Dear Diary,

I acquired badges. They are not as powerful as I had thought. I need to investigate on this further. I have found people who know much about them. Their answers have not been what one could call informative.

Experience has taught me that torture works well on uncovering secrets that one wants to remain hidden.

I need the answers, but can't help but wonder if doing so will make me no better than them.

Pokémon

Transgression

By Crukix

|Inevitable Partings|

-O-O-O-

Pickles are strange little creations. I seem to be eating nothing but pickles lately – everything else the ship serves is gross. Jerry and Ali make me eat other food because they're evil like that, but I always somehow end up with a jar of pickles by the end of the night.

Mostly because Mandy manages to somehow steal them from the boat's kitchen. I'm not sure how many jars they even have left, but they have to be running low by now. My vullaby seems to enjoy the pickle juice – it drinks whatever's left over after I've munched my way through the entire contents of the jar. I constantly see Kiki hovering just in the corner of my eye, judging me for not eating properly. It's like my parents are here on my journey with me, what with everyone keep telling me what I have to eat!

At least Cassie doesn't. I'm not even sure what it happens to do most days, but it doesn't try to make me do stuff and that's good enough for me.

I sigh as I lean my chin against the cold metal railings on the ship and watch nothing but ocean – endless, constant, boring ocean – drift lazily past. I've lost count of the days I've been on this ship now. At first I was excited, because it's Kanto and there's all sorts of stories of people from there, like Trainer Red and all the Rockets. I know I shouldn't think the Rockets are cool, but they nearly took over an entire country! Jerry says they owned it at one point – having someone in every place there could ever be. He says they only fell apart because everything went public because of the Colour Trainers; three trainers from Pallet Town who ended up helping and exposing Giovanni.

I frown a little to myself. I want to be known throughout the entire world, but maybe not with a name as stupid as a colour. I can use my own name. I'll be the queen of history – everyone will come to me to have their questions answered and I will know everything and anything that happened. Ever.

But right now, that dream seems even more distant, considering I can't even see land. I can't remember when the ice all melted away and let us know we weren't in Snowpoint or even Sinnoh anymore. Now we're just ploughing away at the ocean until we finally get to Kanto.

I can't believe I'm even thinking it, but I miss being able to sleep in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I miss wandering aimlessly, getting lost and then laughing around a campfire as Kiki gets marshmallows stuck in all of its needles.

Someone pokes me in the shoulder. Somehow I know it's Jerry, even before I look up and see him staring at me.

"Your snorunt is doing it again."

I sigh and lean a bit further over the railing. Maybe if it looks like I'm about to fall off through boredom, he can let Annie out and then it can teleport us all to Kanto.

"Cassie isn't doing anything wrong," I say.

"I know that." Jerry leans his arms down against the railings I'm barely able to rest my chin comfortably on. "But it's weird."

"You're weird!" I shoot back without even thinking about it. "Cassie is fine. Let it do what it wants."

"And if it involves that?" Jerry points to behind us. I see that Cassie has followed me out into the deck, but it remains hidden in the shadows. Instead of standing still it weaves a little dance, bobbing, twisting and looking altogether like it belongs in the middle of a bunch of dads at a wedding. Cassie makes little mumbles as it dances, breathing tiny bits of frost over the deck to make its feet slip and slide everywhere.

"I'm sure it's nothing weird," I say, even though I'm slightly concerned for my pokémon's sanity. I think there must have been something in the steak Cassie ate when I found her. Those chefs were all creepy! I bet they did something to all the food to make all the people go insane and keep going back to eat in their snooty restaurant!

"I think it's a rain dance."

I glare at Jerry. "Don't be stupid. Cassie can't summon rain… can it?"

He leaves instead of answering me, so I'm left all alone with only a dancing snorunt that's potentially summoning a thunderstorm as company.

Boats suck.

-O-O-O-

I find myself in the training area below deck more and more. It's pretty cool – it's got padded walls that are all fluffy and bouncy! I spent most of the first few days just bouncing off of them because it was so much fun. After I watched a boy copy me, bounce off too hard and crack his head open on the floor though, I've kind of stopped.

At least, when there's not anything soft and comfy on the floor to catch my face.

There's nothing but wooden boards over the floor today, which means it's another day of me training my pokémon. There's a sailor that sits on something like a lifeguard chair, watching over everything. We're not allowed to have pokémon battles on the ship, which is so boring, but it makes sense because if something misses and blows a hole in the ship, we're all going to drown and seeing as I haven't yet discovered my ability to breathe water, I don't exactly want to have to swim for days and days just to stay alive.

The sailor watches everyone in the training room constantly. He has to make sure that our pokémon don't blow holes in the walls or anything like that. Most people grumble and complain about it all, but Ali and I have decided it's pretty good training for our pokémon – it's like target practice, in a way. Make sure you hit only what you're supposed to, otherwise bad stuff will happen. Given the amount of times people watch pokémon battle without a psychic barrier or glass between them and the pokémon, at least our pokémon are better at not shooting off stray attacks and taking people's faces off.

Or at least, that's the main point of all of this. A little part of me thinks it would be so cool if one of Kiki's needles flew away and poked someone in the face and then their head exploded! Obviously I'd have an umbrella ready so that I wouldn't get showered in blood and guts and grossness. I'd have something with really long, flowy sleeves that I could hide the umbrella under! That way when I needed it, I could just flick my wrist and out would pop the umbrella! It would be awesome and everyone would think that I'm magic.

Until that day happens, I stick with having Kiki and Cassie do target practice with the mannequins. Kiki has more targets to hit and different shapes, with an order to it too, whilst I've gone a bit easier on Cassie. I've seen videos of one of the Elites from Kanto – Lorelei, or something – and how her pokémon manage to freeze fire; as in the flame is still burning, inside the ice but the ice isn't melting! I want Cassie to be able to do that, but in the mean time I'll settle for it being able to shoot ice in a straight line.

