Author's Note:

I am SO SO SO SO sorry! (insert crappy excuses here) Seriously, I couldn't write for a while and now I'm back, 20 days late. And this is the last episode of the Arc, so another hiatus. Yay. I need to do this to make sure I can handle it if this happens again, which it probably will.

Again, I'm sorry. :(

River's POV

Karl the Gyarados, who was LYSANDRE'S Pokémon, and everyone knows how nice that guy is (except for people in here), was talking to MY Hecate, who still kind of sucked a little bit, but if you told her that she'd fry your eyebrows off. I had already suffered that a few times in Santalune Forest.

But, I wasn't a reckless idiot, and just stood there like a gaping idiot with Ethan, who was just as confused as I was.

Epsilon, however, strode right up to the two of them (plus Hattie), and began, I don't know. Reprimanding them? All I heard was "Ab. Absol," and various other snippets of Pokémon names. Mostly Absol.

"You have any Psychic, telepathic Pokémon or anything?" I asked Ethan, looking at him out of the corner of my eye.

"No," came the deadpan reply.

"Know any Psychics?"

"No."

"Do you have Olympia on speed dial?"

"Who?"

"The Psychic Gym Leader in Kalos," I explained. "She has the trippiest Gym in existence."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Try Morty's. Complete darkness and a fifty foot fall into Arceus-knows-what. Probably the Distortion Zone."

"Does Morty's Gym have its own field of gravity?" I challenged.

"No," Ethan sighed. Smirking, I folded my arms over my chest. "But I bet there's one that's crazier."

"How much would you like to bet on that?" I asked.

Ethan smiled. "A thousand Pokédollars," he declared, holding out a hand.

"Deal." We shook on it, Epsilon still ranting about every-Pokémon-who-isn't-deaf knows what in the background.

A moment after I'd agreed to the deal, a doubt rose in my mind. "Wait," I said slowly, "How will you know if a Gym is trippier than Olympia's if you haven't seen it?"

"I'll see it on the internet," he said coolly.

"How do you even get on the internet?" I asked him curiously. There were the PC systems and the HoloCaster, but that's all I knew of wifi in here.

Ethan cocked an eyebrow, but decided not to question my lack of knowledge. "They have public desktops in every Pokémon Center," he told me, "and you can do some things on your Pokédex as well."

"Any cell phones?" I asked, wondering what other parallels lay between this world and my own.

Ethan stared at me curiously. "Cell phone?" he asked. "Is it like a phone, but organic? Like, made up of cells and stuff?"

I shook my head. "Nonononono," I said quickly. "The cell part means it's portable."

"So you're describing a HoloCaster," Ethan summed up.

"I guess I am," I said, not realizing what a HoloCaster really was until then. "Do you want to see Karl the Mega Gyarados?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

Ethan glanced towards the Pokémon in question. "It… Karl," he corrected, "is yours?"

"No," I sighed, getting exasperated by my habit. "I just call him that. It's less effort on the jaws than Mega Gyarados."

"So it is," Ethan mused. The two of us stood there for a minute until I was fed up with whatever kept our feet rooted to the ground and began to head to the conversing Pokémon. After a moment, Ethan followed me into the crater.

As I traversed it, I wondered exactly what I would say to the sentient creatures on the other side who couldn't respond in a way I could understand. Lost in thought, we came upon the other side. I almost tripped as I came out from the crater, since I held my foot in the air, expecting there to be hard dirt just beneath it. Turns out that there was no dirt, and I overstepped, nearly falling on my face in the process.

Thankfully, whatever Epsilon was still ranting about was incredibly captivating, seeing as I saw no significantly large oddly colored eyes faced in my direction. I gave a mental sigh in relief, and a bit of a physical one, once I realized this.

I made up my mind of what I was going to say, took a deep breath, and

"'ELLO, MATES!" I shouted as loudly as I could, deciding at the last moment to go for the grand effect, with a thick Cockney accent to top it all off.

Which gave me the response I'd sort of expected: complete and utter silence. Every pair of eyes south of Snowpoint City turned my way as the Earth itself held its breath. For a moment I felt sheer embarrassment, but then I decided to grin and bear it with the toothiest grin in existence. But no bear. Smokey was proof enough of that.

"…What," Ethan said after several minutes. Actually, it was probably several seconds that just felt like an eternity.

I blinked. "I… don't know," I admitted.

Epsilon came back to life, snapping at me with what was probably several curses in Pokémonglish. Or insults, I'm not very fluent in the language.

