Pokémon: 25 Deaths: 20

Saylee's muscles felt sore and stiff, randomly twitching whenever she tried to move. The sting of pain in her knuckles stood out through the general throb.

"I think you need to teach her to throw a proper punch, Hernan," a strange voice said gravely.

"I'm sorry, Saylee," Hernan said fretfully. "This is because we split up that you were on your own… if Kaito hadn't evolved when he did…"

"Kaito evolved?" Saylee said in surprise, letting Hernan and Carrie pull her to her feet. She felt heat on the back of her neck as something warm leaned into her back to prop her up. Looking around, she saw that Chaz, unable to fit through the hole in the roof, had stretched his neck in and was leaning his head against her shoulders to keep her standing. Most of the natural light was blocked, but Hernan's fists were glowing with fire. In the flickering light, she saw something that she'd only ever seen a fossil of before.

Actually, Kaito as a Kabutops didn't look too different to the fossil. The fossil Saylee had seen was of a solid exoskeleton, rather than bones. He was about a head shorter than Saylee now, with a skinny brown-and-white body, a wide, flat head that tapered towards the front, and long, lethal-looking scythes for forelimbs. One of those scythes was bloodstained.

"I'm sorry!" Kaito said nervously in that new, gravelly voice when he saw Saylee staring. "I didn't mean to really hurt him- well, I did a bit, his Pokémon was hurting you… you said Pokémon shouldn't use our powers on people because you're so fragile, but his was attacking you… I didn't kill him!"

"That's okay, Kaito," Saylee said, reaching out a twitchy arm to pat his shoulder. "So long as you didn't kill him… It's okay to defend the people you care about. Thank you."

"Hernan was much cooler," Kaito said humbly. "He jumped down through the hole and fire punched that Merry thing in the face! Well, one of the faces…"

"The human was already fleeing when we arrived," Carrie said, stepping back to allow Chaz to lift Saylee out of the hole in the ceiling. "He had some kind of blue stone. He was yelling at his Magneton that they could still get a good price for it at the warehoue on Chrono Island…"

"Chrono… we were just there!" Saylee cursed, strapping herself into the flying harness with shaking hands. As Chaz reared up to a standing position, she noticed that he clutched something white in his claws. "Is that the egg?"

"Kind of…" Chaz said nervously, holding it out as Carrie and Hernan leapt out of the hole. Kaito followed a moment later, landing a little unevenly on his new legs. He regarded them with curiosity, kicking a little to help himself acclimatize to the new range fo movement. Carrie and Hernan were looking at the egg, which reached two tiny white arms to them and giggled.

"At first I panicked because I thought it had been cracked in the fall," Carrie said sheepishly, picking up the egg and then leaping up to sit in front of Saylee. "But then I realized that he was just hatching. Saylee, this is Tobias." She held up the baby for Saylee's inspection.

The egg was still mostly there, but now two flat feet and two short, stubby arms protruded from cracks in the shell. The top was knocked off and a spiky head protruded. Tobias smiled up at Saylee and wiggled his arms. Saylee handed him back to Carrie, which made him giggle, and took out her Pokédex. It had no data at all.

"We don't know what he is, and he can't talk yet," Hernan explained. "The first one he saw after he hatched was Carrie. He only giggles when she holds him."

"He's adorable," Saylee said, reaching for her belt. The twitchiness was lessening, but she still felt stiff and knew she should get herself checked out at the hospital on Knot. But there were more important matters to deal with first. In the peaceful Sevii Islands, there was only one group that would conduct black market trading. "Chaz, let's get back to the ferry house and see if we can catch him before he gets on. We need to know exactly who he was going to sell to on Chrono Island."

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They caught the man trying to bully his way onto the ferry with both his Magnemite and his Electrode out. Hernan leaped down from behind Carrie, flaming fists raining down on the Magnemite, and Carrie handed Tobias to Saylee so that she could knock the Electrode out before it could attack— or worse, explode.

