: Less editing to do on this one than on the previous chapters, but still quite a bit. Edited it to make it flow better and added in a few lines. This story is gonna be quite a bit bigger than it already is if I keep editing like this for every chapter, not that I mind. XD Anyway, thank you all for reading again! Hope you like the next chapter.