"Yeah, yeah, girl," I said, "whatever you say." Epsilon ignored me in favor in continuing to rant on.

Walking away from the Absol, I headed for Hecate, who I realized was purple along with the rest of the team, but I took it in stride and flipped out about it later.

"Hi!" I said cheerfully, crouching down so that Hecate and I were as close to eye level as we could. "Whatcha' been doing with Karl?"

Hecate began a long, rambling tale of might and woe, but sadly I couldn't repeat it for all the money in the Pokémon universe (I could buy a dirt bike with it). Still nothing but jibberish, and Paris was only one Route away! It was a smallish Route, but still. Why couldn't there just be a translator shop in Santalune! Or Vaniville! Or Ambrette! Or every town this side of some important river that wasn't in Kalos!

Hecate finished her story with an accented "Fen!" and sat in silence, probably waiting for my reaction.

"Um, yeah," I said halfheartedly, "good story. Do you wanna go to Paris?" I asked Hecate brightly, with a smile that I'm pretty sure looked like a grimace.

Ethan, who I completely forgot existed, spoke up from behind. "Paris? What's that?" he asked me.

"Lumiose," I said quickly.

"Oh. Are you guys headed there?" Ethan had learned not to question my logic.

"Yep. Wanna come with?"

"I can't. Gotta stay with my cousin, remember?"

"Dangit," I sulked, scuffing the dirt with my toe. "Epsilon, Hecate, come," I said after a moment, prepared to leave for Lumiose City. Completely forgetting about Karl, but I figured Hattie could make her way back to Lily, who was I'm not sure where. That was probably not the best condition to leave anyone in, honestly.

But my retarded, selfish young mind led my own two Pokémon, with little regard for the other two, out of the clearing and back to civilization.

At least, that was the goal in mind until Marc, who I thought was… I don't know, somewhere, I suck at caring, made a reappearance.

It was not a pretty one. Sure, Marc wasn't dead. He was up and walking. The only problem was that his right arm was gone.

(If you're stomach's a weak one, skip the next paragraph)

His empty arm socket was oozing clearish-green blood as he tried to cover it up with his intact claw. Marc had a heavy limp, leaving a splattered trail of ooze/blood that collected like raindrops, kept together because of the surface tension. I almost puked up my Poké-Cola watching him stagger out of the forest.

(Go ahead and continue reading, my dear weak-stomached people)

"What… the… HELL… happened?" I asked, so in shock that I completely ignored the curse word.

"Arceus," Ethan muttered, and all four of the Pokémon in the clearing said some form of their names, which means I don't know.

Marc said stuff, Hecate said stuff, Karl said stuff, more stuff was said, and I was generally all around bored with the conversation in general. I was still horrified by Marc's new amputation, but the shock of it was fading fast.

I was tempted to try to make my own translator with the time the conversation was taking. I turned my eyes skyward, bored out of my mind. Out of my skull, even. Out of the universe itself. Out of the confines of time and space. Yes, you can be that bored. Scientifically proven by me, a certified awesomeologist.

At some point after I was unofficially brain coma'd, the speaking stopped. My eyes flew downwards, alert to spot whatever was wrong, and why everyone had shut up when for the past five minutes there'd been nothing but talking.

It was Marc. His insect skin/shell thing… his exoskeleton had paled with some sort of wizardry unknown to anyone but wizards who pale exoskeletons. Marc, wavering on his feet/claws when we first saw him, was teetering like a balancing toy.

"Oh…" I gasped, watching him collapse to the dirt, facefirst. All the Pokémon who weren't very probably bleeding to death rushed to form a loose circle around him. Since my luck is just that amazing, Karl happened to be in between me and Marc, which may have been a good thing, actually.

More speech was said, I was beginning to get ticked off that I couldn't comprehend a word of it. I could tell when Marc was speaking because it came out as a wheeze/death rattle/cough sound. Afterwards, I felt like the rush of voices was everyone saying "shut up, you're gonna die by doing that."

Sadly, he did. I don't know exactly when, what with the miniature crowd surrounding him, but then they dispersed, you could just tell. Mostly because of the not moving.

I don't remember much after that. I think I just froze. Maybe passed out. Or my mind refused to let innocent young me see this, scarring me, and let me go into a mental coma for a few hours.

My eyes flew open to see the stars above me. I began flipping out, realizing that I had been asleep for a good few hours.