Meanwhile, I have Mandy perched above a lamp and trying to cloak it in darkness. Every so often the light flickers, but it still shines brighter than anything. I'm reminded of the hundreds of gastly in Eterna and how they reacted with blasted with darkness. Ryan's friend's drapion made it seem so effortless to cloak the day under shrouds of night. I want Mandy to be able to do the same – then it can cloak and entire battlefield in darkness and just attack things while they can't see her! It's not cheating unless I give Mandy a weapon to beat things up with. Or if I run in under the cover of darkness and beat up the pokémon.

Given that most of the pokémon trainers use against me though, I don't think I'm going to try and fight them myself any time soon. I might be awesome, but I don't think I stand a chance of being able to punch an ursaring into submission. If I had a sword I would be even more awesome, but most swords are bigger than me so I don't think I'd even be able to lift it to cut an angry bear into pieces.

Ali and all of her pokémon are in the corner of the room, practising weights. All except for Nina, who still has both arms in casts. The heracross just runs through what seems to be fighting stances and looks like its learning to rely more on its horn and legs. I wonder when my pokémon will start to make such noticeable improvements so quickly, but Ali tells me constantly that since I'm always with them, I'm not going to notice it. I don't quite understand that logic, because surely if I'm with them all the time, I'd have to notice every improvement they make?

Aside from me, Ali and the sailor on his high chair, there's only two other people in here. There's an old man who keeps staring at some woman's butt. She's the only other trainer here and I'm pretty sure I have knickers that are larger than her shorts. The creepy old man has almost no hair and what he does have has been combed over and reminds me of stringy cheese left between slices of pizza. If he stares any harder at that woman's butt, I'm pretty sure he's going to have a heart attack or something.

The woman doesn't seem to mind it. She's busy training a big mushroom with dead white eyes and huge crab claws. I've only seen her notice the man staring at her once – she threatened him with her tyranitar. I had to look up what one of those was on my pokédex.

I want one. I'm not sure how I'll train it, given that it's like a billion times taller than me, but I want to train one and have it eat any creepy old people that think of staring at my butt when I'm that woman's age.

Why do people stare at other people's butts though? There can't be anything that interesting there – it's just something to sit on. I ask Ali and she turns as red as her pignite's flames.

"Well…" she says. She's so uncomfortable with this question and I just want to know why even more. "I mean… you'll understand when you're older. Some people just have really nice asses that you just want to squeeze."

I try to look over my shoulder at my own butt. I don't get the appeal. "People are weird," I tell Ali. She doesn't argue. "That creepy old man is staring at that woman again."

Ali laughs. "He's going to end up with his eyeballs missing soon enough." She glances over at him, sees that he doesn't notice anyone else in the room and pulls a face. "I really hope that those are League-issue poké balls that he's playing with there."

I decide that's something I don't want to understand.

"How long until we get to Kanto?" I ask. "I'm bored of this ship."

"Tell me about it," Ali groans. She flops down against a big rack of metal poles with huge discs on the end of them. Her hitmon-something picks up a bar and begins lifting it up and down and up and down. Jude snorts as it sits beside her, making little squeaky oinking sounds as it sniffs around the floor. "I just want to get off this boat, head through to Saffron and see if Roark was serious about this offer."

"I think he was," I say, though I don't know for certain. "I want to be able to get more badges. I need to do a test for Blaine though," I mutter, poking out my tongue in disgust. "I'm not sure about the other one though."

Ali looks at me as if she's just realised something important. "I guess that means when we get to Saffron, we won't be travelling together for a while, huh?"

The realisation of that hits me like a physical blow. I feel like someone's kicked the back of my legs and I fall to the floor, suddenly lost. What am I going to do? Sure, I've wandered off on my own before and threatened to ditch them, but Ali and Jerry have been with me for what feels like always. I can travel on my own, but I don't really want to because Jerry's my brother – even if he is really annoying and thinks he knows everything – and Ali's like the big sister I've always wanted but my parents told me was impossible to have.

"Hey," Ali says, moving over to me and throwing her arm around me shoulders, "don't pull that face! I'm only going to be training there for a little while! And our boat's dropping us off in Pallet – we've got a good week or two's hike before we get to Saffron. No matter what, I'll be around for you to talk to – by call or by text. You're not going to be able to get rid of me so easily."

I sniff, trying my best to hold in a sudden flux of feelings. "Promise?"

She holds out her pinkie finger. "Promise."

-O-O-O-

For as long as people have been able to record, Vermillion has been a harbour and one of the most important cities in Kanto. Warships have been deployed from their docks and sent in to rescue fleets and secure victory. Ancient royal families used to disembark and arrive within Vermillion harbour. Even though they try and cover it up now, Vermillion also used to be the biggest slaving hub in Kanjo – they would take in thousands of Sinnoan slaves and move them throughout Kanto to the richest and most powerful families.

Now it's pretty much the same, except the slaving ships have been replaced with boats full of trainers – which some people (Plasma fanatics, mostly) argue are the same thing – and of course, hundreds of boats that contain stuff people shouldn't be trying to sell or even make. Vermillion is where the Rockets first came to power, or at least, that's what people say. Whilst their main publically acknowledged bases were in places like Saffron, Celadon and Viridian, they started off as nothing more than a small family run gang that secured the docks and a few warehouses before they moved up and into the world.

Before we're even within Vermillion's official waters, I can see the warehouses that line the water front. The docks are filled with loads of freight containers that are huge and could probably fit a gyarados or two within! Jerry tells me that one or two probably do have pokémon hidden inside, waiting to be distributed all over the world to rich or evil people. If it wasn't for the fact that Vermillion was so infamous for such a thing, I wouldn't believe him.

As it stands, I kinda want to sneak into the docks and rescue a gyarados. Then it can become my faithful companion and destroy everythingthat gets in my way! I won't have to worry about creepy government people trying to take away me or my family because I'll have a gyarados that will just eat them all!

The cargo containers form rows upon rows of rusty and silvery colours. Even from a distance I can see the shapes of machoke lighting all the heavy stuff and tauros and rhyhorn being used to pull all the heavy machinery around. There's a few smaller, human shapes mixed in between them – I suppose it's because no one's managed to teach a machoke how to use a screwdriver without breaking the wall it's trying to attach the screw to.

