Well... here's the next chapter! Hope you like it! Thanks for ~PerlaNemesis for reviewing the last few chapters, I really appreciate it!
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Disclaimer: Pokemon (c) Masamitsu Hidaka
Claimer: everything else (c) me
Chapter Nine: Where'd she go?
The flames crackled and lapped at the air as Kellyn sat against the wall, holding Alena's body against him, rocking it back and forth gently in his arms. He could imagine her beautiful azure eyes in his head, a kind smile creeping onto her mouth. But he knew nothing could be done to see her again unless he gave her the 'Essence of Aura'. Leafeon, Lucario and Riolu had gone out to search nearby for the mystical potion, but they had not yet returned.
"Alena, please, come back to me," he murmured to her, touching her cold, frozen face.
Propping her body up against him, he brushed away her hair and kissed her on the forehead, holding her close.
"Whatever you say and do won't bring her back," a familiar voice said.
Kellyn turned to see Riolu and Lucario standing at the entrance of the cave. Leafeon padded up to Kellyn with sad dark eyes.
"Any luck?" the ranger inquired.
They shook their heads.
"I'm afraid not," Lucario responded, "We've looked everywhere we've imagined it could be."
"But we found nothing," Riolu sighed. "Even with the assistance of the other forest Pokémon, we still had no luck finding it, or even have any idea where it could be."
The Top Ranger looked back down at his now-forever unrequited love. "S-So there's no hope, then? No hope to bring Alena back?" he whispered.
"We're not giving up on the third Guardian of Aura yet," Riolu mentioned. "We've alerted the other Pokémon and they're going to try their best to find it. In the meantime, there isn't much we can do."
"Solana and the others should be arriving sometime tomorrow. But… we were all too late. She died anyway, all alone. She didn't deserve any of the pain she went through."
"Kellyn, there wasn't anything you or anyone could have done for her," Lucario stated.
Suddenly, three Furrets sprinted into the room, a fancy closed flask in one of their mouths. As it dropped it back into its paws, it looked at Alena's body; at the ranger that had called for them to search for the item they had.
"Furret…" one of the Furrets purred sadly, poking at her arm with a paw.
"What do you have there with you?" Lucario inquired.
The Furret with the flask scurried over to Lucario, handing the Aura Pokémon the flask.
The design-woven glass contained a shimmering blue liquid, tiny wisps of light floating around in it. It looked practically enchanted.
"I-I-Is that-?" Kellyn broke off.
"Yes, this flask contains the 'Essence of Aura'. It's the only one in the whole world, and we have it," Riolu said in cheerfulness. "With this we can bring her back. However… there is one more thing we'll need to bring Alena back; someone that loves her."
With that being said all six of the Pokémon looked at Kellyn. Leafeon barked at him.
Kellyn took the flask Lucario offered to him and opened it, sniffing at the strangely sweet-smelling liquid. Pouring the liquid into his mouth, he pressed his lips against hers, forcing the liquid down her throat. When he pulled away, he could taste what seemed like blueberry, and still taste the sweet flavour of Alena's mouth.
"Alena, please… I love you," he whispered.
Her body was suddenly engulfed in a blinding white light, floating out of Kellyn's arms in front of him. A ring of white light pulsed from her, knocking them all back. Kellyn was cleanly knocked out as the force knocked him back against the wall, his head smacking against the stone wall.
Before slipping into unconsciousness, his thoughts rang over and over in his head, Alena… Alena… Alena…
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When Kellyn opened his eyes, he found himself lying on his side alone in the cave, light pouring in from outside.
Where am I? Where is everyone? He wondered, sitting up abruptly.
"Alena!" he gasped, looking around for the young woman.
All the Top Ranger found was an abandoned Vatonage Styler, and Kellyn picked it up, immediately recognizing it to be Alena's.
"But she's still dead, isn't she?" he murmured to himself, suddenly remembering that they had found the 'Essence of Aura'. "But if that all happened… then where are they?"
Looking at the clock on his Styler, apparently it was already noon.
