Me: *running around in a circle* ERMAGERSH, ERMAGERSH, ERMAGERSH
Gardevoir: *watching freak out session with faint amusement* What's the occasion this time?
Me: *still running* So excited for the new season of Pokemon! I just finished watching the subbed Pokemon Origins episodes and they had a sneak peak for the XY season!
Gardevoir: *looks around desperately for Max and Carlos* *sighs* Why did they have to go out for coffee now? I don't want to listen to her rant...
Me: *running more frantically* So like! There was Ash and Pikachu, having a battle with awesome effects against a Vivillon, and a cute little Dedenne that's the size of a Pichu, and two new travelling companions that are like the exact opposite of Max and May's sibling relationship, and then, get this, there was SERENA! I couldn't understand anything since it was in Japanese, but there was this, like, flashback that showed Ash when he was, like, REALLY small, and then it all made sense. THEY'RE FREAKING CHILDHOOD FRIENDS! And then I thought, if Ash is STILL ten, and he's been on this journey for Arceus knows HOW long, then when was there EVER anytime for him and Serena to have met?! Then I thought, hot dang, the time in the anime world is, like, frozen O_O
Gardevoir: *blinks* You say like a lot.
Me: *pauses running* STOP TALKING!
Gardevoir: Disclaimer: Eon doesn't own Pokemon in any form. Goodness, it'd be even more messed up if she did -_-'
Chapter Eight: Silver
The pillars of lightening dancing in the distance eventually led me back to where Soul was fighting to escape. As I flew into view, I could see she had the rest of her team out around her. Along with the Raichu there was an Azumarill, Ninetales, Bellossom, and Hitmontop. She was managing to protect herself against the grunts, and her Raichu was keeping Drake on his Skarmory at bay.
I unleashed Weavile, Feraligatr, and Kingdra to fight at the center with Soul and sent Gyarados to dent the perimeter. At the sight of reinforcements, the brunette's head shot up. Her eyes widened when she saw me zoom by on Noctowl's back using Extrasensory to take out enemies from the sky. I managed to take down two rings of opponents around Soul before Drake noticed and set his sights on me. Noctowl flew straight up to avoid an X-Scissor, and after that our battle was taken to the clouds.
"Decided to come back did you?" Drake yelled over the rising thunder. "Didn't think your little girlfriend could handle herself?"
"She's not my girlfriend!" I snapped at him as lightening streaked by.
"Tell that to those rosy cheeks of yours!" He snickered from below.
My hand flew to my face, and I growled once I realized they were warm. Rain started coming down again, and I had Noctowl use Reflect to create a box of energy to keep the drops out. Good thing, too, because Drake came shooting upwards with an X-Scissor aimed for us right then. It bounced off the barrier, and the Skarmory retreated back. A strange metallic light began gathering in its mouth as it stopped moving. My eyes widened, and I quickly told Noctowl to dodge. We barely survived as a Flash Cannon shot by and seared the tips of the Pokemon's feathers. Skarmory took a minute to recharge so I pulled out my Pokedex to check out Noctowl's moves.
"Okay, let's try Extrasensory," I told it.
The Flying type rounded back on Skarmory, its eyes glowing an unsettling red. The opponent reeled away at the huge wave of psychic power. It managed to clip the end of Noctowl's tail with an X-Scissor, though, as we flew by. There was a small fault in our flight, but other than that we were fine.
"If you had just waited, we would've let you go!" Drake yelled after me.
I flew back towards him. "Don't try to make this our fault! We're only trying to save our friend!" Noctowl was closing in on its attacker. "Extrasensory!"
The blast of energy blew Skarmory at least fifty feet away. It even flinched. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I had Noctowl use Air Slash as well. The little blades of air smashed into Skarmory's armor with the force of a thousand bullets. Drake and his Pokemon went flying through the rain and disappeared into the dark clouds. Noctowl turned away from their departure, and we went to go help Soul again.
The rain was drenching the Team Rocket grunts, but Soul was safe and dry behind a Light Screen from her Azumarill. Gyarados was thrashing through the grunts and making their numbers smaller so I decided to help Soul battle from the center. She saw me coming and had her Pokemon create an opening in the barrier. Once I was inside, the hole melted back together.
"Are there more coming?" Soul asked as she kept calling out moves.
"I didn't see any," I shook my head telling Weavile to use Icy Wind on some approaching grunts. "I think they've sent out all that they have here."
