Pokémon: 15 Deaths: 17

The sky was blue.

Chaz had mentioned before that the sky used to be blue, but Saylee hadn't imagined such a bright, vibrant shade. She had to shield her eyes from it and the impossibly bright glow of the sun, pushing her new glasses down her nose. The woman who had built them for her had sat with her for half an hour, holding different pieces of glass in front of her eyes until she could clearly read a piece of paper tacked to the wall across the room. She had refused to be paid for it, telling Saylee that the hospital paid her to make sure that all of the elderly people living in the area had the glasses that they needed. It seemed that a lot of the elderly people in the islands moved to Knot Island.

Saylee wondered if it was because of the clean air and the bright skies, but talking to some of the local residents suggested that all of the islands were like this.

The sea was blue, too, deep and dark and clean. People's grandchildren were playing on the white sand on the beach. She had seen a nurse come out to patch up the damaged limb of a Tentacool.

"We don't see a lot of these out here," she explained. "When we do, they're always hurt, poor things. They only end up here if they're hurt and can't swim against the currents. The water doesn't seem to agree with them."

Tentacool were vermin, everywhere on the beaches back home. Nobody ever bothered healing them, because there were always a billion more out there. They didn't tend to be eaten, either, because they were so toxic. Janine had once told her about a dish they sometimes made in Fuchsia, after draining out all of the poison for use in weapons. Saylee had tried a bite, but it tasted disgusting.

The food here was good. It was all fluffy bread and fruit and vegetables and no meat at all. They seemed to have plenty of access to food that couldn't scream when cut, to the extent that the nurse had been utterly horrified when Saylee had brought up the matter of meat. She hadn't brought it up again; the meals were still far fuller than what she ate at home, and she seemed to be healing fine. After just four days of bed rest, she'd been allowed out on a chair with wheels.

Chaz had been wearing the flying harness when he'd been put into his pokéball, so it was still sitting around his shoulders and Saylee was beginning to eye it covetously. The paths around the island were all smooth and flat, in testament to the elderly population, but she couldn't get down to the beaches on the chair and she desperately wanted to see more of the island. There was another very close by, with a tall mountain looming over it.

"Give your ribs a couple more days, darling," Joy said when the subject was brought up. "Although it might do you a bit of good to get to Mt Ember. There's springs down the bottom, see, that are very healing. That's why all the seniors and the ill come out here, it makes them feel so much better. There's a boat that goes out every day, lets people soak for a few hours and brings them home. I'll get you on it tomorrow, alright, darling?"

"Thank you," Saylee said. "Why's it called Mt Ember?" Chaz's worrying comments about the volatility of volcanoes were fresh in her mind, and healing or not she didn't want to be anywhere near one.

"It used to be a volcano, long ago," Joy said. "Well, legends said a fiery Pokémon used to live in it, and sometimes flew out in a great plume of flame that went up to the stars, but that's awful fanciful, isn't it, darling? The stories sound like a fancy way of talking about a volcanic eruption. It hasn't gone off for centuries, though, and my dad said in his day some scientists came and said it was dead. Mind you, maybe a fiery Pokémon does live there, eh? The night before you were brought in, folks said they saw the ice Pokémon dancing in the sky."

"...I'm sorry, what?" Saylee asked, thoroughly confused.

"Sorry, darling, it's a local saying," Joy said with a smile. "Sometimes on clear nights, lights dance in the sky. The posh name for it's an "aurora", but everyone around here says it's an ice Pokémon dancing, and that all of the colours are its wings. You don't see them very often, but we saw one, the night before they brought you in. Terrible shame you missed it."

"What a shame," Saylee agreed, looking out at the vast expanse of blue between herself at home.

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The next day, Saylee was rolled onto the boat to Mt Ember with her Pokémon. Hernan held onto her chair to keep it steady while Paul and Carrie rode on Chaz's back next to the small boat. The patients and seniors sitting around her laughed as Chaz flew around the boat, enthralled by the huge orange Pokémon.

Saylee herself was trying to pull a shawl one-handedly over her red shoulders. She had been enjoying the clear skies and bright sunlight to go inside when she should have, and now every patch of exposed skin had burned bright red. Her left arm felt almost as stiff and sore as her right, and she was praying that these healing springs that she'd heard so much about really were that good.

She couldn't help being nervous as they drew closer to the huge, rocky mountain. There was no sign that it was anything but a rocky lump, however. She could even see people climbing it; her new glasses were much better than her old ones.

"The springs'll do you good, dear," an old woman next to her encouraged her. "It's been doing wonders for me hip for years. Couldn't still walk without it!"

"Is it heated by the mountain?" Saylee asked. The old woman nodded. "But I thought it wasn't still active."

"That's 'cause it's heated by the fire bird!" an old man across from her insisted. "It flew out here sixteen year ago and it's kept us safe ever since!"

"Sixteen years ago... a powerful fire-type fled out here sixteen years ago," Saylee thought, looking up at Mt Ember. "Fleeing? From the fighting? From Mewtwo?"

