Hey, hey, hey and welcome to chapter 10! I really am thankful for everyone who had read this far and kept with my story. Anyway, onto the story.

Sam was awoken to a bright light in his face. Once his eyes had adjusted, Sam found that the light was from a fire. The fire was a lot brighter since it was night. Sam tried to remember what had happened before that made him pass out. Once he did remember, he practically jumped up from where he had been laying despite his large headache.

"Where's Lily?" he asked.

"Don't worry, she's fine," a voice came from Sam's left. He turned to see Cassius sitting down on the grass. He was staring into the fire. "Sleep well?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the fire.

"I guess…" Sam answered. He looked around and he didn't see anyone else around. "Where is everyone?"

"They all went out on separate walks by themselves. I decided to stay here until you woke up."

"Is Lily alright," Sam said as he sat down next to Cassius.

"For the most part. She did have a burn on one of her legs, but other than that she was fine. We bandaged it with some of the berry bag. It wasn't much, but it was the best we could do."

"Can the bag hold berries anymore?"

"Yes, it can. We just cut off the top part and tied up the part we ripped out.

"Were you able to find any rawest berries while you were out?"

Cassius shook his head. "We came back when we heard screaming. It's a good thing we got there when we did." He turned to Sam. "You do know that fire isn't good for your health, right?" Cassius joked.

"Yeah, I know, but I couldn't just let that flamethrower hit Lily. I had to do something."

"I see," Cassius smiled a bit.

"What is it?" Sam asked when he saw the smile.

"Nothing," Cassius said before he looked back at the fire. "By the way, Lily wanted to see you when you woke up."

"Really?" Sam said as he arose from his position.

"Yeah, she went that way. She told me to point you towards her when you awoke." Cassius said as he pointed behind him with his tail. "I think she want's to talk to you… make sure you're okay."

"Alright, thanks." Sam said as he started to practically sprint in the direction Cassius had pointed.

Sam was running through the trees at top speed. Because of this, he was blindsided by a flareon who had walked out from behind a tree. The collision didn't help Sam's headache at all. The two fell to the ground. Sam shook his head and looked up at the pokémon that he had run into. It just happened to be Drake.

"Hey Sam, can't you be a bit more careful?" he asked as he got up off of the ground.

"Sorry Drake, wasn't looking where I was going."

"You got that right," Drake said. His negative attitude faded, however, as he asked him a question.

"You doing alright?"

"Decently," Sam replied.

"That's good to hear, I guess. You looked pretty worn out after the battle. I guess that's why you collapsed."

" I guess so. How about you? You got hammered hard in that battle too."

"Been better," Drake answered. "By the way, my sister was looking for you."

"Yeah, that's where I was going."

"Oh, okay. Um… could I ask you a question?" Drake asked awkwardly.

"Sure, what is it?"

"I wanted to know what you did back there."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, not entirely understanding what Drake was talking about.

"When you were fighting the houndour. I wasn't able to see all of it, but I did see that you started to glow white and then ran right through the fire without getting hurt. You sent that houndour flying."

"I… don't know what that was either. It was just some kind of power that enveloped me when I wanted to protect my friends." Sam said.

"Interesting. I'll ask Cassius. He probably knows. That espeon is well versed in this kind of stuff. Anyway, I won't hold you up any more." Drake said as he went in a random direction. Sam continued in the direction he was going.

After some more running, Sam broke through the tree line and made it to a place where a cliff was overlooking the city. The city's lights were a sight to see, but so were the stars. Sam didn't usually get to see the stars since he lived in the city most of his life. The only times he did was when he went out into the wild to look for pokémon himself, which wasn't very often. He looked out towards the edge of the cliff and saw Lily sitting there, also looking up at the stars. Sam approached her quietly as to not startle her.

"The stars are beautiful tonight," Lily said to herself, unaware of anyone behind her.

"Aren't they every night?" Sam said as a way to get her attention.

"I guess they are," Lily replied while still looking up at the stars. She then realized who was talking to her. She got up and turned around. "Sam!" she shouted out of joy and then practically tackled the eevee. "I'm so glad you're alright," she said with a smile on her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam replied while lightly pushing Lily off of him. "but I should be the one worried about you," Sam said as he recovered from being knocked to the ground.

"But you were the one who dived in front of a flamethrower. Why did you do that? You could have been badly injured." Lily said, very concerned.