"Then at this rate we may get out home-free!" She grinned.
"Don't get too cocky," I muttered in warning. "You never know what tricks they might have up their sleeves."
Soul had her Noctowl use Reflect again and raised an eyebrow at me. "We've got double the barriers this time. They can't touch us!"
"You would think so," I said watching the sky for Drake. It was hard to see anything, though, when the rain was obscuring our view outside the barrier.
"Did Gold and Crystal manage to get away?" She asked over a burst of thunder.
I nodded. "They're heading to Goldenrod as we speak."
She was quiet a moment. "You should've gone with them."
"And where would that leave you?" I snapped at her.
She shut her mouth, and I nodded as the two of us silently went back to battling. Her Hitmontop was the first to go down. It had been fighting outside the barriers, kicking and tripping opponents, before growing weak and stumbling into our safe zone. Soul returned it and smiled sadly at the Pokeball. "We have to be careful not to let them overexert themselves," she said with a frown, "or else we won't be able to finish this fight."
"We may not have a choice," I observed as Weavile sent out another Icy Wind. "With the numbers surrounding us, we'll have to give it all we've got just to break free of their hold."
I took a minute to assess the battle. Gyarados was the only Pokemon now remaining outside the forcefield. All the others were fighting from inside. They were rapidly weakening, though, and Soul and I both knew it.
I grabbed her shoulder. "We have to get out of here."
She bit her lip and looked up at Noctowl. "But I don't think he's ready for two people yet."
"Well, we don't exactly have enough time to come up with another plan," I yelled as lightening went off.
"We can keep fighting and run when we get the chance," she said with tarnished hope.
"Soul!" I shouted sharply. "Look at our teams! They're not going to last long enough for us to make a run for it!" I narrowed my eyes at her. "If we don't go now we might not get the chance later."
She sighed and stared up at her Flying type. "Okay, we can try."
I nodded, and we returned all our Pokemon. We moved fast so that we could be gone by the time the Reflect and Light Screen wore off. I glanced up, seeing my Shiny Gyarados, and decided to return him once we flew by.
"You ride on its back," I told her firmly. "It'll be safer."
She hesitated as the Flying type landed, so I picked her up by the arms and forcefully put her in place. She huffed in protest, but there was no time for arguments. The barriers were beginning to chip away already. Noctowl lifted off easily and latched onto my shoulders. It was carefully beginning to lift me up when a streak of darkness burst through the force fields and slammed into Noctowl. Soul and I were thrown to the ground, and the Pokemon tried to regain its balance in the air as the barriers shattered into pieces. However, before the grunts could get to us, a black void suddenly appeared beneath our feet. It immediately began sucking Soul and me in, and within a matter of seconds, we'd vanished.
The grunts shot down Noctowl which was becoming frantic at our sudden disappearance. As they held it down, Drake landed with his Skarmory, returning a Pokeball to his pocket. He approached the diminishing void, a bead of sweat mingling with the rain on his forehead.
"That should keep them contained," he muttered lowly. "And like I promised, we'll let them go once we're done with Yellow." He grabbed his head suddenly as if something were paining him. The redhead waved his hand, though, as the grunts looked at him in concern. "I'm fine," he sighed, slipping his sunglasses over his eyes.
Seeing that its restrainers were momentarily distracted, Noctowl snapped its wings out and knocked them aside. It swooped up and, tucking its feathers close, dive-bombed straight into the void after Soul and me. Its timing was close, for a second later, the strange portal was gone.
I slowly blinked my eyes open. An oppressive darkness swallowed up the air around me, and I stood staring at the blank scenery. Soul was beside me, watching the nothingness with wide eyes.
"Where are we?"
I looked around. "I don't know. There's...nothing here."
She reached for her bag. "I'll have Ninetales light the path in front of us to see if we can find anything." As soon as she brought out the Pokeball, it burned to ashes in her hand and fell through her fingers. Her eyes widened in horror. "What...just..."
A sinister growl echoed from ahead. We glanced up slowly to see it was Soul's Ninetales. Its eyes glowed a menacing red, and it looked about ready to rip our throats out.
"What's wrong?" She asked anxiously with a tilted head.
The brunette took a step towards the Pokemon before I pulled her back. "No, don't go near it."
"But something's not right with her!" Soul protested. "I have to help her!"
Ninetales growled again, crouching down as if it were about to spring. I tugged on her hand. "We need to go!"
