From my point of view after having completed the fic, this is probably where the plot starts splitting apart like crazy. This does come back to bite me in the third quarter of the fic where nothing seems to happen because every storyline is being incremented so slowly.
It was at this point that I decided to give all legendaries a gender, because it felt really weird writing 'it' all the time. Also very impersonal. I do break this trend in the second last chapter, but that was due to the fact that I didn't want to assign genders to a few particular pokemon.
Disclaimer: N/A. I have nothing to not lay claim to.
"WHEE!"
"Isrea, you all right? It's just that you don't seem to good there..." Aron said as Isrea hugged him again.
It had been 5 minutes since her capture of Rush, and Isrea hadn't managed to calm yet. She'd hugged him at least twenty times and cuddled all of the pokemon at least once all the while holding Rush's pokeball in the air. She even tried to hug a tree, before realising that Aron wasn't that hard and leafy. Below him, Scout turned towards Rush, Vendel and the mystery charmander.
He wasn't sure why the charmander was still following him.
Steven turned towards his friends. "Anyone think that Isrea's overreacting?" Everyone nodded. Vendel decided to ask a question that had been bugging him for a while.
"Hey, Scout or Steven...you know you never told me your name? Anyway, why do you have two names? You could easily do what Rush just did, you know...why don't you?"
Steven sighed. "It's got something to do with my past...I'd...rather not talk about it now. Soon, just...soon..."
Vendel wasn't going to give up that easily. "Your past? You don't have a past! Oh...sorry...did I say too much?"
"No. I do have a past." With that, Steven walked away, leaving Firael alone with Rush and-
"WHEE!" Isrea ran by and scooped both her pokemon up into her arms and took off with them, now going on a victory lap of the park.
Leaving Firael and Aron alone.
"Where is she?" Giovanni thought as he paced around the conference room. The debriefing was supposed to begin 10 minutes ago, and he had already sent Captain Sinther over to Captain Nix's apartment.
"There will be hell to pay..."
"Sir? Do we start now?" One of the scientists, an old scientist that Giovanni recognised as Nikolai from the Mewtwo project, spoke up.
"I don't need her here anyway...fine, we'll begin."
"Fine, let us begin. Vila, if you would?" He gestured at the podium at the head of the mahogany table they were all seated at.
"Soooo..." Aron tried to break the awkward silence that surfaced once Isrea's shouting drifted off. "Do you want to come with me? On my journey? I mean...I'm not a trainer yet, but I'm going to be one once I turn eleven in less than three months..."
"Char!" Firael nodded her head.
"Ok...I don't know if you've heard of a Glass Ball before, "Aron pulled a one of them out of his pocket. He had gone to the mart to get 5 more Glass Balls, figuring that he would need them later. "These are the weakest type of pokeball. At anytime, you can break out of it, which basically means if you want to leave me, you can...I just don't really want my pokemon to be forced to follow me around if they don't want to...so, what do you say?"
"Alexa! Oh my go- oh...you're awake. You wanna go with Aron? He seems like a good guy, and we're only going to be held in Glass Balls, so we can leave whenever we want." Firael asked her alter-ego.
"Yeah...why not? Anyway, that taillow's interesting..."
Nodding her head, Firael reached out her claw and touched the glass ball offered to her.
Saturn summoned her newest commander, who had replaced Mercury after his death. Titan strode in, the light glistening off his silver hair.
Titan had been one of Saturn's most industrious and efficient Captains, and Saturn would have promoted him sooner, but for the fact that he already had 4 commanders, which he thought was probably the maximum number of commanders anyone could have. Titan was very young for a commander, just hitting thirty, and his albino hair only served to heighten the aura he had around him.
"Commander Titan." He said, stressing the first word.
"Sir?"
"Do you recognise this pokemon?" Saturn showed Titan the pencil drawing.
"No sir."
"Fine." Saturn put the pencil drawing away. "I was hoping you might know...but that is not why you are here." He handed Titan the copy of the report Pluto had mailed him from the Team Rocket headquarters.
"Find out who was the head scientist of this project. Get some hackers, catch some grunts, invade their headquarters...I don't care. Just get me a name. We need that scientist in our quest for perfection.
