A/N: If you think this is up fast, Glacial, then you'd be right: I happened to check my email less than a minute after you sent it, ha, ha.

Pokémon and all related official material, including names and locations, belong to whomever it is they belong to, which is not me. I do own most of the original characters, though, except for Rina and Nathan, so if you want to use my characters (and I'd be honored if you did), please feel free to contact me about it.

Chapter XIV – Furreting My Way Out

Joshua

By ten or so next morning, Violet City was disappearing behind us.

Karen took the lead, since she'd already come this way and knew best how to get home. I had taken my place on her shoulder (though I was beginning to realize that before long, as a Bayleaf, I'd be too big to do so anymore); Rina, for once too restless to stay inside her PokéBall, was walking along beside her.

She had no trouble keeping up, since Karen herself was in no hurry. Noah, though he had originally been painfully aware (and painfully obviously so) that he was slowing her down a little, now seemed grateful for the slower speed and stayed just behind Karen, the sound of his uneven steps now almost as regular to me as Karen's own, more rhythmic ones. Pearl was walking calmly beside her Trainer, and Nathan, though he had originally found shelter on top of Noah's head, had quickly become tired of the monotony and asked to be returned to his Ball.

I took another look down at Rina, and I let worry play across my features, not for the first time. The Sentret was shaking, just slightly, and her breathing sounded shallow. She'd been like this all morning; when we'd woken up she'd been pacing the windowsill in the Pokémon Center's room, and had told me she'd been feeling strange since the practice yesterday.

'It didn't really bother me until after you all went to sleep,' she'd said as Karen was in the ladies' room, dressing. 'And then…all of a sudden, I just couldn't keep still. I had to move.'

I let out a small "Chiko…" of sympathy; Karen, noticing this, looked down.

"Rina…?"

She stopped, and I dropped off of her shoulder as she picked the Sentret up. In her arms, unable to really move, Rina began shaking more violently.

I heard Noah slow to a stop behind us. "Karen? What, is Rina sick or something?"

Karen held the back of her hand to Rina's forehead—or, at least, the space between her eyes and ears, which wasn't much.

"S-Sentret," said Rina, more of a sound than a statement. Karen shushed her, gently, then prodded her in several spots on her back. On the third prod, Rina squealed, her arms spasming slightly.

"Oh…" Karen drew Rina up higher, so her face was visible over the Trainer's shoulder. She looked miserable. "She's not…sick, as such, no."

She got back to her feet, still holding Rina tightly. "She's got PESES (1)."

"Pieces?" parroted Noah.

"Um. It's pronounced like that, but it's spelled P, E, S, E, S. PESES. Sentret get it a lot, I've heard. Since Furret are extremely active, curious Pokémon, not as cautious and careful as Sentret, they require more energy. Even though she hasn't evolved yet, Rina's body has started producing all the energy she'll need as a Furret." She began walking again, and Noah with her; I waited until he and Pearl had caught up, and then started walking with them.

'She looks like she's in pain,' said Pearl unhappily. '…Will that happen when I'm ready to evolve?'

'Every Pokémon can get it,' I told her, not at that point realizing what it was I was doing. 'At least, every Pokémon that can evolve. Though I don't think it's too common among Chikorita. Th… Uh, we get all the energy we'd need from the sun, and if we don't use it it just turns into oxygen.'

"I bet you picked that up in the Day Care," chuckled Noah, and Karen nodded. She seemed barely aware of the rest of us, focused as she was on Rina; acting more like a mother to her baby than a Trainer to her Pokémon, she shushed her whimpers, singing a relaxing little ditty that hitherto I'd only heard Ren sing, and then only to the smallest of baby Pokémon.

'…Hmm.'

I looked back over at Pearl to see that she was already looking at me, a thoughtful expression on her face.

'W-what?' I asked.

'…You know a lot.' She paused. 'You're not much older than I am. But you know so much more…'

'Uh…' Oh, no, did I just blow my cover?