"You again?!" the thief complained, releasing two more Pokémon, a Voltorb and a weird pink-and-blue thing that Saylee had never seen before. She cuddled Tobias under one arm while she clicked open the Pokédex with her free hand.

"It's a Porygon, guys," she called down. "And it can change its type, so be careful!"

"And it'll change to the type of your strongest Pokémon!" the thief cackled. "Become a fire-type!"

Saylee released Kaito. "Get the little pink-and-blue one, Kaito."

Carrie had already dispatched the Voltorb with a Bonemerang, and she and Hernan were advancing on the thief. Tobias giggled and clapped his hands, watching them fight. "That's your mummy and daddy, Tobias," Saylee said. "They're some of the strongest there is." Tobias waved his hands and laughed.

"Become an electric-type!" he ordered his Porygon. The programmed Pokémon immediately began to crackle with electricity, making Kaito back up nervously. Tobias giggled again and waved his little hands, which began to glow.

"Tobias…?" Saylee said uncertainly, wrapping her arms around him. Carrie's bone club, which had been arcing back to her hand, suddenly changed course and smacked hard into the Porygon from behind. It gave an eerie little screech and collapsed to the ground. The bone then lost momentum and fell to the ground at Kaito's feet.

"That was new," he said to Carrie, who retrieved her club, looking nonplussed. The thief tried to take the chance to bolt onto the ship, but Hernan chased after him, and with the ferry refusing to cast off, there was nowhere for the thief to go.

"What happened?" Chaz said as he landed and Saylee slipped off his back. "Saylee? Did you see?"

Saylee looked down at Tobias and then handed him to Carrie. "He was watching you and Hernan battle… I think he enjoyed it, he was giggling. Then he waved his hands, they glowed, and, uh…"

"Mummy!" Tobias said happily, giving Carrie a hug.

"His first word!" Hernan gasped, dragging the thief over to them.

"His first attack, too," Kaito said, leaning over and ripping their captive's coat off with his scythes. "Now give it back! It doesn't belong to you!"

A clear blue stone fell onto the ground. It was sharp-edged, like a fragment of something. When Saylee picked it up, it felt slightly warm. She held it up to her ear and gasped.

"I can hear waves!" she said, holding it away again. "Not like those…" she said, waving her hand at the waterfront only a few metres away. "Like… huge, deep waves… if that makes any sense."

"They're the waves at the bottom of the sea," Kaito said excitedly.

"How do you know?" Chaz asked. "You've never been to the bottom of the sea."

"I know that," Kaito said irritably, "but I know anyway. Because it just is."

"What is this?" Saylee demanded. "Who are you, anyway? Who were you going to sell it to?"

"My name is Gideon, and I, for your information, am a genius," Gideon sneered.

"Your training abilities say otherwise," Hernan said dryly.

"What you are holding in your hands," Gideon continued, ignoring him, "is a fragment of an ancient relic of untold power! Didn't you read the engravings in the cave? Well, I doubt you could, it's a very rare dead language. It talks of ancient people sealing it away so that the sea could not destroy them!"

"Then don't you think it would be a better idea to leave it there?" Saylee asked, looking at the rock. Gideon laughed.

"I am a man of science, not some credulous cave-dweller," he scoffed. "Those Rocket idiots probably would have blown up the cave to find it… I promised to retrieve it for them, for a very handsome fee. I would have been rich if it weren't for you idiots!"

"Rockets?" Saylee said sharply. Gideon yelped as Hernan's grip on his arms increased. Carrie tucked Tobias protectively under one arm, gripping her club hard in the other hand. "You said something about Chrono Island, right? Is that where the Rockets are? Where's their main base, Gideon?"

"Oh, I see how it is," Gideon said, lip curling. "Tell you what. I'll gladly take you there if you make this cretin of yours let me go, and then we split the fee when you sell it. Deal?"

