A/N: The chapter seemed to take so much longer than the others…

ESP, you might as well stop sending me those little "And we are here now!" things. I can never find you guys anyway, no matter how hard I try. Honestly, I've given up trying. I'll just work on our story from now on.

Ah, this chapter is just a transition into the next, with just some fun little bits thrown in there, though I kind of morph our world and the real world in the process. The next chapter is probably one of the most important of the story, and will explain A TON about Luna's character and the confusing passage we have in the middle of this chapter. Everything will be explained, my dears. Patience will be worth it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I worked REALLY hard on it. Surprisingly more than usual.

Chapter Three

You Don't Understand

Luna struggled to speak through her laughter.

"Wait, no, wait." She interrupted again, taking a sip of her smoothie. "So tell me. What exactly did you do?"

"I told you." Hekiashi leaned back and tucked his hands behind his head. "There are no such things as atomic bombs. That was me. The bombs didn't even work."

"So you were there, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"

"Yeah, up in that… B-29, Enola Gay. You should have seen Colonel Tibbets, he was a real jerk. And the second lieutenant was an idiot. Morris Jeppson? Ah, dear. He forgot to remove the safety devices when we reached the target area. I realized a split second too late that it wasn't going to work, so I aimed a kind of… Dark Pulse, Roar of Time, and Spatial Rend at the closest thing. Close enough. And it led to the Japanese surrendering anyway."

Luna giggled."I had no idea you had such a big role in World War Two!"

"Yeah, well, me and Tellah had a bet on who would surrender first, the Germans or the Japanese. I won that one, so I decided to do Tellah a favor."

"That's amazing!"

Hekiashi shrugged. "Well, we had an interest in that kind of thing back then."

Luna giggled again, and Hekiashi simply watched her for a moment. She seemed really happy. How it seemed that only two days could make a difference in how she acted and in how she looked. Or was it only because he had never got to know her before? She seemed so much happier, and a lot more relaxed, and well… different.

A good kind of different.

"I was disguised as an actor in the King's Men players."

Hekiashi raised one eyebrow. "With Shakespeare?"

"Old 'Speare. I helped him write his plays. And he knew I was a girl." Luna confessed, her cheeks growing pink. "But he let me do it anyway." She giggled. "He said I inspired his character Rosalind from As You Like It. That was my favorite play of his, too."

"I sailed across the Atlantic with Columbus. Top that."

"I rode on the Argo with Jason when we went looking for the Golden Fleece." Luna said thoughtfully. "I was the one who found it. But I never got any credit. What about - "

"I was one of Caesar's assassins!"

Luna cracked up.

"I won't even try to top that one, Hekiashi."

"It just goes to show you that – "

"Oh YEAH! TAKE THIS! RAICHU! THUNDERBOLT!"

Everything seemed to slow down, and the world turned into slow motion as Luna and Hekiashi leapt to their feet. A bolt of thunder flew through the air and hit the enormous chandelier above the whole room, and a portion of the chandelier came clean off, flashes of light buzzing everywhere. The chandelier slammed into the ground, and the room erupted into flames.

Luna's eyes went glassy, and the scene changed.

The whole place had erupted into angry flames, and Arceus' angry screams wracked the entire palace. You couldn't see anything but red, and the hungry red flames eagerly spread to anything they could get their hands on. She couldn't see Jake anywhere, and she didn't know what would kill her first – Arceus, or heart failure if he perished in the flames. Luna clutched at her head and screamed.

"Jake! JAKE!"

"Luna - "

The blonde haired boy was weaving in and out of the flames. Burns raked up his skin, and yet nothing stopped him from pulling her into his arms.

"Jake, forget about me, let's just get you out!"

Luna tugged out of his arms and the two bolted down the hallways. It was too late now. Everyone would have realized what was going on.

"LUNA!!" bellowed a harsh voice. Jake screamed in pain at the sound, and Luna cringed. I mustn't stop, she thought, pulling him back up to a standing position and slowly helping him continue. "HOW DARE YOU?! YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO DISOBEY ME, WHEN ALREADY OUR LAWS CALL FOR YOUR DEATH?! YOU WILL BE PUNISHED!!"

Holding his hand, Luna helped him regain his strength and together the two were running to the end of the Main Hall, running for their lives. Luna released Jake's hand so he could run ahead of her, but hands then suddenly seized her and dragged her away from Jake, and she screamed again.

"KEEP HER CONTAINED! IT'S HIM I WANT! I WANT HER TO WATCH ME EXECUTE HIM! THE ISOLENCE HAS GONE ON FAR ENOUGH!"

Jake stopped at the doorway, looking back as Luna was dragged back by some of the attackers, his face torn and in agony.

"I can save myself! Run, Jake, RUN!" Luna shrieked, as arms twisted hers to her back and a move slammed into her side, aimed for Jake. She howled in pain, and fell to her knees. As she was losing consciousness, she glimpsed Arceus and Hekiashi chasing after Jake, who had fled through the front doors.

"JAKE!!!!"

With a small whimper of suffering, she shot a Psycho Cut blade, which hit the unsuspecting Arceus in the back. Hekiashi ceased the chase to help his fallen comrade. Luna gave a small smile, and everything went black.

"It seems you, and this one, got caught up in this situation. You didn't take time to think things through before acting."

So dark. So dark she couldn't see. Voices in her head, voices all around. It was too noisy for her. They pounded on her head like hammers. She just wished the pain would go away. She wished she could be free of all the pain.

