John's POV

It's been a while since Kari and Mitsune joined me for the trip around the mall, and she seemed to be enjoying herself as she dragged me around various stores. Most of them were the usual girly-girl shops, like clothing stores and toy stores featuring her favorite Pokemon plushies. Of course, it was not so easy-there was people pointing at us, especially Kari for holding onto Mitsune. She attracted all the little children and it bugged us to no end. Despite Kari's girly antics and interests, though, I couldn't help but smile a little at her laughs. It's been a while since I felt so relaxed.

After walking out of the video game store we just entered (with me leering though a pane of glass at boxes of Nintendo 3DS, wishing I had mine back instead of a 10-pound PokeNav-I left that and the Pokeball at home), I took a good look at Kari. She looked like she was sweating from wearing her golden fur coat all the time.

"Hmm, maybe I should wear a coat that matches your colour scheme. We would be able to fit it more comfortably in this crowd. What do you think, Maria?"

"..."

"Maria, are you lis…" I looked down in my arms and remembered: she was gone.

Oh…right. She left on her own. I put my open hands in my pocket and tried to act like nothing was wrong. And honestly, there really was nothing, but it just felt like something was. I couldn't help but feel a bit empty on this. Sure there were Kari and Mitsune, but it just wasn't the same as having Maria with me. Even quiet, she felt nice to hug and just have her around.

Looks like I've grown used to her, after all this time. Instinctively, I checked my watch I wore and read: 2:23 p.m.

"My God, I've been here for a while!" I turned to Kari and explained myself. "Listen, Kari, I gotta go find Maria. We've been here for about 2 hours, and mom probably thinks we got lost."

Kari just nodded and returned with a small smirk. "Don't worry, that's fine with me. Besides, I didn't want our little date to go along for too long, anyways."

"Wha…" I instantly blushed at the idea and brushed it off. I didn't know she could think such a way. "We were not going on a date! We just met by chance in the mall and just had a walk together!" I shouted loudly enough to get my annoyance across, but not enough to attract attention from people around us.

"Calm down, I don't mean it like that!" Kari laughed out, with Mitsune giggling in her arms. I slowly began to grow frustrated. Grrrh! Why do all girls have to act so… so… GIRLY!

I was just about to turn around and leave them with a quick "Good bye", but Mitsune perked her head up in the air all of a sudden. "What is it, Mitsune?" Kari asked her quietly.

"I don't know, but… I smell something." Mitsune muttered quietly, as if humiliated to speak in public.

"What? Metaphorically or literally?" I asked her absent-mindedly, still thinking where to start looking for Maria.

"Both, I guess. I think I smell…smoke."

"What? I don't smell anything, and people don't seem to notice anything." I spoke to her, gesturing to everyone around.

"John, you're not a fox like Mitsune, and animals naturally have a better sense of smell than people." She rebutted with a frown.

At that, my stomach instantly dropped. I turned my head around and faced Mitsune. "You don't think…"

"No way." Kari interjected automatically. "Misdreavus can't learn any fire-type moves. And I don't think I saw any stores selling Technical Machines." She said griml. As joking that may have sounded, a new thought entered my brain.

"Oh no… unless she somehow managed to cause an explosion, or there's a player here."

…

Maria's POV

What the hell's up with this guy? Why does he want to kill me? Here, of all places?

"Get back here, you… why won't you just die quietly and get this over with?"

He was screaming behind me while I propelled my now invisible self back to find John. I took a quick look around me: I saw nothing but rows and rows of colourful people in equally numerous white marble halls.

Damn, where do I go? On impulse, I headed for the one nearest to me. I took another glance and saw the man was having a hard time trying to get past all the shoppers. Before he chased me down, he realized he couldn't run after me with his Pokemon out in the open, or it would cause mass panic. Whatever his Pokemon was, I couldn't recognize it, but it was obviously a fire-type, with the way it shot out that Flamethrower that roasted the corridor I was just in.

Thank God I could phase through wall, otherwise I would have been a goner. I stopped in my tracks and took in my surroundings. Oh why does every intersection in this mall have to look so similar! Every time, it's a white hall connected to a round intersection with a Christmas tree in it! God, I am so lost right now!

