A/N: This chapter was originally going to be a chapter-swap with Digital Skitty writing it, but that kinda… flunked. / So here it is at last, the 36th chapter. I've deleted the announcement and put this in its place, so there may be problems for reviewing. …That is, if you guys aren't too mad at me for the long wait and will still review. I promise the next update won't take me four months. And you can hold me to that, too.
Chapter 36
"Hello, you have reached the house of Katie Wellington. I'm sorry I can't be at the phone right now, but please leave a message!" Beep.
"Mom, you really need to fix-" Beep. "-Your answering machine." Sara said lamely to the blank screen.
"Message twenty-seven." Star chirruped from her trainer's head. "Are you going for a record? Or just driving your phone bill into the wall?" Sara ignored her, and pounded the numbers back into the machine. "She's obviously not there."
The Swellow must have not seen the furious look on her trainer's face. Two days at Mauville City, and no answer from Katie Wellington. A lot had happened in those few days, and the group that Sara had following her had thinned out a great deal. Nessa had returned to Artimus, for Mew-knows-what. Jacob had said his good-byes as well, and rode off on Alkie to see what else that Hoenn could offer after winning a spectacular battle with Mauville's gym. Fiendre had finally gone from the group as well, muttering about idling around with no real action. Raggedshadow, for some reason, had followed him.
And then there was Hoppity, the Chikpea that Sara had befriended. He'd been saying preposterous things—most of which no one would translate—which amounted to that he wanted to be Sara's last Pokemon. Her gaze flickering down at the five Pokeballs at her belt, Sara wondered if Hoppity would be an intelligent capture. He was rather… not the kind of Pokemon her friends were taking very well.
Her mother's answering machine played again, and Sara hung up hard. "Why isn't she answering?"
"She ain't there." Star pitched in.
"But my mom never leaves her house for two days! Where could she be?"
"Not there?"
A rustle came at Sara's feet, and she looked down to see Solorite sitting there, looking solemn. "I rather think that you should leave Sara alone." He advised Star, "Before she bites your head off in the manner that I've seen wild Pincer use on Pidgey."
Star ruffled and said nothing, an invitation for the Absol to go on. "My danger sense hasn't been tingling as much as normal, when I think of Elemental Ridge." He said, "I've been meaning to ask you—Sara, do you miss your home region?"
She nodded quietly, "Ah, well, I think it's settled then. I've talked with Sundav, and she's agreed to take us there." The Absol said, and the blue stripes along his flanks seemed to glow, "…And before you ask, Rena has agreed to come as well."
"What about Devon and Pocky?"
"She's going to drag them with us if they refuse." And Solorite seemed to snicker as he got to his paws and took a few steps away, "And one more thing," he said, looking over his shoulder, "I think you should take a good look at Star before you go." Then he was gone.
Sara touched the Swellow at her head, and found that the bird had fluffed up to about twice her size. "W-what could he be talking about?" She stammered out.
"Lady Sara, we're leaving. Please hurry up!" Sundav called, getting just a bit impatient.
"Sorry Sundav!" Star twittered from the Pokemon Center's door as Sara skidded up to where Sundav was standing. She continued dryly, "We were just off setting a record for the amount of messages one devoted girl and her Swellow could leave in one day."
After Sara had stopped panting, she retorted with, "My mom would never understand you, Star. And I haven't taken any longer than Elvina or Pocky."
"Yeah right!" Pocky exclaimed, "I was here fifteen minutes ago."
"Sure you—" before Sara could offer a proper retort to that, Sundav cleared her throat to gain everyone's attention again.
"I need you all to return your Pokemon to their balls… now." The Ho-oh said in a commanding tone. Star gave a small twitter of complaint before she was swallowed up in a red flash, while Amber pointedly refused to go back into her Pokeball until she was tricked to go into it.
When all the Pokemon were in their Pokeballs—save for those without a trainer—Sundav spread her multicolored wings and instructed them all to touch some part of them, so she could teleport them all. While this was happening, Hoppity cheeped happily and jumped into Sara's arms, happy to have a ride. When she was done with this, and had all the trainers, Solorite, and Tarragon touching the feathers upon her wings, Sundav asked rhetorically, "Do any of you have any questions?"
Rena raised her free hand, and asked, "Why is Tarragon going with us?"
There was a collective groan, and Devon calmly whispered in Rena's ear, "You do know she didn't want any questions, right?"
