Chapter 7: Here We Go Again


"Well, I'm happy to hear that you decided to take the challenge after all Cinder," Scott said, his face flickering slightly over the video chat.

Cinder nodded and smiled at him. "Well, I was a bit…apprehensive at first to accept, but I finally decided that this was probably the right thing to do. Well, after my little brother helped to kick some sense into me."

"Either way, I don't think you'll regret your decision, especially after a couple of battles with my Frontier Brains, haha. I'll go ahead and send you the location of the first Battle Facility."

There was a beeping sound, followed quickly by a rather loud and annoying sequence of high-pitched electronic noises as a sheet of paper slid out from the base of the screen. Cinder waited a few seconds for the ink to dry fully, before snatching up the paper.

"Thanks Scott. I'll be sure to try my best in your Battle Frontier."

Scott grinned. "Now that's the kind of enthusiasm I'm looking for. Good luck with your first battle, Cinder. Who knows, you might even see me there to watch you fight~"

Chuckling to himself, Scott pressed a button on his monitor, ending the chat and making Cinder's screen flicker and fade to black. She didn't pay much attention to it though, as she was busy reading where she was headed for.

Metallica Island, eh? Well then, it looks like I'm headed for the Seafoam Islands!


Damon sighed and tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator continued its snail crawl up to the top floor. Personally, he hated the thing. Not only was it slower than a Slakoth trying to run a marathon, but it was a tiny, confined box suspended in the air hundreds of feet above the ground. And he was powerless to do anything if the cable snapped for some reason. If there was one thing that set him on edge, it was not having some sort of control over his situation.

Finally, after an eternity and a half, the elevator came to a grinding halt, and he practically ripped the doors open in his haste to get out of the metal deathtrap. Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself back down, he couldn't help but curse quietly at the transporter. It was a pity the elevator was the only way to get to the top floor office where his Boss was.

His calm and collected self restored, he began to walk forward, his shoes echoing off of the stone floor. As he made his way towards Dianne's desk, his eyes involuntarily swept across the room, taking in the picture around him. The room itself was rather impressive. The floor was covered in some sort of shiny green and black stone, while four marble pillars helped to support the higher-than-normal ceiling. The walls, meanwhile, were covered with various pieces of artwork that Damon could only assume were expensive, and the walls to his right and left also had two large windows each overlooking the city below and adding some natural light into the space.

At the far end of the hall, in front of the door leading to his boss's office, sat a large, oak desk that took up about half of the width of the room around it. And sitting behind the desk, typing at her computer, sat Dianne.

Dianne wasn't your stereotypical secretary. Instead of being some sort of older, gray-haired granny, Dianne was a blonde, twenty-eight-year-old, although Damon suspected that she was secretly a bit older than that. After all, a twenty-eight-year-old would never have enough experience to hold the one of the highest positions within the organization. Still, she had somehow passed all of her older colleagues and had been promoted to top dog fairly early on in her career. And that had been over a year ago. Since then, she had successfully managed to oversee most of the operations of the company, and had even played a big part in the seventeen percent increase in revenue they had achieved. She seemed to be perfect in almost every way. She never messed up in her duties, always got things done before they were do, and successfully accomplished any pressing task the Boss gave her.

Damon despised her.

When he had first met her, Damon knew instantly that the two of them weren't going to like each other. And he had been right. The two of them had been butting heads almost since she got her promotion. Dianna didn't like Damon's way of getting things done. She criticized him at every turn, pointing out all of his flaws and mistakes. Damon, meanwhile, couldn't stand how she was Little Miss Perfect. He purposefully went out of his way sometimes to screw something up, like throwing her computer off of the back of his Aerodactyl or "accidentally" mixing up the papers in worker's mailboxes so they got the wrong forms and paperwork.

As these thoughts were going though Damon's head, he reached Dianne's desk, making him stop in his tracks. Sighing to himself in his head, he crossed his arms and waited for Dianne to notice him.