"Nope," Saylee said, "because I have a better idea. Carrie doesn't smash your skull for calling Hernan a cretin, and in return you tell me everything I want to know. Deal?"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," Carrie said in shock. "That big skull of his would make a fine helmet. I'd just break his neck!"

"Mummy!" Tobias laughed, clapping his hands.

"Now, now, don't be violent in front of your baby," Chaz chided her. "I can roast the flesh off his bones easily, and then you've got an entire clean skeleton— a helmet, a few clubs…"

"I'll tell you!" Gideon yelled in a panic. "Fine, I'll tell you, okay? Savages…"

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"You know I wouldn't actually have killed him," Carrie said, bouncing Tobias on her knee as the boat sped off to Chrono.

"Oh, I know," Saylee said, turning the blue stone over in her hands. "And Chaz wouldn't have roasted him. I know that. He didn't need to."

"And that's because killing is bad, Toby," Carrie said to Tobias. "Understand? Killing is bad."

"Bad!" Tobias said brightly. "Bad?" he said again, pointing at Saylee.

"No, no," Carrie said, shaking her head. "Saylee. Not bad, Saylee."

"Lee!" Tobias said, pointing at Saylee. "Mummy!" he added, pointing at Carrie.

"Very good," Carrie said, giving him a kiss on the top of the head. Tobias giggled.

"Carrie, what are we going to do with him when we get to Chrono?" Saylee asked. "I don't have any spare pokéballs, so I can't put him in one, and the market there didn't have any when we were there last…"

"I trust you to hold onto him," Carrie said, looking up at Saylee. "Hernan, Kaito, Chaz and I can easily handle these b-" she glanced down at Tobias. "-ad men," she corrected herself. "We'll protect both of you. Don't worry."

"I always do," Saylee said, standing up as the captain called down that they were docking at Chrono in a moment."Time to go. Be careful."

"Always am," Carrie promised with a smile, waiting until Saylee had released Hernan, Kaito and Chaz before handing Tobias to her. "After all, whatever would you do without us?"

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There were Rocket guards all along the path to the Warehouse, but all of them were frozen into blocks of ice. Chaz and Hernan melted them out carefully. None were conscious, but none had yet suffocated or frozen to death, so they hadn't been in there long. Lorelei must have reached Chrono just ahead of them.

Saylee kept the blue crystal firmly gripped in one hand and both arms wrapped around Tobias. The crystal was beginning to buzz as they drew closer to the Warehouse, and Kaito kept throwing it uncertain looks.

"It's agitated," he explained. "It just is." Chaz was frowning as he looked towards the Warehouse as well, now visible behind a thin ring of trees.

"So is… something else," he said uncertainly. "Can't you hear it?"

"No," Hernan said, shaking his head. "What I can hear is-" he paused. "Saylee, could you put your hands over Toby's ears, maybe?"

"I'm not entirely sure where they are," Saylee said, shifting her arms so that one was holding Tobias tightly around his middle and the other was gently wrapped around the general level of his eyes.

"Lee!" Tobias giggled, probably thinking it was some kind of new game. As they approached the warehouse doors, Saylee could hear the angry shouting.

"I put in the damned password! OPEN SAYS ME!"

"So, did you find anything on Mt Ember, Lorelei?" Saylee asked. The older woman was shouting angrily at a heavily reinforced door while Jeanette frowned at a keypad next to it.

"I found them trying to steal this," Lorelei said, holding up a clear red crystal. "Stupid thing's been buzzing for a couple of minutes now…"

"So has this," Saylee said, holding up the blue crystal. They stared at the pair for a moment. "I don't know what it is, but I didn't have time to go put it back. I had t get out here."

"Same," Lorelei said, handing Saylee the red crystal. "Here, if you're playing packhorse…" when the two crystals touched, the buzzing stopped abruptly.

"Good!" Tobias declared, waving his little hands. Lorelei stared at him.