Rena blinked, and nodded after a moment. "Why does it matter that I'm coming, anyway?" Tarragon asked, ruffled.
Sundav snapped her great beak together, startling the group. "If you don't mind." She said, voice low and hissing with her impatience, "We need to leave, now. If you want to argue, save it for some other time, or stay here and deal with it without the rest of us."
She didn't wait for a reply. Rather, Sundav arched her neck and let off a low humming sound. Quickly, the sounds and sights of Mauville City blurred together until the humming was the only coherent sound, and everything had turned black. There was a rushing feeling, wind passing by in a buffet of cold, and then nothing.
Sea green eyes opened to see crimson ones staring down with unwavering intensity. Elvina jumped slightly, sitting up. "I'm not that frightening, am I?" Solorite asked, not without a hint of amusement. The Absol sat down, eyes fixed solely on her.
"No, you're not. You just…surprised me." Elvina said hastily, standing up and shaking fine grains of sand from her clothing and hair. Solorite continued to smile. "Why was I out, anyway?" she asked, looking around. White sand, a matching pearly sky, and a dark wave rolling up onto shore. She was at a beach. Not a tropical one, however. The air was just nippy enough to be noticed, and Elvina was guessing the water was pretty cold as well.
"Sundav has just teleported you all a great distance. It is only natural for humans to black out, for whatever reason." supplied Solorite. "Sometimes I wonder about humans, their weaknesses to usually key components in our overall plan…"
The Absol had added that last part in a sigh, but Elvina caught it nonetheless. She decided to be the better person and not to comment or start an argument. "Wait…Solorite, where are the others? Sara and Rika and everyone."
"Not everyone is gone." He noted, tilting his head in the direction of three other sleeping forms. Drake, Pocky and Devon were still there, the last listed snoring softly. Elvina nodded slowly, looking at the rest of the scene. A few Wingull were gliding idly overhead, occasionally giving their squeal-like caws. They appeared bigger than the Wingull that Elvina had seen before. The water below them was choppy and dark, signaling a storm. Elvina's eyes lit up, however, as she spotted a Dewgong and a pair of Seel playing just out to sea.
"Hey! This is a place for ice and water Pokemon, ri—" Something had just hit her foot, interrupting her excitement. Looking down, her first impression was that a snowball had just attacked her shoe. Her second was that it was no snowball. It was an ice ball.
The ice ball looked up at her with big, round, bright blue eyes, sparkling with adoration. Elvina promptly realized that it was a Pokemon. The ice Pokemon smiled, a pair of sharp fangs revealed.
"I welcome you to the beach, Blue One." The ice ball chirped, rocking back and forth gently against her foot.
"Hmm…a Frozic." Solorite commented, studying the small Pokemon before him. "Obsessed with blue, usually travel in groups, ice Pokemon…"
"Hiiiiii!" The little ice ball exclaimed to Elvina. "What's your name?"
"…Elvina." She replied, blinking at the Frozic.
She heard a slight shifting sound in the sand farther along the beach, and saw out of the corner of her eye that Pocky was getting to her feet. The other teen surveyed the scene with one brow arched, and smothered a yawn. As she passed by him, Pocky gave Devon a gentle kick on the small of his back, which was successful enough to make him snort in his sleep.
Then another of the little ice balls rolled up to Elvina, sitting by her unoccupied foot. She looked down at it, and the ice Pokemon looked back up. They stared at each other for a good while, before the Frozic spoke up. "You're pretty."
"Uh, thanks." She replied uncertainly.
"You're blue." The Frozic continued blandly, a smile revealing its sharp fangs.
"Uh, yeah, I am...?" Now she was beginning to feel very awkward. She edged away, trying to catch either Solorite or Pocky's eye for them to save her.
"You're a very pretty shade of blue. Especially your hair." The ice ball continued on, undeterred.
"Uh...thanks...again?"
"You're—" Elvina never got to see what else the Frozic thought she was, for at that moment, Devon jerked awake with a rather loud shout. Both of the Frozic that Elvina had attracted were startled enough that they jumped and rolled away.
Devon grabbed something that had been perching on his shoulder, and looked at it with sleepy distaste. "Where did ice balls come from?" He asked with a drowsy slur, pulling his arm back to throw what he was holding.
