AN: Haboo. Don't ask what that means. I don't know. So! In case you've been following this and you only clicked the most recent update (or for some reason this is the only update you were alerted to), then I've also posted chapters 11, 12, and 13 today. I might get to 15 this afternoon. By the way, what time-zone are my wonderful readers in anyway? I'm on the east coast, in the wonderful little place called New England. If anyone were wondering I suppose.

14. In Which May Visits Littleroot and Learns About Darius's Past

May looked down the hill at her hometown of Littleroot, breathing deeply. It had only taken her a day to get there, and she still had time to get to Petalburg if she didn't dawdle. It had been 4 days since she'd encountered Maxie atop the volcano and stopped him from doing whatever he'd been planning. In that time she'd trained hard with Flannery, and she felt proud. In that time she'd learned something from Flannery as well. But she quickly put it out of her head, instead walking down the hill into the quiet little town that she had lived in almost her entire life. May walked down the familiar pathways, looking around and nodding to her neighbours as they called to her and waved in delight at seeing her return.

"May! Long time no see girl!" May paused at the familiar voice, smiling as her neighbour bounded up to her with a wide, jovial grin on his face.

"You have branches in your hair again professor." She admonished lightly, reaching up and pulling some of the offending wood out of the man's wild brown hair. Professor Birch laughed heartily.

"Whoops! I just came in from the field, see?" May nodded and began walking towards her house again, with Professor Birch following after. "Brendan said he saw you a while back! Said you even met Steven Stone! That's incredible!" May nodded and laughed lightly.

"He seems like a very normal person. A very quiet guy from what I've seen of him." May admitted. Her neighbour nodded, grinning conspiratorially.

"But you know," he whispered to her, "it's the quiet ones you gotta look out for, yeah?" May hesitated, and then nodded.

"Yeah." The professor paused in curiosity at the tone of her voice, but then shrugged and followed after her.

"There's these kids at my lab from another region, I think you'd like them May!" He put a hand on his chin. "Well, either you'd like them, or you'd despise them, I can't really tell. You know, you seem to have changed in these past two weeks. Travelling seems to be doing you some good afterall." May nodded absently while reaching for the key that hung around her neck, unlocking her front door.

"Guess who's come to visit!" Professor Birch called over her shoulder. May allowed him to walk into the house before closing the door behind him.

"I'm in the kitchen!" Her mother's voice called. May walked in and waved to her mother, who waved back with a warm smile on her face. "Your father said you'd gone travelling the region." Her mother said in a gossiping tone, placing the dish she'd been washing in the sink. May nodded and took a seat at the kitchen table as her mother navigated her wheelchair over to be next to her daughter. "He said you'd gone off with a boy." She whispered with a sly grin. May pouted.

"Mom!" She could feel heat rising in her cheeks. "You make it sound like that has something to do with why I chose to travel with him! He's a really powerful fighter! That's it!"

"Oh yeah!" Professor Birch threw in, dragging up another chair from the table and sitting in it backwards. "Brendan mentioned you were travelling with a boy too! Said the kid seemed to have lots of good connections. What's that about?" May shrugged.

"Darius is just really good at getting himself into whatever major thing is currently happening." May commented, thinking of her friend. "Brendan was probably talking about how the President of the Devon Corporation is on first name terms with Darius, and how Darius and I knew Steven Stone as well."

"Well!" Professor Birch exclaimed. "Those are certainly some good connections!" Her mother giggled.

"You've got quite a taste in boys May."

"Mom!" May howled. "I already said-"

"It's not like that." Her mother interrupted with a giggle. "Sure thing, dear." Before May could inform her mother that it really was like that, there was a knock at the front door and May heard it open slowly, unsurely.

"Professor?" A girl's voice called out timidly. "Are you in there?"

"Yo! Prof-man! I'm fining you a million dollars if you don't come back!" Another voice, male this time, hollered. That voice yelped along with a muted thud; the sound of a fist meeting flesh.

"How many times do I have to tell you Barry, be respectful!" The girl's voice growled. Professor Birch's face had gone white and he jumped to his feet while shouting, "Sorry!" He looked down at May quickly and grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her to her feet before dragging her to the door while calling apologies to her mother.

"Sorry Dawn, Barry, I just saw a neighbour who hasn't been in the area for a while and I wanted to say hi. I got distracted." Dawn nodded and smiled but Barry crossed his arms and huffed.