'Unless Karen decided to tell you all about P…um…PESES on her own, why would you know? And why would she tell you?'

I suppose I should have realized earlier, listener, but it hit me just at that point that under the guise of the politest little Chikorita in the world there was a very calculating, logical mind. That it had developed so quickly was astounding in itself, though Chikorita are renowned as being the cleverest of all the starters, except perhaps Treecko and Chimchar.

She kept her gaze on me, the barest of frowns visible on her face, obviously expecting an answer.

'W-well… Uh…'

I looked back up at Rina, who had curled even farther down in Karen's arms: only the tips of her ears could be seen from my two-foot vantage point.

'I g-guess you could, uh, say that…'

Her gaze didn't so much as flicker.

'…It's complicated,' I finished lamely.

"It's only going to get worse," Karen mumbled from the front before Pearl could reply. "We'll have to stop somewhere and induce evolution, or she'll be essentially immobilized from the pain…"

The place looked eerily similar to the small clearing where we'd first met Rina, though I kept telling myself that it was the middle of a forest, and it all looked the same.

Noah carefully set himself down a ways back, intending to stay well out of the way of the battle that would doubtless erupt. Pearl and I continued, following Karen to the other end of the clearing—which was decently sized, but still a little small, perhaps all of twenty or thirty feet.

Here, still cooing softly to the whimpering Rina, she set the Sentret down, and sat herself beside her.

"Rina… Are you listening?"

'Y-y-yes,' Rina stammered, now shaking quite violently even unrestrained.

"I need you to focus. Josh," she called, and I stepped forward. "I need you and Rina to fight."

'Wh-wh-what!' exclaimed Rina. 'I c-c-can't fight l-like this-s… Annnd I'd-d ne-never hur-rr-t Josh…'

"Not a lot," soothed Karen. "But you're on the borderline to evolve, and you need to fight so that you can actually evolve."

I grimaced, knowing what was coming.

"Josh… I need you to land the first attack."

She'd really thought this out! Had something like this really happened that often at the Day Care?

Landing the first attack on a Pokémon otherwise able to control their muscles due to PESES makes their instincts go haywire and shift into a wild, unrestrained battle mode. It leads, of course, to massive pain on the part of the attacker and the attacked; but there is no other way to induce evolution unless you're lucky enough to possess a Rare Candy.

'Can I help?' asked Pearl.

"Pearl?" Karen smiled weakly. "I'm glad you're willing to help, sweetie, but there's no point in three Pokémon getting injured if we can keep it down to two."

…I'd heard something like that before. Where had I heard that before?

I pondered this for a moment, and then gave up, looking to Karen as Pearl, looking only a little disappointed, began to make her way back across the clearing.

"Josh… I don't know how much help I'll be, since she'll be moving awfully fast. You'll have to fight on your own. Don't worry, if things get too out of hand I'll return you to your Ball to rest, alright? And… please, I don't have any Antidote, so don't use Poisonpowder."

I nodded, bracing myself, trying to ignore the combination of agony and pleading in Rina's eyes as the Sentret looked back at me.

"Josh… Razor Leaf!" ordered Karen, and I obliged.

There followed a very disorienting few seconds full of screeching and flailing and tumbling and pain before Rina's momentum made her tumble past me. I pushed myself back to my feet, my face already covered in scratches. Rina recovered, turning. Karen obviously got a look at her eyes at the same time I did, and I heard her let out a small cry of fear: if there was anything of a calm, rational mind left in Rina her eyes did not show it. Her eyes spoke of her berserker nature.

All in a single motion she was in front of me, arm raised and claws splayed. I chose a direction and dove, and miraculously she wasn't there. I turned and Razor Leafed her again, scoring a decent hit at close range; she turned, screeching furiously, and I flung myself forward into a spur-of-the-moment Tackle, which slid her back a few feet—the claws of her rear feet had dug into the ground, leaving a series of scores—and after a moment to regain her breath (she seemed barely fazed!) she bounced (2) off of her tail and into the air.