Dianne, for her part, did a fairly good job of ignoring him. Her eyes never left the screen of her computer even as she chatted away with someone via a headset attached to right side of her head. Apparently, they had screwed up some shipping forms, and now she was having to go through the computer and redo all of the forms herself.

Finally, after she had shouted at the poor soul on the other end of the line for another fifteen minutes, she clicked her headset off. Without even looking at Damon, she said, "You're late again, Mr. Kione."

Damon simply shrugged at her remark. "I only just heard about it now, Dianne. Your little intern or whatever she was that you sent to find me didn't know her way around at all."

"So now it's the intern's fault, is it Mr. Kione? Well, we would have sent someone else to find you, but right now everyone is busy having to deal with the mess you created with your latest scandal. Congratulations Mr. Kione, you've managed to drag the National Pokémon League Committee, the G-Men, and many other high ranking representatives of the Dragon Clan into multiple investigations our dealings."

Damon winced slightly despite himself. "Well, what was I supposed to do? Lead the Champion of Johto to our front door?"

"You were supposed to complete your mission without being detected," Dianne responded, sounding like she was explaining something that she had already explained before. "And within that regard, you failed Mr. Kione."

Damon set his hands on her desk and leaned forward, getting closer to Dianne. "Look, I honestly don't care what you think. The only opinion of my job that matters is the Boss's, and he's perfectly fine with me as long as I get him what he wants. Your job is to clean up the mess. Now then, I believe that we've let the Boss wait long enough. You better let me go through before he starts to get really angry."

Dianne finally tore her eyes away from her computer screen to glare at Damon, who smiled back at her. Sliding her glasses back up from the bridge of her nose, she quietly said, "Mark my words, Mr. Kione. One day your antics will end up costing you big time. And don't expect the Boss to bail you out. One slip up and you're done."

Smiling slightly, Dianne spun to her left on her chair and pressed a button underneath a built in speaker in the desk. "Mr. Blackburn? Mr. Kione is here for his meeting."

There was a brief pause, and then the speaker crackled to life. "Let him in," the voice said through a slight cloud of static.

"You heard the man," Dianne said, rolling back to her computer. "Get going and let me get some work done."

Damon grumbled something about her not having to have stopped working if she had just let him through, but quickly passed the desk and opened the large, mahogany door that led to the Boss's office before Dianne could yell at him again.

Closing the door quietly behind him, Damon was slightly surprised at how dark the room was that he found himself in. The only light came from a small lamp that was sitting on a desk in the back of the room, which illuminated the papers on the desk and the desk itself, but that was about it. From his previous times in the office, Damon knew that there were two windows on the far wall behind the desk, but he also knew that his boss liked to block out the light from the outside when he was trying to work out a big and complicated problem.

There was a squeaking sound from the darkness behind the desk, followed by a sigh. "Please come in, Damon," a man said from the darkness, his voice laced with weariness.

Damon obeyed the orders and shuffled forward cautiously, his eyes darting back and forth in the darkness. "You wanted to see me Mr. Blackburn?"

The man in the darkness grunted. "Of course I wanted to see you. I need to bring you up to speed on your missions."

Damon nodded. This was usual for him. A few days after he came back from a mission his boss would send him out on his next one, but first he would always call the thief into his office so he could brief him. He had never called him so early though.

"Let me cut to the chase Damon, simply because I'm tired and I don't feel like partaking in useless small talk right now. Your latest mission has caused us quite a few problems."

Damon gulped quietly, wondering where his boss was going with this. Blackburn continued, either ignoring the gulp or not hearing it. "You've attracted lots of unwanted attention to us. The Pokemon League is in a frenzy because Lance has disappeared. Right now I'm not sure if it's better if they find him alive and he tells them about us or they find him dead and there's a massive manhunt to find you. We're doing everything we can to help smooth the issue over and plant false trails, but frankly it's all turning into a giant mess."

"I'm sorry sir," Damon muttered. "They had a hidden sensor that I didn't detect in the floor until it was too late."

