The Coming Danger, part 1

Kyerrsha

I followed after Evon, with Akiko and Jomei following me.

"Are you sure we can trust this kid?" Jomei asked.

"He was my only friend for the past five years of my life. Yeah, we can trust him."

Both of them were silent after that. I could tell by listening to their breathing why they were being quiet: Jomei still didn't trust Evon, but he wasn't going to say anything else. Akiko was thinking. Finally, she said, "Just clarifying: why not longer than that?"

I smiled. "Because he wasn't old enough to go to school yet further back than five years." I heard her stop. I looked over my shoulder and asked, "You okay back there?"

Her eyes had gotten very big. "We're trusting a nine-year-old?"

"He's as old as Jomei," I corrected, "and yes. There just aren't any kids my age who don't either hate me or overly adore me. By now, everybody my age at my school mostly either ignores me or hates me. But I always dread the day transfer students come. Fan girls!" And I shuddered. Not for theatrics, either.

Jomei thought I was being dramatic, though. "Too tough for you, huh?" he laughed.

I swear I nearly zapped him right then. At least I managed to answer with something resembling calm. "Jomei…remember that Jonas episode we saw at the Pokemon Center where that teen band was getting chased around by that crowd of fan girls and they would actually try to tear the clothes off those boys?"

"Yeah," he laughed, "that was just crazy! Wait…" and I could imagine the stare he gave at my tail.

"If you thought those girls were bad," I continued, "then give each one the most memorable points from every Pokemon, up their strength and speed, and lower their…sexual inhibitors by ten points. That's a hybrid fan-girl."

Akiko said some words behind me that I didn't realize she even knew!

"Yeah. Those days, I actually need bodyguards of every type available, and sometimes even they aren't enough to keep them all off."

"Okay, enough small talk," Evon interrupted, "we're here." And he bounded up a tree's carved ladder to the house above.

"Who's house is that?" I called.

"Mine."

Jomei

I looked at Akiko. "What did he say? He answered practically right when he was at the house!"

Kyerrsha answered. "His house. I'd better warn you: he's got a large family, and only about half of them are Eevees."

Akiko shrugged. "All right. We can handle that."

He shook his head. "When you get up there…don't say I didn't warn you." Then he started climbing up himself.

I stared up. "Okay…who's going up first?"

Suddenly, Kyerrsha jumped back down. "On second thought, you two had better go up first; these ladders are a little tricky for people who aren't used to them. Jomei, you first."

Kyerrsha! "Okay." I slowly climbed up. I think I slipped three times, but twice Akiko kept me from falling. The third time, I was nearly there and a brown hand grabbed my wrist. The sheer fact that my weight wasn't pulling him out of the tree was proving that it wasn't Evon. I looked up and saw that the face was definitely older.

"Give me your other hand!" Once I was up, he said, "My name's Troy. Now let's get you out of the way so that your sis can come up."

I stepped out of the way and just stood there on the platform, waiting. Akiko apparently wasn't very far behind me, because her hand came up just after I moved.

Troy pulled her up and out of the way, and Kyerrsha climbed up by himself. Both Akiko and Ky were taller than Troy was, so obviously he was younger.

"Come on in," and he opened the door. "Evon's waiting inside for you, with the rest of the family."

"Why weren't you at the reception?" Kyerrsha asked.

Troy grimaced. "Same reason everyone older than Evon wasn't at the reception: homework. You'd think they'd leave off, what with the festival being only a week away and all!"

Kyerrsha suddenly bopped his crest. "Aagh! The festival! I forgot all about it!" I must have looked blank, because he explained as we went in, "Everybody's been hoping I will fix whatever the problem will be before the festival whatever year, so that they can turn it into a victory celebration."

He was probably going to say something else. I don't know. Once I got in there, I saw…everybody! There were so many colors – and I didn't even know all the names for what Akiko calls the "Eeveelutions"! All I know for sure about the room is that there were two purple ones, one yellow, one blue, one red-and-yellow, and one green-and-white, along with about three Eevees! Finally, I spotted Evon and felt better.

Akiko

I stared around at Evon's family. There were two Espeon, one each of Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, and Leafeon, and three Eevees, one of which was Evon. I looked over my shoulder suspiciously at Kyerrsha. "Large family, huh?"

"I warned you."

I rolled my eyes as just about everybody laughed. Now I decided to guess who the parents were. Probably the two Espeon. I studied them and noted that one didn't exactly have the red spot on its – his – forehead covering the crest. I bowed my head to the female.

"Thank you for welcoming us into your home."

She raised her eyebrows, but at least she answered me. "You're welcome." Then her ears twitched, and she ran out of the room to answer some sound that only she heard – no, the others heard it; but they just looked annoyed.

Kyerrsha smiled. "New baby?"

Evon answered sullenly. "Sister." Then he perked up. "Can I say now what you didn't want me to say back there?"

"Sure."

"I knew you were going to come back. You said you weren't going to be gone for long."

I stared at him. "You were going to come back?"

"Let me explain what's been going on. The skies have been growing darker too early. I knew that without me, the supposed hero, everybody would panic. In my heart, I knew that any leaving would just have to be a short vacation, and I'd have to go back."

Oh. So in other words, he had to stay on Hyrikan until this problem was resolved. Kind of sad, really.

Jomei piped up. "So what's going to happen, anyway? Are you just fighting a 'nameless evil,' like in the movies? Come to think of it, even in the 'nameless evil' movies, the evil gets named eventually."

He sighed. "I know who I have to fight. That's the problem. His name is Zarchior, and he's a…" He hesitated.

"A what?"

"A Mewtwo-hybrid."

I stared at him. "Wait a minute: even on Earth, Mewtwo's just a myth! How can he be here as a hybrid?"

"Sit down, and I'll tell you all about it that I know."

A/N: Cute how I included that new Jonas brothers TV show, huh? It was the only way I could show what Kyerrsha used to have to deal with. Kyerrsha's explanation about Zarchior will come in the next chapter.