Elvina realized when the object whimpered that it was another Frozic. She exclaimed, "Wait Devon—that's a Pokemon!" But it was too late, Devon had already tossed the Frozic towards the ocean. Making a quick decision, Elvina ran after the Frozic, catching it in mid-air before it reached the water's surface. She let off a sigh of relief that Devon had been lazy with the throw.
She was painfully aware that four sets of eyes were now trained to her. In the silence that followed, Elvina turned red. "Good catch." Solorite consented finally, breaking the silence. The Frozic, who Elvina had caught upside-down, rolled over, creating a slick feeling across her palm. She looked down to see that the Frozic was staring back up at her with admiration in its icy blue eyes.
"You saved me." It said.
"Uhh… yeah. I did." Elvina replied blankly.
They stared at each other for a while longer, before the Frozic, "Thank you, Great Blue One!" It rolled off her palm, where it joined a small group of its kind, all chanting the same thing over and over. Great Blue One, Great Blue One…
"Oh. No." Elvina squeaked.
She looked over to the others, and saw that all but Devon and Drake were snickering with amusement. "A little help, anyone?" She whispered in their direction.
Thankfully, Solorite came to her rescue. He stood in front of the ice balls, towering over them. "Scoot, would you?" He asked, voice rich with good humor, "The Great Blue One needs her space."
"She can have my space!" One of the Frozic squeaked.
Though it took a little coaxing from Solorite, the Frozic eventually rolled away, out on their own business. "Well, that was amusing. Where are we?" Devon stated, poking Solorite when he returned within range.
"Ahh…" The Absol looked around, taking a deep breath of the slightly humid air, "We, dear friends, are in one Elemental Ridge's biggest vacation spots. Arsha Beach, right on the coast of Elemental Ridge. Sundav dumped us here to relax."
"Relax? You've got to be kidding me." Drake sighed, "Where'd Sara go? We could at least battle in one of the gyms if she was here…"
"You can battle without her." Devon stated, "Unless… you need the moral support."
"Save it." Drake snorted when a teasing tone crept into Devon's voice.
"Sara," Solorite rumbled, cutting him off. "Is in Brittle Branch Town. With Sundav, and the rest. And she should probably be waking up right about now." He shrugged. "Sundav didn't want to have too many humans to look after when she woke up… so here we are. I, for one, am going to take advantage of this vacation, and get one of those things you humans call a 'tan'."
Solorite was on the receiving end of stares. "What?" He asked when no one spoke up.
"Nothing," Pocky said, shaking her head.
"I say we should get something to eat. I'm starving!" Drake exclaimed. The others had to agree with him, after a few days of being knocked out, food sounded good. Civilization was a ways walk down the beach, in the distance dark pointed roofs seemed to sprout from the ground everywhere, making it seem that they were walking towards a bed of stakes.
Elvina felt the heat of the sand through her shoes, and looked up at the sky curiously. "It is about noon." Solorite said when he caught her squinting to see the placement of the sun.
Before she could reply, someone was screaming, "Out of my way! Out of my way!" The dull sound of feet pounding on sand came closer, coming from a girl huffing and panting as she pushed her way through obtusely, shoving Devon off balance when she elbowed him. This new girl was gone a second later in a flurry of red curls.
"Looks like someone's in a hurry," Pocky commented. Devon grumbled something sourly and rubbed the spot where he'd been hit.
The rest of their walk to the city didn't incorporate any more instances such as that. Actually, it was rather boring. When the beach abruptly ended in concrete and steel, Elvina let off a sigh of relief. There was nothing like seeing civilization, especially since this slice of civilization has a hotdog stand nearby.
Devon was the first one to get to the hotdog stand, however, and took little time looking at the small menu posted over the concessionaire's head before reciting: "I would like three hotdogs with catsup, extra mustard, relish, horseradish, chili, and cheese on them please."
The concessionaire looked at Devon like he'd just summoned Mew. "Errm… is something wrong?" The blonde boy asked nervously.
"Yes," the man replied. His dark eyebrows knitted together, "I don't sell hotdogs."
"But… hotdogs are on your menu. Right there!" Devon pointed at the menu, and the man looked up at it for a second.
"Oh, that was there from the last guy who owned this stand. There's no hotdogs here. …But, can I interest you in a corndog?"
Devon thought for a second. "Sure, I guess. If I can have some catsup for it."