She hesitated a moment, and that's when the fire fox leaped. I tackled Soul to the ground so Ninetales would miss. It overshot by a good ten yards, and I yanked Soul to her feet. "Come on!"
We started running through the black expanse. The ground didn't even look like ground. It felt like our feet were hitting a solid surface, but there was nothing there except darkness. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that Ninetales was hot on our heels. During the brief moment that I glanced away, Soul accidentally tripped over her own feet and fell. Before I could yank her off the ground or out of the way, Nintales caught up. The Fire type jumped straight at us, claws outstretched and teeth bared. We braced ourselves for the impact, but Ninetales actually shot right through us. As if it were an apparition or something.
Our heads snapped around, and we watched as the Pokemon kept running and eventually faded into the darkness. I blinked, and all of a sudden we were sitting on a hill in the middle of a pasture. A tree sat above us at the top of the rise, and the insert of the sun took me by surprise.
Soul uncovered her head and slowly blinked in shock. "How did we get here?"
I glanced down and saw that Ninetales' Pokeball was back in her hand, the Pokemon sleeping inside. "I don't know, but everything's fine now I guess."
"Do you have any idea where we are?" She asked taking in the surroundings.
"Not a clue." I glanced up at the tree. "I'm still stuck on where we were before."
"This is weird," Soul muttered. "How did Ninetales not kill us?"
I was going to put in my penny's worth when we heard someone nearby. Getting to our feet, we watched as Gold suddenly appeared at the bottom of the hill, running straight past us. I raised an eyebrow and froze when I looked ahead of him. There was a steep cliff coming up quickly, and the raven-haired boy showed no signs of slowing up.
Rushing down the hill, I sprinted fearfully after him. "Gold!" He just kept running, and I growled. "GOLD!"
He literally stopped right on the edge of the drop. "Oh! Silvy! What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing?" I yelled at him. "Get away from there!"
He tilted his head, and the rocks began to crumble beneath his feet. His eyes widened, and I ran to grab him. My fingers only grabbed air, though, and I watched in shock as he fell to the ground. I just couldn't look away. Someone turned my head, and all of a sudden I was hiding my eyes in Soul's shoulder.
When I could manage to lift my eyes, I saw the world fading to the same black as before. This time a fog rolled in that instead shrouded our view in gray. The clouds swirled and clashed like living beings, and Soul slowly released me.
"That did not just happen," I rasped softly.
Soul shook her head in disbelief. "No, this just keeps getting stranger. I'ts like we're being forced to live our worst nightmares." She gasped lightly. "That's it, Silver! We're dreaming!"
I raised an eyebrow. "But we're awake."
"Maybe it's one of those times when you can tell you're dreaming," she shrugged. "I've had those before. You're sort of conscious."
"Either way, that wasn't my worst fear," I muttered. "I just worry sometimes that Gold's stupidity will be the death of him."
Soul nodded. "Me, too. My Ninetales loves the outdoors, and I fear one day she'll just completely turn on me and decide to go wild."
"Then that explains those first scenes." I glanced at the eerie surroundings. "Are you scared of fog?"
She shook her head. "Let's follow it, though. Maybe we'll find a way to wake up."
We started off into the mist. A little ways in, a strange pain started in the back of my head, and I rubbed my temple lightly. Soon enough, the fog began to clear. The pain subsided slightly, and Soul and I stopped as we came upon some buildings set among a silent forest. Everything about it was quiet; nothing moved, and we didn't dare disturb the peace. Soul was getting ready to say something when loud sirens starting going off, and the buildings were dotted with red lights.
"Now where are we?" Soul asked as my eyes widened in recognition.
"My past," I murmured with a frown.
Suddenly the scene changed, and we were watching as a boy and girl ran down a hallway. They both wore sleek masks that hid their faces. At one point the little redheaded boy tripped, and the girl kept running. Then she realized he'd fallen behind and came back for him. Her brown hair swished as she pulled him up and led him to a hidden spot to rest.
"Let's try getting these masks off before we escape," she said prying the plate from her face.
She did the same for the little boy, and he blinked in surprise. His eyes showed fear; not just the fear of getting caught, but also that of a minute ago when he'd fallen. When he thought she'd left him and wasn't coming back.
She grinned touching his cheek. "So this how you look like..."
Then the boy blushed slightly, and the fear was instantly gone from his eyes.