I heard a dim commotion behind me and saw him continue to follow me, shoving away people lost in confusion in the process. This was the first time I noticed: even with the crowd of different people in his way, he was still looking directly at me. Even with his sunglasses on, I could feel his stare on my body.

I took another random corridor and, to my luck, found a closed booth, with a steel curtain covering it and everything.

Perfect. Just what I need. I phased through it and saw the square room was quite large and almost had a feeling of a maze with its numerous rows of white stands, ready to hold up whatever products it's supposed to hold. The walls were covered in black paint and decorated with white stripes, Christmas ornaments excluded. I saw the cashier's counter right at the back and hid myself behind it.

Fine, he may be able to see ghosts, but can he see through wall? I can't, but let's see. But even with this fun idea of cat-and-mouse, I couldn't help but notice, now that I've calmed down, just how fast my heart was beating, and how my senses were spiked with adrenaline, picking up every little detail I could see and hear. Hot sweat was dropping from my pink hair and stinging my skin. My hair, usually so fluffy and curly, were now damp and packed from the perspiration and I was rapidly inhaling and exhaling trying to calm down. I also realized I've been constantly checking my surroundings, jerking my head left and right trying to find out what to do.

This is what a Pokemon battle is? It's so much more different than what John and Kari and Jess told me, about how the Pokemon battles took place in fields or stadiums. Now I felt nothing but pure fear. How ironic, feeling something I feed off of affecting me like this. I laughed quietly at myself for this. What a load of BS. Whoever showed John how a Pokemon battle works clearly never did it in public.

Between my thoughts, I heard a small CLICK!coming from behind the iron curtain, followed by people screaming. A couple taps on the curtains told me someone was behind it. I raised my head over the table and heard sizzling coming from it, and it slowly turned red from heat until the curtain melted off from its chains, forming a steaming pool of lava-like liquid on the rug, instantly lighting a small ember.

"I'm getting really impatient now, Misdreavus. You just had to have me blow my cover, but I never imagined you would hide in such an obvious hide spot."

I heard the man's voice again, but I heard another one accompany it. It was deep and husky and it seemed to be chuckling, from how he let out short bursts of laughs. I recognized the voice as the Pokemon he let loose on me before. The iron sheet completely melted away at this point and revealed both of them. I could hear people running in fear, but that were the least of my problems.

The Pokemon was the same as I remembered him. The stranger only let him out to char the hallway I was previously in pitch-black, but his image remained solid in my mind. He was just shorter than him, reaching his trainer's neck, but had a much wider and round, almost circular build, like it had one whole muscle for each body part. It had a narrow colour scheme or red and yellow, fitting its disposition as a fire-type and had fire bellowing from its shoulders and head, swing wildly from left to right. He had black legs but red feet with two nails extending from each, all attached to a pair of pink thighs, the same as its wide lips. Its most prominent feature, though, was its yellow arms, or if those tubes could be called arms and hands. I could see tiny claws on their edges and thick black cuffs up midway to his shoulder.

"Ahh, I bet you just witnessed Magmortar's Flame Body. Now you see why I put him away in his Pokeball before I chased you down. I may not look it, but just standing here is making me sweat bullets. I would be burnt if it weren't for these heat-resistant clothes. Don't try to ignore me. I know you're here, might as well come out and face the inevitable." I turned myself invisible and hid myself again before his little introduction, but he knew I was here either way.

Oh man, what do I do?

"Now, come out and maybeI'll decide to let you live. With your puny size, I doubt you could handle even one of Magmortar's Flamethrowers. Now I'm not saying that's his only move, but his other moves are so strong I think this entire store would come down if he used any." And chuckled at his threat, his Magmortar repeating after him.

"I bet you're wondering "How did he manage to follow me all this way?" Simply put, these sunglasses I have let me see heat generated from animals, including you. All I did was follow your adrenaline-spike body here. NOW WHERE ARE YOU!" The last words from him left me in such a shock I couldn't help but bump into the desk I was under.

