Intermission II

Gaia slipped himself under the blue patterened covers of the king-sized bed. He was staying one of the spare rooms in Garrett's extravagant house. Seth and Alice were staying in other rooms.

Even though it was only three in the afternoon, he was dead tired from traversing the Ice Palace and defeating Yuxai. His adrenaline rush and ran out not long ago. Finding out which move the Icicle Plate would give him could come later, he thought was he yawned and lay his green lizard head on the white pillow. He closed his eyes and almost instantly felt himself drifting off into sleep.

While he was sleeping, he had a strange dream.

A Grovyle sat in a jail cell, hunched up to its one was completely different. Its eyes were as red as blood and its skin was as dark as night. A black sword lay on the ground next to it. Then the Grovyle got up. It picked the sword off the ground and held it up in the air. And with a mighty swing, it cut the metal bars blocking the way out in half.

Gaia woke up with a start. He was sweating buckets and his hands were clammy. He was also rather thirsty. What the hell was that? He asked himself. He picked up a glass of water on a nearby bedside table and slowly drained its contents. The cool water felt good down his parched throat.

He was almost afraid to go back to sleep again, but reminded himself that he was not a child and his dream was not nightmare, therefore he had no reason to be scared of it.

Within a whole minute he was asleep again. This time he had no dreams.

XXXXXXXX

The next morning, Team Enforcers had breakfast with Garrett. The Garchomp's servants served up a large breakfast of very high quality, including hashbrowns, friend tomatoes and Seth's favourite: sausages. The Sableye cried in joy when he found out that there was none of the gritty porridge he had been eating for the past two days in a row. The three explorers tucked in ravenously. Garrett smiled a bit at their enthusiasm.

After eating in silence for a couple of minutes, Garrett spoke up. "Alice, did you sleep with Gaia like I told you to?" he asked.

Instantly, Alice and Gaia began blushing bright red. Seth started to laugh. "Yes father, I did." Alice replied.

"I see." Garrett took a sip of tea, then out the ceramic cup down, "Did you enjoy it?" he said while keeping a completely straight face. Gaia blushed even harder, if that was possible. Alice just stared at her father. "Father, why must you ask such strange questions?"

"Since you did not say yes, does that mean you did not like sleeping with Gaia?" Garrett asked calmly, completely ignoring his daughter's question. Seth nearly fell out of his seat with laughter. Tears were streaming down his face. Alice was far too embarrassed to glare at him. The same was with Gaia.

"I did not say no!" Alice objected.

"Then is that a yes? My question only has two answers." Alice swore that her father was actually enjoying this.

By this point Gaia was so embarrassed that he wanted to sink into the floor and never speak of this incident again.

"I...what...oh forget it!" Alice kept her head down and resumed eating, trying to mask her blushes. Gaia did the same. It was a whole two minutes before Seth's laughter died down and he began eating again. By this point his bacon and sausages were already cold. He was disappointed when he found out.

XXXXXXXX

After that rather eventful and embarrassing meal, Team Enforcers waved goodbye to Alice's father and headed towards their house. Gaia had tapped the Icicle plate with his sword and learned Ice Shard, a useful priority move. As they walked down a bustling road, a Bayleaf ran up to them.

"Gaia, Gaia!" Leala shouted as she came running across.

"Hey Leala," Gaia said, "What's up?"

"I heard the rumours. It can't be true, can it?" she said wildly.

"Leala, what are you talking about?" Gaia asked.

"Did you really sleep with Alice two days ago?" Leala almost screamed. Gaia hadn't been expecting this and was caught off guard for a moment. "Wait, how did you know about that?" he said quickly once he recoverd.

"It was all over the Internet!" Leala replied, "Seth's profile page on Twatter told us all!"

"What?" Gaia turned around and glared at his friend. "Seth, what the hell did you do?" The Sableye whimpered and took a step backwards. He was scared of his two friends murdering him in the street. It made him think that what he had done last night wasn't such a good idea after all.

"Seth," Alice growled in an incredibly menacing tone, "You are fucking dead!" With a roar, she launched himself on top of him and started to beat him up.

"I'm sorry Alice, I'm sorry!" Seth cried as he felt the pain from Alice's blows, "I was typing up our adventure, that's all!"

"So, did you two really sleep with each other?" Leala diverted Gaia's attention by asking him the question.

"You two slept with each other?" Team Super Cool had heard what was going on and came over to them. Janua was horrified that Seth was getting beaten up and waded over to restrain Alice. "Have you guys been in some sort of secret relationship? Garrett is going to murder you." Mitt asked.

"Are you sure Alice is not your girlfriend?" Raydir questioned.

"Girlfriend?" Leala exploded. People noticed her outburst and were starting to stare at them.

Gaia sighed. This was going to take a lot of explaining to do. "Alright everyone, calm down," he said wearily, "I'll explain everything…"

Five minutes later, the Grovyle had sufficiently calmed everyone down and told them what had really happened.

"So the two of you only slept together so both of you wouldn't freeze to death?" Leala asked for the fifth time.

"Yes Leala," Gaia replied, slightly annoyed, "That's the only reason why we slept together. We are not in some sort of secret relationship."

"Oh good." A look of relief crossed her face and she smiled.