"You're nothing like the old man back home." He commented. Dawn scowled and boxed the boy's ear, causing him to yelp again.

"Both Professor Rowan and Professor Birch are highly respected research authorities. You need to show them both some more respect!"

"Yeah, yeah." Barry sulked, holding his ringing ear.

"May, these are the two trainers I was telling you about." The professor said happily, ignoring his guests' antics. "They're very powerful trainers, and I bet you and Barry would put up a good match. Barry, Dawn, this is my neighbour May." May nodded as Dawn and Barry were introduced, and then she smiled at the professor.

"I'm not nearly as strong as I thought I was to be honest." She said with a small laugh. "Not only could I not beat my father, but a complete stranger was able to come in and knock out both Mudkip and Taillow without even trying." Dawn nodded and smiled.

"Barry knows what that's like." She commented. The boy scowled and stuck his tongue out at her, earning another cuff on the ear. "The thing about strangers is that you can never tell how strong they are until you get to know them."

"Or if they're going to turn out to become a good pal or a freaky psycho." Barry interjected, pouting slightly for some odd reason. May nodded, smiling.

"That stranger was that Darius boy Brendan was talking about, right?" Professor Birch asked. May nodded. At Darius's name however, Barry and Dawn seemed to react. Well, Dawn's eyes widened; Barry launched forward and caught May's shoulders, mouth open in comic surprise.

"Darius Stellon?" The boy asked. Dawn caught him by the back of the collar and yanked him off of May, but she too seemed as desperate as he to know. May thought.

"I don't know. I never learned his last name."

"Why don't you just ask him?" Professor Birch asked. "Weren't you just saying how you've been travelling with him?" Barry and Dawn glanced at each other before looking back at May. The girl looked at all of them and then to her feet with a sigh.

"About, 8 days ago I think, we ran into a group called Team Magma. Up in Meteor Falls. They," May paused, thinking. "We'd gone there to interfere with whatever they were up to. Darius had been standing on the bridge when, when that man destroyed it." May was still staring at her feet, but she heard Professor Birch gasp and her mother, who had come to the kitchen doorway, mutter 'oh no'. Her eyes shot up when Barry laughed though.

"Barry!" Dawn scolded loudly.

"That is so him!" The boy laughed. "Getting caught up in the whole saving the world thing agai- OW!" Dawn had taken her fist and slammed it into the boy's gut, effectively shutting him up. As the boy fell to the floor, curling and moaning, she gave a slight nod to May.

"I'm sorry about this idiot. While I'll admit those actions do sound similar to a friend of ours, there's no guarantee that it's the same person, and this is not a situation you laugh in!" She rounded on the boy at the last part, glaring hard at him. May watched quietly as they began bickering.

"Do either of you know someone named Jupiter?" May asked quietly. At the name, both heads whipped around to face her again.

"The crazy-ass psycho bitch?" Barry asked from the floor. Dawn kicked him.

"I guess we must know the same Darius." Dawn muttered. "Last time I saw her she was screaming that she was going to hunt him down and slit his throat after peeling off every inch of his skin and breaking every bone in his body."

"So, the psycho-bitch." Barry summed up simply, rolling away from Dawn's second kick. May nodded.

"Yeah." She said quietly. Barry looked up at her from his spot on the floor before rolling to his feet and wrapping an arm around her shoulder, grinning widely.

"Thanks for that Miss May!" He said in a chipper tone. "Now we know Darius is up to his usual stuff, and we can tell Special Agent Looker we don't know where he is without lying! It's a win-win!" Dawn huffed and stomped forward, dragging Barry off May again.

"We weren't going to lie to him anyway!" She said forcefully. Barry laughed.

"No, you were going to say nothing and I was going to sweet talk around the whole thing!" Professor Birch frowned.

"Looker? Isn't he that well respected Special Agent with the International Police? What's he got to do with knowing young Darius's location?" Both Dawn and Barry instantly froze. Dawn then punched Barry in the gut again.

"Idiot." She growled before sighing. "Truth is, Darius was sent by Agent Looker to investigate the suspicious gang in this region."

"Gangs." May corrected quickly. "There's two. We've managed to piss off both of them. Team Magma and Team Aqua." Dawn nodded at the information.