"That's it! Magmortar, Flamethrower!" was the last thing I heard before I heard an almighty explosion erupt from the other side of the store, releasing a blinding flash of flames, and left a roaring fire of steel and . But the scariest bit was that even though I was a good 10 meters away, I could feel its heat reach all the way here, even with the desk providing cover. It was getting hard to breathe with the enormous fire creating smoke and thick waves of heat.

" done trying to negotiate! Magmortar, stand in the middle of the store and use Lava Plume! That'll flush the place out!"

Aw hell, if only all this smoke wasn't chocking me, I could concentrate just enough to phase through the wall! Damn it all!

PPPSSSSHHHHH!

"Hey! What the hell!" I heard the trainer scream over the sudden sound of something sizzling. I looked over the counter I was hiding under and saw him take of his glasses and enter the store himself. But the thing that made me almost laugh in joy was at the ceiling. Out from numerous tiny spouts came the Magmortar's weakness: water. Standing right in the middle of the store got him in the perfect position to be showered, and the sound of sizzling was coming from the water rapidly evaporating off his body. Thankfully, even that thin layer seemed to be doing enough damage to distract him.

Perfect. Now that they turned their attention to the water, it's my turn to bite back! I turned myself invisible again and readied myself a Confusion to quickly swipe the sunglasses out of the man's hand.

"What! Grrrh, that Misdreavus planned this! Didn't you!" Came his response, but I was too busy breaking his glasses in two to care. Now with that out of the way, I readied a Psywave and aimed it right at the Magmortar's head, still closing its eyes shut from the pain of water

"Maaag, magmor!" was his reaction to my attack striking his temple. He stumbled back a bit, and with his legs horribly disproportionate to his body size, it easily fell over to the rug with a boom, steam still generating from his bloated torso. I gave a small chuckle to congratulate myself, but still kept my focus. If what the trainer said was true, then that Magmortar was way too powerful for me to take down permanently, and his size was proof of that. I could just stall for time until John or Kari and Mitsune came and we could get out of here.

"MARIA! Get out of there!"

Speak of the devil!

I turned around and cracked a smile saw them: John, Kari and Mitsune,

"Hey! Finally, you showed up, but don't worry, I got-"

Sadly, all of my thoughts were shattered when I heard a Clik behind me. I didn't realize I turned visible again in the panic ensued.

…

John's POV

I instantly froze and I felt Kari freeze up too next to me. I couldn't blame her; the sight alone would make anyone petrified. A man about Alex's height, but much older, shoved his right hand into his jacket's inner pocket and whipped out a pistol.

"NOBODY MOVE! YOU EVEN FLINCH AND I BLOW BOTH YA BRAINS OUT!" he roared out at us, and pointed his gun at our heads. He was about 20 meters away, and I know that aiming a gun is harder than in looks, but at this point, I wasn't going to risk getting shot at.

Kari immediately threw her hands in the air, dropping Mitsune to the ground in the process. I just stood there, frozen at the barrel pointed at me. Maria froze in the air too. I told her what guns were, how they were weapons used by people, but I never knew what bullets could do ghost-types, and I never wanted to find out. Behind Maria and the man, I saw the Magmortar stand up and grab Maria in his cannon-like arms, chuckling in satisfaction.

"Good! Now if you want to stay in one piece, send that Vulpix under you over here. With its Pokeball. Roll it over." he ordered us. I turned my head slowly to see Kari, but she remained as if in a trance. I gently nudged her side with my elbow to wake her up, and she gasped in surprise.

"Kari, calm down. Just do what he tells you, and you'll be fine. But while I'm here, why do you want our Pokemon anyways?" That last bit was directed at the stranger. I must have been crazy, trying to talk to a person with a gun facing us, but I couldn't just stand there doing nothing while Maria was about to be burnt to a crisp.

The stranger simply laughed in a cold, droning voice to answer my question. "Let me ask you something in return: why do you want to keep that Misdreavus so bad? Pokemon are dangerous creatures, they're monsters! Have you ever thought what they could do if they were to break out and go on a rampage? It would be disastrous! I don't know why everyone like you wanted one! That's why I trained Magmortar here hard enough to kill any Pokemon I need it to." He answered snidely, as if it was the most obvious answer.