"I… I couldn't let that flamethrower hit you. After all that you've done to me, I just couldn't let anything bad happen to you. Even if that meant me getting very hurt."

Lily put on a big smile and pulled Sam into a hug.

"You would do that for me?" Lily asked.

"Sure. That's what friends are for, right?"

When Lily heard this, she hugged Sam even tighter. "Thanks, Sam, that means a lot to me."

"Anytime," Sam replied back. Lily released her grip on Sam and wiped a tear that had formed on one of her eyes.

"Does your leg hurt at all?" he asked as he pointed to her bandage, changing the subject.

Lily glanced at her leg, and then back at Sam. "It hurts a lot, actually," Lily replied honestly.

"Well, when we get to my house, I have a burn heal we can use on you."

"You mean the people that own you have a burn heal." Lily corrected him.

"Um… right," Sam said as he looked towards the ground. He was unsure of how to answer that. Sooner or later, they would figure out who he truly was. Maybe telling them was better than them finding out on their own. He looked up into Lily's dark blue eyes.

"Hey… there's…something I need to tell you." Sam said slowly. Lily cocked her head.

"What is it?"

"Well…you see… I-"

"EHH!"

Sam was interrupted by a shriek coming from somewhere near by.

"Who's voice was that?" Sam asked.

"No one's that I know," Lily answer.

"Let's go see," Sam said. The two started to run back into the forest towards the sound. Lily was running as fast as she could with a crippled leg. Sam stopped when she would fall too far behind and let her catch up. It didn't take long for the two to get to where the sound was coming from. In a part of the forest that was dense with trees, Sam and Lily found a houndour backing what looked like a sandshrew up against a large rock.

"Hey, hey look, I think we can work this out," the sandshrew pleaded with his arms up. Lily's eyes lit up when she saw the mouse pokémon.

"Could it be…" she whispered.

"What's the matter?" Sam asked. Lily continued to stare. She shook her head.

"Nothing, come on, let's help him," she replied.

"No. You can't fight with that leg," Sam pointed out. "Let me deal with this."

"But I want to he-" Lily pleaded before Sam shushed her.

"I don't want you getting anymore hurt," Sam said in a serious tone of voice. Lily smiled a bit.

"Alright. I guess you're right," she said with a sigh. "I'll go get the others to help."

"Right," Sam said. Lily left to go find the others while Sam moved his attention back to the houndour and the sandshrew.

"Look, I really, really, didn't mean to get in your way." The sandshrew continued to babble. "So if we could just forget that this ever happened and go our separate ways, that would be cool."

"Even though there aren't many warriors left to guard our territory doesn't mean that you can just waltz right in!" the houndour growled back. He looked like he wanted a fight.

Not many warriors, huh? Sam thought. Guess that's why we haven't run into as many as I thought we would.

"Oh," the sandshrew exclaimed while he looked around. "this is… your territory?" He asked with genuine surprise. "Oh, well… sorry that I just walked right on it; that's my bad. So… I'll just take my leave now if you don't mind." The sandshrew started to walk past the houndour before the fire type blocked his path once again.

"If you trespass, then you're not going to get off the hook that easily," the houndoom said in an intimidating way.

"But… this is all just a big misunderstanding," the sandshrew pleaded, now more afraid than before.

"Oh yeah? Then misunderstand this!" the houndour shouted as he opened his mouth and prepared to launch a fire attack. That is, until Sam tackled him, which made him almost lose his balance, but he caught himself at the last second. Before he was able to recover fully from the sneak attack, Sam shot a Swift his way. He was unable to dodge it as the every star hit him on the head. The houndour took no time to form a counter attack by shooting an Ember. He, however, still had his eyes closed because of the Swift attack he took to the head, so it was a blind fire and Sam was able to dodge it well enough.

Sam tackled the fire type one last time before the houndour gave up and high-tailed it out of the area. Sam wasn't going to pursue. Sam turned back to the sandshrew who had been watching the whole affair from afar.

"Wow, that sure was some nice fighting. You really saved my skin there," he said as he came over to where Sam was.

"Don't mention it," Sam replied, "but what is a sandshrew doing in houndoom territory?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the sandshrew said as he stretched his arms.

"Well…"

"But I won't because that would just be rude," the ground type interjected. He then put one of his hands up onto his chest as he pointed to himself. "Name's Morty. I was just scavenging for some food when I apparently stepped onto that guy's property."

"You were scavenging in the middle of the night?"

