Chapter Ten

James awoke in a nightmare.

At first, he thought he'd somehow come back to Team Rocket headquarters and was in the labs. Dozens upon dozens of Pokemon cages lined the walls, each one containing a familiar – and frightened – fuzzy face. He jumped back in alarm; were those really all the Pokemon that he and the trio had failed to capture in their career?

What were they doing here, then?

Being miserable, obviously; each one bore the marks of cruel experiments and painful vivisection. The creatures cowered in their cages as they saw him, shaking in terror, some even sobbing to themselves. The only stoic Pokemon was a shiny Rhyhorn that glared bloody daggers at James from its pen, bashing its fists against the bars of its prison and roaring out what must have been Pokemon death threats. James quickly moved away from that one.

In a glass cage next to the Rhyperior lay a battered and bleeding Pikachu, wires inserted into its body in various places to feed off its energy. That twerp's Pikachu. It opened one eye to look at James (who was feeling more and more like a rotten person every minute) before collapsing back into half-consciousness.

This isn't right, James thought. We never actually took any of these Pokemon to the boss. We'd always been stopped somehow... Than a darker thought struck him. But what if we had?

And then he realized how many of the caged Pokemon were dead.

"No," James yelled at himself, realizing that he was responsible, that he HAD to have been responsible, that even if he hadn't actually succeeded in doing to them what was being done now, this was still the fate he had wished upon them. "No, no, no... NO!"

Was he dreaming? Was he awake? Was he... dead? He didn't know, and he didn't care. He just had to get out of this horrible place, even if it killed him. And, truth be told, it probably would.

And I deserve it.

"Celebi!" he screamed, upsetting many of the surviving Pokemon. "Celebi, HELP ME!"

What helped him wasn't Celebi at all.

It was an enormous Entei, bigger even than the illusionary Entei which had ruled the dreams of little Molly in that horrifying Unown incident in Greenfield. It was shiny, but It wasn't the one he'd seen in the incident with Zoroark – this One clearly put all other Entei to shame. To describe It – he couldn't, just that It radiated power and that Its eyes blazed like blue coals of fire, coals that could pierce James' heart like flaming arrows. Entei didn't seem like It wanted to destroy him, thank goodness, but one look at Its somber face said quite clearly that whether It wanted to or not, It might have to.

James was speechless, barely daring to breathe. In the space of three seconds, he fell to his knees, then onto his face, whimpering pitifully. What was this Thing, this Being? He didn't know what he wanted – for Entei to just go away, or for everything else to go away and leave him with Entei forever. Being near the Entei was like being in the forest of the Between, only much more so – horror and longing all mixed into one, both so strong that they threatened to overpower the other. He feared It, yes, but part of him wanted to bury his face in Its fur and beg it for comfort... and for forgiveness.

Entei spoke in a voice like thunder, providing the words that James had both wanted and dreaded. "Speak what is on your heart, child."

James, still flat on the floor, couldn't bring himself to look up. "Forgive me... Master..." Where had "Master" come from? James had never wanted anyone to be his master, never wanted to serve ANYONE, yet somehow, here and now, it fit. "I... I did this..." Then, in a burst of emotion, he babbled, "Whatever you do to me now, can't you save THEM?"

It spoke again. "My son, you are forgiven."

James didn't even hear those words at first. "Well, at least get it over w- WHAT?"

A heavy, thick-furred paw lifted James' face from the dusty ground (which had seemed even colder then the floor of the real Team Rocket labs before It had come, but now glowed with a radiant warmth from It – or Him). James dared to open his eyes, his gaze traveling from the great velvet paw to the iron manacle around Entei's ankle, up to the great flowing mane of fur and into the great Face, where two blue Eyes like coals of fire looked down on him with kindness and mercy.

Forgiven?

"But-but-but... I don't understand!"

Entei smiled at him. "Look behind you, child."