Palkia accompanied Sean back to the pokemon center after helping Lael into her pokeball. Noticing that Rob was leaving, they entered the pokemon center and got Sean's pokemon healed.
"Palkia, let me go too." Celebi asked her.
"Huh? Why do you want to go in? You aren't even injured..." Palkia responded,
"Well...I guess I wanted to see what it felt like...sorry..." Celebi dipped his head. Laughing, Palkia grabbed Celebi's black horn and heaved him up on the counter despite Celebi's protests, before asking the Nurse Joy to heal her pokemon.
"Hey, can you heal my Axew, even though he's perfectly all right and just wants to see how it feels?"
Nurse Joy gave Palkia an odd look. "Then put it in the ball? And for gods sake please don't say" She gave a huge smile and closed her eyes tightly, "'heal my pokemon please kthx bye!'" Resuming her original expression, she continued her rant. "These machines don't heal, they just charge them full of energy, like feeding them for two days and letting them rest! If they needed 'healing" She used her fingers to emphasise the word 'healing', "then we would still need splints and casts and bandages! People need to be taught this stuff at school more..."
While Celebi was given a ride in Nurse Joy's machine, Sean pulled Palkia aside. "Say, you can speak to pokemon?"
"Err...yeah? What, do you want me to come with you or something?" Palkia asked.
"Well...yeah. I've been losing most of my battles, and maybe my pokemon can help me get better. Of course, if you don't wanna come, then..." He trailed off.
"No! Of course I want to come! Consider it done! Oh yeah, I'm Sharon." At this, Nurse Joy gave them back their pokeballs.
Once outside, Palkia let Celebi out.
"That machine felt so good! It was like I got filled up with melted chocolate...that didn't make much sense, didn't it?"
Palkia leant down and rubbed Celebi's head. "I'm sure it did, I'm sure it did..."
Celebi growled at Lael, who was laughing at him... "Well...that's what it felt like!"
Lael only laughed harder.
Lucas was at the same old house near Snowpoint City, visiting the hiker who had given him the ice plate. He didn't have any leads to Faraway island, and simply searching in all the maps that he could find proved to be fruitless. This was essentially his last lead.
"Hello? Ah, you're that trainer who wanted my Ice Plate...sit down. I know what it is you seek, and I can tell you that I possess this knowledge." The hiker opened the door as Lucas was about to knock on it. Slightly startled by the fact that the hiker expected him, Lucas entered the hiker's house.
Walking over to his cabinet and retrieving a tattered scroll of parchment (This would be another cliche, but it's in the pokemon games...so boohoo.) "This contains the whereabouts of the land you seek. You look puzzled...hehe!" The hiker seemed to start laughing, but quickly stopped and gave Lucas the scroll.
"That was close...but his face was sooo funny!"
Upon being handed the scroll, Lucas carefully spread out the map of the world and the three landmasses it was divided into, with two of the landmasses sharing the top two-thirds of the map and the third taking up the southern third, all encompassed by huge oceans. He saw the regions of Sinnoh, Johto, Kanto (next to Johto and south of Sinnoh, seperated by the huge temperate Sujuki Forest) and Hoenn (on a large island southwest of Kanto) marked on the map in the Asjen continent, and several other locations like Unova in Aminca, Chicheblen in the southern continent, Antitica, and the amazingly densely populated Toroji region on an island between Unova and Sinnoh, completely surrounded by ocean. However, Lucas wondered where some of the smaller regions like Fiore, Szen, Orre, Almia and Janugi were.
"This map is very old, and most of the smaller regions hadn't been named or discovered yet. This map is over 2000 years old, but is the newest one that still contains the location of what you seek." The man pointed to a spot on the map, but instead of having pointed to a land mass, Lucas saw the man point at some calculations.
"Hey! I thought Faraway Island was near Hoenn!"
"It might be, but Faraway island always moves, hence its name. It will not be easy getting there. Mew likes to play many tricks, and this is only the second one she has played on you."
"Second?"