"What is— never mind, I need to get in this stupid warehouse, but that guard lied to me about the damn password!" she snarled. "Maybe I should've kept him around until I tried it…"

"Probably," Saylee agreed, frowning at the keypad. Then she smiled. "What was the password you were told?"

"Goldeen need log," Lorelei said, rolling her eyes. "Clearly someone delights in being a clever bugger."

"Good," Saylee said, entering that into the keypad. "The thief I caught told me that the password was 'Yes, nah, Chansey'. He also said that there were two passwords and he didn't know the other." She entered the second password and the door hissed open.

"You're not too bad yourself," Lorelei said, stepping inside. "Come on, and be careful…"

The first room of the warehouse had almost nothing in it except a stack of empty cages and some roller carts. Saylee's skin crawled just to look at the cages, and she decided to keep a hand over Tobias' eyes. The little one was beginning to struggle and whimper against her hand, not liking being kept in the dark for so long, but it was better than seeing what was behind the door into the main store room.

"Ah…" Chaz winced, wings arcing up over his head. Hernan, Carrie, Kaito and Jeanette all winced as well.

"I know," Saylee said, staring around in horror. "This is… awful…" The moans and wails of Pokémon in pain filled the air. She couldn't even see how far back the rows of cages went, but every single one of them contained a Pokémon that was curled up on itself in some way and crying in pain. Some were merely whimpering, like Saylee's team; others were full-on screaming, mainly young ones.

"Not just… the screaming…" Carrie hissed. "That… screech… what is that…?" Tobias started to cry, and Saylee pressed her arm tighter around his head, desperate to block out whatever sound was hurting him and the other Pokémon. Even through the howls of pain and whatever screeching was bothering them, the sound of Tobias' crying seemed to hit Hernan and Carrie hard. Both of them immediately straightened up, raising fists and club, fire in their eyes.

Lorelei's expression was perfectly blank, her eyes pressed closed, as if she'd passed so far through rage that she'd hit some pool of calm on the other side.

"Jeanette," she said softly, "Let's open these cages." Jeanette nodded, blasting out a cold blizzard that encased the cages in ice.

"Break the ice, Hernan, Carrie!" Saylee ordered. Hernan's fists smashed through the frozen metal as if it was rotten wood. Carrie's club took out a whole row of cages at once. Various Pokémon crawled, slithered or flapped their way out of the ruined cages and made for the door behind Saylee and Lorelei.

At the other end of the warehouse, Saylee could hear shouting. A number of Rockets came running down the corridors of cages towards them.

"I'll handle these scum," Lorelei growled, releasing the rest of her Pokémon. All of them winced in pain. "Find out whatever it is they're hearing and shut the damn thing off!"

"Got it," Saylee said, running along the cages, looking for another aisle up to the back of the warehouse where all the Rockets had come from.

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The next chapter should be the last and then an epilogue.

Blergh. Busy life is busy. In the past eight days I've gone from being a bum living with my parents next year to having a share in a cheap, nice flat with three classmates in a good part of the city \o/ Though packing and arguing with the letting agent over whose job it is to fix the broken window and getting insurance keeps taking away writing time. DAMN YOU, REAL LIFE, INTERFERING WITH MY FANFICS. :P

Before anyone asks about Tobias learning to speak when he's less than a day old… I figure that Pokémon young develop much faster than human young because they're born from eggs. Young that are born from eggs stand the chance of being born without parents around or with the parents actually dead, something which obviously never happens with live young. As such, they will need to be able to move around, feed themselves and communicate with siblings very quickly. So there's nothing wrong with day-old Tobias already being able to talk and use Metronome :P

And I could not have made this up, but the very first time I fought with Tobias and used Metronome, he used Bonemerang. I though "Awwww, he's trying to be just like Carrie!" and from that moment on was Carrie and Hernan's adopted baby.

Name: Tobias. Species: Togepi. Location: Hatched Ruin Valley, egg obtained Water Labyrinth. Nature: Serious. Ability: Serene Grace.

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