Good gravy I forgot how quickly fics got buried in this section. Mur well.

On with the fic!


"Momma! Daddy!" Silverspit cried, crawling with all his might. He could see the forms of the two Butterfree flying away, but no matter how fast he ran, he never seemed to get closer. "Come back!"

Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps next to him, and turned to see some other Caterpies crawling toward the Butterfree as well. Immediately he recognized them as his siblings, Willowing and Munch.

"Mother!" they cried out in unison.

Silverspit stopped running.

Their voices didn't sound right. Why didn't they sound like his brothers?

"Mother!"

The voices were echoed, and didn't sound like the voices of Caterpies. It didn't sound like anything he'd ever heard before.

"Mother!"

This time, it was followed by some other strange noises. Silverspit crouched low to the ground, eyes wide. What was wrong? That couldn't be his brothers! What was making the noise?

The noise continued to echo on, and the little Caterpie tried to ignore it. He could still see the forms of his parents up ahead, and started running again. "Momma! Daddy! Come back! I'm scared...!"

But over his cries, the haunting sounds continued.


Silverspit opened his eyes to the sight of sunlight poking between the leaves of the rhododendron. Blinking, he stood up, looking around. Something was different... But what...

Suddenly he stood upright. "Protector?" he gasped, looking around again. The Cubone was nowhere in sight.

Now starting to panic, the Caterpie darted out from under the plant. "Protector! Where'd you—"

He stopped. She was sitting a few feet away, her back toward him.

"...Oh, you're awake now." Her voice sounded rough. "Good morning."

"G'mornin'..." Silverspit replied, ducking down a little. "R'you okay?"

Protector turned to face him. Again, it was hard to judge her expression because of that hat she wore, but he could tell that something looked different. On closer examination, he noticed that there were dark lines by the eye-holes in her hat.

"I'm all right," she replied, standing up. "I was just waiting for you to wake up..."

"Oh." The Caterpie shifted his feet uncomfortably. "C'n I have some berries...?"

Protector hesitated for a moment before looking into the sack of berries that she'd been carrying. She pulled out a Pecha and rolled it over to him, then dropped the bundle of leaves.

"Thanks!" Silverspit relaxed a little and began to munch on the berry, glad to be able to eat one of his favorite berries right after waking up. As he ate, though, he watched Protector, and was a little confused to see that she wasn't getting some berries for herself. "...R'you gonna eat?"

The Cubone shouldered her bone. "That's the last berry," she said quietly.

Immediately the Caterpie froze, eyes widening. After a moment or two, he backed away from the berry and looked down at a pebble on the ground. "You c'n have the rest..."

Protector wordlessly picked up the berry and stuck it under her hat. "We'll need to find our own food now," she said, looking away. "So tell me if you smell anything."

"...'Kay." Silverspit's antennae twitched, but he couldn't smell anything nearby, other than the faint scent of berries that still remained on the bundle of leaves. He crawled up to it and began to nibble on it. "I'm still hungry..."

Protector sighed. "Go ahead 'n eat... then we'll keep going."

The Caterpie tried to hold back a whimper as he ate. It looked like their journey to the mountains was going to be a lot more difficult than he thought.


"Call my name if you find anything!" she'd told him.

But Silverspit had been wandering around for a while, and he hadn't found any berries... Or, at least, it seemed to him like he'd been out for a while. There were starting to get less and less trees, too.

It made him nervous... Every little sound startled him, and he was afraid that some big Flying-type or another Dunsparce or something was going to try to eat him again. Protector said she would help him, but how could she do it if she wasn't there?

Suddenly he stood upright on his tail, his antennae twitching. That smelled like an Oran plant! Grinning, he dropped down onto all fours and darted toward the source of the smell. It wasn't long before a familiar plant came into sight—the same kind of plant that he and his brothers had been eating before they'd gotten separated. It looked so delicious!

Silverspit stopped at the base of the plant and looked up. There were about three or four delicious-looking berries there. He was so excited that he almost forgot that he wasn't supposed to eat these right away—Protector needed to eat, too!

"Protector!" he called, turning around and glancing around. But, much to his confusion, the Cubone was nowhere nearby. "Protector!" he called again. Still no answer.

Frowning, he turned back to the plant and looked up at it. He probably couldn't get these berries down by himself... He began to crawl up the plant, then got an idea, and crawled up to the very top. Once there, he stood up as high as he could, looking around. "Protector!" But there was no sign of the Cubone.

Silverspit's heart sank. Where was she...? Slowly he lowered himself back to his feet—

—and shrieked when a Pidgeot swooped by him, barely missing.

"I'm sorry, Andy! I'll get him this time!"

Silverspit climbed down to the middle of the plant, trying to hide himself amongst the leaves. That was about all he could do—he was almost immobile from fear. No, no, no! I can't get eaten! I need to be a Butterfree! Protector, where are you?

Suddenly, he heard something that filled him with even more terror.

A strange noise, one that he'd never heard before, sounded somewhere off in the distance. It reminded him of someone talking, but it wasn't any words he understood. It almost sounded like gibberish—except one phrase:

"Wing Attack!"

The Caterpie screamed and dove out of the bush, just as the Pidgeot slashed through the tree using a powerful attack. He didn't stop when he hit the ground—he kept running as fast as his tiny feet would carry him, blind with terror. "PROTECTOR!" he screamed. "HELP ME!"