I backed up nervously, looking up in every direction I could; but of course the flaw of Chikorita is that they cannot look straight up.

She plowed into me from the sky, knocking the breath out of my body, and then latching onto my leaf with her teeth.

I screamed.

"Josh!"

'Nnnooo!' In that instant, I became…aware…of the nature around me. I could feel the grass growing, and the trees absorbing the sunlight, the continuity and indestructibility of nature.

Is this…Overgrow?

Then, as though she'd received a terrible shock from my leaf, Rina leapt off; and then I became aware of the sunlight, and how good it felt, and how it felt like it was actually healing me…

Synthesis…

I turned to face her, and for the first time in the battle we were both still, staring at each other.

And then she screamed. And she began to evolve.

The Listener

He pauses here, again uncertain. The Listener cocks its head curiously.

'Evolution,' says Joshua thoughtfully. '…is not a pretty sight. Nor is it comfortable by any definition of the word. You'll understand later.' He sighs. 'Not a pretty sight at all.'

Joshua

I'll spare you the more gruesome details, because a Sentret's skeleton reforming to that of a Furret's is not only nigh-impossible to describe, it also involves a great deal of screaming and pain on the part of the Furret.

With a sudden whoosh, there was suddenly a sort of field of energy around her. It's difficult to describe this energy as anything but evolution energy, because it wasn't energy in the traditional sense. It was like a localized distortion of spacetime, a wall of not-quite opaque force surrounding and taking on Rina's body shape. There was the sound of another bone or two resetting itself, and then just as suddenly as it had come the energy was gone and Rina the Sentret had become Rina the Furret.

Gone was the dark brown body and smushed little face: Rina's body had become lithe and long, starting at a medium brown then fading to tan in evenly-spaced rings along her back; small, triangular ears sat atop her new, round head, and her eyes—still a forest green—looked out above a rounded muzzle.

She stood, twitching, on her hind legs for a moment; she blinked once, twice, made a soft noise that sounded like '…Ow…' and collapsed.

"Fff…Fffurret…"

"There," murmured Karen gently, stroking Rina's mostly-still form. "Just a few more minutes, Noah," she assured the other Trainer, who looked at her with a confused look on his face.

"Huh? Oh… No hurry."

"I just want her to get as much rest as she can—real rest, not the apathy of a PokéBall. Evolution is exhausting to a Pokémon. …We'd keep moving, but I don't think I can lift her anymore. She's nearly as long as I am tall."

At least she didn't look like she was hurting any more, I noticed. Pearl had been smiling a few seconds before when she'd been standing beside me; but now she had moved back to stand beside her Trainer, who was busy poring over a yellow, vaguely-Pokédex like device—a PokéNav, I recalled, another piece of Hoenn culture, as it were, that had never quite surpassed the PokéGear and finally the Pokétch that had caught on in Johto.

I didn't mind that we weren't moving, either. It had given me a chance to practice Synthesis, and now I felt as healthy as when I'd come out of the Center's healing machine. It was a curious feeling, Synthesis; like a warmth spreading through your body, a gentle rush of heat and wind, leaving you feeling healthy and cheerful.

"…Fur…" murmured Rina, twitching; then, "…Furret?" A sound that could have been "Hm?" "Huh?" or any indeterminate interjection.

She opened her eyes, blinked twice, and got to her stubby paws, shaking her head from side to side so fast it was a blur.

'Wow,' she said. 'That feels… interesting.'

"Hey, Rina!" exclaimed Karen, smiling, and then embraced Rina as the Furret jumped up to give her a few affectionate licks. "Yes, I bet you feel a lot better now, huh?"

'Much better!' Just like that she moved away from Karen and was in front of me; I took an involuntary step backward as the now much-larger Pokémon gave a Pokémon smile. 'I never realized you were so tiny.'

'Ah… I s-suppose.'

'I bet I could even carry you around now, Josh. Want to try it?'

She said it with such excitement, such hope, such a curiosity and a willingness to try it out, that I couldn't refuse her. '…Sure.'

