A/N - Hey guys, hope you enjoy this chapter, but while you're at it, you should go check out the others, considering they are being edited and revised, in order to create more character depth, organize the writing a bit more, add detail, etc.

Edited chapters will have a message at the top, explaining the date of revision, so you can tell them apart from the rest.

If you read the other chapters before this one is posted, please go and re-read them, I hope they live up to expectation!


"They're getting closer. Remember, stick to the plan, don't screw it up like you did in the other shard," I said.

"I have my own plans too, don't forget. You care too much about the future and how things have to happen, but I'll improve them, in a way or in another. Either way, you can't stop me," Giratina replied with a smug smirk on his face.

I rolled my eyes and ended the conversation by saying, "And you call your brothers fools…"


"Do we have to cross that city again?" Electivire asked, wringing his hands with nervousness.

"Yes and no." Shinx started, "We'll go around it, after all, almost all the cities in the region are surrounded by forest."

"Got it," the electric-type replied with a relieved sigh and smile.

They had just started traversing the forest floor when Electivire first asked his question. Riolu and his weird dream never really left the forefront of his mind, and every so often, he would shoot a glance in his general direction, as if he expected the jackal to start yelling again.

After half an hour of walking, Riolu started complaining. "I'm tired of walking," he grumbled, looking off to the side of the path in annoyance.

"Wait… Are you say'n that you're already tired?" Electivire asked, surprised with the sudden lack of energy from the jackal.

"What? Of course not! I said I'm tired of walking. I want to run! Come on! I bet that you can't keep up with me!" he challenged, starting to accelerate his pace while looking back at his companions.

"Nope! This time, I'll beat you!" Zorua accepted the provocation and followed the fighting-type, picking up his pace to match and exceed the Riolu's.

"Just wait and see how fast I can run!" Shinx added, his tone raised with glee, as he proceeded to do likewise.

Electivire, now left alone, watched his companions speed out of sight. "Kids… Heh," he sighed, rolling his eyes with a small laughter, and started jogging, as to not get left behind.


After a good hour of forest running, they approached the entrance of a cave. It loomed above them, a good ten meters in height, threatening to swallow the group once they passed its threshold. The inside looked dark, and the stalactites and stalagmites gave the entire area a creepy feel.

"Is that the entrance of Mount Coronet?" Electivire asked in between tired pants, grateful for the break from the run.

"No… No, that's more like a passage…" Shinx took a deep breath before continuing, "It leads to a city I've already been in."

"Fine, let's go on in, shall we?" Riolu exhorted his crew, not showing even minimal signs of fatigue. His composed demeanor betrayed the fact that he wasn't tired from their sprint whatsoever.

"Yeah, yeah… Just a minute," Zorua replied, trying to buy himself a few moments to calm his breathing.

Riolu noticed that everyone was tired from the run and nodded with a victorious smirk. A full minute passed afterwards, in silence, if one did not count the incessant raspy breathing from the trio of exhausted Pokémon.

"Too many trainers… Should we fight or take that other way?" The dark-type fox asked.

"Fight! Of course!" Shinx replied, his walk shifting into a proud march.

"Let's go the other way, I heard that there are water pools inside this passage, we can fill our cant-" Riolu paused, taking a small sniff at the air before cringing at the pungent stench that met him. "What's that smell?"

"Yeah… Something smells like… Rotten eggs?" Electivire, too, noticed the scent, and in an attempt to locate its source, turned his head a few different directions. However, the subject of his stares ended with Shinx. The larger electric type gazed at the feline questioningly.

"L-Let's go to the pools, we'll fight later," Shinx said, slightly taken aback at Electivire's stare. His confusion only grew when Electivire approached him

Electivire got closer to Shinx and scoped him. Shinx, now uncomfortable with the silent attention, took an apprehensive step back. "Yes? What's up?"

As Shinx took that step back, though, Electivire noticed the feline was standing on a mound of yellow dust. With a surprised gasp, the larger electric type swooped down and grasped the feline firmly, dragging it away.

"What are you doing! Put me down!" Shinx surprisedly called out, flustered with lack of understanding concerning Electivire's actions.

"You were standing on a toxic dust! Watch where you walk!" Electivire scolded him, "That's Sulfur dust!"

"What? And what can just a pawful of dust do to me?" Shinx replied nonchalantly, glaring at Electivire.

"Back in the generator I overheard a lot of conversations from different humans talking about Sulfur in the facility."

"And so?" Shinx interrupted, his annoyed glare not receding in the slightest.

"So, I heard that if you're in a cave or a rocky area, and in their case, a factory, and something smells like rotten eggs, you gotta get away! Sulfur dust is toxic as far as I know!" Electivire explained, gesturing towards the mound of dust.

"If you're done with the lesson, I'd like to start moving," Riolu interrupted the argument, annoyed by the waste of time. He didn't bother turning around to look at them.

With that, they started moving again, stepping around randomly placed stones and traversing the uneven plane. A little bit further down, Riolu stopped Electivire mid-step.

"What's up?" Electivire asked, taking a step back and giving a perplexed look at the jackal.

