All right, I'm back, and I have four announcements to make before the chapter begins. But first, I hope your Halloween was nice. I didn't dress up at all, but I did add a 20th buff to my collection!

First off, this chapter will inch us just barely over the 50,000-word mark. I'd say that I am probably between 60% and two-thirds of the way through this tale, so keep that in mind as you await more chapters.

Second, this story has passed 2,000 views as of a few days ago. Keep 'em coming, guys, I'm glad that the number is going up.

Third, I decided not to write the Hunger Games story after all. I wasn't getting enough characters, and, besides, I want to focus on one fic at a time for the most part. So no, I'm sorry about that.

And finally, if you want to talk to me on my Discord server, the invite code is m5cewEX. Can't wait to see you there!

LELAND'S POV

"It's beautiful" I heard Sarah say, but I wasn't listening. All I could do was stare up at the sky, the night sky that I had grown accustomed to not seeing.

Even though my captivity had only lasted about a day and a half, I was already shocked to see the immense volume of stars that had turned overhead. Perhaps there were a decent amount up in West Yellowstone as well, but the night sky looked slightly different than usual. I knew that we must have travelled some distance.

"Where are we?" I asked.

Looking into the distance, I saw large rock formations, although it was difficult to tell what color they were in the dark of night. They could have been brown, gray, orange, or red, but I was going to hazard a guess and say that they were probably orange. We appeared to be in the middle of the desert, because the air was ridiculously dry and...chilly?

I could feel myself starting to shiver. It was so much colder than I would have expected in the middle of the summer, and the very idea that we had gotten out, that euphoria, that excitement, was replaced with worry. How would we be able to stay warm in this desert night?

Of course, for Sarah, that would be no problem. Since she was a Glaceon, she didn't really have to worry about cold temperatures. And you'd think that, since my Zoroark body was so furry, I'd be fine. That would be a comforting thought, but it would be wrong.

"I'm kind of cold" I told Sarah. "Is there any way you can conjure up a blanket or something?"

She looked at me and shook her head. "You'll have to deal. And it looks like we won't be able to go inside any of those businesses or whatever".

Sometimes I hated it when she was brutally honest.

I looked around and saw that we appeared to be in a medium-sized town. There were a lot of businesses and homes located all over the place, and there were cars parked on the sides of the road. Despite this, there were no lights on in the entire town that I could see, so it was evidently very late at night.

"Where are we, though?" I asked. "Is there any way to find out, other than breaking into someone's house and asking?"

"We need to look for a sign or something" Sarah replied, always the voice of reason. I made a mental note to trust her judgment from here on out, since she was clearly better under pressure than I was.

Right now, all I wanted was to warm up and get as far as possible away from the headquarters of Team Atomic. I wasn't eager either to get caught or to catch hypothermia. Hopefully, however, it would get warmer in the morning, since it was summer after all.

"Should we find out where we are first?" I asked Sarah. "Or should we just head into the woods and try to warm up?"

"How would we do that?" she replied. "Build a fire? You do realize that we'd create a huge smoke signal for Team Atomic to scoop us right back up. I don't even want to know what they're going to do to us if they are able to catch us".

That was a good point, and I didn't know how to answer that. Fortunately, I didn't have to, because we ran into a signpost.

This signpost specifically said the name of the town we were in. "Sedona, Arizona" my Glaceon companion said, taking a deep breath. "I've been here before?"

"You have?" I asked her. "When?"

"We went on vacation here once, my family and I" she replied. "There are a lot of New Age stores here. I've never really understood why this is considered the place for that, but I suppose that it doesn't really matter right now".

"You're right" I said. "It doesn't".

For a while, we just stood there, listening to the sound of crickets chirping in the night. I wondered how they could survive in this dry desert environment, but I'd never considered myself an expert on anything scientific. Really, from my perspective, it was anyone's guess.

Then, something happened that absolutely shocked me. A door opened.

"Hey. What are you guys doing here at this hour?" came a voice from inside.

I saw that there was a small cafe whose door had just opened up. I didn't know exactly what was going on, but I didn't want to spend any more time in this area than absolutely necessary.

The man looked rather like Amos Slade, the hunter from The Vulpix and the Houndour. He wasn't carrying a gun, but that didn't make him too much less terrifying.

As to why he was terrifying...try being completely used to being on your own, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the night. Then try having a mysterious man reveal himself to you, and you will quickly come to understand why this is so unsettling. Really, it's not something you want to have happen to you.

I whispered into Sarah's ear, "Should we say hello to him? Or should we just stand up and run?"