He could hear the strange voice again, and another phrase he recognized: "Peck!"

Immediately he rolled to the side, but still shrieked when the Pidgeot's beak grazed him. The sharp beak sliced into his side, sending him writhing in agony. He couldn't even shout for help anymore—he could only gag and watch in terror as the massive bird swooped at him again, beak open wide.

What took place next happened too fast for him to see. The bird suddenly dropped from the sky and slammed, hard, to the ground, a stone landing next to it. The Caterpie could hear the sound of snarling, followed by the sound of claws tearing through grass.

Protector was soon there at the Pidgeot's side, and she wasted no time in raising her bone into the air and slamming it into the bird's head.

Silverspit was in too much pain to register just what she'd done, and he was further confused by the Pidgeot's becoming enveloped in red light, and suddenly disappearing. Slowly he looked over to where he'd heard the strange voice before, and in dull surprise noticed a strange Pokémon there. It stood on two legs, and it was very tall and skinny. It also had strange fur and skin that seemed to mismatch, somehow...

Before he could think too long on this, Protector stood in front of him, holding her bone up threateningly. The other strange Pokémon stared at them for a while before tossing something. Suddenly a Masquerain was flying there, looking at them. The strange Pokémon said something, and the Masquerain flew up to them.

"What are you doing?" he asked, lowering his decorative antennae to show that he meant no harm. "Why are you protecting the Cater—"

"Get… away," Protector growled. Her breathing was ragged.

"Andy just wants to know."

The Cubone gave a wild snarl, chucking her bone at the Masquerain. Before it could make contact, the Pokémon was enveloped in red light, and, like the Pidgeot did before, disappeared.

Protector caught her bone and stared at the strange Pokémon, who stared back for a moment before walking away. The Cubone kept her eye on the spot where the creature had disappeared between the trees, and clenched her bone tightly. She was starting to tremble.

"P-pro... tec..." Silverspit managed to choke out, but started when the Ground-type suddenly dropped to her knees. "Huh...?"

She covered what little could be seen of her face through her hat, and began to cry.

The little Caterpie started. That's... that's the sound I heard in my dream...! It was... Protector... crying...?

Tears dripped from the eye holes in her hat, staining the same spots they had the night before. At the same time, the cries echoed through her hat, causing a combination of an odd rattling and a haunting sound, which continued for a long while after the strange Pokémon had left.


"I... I guess I should tell you what happened."

Protector had gathered up the Oran berries and some others that she'd found, and carried them and Silverspit away. She'd made him eat some of the Oran berries, which had helped his cut a lot, and made him feel much better.

Now they were in a different spot, and there were even less trees than before. This was still a scary thing for Silverspit, but there was something weighing more heavily on his mind.

"Wh-why... why did you cry?"

Protector looked away. "You saw the thing, didn't you? The thing that was ordering the Pokémon around?"

Silverspit blinked. "But... I-I thought it was a Pokémon!"

Somehow, she didn't snap at him this time. "It's not. It... it's something called a human." She looked him in the eye. "I said there were worse things out there than Pokémon..."

"R' humans... that bad?" The Caterpie pressed himself lower to the ground, looking around as though expecting to see another one of these "humans" wandering around.

The Cubone began to shiver again, but shook her head, fighting to keep control. "Yes. They steal Pokémon and make them do bad things. Like the human that tried to make his Pidgeot eat you."

Silverspit cringed and whimpered.

"And... they..." Protector drew a deep breath, looking up into the evening sky. "One... one human stole my mother."

"Huh?" Silverspit gasped, sitting upright. "Why?"

"I don't know!" Protector threw out her arms. "I don't know! But he did! And... and he..." She was starting to shake again, and her voice sounded more choked. "He... he found me later... and he told my mother to fight me."

"No!" The Caterpie shook his head, tears stinging at his eyes. "No! Moms can't do that! My mom wouldn't..." He began whimpering at the thought.

"She... she didn't want to... She told me to fight her. She... wanted to lose..." The Cubone swallowed. "...to... protect me..."

Silverspit went quiet.

"She... the human was mad at her... he wanted her to keep fighting... but she couldn't fight me... and I couldn't fight her...!" She shook her head. "So she tried to fight the human!"

Silverspit looked up. "Did she beat 'im?"

Protector stared at him. "...No," she said weakly. "The trainer sent out one of his other Pokémon... who f-fought Mother, a-and..."

The Caterpie stared for a moment, and his eyes widened in horror. "B-but... but moms can't do that...! They can't... Th-they're always okay! They j-just get lost... sometimes..."

"My mother wasn't okay," Protector said quietly. "Th-this thing I wear... i-it's not just a hat." Raising her claw, she tapped the side of it a few times. "It... it was my mother's... it w-was her skull."

After taking a second to process that, Silverspit backed away several steps. "B-but why...?"

"It's... what we do... Like how you Caterpies eat and eat and eat... Not all Pokémon do what you do, and not all Pokémon do what we do." She looked up into the sky again, as the sun began to set. "Not every Cubone t-turns into a Marrowak... Only if we have to t-take our m-mother's skull." She went silent for a moment before adding, her voice barely above a whisper. "I-I... I don't want to be a Marrowak..."

Silverspit gazed at her cautiously. "Why?"

"B-because..." A few tears rolled down her hat—the Marrowak's skull. "I want my mother."