"Well, I guess Agent Looker had told him to stay in contact about his progress, but shortly after reaching Hoenn, Darius stopped calling in. I think it was just over two weeks ago. Agent Looker told us that we were to find him and find out why he wasn't responding anymore." Dawn shrugged. "From what you said, he's been doing exactly what Looker told him to do, but he's just not checking in. I wonder why?"

"He just doesn't like having to bow down to the man!" Barry declared before getting kicked in the shin.

"Darius never told me any of this. I actually met him just less than two weeks ago, and by then he'd already gotten into several scuffles with Team Aqua. I just started following him around because I wanted him to teach me how to battle like he did." Barry snorted.

"The guy's a pacifist." He said with a grin, propping one hand on his hip and waving the other in the air. "Won't fight except when he has to. He's all heroic like that." Dawn scowled and punched his gut once more.

"Where is your shut up button and why can't I seem to hit it?" She demanded. The boy just laughed.

"But like I said, it's been about 8 days since the attack and I haven't seen him." May reminded the two. Barry nodded, looking deep in thought.

"8 days sounds like enough time for that guy to bounce back and make an entrance. He's made of rubber." He said with a grin. "All that needs to happen now is for everyone to run into each other and he'll show up!"

"That still doesn't explain why he didn't contact Looker before he got separated from you." Dawn said, finally just ignoring her companion. Barry and May thought too before May snapped her fingers.

"Tyler will know! I'm almost positive!"

"Tyler?" Barry and Dawn chorused. May nodded and led them into the living room. Professor Birch took the arm chair while her mother rolled up beside him. May snagged her PokeNav and sat in the middle of the couch while Barry and Dawn sat to either side of her. She quickly dialled Gabby's number and set it to speakerphone, reminding herself that she really needed to get Tyler's own number at some point too. The cheerful reporter picked up after only a few rings.

"Hey May girl!" Gabby answered happily. "Don't talk, let me guess! One, you're happy because Darius is back on scene and you need to spread the joy. Two, he's back on scene and has agreed to let us make a documentary on you two. Or three, he's not on scene and you need to talk to Tyler about something Darius-related."

"Door number 3 Gabby." May replied with a giggle.

"I should just give you his number." The reporter huffed. There was a clattering from her end of the line and the children heard her yelling for the cameraman. There was a second clatter about a minute later.

"What's up May?" Darius's friend asked.

"Hi Tyler." May greeted. "I've actually got you on speakerphone; I'm sitting on a sofa with two people named Dawn and Barry."

"Ah." Tyler said knowingly. May frowned at the PokeNav.

"Don't say 'ah' like you already know exactly what's happening!" She grouched. There was a pause on the other line.

"I didn't say ah, then. So what's happening?"

"Well now you have to tell me what you know about this!" May cried. Tyler sighed.

"Barry and Dawn are listening too, correct?" He asked.

"We are."

"Righty-o!"

"Alright then, let me ask you two a few questions. I'm assuming Special Agent Looker sent you two to find Darius, correct?"

"Yes, he did." Dawn replied. "How did you know that?"

"Now since I never called Saturn to tell him about the situation and Darius couldn't have called the agent, the question is why Agent Looker felt the need... to search... for..." Tyler's words suddenly drifted off. "He was supposed to be reporting in, wasn't he? Dammit, that's what that weird device in his backpack was for."

"What are you talking about Mr. Tyler?" Dawn demanded. May, who had been thinking quietly herself, suddenly came to a conclusion. She cleared her throat.

"He has amnesia, doesn't he?" She said quietly. Barry and Dawn spun and stared at her open mouthed. Tyler was quiet for a minute.

"You've known since Mauville haven't you?" The cameraman asked finally.

"I'd guessed. It seemed strange that you said his nightmare was a memory, but you still seemed to know more about it than he did."

"Now hang on!" Barry shouted, flapping his hands in the air. "If Darius has amnesia, why's he still going after these gang guys?" He glared at May. "And how would he warn you about psycho-bitch Jupiter if he didn't remember her?" Tyler quickly spoke up.

"Darius had a letter from Special Agent Looker and a letter from Saturn in his backpack when he woke up." The man informed them. "That was his only link to his past. Saturn is a friend of mine and had told Darius to find me in his letter, which is how I know him, and in his letter he also said to watch out for Jupiter because she'd probably come after him."

"I get that." Barry said after a pause.