She dropped to the ground—which took all of perhaps an inch and a half off of her maybe two-foot vertical height—and looked expectantly back at me. After several seconds of thought as to how I'd get on without a lot of needless scrabbling and tearing-out of fur, I heard Karen laugh.

She picked me up and set me lengthwise on Rina's back, with a giggled, "There."

How did she know…?

'Hold on!' exclaimed Rina, and I frantically did just that before she took off.

…Well. I suppose I held on "frantically" to begin with, but before long I was holding on for dear life. Furret are not as fast as some Pokémon—they are far outstripped by Linoone, (though they are better able to handle curves), who are themselves outclassed by a Floatzel in water; but they are by no means slow.

But I'm getting off the point.

She was running, if I had to hazard a guess, around twenty to twenty-five miles per hour, and judging from the fact that she still had breath to laugh excitedly I figured she could go much faster were she unburdened. The clearing—and within a few seconds, the trees around us—passed by in a blur of green and brown. In retrospect I am amazed I was able to observe as much as I did, considering that the way Furret run is…uncomfortable, for anyone who decided they'd ride. The whole five feet of her body moved in a small but violent wave pattern, rise then drop, rise then drop, maybe five times a second due to Furret having such astoundingly small paws.

'Wh-wh-wh-ere---?' I managed to utter finally.

'Wherever! We'll get back, I promise!'

…Wherever. Right. And in the meantime, here we'd be, a Furret with a Chikorita on its back, traipsing through the forest…

…But that sour thought was forced out of my head as we quite suddenly emerged from the trees into somewhere quite different. Rina, surprised, skidded to a halt: I, precariously balanced as I was, was unable to hold on tight enough and slid forward, off of her head. I heard her growl, a little irritated, but it was short lived, as both of us looked up at the ancient buildings and unanimously declared, 'Oh.'

Nathaniel

"I need you to go find them, Cumulus."

'Right,' Nathan acknowledged, hovering a little ways above his Trainer. 'And it falls to me because I'm a bird Pokémon… How predictable.'

"They took off that way," Noah continued, pointing. Nathan took note, gave a final chirp of acknowledgement, and took off, flying higher into the air to facilitate his search.

He still wasn't sure Swablu was the right form for him, though of course he had no say in the matter. Swablu were too…clean. Too self-righteous. Too obsessive. Nathan liked to think he was none of these. But that he was meant to be a bird Pokémon he did not doubt. If there was one thing that had come naturally to him after his rebirth, it was flying. Though initially he'd been nervous—and even skeptical that he could do it—he'd finally left the nest (Altaria do not push their infants out of the nest as some Flying-types are wont to do), spread his wings, and found himself flying.

Now if only the rest of the flock hadn't been airheads or self-righteous pricks, he'd not have been here, searching for the hyperactive now-Furret and the noble little runt of a Chikorita.

Hmm. Ah well. C'est la vie. (3)

As he rose to a decent height above the trees he spotted a group of ancient-looking buildings to his left. Figuring he'd start there, where the two would be easier to spot, he altered his course and kept going.

On his initial fly-over Nathan spotted nothing; but as he dropped to a lower altitude and pulled a u-turn he spotted both of them, looking around, at the very edge of the area, where the trees stopped as though forbidden to grow on such ancient soil.

There was a stone that may once have held import to the people who lived in the buildings, but now was worn down to an indeterminate boulder. Nathan dove at an angle, braked, and landed exactly as he'd intended to upon it.

'…Seriously,' he muttered as Josh noticed him and made an attempt at a wave. 'If you guys are going to get lost,' Nathan continued as Rina noticed him as well, 'then at least make it a challenge for me to find you.'

'Uh… Right,' said Josh a little lamely. 'B…but, Nathan, d'you have any idea where we are?'

'Not really. Can't say I care, either.'

'Nathan, these are the Ruins of Alph.'

There was a pause, as though to let the gravity of what he'd said sink in. Nathan and Rina shared a blank look.