There was another sigh from the shadows. "I guess what's done is done. There's no use in focusing too much on what has already transpired. But take this incident and turn it into a learning experience. I don't want another fiasco like this again."

"Yes sir," Damon said, his eyes trained on the barely distinguishable floorboards from the light of the lamp.

"Now then, onto your next mission." At this, Damon's head snapped up, and he stared into the shadows with a look of confusion on his face. "Before you ask, yes, you're heading back out. Your Aerodactyl has already been healed by our top medics, and should be good for your flight. The main reason I'm sending you out though is because with all this confusion you've caused, it may be best if we cause some more to make them focus on multiple cases at once. And it also serves as a bit of a punishment as an added bonus."

"…Alright sir," Damon said quietly. "Where am I headed for?"

A pale hand suddenly extended from the shadows into the light of the lamp, holding a brown folder. Damon took a few steps forward and took the file, opening up to show various pictures with notes scribbled on bits of paper next to them, as well as some official-looking files barely discernable in the light of the lamp. Most of them depicted an island of some sort, with the most prominent feature of it being a large volcano in the very center.

"Cinnabar Island?" Damon asked, recognizing the pictures. There was a sound of shifting fabric from the shadows, which he assumed was a nod.

"Yes, Cinnabar Island. It's located in south-west Kanto near the Seafoam Islands. Although I'm sure you already know all of this."

"What exactly is the target this time?" Damon asked, scanning over the file.

"Your target is an item called the Mystic Water. There should be a picture of it in there somewhere. Some of our agents have reported that it is in the possession of some sort of traveling water circus. Your mission is to discover where it is being hidden, and then retrieve it. You may use any distraction you wish, but you are not to be seen. If you are linked to the two different thefts, then things will become extremely difficult for us. So difficult in fact that I may be forced to cut you as a loss. I don't wish to do that Damon, but I can't have you messing up. Do you understand?"

Damon gulped again. "Y-yes sir," he said, silently cursing himself for stammering.

"Good," Blackburn said with a weary sigh. "Now get going. I want you in the air in less than half an hour. You've already stalled enough by being late to our meeting."

"Yes sir," Damon said once again. Spinning around, he headed back towards the door of the office, the mission file tucked under his arm and his mind racing about a thousand miles an hour.

One thing was for sure though: he was not going to screw up this mission.


Typhlosion lay silently on his medical bed, staring lazily at his Trainer. Cinder was packing her last few things into an orange backpack, trying to shove as much stuff as she possibly could into the carrying device. Pushing down hard on the top of it, she just barely managed to squeeze the zipper shut, which was already straining to keep her stuff inside.

"I need to pack a bit lighter…" she mumbled, regretfully opening up her bag again, which almost immediately spilled half of its contents onto her bed. Sighing, she spent another ten minutes shifting through her stuff again, leaving behind a few things she decided she could go without, like a flashlight and a few of the extra clothes she had packed. Her sorting proved to be successful though, as the bag zipped shut easily without the few extra things.

"Alright, that's all good to go," she mumbled, brushing some hair out of her face. Her efforts proved to be useless though, as the red strands simply fell back into place, making her sigh in frustration. Pulling out her hair tie, the rest of her messy hair came undone from its usual ponytail, which ended up falling to her shoulders and back. Putting the tie around her wrist, she messed with her hair with her hands for a few seconds, ruffling it a bit and making sure that was all laying somewhat flat. Then she pulled it back with both hands, and in a few quick movements, undid the hair tie from around her wrist and back into place around her hair.

Walking over to her mirror, she sighed as she saw that it was already coming undone, her unruly hair refusing to cooperate with her. Looking into the mirror, she couldn't help but notice her choice in clothing for her latest journey. Indeed, it was basically the same style of clothes she had worn for the past five years. She had donned her usual t-shirt: a slightly tight, black article of clothing with a picture of a fireball on her chest. She had also chosen to go with her orange skirt that went down to her knees for today, as well as her black belt. The newest part about her clothing for this adventure though, was a pair of black and orange-rimmed fingerless gloves that she knew would come in handy. Hopefully her palms wouldn't get as scratched up now when she had to climb something or break a fall with her hands.