Near the water front I can see a massive white roofed stadium. Written across the side in bright blue neon is, 'Gym'. Muffled as it is, I can still hear the sounds of battles and crackling electricity. Everyone knows about Surge and his insane gym – he makes trainers and their pokémon go through army-style training before he'll even see them. And then, whilst people are battling there's huge pylons that zap things with electricity randomly! It's completely mad – I've seen it on tv before when even the trainershad been attacked by random bolts of electricity. People have been trying to get Surge to stop and change it all for ages, but the League says that he's helping to train people for everything they'll encounter in the wild, so they let him carry on.

"I still need to battle Surge," Jerry says. He makes a grumpy face. "I really don't want to have to try my hand at his whole army bootcamp thing. Why can't he just be normal and have a standard 'book a time, have a battle' sort of deal?"

Ali smirks at him. "Wuss."

It's pretty amazing how quickly he turns red. "I'm not!"

She pokes her tongue out at him. "You so are."

As they argue between each other, I start to hum really annoying songs. Even though I'm not actually singing the words, they both glare at me as if I am. I smile impishly at them both, humming even louder and making sure that everyone around me can hear it!

I need to teach my pokémon to sing Love is in the Air. Or at least Annie. I think it has to be capable of speaking into minds – it's a ghost, after all. Either way, so long as that even if I'm not around Jerry, he'll constantly hear that song playing and playing in his head until he's crazy enough to live in one of those mental houses.

"So what's the plan?" Ali asks. "It's about a week's hike to Saffron from here and my internship or whatever it's called doesn't actually start until I get there."

I shrug. "I have to go to Cinnabar. And somewhere else. I frown and check my map. It shows me a little splodge of a town somewhere near Lavender. "And here," I say, pointing to my map. "That's the ghost gym. I have to fight the leader there as well."

"I've already got the badges from Pewter and Cerulean," Jerry says. "We can just always relax for a little bit?"

"I don't know about you, but after this boat trip, I'm kind of bored of relaxing," Ali groans. She stretches, her back popping as she does so. "We should just kick some ass somewhere. Or learn free running. Then we can pretend that we're in those slaving times and race across all the rooftops in Vermillion. Possibly without leaping down and killing anyone with hidden blades though."

"But-!" I protest, though they don't seem to want to hear the actual version of history. Weirdoes. I cross my arms and glare at them both as they continue to make plans and silly jokes as if I'm nothing but a shadow that's following them around.

Well fine then, jerks. If you're going to just ignore me, then I'm going to stand here and hum really, really loudly until you finally take notice of me!

"If you don't stop humming that tune, I'm going to throw you overboard," Jerry mutters.

I give him the best innocent face I can muster. "We should explore the catacombs beneath Vermillion!" I declare. "They used them all the time for smuggling and everything! They're all boarded up and everything, unlike in Cerulean where all the weird pokémon and hobos live."

Jerry makes a face. "I don't think that idea sounds particularly safe."

"Uh, hello?" I say, waving a hand in his face. "I have a pokémon that can freeze people to death and another that can shoot needles from its body. I'm still making it be able to shoot them with enough power to make people's heads explode, but still – they're dangerous!"

Ali shakes her head. "Your brother's right. Weird people hang out in places like that. The last thing we want to do is creep down there and get abducted by some creep who thinks he can sell us for drugs. Or we somehow come across the entrance to Rapture."

"What's that?" I ask.

Jerry shrugs. "A place full of insane zombie-like people and magic powers."

I'm assaulted instantly by images of Eterna and all its gastly-zombies, except now they have the power to breathe fire and shoot lightning from their fingertips.

Yeah, I'm so totally not going to be able to sleep tonight.

-O-O-O-

Vermillion smells like fish. It's something that I've noticed and since then, I've been really hard pressed to try and ignore it. It's not even like magikarp level of fishy smell – it's like someone's diced them up, cooked them in fish oil and then left it to go all rotten for like a week. Then again, I think I read somewhere that somewhere in the Sevii Isles eats something like that as a delicacy. They have to open the tin underwater to make sure that the smell doesn't overtake everything and leave everyone wanting to run away in fear.

If I liked ships or anything to do with the sea, I'd totally love Vermillion. As it stands, there's nothing here but ships, museums of ships, old skeletons of ships and people that talk about nothing but ships. There's also tonnes of fish, but I'm really starting to be sick of the sight of them and their confused little faces. It's like they don't quite understand that they're dead because they're too busy staring at the sky and wondering where all the water went.

I'm about to write off Vermillion as totally and utterly boring when I see a sign that pretty much makes my heart stop then and there.

"Guys, guys!" I shout, grabbing their sleeves and pulling them towards the bookstore. It's old and decorated with black paint and there's loads of books in the display, but they're all boring and funky looking and who cares because Cynthia is going to be nearby!

"What day are we on?" I demand of them both. I know I started travelling sometime in July but holy crap all the days and weeks have blurred into one and what month is it anyway?

"Third of September?" Jerry reads, tilting his head. He frowns a little, pulls out his pokédex and grunts a surprised sound. "That's today."

"Oh my god!" I squeal in a voice that has to only be heard by pokémon. "I've got to see her! She's awesome and holy crap she's here and I've got to see her!" I'm practically pulling Jerry to the floor by his sleeves. "She's going to be giving a talk near Diglett's Cave! That's awesome! I'm gonna go! Tell me I'm allowed to go! I'm going to go even if you say I'm not allowed!"

I drop his sleeve – considerably stretched as it is – and scratch my head. "Where's Diglett's Cave?"

He smiles at me. "East of Vermillion."

I don't even wait for him to finish talking before I'm already running there. Who cares if I'm going to be early by a few hours? Cynthia is going to be there!

-O-O-O-

By the time I get to Diglett's Cave – and I so totally didn't get lost on the way, no matter what those people said – there's already a crowd of people stood around and waiting. I see reporters all covering their faces in makeup and trying their best to look pretty before the cameras start rolling. I don't even know why that woman is even attempting to put make up on, because her face is nothing but wrinkles and I'm pretty sure she's wearing a wig to cover nothing but a huge bald head.

I call Mandy out of its poké ball and have it sit on my shoulder. I whisper my plan conspiringly and watch as my vullaby takes flight. It waits right up until the wrinkly reporter starts speaking into the camera, squawks and dives down on her head! She screams, the cameraman screams and there's trainers all around her letting out their pokémon but Mandy just cackles as it pulls free the woman's wig and flutters to me, cackling all the while.