Rob, feeling freshened and happy after his victory, quickly returned back to his room at the Pokemon Centre and let out his baby dratini, who was already as long as he was tall. Giving her a quick cuddle, he prepared some baby food for her hurriedly, and gave it to her.
"So innocent...just like Fir-...no! That charmander...she is behind me now! I destroyed her pokeball, and I decided then that I would carry on...but why do I keep on thinking about her?...I need to get some training done at Iron island... then I can challenge most of the gyms without having to stop...once I've finished, I'll no longer be the weak trainer that Team Rocket stole...Firael...off me..."
"I will be faster."
"I will be smarter."
"I will be stronger."
"And then...and then..."
"I will kill Giovanni."
As he brooded, his baby dratini waited for him to return and call her back into her pokeball. When he didn't, she curled up on the cold, hard, floor and tried to go to sleep on the unforgiving surface.
"And so, based on your evident lack of results, and your requests to start again, I decided that it wasn't worth the risk of trying again and finding out that our subject doesn't exhibit any human qualities at all."
"Giovanni...we provided several possible indicators that showed that the subject might be human." Behind Nikolai, Vila rolled her eyes.
"Look Nikolai, he obviously doesn't care for your theories."
"You f-" Nikolai was cut off by Giovanni.
"What theories? I didn't read any theories."
"What? You..." Nikolai had stood up, knocking his chair over in the process. Pointing a quivering finger at Vila, he continued. "...LIAR! You didn't put my theories in, you bastard!"
"Nikolai..."
"No...I'm going to kill you! I'll beat you to death! With...with your own skull! You've ruined Sonya's project because of some petty jealousy! I'l-"
"She's resigned."
"I'l- what?"
"Sonya left Team Rocket several days ago after her half of the experiment was finished. Look Nikolai, I had every reason to send in those theories. This is as much my project as it is yours, why would I endanger it for a petty quabble? Were those reports delivered directly to you?" Vila asked Giovanni.
"Yes...by..." Giovanni turned pale. "...her...Captain Nix."
"Hmm...this is different from a pokeball..." Inside the Glass Ball, Firael found herself hovering in the middle of a huge transparent sphere, the outside of which was enclosed by Aron's hand. Imagining the interior of her previous pokeball a series of rolling hills appeared, with a trampoline and a-
"What's a...rollercoaster doing in here? And where did it come from? One moment I was like...floating and then..." Twisting around, Firael saw Alexa staring at her rollercoaster with a look of amazement on her face. Deciding to turn on gravity, the two of the fell onto the ground.
"Look, inside a pok-" Firael had begun to explain the workings of a pokeball, but then she was called out again.
Sonya realised that for all her good intentions, she didn't have enough money to go traipsing across Sinnoh. This could be easily resolved, but she would have to stay in Unova for some time on whatever job her contact could give her. She flipped open her phone.
"...Hello? Ahh...Juniper? ...Unova...Mistralton City...yes, I left...ok, ok! You were right! You can crow all you like over me later! So you do have somewhere? With Plasma Enterprises? Ok, thanks for the job!"
"Medicine development. Hell, at least it's better than what I was doing with Team Rocket. Juniper's going to tease me so much when I see her...she was smart enough to see what Team Rocket were doing and got out after 3 weeks...me? I was stupid."
"How did I not see?"
Letting herself fall back down onto her hotel bed, she smiled. She knew what she wanted to do.
"1. Get some money to do step 2.
2. Find Alexa and apologise.
3. Come back to this job.
4. ? ? ?"
"Oh, so you caught that craz- that charmander?" Isrea had finally calmed down and let her pokemon down, before bending down to see what the charmaner was scratching on the ground. "F...ira...el? Firael? Is that her name?" Firael nodded happily, whilst Aron scratched his head.
"You know, most pokemon don't give themselves names...say...Firael, Rush, have you been trained before?"
Rush shook his head, but Firael's face darkened as she nodded her head. Aron noticed her tail flame grow brighter and larger and quickly tried to calm down his new pokemon.
"Ahh! No! Nononononononono...I'm sorry I asked...I didn't know...Hey, where's Scout?"
After having broken down Captain Nix's door (with no small amount of satisfaction), Captain Sinther walked into the abandoned apartment.