"I don't have any catsup either." The concessionaire shrugged helplessly, "Sorry. But here's your corndog…"
The man bent down and rustled through jars and containers on the shelf at his feet. He opened a freezer with a sticky sound and brought out a corndog, which he offered to Devon by the stick. "Fresh from the freezer." He said with a smile.
"…Errm…" Devon was pushed out of the way by Pocky, who quickly took control of the situation.
"Don't you have to cook it first?" She asked calmly, "I don't want my friend to get sick off of an uncooked corndog."
"It's precooked." The concessionaire snapped.
Pocky nodded calmly and waved to the man, "We don't want it. Thanks." She pulled Devon along with her before he could utter any sort of complaint.
"Let's try a more normal place… like there," Pocky continued, motioning with her hand towards a squat building marked in bright red neon lights: Eric's Incredible Subs.
"Oooh… subs. I'll try ordering this time." Elvina offered quickly. She led the way inside. The air was thick with the smell of baking bread and the surroundings showed promise: the tiny tables scattered along the floor all had someone seated behind them, enjoying their lunch break.
Taking her time before ordering, Elvina stood considering what kind of bread she wanted. "Can I help you ma'am?" The middle-aged woman who was supposedly in charge of making the subs asked. She wore a hairnet and a sort of contemptuous fake smile, as if she experienced customers who couldn't make up their minds all the time.
"I'd like a six-inch turkey sub on white—"
"We ran out of turkey yesterday, sorry." The woman, who barely kept the amusement out of her voice at that, interrupted Elvina.
"Okay, ham then."
"Ham? We've never sold ham."
Giving up, Elvina sighed, "Then what kind of meat do you have?"
"We have corned beef."
She laughed at Elvina's disgusted expression. "I hate corned beef." The girl muttered, "Anything else?"
"Nope, sorry, the lunch rush took everything else out."
Elvina grouchily snapped a thank you before returning to her friends. "The only meat they have is corned beef."
Drake shrugged, "I like corned beef." He flinched when the other three turned to stare at him. "…So I'll just be ordering my sandwich."
He approached the sub-maker and ordered a foot-long corned beef sub on white bread. The only thing that got out of her was a sinister sort of laugh. "Sorry, but the last of our white bread just went bad. …Can I interest you in wheat bread? It's all we have left."
Drake sighed and abruptly turned back, shaking his head. "This is nuts."
"Might I make a suggestion?" Solorite got all attention upon him before saying, "Why don't you order the opposite of what you want?"
"But they're out of most everything."
The Absol just shook his head and smiled. "Just watch." He said and walked over to sit directly below the counter, where the woman couldn't see him.
"H-hello?" He whimpered in a small, youthful voice.
The sub-maker blinked and leaned forward, but she still couldn't catch sight of Solorite. "Can I help you little boy?" She finally asked.
"My daddy sent me to get him a sub!" Solorite replied, giggling in excitement.
"What kind of sub?" She prompted kindly.
"…Uhh… he wanted corned beef on Italian bread." The Absol stammered.
"Oh, I'm sorry honey, but we ran out of Italian bread—" Ding. It sounded like some sort of timer had gone off. "Excuse me for a second." She rustled over to where a new batch of bread had finished cooking. "Little boy, we don't have Italian bread, but some white just finished cooking. Would you father mind eating white instead?"
"Nope." Solorite said, turning his head slightly to wink at Elvina, whose eyes had grown huge. When the woman had turned to get the meat, the corned beef shredded in her hands and let off a disgusting reek.
"Oh no, the corned beef is bad now…" chewing on her lip, the woman recapped the container and nervously looked around, "Um… I'll be right back, little boy."
Solorite sat back and yawned calmly. "We're out of corned beef little boy." The woman said when she came back hauling a couple of containers with her, "But I just found some turkey and ham. Would you father like one of those?"
"He likes turkey." The Absol chirped.
"Ah." The woman quickly put slices of turkey on the sandwich and pushed it down. "What does he want on this?"
Solorite glanced back to Elvina, who lipped, lettuce, tomato, oregano, and mayonnaise. He said, "Onion, jalapenos, salt and pepper, and mustard."
The woman paused. "We don't have any of that. But we do have…"
She listed several things, including what Elvina had wanted on her sandwich. Solorite named them off, and then the sandwich was finished. The sandwich was wrapped up, and the woman named off a price. "Oh look, here comes my sister to come pay for this." Solorite said loudly, motioning for Elvina to come.