It's at that moment that we realise that the woman isn't actually a woman, but is in fact a man with a strangely pretty face. He screams a girly scream and flees off into the distance of the town, shrieking sobs all the while as another reporter decides to follow him, shouting words into a microphone all the while.

Mandy cackles as it lands on my shoulder and drops a wig and bits of a fake, womanly face into my hands. I throw them away as if they're diseased. People around me start cheering and applauding for me. My face goes bright red, but people are telling me how amazing Mandy is and that they want one of their own and what is it and where can they catch one.

I tell them all Mandy's not for sale or trade. Jerry would never forgive me if I got rid of it. More than that, I've actually come to like the little demon bird. I'm not sure if I'll ever find any other pokémon that's able to be as evil as it whilst still being so nice to me.

It's at that moment that I hear heels clacking along the path behind me. I can hear all the reporters screaming out questions and the constant flash, flash, flash of cameras goes off continuously over the sounds of questions.

My heart is hammering before I even spin around and see Cynthia walking towards us! She has a big blue dog-thing that walks on two legs that I'm pretty sure is a lucario that growls at all the reporter people and then its eyes shine blue and all the reporters cameras blow up!

I want one of those pokémon. Mandy can only steal the cameras whilst Cassie might be able to freeze them, but neither of them can make cameras explode!

Cynthia spares me a smile. My heart's pounding and pounding as she stops in front of me, sees the remains of the wig and the pretty face on the floor and laughs a tiny, posh laugh under her breath. "You have a very creative vullaby. I theorise that if she spends half as much time training as she does pulling such pranks, she will end up as a beautiful, strong specimen of the species."

I think I end up squealing because Cynthia just told me that Mandy is awesome and that it's going to be strong and ohmygod Cynthia just spoke to me and even smiled and this day is just beyond awesome! I jump up and down in excitement as Cynthia strides towards the entrance of Diglett's Cave. Her lucario walks behind her and people clear the way for both of them. She stops and says a few things to other people but it doesn't matter because she spoke to me first and that makes me totally amazing!

"Cynthia said you're going to end up strong!" I say, taking Mandy into my arms and rubbing its featherless face. It squawks, hops out of my arms and instead stands on them, claws digging just slightly into the fabric of my coat. It spins its head at me, regards me with one large, beady eye and then turns back to face the crowd, gets bored and then begins preening.

People begin whispering between themselves. I inch myself closer to them all, squeeze through them and manage to end up near the front of the crowd, able to see everything perfectly.

"She looks older than I thought," someone near me whispers.

"Duh," another person answers. "Isn't she like forty now? She was around in Sinnoh when that thing happened. She's got to be fifty soon."

"Really?" the first person whispers back. "I thought she looked about thirty."

"Some people age well."

"Shit, fifty? I feel wrong now for thinking she's hot."

I decide to stop listening to them after that. I stand on my tiptoes and see Cynthia clearing her throat, keeping a little smile on her face as the reporters find cameras that somehow weren't blown up and start flashing and filming away.

Her lucario's eyes shine blue just before she starts speaking. "Welcome everyone and thank you for joining me here today."

She sounds like she's speaking right next to me! I guess it has to be because of her lucario, but that's another reason for why I have to get one! Cynthia's voice is soft and more posh than I would have thought – she sounds like she went to one of those schools where only the really smart and rich people get to go to. She doesn't sound like she thinks she's better than everyone though, which makes me like her a little bit more.

"Now, Diglett's Cave is known to most people in Kanto because it's one of the few places that you'll be able to find feral diglett and dugtrio. Given the nature of these pokémon, this is also quite the blessing. Of course, that doesn't stop trainers from using it as a shortcut to and from Pewter and Vermillion."

She smiles as nervous laughter claims a few people. "Of course, I didn't come here today to speak about pokémon and how people train them. Although I am a trainer, that is not where my true passion lies. I came here to talk to you about the history of Diglett's Cave – the myths associated with them." She clasps her hands together. "I love myths; both human and pokémon. What are they, if not the beliefs that people once held? Most are religions, now left in dust, because no one wishes to practice them anymore. Perhaps in a hundred years, the religions we now practice will be looked upon as myths by our grandchildren's grandchildren. The future will always be uncertain, but the past is a mystery that we can uncover.

"It's commonly accepted as a fact that Diglett's Cave was constructed by said pokémon. No one can argue that fact. The myths pervade towards the use of the tunnels by our distant ancestors."

She walks back to the front of the cave. There's metal girders that hold up the sides of the cave mouth and flags that cover its roof, marking it out as Diglett's Cave. Next to her is a sign that details all the boring things about monsters and gremlins that might hide in the tunnels. Of course we all know that it's only going to be a few pokémon and the occasional trainer, but people sometimes seem more freaked out by make believe monsters rather than actual scary pokémon. I think it's because they're weird.

"There are words inscribed on the mouth of the cave here," Cynthia says as she passes her hand over it. "Many of you will have never noticed this, even if you travel through here regularly. They are written in the ancient script of unown – the script on which our own language was based.

" 'Uttutoperteplacemusdeosprius' – translated roughly into our own language, it means 'To pass through here safely, you must first appease the gods'." She tucks her long blonde hair behind the black fur of her collar and smiles at us. "Of course, the translation could be more accurate, if the letters had not eroded and if my own skills in the unown language were remarkably better."

People laugh at that. I just frown in confusion, wondering what's so funny.

"So the question this poses us is what could they mean by appeasing the gods? Obviously the first thing that springs to mind is a sacrifice. Of course, if ancient people sacrificed each other as often as we thought, they would have not survived for as long as they did. Sometimes appeasing the gods meant leaving a banquet of food. Other times, it could be something important to the people – a weapon, a boat or a tool. It could have even been something like poetry."

I laugh to myself as I think about the only poem I know. Roses are red, violets are blue. I've got chlamydia and now so do you! Jerry taught me it ages ago and never decided to explain to me just what it means. He doesn't know that I found out for myself – granted only because I said it in front of my parents and they told me what it means, but he doesn't have to know that's how! He can just think that I'm amazing and found it all out for myself.