"I say the latter" she replied. "We can't trust anybody here. Who knows if they're members of Team Atomic, or worse, Team Rocket?"

"Fair point" I said.

Even though the Amos Slade lookalike kept on calling for us, we ran across the street to an area where the sidewalk met the desert. From here, the view was absolutely gorgeous.

Below us, there was a sparse forest, intermixed with sagebrush plants and patches of sandy desert. I didn't know exactly what types of Pokemon might be there, and I was a little nervous. If we ran into a Poison type...I didn't want to think about that. We didn't have any Antidotes, so that would have been disastrous.

"Let's go" Sarah hissed into my ear.

I knew that it was best to travel under cover of darkness whenever possible, and making a fire would have been a very bad idea in the daytime, not least because it was likely to be very hot once the sun rose again. That raised the question as to whether it would be a good idea to build a fire at all, but I was feeling quite cold in the moment. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea.

As soon as we started walking into the desert, I was struck by just how crumbly the ground was. If you made one wrong step, you could end up sliding a ways down the slope. That wasn't something I wanted to happen, so I tried to be very careful, not always an easy task.

"How far do you want to go, Leland?" Sarah asked me. "A mile? Two? How will we be able to tell, anyway, how far we've gone?"

Those were all fair questions, but I responded, "How about we walk for an hour? And then, hopefully, we'll be able to find a source of water".

It then struck me that, even if we were able to find a source of water, there would be no way of knowing whether or not it was safe to drink. It was important to stay hydrated, yes, but if we only ended up puking the water right back up, would we really be better off than before? The answer to that question, I figured, was a resounding no.

Sarah shot back her answer almost immediately, and it was exactly what I had just told myself.

"We won't know if it's safe or not" she replied. "And we have no iodine or anything. Man, I wish we had thought this through!"

It just now struck me how very idiotic of an idea it was to enter the desert in the middle of the night without any supplies. I didn't always have the best ideas. That was something that needed to be said.

"Well, we're going to have to find some way to make this work" I replied. "Perhaps we can just head back in the morning, or build a fire to boil the water".

"We don't have a pot" Sarah said.

I slapped my forehead, or what passed for a forehead on a Zoroark. What an idiot I am. Seriously, it was as though I was purposely making myself a textbook case of What Not To Do.

We walked for what felt like several hours, until the town of Sedona was well behind us. Judging by how small the buildings looked from this vantage point, I had an immense amount of doubt that anyone currently downtown would have any idea that we were here.

We were, at least for the time being, safe.

I trusted Sarah to tell me when we should stop. I trusted her much more than I trusted myself at this point, so I deferred to her on this decision. I could only hope that I wasn't deeply misplacing my trust.

Finally, we reached a small clearing in the trees. "Here" she said. "This is where we'll stop".

I looked around. It was nothing too impressive, just a break in the trees, but I supposed that that was ultimately what a clearing was. "I think it's great" I replied.

Sarah nodded before sitting down. "Do you want to start a fire?" she asked. "I think that that'd be a good idea".

Now it was my turn to nod. "Yeah, I think we should. That's probably a good thing to do".

I wasn't that familiar with outdoorsy skills, so I let Sarah take the lead. I saw how she grabbed two sticks and started banging them against each other. I wasn't sure that this was the method one usually used to start a fire, but it seemed to be working. Before long, the Glaceon girl had a spark going, and then she'd managed to cause the stick to ignite.

"Good going, Sarah" I said.

Even though it was nighttime, I could tell that she was blushing slightly. "It's nothing" she replied. "Really, it isn't something that I think about. I learned how to do it at summer camp once".

Oh. Well, that explained that.

"Do you know how to tend to the fire?" Sarah asked me. "Do you want to keep watch, or do you want me to?"
She was actually giving me a choice. I was a little surprised by that, but I said, "I'll keep watch. You get some sleep".

Since Sarah had been the one to wake me up back in the headquarters of Team Atomic, it only made sense that I should be the one to stay awake now. I felt that I needed to take one for the team, because I felt that we were a team. I very much wanted things to stay that way.

The Glaceon knelt down on the ground and closed her eyes. After that, I paid attention to the fire, making sure that it stayed alive, but also making sure that it did not grow too high. If it did, and we ended up sending a signal for Team Atomic or Team Rocket, I wasn't sure if I could live with myself.

On the bright side, if it could be said that there was a bright side, if it was the latter that managed to capture us, I might not have to live with myself for too long. Team Rocket had allowed me to go last time, but I didn't know if they would have such mercy on me the second time around.