On cue, Elvina stepped forward and gave the woman an obnoxiously happy smile, "Get one of those Pokemon Weekly magazines while you're at it." Solorite whispered. Elvina glanced over to the rack where chips and magazines were laid out, and snatched up the requested copy. She paid for it all, enjoying the way the woman glared at her mood shift.
"That was brilliant." Elvina said to the Absol when she got seated and waited for Pocky, Devon, and Drake to repeat Solorite's feat. By then a couple of other people had accumulated in the line.
Solorite gave an Absol shrug, "I've had to do something like it before. After I realized what city we managed to end up in, it made sense as to what was happening."
"Oh?"
"We headed south instead of north, and didn't go to Sayan City." He continued, "Instead, we're in Accalem City. Ever heard of the place?"
"…I know the psychic gym is here, but that's about it." She admitted.
Solorite nodded, "That's true. Accalem City is also… backwards. I don't really know how it got this way, but whatever you ask for here, you cannot get if you ask for it directly. You saw what happened just now. I asked for corned beef and it was expired, you wanted turkey and they'd run out of it. Backwards, I tell you."
"Scoot," Devon said, trying to get Solorite to give up his seat.
"And where will I sit Devon?" The Absol asked with a hit of amusement in his voice. Before the boy could answer, he continued, "Why don't you sit on the floor for once?"
Devon paused for a moment, before Pocky grabbed a nearby chair and dragged it over to their table. "There's room for one more chair." She stated nonchalantly.
As they were finally eating, thunder crashed outside, and the small sub-shop was again filled as dripping people shuffled in to get away from the sudden downpour of rain. "Looks like we're not going anywhere for a while." Elvina commented, "Unless someone brought an umbrella?"
"I'll use sunny day if you give me the other half of your sub, Elvina." Solorite offered. She'd gotten too large of a sub by accident, since the woman made a sub big enough for a grown man. Nodding, she passed the untouched half to the other side of the table, where Solorite carefully cut pieces off with his claws and ate them.
It brought a thought to mind, and Elvina suddenly exclaimed, "We forgot to feed our Pokemon!"
"Now's as good a time as any." Solorite commented.
"Most of these people wouldn't enjoy being pushed into the corner of this place while Saladreth eats." Drake said.
"Oh, c'mon, Saladreth isn't that big." Devon rolled his eyes.
"Are you all ready to go?" Solorite interrupted before an argument started. When everyone replied in the affirmative, he led the way and went outside into the rain, while the trainers looked on. Raising his head to the sky, Solorite closed his eyes and a flash of orange raked across his horn, to become a spark at the very tip that floated upwards. When it was higher up, the spark let off several orange waves, which first evaporated the remaining water and dispersed the clouds, then worked a little magic on the sun, making it shine brighter and give off more heat.
"Wow." Elvina said.
"I know. Do you have that magazine?" Solorite replied, and nodded when she held it up. "I want to read it later…"
"You read?" Drake asked.
"Of course." The Absol shrugged. He shook out his fur, spreading a small cloud of droplets. "Now come, I don't want to see a hungry pack of Pokemon running after me the next time I look behind me."
The Pokemon Center was a short walk from there, and accepted them just as the first clouds were forming as the sunny day attack lost some of its effectiveness. Instead of a Nurse Joy, there was a slim, kindly looking woman in her place. "Can I help you?" She asked Elvina.
"Yes, I'd like to get my Pokemon healed please." She replied, holding out four Pokeballs.
"…I'm sorry, but the healing machine just broke. Nurse Joy is trying to find out what's wrong—"
"—It's the stupid microprocessor again!" Came Nurse Joy's normally kind voice.
"Again?" The woman at the desk exclaimed, "The healing machine must be defective, Nurse. Microprocessors shouldn't die like that."
"You're probably right." The Nurse sounded very muffled at that point, "Wait, do we have trainers waiting for their Pokemon to be healed? Goodness Marcia, offer them some food while they wait!"
"We ran out of human food too! When's the next shipment coming in?" Marcia replied.
"Offer their Pokemon something to eat, then! And… it was supposed to be here this afternoon."
"What types of Pokemon do you have?" She promptly asked the trainers. "Other than the Absol I see… we ran out of food that normally appeals to dark types… sorry about that."
"No problem." Solorite answered, ignoring Marcia's staring, as if she hadn't seen a talking Absol before. "That stuff doesn't appeal to me anyway."