Cynthia taps the words once more. "This is the sort of research that occurs most often. It's not the most glamorous thing in the world – when people think of history and ruins, they tend to think more Lara Croft than library studies. Many of you here will already be thinking of careers outside of pokémon training. What I aim to teach you through this is a simple thing, yet of immeasurable value; jobs are not always what they appear to be on television or on film. There are boring parts to each and every job. But as long as you choose one that you enjoy and love, be it an accountant, a painter, a historian or a professional trainer, you will not regret it."

She curtsies as people start to applaud. Reporters start screaming questions at her, but her lucario's eyes glow blue once more. Mandy shrieks out of nowhere and leaps at my head, clamping down its wings around my skull. I watch as a ghostly vision of Cynthia and her lucario walk through the crowd, passing us all by and walking off into the distance. The reporters all chase after the ghost-Cynthia, whilst a few trainers follow and fewer still remain in front of Diglett's Cave. They all approach the cave, squint to see the writing and then slowly move away.

None of them seem to notice that Cynthia really actually never moved. She's still investigating the ruin, with her lucario by her side and its eyes slowly dimming back to a normal brown colour.

"So, is it adaptation, luck or skill that leaves you here, still watching me?"

I take a moment to realise that there's no one else here and once more, Cynthia is talking to me. My mouth goes all dry and I have to swallow a couple of times to make the horrible feeling go away. All the while Cynthia keeps investigating the cave mouth, but I somehow know that she's smiling, even though her back is turned to me.

"I… don't know?" I answer truthfully.

She turns slowly to face me. I think back to what people were saying earlier – there's no way that she's nearly fifty! My nan is in her fifties and she looks way older than her! Of course, my grandma is older than Nan and she looks younger than her, but I still find it hard to believe that Cynthia's as old as people said she was! I know all about her history and how long ago it happened, but it seems like she hasn't aged at all.

She smiles at me. Unlike the fake smiles she gave all the reporter people, this one seems more genuine. "It seems that your vullaby is far smarter than I gave her credit for."

"Who, Mandy?" I say, moving its wings from around my head. Each time I try to move one, it squawks and slaps them back in place. I wonder just what's happening when I manage to move one a little further than before and feel like I've suddenly gone all dizzy and the world is out of focus and just weird. As soon as Mandy slaps its wings back around my head, everything turns normal again.

"Yes," Cynthia says. "It seems that she's able to block out Inti's psychic projections rather well. Most of the time even creatures of darkness are fooled by his projections. Obviously she is stronger than I first suspected. I wonder, was she a wild creature, or was she bred with good heritage behind her?"

I blink. Heritage? It just makes me think of the little groups of old men who call themselves heritage groups that go around protecting rocks because they might once have been cottages that someone famous might have once walked passed.

"My brother gave Mandy to me," I say. "I'm not sure how he caught it, but I can ask him to find out."

"Don't worry," Cynthia says. "A pokémon's heritage doesn't matter – it's what the pokémon itself acts like that counts. On that note, I have to wonder why you refer to her without a gender?"

I shrug. "Because Mandy's a pokémon. It's an it."

"And have you seen certain pokémon like machop and hitmonchan? You cannot say they don't have similar parts to humans."

I'm reminded of Jerry's throh and its flashing habits. "Well yeah but, it's not like they can talk or anything."

At that moment, Mandy takes its wings off my head and the lucario's eyes shine blue.

"Where is the need to talk, when this method of communication is available?"

A man's voice. A man's voice, in my head! I nearly scream with the shock of it, but somehow I know it's the lucario, even though I totally wouldn't think it sounds as posh as that and like that butler out of that cartoon Jerry used to watch with that man who dresses up like a bat and beats up bad guys!

Cynthia smiles, as if she knows what's just happened. "So, might I ask why you came to visit my speech today?"

My chest puffs with pride. "I want to study history," I tell her. "I wanted to go to this big school in Unova, but I couldn't because some stuff happened, so now I'm going travelling to earn enough badges to go to a different school. But that means I have to get specific badges, which is kinda annoying, but it means I get to travel everywhere which is pretty cool!"

"And is this school the one in Anville Town in Unova?"

I gasp straight away. I know that Lenora told me that Cynthia teaches there, but it's one thing to hear it from her and another to have Cynthia mention the school to me! "You teach there, don't you?"

"I do," Cynthia says. "Well then, I can only wish you luck. I suspect that we will meet again sometime soon."

My smile nearly takes over my face once more. "Really?"

"Yes," she says as her lucario nods along with her. "After all, I'm one of the people that conduct your interview."

I watch her walk away from me – this time for real – with nothing but awe swimming through me. I'm that amazed that it actually takes me until Cynthia's disappeared to realise that to get into my school that I want to go to, I have to do an interview!

Lenora never mentioned this! If she wasn't so awesome, I would totally hate her.

The gravel crunches behind me and even though I know I've just watched her walk away, I'm convinced for a split second that it's Cynthia. Instead I realise that it's merely my brother and Ali, both of whom seem amazed to have seen Cynthia. But that's all they got to do, while I got to talk to her! Twice!

And I completely forgot to ask her to sign my book.

Foongus.

Maybe if I run really fast, I might be able to catch up with her? But she's got that lucario with her that can talk into people's minds, so surely it can teleport to different places too. If it can, that means I'll have no hope of finding her ever again until I have to go and do the interview for my new school!

"Did you have fun?" Jerry asks me, grinning like he already knows that I did.

"It was awesome!" I declare.

"We figured you'd say as much," Ali says. "That's why we hung back and let you talk to her. You're getting quite high up in the charts, aren't you? First Lenora and now Cynthia. If you manage to bump into someone like Alder next, I'm hanging round you, because you'll have to be the chosen one that receives magic powers when the world gets overrun by zombies." A far off look crosses her face before she wipes it away with a grimace. "Again."

I entertain them with stories about Cynthia and what she was saying about Diglett's Cave and Mandy too. Mandy squawks along with my story, though mostly the parts where I mention about Cynthia talking about it. As we walk back into Vermillion and the smell of fish hits me like a punch, I find myself able to follow the signs and roads to the pokémon centre easily. It's weird.