'You're telling me you don't know?' The Chikorita seemed surprised. 'Where are you from, anyway?' Nathan stayed silent, unwilling to answer. 'Fine. Uh, uh, think like the Cave of Origin, or, uh, the Solaceon Ruins. Those mean anything to you?'

'…Yes,' Nathan admitted. 'I'm still not terribly impressed. Stay here; I'll go tell Karen and Noah where you are.'

Joshua

"Rina, don't run off like that again!"

The Furret ducked her head, ears forward in shame.

"I know you're excited and you've got all this energy now, but that doesn't mean you can just go dashing off. I was worried."

That she looked at me as she said that told me there was an unspoken continuation to that sentence.

'M'sorry, Karen…'

"Just don't do it again, alright?" she finished, scratching Rina between the ears; the Furret made a sort of murrring sound and leaned into it. "Oh, you like that, huh?"

"Still no signal," Noah muttered, and I heard Nathan give a chirp of sarcastic laughter.

'This is Johto. The only place you'll get service for that thing is in the big cities.'

'Are you calling us backwoods?' I asked him, but got no reply except a snicker.

"Hmm." I turned to see Noah putting his PokéNav away again. "But on the other hand, I know exactly where I am anyway."

So did I: and even if I left and never came back—to this day, listener—I'd remember what the Ruins of Alph felt like. Hitherto, though I'd not been aware of it, I'd felt nature all around me; even in the city, I could feel the suppressed force of nature trying to take back the land. In the forest it had been stronger—strong enough that I was finally able to acquire Overgrow—but here, in the Ruins…

Pearl, standing nearby, shuddered, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was.

There was no nature here. I could feel the presence of the new forest behind us, but that was all: in front of us, for as far as my "nature sense" went (and I don't know for sure how long that was) there was emptiness and barrenness, as though the very land had died.

'…Creepy,' I muttered.

"This place is cool," insisted Noah. "We don't have anything like this in Hoenn… Well, there's the Cave of Origin, but getting in and out of Sootopolis City is both expensive and hazardous." He was smiling, as though the lack of nature didn't bother him.

"I…don't know," Karen said, standing back up as Rina coiled loosely about her feet. "This place… I told you about it before, Noah, the Ruins have a terrible reputation…"

"That's just mythology. Come on, Karen, it's not going to be dangerous or anything…"

I could hear her hesitate—torn between accompanying her new friend or continuing home to Azalea Town.

"You don't know that," she countered.

Noah looked disappointed—and more than a little frustrated. Seeing this, Karen let out a sigh. "Alright…fine. But if we get hurt…"

The first thing I noticed about the ruins, once we got inside, was that the legends about it being self-lit were true. Back around 1995, when Gold journeyed, the Ruins of Alph had still been a national curiosity, a research site; and though there had been floodlights set up around the exterior of the ruins (their rusting husks still sat there thirty-four years later), there weren't and never had been any such structures within the Ruins themselves. There was a dull orange glow that pervaded the ancient chambers, both sourceless and directionless, as though coming from everywhere at once.

It wasn't sunlight, though; nor, by any definition of the word, was it a natural light. In fact, looking back on it now, I wouldn't be surprised if it had been a psychic light, a projection of the area cast into our minds, and we were all really stumbling around in the darkness. I suppose at this point I'll never know.

The barren feeling continued even here: the soil itself, the ground we were under, was dead: there wasn't so much as a bacterium as far as my leaf could feel. Pearl, a Chikorita by nature, was bothered by it more than I, and had finally gotten up onto Noah's shoulder, snuggling as close to him as she possibly could. I rather felt like doing the same, but Nathan, having been ousted from his spot on Noah, had roosted on Karen, and so I had no choice but to walk next to my Trainer. Rina was still around, stretched somewhat like a tether between Karen's and Noah's ankles; but I would not be taken off guard and get on her back again. The Ruins of Alph were the last place I wanted to be separated from Karen.