James looked, and – everything was different! The cages, the wires, the blood and horror was gone completely. In its place stood a meadow, a beautiful green grassy meadow under the sun, where all the Pokemon – ALL the Pokemon – were playing happily, free and alive. Even their trainers joined in, letting the pocket monsters crawl all over them, smothering them with affection. James ducked behind Entei when he saw the Ketchum twerp with them. No need for unwanted awkward encounters, right?

But as James moved behind the great Legendary Pokemon, he was horrified to see that Entei had sunk to Its knees, losing power. The bruises and cuts of every tortured Pokemon James had seen had moved to It, showing horribly even through Its thick fur. The same wires that had stuck into Pikachu were now stuck into Entei, shocking It horribly. Entei's eyes looked sadly into James', and then they... closed...

"No, Entei!" James yelled suddenly, startling the Pokemon and trainers playing only a few feet away. "Don't die, Master!" (Master again? Why do I feel like I've known Him all my life? Why do I feel like I want to know Him forever and ever? Why...)

For the final time, Entei spoke, its words more a whisper than a thunder. "My name... is Aslan."

Then the whole world around them exploded.

"Is the dew working?"

"Spirit purified it fresh this morning, like He always does. Why wouldn't it work?"

"I was just thinking... well, what if it's too late?"

"Katie, quit beating up on yourself like that. It's not like it's your fault that poor boy tried to catch you while you were morphing into a cloud of dust. He was just being a gentleman."

"Yes, but what if he's a dead gentleman?"

James was now able to make out the two voices. The first voice was the one he'd heard from the dust cloud that had nearly electrocuted him. The second wasn't a voice he'd heard before; in fact, it wasn't a "voice" at all so much as a telepathic presence around him, like the voice of a Psychic-type Pokemon.

And then James realized he was underwater. Underwater, but not drowning; rather, vibrating. It felt familiar, the way being in the Lake of Life had felt the day he had first "met" Celebi (Celebi! Where WAS Celebi? he wondered), but much more powerful. It felt like pure Aura energy, flowing into every facet of his being, restoring his very soul. (Any other day, he'd think that was crazy, but now... now, nothing seemed impossible.)

Aslan... who was Aslan?

A wet feathery mass ran into James from underneath and lifted him from the water. By this time, James figured that thrashing about was useless; what was going to happen would happen whether he wanted it to or not. Looking down (the only direction he could look in his current position), he saw the long neck and white feathery down of a Latias. A very wet Latias, carrying a very wet James on her back.

Oh, James had never been so glad to be soaking wet!

He saw that they were in a spacious cavern formed by the roots of the enormous tree. The roots drank up water from the Pool (whenever James looked at it, he could only refer to it with a capital P, it was so awesome). The Pool glowed with a silver light, water rippling as if the lake itself was breathing. Living water beneath a living tree, flowing through living roots into the trunk itself and beyond.

It was the most glorious thing James had ever seen... besides Aslan.

The morph girl stood near the shores of the Pool with a little black creature resembling an Archeops perched on her shoulder. As Latias approached her, she offered James her hand. "Sorry for landing on you there. Want me to help you down? Don't worry; I promise I won't fall to pieces on you again."

The black Archeops tilted its head at James, scrutinizing him with bright, beady yellow eyes. It tasted the air around James with a tongue forked four ways. Its eyes grew brighter, and it giggled a raspy giggle to itself, apparently pleased with how this new person "tasted."

New person, James realized. I'm a new person. In this new world, he didn't have to be part of Team Rocket anymore. Something had brought him here, something or someONE, and whoever it was must have done it for a reason.

Aslan, James realized. It must have been Aslan.He had no idea how he knew this, only that he knew.

And in the meantime, he was lying on his belly on Latias' back, soaking wet, and both the morph girl and her Archeops were looking at him as if to say, "Well, are you going to just lie there and be wet all day?" James noticed Yamask and Celebi behind the morph girl, both looking more than relieved to see him breathing. Celebi's eyes met James', and the trainer realized that she'd known all along that this all was going to happen.