Still, as she looked at her attire, she couldn't help but to frown at herself.

I need a new outfit, she thought to herself, rubbing the hem of her skirt with her hand. I look like some sort of Flannery wannabe. And a bad one at that.

Sighing, she pushed the thought out of her mind. There wasn't any time for her to go try and find a new traveling outfit at this point and time, so she'd just have to make the best of it. But she made a quick mental note that the next time she was home, she'd go looking for something else to wear.

Grabbing her pack, she turned around and faced Typhlosion, smiling at her oldest partner. Typhlosion began to rise from his makeshift bed, but was quickly stopped when Cinder put her hand on his head, pushing him back down.

"Typhlo," he growled, shaking her hand off and looking quizzically at her.

Cinder sighed. "Look Typhlosion, I know you want to go with me and everything, but I'm not sure if that's the best idea. I mean, you're still recovering from that battle with Cole and everything. So you're going to be staying here for a while to recover."

Typhlosion snorted and rolled his eyes. In an attempt to prove Cinder wrong, he began to rise from his bed, but Cinder stopped him once again.

"See? If I can push you back down like that you're in no condition to be traveling."

Typlosion grumbled in annoyance. Still, he didn't bother trying to sit back up again, which Cinder took as a sign that he wouldn't do something stupid like try to follow her. Sighing again, Cinder bent down and wrapped her arms around the Fire-type, burying her face in his blue fur.

"You know I don't want to leave you behind, right?" she asked, her voice slightly muffled from his fur. Typhlosion didn't respond, choosing instead to stare at the blank, white walls of the room, his ears flicking lazily in the air.

Standing back up, she ran her hand across his fur, reminiscing some of their past ventures. "Just focus on getting better for right now, yeah? Don't worry; I'm sure I'll be calling on you sooner rather than later. I'm definitely going to need your help if I stand any chance at beating all of those Frontier Brains."

She paused, waiting for some sort of reaction from Typhlosion. To her surprise though, the Fire-type didn't appear to react to her speech at all. Raising an eyebrow, she opened her mouth to ask what was wrong with him, when she noticed that his eyes were closed.

Rolling her eyes, she couldn't help but smile. Deciding not to disturb her resting friend, she shouldered her pack, and tip-toed out of her room into the hallway. Closing the door with a small squeak, she made her way down the hall, going right past the stairs and straight to the two doors leading to her brothers' rooms.

Originally, the larger of the two rooms had belonged to Cole, but since he had already set out on his journey when they moved, Blayze quickly took advantage of his absence and claimed the larger room for himself. Of course, that didn't go over well with Cole when he actually came home for the first time, but it ended up all working out in the end. Cole didn't use his room much anyway, as he rarely came home more than a few days a year. As a result, his room was pretty bare, with only a few trophies and souvenirs from his travels lining a shelf on his wall to add any sort of hominess to it.

As always, the door to Cole's room was shut, and Blayze's was wide open, a shirt hanging off the inside doorknob. Inside, the room was a mess. Clothes, old toys, and junk was scattered everywhere. One literally couldn't take a step inside without stepping on something in the process.

Inside, Blayze was looking through the pile of clothes that was spilling out of his closet. As he searched, he simply threw the unwanted pieces of clothing behind him as he tried to find the specific article he was looking for, only adding to the mess already on the floor. Besides him, Houndoom was also in his room, lounging on Blayze's unmade bed next to an empty pizza box and a few comic books.

Noticing Cinder approaching, Houndoom raised his head and gave a warning growl. Blayze paused in his searching to see what had worried his Pokémon, and his eyes immediately narrowed when he saw Cinder.