"Nurse Joy mentioned a story about an ice bird, too," Saylee said. "Said its wings made colours in the sky."

"Haven't seen them in a long time," the old woman said fondly. "Very active sixteen years ago, they were. When all those strange things happened. Fighting and auroras and the gab..."

"The gab?" Saylee asked, glancing at Hernan. He shrugged.

"The gab is what they used to say folk who could talk to Pokémon had," the old lady explained.

"But everyone can speak to Pokémon," Saylee pointed out. The old woman laughed.

"Ahh, you're too young to remember," she said. "But before all that, not many people could. If a Pidgey was twittering away outside my window, who was I to say what it was saying? Then all of a sudden, one morning, everyone wakes up and what they hear is a voice calling to a pretty feather to sit with them awhile. Walk outside and of a sudden you can hear Pokémon chatting to each other and they're all surprised that you can understand too!"

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"I can't remember," Chaz said with a shrug, head resting on the side of the hot tub, cut into the rock wall and filled from a spring pouring from above. He was careful to sit on the opposite side of the tub, away from the spray of the water. "I really was very little when I was first captured, and didn't spend a vast amount of time out of my pokéball. The Professor spoke to us sometimes, and we understood him, so maybe he had it. I remember that he was a very respected Professor, there were always new people in his lab hanging on his every word. Maybe that was why. He could speak to us and others couldn't." He frowned. "For that matter, I never saw Ben before the Professor let us out about fifteen years ago just to see what was in the pokéballs, and I only saw Sam once beforehand. We didn't speak. At least, I said something to her and she didn't respond. Or maybe she did, and I didn't understand."He lifted his head, shaking it in confusion.

"So different species didn't used to understand each other, and now they do," Saylee said, scooping up some of the beautifully warm water in her hand and wiping it over the sunburn on her face. She'd worried that the water was going to sting, but it felt fantastic. No pain or aches at all, except the one in her brain. "The timing... it's the same as Mewtwo's memory wipe."

"But the memory wipe didn't extend out here," Carrie pointed out. She didn't like the water any more than Chaz did, but she seemed happy enough relaxing on the warm rocks. "Why would the gab come out here and the memory wipe not?"

"And the gab seems like a positive thing, doesn't it?" Hernan added. He was the only one in the water with Saylee, washing it over the gash on his face again and again. "Memory loss is destructive. It seems fitting for an angry psychic to do something so destructive, deliberately or not. But the gab..."

"And the fire and ice birds being active," Chaz said. "That had to be in response to Mewtwo. I'll be the lightning bird was too."

"What lightning bird?" Saylee asked. Paul, who had been napping on a warm rock next to Carrie, cracked an eye open.

"Lord Zapdos?" he said. "Pissy bugger. He's the reason anybody not electric won't go a solid mile near the Plant. Can't take the 'leccy in the air."

"Okay, Paul, you're going to have to help me out here," Saylee sighed. "Who or what is Zapdos?"

"The bird of lightning," Chaz said. "I remember that the Professor had pictures of the three birds on his wall. He told me about them once, when I asked. He said that the three main elements are fire, ice and lightning, and that there are three gigantic bird Pokémon embodying each. I can't remember their names, but Zapdos rings a bell."

"Giant yellow spiky bugger, bad temper, sparks all over the place," Paul said. "Kept whinging 'bout the other two buggering off when things got bad. Never knew who they were."

"The fire and ice birds," Saylee said, rubbing her forehead. She dunked her head underwater for a moment, glorying in the soothing feel of the water. She shook her head to flick some of the water off when she surfaced. "Eurgh. I should probably stop worrying about all of this. It's nothing to do with Red or Giovanni. It'll be fun to chat with Red and Blue about a couple of years from now. Maybe we can go hiking to find the fire bird. For now, I need to start figuring out where the hell Giovanni did go. Not Cinnabar. Where else would he go?"

"Who knows," Carrie said with a shrug. "Where would be safe for him to go?"

"Nowhere we have allies," Chaz suggested. "Pewter, Cerulean, Vermillion, Celadon, Fuchsia and Saffron are all out. He wasn't in Cinnabar."

"He wouldn't be welcome in Lavender or anywhere near it," Carrie said. "So where does that leave?"

"He can't be anywhere near Pallet or Viridian, or Blue would have found him," Saylee said, though a touch uneasily. It struck her that, unless Giovanni was hiding out in the deep caves or the inhospitable areas- which he couldn't possibly do for long, unless he'd built up some kind of cache there a while ago. Maybe he had, in which case Saylee had some serious scouring to do when she got home, but if he hadn't then the first place that Saylee could think of was the Indigo area... where Blue had gone.

"If Blue found him, he and Sam will have taken him out already," Chaz pointed out. "Giovanni's teams have a bad habit of being weak to water, you saw how many of them Miranda took out both times that we fought him."

