Chapter 10

Author's Note: Sorry if you're getting tired of me starting a chapter with waking up, but it's my favorite way because I prefer to cover an entire day in a chapter. Waking up is a good place to start a story, and going to sleep is a good time to pause it. ONTO THE STORY!

I kept my eyes closed, refusing to wake up. I was feeling terrible, but couldn't remember why, yet. Yesterday was a fog. I remembered a scream, but when I tried to follow that memory, I drew a blank.

"Hmmm, guess Umbra's still asleep!" I heard Brass calling, a little too loud. "Guess he doesn't get any of this delicious food!" He knew I was awake, that bastard. Against my will, my stomach growled loudly.

"Fine, I'm up!" As I got up, I noticed we were on the edge of a small forest, more of just a group of trees than a full fledged forest. Beyond that was grasslands that we'd been walking down yesterday. Yesterday... "Ugh... I'm too tired to care what happened yesterday." I muttered to myself.

Walking out of the forest and up to Brass, I glanced at the food being cooked. The promised "delicious" food was the average nuts and berries stew.

"I hate you." I said, giving Brass a dirty look.

"Grab you some, there's plenty for everyone!" He handed me a wooden bowl. I still wondered how he used his scythes as well as most use there paws/ hands.

Walking a little ways away, I sat down, and absentmindedly wondered what that pile of smoking wood was. Is it a forest fire? Nah! I continued to think about it without actually thinking about it.

Behind me, a girl's voice spoke up. "Hey, uh, morning." At the sound of her voice, I remembered the Absol, which caused me to remember the fire. The fire! That's what that smoking pile was! The memories of last night rushed back. The pain, the fire, the dead... While turmoil raged in my head, I just kept the blank expression on my face, until I felt someone sit next to me.

Turning my head, I saw Absol. Silence passed. She was the first to break it after 5 minutes. "Uh, hey. Name's Serenity."

"Oh, uh. Well, Brass calls me Umbra, so you could call me that, I guess." Again, the silence. Wondering where he was, I turned my head to find Brass had disappeared. Curse him, I did not want to be alone with her.

On a top branch of a nearby tree, surrounded by foliage, Brass laughed to himself, while cloud gazing. Umbra and Serenity made a cute couple, even if Umbra was weirdly distant to her. 'Maybe it has something to do with that ex he mentioned yesterday...'

"Hey." She pulled me out of my memories as she broke the silence again. "I wanted to say thanks. You know, for taking down that maniac." She looked at me, and I had to look away.

"Do you think he survived?" I tried to change the subject. I really didn't want her staring at me, her red eyes were... distracting. I couldn't wait to get moving and leave this incident behind me.

"Oh, please, Mew no!" She said with a light laugh. When I didn't respond, her laughter died down awkwardly. I got up. "Wait, where are you going?"

"To save that idiotic Quilava." And with that, I walked away, leaving a speechless Absol.

I groaned. My head hurt. After that Umbreon got a lucky shot, all I remember is a large quake, then falling. Now, I was in a dark area, and felt a heavy weight on me. I struggled to get up, then noticed that I was surrounded by burnt wood, small embers still lighting the area very lightly. I tried to shoot some flames out to blast some of the wood away, but all it did was relight some wood. That small feat took the rest of my energy away.

I rummaged through some of the wreckage, trying to decide where that upstairs room would have fallen. Putting my nose to the ground, I tried to smell him out, but all I picked up on is ash. 'No shit, Nose, this place has ash!' Sighing to myself, I started lifting pieces of wood out of the way.

A few minutes of this passed when a weak jet of flames shot out from a nearby large pile of wood, lighting it on fire. I rushed over, then realized I had no way of putting the fire out. "Shit! Where's Brass!" Turning, the only other person I saw was Serenity.

"Guess I'll have to improvise!" I shot a dark pulse at the wood, hoping that if I destroyed the fuel, I'd destroy the fire. The blast sent several flying pieces of flaming wood at nearby trees. Woops...

"Oh, no!" Serenity jumped up, and sent a razor wind at them, which caused them to fall apart into much smaller, and less dangerous pieces.

