Wow. So it's been awhile since I've posted a chapter. School has been stressful, but I've been working on this when I've had free time. First thing, you might notice that I've tried to write in past tense like how these are usually written. I'd like to know how I did, and if I did good I might try to go back and rewrite the older chapters. Like always I hope you like this chapter.

Chapter 10: Family

Nidonida Forest - Drew's POV

"Hey Bro!" The lucario in front of us shouts with joy. I blink a couple of times to make sure I wasn't seeing things. It's definitely her…

She smiles at me. "What, surprised to see your big sister?"

"It's just, well, it's been a month since I've seen you, and you're a lucario now," I say, forcing a smile back at my sister.

"Yep, and I see that you are just as cute as ever!" She runs over and hugs me tightly.

I smile at her again, then wince in pain due to the poison. "I love you too, sis. But before we continue, could you help us? We all kinda got poisoned in that battle."

She reaches into our bag and gives each of us a pecha berry. I eat mine, letting the sweet juice stay in my mouth a bit before I swallow, instantly feeling a bit stronger due to the lack of poison. I get to my feet and start photosynthesizing to recover, while everyone else eats some berries.

"So now that everyone has recovered, let me introduce you to my friends. The totodile over there is Alex, the fennekin is Holly, and you've already made met Christy." I turn to my friends. "Guys, this is my sister, Stephanie."

"Nice to meet you guys," She says.

"Nice to meet you too," everyone responds.

I grin and look at my sister. "So, Sis, is it time for our little tradition?" She smiles and looks back at me. "I think it is, Bro, I think it is."

We walk to the opposite sides of the clearing. "You guys might want to move out of the the way." My friends move to the edge of the clearing. "Ready?"

"You know I am. I'll let you have the first move."

"You always give me the first move though..."

I start shooting razor leaves at her. Her eyes start glowing and she quickly dodges all of them. I keep firing, and she suddenly disappears. I stop and look around for her. She appears in front of me with one paw in my face. Blue energy forms around her paw. Oh crap. Next thing I know, I'm flying across the clearing, then everything goes black…

Alex's POV

"Holy shit!" Is all I can say as I watch with shock at what happens. How is she that strong and fast!? She didn't even touch him and he was sent flying across the clearing with enough force that the tree he flew into snapped in half! We run over to Drew. "He's out cold!"

"I'll help you Steph!" Shouts a voice from the forest. A zoroark runs out of the forest toward us, his claws ready to attack. Stephanie sighs and grabs his hair as he runs past. "Ow! Why are you doing this to me!"

"Calm down, Luke."

"But I saw you fighting and I wanted to help…"

"These guys are friends, and I was having a little match against my brother."

"Well you should have told me earlier!"

"It's kinda hard to tell you about something that you don't know is going to happen!" Stephanie is obviously getting flustered by this Luke guy.

Seeing this, he starts panicking slightly. "I-I didn't mean… Can we just start over with an introduction?"

"I would say yes, but they kind of all need to be conscious first…"

Looking at Drew, despite being hit with enough force to snap a tree in half, he only seems to have a large bruise on the top of his head. Good thing we brought some reviver seeds. I open up the bag and fish out some seeds. "Which of these is a reviver seed?" Christy looks at them. "The slightly smaller one is a reviver seed."

"I guess I can see that now, I guess, but how do you guys tell what type of seed a seed is? The rest of these look the same."

"I'm not sure, we just can. Maybe it's a pokemon thing."

"Well hopefully I will eventually be able to tell the difference. At least reviver seeds are a different size." I put the reviver seed in Drew's mouth and he almost instantly wakes up.

Drew's POV

I wake up with a splitting headache. "Ow… my head…" I look at my sister, and see the zoroark next to her. "Oh, who's the zoroark?"

"Your sister was about to explain." says Christy.

Stephanie wraps one of her arms around the zoroark. "Well, this is Luke, and he's umm… he's my boyfriend." Luke and my sister both start blushing brightly, before they kiss each other on the lips.

My eyes widen a bit as I realize what's happening. "A boyfriend? When were you going to tell us?"

"I was actually on my way home for my monthly visit when I sensed you nearby, and found you surrounded by those nidos. I watched you fight them off, but jumped in when it looked like you were in actual danger."

"Wait a minute, I thought you said you didn't know that this was going to happen, but you just said you sensed them!" Luke protests. "You could have told me what you were doing before you ran off!"

"I, uh… I guess I got excited when I sensed him, and I ran without thinking."

"Aaanyway, we should get going. We should get back to town and get the reward from the guild." We take out our badges. They start glowing brightly, and before we know it, we're back at Treasure Town.

We head to the guild and get our reward for helping the gible. We get the reward, whatever it was, I wasn't paying attention, and get ready to go, when Zoey runs up to us.