"Oh! We must hurry!" The girl said quickly.
Soul blinked watching as the kids started running again and the scene melted back into fog. "That was...you...wasn't it?"
I nodded after a moment. "Blue and I were escaping from the man who had kidnapped us when we were younger."
Her eyes widened, and I felt another pain blossom in my head. The mist began moving again, and this time there was a rocky valley with a castle of ice. Green and I were battling against an Onix that held one of Melany's henchmen. Feraligatr shot a Hydro Cannon at the Rock type that made it smash into the mountainside behind it. I watched my other self look over and find Blue standing triumphantly over the other fallen Onix. The previous impact ignited a rock slide that was aimed straight for her unsuspecting figure.
"Oh no!" Soul shouted.
"Wait for it," I said simply.
"BLUE!"
My other self turned as Green went sprinting by with his Golduck. The Water type shot rocks away from Blue, and I felt the surprise even now as Green stopped the huge boulder from crushing Blue. The second Onix recovered and started attacking again, so the other me had to go back to battling. When he turned back, the rock slide was over, and Blue was wrapping Green's arm with his jacket. She looked quite mad, and so did he. The other me was getting ready to go check on them when Green kissed Blue. Once more, I could feel my surprise all over again at the sudden gesture. My other self instantly shook his head and focused on fighting the Onix. It wasn't much longer until it went down, and Feraligatr was returned. When the other me looked back, Blue was helping Green up the rise to where he was. She was smiling, and his cheeks were tinged pink.
Soul tilted her head at my other self as he walked away and tried opening the doors to the ice castle. She only saw the impassive look plastered across his face, but I knew what the facade hid. That feeling of knowing that something had just ended. That feeling of having to let go of something dear. And the feeling of utter...loneliness.
The mist obscured our vision again, and it was gone within seconds.
"Were those...memories?" Soul asked quietly.
I nodded slowly saying nothing. She bit her lip, a hand reaching out to comfort me, but I walked away. She followed silently then grabbed her head with a pained frown as we strode right into another scene. It was alien to me though, so I knew it couldn't be another one of my memories. I easily identified the dock at Olivine Port. There was a ship waiting to leave, and a family stood at the ramp. The father was at the base of the entrance stairs, a distance away from the mother and two little girls I assumed to be her daughters. One of them had long dark brown hair and matching dark brown eyes. The other's eyes were a lighter brown, and her identically brown hair hung just to her shoulders. She looked about five, and the former a little older.
"But why are you guys leaving?" The smaller girl asked grabbing her sister's hand. "You don't have to go to Sinnoh! Stay here with Mommy and me!"
"I'll make sure to come back and visit," the dark-haired girl promised. She gave her sister and mother a sad farewell hug before heading to the father.
The light brunette had to be held back as they boarded the ship. "Heart!"
The other girl didn't look back. The resisting one started crying and hid her face in her mother's shirt. After a few minutes, the boat had set off, and the girl who had been left behind cried out loudly.
"Is sissy gone yet?"
The woman nodded sadly. "Yes, she's gone."
My eyes widened as the tear-stricken face was clouded with mist. I glanced over at Soul, but she had her gaze trained on the gray-scale ground. Her hand was still on her head, and she flinched slightly. When I turned away, the low clouds were beginning to clear again.
This time the light brunette was older, maybe about ten. She was sitting at the front window of a home watching the outside excitedly. After a while, she bounced up off the floor and ran to open the door.
"Gold!"
I watched curiously as a ten year-old Gold bounded through the entrance with matching excitement. "Hi, Soul! Is she here yet?!"
The brunette shook her head. "No, but her flight should land sometime later today!"
Gold shut the door behind him and grabbed the girl's hands in delight. "It's been forever since we've seen her!"
She nodded. "It's been at least a year since she last came to visit."
"I hope she's doing well!" Gold grinned. "Do you think she'll have any Pokemon?"
"If she does they'll be ones from Sinnoh that we don't know," Soul said uncertainly.
Gold thought a moment. "Hey, Soul, why don't we get you a Pokemon? You're always saying how you like playing with the ones at my house."
"Yes, but those are yours," she waved her hands. "I couldn't possibly take one of them."
"Then why not see if Professor Elm will give you one? He hands out starters to new trainers all the time, and you're old enough to get one from him."