"Right…" she stammered. Elvina then named off every type of Pokemon none of the trainers had with them, and Marcia replied that they had none of those, much apologies, and named off the correct flavors.
As Elvina sat back watching their little pack of Pokemon eating, she sighed to herself. "Accalem City is a really strange place." She commented.
There was no reply, but a shuffling of paper as Solorite carefully turned the page of his magazine with one claw. He looked comical in the position he was in, spread across the floor on his belly, tail swishing back and forth contentedly, and every once in a while he would give a gasp at something he'd read. Solorite looked like the Absol equivalent of a schoolgirl at a slumber party.
"Is something wrong?" Solorite asked calmly when he noticed Elvina was still looking at him. She smiled and shook her head.
Sara looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. Small pillars of stone jutted from the ground, and her heart jumped from the sight of what they were. Tombstones. Little mounds of dirt were everywhere, and as she continued to walk, she felt like she was out to sea somewhere, going up and down with the grooves of the dirt. There was no grass growing anywhere, and Sara almost could feel her feet sticking to the ground, but it seemed to only be her imagination.
"Hello?" She called, and it echoed over the barren expanse of land. In turn, the wind blew heavily and threatened to knock her over. A raucous call came from up above, from a Murkrow.
The next thing Sara knew was that she was being followed. Two slow shadows tailed her wherever she walked and came inching closer whenever she stopped to take a breath. She noticed them when they were close, and was greeted by a low growl. Sara let off a high-pitched scream and took off running, only to hear heavy paw steps behind her. Both shadows turned out to be Houndoom, barking at the top of their lungs at their escaping meal.
Another of the hounds joined in on the chase, trying to cut Sara off by jumping in front of her. She skidded to a stop for only a second, before darting off in a new direction perpendicular to her pursuers' path, to hear a dull whimper when the first two collided with their comrade. Her victory was short-lived, however, as a fourth Houndoom jumped into the chase, causing Sara to change directions again.
The Houndoom pack repeated this trick with her two more times, leading Sara to believe that they were trying to steer her wherever they wanted. The tombstones were less numerous now, and looking ahead she saw what the pack had been cornering her to. With a sheer cliff ahead of her, and six barking Houndoom behind, Sara found herself trapped.
She stopped feet from the edge and turned around to see that the dogs had slowed down, panting lightly. They stalked forward and branched out, providing no gaps to escape through. Panicked, Sara looked around one last time before screaming, "Sundav! Sundav, help me!"
The Houndoom growled at their prey's loud noises. But another voice lifted over their growls, saying, "You cannot always look to Sundav for help."
Feather light, another shadowy creature landed upon Sara's head. It let off another Murkrow caw, but the girl was no longer fooled by the façade Blatos was in. "Blatos? Why am I here?"
"Remember when I told you that I hoped to meet you under more peaceful circumstances? Well, I lied." Blatos replied, "Finish her."
The pack started closing in on Sara again. She took a few steps back on impulse, just to find with her foot that there was no more land to step back on. Glancing back, Sara saw the endless black pit that yawned underneath the cliff she stood upon. Blatos made no other sound, just sat harmlessly on the blonde's head as the leader of the pack let off a howl and jumped forward at Sara. She ducked automatically, and the dog was sent sprawling over the edge, down into the abyss.
"Good." Blatos crowed.
Sara got no chance to reply, as three more of the hounds closed in on her. "Oh no…"
"The middle one, it limps." The Murkrow imposter murmured. Sara looked to see that she was right; the one heading directly for her had a limp in its gait. Each of the Houndoom jumped at her at the same time, and Sara, thinking fast, punched at the wounded one's limp leg. It whimpered, but still landed on top of her where it wanted her, while the other two landed next to the first. Sara's head and upper back no longer had the support of the ground underneath them.
She felt a burning line of pain across her middle, which spread quickly, and she was suddenly very weak. Blatos sighed as she flew in front of Sara's vision. "You lost. They would've killed you had this been real."
"R-real? This wasn't—""No. It was just a test."
The Murkrow Blatos looked very cross as she spread her wings and cawed. The tombstones, cliff, and Houndoom dissolved, leaving Sara lying spread-eagled over what looked to be a cloud. It was white, fluffy, yet couldn't be a cloud… clouds wouldn't have been able to support Sara's weight. She felt better, her energy returning to her quickly. "Why didn't you tell me it was a test?" She demanded of Blatos when she appeared in her line of vision in her true form.