Actually she runs over to my sister and Luke. "Luke!"

"Zoey?!" Luke appears to flinch at her shouting his name.

"It really is you! You have some explaining to do!"

"How about you come with us? That would probably be a bit better than explaining in front of a crowd of pokemon."

"Fine, but I want answers."

We kind of awkwardly head back to my house so we can all catch up. Once we get there we all sit down in a circle.

Zoey looks at Luke. "So, care to explain why you ran off 3 years ago?"

"I was bored, so I went out to play. I went too far and got lost."

"And?"

"And what?"

"And what happened after that?"

"I survived on my own, and recently I met Stephanie. Now she's kinda my girlfriend."

"Wait… Stephanie is your girlfriend? So that's why you were with her!"

"Yep!"

Zoey glances over at me and smiles. "So if this works out, I guess we will be family!"

"Yeah, I guess we will, Zoey." I honestly don't know how else to respond to this.

Stephanie looks at me with a slightly worried look on her face. "So, speaking of family, where's Mom and Dad?"

"Well… they left on a job. They said they should be back in less than a week, but that was more than a week ago. I'm starting to get worried. This has never happened before."

"Hmm… I don't know what's going on, but I know that they will be fine. They are our parents, after all!" My sister reassuringly pats my head.

"I know, but I just have a bad feeling in my stomach." Right as I say that, my stomach growls loudly.

"Are you sure you're not just hungry?" Stephanie laughs.

"You're right, I'm just over thinking this. They're gonna be fine! Let's go get some food! I'm starving!"

Spinda Café - Holly's POV

I sit down in my seat in this cafe after everyone else takes a seat at a table slightly smiling at the realization that I am sitting next to Alex. After a couple minutes of waiting, a spinda approaches our table. "Good to see you, Christy. How have you been?"

"I've been fine." She quietly replies.

"Well that's great! Anyway, welcome to Spinda Café! Would you like to order from the menu or provide your own ingredients?"

Provide our own ingredients? I've never been to a restaurant like that. Then again, I never have been to a restaurant at all…

I look at everyone else chatting until they seem to make a decision.

Stephanie speaks up first "We'll be ordering from the menu today. I'd like an apple juice, and everyone else will have a gummi drink. Is everyone fine with that?" Everyone says that it was good in one way or another while Alex and I simply nod. I honestly don't know what they were talking about, and I get the feeling he doesn't either.

"Alright, I'll get started on this right away!" Spinda turns to leave but gets interrupted by Stephanie.

"Before you go, can we get an extra blue gummi drink? I think we might have someone joining us before too long."

"Sure thing!" And with that, Spinda leaves to prepare drinks.

A few minutes pass before Spinda returns handing out drinks to everyone. He sets a cup of a red liquid in front of me. I take a sip of the drink, finding a delicious flavor that I can't quite describe.

I continue sipping my drink until a strange blue pokemon walks up to us.

Everyone turns to this stranger. Drew's eyes widen with excitement at the sight of the blue pokemon, Christy looks happy to see it, and so does Stephanie, while everyone else is confused.

Drew jumps out of seat, runs over, and hugs the mysterious pokemon. The pokemon chuckles and returns the hug. "I missed you too, Drew." It's voice is soft, but I can't really pin down whether they are a boy or a girl. "It seems that you have made some friends, so I should probably introduce myself. I am Manaphy, and I'm Drew and Stephanie's older… Brother."

"Manaphy, like the mythical pokemon? How is that even possible!?" Alex asks in disbelief.

"Well, yeah! And, as to how I'm their brother, I guess I was adopted, sort of. Our parents received me as an egg as a sort of reward for a mission. I hatched soon after, and they did their best to raise me."

Drew interrupts Manaphy's story. "Can I tell the next part? I like this part of the story!"

"Sure, if you want to."

Drew clears his throat, and tries to sound dramatic. "Alright, so Mom and Dad were raising Manaphy, doing their best, when he got dangerously sick due to being a water type away from water. They heard of a miracle cure deep within a dangerous dungeon known as Phione Dew. Despite the dangers, and despite being unevolved, they bravely challenged the dungeon, and returned triumphantly with the medicine in hand."

Manaphy rolls his eyes at his brothers attempt to be dramatic. "After I recovered, I left to the sea so I wouldn't get sick like that again. I did my best to get stronger, so I could leave the water without having to worry. I guess the whole experience of raising me got Mom and Dad thinking, because when I finally came back a year later, I not only found that they had evolved, but I also found myself face to face with a cute little riolu!"

Watching them continue chatting and catching up, I frown and finish my drink. They get along so well… They almost remind me of… I turn away, tears forming in my eyes.