"That's true," Saylee agreed, running her hand up her opposite sleeve underwater. Everyone going into the hot springs had been issued with lightweight, dark-coloured dressing gowns that were promised to dry out quickly. They didn't seem to pick up a lot of weight underwater, at least, and their dark colour meant that they didn't go see-through when soaked. There were also a couple of nurses on hand replacing bandages with waterproof wraps, which made Saylee's arm and leg feel a lot lighter than they had for days. She was loathe to get out of the water, knowing that she'd need the heavy casts back on the second the water wasn't bearing weight for her damaged limbs.

Still, she had a couple more hours until she needed to get out and get on the boat home, and some time before she could walk on her own. Maybe relaxing for a moment, resting and getting her bearings, wouldn't be such a bad idea.

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There was a television in the lobby of the hotel. Saylee had seen them before, but they were all gathering dust in the corners of people's rooms. Some functioned, but they didn't pick anything up. What was there to watch? But there must have been shows being made somewhere in the islands, because several patients were watching a show about a man and a Growlithe trying to catch a Pidgey that was carrying secret messages. They failed at everything they tried and the Growlithe gave a stupid snigger every time. Saylee had become fond of it; it was always on right after they got back from the hot springs and killed time before dinner.

Some patients checked out right after hot springs trips, but Saylee didn't notice that one was checking in until he called out to her.

"Saylee! Saylee, is that you?"

Saylee spun around, wincing as the still-tight skin around her shoulders pulled. Chaz made it around and roared in surprise.

"Bill!" he said. "What are you doing here?"

Hernan pushed Saylee's chair around for her and she was confronted with the surprise sight of Bill, the man she'd met north of Cerulean months ago. His face was still scarred, his nose abnormally small and flat, and his left sleeve dangled empty, but he looked in significantly better shape than he had the last time that Saylee had seen him.

"It is you!" Bill said, striding over and scratching at his face self-consciously. "I thought it was you! What are you doing all the way out here?"

"What are you doing all the way out here?" Saylee said in surprise. "I thought you were with your grandfather...?"

"He lives out here," Bill said. "His Fearow flew me down to the sea, and then there were water Pokémon belonging to the trawlers here that ferried me across." He scratched his face again, rubbing his fingers over it. He probably wasn't used to the new contours of his face; Saylee knew that she kept running her fingers through her short-cut hair. "I didn't recognize you with the short hair, at first," he said, causing Saylee to drop her hand self-consciously away from her hair. "And is this Chaz? You evolved!" He patted Chaz on the nose, before frowning down at Saylee's casts. "What happened to you? You look like you got pretty smashed up yourself."

"Collapsing house," Saylee said, unable to stop her scratching under her hairline again. She was sure she could feel a healing burn scar under there, just behind her ear. "I got knocked out and ended up floating on the sea."

"You floated all the way out here?" Bill said with a frown, sitting down on a sofa next to her. He was limping a bit; his leg had been returned to him, unlike his arm, but it had still been mangled badly. "I spent two whole days on the backs of somebody's Dewgong and Poliwrath to get here. Why didn't you drown?" He smiled as a thought struck him. "Wait, you had a Magikarp the last time I saw you. Did she evolve?"

"She did!" Saylee said excitedly. "I got separated from her, but oh, you should see her now. Do you remember Pedro? My Pidgeotto? He evolved too. He's out there somewhere."

"If you got separated from them, how did you survive two days on the waves?" Bill asked. Saylee shrugged.

"I hadn't thought about it," she said. "I just did. I guess I'm lucky I ended up here. I've never seen healthcare like this. For free, even."

"Aren't those hot springs amazing?" Bill said. "It healed my facial scarring beyond all recognition. And I don't think I'd be able to walk on my leg without it." He shook his head. "Things are so much better out here. They didn't get hurt or mixed up with whatever happened back in Kanto and Johto. I'm pretty sure that these islands are what it used to be like. Grandpa says it was. He was here at the time, so he can remember. I can't say what caused it, but the memory loss is only over a certain area..."

"I know," Saylee said. "I think we've got a lot to talk about. Do you have some free time?"

"I've got a checkup whenever my doc comes out," Bill said, glancing around, "but I'll see you around the dinner canteen?"

"It's a date," Saylee agreed.

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A few people brought up the line "I remember when I was a little girl there was people out on holiday all the time" as grammatically incorrect, but that's deliberate. Because of reasons, I'm giving the people living in the Sevii Islands light Welsh accents. All of the Kanto/Johto natives have varying British accents, also because of reasons. I'm always grateful if anybody notices a grammar, spelling, punctuation or continuity error and points it out, because these are unbeta'd and posted pretty much as soon as they're finished. Sometimes, though, with dialogue, it's deliberate for dialectical reasons.

(Though while writing these chapters, I'll probably have to watch lots of Torchwood to keep Welsh accents in my mind, because otherwise I tend to slip badly about them and suddenly everyone sounds like they're from the Wess Coun'ree XP )

I do not own Pokémon. That happy right is Game Freak's.