The flat was a shambles. Drawers were scattered out on the floor, a plate lay smashed on the floor, paper lay everywhere, the lights were still on in the kitchen and all the clothes were gone from the wardrobe.
Except for the Team Rocket uniform.
All in all, the room looked like someone had left, very quickly.
"Nix...!" Captain Sinther picked up his phone to call Giovanni.
"There was so much I could have done...I could have become a pokemon trainer! I could have...
I could have...
But I would have died, wouldn't I? That plane would have killed me, so I guess it's kinda fair that I got killed as a human...Does that mean I'm destined to get killed again? What does Celebi have planned for me? But Arceus seemed pretty sure that he didn't want me to be used again..."
"Oi! Steven! Fire Demon's- ARGH!" Rush was cut off by Firael torching him with a flamethrower, which Steven didn't notice.
"Hey! Steven! We've been looking for you! Firael's travelling with Aron and you now! Where were you?" Vendel took over, snapping Steven out of his reverie. Steven smiled.
"I was just here! I really just wanted...to get away from that crazy trainer of yours. Didn't you guys see her coming?"
Vendel didn't buy Steven's reason for abandoning them. He had seemed really despondent when he walked off on them. Rush, on the other hand, had bought Steven's excuse hook, line and sinker, seeing as he was distracted by trying to put out his smoking feathers.
"Hey, that's cool, but she wasn't gunning for ya during her rampage. You coulda seen what she did after she picked us up! Anyways, we gotta go now. Isrea's gotta go home, apparently SOMEBODY", he glared at Firael, who looked away nonchalantly, puffing some smoke out of her nostrils, "went and melted a hole through the back of the bus, so her parent's are looking at just buying the minibus to save themselves the hassle of fighting with the rental company or somethin...seeya!" Rush took off and landed on Isrea's head, with Vendel struggling to keep up.
Arceus was in Limbo, surveying the ongoing situation in Unova with interest when he sensed a pokemon appear behind him.
"Arceus."
"Celebi? I thought Mew transf- Which one are you? From the future or the past?"
"The past. I'm just informing you that I've changed something in the past, for both your sake and that of the world's."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing much...I sped the Millennium comet up...just slightly..."
"What? Why?" Celebi grinned and started to fade away. "You come here and tell me this instant! I command you!"
"And? You're not my god...that's the Arceus from 1500 years ago. Anyway, it was only a little nudge...have a nice day!"
After all going around the back of Palkia's motel, Sean released the rest of his pokemon. His Bronzor, Magneton and Skarmory were all let out, next to Lael. Sean started speaking to them.
"Guys, this is Sharon and her...what is that pokemon? I've never seen it before. Just wait a sec," He cut Palkia off from replying. "I jus' need to get this outta my system... Basically, we've been losing most of our battles recently, and I really think it's 'cause I'm doin' something wrong. Problem is, I dunno what we're doin' wrong...and Sharon can understand you guys, so shoot. If I really suck, then tell me I really suck." Breathing a sigh of relief, he stood back.
Palkia quickly intervened. "Oh...I'm Palkia and my Axew's called...Celebi", She stepped on Celebi's foot, causing him to yelp, as she knew he was about to complain about being given a name. "I named him after the Fairy Pokemon because he looks a little like him and well, celebi's cool, even though he looks spaced out all the time- hey!" Palkia glared at Celebi, who had just headbutted her.
Lael started speaking first. Well, I'm Lael, but you all already know that, the bronzor here is Zaroa, Skiera here is the skarmory and Ston here is the magneton." Each of the three other pokemon nodded at Celebi and Palkia, whilst Palkia translated for Sean.
Lael continued. "We've actually discussed this for a while, and basically we just reckon that you have too many steel types in your team. We're cannon fodder for Electric and Fire types, and to a certain extent, Ground types. We need pokemon who can cover our weaknesses, and we need to spend some time learning some extra moves. That's all I've got to say, really."
Ston the magneton spoke up in her robotic-sounding voice. "Mhmm...I am satisifed by your general evaluation of our trainer's weaknesses, and I have only one consideration to add. If it would please you, I would really like to learn magnet rise, to help me against ground types, but that is my only contribution."