"So Darius is in Hoenn chasing down these obviously violent criminals, and he doesn't even remember who he is?" Dawn asked, frowning.

"Pretty much." Tyler said. "When he told me, he asked me not to tell Saturn or Agent Looker because he wanted to stop Team Aqua and Magma, and he believed that if we told anyone about his amnesia they might make him leave the case. He'd befriended several people who were actually attacked and robbed by Team Aqua, so he'd made it personal."

"From what I'd seen of Darius." Dawn said with a hand on her chin. "He's not one to make friends quickly. I got the impression that he's a very withdrawn person." Barry huffed.

"You didn't see him after Uxie was taken by Jupiter." The boy said quietly, crossing his arms. "He keeps everyone away because he doesn't want them getting hurt. Of course with relatives like his I don't blame him. But I saw the look on his face. He blamed himself for what happened to Uxie, even though it was my fault." Barry fell silent, looking at his shoes.

"From what I know of that incident, it was Jupiter to blame for that." Tyler commented. Barry chuckled.

"Guess you're right." They were all quiet for a minute before Dawn sighed.

"I guess we should clear up the situation with Looker now." Dawn said. Barry jumped to his feet.

"Are you crazy woman?" He demanded. "These guys just said Darius wanted to continue investigating! You tell Looker and he'll pull Darius out!" Dawn kicked Barry's knee, causing the boy to drop to the floor once more.

"Did you forget why Looker sent us to look for him in the first place?" She demanded. "He suspects that Darius did have something to do with what Cyrus was doing! If we don't report, he'll assume Darius tried to flee and call for his arrest! We were sent to prove that that isn't what he did!" Barry nodded slowly from the floor at Dawn's outburst.

"Why would Darius be suspected? Didn't he help clear that up?" May asked. Barry sighed.

"Yeah he did, but Cyrus is his uncle, which means the police don't trust him." May said nothing as Dawn stood up and pulled Barry to his feet.

"Now that we're done gossiping, we must be going." She said. "Thank you for telling us where Darius is. Or at least, what happened to him. We'll make sure Looker understands what happened and that he won't interfere." May nodded to Dawn and the other girl nodded back. Then Dawn dragged Barry to the door. She tossed him outside before turning back once more. "May?"

"Yeah?"

"When you find Darius, keep an eye on him. He's perfectly capable of dealing with the outside world, but I think the biggest threat to him is his own mind. And with amnesia, he won't be prepared to have to protect himself from himself." May nodded.

"I already knew that. And don't worry, I'll keep a close eye on him after this." Dawn smiled and walked out the door. There was silence for a while.

"So what are you going to do now?" Tyler asked, still being on the other line. May sighed.

"I'm going to keep doing what you said to do. Doing everything except looking for Darius. Both Barry and Dawn seemed to have the same confidence you have that he's fine, so I'll default to you guys. I'm going to head to Petalburg, beat my father, and then I'll just wander around until I find something else to do. And I will probably run into Darius whenever I next run into Team Aqua or Magma."

"I'll keep an eye out too." The cameraman said before hanging up.

"You go girl!" Professor Birch said jubilantly, punching a fist into the air.

"You'll find him dear." May's mother assured her. The girl nodded and stood up, tucking her PokeNav back into her bag. Then she walked out the door in time to see Dawn and Barry climbing on the backs of two giant bird Pokemon and taking to the sky, quickly speeding to the west, disappearing over the tree line. May watched the spot where they'd disappeared, staring at it until finally she shook her head with a smile. Glancing at the sun's position compared to the horizon and guessing by her internal body clock, May decided that she really did have enough time to make it to Petalburg for a fight with her father. Sighing, she set out.

AN: So, I'd started writing a prequel for this, telling about Darius's time in Sinnoh, but due to a huge mishap with my computer, all but 2 halves of two different chapters was lost. I'd actually lost the first half of this story too, including stuff I haven't posted yet, but I had a second back-up copy saved on another computer, thank goodness. So, I apologize to people who are curious about the details of what happened in Sinnoh, but you're just going to have to fill it in with you imagination unless I can find a way to recover the data. Anyone know what 'mswrd632' is? I still have the corrupted file on my computer, and whenever I try to open it, I get the message 'Word cannot start the converter mswrd632.' Maybe there's still a hope to recover the story, but it's unlikely. And I cannot start from scratch... /AN