How long have I been asleep? He thought, More or less, how did I allow myself to sleep this long?
Standing up, he stretched out his muscles and walked outside the cave, looking around. Walking to the stream to wash up, he heard the calls of various Pokémon to each other.
As he arrived at the stream, he dipped his hands into the crystal clear stream and splashed the water against his face.
Suddenly, he heard familiar calls of his name, as well as Alena's and Leafeon's.
"Solana! Ash! Dawn! Brock! Gary! I'm over here!" he cried out.
Within moments, the teens, as well as Pikachu, Piplup and Dragonair were running to his side.
"Kellyn!"Solana exclaimed, "Are you okay?"
He dipped his head. "I'm fine. But… Alena and Leafeon have disappeared."
"What happened?" Gary demanded.
Kellyn summarized the previous afternoon's events to them, and Dragonair thrashed its tail back and forth impatiently as it still was terribly worried and concerned for its partner.
"What?! A Riolu and Lucario went to you guys?!" Dawn gasped.
"The 'Essence of Aura', wow," Gary breathed, "I remember reading that in one of grandpa's books."
"But if Alena received it from you, wouldn't that mean she's alive?" Brock inquired.
"But there's only a chance of that, isn't there?" Brock mentioned.
Ash looked at them. "But isn't it told that it would bring the person back; not just a chance?" he inquired.
"But we can't get our hopes up if it isn't true," Solana said. "It'll only hurt more."
"And if she is alive, I have no idea where they could have gone," Kellyn added, "her Styler was in the cave when I woke up, so we have no way to track her."
"Maybe she reported to Headquarters?" the other Ranger suggested.
He shook his head. "But she still wouldn't have left her Styler. It's as if she just wanted to vanish. We could try looking for her, but there's still not much chance we'd find her."
"So what should we do?" Dawn inquired.
Without warning, the ground shook as the Iron Masked Marauder clambered out on his huge metal claw machine.
"One, you could tell me where Alena's body is, and two; you could tell me who the new human Guardian of Aura is," he cackled.
"Not you again!" Dawn shouted.
Gary growled, "When are you going to give up?"
Dragonair hissed angrily, knowing that the Iron Mask was the one who poisoned its best friend in the first place. It unleashed a Dragon Rage on the machine, and it was harmlessly deflected on the metal.
"Ha," the Team Rocket member smirked, "there's no way a measly attack like that could destroy my machine."
Out of nowhere, an Aura Sphere flew out of nowhere, striking the cold metal, making only a dent in the machine.
"So Alena is alive," he grinned evilly.
Alena! Kellyn and the others thought immediately, but instead, Lucario leaped out from the bushes and to their side.
"Lucario!" Kellyn exclaimed, truthfully disappointed that it wasn't the Ranger he was hoping for, "Where's Alena? Is she alive?"
The Pokémon dipped its head, speaking to them quietly. "She's alive. But she's recuperating right now. She's with Riolu and the Leafeon elsewhere. She will be joining us shortly, though she'll be a little disoriented and dizzy."
So she's alive! The Top Ranger thought in joy.
Iron Mask grinned. "So it's a Lucario… hmm… and I thought I had stumbled onto the resurrected form of the human Guardian of Aura," he cackled. "Well… a Lucario is just as rare as the Guardians themselves… therefore…"
"Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!" Ash ordered quickly.
Pikachu leaped into the air. "Pika… chuuuuu!" Electricity sparked from its body and hit the Iron Mask's machine, barely doing any damage.
"Piplup, try a bubble beam!" Dawn suggested.
"Pip… lupluplup!" A stream of transparent bubbles flew from the tiny penguin Pokémon's mouth, also doing no damage to the strong metal.
Lucario looked at Pikachu and Piplup. "Let's try combining our attacks," it suggested.
All at once, the three Pokémon launched their attacks, combining into one powerful beam, which hit the metal machine and left no more than a deep dent.
"This is crazy!" Kellyn exclaimed.