Ignoring her help, I went back to clearing the rest of the woods, which was hot, but not on fire.

"Ugh!" I saw blue fur underneath some wood. Lifting it out of the way, I saw the Quilava from last night. I noticed Serenity tense beside me as she saw him, and she stepped back behind me a bit.

"He's unconscious. He isn't going to do anything." I lifted him on my shoulder's, an annoyed look on my face.

"You don't have to be rude! I thought you were a nice person." She muttered under her breathe.

I gave her a quizzical look. "What do you mean? I've been nothing but nice!"

"No!" She was getting upset. "Every time I tried to be nice to you, you just brush me off, or ignore me!"

Wanting to drop the subject, I just said "Whatever." and turned to head back to our small campsite, but she caught up to me quickly. She wasn't about to let this go.

"No, not whatever. If we're going to be traveling together, you've got to be nicer to me."

"Who said you'd be traveling with us?"

"Brass said you wanted me to go with you, at least to the next town." She had a confused expression on her face, and said it as more of a question.

I just lowered my head, growling softly. Doubling my pace, I muttered "Brass is going to pay." under my breathe.

When we arrived, Brass just gave a questioning look at the quilava I was carrying on my back. "I saved him. I figure we can drop him off at the next city's police station."

"And what will we do to keep him still in the meantime? He won't just go with us willingly."

I thought on it for a moment, then I grabbed some nearby vines, and tied them together. "Rope!" I exclaimed, holding it up in the air, like it was a prized possession. Serenity and I quickly tied the Quilava's feet together.

Brass started laughing. "That's... just wrong. Well, dinner is made. Yes, Umbra, it's just reheated stew." Everyone quickly ate.

"Ugh!" All heads snapped to attention, to the unwanted guest that was waking up. Straining, he looked around. "Uh, hi."

Serenity screamed, and jumped behind me. Shaking my head, I walked up to our hostage. "Good to see you're awake. Tomorrow, we are going to head to the nearest city, and you are going with. We will then hand you off to the police and tell them how you burned down an entire house. Along with the two owners."

"I didn't do it, I didn't do it I swear. I just wanted to get some free food before the place burnt down." It sounded practice.

Serenity jumped out from behind me. "Yeah right! You know you set that fire. The fire that..." Her fury died down, and she turned away with tears in her eyes.

"I swear, it wasn't me!" He had a more honest look on his face, now, but I didn't trust him. My memory of the broken, distorted bodies came back to me. I wanted to smash his skull in, but I settled with shoving a piece of vine rope in his mouth, too thick to bite through, and tied it behind his head.

"That's enough lies for today, let's pack up and head out." I stood to go, but Serenity spoke up.

"Actually, could we make a grave." I looked at her. She had tears in her eyes. As much as I tried to distance myself, I still felt bad for her. It was a terrible thing to happen to anyone.

I nodded. Me and Brass found where the basement was buried. We decided not to dig them up, to just leave them buried in this unusual way. I said it was because I didn't want Serenity to have to see them as they were, but I also didn't want to visit that unpleasant image.

Serenity was too emotional, so I was unwillingly elected to do the eulogy.

I stood in front of Serenity and Brass, who had there heads bowed in respect of the deceased. Serenity had stopped crying, trying to be strong, and not break down.

"Death always seems like such a foreign concept. We know it happens, but we don't always realize how serious it is. Not until it happens to our loved ones," I then nodded to Brass, "or our very selves. It is very sad, but we have to believe that Mew will take care of them." I paused, having no clue what else to say, then continued as I thought of the words. "Death happens, as sad as it is. It effects us all, and it will happen to each and every one of us, some day. But life is the opposite of death, and, as such, should be celebrated. The best way to remember the dead, is to live your life to the fullest, and keep them in your heart." I had to stop after that, because I was about ready to cry, myself. Serenity was now crying again, and even Brass looked saddened, though he wasn't much one to cry.

I walked off, heading back to our camp. "That was... sad." I simply ignored the quilava as he talked. "I didn't start that fire." He said, quietly.