"Why not? There are fewer pokémon awake, so you don't have to compete. Well, most of the time." Morty said while looking in the direction the houndour ran away in.

"Yeah, those houndour and houndoom don't like anyone trespassing on their land," Sam commented. "Wait," he continued once he thought of something, "if you just happened to stumble onto this land, then does that mean the border is near here?"

"Maybe?" Morty answered, unsure if it was or not. "I mean, I have been near here before and they've never bothered me when I'm there."

"Alright, thanks."

"I'm the one who should be thanking you. So therefore, thanks!"

"Um… you're welcome."

"Alright, I better go look for some food somewhere else." Morty said as he started to walk out of the territory. "See you another time, maybe."

"Yeah…"

Not a few seconds had passed from the time Morty left that Drake came bursting through the brush. Kate was not far behind and Cassius was not far behind her. Lily brought up the rear.

"Where's the houndour?" Drake asked.

"Oh, I already took care of him," Sam said with a little boast in his voice.

"Really?" Lily sound surprised. "Then where's the sandshrew?"

"He left just before you guys had arrived."

"Well alright then, false alarm, I guess. Let's all get back to our campsite and get some sleep." Cassius suggested. No one opposed that idea. Sam especially. He had drained all his energy fighting the houndour. It didn't look like hard work, but fighting really takes it out of you.

As the five were walking back, Cassius came over to Sam.

"So Drake was telling me about a move that you did when you were fighting that battle earlier today."

"Oh yeah, that one. I don't really know what happened."

"Well, tell me what happend before you did that move,"

"Alright," Sam said, recalling the events. "Well, the houndour had jumped on me and I used Swift to get her off of me. Then I went in for a tackle, but she dodged that. I then tried to head-butt her, but she dodged that too. Then I rolled to the side to dodge a flamethrower, but I couldn't get up after that. Then, as another flamethrower was coming at me, I just felt the power envelop me."

Cassius nodded his head. "Just as I thought."

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"I believe you used a move humans call Last Resort. It's a move that is extremely powerful, but you can only use it if you have used all of your other moves."

"Interesting. That explains why I didn't feel the power when I was fighting that houndour."

"I also find it interesting that sandshrew was in houndoom territory. Did you ask him what he was doing?" Cassius asked.

"Yeah, I did. He said that he was scavenging and accidentally stumbled into the area."

"Well, if he just happened to walk in here without knowing it, I think we might almost be out."

"I had the same thought," Sam said.

"Did you know him personally?"

"No, I didn't. He seemed like a pretty nice guy though. He said his name was Morty.

"Interesting," Cassius said, a little bit intrigued by something.

Sam saw Lily go over and whisper something into Drake's ear, but Sam didn't catch what it was.

About that time they had all arrived back at their campsite. Kate and Drake immediately took their places around the fire and curled up to sleep. Lily went a little farther away from the flames and went to sleep herself. Sam felt really helpless because he couldn't do anything to help Lily with her leg, but he knew that when they got to his house, he would have something to cure it there.

Sam took his own spot around the fire and laid his head down to sleep. Cassius soon went and sat by Sam, however.

"If you're not too tired," Cassius said in a whisper as to not wake the others, "I wanted to ask you a question."

"Sure, what is it, Cass?" Sam said as he lifted his head off the ground.

"If you didn't know Morty personally, then why did you decide to save him? Back when you didn't know Kate, you were all against the idea of helping her. How is that sandshrew different?"

"He's not," Sam replied, just realizing that fact himself. "But I don't know why I wanted to help him and not Kate either. It just felt like the right thing to do."

"I see," Cassius said as he started to get up. "I think I know the reason why."

"Why?"

"It's because the person who didn't want to help Kate and the person who wanted to help Morty weren't the same person."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, very confused by this.

"You've changed a lot since I first met you, and you are nothing like you were back then." Cassius said as he went over to another spot by the fire to go to sleep.

"I guess so…" Sam concluded and laid his head back down. He had changed a lot since he had left his house to go capture that eevee in the woods. He didn't even want to capture these pokémon around him like he had before. He was so close to completing the pokédex, but it just wouldn't see right to capture any of them.

This reminded Sam that he had totally forgot to tell Lily that he wasn't really a pokémon. He decided that he would tell everyone in the morning. It would be better to tell them for them to figure out on their own.

Little did Sam know that one of his party members would figure out on their own before he even woke up.

Thanks for reading. Really appreciate it.