Skiera decided to add her opinion. "I think you should try and think about letting me learn Spikes and Stealth Rock, seeing as I'm really more suited to defense, and these would help me defend and annoy the pokemon more."
Zaroa spoke, channeling her voice into Palkia and Celebi's mind for them to translate. "Have you considered running with Trick Room? With the exception of Lael here, most of us are on the slowish side, and it benifits me a lot. Even if you don't want to use Trick Room with Skiera and Ston, it's still a good move to consider, espically if your new pokemon are slow like me. I'm pretty powerful with Trick Room."
Sean paused as his pokemon's advice sunk in. "Wow, you guys have given this a lotta thought. Whatcha all sayin' makes sense, and I'll try an' help you learn those moves. I guess I need some non-steel pokemon too...Hey, Sharon? Thanks for doing this for us." His pokemon nodded their agreement.
The next day at the park, Isrea and Aron had met up and were disscussing some stuff to do over the holidays, like going to visit Unova for a holiday together with Isrea's family, or just driving out of town for a few days, when Firael had to clear something out with Steven, Vendel and Rush.
"You wanna do this, Alexa?"
"Yeah, I haven't had much time in control anyway..."
Taking control, Alexa strode over to her three friends and said, "Guys, I've got something to tell you. I've...for various reasons that I won't explain until Steven explains HIS colouring..." She glared at Steven, who shuffled his feathers awkwardly, "got an alter-ego. I used to be Alexa, but call me Firael anyway...erm...basically, we share the same body, so one of us is going to be 'out', and in control while the other one just kicks back for a while...it's a bit hard to explain, but that's about it."
Rush was the first to respond, by buffeting her head with his wing.
"Hey!" Alexa rubbed the back of her head.
"Yep...you're not Fire Demon, cause I was getting ready to hightail it outta here if you turned around and...you know..." He finished by gesturing with his wings, waving them around his head in an interpretation of Firael. Alexa couldn't help but laugh at the grey bird's antics. Firael wasn't laughing.
"Hey! I'll get you Rush...How is this funny?"
"Because that's what you look like...hehehe!"
Two days later, Steven was standing at the top of the staircase in Aron's house. Jumping off with a flap of his wings, he gained some height.
"Ok...now for the hard part...just remember to balance everything."
Flapping his wings and tail simultaneously, he felt himself rise a little. Still gliding down the stairs, he tried to constantly flap his wings, but even whilst he was going as fast as he could, he couldn't gain any height, but stayed in the same position.
"Woah...that was so close...my wings probably still aren't strong enough...I'm still 5 days old so I guess that would make sense...this is really tiring though! I have to practice more..."
Five days after running from Celadon city, Pluto was in trouble. Team Rocket still had many contacts and they would have locked down the airport in Saffron City and the bullet train to Johto in Pewter City.
Her only option was to try and reach Johto on foot. They would be less likely to search for her in Johto. She was nearing Veridian Forest, and then planned to hit the coast and follow it along across Johto until she hit Olivine city and sneak on a ship there. Team Galactic didn't have support for her, and so she had to make it out of this nightmare on her own steam.
It was going to be a long three months...
"Argh! Why can't any of my pokemon fly! At least it'd be a little faster! I just had to be given some weaker pokemon so my cover would be believable...just my luck."
Seven days after Captian Nix's abandonment, Giovanni was notified of her position. She had just been seen crossing through Veridian City, heading for Johto. After ordering a team of two grunts to follow her, he took the picture which she had provided and searched for hits on the criminal database that the Johto and Kanto police department held.
The search turned up no results.
Ten days after Steven first flew, he had strengthened his wing muscles and could fly for reasonably long periods of time. Showing off his new abilities to Vendel, who was impressed that Steven could fly, and Rush, who wasn't so impressed ("I guess he can fly, so he wouldn't be a impressed as Vendel..."), and Firael, who'd tried to set him on fire ("Ahh! Jeez, why can't Alexa stay out more? It's always Firael that's out..." ), he landed on the top branch of a tree at the park that they were at to rest himself.