It takes about twenty minutes to cross through Vermillion. The pokémon centre is in the middle of a big street, its big, bright red roof standing out against the little shops that sell antiques and little trinkets. The road ends on a bend where I see a long black car with tinted windows just like those they use on tv when they're stalking out bad guys.

I mentioned it to Ali and Jerry and begin to wonder who they could be stalking after. I bet it's someone famous! Or someone really weird, like some old lady that wants to make bracelets out of nidoran teeth or something. Somehow I doubt that they're there to do anything about the fishy smell that seems to be everywhere. I so hope that when I leave here, my clothes don't smell like it. I think I might cry. Or possibly get attacked by all the wild meowth nearby. Or both.

"You don't think there's clowders of wild meowth anywhere nearby, do you?"

This is why I like Ali. She says exactly what I'm thinking.

-O-O-O-

I'm starting to believe that maybe Jerry's right about Cassie.

It sits there, staring out into nothing in front of the little stream that runs through most of Route 6. Even with our tents nearby and a campfire burning, it seems oblivious to all of us.

Out of curiosity, I poke Cassie. It falls face-first into the stream.

I shriek as the water splashes over me and my pokémon doesn't move at all. The first thing I manage to think is that I've killed it, yet I can see bubbles frothing up around it, which means that it has to be alive! It's just… not moving in the water. It bobs up and down on the surface, floating but not doing anything else.

I have to wade in to rescue it. When I do, Cassie chortles happily, blows a frosty breath between us that makes the air seem to sparkle, then leaps out of my arms and dances around the campfire. Kiki glares at it for even attempting to go near the burning orange flames, whilst Mandy just happily fluffs itself nearby, occasionally blowing an ember or two in Kiki's direction.

I'm the only one with all my pokémon out. Ali just has Cap and Muay, which I've realised has to be a hitmontop, because they're the only things that my pokédex says happen to be upside down almost all the time. I want to try and imitate it, but I know that I'll just end up with head rush and then I'll be dizzy for way too long and probably be sick in the bushes somewhere.

Ali barely ever seems to train it though. I always see her with Cap or Jude or even Nina. I want to ask why, but something stops me from saying anything, because maybe it's ill or something. If I was spinning around on my head all the time, I'd be ill too.

Elizabeth is sat on the floor near Jerry. Occasionally one or two of its heads will look over at Mandy and start a conversation. Jerry always calls them by different names and I know that they've all got a different colour feather on top of their heads, but they all look the same except for the stupid head which I'm sure changes by day. He grins stupidly as he reminds me that there's Ella, Liza and Beth, or Elizabeth altogether. Each time he's rewarded with a sarcastic clap from Ali that I think he hasn't realised is sarcastic. Annie floats emotionlessly in the shadows behind our tents, invisible save for the glowing red eyes and golden zipper-mouth. Even after growing up with it occasionally watching over me, it's still ridiculously creepy.

"So I've been meaning to ask," Jerry says randomly and I'm suddenly struck with the urge to leap across the fire at him, knock him off the log he's sat on and hold my hands over his mouth to stop him from talking. "You mentioned you had two tyrogue. How comes we barely ever see them outside their poké balls?"

The pain that crosses Ali's face is bad enough that for a moment I think she's just cut herself. "Muay and Tai were twins," she says. "Happens sometimes." Her hitmontop has stopped spinning for once and is leaning down next to her, its head on the floor and its legs dangling over a large rock. Even when it's lying down, it's still somehow upside down. "Muay here became a hitmontop," she says as she picks at the tattered remains of the blue shirt it wears. I wonder where people buy these sorts of clothes for their pokémon – do people really build stores designed entirely for pokémon clothes? I've seen machoke on the red carpet wearing tuxedos and then there was even a hypno once that was wearing a ballroom gown which was just weird because it still had all the neck fur and everything.

"Tai became a hitmonchan," Ali says, "but well… he died." She grabs a strip of ripped blue shirt between her thumb and her hand and stares at it like it's showing her a video. Her hitmontop coos and places a hand over hers. Whatever it says makes her nod slowly. "This shirt Muay wears used to belong to Tai. He won't take it off and he won't let me replace it. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain if I want to."

Everything would be silent, were it not for the crackling of our fire and Cassie's chants as it dances around it. I stare at my pokémon absently, wondering what I'd do if one of them did die. I decide quite quickly that I don't want to think about that, because it's already bad enough to think about what's happened to Craig and where he might have vanished too. I don't want to spend my time dreaming about what might happen to my pokémon too.

I look up and see that the sky is all kind of pink. Dad always used to tell me that a pink sky would mean something to sailors. I frown as I try to remember it, but nothing comes back to mind. Mostly I remember it being around the time he first taught Kiki to shoot a needle at me every time I cursed or broke curfew or snuck out of the house.

I remember it all and look at Kiki out of the corner of my eyes. It doesn't seem to move, but I get the feeling that it knows I'm watching it. I imagine that all of its needles are actually tiny eyeballs that let it watch me from any direction.

"Sorry," Jerry says. I'm drawn back to their conversation and away from thoughts of a multiple-eyed Kiki monster. "I shouldn't have –"

"It's alright," Ali says. "People die. Pokémon die. It happens. If I didn't want to tell you, I wouldn't have."

"Still," Jerry says. He looks up at her, blushes and then looks back to the floor. He picks up a blade of grass and spins it between his fingers. "Thanks," he says, so quietly that I can barely hear him. "You know, for trusting me with that."

Ali shrugs, her attention still on her hitmontop. Cap hovers behind her like a shadowy butler. It stands so properly that I can imagine it perfectly in a suit and tie rather than its fighting robes. "I wanted you to know."

Jerry looks up at her with such a shy smile that I'm tempted to burst into giggles. "I appreciate it. I… I want to know more about you. That is you know, if you want me to, but I can totally understand if you don't in which case can we pretend that I haven't ever said anything?"

I blink. I know that people say that I can talk fast sometimes when I'm excited, but even I have to take a moment to try and make sense of what Jerry just said. It takes Ali a little longer, but when she does she looks up at him and smiles. "I'd like that," she says.