"Is she breathing?"

"I think she's going into shock!"

"Get the security guards! Get them over here!"

Someone was hurt? Her head was hurting so badly, Luna thought they should all be gathered around her. She found she couldn't open her eyes, let alone move. Couldn't anyone get her out of here? Couldn't anyone restore her sight? And where was Hekiashi?

"Damn you all, get away from her! Let me see her!"

Well, there was Hekiashi's voice – speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear. But why did his voice sound so far away? Luna unconsciously frowned. Was he looking over whoever was hurt? Who was hurt?

"I think she's gone into shock, sir. She must have pyrophobia…" An unfamiliar male voice echoed. Luna had a bizarre sensation to laugh. Who was afraid of fire? "We'll have to go to the proper treatment for her. Let me -"

"I don't need to hear what you learned in Boy Scouts when you were little. Tell me how you treat it!"

The male voice sounded flustered. "Of course, of course, sir. You -"

The man's voice droned on, once again blurring. She slowly started to feel again, and she was lying on some cold surface, but at the expense of the pain in her head increasing. How was that possible? Her thoughts were interrupted, however, when she felt a cold touch on her arm.

"Don't worry, Luna. I'm right here."

Hekiashi spoke in a low whisper, so low she wouldn't have heard it normally. A weird feeling overtook her briefly, but she then realized that she was the one everyone was gathered around. Her eyes tried to drag themselves open.

"Ah… She's stirring. She will be perfectly fine. Move along, everyone. Move along please." The male voice ordered, and the voices died down as mall-goers slowly shuffled away.

All she could see was blurs and shifting colors, star twinkling in her vision. It was disorienting. She heard Hekiashi, who was kneeling beside her, sigh briefly in relief. Hammers to her head again. She closed her eyes. Hekiashi instantly seized her shoulders, however.

"Luna, look at me!"

Luna blinked rapidly, shook her head, and finally looked back up at Hekiashi.

"What's wrong with you?" Hekiashi said furiously, releasing her. "Damn you, don't scare me like that ever again!"

"What happened?" Luna murmured, sitting up.

"Some idiot was trying to show off, and his Raichu zapped the fountain by accident. It bounced off the top and hit the chandelier, which cut off part of it. It fell down at your feet and started up a small fire – but you started screaming bloody murder and nobody could calm you down! You went into shock and it was hell trying to get you away from all those guards. What was that all about?"

"I… I wasn't feeling well beforehand –"

"Don't lie to my face, Luna. You were screaming his name."

Luna closed her eyes with a sigh.

"So, save your breath for someone who can believe your pretty little lies. Luna, seriously, do you take me for an imbecile? You don't think I can put two and two together? I was listening to those tarot cards, Luna."

"Tarot cards don't mean anything-"

"Luna!" He seized her jaw, forcing her to shut up. An incredulous half laugh escaped his mouth. "What did I just say about lying to my face?"

Luna pried his hands off of her face, her expression upset. "Hekiashi…"

"Luna, he died nearly a hundred years ago. Let it go! The infatuation is over! Cut it out and grow up! You knew you were breaking all of the Legendary rules with him, and he didn't even love you! Hell, he obviously was a flirt! You knew it, we all knew it. He just liked you because he thought you were gorgeous. He didn't love you, and you didn't love him. Just a little crush, and damn, was it an annoying one as well. Seriously. If you have it in your childish head that you felt for him, you're lying to yourself, and you know it. Damn. Luna, just let it go."

"I can't let it go."

"Why not?" He repeated, frustrated.

Luna suddenly looked up and glared straight into his eyes.

"It wasn't some little crush, Hekiashi. Damn it, everything I did for him was love. Everything I did, it was out of my love for him. You all laughed at me for it. It's because none of you understand what I felt for him. Especially you! You don't know what it's like! You've never felt how completely devoted you become to a person, so willing just to keep them alive that you risk death yourself. To feel how the world's not worth living when they're not around. How they are more yourself than you are. How they take a piece of you when they're gone." Luna's fists were clenched into fists, and angry tears were sliding down her face now. She looked away from Hekiashi. "And coming here has made me come to this… The one thing I can't get back is the one thing I miss…"

Hekiashi was stunned into silence.

"And I was breaking rules, flying blind…
What you see through younger eyes…
It wasn't what I thought it was –
Man, I swore he was the one…
And all the time I miss those days…
But coming back to this place,
I realize it's not always him I miss...
It's that young girl, wide-eyed, first love, one time innocence…"

His anger was gone when she had started weeping. "Luna!" Rashly, he grabbed one of her hands. She took a deep breath and relaxed. "Calm down. I've never heard you talk this way… Tell me. Can't you trust me?"

"You'd never understand!" Luna said shrilly, her fists clenched again, as she wiped away her heated tears.

"Tell me. Please." He grabbed her shoulders now. "Because I'm listening. Damn, I have never listened to anyone like I am listening to you right now. I'm the one right here. I just watched you make yourself go into shock at a memory. Because that's how painful it was for you. I have never seen you so helpless. Arceus put us together so we could watch each other's backs, but hell, I didn't know the danger I was supposed to be helping you out with was internal. And yeah, I'm your counterpart, your irritating, sadistic, malevolent counterpart, but when no one's there, who do you got but me?"

Luna closed her eyes and she wrapped her arms around her legs, looking down at the floor. Shegave a long sigh.

"I'll tell you."

H/P