Rush landed beside him and started to preen himself. "You're getting pretty good at flying, but need to work on ya stamina."
Steven tilted his head sideways. "But how? Flying like this is so tiring...what about those pokemon who just fly using those big lazy flapping motions? Why can't I do that?"
Rush rolled his eyes, buffeting Steven's head. "That's because they're flying on the thermals. Thermals make life easier for you, and their wings are stronger."
Steven ruffled his wings, preparing to take off. "Well, I'm gonna try it anyway, so there!" He leaped off. Instead of frantically flapping his wings to stay up, he decided to throw his wings down as hard as he could, and then relax as they met under his body, slowly bringing them up through the middle of his body and stretching them out again, before repeating.
"Flap! Relax...pull...stretch...Flap! Relax...pull...stretch...Flap!"
Steven couldn't believe it. He wasn't flapping so hard he couldn't concentrate on his surroundings, and so he got a good look at the ground rushing beneath him as he sped along the grass. For the first time, he consciously felt the wind rushing past him, curving around his body as he sliced through the air, like a hot knife through butter.
He could move through the air at will, feeling its kinks and folds and adjusting accordingly.
"Wow...this is true flying...I'm flying! I'm-strechstre-nononononono-FLAP FLAP! Argh!"
'Thud.'
"Ow."
Firael had happened to be lying down where Steven had crashed. "You know, you had practically the whole park to fly in, and you manage to fly into my tree. Nice job."
"Ow."
Rush flew over, his eyes wide. "How-How did you do that! That was crazy flying! So natural...no bird our size can do that! That was- yargh!"
Firael had pounced on him and grabbed him in her arms. "He crashes into a tree and you're complementing him? What'll you do when he actually starts looking where he's flying, huh?"
"Ow."
"Nooo! LEMME GO!"
"Now...for my revenge...I saw your acting of me being angry, and I think you got some parts of your performance wrong...let me show you how to properly do it. " Firael had a sadistic grin on her face as she held the struggling starly to her chest.
"HELP! HELngh...No! Not the tickling!"
"Ow."
Two weeks after receiving the old map from the hiker, Lucas had finished plotting out the place where faraway island should be by the time he reached there. He had bought a medium sized Poke-island (A poke-island was essentially a floating house of sorts. Lucas planned to surf for most of the day on his empoleon and then blow up the poke-island and spend the night in that, then fly on his skarmory the next day and between staraptor, empoleon and skarmory to keep his pokemon fresh.) and stocked it with a desalination kit, several cartons of dried biscuits and fruit, three super rods, some books (it could get very boring...), sunscreen, a pokenav, a compass (just in case), lots of clothing and 4 boxes of toothpaste.
Most importantly, he had his towel.
He would leave in 3 weeks.
Two weeks after Captain Nix had jumped ship, Giovanni was inturrupted from his work by a grunt.
"Sir, we've found out who Captain Nix is! After searching through the Johto and Kanto bases thoroughly, we decided to check other regions. After taking a few days to hack into the police departments of the Sevii Islands and the Orange Archipelago, we then moved to Sinnoh, and found her listed as one of the commanders of Team Galactic as Commander Pluto."
"Dismissed. Send for Captain Sinther." The grunt left, and soon afterwards, Captain Sinther walked in.
"Sir?"
"Go to Team Galactic. Find out when Captain Nix, who we now know is Pluto will arrive at their headquarters, and subdue her. Also..."
"Don't we have her number?"
"Dismissed."
Giovanni picked up his phone again.
"...It's Giovanni. No...No...No!...Look, just let me speak! I need you to get a phone tap on this number...084 860 4852. Yes? Good."
"I've got you where I want you...and when I get you..." Giovanni cracked his knuckles. "I'll find out why you wanted that charmander."
Have you ever attended your own funeral? One month after his death, Steven was about to watch his body get laid to rest. He wasn't really looking forwards to it.
Alexa was 'out', and noticed that Steven seemed a little down. "Steven, you look torn...everything all right? If it's the funeral, you can just have Aron capture you."
Steven still wanted to watch his funeral. For him, it was something he absolutely had to sit through. "No. I'm fine. Really."