"What do you want?" he asked coldly, straightening up and crossing his arms.

Cinder sighed. "I need to talk to you, Blayze."

Blayze snorted. "Yeah, right. Just like how you 'talked' to me yesterday? Or back when you were all depressed from your battle with Cole? No, I'm done talking to you. Go take your problems somewhere else."

"No, that's not what I meant," Cinder said, taking a step forward into the clutter. She didn't get very far though, as Houndoom growled again. It was a clear warning that she was not to get any closer to his Trainer.

Blayze rolled his eyes and threw an old shirt at Houndoom, which hit the dog square in the face and continued to hang there, stuck on one of his horns. "Geeze, lighten up a bit, would you? Yeah, I'm still mad at her, but that doesn't mean we're going to attack her." Turning back to his sister, he said, "Well, what is it that has forced the high and mighty Cinder to end up talking to me?" he asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Look, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, okay?"

Blayze just stared at her, not showing any signs of hearing her apology. After a few seconds of silence, he simply said, "So?"

Cinder blinked. "So? Um…well…I'm not really sure what you're asking."

Blayze turned away from his sister, and once again began shifting through the pile of clothes in front of him. He didn't have as much gusto as he had before though, and it seemed more as a task to keep him busy than having a real purpose. "So what? Why should I care if you're sorry or not? It doesn't change what happened. It won't stop you from doing it in the future. If people simply can do anything they want and then get off the hook with a simple sorry, they're just going to go back and do it all over again."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Cinder asked, exasperated. "What can I do to show you that I'm sorry?"

"You could always clean my room," he suggested, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he pulled out a pair of putrid smelling shorts.

"I mean realistically," Cinder said, trying to help lighten the mood a bit.

Blayze sighed and shook his head. Without warning, he suddenly twisted around and threw the pair of shorts at Cinder. The clothing smacked against her face, startling her. Backpedaling away from the unexpected blow, she ended up tripping on something underfoot, lost her balance, and fell. She landed with a thud in the clutter on Blayze's floor, crushing the stuff under her.

"What the hell?" she shouted, peeling the shorts off of her face and flinging them as far away as she could. On the other side of the room, Blayze was trying, and failing, to hold in a bout of laughter.

"What was that all about?" Cinder growled, glaring at her brother.

"You can say that we're even now," Blayze said, grinning now. "Consider it payback for hitting me before. Plus, you know I'm horrible at being mad at people for too long."

Cinder took a few deep breaths to try to calm herself down, which turned out to be a bad idea. She ended up gagging from the smell of something under her. Scrambling to her feet, she took a few deep breaths of air that wasn't so rotten smelling. "So do you forgive me now?"

Blayze sighed. "Yeah, I guess so. Just try not to get all depressed-Cinder again, yeah? Next time I'm just going to send Houndoom over there to cheer you up."

"Doom," Houndoom barked, grinning at Cinder as he managed to tear the shirt from his horn.

Cinder laughed. "I'll keep that in mind." Looking around his cluttered room, she spied Blayze's backpack hanging off of his bed spilling its contents out onto the floor. What caught her attention about it though, was the fact that it also had fresh-looking food next to it, a rarity for something in his room. "Are you leaving or something?"

"Yeah," Blayze said, resuming his rummaging. "I told you before, I was staying for the Festival, but then I was leaving after it. I'm off to Sinnoh. You figured out what you're doing yet?"

"Thanks to you," Cinder replied, making her way carefully over to his bag. "I'm going to take the Battle Frontier challenge."

"Good. You would have been an idiot to have passed—Aha!"

With a triumphant cheer Blayze dug a headband out of the pile of clothes. It was mainly black, but the bottom had dancing red flames going all the way across the edge of it. Tossing it in the general direction of his bag, he said, "Hey, do you mind picking some of that stuff up that fell out of my bag? A certain dog knocked it over when he was climbing up onto my bed, and is too lazy to help clean."

"Hound," Houndoom barked, his pointed tail swishing in the air behind him.