"Holly?" Alex calls my name.

I quickly wipe the tears out of my eyes, and turn around. "Yeah?"

"We were just about to go. It's gotten pretty late, but… Are you alright? You've been very quiet."

"Oh… Uh, yeah. I'm… Fine."

"You don't sound fine. What's wrong?"

"... Let's just go."

"But-"

"I just want to go!" I shout at the top of my lungs.

Alex goes silent. The others in the group go silent. Everyone in the café goes silent. They all look at me, remaining silent.

"N-no, I didn't…" I run out as fast as I can, crying, trying to get to a place that feels safe.

After what felt like forever, I find myself in our room in the guild. I run into the corner and break down crying. Why is this happening? I thought I got over this! What should I do? I don't know! Whenever something like this used to happen, I had my parents to help me! They… They… I start crying even harder.

I hear footsteps behind me, and I turn to see Alex. "Please leave me alone!"

"But I want to help you!"

"I don't need your help!" I turn back away.

"I didn't say you need my help, but I want to offer it. I don't know anything about my past, but I know I had parents, and I know they loved me, and I miss them. You know that they wouldn't want to see you upset like this. So please, let me help you." I feel him set his hand on my shoulder gently.

My breathing starts to slow down back to normal. "I-I guess that makes sense. I'll take you up on that offer."

"Great! If you have a problem, please tell me about it, and I'll do my best to try and help."

"I'll try to keep that in mind. I'm feeling much better now." I move a bit closer to him, rubbing against him slightly.

"Uhh… What are you doing?"

My eyes go wide open and I jolt away from Alex, blushing brightly after suddenly realizing what I had been doing. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine. No need to apologize."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I think-" Alex's face goes blank and he wobbles slightly, going completely silent.

"Are-are you OK? What's wrong?!"

Silence is the only response I get from him. Hearing footsteps, I turn around to see Drew and Christy entering the room.

"Where were you guys?!"

"We had to say our goodbyes to my family, and that took a bit longer than we expected."

"OK, I guess, but something's wrong with Alex!"

Drew and Christy look at Alex, both worried, though the worry seems to quickly leave them. "Don't worry, he should be fine."

"What do you mean he'll be fine?!"

"Sometimes he spaces out and apparently has these "visions" where he can see the future or something."

"That sounds fake and made up. He needs help, or something!"

"Actually, it's the truth. It's actually why we came after you. Alex had a vision, and saw you being attacked by those other guys, and it ended with their leader actually stabbing you, I think. He urged us to go after you, and we found the exact scenario he described, but we were able to interrupt the, well, stabbing."

"Stop speaking crazy! This is seri- wait, really?"

"Why would I lie to you? Besides, my dad had a similar ability when he was younger. He said it was called a… Universal Shout? No, that's not quite it..."

Christy speaks up to help Drew. "He's telling the truth. I was there with him when it happened!"

"So you're saying that Alex is not only a human, but he also has visions?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying! And we should probably get it together, because it looks like he's waking up."

Surely enough, Alex seemed to be coming out of his trance. He wobbles a bit, then blinks a few times rapidly. "I don't think I'll ever get used to these visions…"

With a frown on my face, I decide to confront him. "Alex, you had me worried when you spaced out! Luckily everyone else showed up to tell me that you should be fine, and that you were just having a vision, as crazy as that sounds."

"Well it's the truth."

"If it's the truth, then tell me what you saw and, and if it happens, I'll believe you."

Alex's face goes bright red. "Wh-what I saw? I saw two visions this time, one was almost definitely the future, but I think the other might have been the past."

"So now you have visions of the past too? Well just tell me one of them, since you seem embarrassed about something."

His face starts going back to its normal color. "I'll tell you the one I think was the past. I saw you alone in a cave, quietly crying. It looked like you had an apple with a bite taken out of it, and you looked pretty banged up."

"That was exactly what happened after the first time I stole! I was starving but I had no money, so I had to do something. I took an apple from a kecleon store, and before I knew it, I was being chased down by a hoard of angry shopkeepers. I barely got away, and I felt terrible, but I did what I had to to survive. I think I believe you now."

"That's terrible… I wish that I could do something to make up for what you've gone through."

"Don't worry, I think you're already making up for it. You saved my life, and you let me join your team. Honestly I should be trying to make it up to you."

"We could call it even?"

"Sure." I smile at him, feeling really glad that we became friends.

After that, the rest of the day went as expected. We went to dinner, chatted some, and headed to bed. I scooted my bed a little closer to Alex's.

That night I had the best nights sleep I could remember.

Once again I apologize for the long wait. I hope you liked this chapter. I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner than this one took. Please tell me what you think and where I could try to improve. I should be able to work on this a bit more since school is winding up for me.