I suppose the idea of a tether is apt, because the humans (with heartfelt, rapid agreement from both Pearl and me) had agreed not to go farther than a few feet apart. Though he'd been excited on the surface, Noah was tense down here, perhaps understanding now the fear that Jotoshi gave the Ruins. Regardless of this, he had gravitated, once we'd gotten off of the ramp that lead from the surface to here, toward the first mural he'd spotted.

Karen was a little tenser, an emotion rather ironically offset by the fact that there was a Swablu roosting on her head; she bounced in place, breathing rapidly and looking around as though expecting a Ghost-type or something worse to appear out of nowhere. I couldn't blame her: her poképhobia probably wasn't helping.

"Noah… Please, let's not spend too much longer down here."

"But we just got here," he responded, still poring over the mosaic that looked suspiciously like human script…

I paused, blinked twice, and went over to join him. Karen, making a sound I swear was a whimper, followed me. And I discovered that I could, in fact, read.

My Chikorita brain, it seemed, was wired to understand this circular, eerie script, even though just looking at it I could tell it was almost certainly nearly identical to human writing.

Rainbow Sun, tracing a path across the sky

O great sea, where the silver Moon doth lie

while His path is traced,

A great dance do You dance,

a war fought with nary a lance,

a fate "unown" we faced.

The Three that were lost in the flame,

Earth, storm, and sea, we blame

Ourselves,

Our fate we accept, a death

of our land, for in one breath

everything wastes upon the shelf

Born again, perhaps, one day,

but our people are forever to lay

in the dust.

This song we leave,

to the future, those unbereaved

by the gust

Rainbow Sun in the sea now lies,

Moon tracing a path across the skies

never-ending.

These runes the last mark of our kind,

traced upon this stone, carefully lined,

yet free to roam, and never mending

'Nathan…' I muttered.

'Sounds depressing,' he answered before I could finish what I'd intended to say. 'Though I think it's…strange that what appears to be the "last" song is so near the entrance.'

'Nathan, do you realize what you just did?'

'I read it, of course,' he said, irritated. Then, '…I read it?' Karen gave a small gasp as he repositioned himself on her head. '…Then that means…'

'This script isn't human, it's Pokémon.'

'Why are you so surprised, Nathan?' asked Pearl, whose voice was muffled because she was facing her Trainer's collar. 'Even I can read it.'

Both the Swablu reborn and I paused, intrigued by this development.

'Then can you read human?' asked Nathan after a moment.

'…Humans can write?'

Nathan grunted, and I shrugged. That answered that question.

'…Funny, though,' said Pearl. 'I've never seen that before, but… I can read it.'

'I can't,' pouted Rina, wriggling between the human's legs to end up with her huge face beside me, staring up at the mural. 'And anyway…. What's reading?'

We stayed in the chambers for perhaps an hour at most, staring at all the murals. Some were poems, like the one I'd read first; others were nonsensical messages that talked about Pokémon not native to Johto, like Relicanth and Riolu. Others gave cryptic and impossible directions, requiring moves that none of the Pokémon present could use. Pearl and I slowly grew more and more uncomfortable in the dead land, so much so that Pearl began to cry quietly and I developed a headache. Concerned, and more than a little chilly, the humans agreed it was time to go. Making a quick stop for lunch at the Pokémon Center where we'd first met Nathan, we continued on down the same path that Karen had taken north.

It was nearing eight o'clock by the time Azalea Town finally came back into view, and the sunlight was all but gone. I heard Karen give a happy sigh and inhale; I did the same, remembering the wonderful smell that pervaded Azalea Town. The Slowpoke were all gone for the day, crawling back into the swampish area south of the town or into the Well at the center of town.

"So… we're heading for your place, right?" asked Noah, whose limp was more pronounced than usual.

"Yeah. I know you're tired, Noah, but it's on the far end of town… maybe another ten minutes or so of walking."

"I can manage." Noah laughed. "Two things I've always wanted to do, and in one day: visit the Ruins of Alph, and meet Raymond Ashlocke."