"So, what do we do now?" Seth asked. During those five minutes, he had healed all of the wounds where Alice had punched and clawed him. "We have six plates now. Does that mean we're nearly half done?"

"I guess so." Gaia said, "The problem is, we have no pointers as to where to go or what to do. Yuxai didn't tell us anything."

KABOOM!

There was a loud explosion in the distance and the heads of everyone nearby swilled to face the source of it.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Alice asked. Gaia saw that a large shadow aura was radiating from the place. "Shadow Pokemon!" he stated. The Spirit Sword formed in his hand and he ran towards the source, "Let's go!"

XXXXXXXX

Zozoark was having the time of his life. He was currently firing dark beams of energy everywhere, destroying parts of buildings and causing mass panic. He had even injured a few people. Maybe he would kill them later.

"Hey you!" He heard a voice from behind and turned around. To his surprise and pleasure, he saw Gaia running up to him, the Spirit Sword in his hands.

"Well, well, well." Zozoark grinned nastily, "Look who it is. The weilder of the Spirit Sword."

"You!" Gaia shouted angrily. He gestured to the destruction around him, "Did you do all this?"

"Of course I did." Zozoark laughed, "It was rather fun you know. Those screams of pain and fear were music to my ears!"

This only served to make Gaia even angrier. "That's it!" he declared, "You are fucking dead!" He got into a fighting stance.

"So, you're going to fight me? Sure…" Suddenly, black aura started to swirl around him. Gaia stared at it, then took a step back and gasped. What was standing before him was an almost exact replica of him, except that the Grovyle's skin was black and its eyes were red. He was even holding a black sword.

"Like my ability? It's Illusion, which lets me transform into any Pokemon in existence. I know that you're good at fighting. Let's see how could you are when you're fighting yourself!"

Zozoark charged at Gaia, his sword in front of him. Gaia blocked and swatted Zozark away. He then charged his blade up with fire energy and it grew to twice its length. "Take this!" he shouted and swung his sword. Zozoark jumped back, but the flaming sword slashed him in a few places, hurting him.

"Interesting…" The shadow fox grinned, "But did you know that my ability lets me use your own moves?" He charged up his black sword with sky blue energy and swung forward. Gaia heard the sound of a sword striking and countered with his own Aerial Ace. The two attacks collided into each other and cancelled each other out.

"Take this!" Zozoark fired a stream of sharp icicles at Gaia. The Grovyle activated Mirror Coat and reflected them back at the shadow fox. They struck him in the chest and knocked him backwards.
"You're mine!" Gaia stated as he ran forward.

"No!" Zozoark lunged forward at an impossible speed and grabbed Gaia by the neck. "You are mine…" He laughed. Gaia stared into his eyes. Then he felt himself blacking out. He had just enough time to see Zozoark falling to the ground as well.

A few seconds later, the green Grovyle picked himself up from the ground. "Hey Gaia!" Seth shouted from nearby, "Are you alright?"

The green Grovyle simply grinned at Seth, "I've never been better!" he smiled.

XXXXXXXX

"Ohh…" Gaia opened his eyes. He was in pain. 'Where was he?' was the first question that came to his mind. He looked around and saw that he in a jail cell! The walls were made of white stone and a light bulb hung from the roof, illuminating the room. Metal bars blocked his only way out. A nearby barred window told him that it was now at night.

"What?" he asked himself, "Why am I here?" Then he noticed that his hand was completely black. His arm was also completely black. He gasped with shock and looked at himself in a nearby mirror. A black Grovyle stared back at him.

"No…no…no!" Gaia panicked. He had somehow become Zozoark. But he wasn't Zozoark, right? He was himself. He was Gaia, the wielder of the Spirit Sword. But that shadow fox had done something to him. Now he looked just Zozoark. He slumped against the wall in despair.

What am I going to do now? He thought miserably. He heard snoring from behind him and turned around. An Umberon and Pikachu were sleeping behind him. Gaia recognized them as Nasuada and Kika. So they had been captured too. Maybe they had been arrested.

Then he had a sudden flashback. He remembered the dream he had last night. He had seen a black Grovyle cut down the bars to a jail cell with a black sword. Was he that black Grovyle? He quickly got up and checked the bars. To his surprise, they were cracked in random spots. They looked very weak and seemed like they could be cut down with a slash.

Gaia took a glance at Nasuada and Kika. Maybe they could help him. He knew that they were strong. So he walked over and shook Nasuada lightly.

"What? What do you want?" The Umbreon said irritably, "And who are you anyway?"

Gaia pointed to Kika, "Get him up. We're escaping."

"We are?" Somehow the mention of the word 'escaping' was enough to wake the Pikachu up, "How?" he asked.

Nasuada snorted, "Don't be ridiculous. We can't escape. Can't you see that there are metal bars in front of us?" She told Gaia, "You still haven't answered my question. Who the hell are you?"

Gaia didn't say anything. He formed his sword in his hand. For a second it was in its normal colors, then it was consumed by a dark aura and turned black.

Interesting, he thought. He charged it up with fire energy and swung at the bars. The blazing sword cut through the bars like a knife cutting through a block of cheese. Kika stared. Nasuada's jaw dropped to the floor. An alarm sounded.

"Oh, son of a bitch," Gaia muttered. He gestured towards Nasuada and Kika. "Come on! We're going!"