"Umbreon, come on out!" Gary called, releasing one of the evolutions of Eevee. "Umbreon, try a Shadow Ball!"
The dark black and purple ball did no damage, as did the previous attacks too.
"Nothing's working!" Brock pointed out.
Both Solana and Kellyn had looked around, but they had no success in finding any Pokémon that could help them out.
"Ah! What can we do?!" Solana panicked.
"Stall for time until Alena can arrive," Lucario answered. "After her resurrection using the 'Essence of Aura', all of her powers are strengthened. She can now use Aura Sphere without limit, as the rush of Aura back into her body will 'overflow', and she really needs to release all that energy somehow."
"So it will strengthen her powers and abilities…" Gary murmured, "So why not use that power on this guy?"
"That makes sense," Brock agreed.
"So all we have to do is stall him," Dawn said. "Piplup, use Whirlpool!"
"Umbreon, use Shadow Ball!"
"Pikachu, Iron Tail!"
Solana and Kellyn just captured any damage-dealing Pokémon and all of them began to pound various attacks on Iron Mask's diabolical machine while the hunter laughed.
"Try all you want, nothing will work. You're all only going to be able to make dents," he bragged.
We'll see about that once Alena arrives, Ash thought with a smirk on his face.
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5 minutes later, to the Iron Mask it seemed like all of their efforts were wasted as he used his machine to avoid some attacks and return his own.
"You guys ready to give up yet?" he mocked, a greedy smirk on his face.
All of the group's Pokémon were exhausted and panting. Things were getting a little rough.
"N-Never," Ash breathed, as he and the others were panting tiredly too from dodging the villain's counterattacks.
Without warning, a huge wave of Razor Leaf came from out of nowhere and bombarded the machine.
"What the-?!" Iron Mask broke off as the machine swerved from the force.
Two Aura Spheres followed, causing huge dents in the already super dented machine.
In one smooth and quick motion, Alena, Riolu, and a huge group of Leafeon hopped down in front of Ash, Dawn, Brock, Gary, Solana and Kellyn.
"Remember me?" Alena greeted with a smile, eyes narrowed.
She looked as alive as she was just two days ago, and her hair blew softly around her shoulders. Dragonair whined happily at the sight of its best friend alive and well.
"Y-You're supposed to be dead," the hunter breathed, "I-I-I killed you, I know I did! T-The poison should have killed you!"
"Funny, do I look dead to you?" she retorted sharply.
"Well… you do look a little pale," Brock piped up.
She felt like she was about to fall over, and immediately took a step to rebalance herself, and Iron Mask took the opportunity to snatch out one of his claws at her, which she instantly dodged, landing softly on the ground before falling over.
"Ugh," she moaned, rolling out of the way as the iron claw shot out again.
"Alena!" Kellyn and the others exclaimed.
Kellyn immediately rushed to her side as she came to a stop. Setting his hands on her shoulders, he looked at her, and his hands brushed down to her warm arms. She really was alive again; she had returned to him.
She pushed him away from her as the claw shot out once more, ensnaring Alena in its metal fingers.
"Alena!" her friends cried.
No! Not again! Kellyn thought painfully.
"Looks like you're going to come with me the hard way," Iron Mask cackled, pressing buttons to activate the electricity.
But nothing happened, as a bright blue aura flared around her, and the claw was pushed open by the force of her power, and she fell to the ground.
"Disappear!" Alena shouted, summoning a humongous Aura Sphere where it exploded against the machine, and the Pokémon Hunter was sent blasting off out of sight.
When the smoke and dust cleared, Alena couldn't be seen, as a huge pile of metal scraps and remnants of the machine took her place. Immediately all of them knew the situation.
"Alena!" Gary and Kellyn cried the loudest out of all of them.
Hurriedly, both of them, as well as Dragonair, began digging through the rubble with the others right at their heels trying to dig out the ranger.
Come on, Alena, Kellyn thought. You've got to be okay!
Well... I hope you liked this chapter! ALENA'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!! I'll update as soon as I can!
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