Cinder glanced down at the stuff Blayze had packed. Luckily, he had decided to take mostly new and cleaner items on his journey, and it was easy to see what he had packed before. Kneeling down, she picked up the few stray items that had fallen out, and placed them one by one on the bed. She only got about halfway through picking them up though, when something caught her eye.

"What's this?" she asked, pulling a few photographs out from underneath a red sweater. There were three of them. The first one had a picture with Blayze and three other people: two boys and one girl. He had the blonde-haired boy in a headlock, while the brown-haired girl stood close by, laughing as the boy tried to get out of Blayze's grip. The second boy, this one with black hair, stood a little ways away, his arms crossed in front of him and rolling his eyes. Still, he was smiling at the scene before him.

The second picture had another boy along with Blayze. Instead of joking around and having fun, however, Blayze seemed to be angry at the silver-haired boy next to him, as his fists were clenched and he was glaring at him. The silver-haired boy, however, didn't seem fazed at all. Cinder couldn't tell much from his expression, as he was turning away from the camera and his hair covered the half of his face that was in the picture. But his posture suggested he was fairly relaxed, which was the complete opposite in terms of the way her brother appeared to be acting.

The third picture, however, was the one that Cinder found to be the most interesting. Blayze wasn't in this picture. Rather, it was a girl with dirty blond hair all by herself, smiling and waving cheerfully at the camera. The interesting part about it though, was there seemed to be some sort of note on the back of the picture, the loopy lettering unmistakably female.

"What are you doing?" Blayze shouted, startling Cinder. She barely managed to get a glimpse of a heart at the end of the note on the picture before Blayze snatched all three out of her hand, blushing furiously.

"Who's that in the picture Blayze?" Cinder asked, giving her brother a knowing smile.

"N-No one!" he said, stuffing the three pictures unceremoniously into his bag and zipping it shut. "J-Just my friends, you know? Derek, Sara, and Cody."

Cinder rolled her eyes. "You know that wasn't the picture I was asking about. And before you tell me about the one with you glaring at Ace, that's not the one I was talking about either. Who's that girl?"

"I-I-I don't know what you're talking about!" he said, his voice practically shouting out the last sentence. Before Cinder could say anything else, Blayze quickly spun her around and began pushing her towards the door. "I-I need to finish packing. Long journey, need to figure out what I'm taking, all that fun stuff. So go away and let me finish packing. I-I'll be down soon."

And with that, he shoved Cinder out into the hall, scrambled to grab a hold of his doorknob, and quickly slammed his door shut.


Half an hour later, Blayze came downstairs, his face still slightly red. His red bag was slung over his shoulder, part of a shirt sticking out from where he couldn't get the zipper shut all the way.

"About time you got down here," Cinder said. "I was just about to head off before I got to say goodbye."

"Yeah, sorry," he said, his eyes avoiding Cinder's. "I couldn't find my sleeping bag anywhere."

"Well you're not the one who has a boat to catch. It's leaving tomorrow, and I'm barely going to get there on time even with using Mom's Pidgeot. I have to fly all the way to Olivine you know."

"Then what are you doing standing here talking to me then? Get going!"

Cinder rolled her eyes. "Well, I would, but Mom's busy getting Pidgeot ready, and Dad said he wanted to speak with us quickly before we leave."

"Oh great," Blayze groaned. "He's probably going to make me help him weld something together again or help him make a pipe or something. It's awful!"

Cinder rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's go see what he wants."

Making their way out of the house, the two of them were slightly surprised to see that their parents were already waiting for them. Soot and Anna were sitting together at a small table they had set up outside, chatting quietly. There were two objects sitting on the table, both of which were covered up by a white cloth. Seeing his kids coming out, Soot stood up and motioned for them to come over to the table.

"What's going on, Dad?" Blayze asked, eyeing the two things on the table anxiously.

Soot cleared his through, looking back and forth between his two children. "As you know, I was a Trainer myself once," he began.