He pretty much leaps across the fire at her. I don't know whether to worry if he'll fall into the flames or crush my pokémon. I'm not entirely certain what one would be worse either.

"What part?" he asks.

She smirks at him. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

It's at that point that Cassie decides to summon a hailstorm above us.

-O-O-O-

Before I know it, we're already nearly at Saffron. I complain for the better part of an hour about how time is going way too quickly and that Ali's going to be leaving me before I even know it. After she hugs me and tells me that I'm not going to get rid of her that easily, I still spend the next hour hugging onto her and begging her not to leave me. I even tell her that we can put Jerry in a wig and have him pretend to be her for the karate people in Saffron, but other than laughing, she doesn't seem that enthralled with the idea.

I mean, it's not like I'm not happy about getting to spend time alone with my brother. I do like him – sometimes, but he doesn't ever need to know that – but he gets so annoying! He's like both my parents rolled into one and I shouldn't have to listen to him about brushing my teeth and not drinking fizzy drinks first thing in the morning when my parents tell me exactly the same each night when I ring them!

I try and train my pokémon a bit more in the meantime. Jerry seems to think that getting Cassie to fill his underpants with snow isn't training, but I think it's pretty amazing that it's getting to the point where Cassie doesn't even really need to be looking at him to do it! He grumbles constantly as snow leaks out the bottom of his jeans or just melts and makes it look like he's wet himself. I don't do it to Ali because she's nice and teaches me fighting stuff and has her pokémon train mine.

I wanna learn how to do flying kicks though. Ali does them against Cap all the time and they look like they even manage to sometimes hurt it! Given that Cap seems to hardly ever move unless it's fighting, I've become convinced that it's actually part stone. Ali doesn't seem to want to teach me though, because she thinks that I won't be able to do them properly and I'll end up hurting myself.

I can't really complain too much though, because then otherwise she won't teach me at all. Meanwhile she's stolen the training that Jerry and I use. She paints targets onto trees and rocks now and has her pokémon attack them in specific orders and from further and further away. I get to gloat about how much better my pokémon are than hers at it, but given that most of her pokémon seem strong enough to lift a house, I guess it isn't exactly much of a victory.

Saffron seems to get bigger and bigger each time I look up and see it in the distance. Given that it's meant to be a town full of psychics, I'm surprised that it isn't glowing purple or something. Regardless, Mandy seems to have taken to sitting on my shoulder almost constantly, whilst Kiki keeps close to my side.

Jerry also doesn't know that Kiki seems to have developed the habit of using the roots it plants to crush the millions of rattata around here to death. Each time it does so, Mandy or Cassie race to grab the remains of Kiki's kill. Then it gets even stranger because Cassie and Mandy sometimes bring back dead bellsprout or oddish which Kiki then squeezes in its roots and then the corpse goes all shrivelled like all the insides have been sucked out of it! There was also the trainer that Mandy stole the pack of grass pokémon feed from, even though I already have some that I'm feeding Kiki. That was rather awkward to explain when Jerry found my pokémon happily eating it all – and of course, Cassie decided to eat the packaging rather than the actual food.

My pokémon seem to be working together, which is just plain weird.

-O-O-O-

Saffron City is where it all happened so many years ago. The rise to power for the Rockets. You'd think that a city full of psychic pokémon and people adapted to them – (yes Jerry, I've been researching it, now shut up, jerkface) – would be able to notice when loads of people move in to take over. They funded the hostile takeover of what was once Saffron's fighting gym by Sabrina and her minions. Giovanni had the means to blackmail each and every one of Kanto's gym leaders and Elites – and he did it without even blinking.

Saffron is also the hub of all business in pretty much the entire world. Every top company has a big department building there – one of the many buildings that threaten to pierce a hole in the sky. People say that sometimes certain streets will be dark, even at midday, just because of the height of the buildings. The tallest buildings are gathered in the centre of Saffron, known as The Finger. People only call that because it's easier than the real name people call it –The Middle Finger to God. Mention The Finger and everyone knows what you're talking about. Teams of psychics and fliers monitor its reaches, making sure that people who enter the buildings aren't going to jump off and leave holes in the ground, cartoon-style.

But Saffron is also full of parks, museums and almost everything that people could ever want. It's got the biggest rail network that anyone's seen – to cross from the far east of Saffron to the far west, even by train will take nearly three hours. Helicopters take up what little of the skyline isn't occupied by buildings, further taking away the natural light.

A layer of smog seems to hang over Saffron. Even Fuchsia, home to Kanto's oldest clan of ninjas and the strongest poison-adapted people there are, doesn't have the oppressive cloak of smog. People stalk down Saffron's streets, always with a purpose, ignoring the cries of the homeless people that live in stinking alleyways and the starving pokémon that rummage through the bins on the street.

"This place is depressing," I say, and it's not just because it's going to take Ali away from me. The people don't seem happy. The entire place feels like all the colour in life has just vanished. All the people seem to be either trying to follow the latest fashion and thus look almost exactly the same, or they'll all in business suits and heavy coats, rushing around whilst typing away on their phones. I'm tempted to run around screaming silly things just to see if anyone will even look away from their phones, but Jerry stops me. He says it's because I'll get lost too easily in the city, but I think that if I'm running around acting like a crazy person, he should be able to find me pretty easily!

"Most of these people never became trainers," Jerry says as we walk down a busy street. There's so many people! I'm not used to all of them. It's weird, but I'm used to the empty plains and forests filled with pokémon now, not streets lined with people as far as I can see. They charge like angry rhyhorn, barely ever stopping to move out of people's way. At one point I see a man barge into another and both of them fall over. I can't stop the laugh that comes out, but no one helps them. Both the men get back to their feet, shout at each other as people walk around them, then finally call each other things that Dad would ground me until I was forty for and storm off in opposite directions.

"And they're all angry with their lives," Ali comments.

I'm glad that we decided to recall all our pokémon, because there's no way that I'd have ever been able to keep track of them here! Even if I had something like a volcarona, fluttering above everyone and sprinkling fire everywhere, I'd still somehow lose it somewhere.