Soul's eyes lit up. "I have a better idea! There are three starters right?" Gold nodded curiously, and she giggled. "Why don't we all go on an adventure once she gets here? It'll be me, you, and Heart!"
The dark-haired boy grinned wider. "That's a great idea! I can try out my new skateboard and train Poltaro in new places!" He paused. "But doesn't Heart have to go back to Sinnoh?"
"Yes, but maybe we can convince her to stay!" Soul suggested. "She did say she was trying to decide on whether or not to come back to Johto!"
Gold nodded. "Alright, it's a deal! The first one to the Champion wins!"
Soul bumped his outstretched hand. "It's on!"
The fog started disturbing the picture, and I waited with Soul for it to clear up again. This time it showed Soul's younger self with a phone to her ear. She was frowning and looked about ready to break.
"But I was so excited to see you!" She cried into the phone.
I could barely hear another girl's voice on the other side of the line. "I know, but the plane broke down, and there's not another one leaving for a whole month!"
Soul clenched her teeth. "Then I'll just come see you."
There was a pause. "Do you have the money?"
Soul nodded. "I've been saving up ever since you left so I could come surprise you and Daddy!"
"Great! How soon can you be here?"
The brunette looked up in thought. "I was checking the departures for the S.S. Anne, and I believe there's one bound for Sinnoh in a couple days."
"Will Mom be okay with it?" The other girl asked anxiously.
"She's been asking me when I was going to visit anyway," Soul flicked her hand. "I'll see you soon!"
"Dad and I will be waiting!"
Again the vision started shifting, and the next showed Soul sitting on her couch, the television flashing the news which was documenting a bad storm brewing over Olivine City. Her mother walked in with a plate of cookies and offered the sad girl a smile.
"Honey, I'm sorry," she said softly, "but it's too dangerous for the ship to try and brave a storm this bad."
"I know," Soul sighed quietly. She looked at the sunny skies outside the window. "I wish ships could leave from the bay here in town."
The woman gave her a tight hug and went to check on something that was cooking in the kitchen. Soul glanced over at the phone before snatching it up. "I'll give Gold a call and see if he wants to go play!"
The line rang a few times before someone picked up. "Hello?"
"Hi, Mrs. Kiniro!" Soul said brightly. "Is Gold home?"
"Oh dear, he's not," she said with a sigh. "He took one of Professor Elm's Pokemon the other day to chase after some other boy. I wish he would've told me first."
Soul froze. "He's not here?"
"No, I'm afraid he's set out on that journey he's been getting really excited about recently."
Soul's eyes widened, and she nodded. "Thank you for letting me know."
"You're welcome, dear." Then the woman hung up.
Soul put the phone down and jumped off the couch. "Mom! I'm going to Professor Elm's!"
"Don't be long!" Her mother called from the kitchen. "Supper's almost ready!"
Soul flew down the streets to the laboratory. She rushed through the front doors and almost ran into an assistant. The brunette apologized politely before looking for Professor Elm. She found him in the back of the lab looking into a microscope.
"Professor!" She called out.
The man glanced up and turned around in his swivel chair. "Ah, Soul. What can I do for you?"
She was panting from the sudden run. "Do...you...still have...a starter...Pokemon...?"
His smile slowly faded. "I'm sorry, but I don't. A thief broke into my lab the other day and stole the Totodile I had here." He glared slightly. "And then Gold took Cyndaquil with him to try and track down the thief."
"But doesn't that leave one more?" Soul asked desperately. "Chikorita?"
Elm rubbed the back of his neck. "I had that Pokemon prepared for another trainer Professor Oak is hiring. I actually just sent it right before you came. I was getting ready to go meet up with him and make sure everything was prepared later this week."
She hung her head slowly. "Alright then."
He frowned sadly as she started walking away. "I'm sorry, Soul!"
She waved a hand at him half-halfheartedly. "It's okay. Thank you, Professor."
I watched as she exited the lab and went to sit among the grass of the nearby Route 29. She stared at the Pokemon frolicking in the tall grass, tears shining in her eyes. Angrily rubbing them away, she tried to smile up at the sky. "Good luck, Gold."
The mist fuzzed the picture once more, and I stood there waiting for more. Nothing came, though, and I looked at Soul who was watching her feet.
"Now you know," she said softly. "When I saw you in Olivine City, I recognized you from one of the few pictures Gold sent me after he saved Johto a couple years ago. I thought you might be going to see him, so I tagged along. It'd been so long since I'd actually talked to Gold face to face."