No response came from Riolu. Instead, a camouflaged voice, hidden among the floor directly in front of Electivire spoke up.

"Thanks buddy," it said, as it moved out of the way. Electivire was about to ask what it was when Riolu started talking.

"You seem to care about toxic dusts, but you've still got to watch out for the GeodudeEEES!"

He was interrupted as he tripped over yet another Geodude, and was vaulted forward and fell on the ground, flat on his face.

"Don't walk on me," the little rock-typed pokemon grumbled as it moved away from the group.

Electivire, a smug look on his face, turned towards the downed form of Riolu.

"You were saying?"

"Shut up…"

They both laughed.

After four minutes of, "Stop kicking me around!" and two falls later, everyone had made it to a natural staircase, leading towards a large, underground body of water. The lake shimmered with purity, the surface calm and near-rippleless.

"There!" Riolu exclaimed, pointing out the sight, already excited for what was to come.

Shinx and Zorua ran over towards the water, Riolu hanging behind. Electivire was about to follow his friends when the fighting type grabbed his hand and held him firm.

"Huh? Yeah?" 'Vire asked, somewhat annoyed at the yank he had received.

"I, uh… I actually got something for you," Riolu opened his backpack and drew from it a magnet as large as his head "I wanted to give this to you a while back, but I thought now'd be a good time."

Electivire, having just received his first present ever, stood shocked, his face contorted in a look of happiness, amazement, and thankfulness "R-Really? F-For… Me?"

Riolu nodded, separating the magnet from the macho braces stored in the backpack along with it. They had gotten stuck to the polarized metal, and it took a firm tug to relieve them of one another.

"I… I-" Electivire felt like he would explode in an emotion he couldn't quite understand. Helpless, he just stared, flustered, at Riolu.

"And now, you're officially in a loss for words," the jackal said as-a-matter-of-factly. Before the electric type could resume, he followed with, "Thanks are needless, come on, let's get going, Shinx 'n Zorua are waiting for us!"

"Hey… We're… officially good?" Electivire asked with an uneasy smile as he started walking towards the lake.

"Didn't I say that after the Beedrill Swarm? Of course!" Riolu replied, a smile so big flashing across his face that Electivire marvelled at that alone. The jackal joined him in his walk, trekking slowly towards the water, laughing.

"Did you know I found that magnet in the generator?" Riolu picked up, "I spotted it in the rubble after we defeated all those Beedrill the first time we met. It took me a while to figure out what it did, so it'll probably benefit you more than it would me."

"What are you waiting for?" Shinx yelled from the center of the lake before Electivire could respond, "The water's temperature is flawless!"

"We're coming, we're coming!" Riolu replied loudly with glee and, in a move Electivire least expected, ran into a lone stalagmite on the ground and bounced off of it. Instead of hitting the ground, he collided with another, larger stalagmite and did the same, slowly ascending from the ground.

A few seconds passed with his blue and black shape darting back and forth between the walls and other rock formations, making progress up towards the cave roof.


"This… Riolu… He just can't stop scaring us with his bravery... Want to give him a good fright?" Giratina suggested.

"Heh… Now, THAT'S a good idea! Will you all ever learn that being serious doesn't mean that I despise entertainment?" I replied to one of the funniest ideas I'd heard since the creation of Vanillish, "Hmm… This'll do… Aaaaand... Now!"


Riolu, finally finishing his wall jumping, clung to a stalactite on ceiling of the cave, ready to jump into the lake far below when the ground and cave roof began to shake.

Zorua and Shinx, scared by the tremor, quickly swam back towards the shore and scuttled a good two meters away from the lake while Electivire, who had since gotten in the water and was floating on the surface, either didn't notice or didn't bother to care about the quake.

A few seconds of silence passed, the trio of Shinx, Zorua, and Riolu, from his perch, looking around for clues about the source of the shaking, until a second tremor, more powerful than the last one, made Riolu lose his grip on the rock formation.

He flailed in the air, trying to right himself, when a large, serpentine shape emerged from the water directly underneath him. It caught the tiny jackal in its mouth, and, in less than a second, had clamped its jaws shut around the fighting type.

"A Gyarados! Electivire! Away from the water!" Zorua yelled at the electric type, approaching the body of water once more.

"No! No no no NO no!" Shinx screamed helplessly, sprinting ahead of Zorua.

Electivire, the disturbance interrupting his daydreaming, slowly flailed towards his friends from the water. He couldn't swim quite well, even though he could float, so he ended up splashing the general vicinity more than making progress towards the group.

The Gyarados rose again from the water, roaring in anger. The cause seemed to be Riolu, who was propping the beast's jaws open with his own body.

"Log- Riolu! Hang in there!" Shinx shouted, starting to charge electricity while Zorua aimed and shot a shadow ball at the serpent.

"Jes-!" Riolu screamed hurriedly before the water-flying type pokemon dove again.

"Don't worry! I got it!" Electivire paused in his flailing, sparks dancing among his wet fur. "Ah-ha! Eat this!" he continued, yelling, as he let out the entirety of his electrical power into the water below.