I inhaled a quick breath in surprise to his answer. It's the exact same thing I thought when I first saw Maria.

"Well then," I started, trying to distract as long as possible, but the fear of his finger on the trigger still froze me to my spot, and made me hesitate a bit. "Why do you have that Magmortar? If Pokemon are so dangerous, than you could kill him, right there! You see what he did to that store?"

He turned around to see the lightly blazing compartment. I noticed that the sprinklers ran out of water, the remaining embers slowly began to flicker and light up into a flame again.

The stranger just smiled and lowered his gun just a bit, so that the barrel now pointed somewhere around our feet. Thank God, at least he's getting lax. Just a bit more…

"Don't worry. Magmortar's just here to kill off any that I can't hurt with my bullets, just like your precious Misdreavus here. When all the Pokemon are gone, I got plans for him. And as for the store, well… let's just that we all gotta pay a price to do the right thing. Don't think of me as a villain here, I'm just trying to do what's right. Human kind has enough problems as it is. I'm just trying to keep the status quo." Helaughed some more, his voice echoing through the empty mall.

Well, at least that part about Magmortar proves he can't hurt Maria, but you… how can you think like that? I expected people to use Pokemon for thievery or crimes, but this is insane! At this point my arms were actually shaking in fear.

"Kari, you got that Pokeball yet?" I asked gently, but audible enough for the man to hear me. She flinched a bit at my question, and slowly pulled her coat sleeve and showed us her PokeNav. She pressed a button with trembling fingers and grabbed the glimmering Pokeball in her thin, shivering hands. I trembled when I saw her face-tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"That's it. Now just roll it over here, and tell that Vulpix of yours to come here too. After that, both of you, get your asses out of here." He resumed his threatening tone and we reluctantly followed. Before Kari tossed the Pokeball to the ground, however, I grabbed it out of her hands instead. Kari turned her head to me, a mixture of fear and confusion in her eyes, but I put on a brave face.

"Don't worry. I have a plan, but you need to get out of here. I'll catch up with you when I'm done. Just go, and leave Mitsune here." was all I said to her, but she seemed to take it well. She gave Mitsune one last hug. I could see tears running down both their faces and I felt my gut wrench at what's about to come.

"Aww, how nice. One last heartwarming embrace before you separate forever. Not to ruin your fun, but hurry up! Better that fox than you!" I heard the man interrupt the moment, and awoke Kari before she ran out of sight.

Good. Now that she's out of the way, I gotta save Maria. I knelt down next to Mitsune, and pet her warm fur to try to calm her down. She was shivering fearfully, but no amount of petting would calm her. I opened my mouth just the slightest and whispered to her.

"Calm down. When you get close enough, I need you to get that Magmortar to drop Maria. Try to keep him busy from there. Once Maria's free, I'll take the man. I'll tell you when to start." She looked at as if she couldn't believe her pointy ears.

"I know it sounds like a half-assed plan, and it is, but think of it like this: either way, we're gonna die, so might as well try." I told her with a sheepish grin. She muttered a quick "Gotcha." and grinned before slowly walking towards the man, right between him and the Magmortar.

Perfect. After she walked in to the left of the man, I bent over to roll the Pokeball to him. When it reached to the right side of his feet, he smiled and bowed his head a little, as if to respect my action.

"Thank you for your cooperation. You can now leave without us hurting you. Not that it matters, but I would appreciate it if you would keep this a secret between, not that I'm saying we will see each other again." He then put his gun into his jacket again while craning over to pick up the Pokeball.

That's when I made my move.

"NOW!" everything after that happened so fast like a machine it was hard to remember the details of our responses. I was sprinting directly for the man, who then flashed around to look at Mitsune. She jumped about 3 feet into the air and released a quick Ember that hit the Magmortar square on his face. He immediately released Maria from his cannon arms, and she looked at me as if she thought I was crazy. And I probably thought I was, too, but now was not the time to ponder.

