A/N: After this prompt has gone under five different pairing possibilities, I finally got one to stick as I was writing the last chapter. Many thanks again to Blake Wilson for giving me the idea.

I need to really kick some butt here if I want to finish this thing on time.

Prompt: Unimportant
Pairing: Jupiter/Damion (I don't know the name for this one either... But I hear his official name is now Barry. But I kinda like Damion more.)
Warning: This isn't humorous like my other chapters. In fact, it's a bit more of a downer, I guess you could say. I'm not that fond of it, but I don't think it's terrible. Just not a favorite of mine.

She just stood there, leaning against a tree, and watched him shiver in nothing but his normal clothes and thick, green scarf, which seemed to be the only thing he had that was appropriate for the cold weather.

"Come on, you're freezing to death, you're just a little kid, and you're taking on me, an esteemed member of Team Galactic all by yourself! Do you honestly think the odds are in your favor, kid?" Jupiter mocked, happy that her own uniform was pleasantly insulated. "You should save yourself the trouble and give it up now, and just let me take Uxie like a good little boy."

"N-no! I'll n-never back down! I-it's my job to protect the p-pokemon, and as a trainer, I'm g-g-going to do whatever it t-takes!" The boy's blonde hair wasn't moving in the wind, but his clothes sure were, and they were whipping around him like a Buizel heading downstream. The thin, cotton fabric wasn't doing much to block it, either. He was holding his arms as if his entire torso would pop off if he let go. His lips were turning slightly blue. But still he glared on, standing firmly between she and the lake cavern.

"You're a moron, you know that?" she took a step toward him, feeling her boot smush the snow beneath it. "Mmmm, these boots sure are warm. I'd sure hate to be wearing jeans in weather like this, seeing as how they soak up all the snow around them."

On cue, his knees knocked together and he lost his balance a little, though just managing to find it in time to shoot another glare at her. If her suit wouldn't have been insulated with the latest Cyrus technology, Jupiter would have been entirely warm from that laser stare the boy was giving her. "What's your name anyway, stupid one?"

"Wouldn't you like to kn-know?" he spat. "Why? So you can come b-back and get revenge wh-when I win? When my b-best friends win?" He kicked some snow at her, but it was blown away by the wind before it had any chance to reach her. "I th-think not!"

"Whatever, kid." Jupiter said, laying a hand to his forehead and pushing him aside to stop by the shoreline. "I have a job to do, so if you'll excuse me." She threw out a pokeball and a Floatzel came out, sitting in the water patiently and waiting for me to hop on. She stepped down onto its back and just as he started moving, the kid came out of nowhere and latched onto her, thinking it was cool of him to hitch a ride or something. "Hey, get off of me!"

"No!" He tightened his grip and hooked his legs around her waist. "It's my j-job to protect pokemon!"

"We're both going to sink and fail at our jobs if you stay on this Floatzel, and I think that in light of these events, you at least let me do mine and then only one of us has to lose! Capiche?"

"No!" Jupiter and the boy were already halfway across the lake by now anyway, but she still wobbled, and she felt Floatzel getting tired under them. She hoped against hope that it would make it to the cavern on time before they both fell into the icy water and were swallowed up. She mentally apologized to Floatzel for this, he wasn't made to carry two people, especially when one of them seemed to be unable to stop moving...

She gave a particularly frightening wobble and, on that last note, took a mighty leap off of her pokemon, praying to whatever higher being there was up there that they wouldn't both go toppling into that freezing lake. Her suit may have been insulated, but nothing could withstand the freezing, dark depths of lake Acuity, even her suit.

The boy shouted and held on tighter. Jupiter shouted and swung her arms in circles as she landed with one foot on the little lake island, the other swinging out into oblivion. The wind howled and she teetered, trying to counter for the weight the boy added to her back, but it was useless, trying to fight against the beating winds and the extra weight. Slowly, she felt herself falling...

"What?" Jupiter opened her eyes at the boy's shocked noise and saw the island cave, clear as day, right in front of her, not looking at it from the water's level. She turned quickly and spotted Floatzel, who was pulling himself up onto the bank, looking tired, but very proud of himself. She pulled out a pokeball and returned him, kissed it once, in thanks, then letting him have a good night's rest. She brushed off the front of her uniform and looked up at the giant rock formation above her, her eyes glittering. She was here, finally, after all of their efforts...

"You're not going any f-f-farther!" he stuttered, but that was probably because of the cold. "Y-you're not allowed, I t-told you s-so!" His feet were spread shoulder-width apart, and his arms were no longer hugging his body, but jutted on account of his fists resting firmly on his hips. "I'll b-battle you!"

She was about to respond, but something twanged inside her. Maybe it was because she had almost just lost her life to the menacing lake waters, maybe she was still a little soft from seeing Floatzel in his condition, and maybe she was just losing her touch as a commander, but she looked at the boy as if really seeing him for the first time. He wasn't too much younger than her, and he had that same, hard look in his orange eyes that she had when she was first starting out. Orange eyes that danced like a signal flame, even in this wasteland of a snowstorm. He was only in a short-sleeved, orange-striped shirt, and his thin pants did nothing to stop the wind from biting at his skin every way it could.

She sighed in defeat and scolded herself for breaking down so easily to a kid like him, especially considering how annoying he was. "Come on, get in here." She grumbled, grabbing his wrist. "You'll catch your death out here, and I'm not going to be pegged as a murderer. A thief maybe, but not a murderer."