I rounded on him, staring a death glare. "You dare lie about taking innocent lives. I should take an eye for an eye, but the humans deserve to avenge those people more than me. I'll leave that pleasure to them, you sicko." I was about ready to snap and destroy him, right there.

"I didn't do it! I swear!" I started to run towards him, fury clouding any reasonable thought. Time to shut this lying bitch up!

"Umbra, stop!" I turned to see Brass walking up to me. I slowed to a stop, a Dark Pulse half formed in my mouth. "What the hell is with you? First, you try to attack that human on that roof, and now you're trying to attack a defenseless pokemon?" My not fully formed Dark Pulse fell to the ground, dissipating weakly.

Realizing his words held truth, I calmed down. Turning to walk away, I said "I got to go... think things out."

As he watched me disappear into the small forest, he said "You do that."

Staring into the large pond, I thought. Was it because I evolved? Did it have something to do with Celebi maybe? What was going on? I launched a small Dark Pulse into the water, trying to relieve pint up frustration. A magikarp was then launched into the air. If it could make noises besides Glub, I'm sure it would have in panic.

"You shouldn't do that, you might end up hitting something that could hit back." I turned to see Serenity walking up to where I was sitting. "Hey, Brass told me you kinda flipped out." She paused for a minute. "His name is Dane."

"Huh?"

"The quilava's. He's actually a nice guy, and Brass decided to trust him, for now at least."

I would've been mad, but I still felt too bad about my... temper. I'd almost... I audibly sighed.

"What's wrong?" She sat next to me, staring at her own reflection in the water.

"I've been angry. More angry than I thought possible. I just don't know why."

"Hmmm." She seemed to contemplate on this a while. When she next spoke, she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "I havn't known you for very long at all, but you seem to be a very nice person, I mean you saved me!"

"Hmph! From a supposedly innocent quilava, some saving."

"He had malicious intent, even if he only wanted to knock me out of the way to steal my stuff. So yeah, you saved my life. I would've been burnt to a crisp by the house."

A few moments passed. My eyes hadn't left my wavy reflection. I used to see a small puppy pokemon, full of life and possibilities. Now, I was an angry, and Dark cat pokemon. She pulled me from my thoughts again, this time by lying down, curling up next to me.

A mental war started, as I debated lying next to her. Such a simple thing meant so much. Her white fur shone beautifully, and I really did think she was attractive. But, Celebi... She broke up with me, but I still missed her and liked her, it was too soon. 'I'll sleep next to her, I just won't let it mean anything.'

Arriving at the campfire in the morning, all we found was a note. "Dear Umbra and Serenity, Dane and I have gone ahead (West down the path) to scout ahead."

I stopped reading aloud to say, "Scout ahead? For what, zombies?"

Then I continued. "I will double back to let you know when we're approaching a city." 'Oh.' "Continue on behind, and if it becomes night before we reach the next city, just continue on until you see my camp. I will probably already be asleep, with dinner ready for the two of you, but please be quiet. I will make breakfast in the morning, and leave before you get up. Then we just repeat. Sincerely, Brass."

"Wow, he really thinks things through." Serenity said, a bit in awe.

"A little to much." I responded.

In case you are wondering, Brass and Serenity talked the night of the fire, when Umbra had just fallen asleep. Brass is the hardest name to remember, I keep trying to type Kabutops, even though it's longer. I'm already used to Umbra, Dane and Serenity, though!

Review, PLEASE! The only reason my style of writing has improved is because of good, constructive, and helpful reviews. Someone told me I rush things, I'm unrealistic at times (Ironic since this takes place in a world full of pokemon), and that my writing was generally poor quality. I'm a big fan of his writing, so it hit me especially hard, but it also made me realize that he was right, so I've been working harder lately.

Go ahead, curse me out, just tell me why you hate my guts.

OK, I didn't mean to replace Celebiu so fast, and Umbra feels the same. So he'll be having an internal battle with himself, while Serenity is left completely confused on what's going on. And man I'm going to have fun with Dane! I need to slow this story down a bit. OK, a lot a bit. By the way, ironic nicknames are awesome. Calling the disaster pokemon Serenity is perfect.