Since Sarah was now asleep, I started to feel very much alone. It was true, very much so, that I could have woken her up at any moment, but I just wanted to let her rest for a change. Arceus knew that she'd been guiding me out of Team Atomic's headquarters back there; that hadn't been me finding the way out of there; it had been all her.

And then it struck me. There might be a way out of my loneliness. There might be someone I could call, someone who would be able to help me and Sarah out in our efforts to survive away from two villainous teams. Someone who might have been able to help us out with finding a cure. Someone who, moreover, would know when we wanted him to come.

I called out to the man who had saved my life.

TODD'S POV

I woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. For a few terrifying seconds, I didn't realize exactly what had happened, or why I had woken up.

But I felt the same "rumble" that I usually had whenever I was receiving a telepathic message. It didn't feel like a physical rumble, but it did feel very much tangible. I wasn't exactly sure of its cause, but I did know that it was something that could not have been good news.

Whenever someone woke me up with this, which was rare, it usually meant that that Zoroark was in dire need of help. I wasn't sure whom it was this time, but I decided to get out of bed anyway. Chances were good that someone was in need of my assistance, and really, why wouldn't I give it? I had nothing better to do.

Who is this? I asked. It's half past one in the morning!

It's Leland Parsons, the telepathic "voice" replied. You know, the guy you dug out of a grave.

How could I forget? I replied. What do you need?

I didn't know what I was expecting him to say. I supposed that he was probably in need of some kind of help, or else he most likely would not have tried to contact me. At the same time, however, I wasn't entirely sure that I would be able to help him. If he'd gotten himself into too dangerous of a situation...yeah, I didn't know that I wanted to assist with that.

We're in the middle of the desert, he said. We need someone to help us escape Team Atomic.

What's that? I asked Leland.

I didn't know what sort of answer I expected from the Zoroark boy, but he replied, I'll tell you when you get to where we are. I don't know how safe this mental connection is. What if Team Rocket is able to intercept it, to know when we're talking and what we're saying.

That thought caused a shiver to run down my spinal cord. In all of the years since I'd been captured by Team Rocket and given the "gift" of telepathy, there had been maybe a few times when I had thought, You know, maybe there's a catch to this. Rarely had it ever dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, the people who had pumped me with that solution were aware of everything I said in this manner.

I never thought of that, I admitted to Leland. But I'll come and see you, if that's what you want. If you really think you need me.

I do, he replied. We need someone to be with, Sarah and myself. We're in the desert near Sedona, Arizona. Can't you teleport there? Isn't there a Kirlia at the top of the hill that leaves every fifteen minutes?

I got out of bed, taking off my pajamas and putting on some more suitable clothing for where we were going to go. I didn't know how long I'd be away from home, but perhaps it made sense to bring more than one outfit.

No, I thought to myself, careful not to be speaking with Leland as I thought this. I'm going to have to bring just one outfit, because, if I don't, I'll have to carry everything else with me. No, just the clothes on my back.

To Leland, I said, Yeah, I'll be there soon.

After I closed the connection with Leland Parsons, I considered several scenarios inside my head, in order to make sure that this was really the right decision.

For one, I didn't know exactly where in the desert they were. I could end up searching for hours, even days, and end up dehydrating from the heat that there would no doubt be once the sun rose again. It would have been stupid for them to build a smoke signal, because, if there was a worry about a forest fire, it would draw some unwanted attention for sure.

At the same time, I felt like I was constantly being forced to save Leland's ass. It had been less than a week since his near-death experience in that grave, and now I was going to have to help him again. I supposed that I didn't have to, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

I looked around my house, comparing it to a hotel room that I was only temporarily staying in, and then vacating. This was my way of coping with the fact that I was about to leave.

After all, when you're thinking of leaving the only home you've ever known for over a decade, in order to do something that may very possibly be quite dangerous, what else would you do?

Once I had taken that last glance around the place, I left my house and started walking down the path to the large hill that overlooked the village of Zora Valley. I had never thought that I'd be leaving in the middle of the night, but I was looking forward to seeing Leland. It had only been about three and a half days since we'd parted ways, just half a week, but I already missed him. He'd seemed like such a cool guy.

When I got to the hill, I began carefully climbing up. Since it was so dark, the blackness only pierced by the light from the moon and stars (which were pretty bright that night, don't get me wrong), I had to be very careful where I stepped. I really didn't want to end up falling into a geyser and ending up in Tartarus, or whatever was at the center of the Earth.

That said, it struck me just how beautiful this world was. Even though life was full of pain and strife, and things could get hard sometimes (indeed, they were hard quite a lot of the time), this world was worth it.