"Hey, let go of me!" he protested, trying to push her hand off, but Jupiter, being the top-field commander Team Galactic had to offer, didn't waver with her vicegrip until they were well inside the cavern in the island, leaving the biting wind and snow behind them. She ignored the voice in the back of her mind protesting when she tossed him carelessly to the floor by the entrance, and looked down at him menacingly with a bit of a glare.

"You're going to sit there and let me do my job without a fight, got it?" she snarled. The blonde boy looked up at her with glazed eyes, and thought she saw a tiny bit of a tear in his eye before he lowered his head in defeat. Suddenly, she didn't feel so gung-ho to continue.

"I don't know why I b-bother." he said, softer than the snow falling outside. "I can't even b-beat my own best f-friend, what makes me think I can stand up to a c-commander of Team Galactic?" He hugged his arms to himself and brought his knees up to his chin. "I'm unimportant. I can't even save a legendary being! I'm not even worthy of being a trainer anymore."

Her disposition was completely deflated. He was so pathetic! Not the obnoxious kind, but the sad kind that made her want to kneel down and hug him around the shoulders and tell him he was wrong and that he wasn't unimportant. But of course, she wouldn't do that, she was a Galactic commander, after all, and she had a certain image to keep up, right?

The boy sniffed.

Jupiter's shoulders sagged.

He curled into a tighter ball.

She gritted her teeth.

He raised a hand to wipe away something on his face.

She finally knelt down in front of him, cursing herself for being a damn pansy.

"You're not unimportant." she said firmly, reaching out and putting a hand on each shoulder. "If you were, would you be here right now?" He looked up at her and locked his eyes with hers for a moment. Their flame had dwindled and was nothing more than a tiny, glowing ember anymore, all light gone. "No, you wouldn't. I can't think of a single trainer that would chance their life in order to stop someone like you did, especially up here at Lake Acuity."

He sniffed again. "You're just making that up."

"I'm not!" She took her hands off his shoulders to put them defiantly on her hips for a moment, and she thought she saw a flicker of a smile. "Commanders of Team Galactic don't lie, and they especially don't try to make their enemies feel better, so that in itself is cause to feel important." This time, she did see a smile, though it was a small one, appear on his face.

"Really?"

"Yes, really, I already told you." She put both her hands to his cheeks and shook his head a little, playfully. "Besides, think about this. Uxie is the Being of Knowledge, right? I bet he already knows about me coming here, and about what is going to happen after all is said and done. How much do you want to bet he doesn't protest at all when I send out my pokeball?"

She rose to her feet, taking a deep breath before striding into the cave, shoulders back, head set. She was a woman on a mission.

She heard the boy following close behind, jogging to catch up to her long strides. When the cave reached the massive room in the middle, Jupiter was surprised to find that she didn't need a light at all, that the cave seemed to glow with an energy all its own. And there in the middle hovered the sleeping pokemon Uxie, eyes shut, though they saw everything regardless. She knew it could see right through her brave façade, but she wasn't worrying about that. The blonde boy stopped in the doorway to watch from afar.

"Uxie!" Jupiter barked, and she saw the pokemon stir at its name. "Uxie, Being of Knowledge, I know you know exactly what is going to happen next, don't you?" She pulled a specially-made Galactic ball out of her pocket, almost equal in strength to a Master Ball. It was another of Cyrus's inventions. "So are you going to go down with a fight or in the easiest way possible?"

The pokemon yawned and covered its mouth with one paw, then turned its head her way and nodded. She held out the ball, understanding the nod to mean the latter, and watched with bailed breath for several long, tense moments until Uxie pressed the small button at the front of the ball. The boy's eyes doubled in size when he saw. "No! You know you'd win if you put up a fight! How can you do that?! Don't just give up! What's that going to accomplish?"

It was too late by that time, but she saw that as the pokemon began fading away into the ball, it gave a little smile and a nod in his direction, and that made Jupiter a little unnerved. Something bad was going to happen to Team Galactic...

In an instant, the boy was on his feet and dashed towards her, banging his fists against whatever surface of her he could find. "Why did you do that?! He was the guardian of the lake! Something bad is going to happen to all of us if you take him away and disturb the balance! You can't do this! Let him go immediately!"

She watched him as he continued to pound at her not saying a word and continuing to look down at him, emotionless, until his blows became weaker and weaker until he completely collapsed into her chest, silently sobbing. She wasn't quite sure why she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him closer when he had just tried to beat her with his own fists, or why she planted a big fat kiss on his head to stop his tears, or why she almost felt as sad as he did when the pokemon disappeared into his ball, but she was positive that even though he had been a nuisance to her from the start of her mission, him being here was probably the most important part of the entire thing.

A/N: OH MY GAWD I REACHED 100 REVIEWS.
THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.
I AM ABUSING THE CAPSLOCK KEY.

But srsly u gaiz. I did it. I'm so happy I could... um... do some sort of very happy activity! I'm so happy I don't know what happy activity I should do! I'll just do them all to be safe.

This is my personal thank you to each and every one of you, at this moment, that has reviewed and made this whole "Breaking 100+ comments" thing possible. For this, at the end of the contest when this is all judged, I'll have an extra chapter planned, I think. It's still in the planning stages, but I think I can get it to work, because I love you guys and you deserve it.

But it has to be at the end of the contest because I don't want to break the rules.