I nodded slowly, watching her intently. "I understand."
She glanced up and looked away bitterly. "Don't look at me like that, okay? By the time Gold had left to track you down, my sister, Heart, had started her own journey in Sinnoh. First she'd left me, and then my best friend did, too. I didn't mean to be such a nuisance in following you from Olivine. It's just that, after watching everyone go off on adventures so many times, I was scared that...once again, I was going to be..."
"Left behind."
Her head snapped up to me with wide eyes. I glanced ahead, not looking her way.
"It's okay. Because that's my darkest nightmare, too."
She stared at me, eyes softening the smallest bit.
I looked back at her before beginning to walk again. "Let's see if we can find a way out of here. Or to wake up, I guess."
Soul nodded with a small smile and followed. "It is a little peculiar, isn't it? Being in a dream like this?"
"Yeah, I wonder what Drake did to us." I frowned thinking of a certain blonde. "If he's anything like Melany, he'll no doubt have some strange ways of doing things."
I was about to take another step when a bomb of pain exploded in my head. My knees buckled automatically on their own, and Soul knelt beside me instantly. "Are you okay?!"
I couldn't answer. Something odd was happening.
The fog began moving again, and a scene unfamiliar to both of us popped up. The fog didn't clear all the way this time which made it difficult to see what was happening. From what I could tell through the severe pain taking up residence in my brain and the swirling mist, it was nighttime in the image. There was a complex set in a forest that seemed to ring a bell, but the scene was so obscured by fog that I couldn't be sure. Someone was running through the darkness, though. Again, it was too blurry to make out who. Soul and I stood watching as the figure made its way to a building with all its windows lit up. Then the scene stopped, and it was like someone had hit a slow-motion button. The entire wall of the building slowly exploded outwards sending debris flying in every direction. And if I was seeing things right, there was a rainbow of colored ashes mixed in with the catastrophic mess. The figure was thrown to the ground as a shock wave blasted from the wreckage sailing away faster than a Yanma jacked up on Speed Boost. The air sparkled from the spectrum of ashes, and the figure that was running before didn't move from its spot on the ground. Something else, though, was stumbling out of the broken building, and I only got a glimpse of two golden wings before the fog totally abolished the last remaining wisps of the scene.
Soul's eyes were wide as the pain in my head faded away and I slowly stood up. "Was that another memory?"
"No," I shook my head suspiciously. "I've never seen that in my life."
Then there was a sudden slap across both our minds, and we instantly blacked out.
I snapped my eyes open to see Noctowl perched on my and Soul's sprawled forms, beak still poised from pecking us awake. She was holding her head and looking down at me groggily.
"Hey, you awake yet?" She mumbled while readjusting her hat.
Sitting up, I almost immediately sweat-dropped. "I'm not sure."
We'd awoken to yet another blank void of space, the darkness resembling the scenery from Soul's Nintales nightmare. This time, however, there were a million dots of light above our heads that made me think they were stars in the night sky. There was a certain chill to the air that I honestly did not like, and I pulled Soul to her feet quickly.
"Come on," I muttered, effectively creeped out. "Let's just find a way out of here already."
We started walking along when the shadows started to move. Soul froze for a moment, and they started rushing past us. She screamed, and I shoved her onto Noctowl's back before sprinting ahead. The darkness kept right up with me and streaked past like a band of phantoms trying to rip my hair out. The "stars" provided no sense of direction, so I was just wandering aimlessly in this strange realm. I don't even know how long it was until I heard something. Ceasing my running, the sound stopped. I raised an eyebrow and saw that the noise was my footsteps on smooth stone.
"What...?" I grumbled under my breath.
In the middle of the sea of darkness I had somehow stumbled upon an old-styled cobblestone path. It kept going on into the darkness to my left and did the same thing to my right. It was like someone had randomly decided to start up a replica of a fifteenth century kingdom. Just without the cottages or castle or basically anything other than this road.
Glancing up, I saw that there were no "stars" hanging anywhere in the sky along the stone path. I got curious so I started walking down the left-hand side, Noctowl following with a curious Soul on his back. We made our way along silently for a while, but then again I couldn't tell how much time was passing in this weird place. Eventually I had to stop because the road suddenly split in two. I looked both ways, tilting my head.