"Maria, use Confuse Ray on the man!" I roared out while the man in question dropped Mitsune's Pokeball in surprise. Instantly, Maria nodded in agreement and aimed her gaze to the man next to her. Her eyes started to glow like it did when she used it on those two girls, but I was busy concentrating on trying to body tackle the man to the ground. I lunged forward in my run and grabbed him by the middle into the store, the flame now starting to extinguish from running out of material to burn.

"Hurry up!" I managed to scream out in the middle of the man and my struggles, but Maria finally managed to stare at his eyes long enough to make him starry-eyed, which told me it worked, and I released my grip on him.

"Nice plan! Incapacitating the enemy instead of harming him! Good call!"

Only one man had that voice and talked like that. "Alex! Light!" and to answer my calls, I saw them behind me, looking like they just ran a marathon, panting and sweating to prove their endeavors.

"Took you long enough, we were just about to be shot dead before you came in the scene like a hero! Aren't you the one that's supposed to take care of crap like this?" I shouted as I grabbed Mitsune's Pokeball from the ground next to the man I just tackled.

"Sorry we're late! All the people evacuating from the single entrance really slowed me down." Alex managed to gasp out, while Light readied himself for a fight with the Magmortar, who quickly turned his attention to Light in return. Seeing them made me sigh in relief, now that everything was going to calm down.

"Maria! Can you use Confuse Ray on the Magmortar, too? We want them alive." Alex shouted out to her, who was trying to take on Magmortar along with Light and Mitsune. Magmortar aimed his arms at Light, trying to expose his weakness to fire-type moves, but Maria smartly used Sucker Punch to interrupt him just in time. With Magmortar attempting to recover from a punch from Light he threw right after, Maria hovered eye-level to Margmortar and shot him a Confuse Ray. He then proceeded to lumber around like a drunkard around to store, fire forming around the footsteps he took.

BANG!

"GAAARGH! WHAT THE F- GRR!" was the next thing that pierced my ears. I turned around and gasped at what I saw-the man stood back on his feet, and his gun was aimed at Alex, who was kneeling on the ground, clenching his right shoulder with his left hand. I could see messy splotches of black around his blue jacket and realized what happened.

"YOU!" I screamed out at the top of my lungs. I didn't care if he had a gun pointed at me, I didn't care Maria and Mitsune turned their eyes to me, shocked at my action, I just wanted to plunge him to the ground. I couldn't care less about what would happen to me…

"You idiot! Move out of the way! Get out of the store NOW!" That caught me off guard and stopped me in my tracks, and I saw the man changed his aim just slight above me, right next to my head. I turned around and saw just what he was really aiming at: his Magmortar.

And with good reason: Magmortar had his own two cannons pointed directly at both of us, still under the effect of the Confuse Ray.

At that point I instinctively jumped to my right, to the entrance of the store, and I saw Alex and Light jump with me outside. My face and stomach colliding with the cold ceramic floor was the last thing I felt before the sound of another gunshot went into my ears, right before I felt a heavy blanket of heat over my body. I knew that if I wasted another second in the store, I wouldn't have made it out at all. I took a glance at the store and saw that the explosion from that Magmortar left a bigger damage than I thought; the whole store looked like a miniature hell from where I stood, fire flickering and cracking every few seconds, every window out in front broken, and smoke positively pouring out into the air. Needless to say, that was more than just a mere Flamethrower.

After taking a few breathers and balancing myself to my feet, I turned around and faced Light, who was supporting Alex and helping him stand up. Alex jerked his head to me and grinned with relief, knowing that I was alright. I looked down at myself, making sure I was unburned from the explosion. A couple strings and cotton here and there glowed with small embers, but I quickly patted them away, glad that I didn't have any injuries. I turned around and faced Maria and Mitsune, looking to make sure they were alright.

Only one problem: they weren't there.

…

Well, damn! This chapter took me, what, one and a half weeks to finish, and all in the dead of night! I hope any regular readers of this fic aren't too pissed at my tardiness. My original plan was to write a chapter every week, but it seems like I can only write at nighttime, so I could only do so much a day.

Anyways, remember to leave your comments and reviews, and keep reading! I'm uploading this chapter in Friday, so I hope to have enough creative juices to at least write another one on Saturday.