"You wouldn't have taken it seriously," the nightmare creature growled. "You did pretty bad not even knowing it was a test."
"What do you expect? I'm only human." Sara replied.
"Do you think Dominus is going to take it easy on you just because you're human? No!" Blatos snapped. "Do you think Sundav will always be around to save you? No! You may be a little human, but you'd better learn some self-defense."
"So… you're here to teach me?" Blatos nodded.
"You're asleep now. It's the perfect time to teach you."
"But what if I wake up?"
"Ha… do you really think you can escape from this dream?" Blatos challenged. Sara looked around, at the cloud they were riding on, and the bright blue expanse above. There were no sharp implements around that she could use to wake herself up, and after pinching her arm a few times, Sara shrugged. "When I release your mind, then you can wake up. Sundav or Solorite would be able to tell that I'm putting you into a trance, but that's only if they try to get you to wake up and fail."
The demonic bird shook her head, as if to clear it. "Why would you want to keep this a secret from them?" Sara asked finally.
"Sundav would not like my mettling." Blatos sighed simply, "So you need to keep this a secret, or I won't bother teaching you anything. By the way, I'd better be letting you go soon, it's almost sunrise where you are. Since it seems we're going to have a lot to go over, we're going to start with the very basics. Next time, you're going to face Ledyba. Be ready for them."
With that, the cloud and blue sky turned black as Sara fell into dreamless sleep.
"Sara?" Next thing she knew, a rather impatient Rena was poking her in the side. "Hey, she's awake!"
"Finally." The sharp voice of Star replied.
Sara opened her eyes and sat up, to find that she had been laying on her sleeping bag, fully dressed, with Rena, Rika, and all their Pokemon clustered around her. Meep and Squee were fast asleep on her legs. "How long have you guys been staring at me like that?" She asked.
"Oh, not long." Rika shrugged, "Sundav would be with us right now, but she flew off on… business, she said."
"Business? What business is more important than—"
"I reckon she's meeting with other legendaries right now." Rika said with a shrug. Her violet eyes glimmered faintly.
Rena cleared her throat, "By the way, I think we found where your house is." She pointed behind her, where one of the cottages was surrounded by police tape. "The policemen won't let anyone pass, so they pointed us in the direction of Professor Appawich's lab."
"Sara, you were right," Rika interrupted, "Mom was kidnapped." Sara coughed, a sinking feeling in her heart. "But… the kidnapper left a clue. The Professor has it, and will probably be willing to show you what it means."
A furry head rubbed against her arm, and Sara reached over to absently pet Althea. "A-alright." She murmured, "Let's go over there, then."
She recalled Meep, and Rena did the same with Squee, and then she got to her feet, just to immediately stumble back down again. Her legs felt like they'd gone through a triathlon, they had been numb at rest, but refused to work when called upon. It was just a dream. Sara thought, as if trying to coax her legs to move with that thought. It didn't work.
"Do you need me to carry you Sara?" Sandsinger asked quickly. Sara nodded; feeling a twinge of happiness through her otherwise devoid emotions as the Flygon quickly placed her trainer upon her back and followed after Rena and Rika. They kept a distance, though, and Sandsinger was moving at a slow enough pace for her to turn around and tilt her head to one side. "Will you be okay?" She asked.
"I'll be fine." Sara replied. She was surprised at how flat and monotone her voice sounded. It didn't fool any of her Pokemon, but the four of them let it drop, and Tarragon and Hoppity remained silent.
Silence. It let Sara slip into her own self-imposed trance. Her mom was gone… the woman who would always pester her daughter, undeterred, about her relationships and being… well, a mom. What if the person who'd kidnapped her was in some way related to Dominus? Who was she kidding—it was probably Dominus himself, angry over her still being alive.
"Sara, we're here." Karen said into her trainer's mind, shocking her away from her reverie for a moment to see the looming laboratory building before her. It dwarfed every living creature around it, and Sara felt small, even on Sandsinger's back. "Can you walk?"
Sara moved one leg testingly, to feel an ache, but it did move. "Yes. Thank you Sandsinger." She swung over the Flygon's shoulder and hugged her around her neck. "Okay guys, let's go see the nutty professor herself." She took the first steps into the lab with confidence.