The right path seemed at least a little better. There was fog similar to the one when Soul and I were dreaming, but it was darker and churned like an angry storm. The left path was completely dark, though. I could see my feet through the darkness we were currently in, but that path just seemed to stain everything black. Even the stones disappeared farther down the road.
"Take the foggy one," Soul said obviously.
"No duh," I muttered aiming away from the dark road.
There was a strange sound when I came within one foot from the mist. At first I thought it was a howl of wind or something, but after listening hard and quiet, I could finally make out a few words.
"...Go...back..."
It almost sounded like a girl's voice. Not one that I knew, though. Even so, there was something about that warning that made me take it seriously.
I was standing there trying to figure out where it was coming from when the "stars" started flashing above our heads.
Soul's eyes whipped up to the sky, and mine followed hers as one of the lights just beside the stone path began pulsing madly. A few moments later, it was expanding, and light poured into the darkness like a broken dam. We had to look away, but when I glanced back, Drake was hovering there on the back of his Skarmory. A hole was torn in the sky, and through it I could see the desk of his office.
"I came to check on you guys," Drake smirked. "Doing well?"
"Where is this place?" Soul asked in horror. "No, forget that. What is this place?!"
"Depends on which place you're talking about," he neatly dodged the question.
I narrowed my eyes. We didn't have time for this. I pointed up at the hole. "Is that how you got here?"
Drake perked an eyebrow. "Maybe."
I looked at Noctowl, and it nodded sharply. The Flying type let loose an Extrasensory that collided harshly with Skarmory and made both it and its trainer wince with pain. Like our sky battle the move caused them to flinch, and Noctowl bunched up its muscles quickly. I was really hoping right then that it was stronger than Soul thought. Like a miracle, it latched onto my shoulders and carried Soul and me up through the dark portal and out into the light of Drakes's office with only a few signs of struggle.
Moving fast, Soul and I rushed out the door with Noctowl right behind, surprised when we met no grunts in the building. Outside we could see why. Gyarados was going crazy from my disappearance and all the low-ranking lackies were trying to subdue it. Sure now that Noctowl was capable of carrying two, Soul jumped on its back, and I let it grab hold of me once again. Flying over all the grunts, we zoned in on Gyarados. Once he finally noticed me I was able to get him inside his Pokeball. Noctowl lifted off in time before the grunts could react and got away safely.
By now the storm clouds had broken apart, and Soul and I let out a sigh of relief as the first light of dawn started peaking over the horizon.
Back in Drake's office, said boy was stumbling out of the void in the room's floor with his Skarmory. Collapsing on the ground, he managed to return his Pokemon before letting his head fall in exhaustion. The sunglasses on his face fell off, clattering on the floor, and he hid his eyes behind his bangs as a shadowy figure approached him from the back of the room.
"Did they get away?" He asked tautly, clenching his teeth in pain.
The shadow gestured towards the door, and Drake scoffed in annoyance before biting his lip. The boy grabbed at his head, and the figure bent over him knowing that something was wrong.
"I'll be okay," he muttered bitterly. "Just another headache."
The figure only nodded as the void slowly shrank, watching as the boy's ice blue eyes flashed yellow.
Gardevoir: Explain this better please. How in any way could the anime world be frozen in time? If Ash actually did have a childhood with Serena, that means he had to have grown up sometime!
Me: *still running frantically in a circle* Well, you see, remember how he saw Ho-Oh at the end of the first episode?!
Gardevoir: *raises eyebrow* Yes...
Me: *flicks hands* Well, they say that anyone lucky enough to see Ho-Oh is blessed with eternal happiness and stuff!
Gardevoir: *narrows eyes* So?
Me: *throws arms around* Well! Ho-Oh doesn't exactly show up in the anime all that often! It isn't even in any movie except as a disguise of Mew, but that doesn't count! So since Ash is one of the REALLY few amount of people to have seen it, then it makes perfect sense that he is one of the only few people to be granted eternal happiness. And his eternal happiness could've been to travel to new places, meet new Pokemon, and battle all kinds of people, so to ensure that, Ho-Oh stopped time in the anime O.O
Gardevoir: *facepalm* Arceus...
Me: *collapses from running* Well, it makes sense!
Gardevoir: You say well a lot, too *sweatdrop*
Me: *looks up sharply* Please...STOP TALKING!
Finally finished the third section of the Ilex part of the story! Oh! And for those of you wondering what the heck was going on with Drake at the end there... :3 hehe, feeling evil again...
XD Review and return!