"Oh, crap," I said, thinking that my Pokémon and Ethan would have run off to NeverLand without me. I sat up groggily, almost passing out again as the blood shift made my everything hate me.

The first thing I saw after my vision cleared was Ethan, who thankfully didn't take that second star to the right. "You're awake!" he said happily. "Everyone's here, and we buried the Heracross."

My face paled. What would I tell Lily? She thought he was dead, but still.

"You know the one girl I was with on Route 3 from a couple hours ago?" I asked, my voice cracking halfway through. Ethan nodded, so I continued. "The Heracross was hers."

Ethan's face suddenly turned somber. "I'm sorry for her," he said. "I lost my Sentret to some jerk kid who's probably too young to be battling that 'top percent' Rattata of his anyways," he contributed, putting air quotes around the 'top percent'.

"And I have lost… no one, so far," I said. It made me feel like I babied my team constantly. "But you can see the results of battles," I said quickly, instantly regretting it.

Ethan nodded slowly. "I see." Silence hovered over the clearing. I looked around, bored, and spotted the four living Pokémon on the other side, in a huddle, which looked very comedic since Hattie and Karl were trying to stand shoulder to shoulder-scale thing.

After a very long moment, I asked, "So should we tell her?"

"I… don't know," he admitted. "If we see her once we get back into town, then we'll tell her. If not, then we don't." I nodded, and we sat there in silence again.

"How long was I out?" I wondered aloud.

Ethan replied, "A couple hours, at most. Like, four or five."

"Oh." And quiet smothered everything yet again. This was getting kind of annoying. But I was not one for conversations, unless they were about Pokémon, and how much mine could beat yours up.

After a moment, I stood up, with difficulty, saying "You know what? I'm just going to go." To Epsilon and Hecate, I ordered, "Come on, girls. Moving on to Lumiose City."

Both of the members of Team Demigod immediately turned to Karl. I had completely forgotten of his existence before.

"Erm… Karl…" I began, not realizing that he would understand that Karl was my name for him, "Would you be okay here in this clearing, and not brutally almost-murdering Trainers out on Route 3?"

Karl looked confused for a second, but after realizing that I was talking about him nodded, which freaked me out a bit, since I could very easily imagine my limp body being flapped around in his gaping jaws. My imagination is just too vivid sometimes.

I looked towards Ethan. "You coming?" I asked him. He nodded and stood up. The two of us made for the gap in the trees we had come in before. Hecate and Epsilon followed, and just before being swallowed into the trees I remembered Hattie. My memory sucks.

"Hattie, you coming?" I said, turning back to spot the Emolga.

"Mo!" came the incredibly high-pitched reply.

"So… yes?" I asked, having no idea of the interpretation.

"E! E-mo!" she said, more forcefully.

"No," I guessed, seeing as there were only two answers.

"Moga! E-mo!"

I decided to take it as a no, and turned back to follow Ethan, who had made some serious headway during my little chat with Hattie.

"Hi," I panted after running a good hundred feet to catch up with him.

He turned his head ever so slightly to acknowledge my presence. "Hi," he said back.

We finished the trek through the woods and emerged back out onto Route 3. I probably should have used my one free night at the Pokémon Center to rest until morning, but after my self-induced coma, I was full of energy. Hecate and Epsilon weren't as hyped up on organic caffeine as I was, but they weren't about to pass out, either. So I assumed we were good to get a way-too-early start on Route 4. It also helped that at this unArceusly (that kind of rolls of the toungue) hour, no one in their right mind was awake, except for Ethan and I.

"Well, goodbye," I said awkwardly as we made it to the gate of Route 4, not having met Lily anywhere. "Oh, if you see Lily during you stay, can you tell her about Marc? Sorry for forcing you to do this," I apologised.

"No problem," he said, although he did sound a bit angry at me for shoving this task onto him.

I crossed the boundary where stone met dirt, and turned back once.

"Good luck, and thank you," I said to Ethan.

"Good luck to you as well," he replied, turning and walking back into Santalune City. I cast one last glance at him and began to make my way to Lumiose City, the heart of Kalos itself.

I never looked back.

Author's Note:

YAAAAAY! Arc 3 is done, so you guys get a crazy long hiatus while I try to slap together a rudimentary buffer for this thing so we don't repeat this. And a Joey reference! Who doesn't love that top percent Ratatta anyways?

Just so you know, for next arc, the POV order is going to change, so be on the lookout for that.

Reviews, favorites, and follows are all appreciated, but I luv you guys even if you don't.