I don't know why I came to that realization as I was walking up the hill, but that was just what happened. By the time I got to the top, I had already come down from that realization, and I was now thinking about how I was going to find Leland and Sarah once I got to Sedona. Knowing only to search the desert near there...that would make it quite difficult.

When I got to the top of the hill, I only had to wait for about five minutes for Kirlia to appear again. I said, "Sedona, Arizona, outside of Team Atomic". I was about to say headquarters, but I didn't think that would be necessary. Besides, I didn't want people to suspect too much if they were listening in on me, although I doubted that.

I latched on, and, within seconds, I was experiencing the rather unpleasant sensation that teleportation always brought. I knew that it wouldn't last for too long; I'd done this before. Still, it was always slightly alarming to be swept off your feet and immediately warped somewhere completely different.

Soon, I was standing in the middle of a starry night, but I could tell that I was somewhere else. It didn't look like Yellowstone National Park anymore, that was for sure.

For one, the forest was much thicker in Zora Valley, with some trees that had been destroyed by forest fire making it appear thinner than it was.

Here, the woods were fairly sparse, intermixed with various desert plants, such as sagebrush and cacti. The night sky was just as beautiful as it was up in Wyoming, since there were no city lights on at the moment. The entire town of Sedona seemed to be asleep.

I searched the ground for some kind of a signal, anything that would possibly constitute a sign that Leland and Sarah might be near it. Whether they had built a fire, or had tried to send up any other signal, I very much wanted to see it.

Soon enough, I felt like I saw a signal, but it was very faint. Clearly, someone was building a fire somewhere.

I took note of that and started heading into the desert. My goal? To find the source of the smoke signal.

SARAH'S POV

For a minute, I didn't remember where I was. I tended to wake up confused, even when I had been asleep rather than unconscious, just because I had no memory of the last several hours.

And then I opened my eyes, and I remembered what had happened. Part of the area seemed to be moving slightly, which was clearly a result of the fire that Leland had built, which was still burning fairly strongly. I wasn't entirely sure that it had been a good idea to build a fire, now that it was clearly starting to get lighter.

"Hey" Leland said. "I think that we might have a visitor".

"Nice" I replied groggily. "Who is it?"

Just then, a man came out of the trees. He had dark hair and was quite tall. Even so, it took a while to recognize him.

"Hello, Sarah" Todd Copper said.

I realized that it was the same man we had gotten acquainted with when we'd been teleported to Zora Valley. I couldn't believe that I'd already forgotten what he looked like, even though it had only been a few days since we had last seen each other.

"Oh. Good morning, Todd" I replied. "I never thought that I'd see you again".

"Well, your friend here was calling for me. I went to the top of the hill, where the Kirlia is, but it sure took a while to find you guys once I got to Sedona. It's almost five in the morning, and I took the 1:30 Kirlia Express".

"That's what it's called?" Leland asked Todd. "The Kirlia Express?"

"Not really" he replied. "But I just call it that. It's colloquial, you know?"

"I suppose" the Zoroark boy said.

"Wait", I said to Leland. "You called Todd without telling me? I mean, don't get me wrong, it is very nice to see you again, Todd, but still…".

"You were asleep" the Zoroark replied. "I didn't want to wake you".

That was nice of him, I thought to myself. One of my least favorite things in the world was being woken up by another person, when all I really wanted was to get a little more sleep.

"So...what do you guys need help with?" Todd asked us. "You know, I don't offer my services to just anyone". He chuckled.

"Well, do you want to explain, Leland?" I asked my travelling companion.

"Sure" Leland replied. "Todd, on Monday, after I got home from school, I saw that Sarah was nowhere to be found at our house. She's been staying with me at home, and we live in West Yellowstone, Montana. I don't remember if I told you that or not".

"It's fine" Todd said. "Continue".

"Well", the Zoroark continued, "like I said, I couldn't find her anywhere, and I eventually checked the attic. And then…".

"What happened next?" Todd asked. "Did it have anything to do with why you are here now?"

"It has everything to do with that" Leland replied. "You see, I went into the attic, and then, in the closet, there were a bunch of people who said that they were from Team Atomic. They shot me in the leg with a tranquilizer dart, and I passed out".

"Where did you wake up?"

"In a room with a bed. This group calling themselves Team Atomic was able to capture me, and they told me that they were looking for a cure. A cure for my being a Zoroark. I don't know how truthful they were being".

"I see" Todd replied. "Leland, Sarah, do you two think that Team Atomic has the means to make a cure right now?"

"No" I replied instinctively. "They're bluffing".

"I don't know" Leland replied. "Maybe they're telling the truth. Maybe they aren't. There's just no way to tell".

"It seems", Todd said, "that we're in quite a hot mess".