We were all feeling pretty happy, relaxed in the flower-scented air of Azalea Town; but as we passed the center of town it was very quickly dispelled by the sound of shouting and the clash of Pokémon in battle.

"Dante, Flamethrower!"

"Empoleon, Steel Wing!"

Noah paused uncertainly, looking around for the source of the noise; but Karen's attention, as well as mine, had gone straight for one place.

The battle was taking place in Slowpoke Well.

AWAKE

In a lost chamber in the Ruins of Alph, they stirred, as if waking up from a long sleep. From doors that ostensibly led to antechambers poured black cyclopic creatures that looked like the runes that dotted the walls all over the complex.

Though it seemed originally that they had no purpose, flying rapidly and with no pattern around the great sealed chamber, very quickly they separated into two groups, splitting roughly in half and taking sides along the room.

They began to form words.

V I S I TOR ? said the left side.

TWO said the right.

SPECIAL POKEMON

F A T E agreed the right, as the four Unown which composed it were so excited from the prospect that they couldn't keep close to each other.

SPECIAL continued the left side, apparently thinking on its own; the formation of the words was slow and thoughtful. SPECIAL LIKE US?

PRIMITIVE! PRIMITIVE! There was a pause, and the Unown moved around some more as the right side continued to speak. HUMANS (a space, as if for a comma, which they did not have) PRIMITIVE CREATURES NOT LIKE ALPH

NOT FIST TIME observed the left, and, squeaking in dismay, an R found its way into the middle of the statement, making it FIRST.

F A T E said the same four Unown, still bouncing around and having a hard time making a legible message. LOTS OF F A T E ON VISITORS

The whole conversation had been silent, though written amidst the squeakings of several Unown as they rushed to hold the conversation; but now even these fell silent as the two collectives pondered their next action. Both at once, the Unown on both sides formed the same message.

IS TIME! SOON WE WILL BE AGAIN With a triumphant squeak and a haughty glint in its eye, an exclamation point added itself to the message, and all the Unown not involved in the message bounced and squeaked as though applauding. A wave of psychic power crashed through the room, and they quieted and stilled themselves, each staring in awe at the words on the other side of the room.

The dead silence in the chamber was the closest they could get to considering the message a dire pronouncement. After holding the message for several minutes, the Unown separated, disappearing into the antechambers from which they'd emerged. Only four of them remained, two to a side, and these two united at the front of the chamber, sinking into the rock wall and spelling one final word.

SOON

(1)PESES – Pre-Evolution Surplus Energy Syndrome, pronounced "pieces." A disease common in certain species of Pokémon, including Sentret, Mankey, Pidgey, Rattata and Slakoth, wherein the unevolved Pokémon's body, close to evolution, begins to produce far more energy than previously, due to the nature of the evolution. Such unevolved Pokémon are unused to such vast amounts of energy, and so experience unpleasant side-effects, including loss of muscle control and pain in certain large muscles. It is most common in the aforementioned species, though all species of Pokémon that evolve can develop it.

A Pokémon with PESES will continue to suffer from it, increasing in intensity, until evolution. It is harmful to intentionally leave unevolved a Pokémon with PESES, and as of the 2002 National Charter revision, it is a punishable offense to leave a Pokémon with PESES unevolved, and a charge equivalent to second-degree manslaughter is issued to anyone whose Pokémon dies to the complications of the syndrome.

A Pokémon that does not evolve, such as Dunsparce, is of course incapable of contracting the syndrome.

A counterpart syndome, PEAS (Pre-Evolution Apathy Syndrome), has been reported in most cases of Vigoroth and Munchlax evolution.

(2)Bounce: It should be noted that while I attempt to realistically and canonically render Pokémon growth patters and the workings of moves as accurately as possible, the move Bounce does not exist in my canon. It is a natural action that can be learned by many Pokémon as an aid in battle, but is not an attack in and of itself.

(2) C'est la vie: French. "That's life," or, more literally, "Such is life."