"He's killing him! Do something! This isn't funny!" Giratina shook me as he spoke.

"It's not funny because the funny part is yet to come!" I replied, laughing maniacally.


In the meanwhile, Riolu was battling for survival into Gyarados' mouth underwater, struggling to hold his breath and keep his posture with the water blasting against him in torrents. This went on until he and his hunter got both shocked by an incredibly powerful electrical charge that caused the Gyarados to emerge from water again. Riolu, with the shock lost his footing for a moment, and had to struggle to keep the serpent's jaws open.

"I've had… Enough… Of this!" Riolu yelled as he, in a desperate attempt of escape, stabbed the roof of the dragon's mouth with a shadow claw.

The Gyarados, with a cry of pain, blasted Riolu away from his mouth with a dragon rage, propelling the tiny fighting type into the rocky side of the lake. Both Shinx and Zorua took advantage from this moment of weakness and shot their thunderbolt and shadow balls right at the Gyarados' scaly face.

The Gyarados, at the assault, retreated into the water with a roar. However, Riolu, recovering from his skid against the shore, stood, looking over the water with an oddly indifferent expression. Suddenly, he started glowing that bright blue the group had seen all that time ago. He moved towards the lake's edge, and, pursuing the dragon, dove in headfirst.

"Wh- What are you doing! Don't!" Electivire yelled, frightened. In the moments following his discharge, he had struggled towards shore, and was now sitting there, panting, as Riolu's form disappeared beneath the water.

Flustered, he scrambled over to the lake's edge, near where Riolu had disappeared, and watched.

He spotted the blue glow, deep within the water. In an act of instinct, he tried charging up enough electrical power to attack once more, but in his weakened and exhausted state, all he could manage was a few sparks. He was forced to wait and watch as one of the only friends he'd ever made was killed.

The blue glow, meanwhile, got closer and brighter, so much that Electivire had to squint his eyes to keep track of it. Eventually, he had to move from his post on the water's edge, but by then, the light was blinding.

A moment later, Riolu, in all his glory, rose from the water, much to the collective relief of everyone watching. However, he wasn't alone.

The jackal was holding the Gyarados by its barbels, dragging the dragon onto solid ground. Now playing the role of the hunter, Riolu, seemingly effortlessly, lifted the Gyarados and deposited it on the shore.

Shinx and Zorua had never seen their friend glowing with such intensity, and stood, stunned behind a rocky formation. Electivire was in full view of the spectacle before his eyes.

"Riolu! What are you doing!?" Electivire asked, utterly bewildered.

"You!" Riolu pointed at Electivire, ignoring his question, "Get here and help me!"

As Riolu broke his gaze from the exhausted Gyarados, too tired to roar or make any attempts to get away, and directed it towards Electivire, the electric type saw a blue fire, blazing into the jackal's red eyes. Without saying anything, he hurried by his friend and held his paws.

Then, the impossible happened. With a growl, Riolu, using the Gyarados' barbels as a handhold, swung the entirety of the serpent's body like a whip, first colliding with the stairs, then on a wall, on the ground, and again on the stairs as if the dragon were as light as a sack of berries.

Electivire was nothing more than a brace, Riolu providing all the strength. Even with all the extra power, Riolu needed leverage, a larger Pokémon's body was the perfect tool.

After Riolu seemed to be finished, Electivire fell on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. He had felt the jackal's power through contact, and it left him amazed and speechless. Riolu, not noticing, approached at the poor behemoth's face as he charged a single fist with a blue flame.

However, right before the fighter could land the finishing blow, he got interrupted by a single word, uttered by Shinx.

"Logan!" he yelled, breathless. Riolu immediately stopped, his fist one inch away from the dragon's face, his face unchanged.

Shinx let out another, labored breath, "Logan! Stop!" he continued as he left the safety of cover and approached his friend, ignoring the brightness and its toll on his eyes.

As soon as Shinx got near Riolu, the blue light that consumed the jackal disappeared entirely, his paws falling limp to his sides.

"R-Riolu…" Shinx continued, encouraged by the effects his words had on his friend, "it's enough." To accentuate his point, he walked slowly towards the fighting type's slumped form and let a paw rest on the jackal's shoulder. In a movement that surprised all, however, Riolu fell forwards, all of his strength, even enough to hold himself up, completely gone.

The noise of the fighter tumbling down on the ground was enough to encourage both Electivire and Zorua to advance and assist.

"It's…It's fine… It's… e-enough" Riolu gibbered towards Shinx, looking emptily at the roof of the cave. When finished, his eyes closed as he blacked out.

"It is…" Shinx whispered back on deaf ears, and dragged his friend towards the advancing forms of Zorua and Electivire.


"Did you see how that tiny pokemon slammed a level 55 Gyarados around like nothing? HAH!" I was laughing so hard I didn't notice how Giratina reacted to the sight. He seemed both pleased and excited about something.

"This… I… I have to do something in the distortion world, later," he coldly said and vanished before I could reply.

"Hah… hah… where are you going? Curses, maybe he didn't like it…"