"Ok...if you say so." Alexa said as she was engulfed in a red beam of light. Hopping on Aron's shoulders, Steven was carried into the back yard of Aron's house, where a close casket lay on a plinth, bequeathed with flowers. On top of the casket was a framed picture of a smiling boy.
Each person attending had a chance to walk up to the casket and to pay their last wishes. When it was Aron's turn, he walked up, eyes sparkling, and spoke to Steven.
"Scout, this person was very important to me. He was my best friend, and my first real friend. Before my parents' death, I mostly spent my time alone, with private tutors and no time outside. He made me realise that the most important things are not items, like my pokeball collection, but the people you were closest to. I never told him that, and now it's too late."
Steven was happy and surprised that his best friend had thought so highly of him. As Aron paid his respects, he realised how many people his death had affected, even though he was still only a child when he had died. A flash of yellow hair caused him to look and see Lucas, still in his blond-haired disguise at the funeral.
Lucas was surprised that he had received an invitation to Steven's funeral, but decided to attend without hesitation. Walking up to the casket, he lowered his head and murmured, "Steven, there was nothing you could do. Me? There was everything I could do. I should have known, but I was blinded...I am really sorry for what I did to your life."
After everyone had paid their respects, the casket was carried out, and the entire procession walked to Floaroma Cemetry, to watch the body being laid to rest. Before the burial, one of the clergymen of the Church of Arceus got up.
"Steven's only living relative, his mother, is not in a position to be able to attend the funeral due to mental illness. In the month that has passed, she has managed to write this eulogy, and it was the main reason why the funeral was postponed. As she cannot be with us today, I invite Aron, Steven's closest friend, to read his mother's eulogy and say a few words of his own."
Aron stood up, unfolding the speech he had been given, and walked to the dias to read.
"I am sorry I cannot be here. My problem stops me from coming. My son's life has been cut short by an accident. It was caused by fight between me and my husband. Fight has been going for a long time now. Steven didn't get too sad, even when we shouted in front of him. He was so strong. So strong. I am sad to see him go. I thought my life was bad, but now I see what happened to girl next to me, Alexa, turned to vegetable, and think of my son. I wish I can write more, but I cannot. Words cannot describe how I feel."
"Alexa? That's Firael's alter-ego's name...coincidence?"
Looking up from Steven's mother's speech, Aron continued. "Steven was my first, and my best friend. Even though he had to sit through turmoil at home, he remained strong to the point that no one knew what was going on at home. It is such a sad thing, the life of an innocent child to be lost, so soon. A whole life panned out before him, cut off by one or two rash decisions." Aron glared at Lucas, who stared back with red-rimmed eyes. "Nevertheless, he made me realise that material possessions were not as important as those whom you held close to yourself, and that is the most important lesson I will ever learn, and one that I will always hold true to myself."
After the twin eulogy, a prayer was read and Steven got to watch himself being laid to rest. His casket was lowered into a deep rectangular hole, as church bells tolled in the distance.
thewookie1: Rai shall not be invincible...wouldn't that be boring? XD
Ryu Dragonclaw: I never said pokemon COULDN'T write. Firael can also write, as demonstrated in this chapter, but writing is not a skill all pokemon naturally have...
Cyberfire22: Nice to see that you know that Rob's strategy is crappy. If you tried to run it on Pokemon-Online, you'd win one match out of 10, if you were lucky. You'll see him get owned soon.
Tasukpaetra: I'd like to introduce you to the Sunyshore Facility for Mental Illnesses, I hope you like it!
Crazyjosie: So someone does read the end bits...It is going to be interesting to see how Firael/Alexa gets on with Steven, especially for me...O.o
ValeforXD: I thought that about Nikolai too! Erm...except the crossdressing bit...that's a little too...inventive, methinks...
Did anyone get the towel reference?
Steven: I just set my Status to Depressed!
Alexa: O rly?
Rush: He did! I liked it...isn't it on your wall?
Alexa: No, you're not my friend yet.
Rush: I just set my Status to Depressed!
Steven: I just set my Status to ROFL
Alexa: ...
Firael: What did I miss?