"There's always someone out there with something better than them – that seems to be the way everyone in cities like this thinks," Ali says. She has to twist around people as they continue surging through us. "Did we come in the middle of lunch or something?"

Jerry shrugs. "It's about midday. At least these people don't seem that bothered by us – other towns tend to give trainers a wide berth, as if we're diseased or something."

I grin evilly. "We're diseased!" I shout at the top of my lungs. Jerry gasps and slams a hand over my mouth, but that wouldn't be enough to stop me if it seemed like people were even paying attention to us. Instead they carry on walking. I may as well have spoken in a different language, for all the good it did me.

"Come on," Ali says, laughing as she grabs my hand. "We might as well do something touristy while we're here – and before you get us kicked out."

I poke my tongue out at her, but let her drag me down the street. Even the roads are full of people, weaving in and out around the cars, as if they're unable to get run over. I see another couple of blacked out cars and wonder just who might be in them and how important they must be. A woman in a convertible honks her horn at people that don't move out of her way. They all seem to pretend that she doesn't exist, even as she begins shouting things at them in something that might be a language, but sounds a lot like words my dad uses when he tries to be cool.

I see a building that somehow I know Ali is dragging us towards, even before she seems to have seen it. Once she does, she squeals and sure enough, drags us in there.

It's an entire store dedicated to eevee.

I can't look anywhere without one of the things staring at me. There's plush dolls and toys and keyrings and costumes, for some really weird reason. All the people in here are dressed up like the evolutions of them – a lady dressed up as a flareon comes up to us and offers us sweets shaped like eevees. A man walks around, wearing nothing but a few leaves between his legs and has his skin painted all green and a long leafy tail tied around some sort of underwear that I'm pretty sure I found in one of Mum's drawers before.

"This place rocks," Ali says, grinning like a lunatic.

"Yeah," Jerry says distractedly. He stares at some woman dressed up like a vaporeon. I don't even know how she can pretend to be one, because I'm pretty sure I've never seen a vaporeon with huge boobs.

The entire store is painted with bright colours – blue, yellow, red, purple and everything. There's a song playing that I can't understand, but it's all happy and bouncy and something that might be played at might school disco. It makes my teeth ache like I've ate too much sugar.

Ali finds a photobooth and kicks a couple out of the way that were too busy making smoochy faces at each other. Once they're gone, Ali pretty much throws Jerry and I into the booth and slams a few coins into the slot.

She presses the buttons on the screen almost before they even appear. "Say eevee!" she sings, throwing her arms around us both and squishing all our faces together.

What follows isn't exactly a pretty picture. Ali tries it twice more until finally we take one that we all like, then she prints them off. A strip of four photos appears underneath the screen, all of that photo. Ali tears off two and hands one to Jerry and I before pocketing the other two. I barely have time to slide mine into my own pocket before Ali squeals and bounces out of the booth, dragging us both as the store music transforms into something squeaky and fast.

I find that all the people dressed up as eevee and its evolutions are now dancing, in sync. It would be totally awesome if they were something like hydregion or haxorus, but instead they're trying to be cute and cuddly which is really just kinda creepy when they're obviously fully grown people. And there's one guy in the corner dressed as an eevee and I'm pretty sure that the fur he's covered in is his own back hair.

I'm pretty sure that my nightmares are going to have zombies in eevee costumes now.

-O-O-O-

It's nearly night by the time that we reach the street with the fighting dojo on it. Almost as if we're psychic, all three of us start to slow down as much as possible as we walk towards it. I don't want Ali to leave. Today was proof enough that we have fun when we're all together – we went out for food and had the best burger, ever, went to museums and saw loads of stuff, then watched all the street performers and there was a man juggling chainsaws that were on! I so wanted him to cut off his hand or something, but he didn't and caught them all perfectly, which is pretty cool but totally not the same thing.

I touch my wallet, where I've stored the picture of Jerry, Ali and I. My phone starts to vibrate in my pocket, letting me know that it's about the time I usually call my parents. I don't want to, because that just means that it's less time I'll get to spend with Ali before she leaves and I'll never see her again.

"Well…" she says as we reach the doors of the dojo. It looks like any other gym from the outside, but I can hear what sounds like people fighting inside. It smells like sweat and those strange smelling sticks that people like to burn. A farfetch'd sits on the roof, quacking at nothing as it slaps the air with a leek.

"Don't go!" I shout, throwing myself at Ali and wrapping my arms around her. She's not allowed to leave! I don't care if Roark arranged this all and if it's what she wants to do, because it's going to be weird without her and we've been travelling together for ages and she's like the sister I've always wanted!

Ali grunts and I know she's smiling. She pulls my arms away and bends down to my height. Her eyes are wet, which makes me feel better about the tears that have managed to leak down my face. "I'm not going forever," she says. "You've got my number. You can text me every day if you want." She pulls me into a hug and rests my head on her shoulder. "You helped me find Sean that day. We've been through too much together for us not to keep in touch." She pulls away and smiles, wiping my cheeks with her thumbs. "Maybe the next time we see each other, you may have even got all the badges you need."

I manage something halfway between a sniff, a laugh and a sob. "Totally," I say, even though my heart isn't in it.

She hugs me again. "Try to keep away from dead legends, alright?" she whispers into my ear. "And keep your brother safe."

"Okay," I say.

She lets me go and hugs Jerry. She whispers something in his ear, he says something in hers. They hold each other for what seems like forever until Ali finally pulls away. She moves from him, lets go and suddenly spins back around and kisses him on the cheek.

"See you soon guys," she says, waves and then walks through the big glass doors into the dojo. I watch as she walks up to the front desk and says something to the bald little old man behind it. Even from here, I can see the way his face lights up. He gestures to one side and follows her as they walk away from the desk and into the building.

And just like that, she's gone.

Jerry puts his hand on my shoulder. "Come on Squirt," he says. "We should get to the pokémon centre." He waits a moment as I do nothing, then pulls me around and hugs me. "She'll be fine," he says. "Don't worry about her."

I hug him back, unable to tell him why I'm really upset. Watching Ali leave made me more upset than finding out Craig had vanished did. I can't help but think that I'm a horrible friend and decide that come tomorrow, even if the creepy people come after me again, I'm going to start trying to find him.