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Blayze said, interrupting him. "You were a great old Fire-type Trainer, won a bunch of stuff, got into that fight that ended your career, yada yada yada."

"Well, yes," Soot admitted, "but that's not why I wanted to talk to you two. It's about my Magmortar. She was my starter Pokémon way back when, and has proven herself time and time again that she is one of my most reliable and resourceful partners."

"Just where are you going with this, Dad?" Cinder asked. "Not to be rude or anything, but I do have a boat to catch, and I need to leave soon or else I'll miss it."

Soot glanced over at Cinder. "It would take less time if you two stopped interrupting. Now then, what was I saying? Oh yes, Magmortar. Well, anyway, a few weeks before you kids came home, I was caught by surprise one morning when I found Magmortar holding three eggs. So I got to talking to her, and eventually we settled on this idea. I'm giving you each one of her eggs so you can raise the Pokémon inside. It wouldn't be good for them to just sit around here all day long after all. So for weeks now I've been tending to the eggs, and now that you're leaving, I'm going to go ahead and give them to you."

Reaching over, Soot pulled off the two sheets from the objects. Underneath were two containers, mainly cylindrical in shape with a half circle on the top. Inside of each of them was a single egg, red in color and decorated with a flame design.

"Sweet!" Blayze said, grabbing one of the cases. "I always wanted a Magmortar, and now I can get one! I can't wait to see the look on Cole's face when he sees me with a Magmortar while he's stuck with his Magmar!"

"Well, you know that we're going to give the third egg to Cole, right?" Anna asked. "He left before we could give it to him, but the next time he comes home, he'll be surprised with a little baby Magby. Who knows, maybe he'll evolve one of them all the way to a Magmortar if he can find a Magmarizer."

"Thanks, Dad," Cinder said, picking up her own egg and holding it against her. The case was pretty bulky, and she'd be forced to walk around with half of it sticking out of her bag since it was so big, but it would all be worth it once it hatched.

"You two better take care of those children, you hear?" Soot said. "Magmortar took a lot of convincing to part with those, and she might not take too kindly to anything bad happening to her babies."

Blayze rolled his eyes. "You worry too much dad. They're perfectly safe with us, especially with this handy case you put them in. Now I don't have to worry about accidentally dropping it or anything."

"Probably not something you want to say to inspire confidence Blayze," Cinder said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, I really have to get going. Is Pidgeot ready Mom?"

"He's ready to fly," Anna replied, smiling.

"Thanks," Cinder said, giving her mother a rather awkward hug with one arm holding the egg and her having to bend down to reach the sitting Anna. Standing back up, she hugged Soot next, who gave her a slight squeeze in response.

"Don't even think about giving me a hug," Blayze said, stepping back from his sister, grinning at her. "But, uh, yeah, I'll see you around. I guess. Good luck with the whole Battle Frontier thing."

"Thanks. And you go win the Lilly of the Valley Conference so you can rub it in Cole's face."

"Not like I would accept anything less," Blayze replied. "After all, I've got a future flamethrower in my arms. No way I'm going to lose now."

Cinder nodded, grinning at her younger brother. "Now then, I really have to go. I'll see you soon."

Turning away from her family, Cinder vaguely heard their well wishes and goodbyes. She had one goal in mind, and she was going to make sure that this time, she would be victorious.

Cinnabar Island, here I come.


Alright, that's a good place to stop. It went on a bit longer than I thought, but hey, at least it wasn't another twenty pager.

So Cinder's off on her new journey, and Damon's already out on his next mission. And they're both headed to Cinnabar Island. Things should definitely be interesting when they get there.

Yeah, I know. The whole big, bad boss in the shadows is cliché and overdone, but I have my reasons. Promise.

But, you're going to have to wait for just a bit longer for Cinnabar. I can't give a lot away about the next chapter, but I can assure you it's going to be an exciting one. Or at least, I hope it'll be an exciting one. You'll just have to wait and see~