Leaving Mahogany Town's gym, panting, Lyra grasped her chest and hunched over. "That battle really took it out of me!" she said with a gasp, knowing it was even MORE so for Kneebiter. "But I guess it IS later in the day now… or actually, early." She peered up at the glowing sky and witnessed the stars already fading away to light of the before-dawn hours. "Seems I went a whole 'nother day without sleeping… but that's OK," she reasoned aloud. "I slept for days before that, after all."

Taking a step forward, Lyra's mind outlined her battle just then and a nagging feeling settled in her gut. We may have won, she thought—an aftertaste of loss hitting her, but if the opponent's speed had been any faster, we would've been outgunned. If they had succeeded in setting up hail as planned, Kneebiter's defeat… would have been certain.

Wrapping herself up in her cape, Lyra stared down at her feet—at the tops of her dusty red loafers—and pierced through the meaning of their victory. I've had this slight feeling for some time now, but it's clearer now, she thought; I can't ignore this flaw in my team any longer… I believe IN their strengths, but I also believe their weaknesses. If we are to train ON the road of ultimate, our party needs one more player—one more soul to turn our game around. She sweated anxiously, realizing what had to be done. I have to do… that.

And whatever THAT was, it certainly had to be done. Even better yet, it had to be explained, since not even Lyra could explain it to herself. It was just that certain! In the meantime, Lyra's half-conceptionalized plan would remain that way, for all of a sudden—in violation of her usual sharp reflexes—she realized that her phone had been ringing and vibrating on her bag the whole time. "Ah! It's Elm," she said, curiously opening and answering the phone in a deep voice: "I thought I told the office not to call me on the weekend!"

"Uh—Lyra?" Elm asked, sounding very confused.

Lyra laughed shortly at her indulgent joke before answering. "Hey Professor, how's it going?"

"G-good," Elm said with hesitance. "You?"

"Good. Good!"

"Good." With all these admissions of 'good', Elm felt they were turning into good pokemon. "I called… because something weird is happening with the radio broadcasts."

"Mh-hm," Lyra emitted, following this very closely, since it was bound to be of import. That's the Professor for you, she thought proudly. Straight to the point!

"On all of the stations, they were talking." He paused. "About Team Rocket."

Nearly dropping her phone in surprise, Lyra clutched it tighter to her ear and trembled, forgetting to answer him in time.

"Lyra, with all your traveling around Johto lately, you may have seen suspicious activity… activity you haven't told me or even your own mother about," he went on, almost as if he were aware of all the trouble Lyra had been causing for the past few weeks. "Do you know anything about it?" With the forbidding way he spoke, he almost sounded EXACTLY like a trainer who was about to withdraw his pokemon from the battlefield.

And that would be her.

"W-what are you saying?" Lyra answered, gulping down several large knots pooling in her throat. "I… I have been SO focused on pokemon battling—and NOT causing property damage, NOR being a caped vigilante, and NEVER getting in trouble with the police—to notice anything!"

Elm held his doubtful silence for an unbearably pregnant moment before speaking again. "Maybe Team Rocket has returned." He sighed wearily, thinking about the consequences of such an event in relation to Lyra's future. "No, that just can't be true…" The truth was, he didn't WANT it to be true, because his worries weren't unfounded. There was precedence. Yes, he remembered the rumors surrounding the phantom third rival from three years back—the girl who had sacrificed one of her closest comrades so Red could defeat Team Rocket. The loss was said to have been so great for her, she lost all direction as a trainer and eventually faded out of the spotlight after her momentary stint as Champion. After that, no one knew where she went—not even Gary Oak, who continued searching for both her and Red from thereon after.

Such tragic run-ins with danger and then final disappearances… They seemed to be the fate of two-out-of-three Champions. Elm knew that if he became the cause—the benefactor of such a fate with Lyra—it would destroy both her and her mother, and he would never forgive himself. He may have been blind to it years before, but now that Lyra was cropping up before the fault-finding public eye, he was starting to see the hypocritical ways he had been treating her and her family.

"Elm," Lyra said, interrupting his tumultuous thoughts. "I know we barely know each other, and I'm not nearly as impressive as Crystal, but… believe in me. And in my way. And believe in yourself, who chose me. Do your best and never regret the choices we made. We made them alone yet together."

Taken aback by Lyra's self-assurance—and especially by the way she assured him—Elm's troubles fell out of his mind and he momentarily forgot he was even talking to a child. "Hn," he let out, unable to say anything against what she'd said. It was the truth, in its rawest form. Right now, he had to believe in her, no matter the dangers. Because after being unleashed like she had been, the ordinary could no longer be applied to her; she had already evolved into the makings of a champion, and a frightening one at that.

Solemnly understanding this and saying their goodbyes, Elm hung up, and after the click, Lyra listened to the droning disconnect tone for awhile before ending her line, tuning into the radio and then listening in. "Testing! Testing 1, 2, 3…" Hissing and scratching overtook most of the radio announcer's words, but the broadcast straightened itself out. "We're the amazing Team Rocket!" the announcer said, a recording of their devious anthem playing in the background. "It's been three years but we've rebuilt the team and restructured, and we're proud announce that we're back—"

"—They're there," Lyra realized aloud, scurrying to unlatch Aerodactyl's pokeball. "The Goldenrod Radio Tower."

"Giovanni! Can you hear this?!" the radio announcer went on: "We finally did it!"

"Bird-o, go!" Lyra yelled with a flick of her wrist, Aerodactyl's pokeball uncapping and his form swooping out, over, and under her—whisking her off into the paling sky.

On Lyra's bag, her wind-battered pokegear radio still blared out: "Where could the boss be, I wonder? I wonder if he heard this announcement…"


Taunting voices called out in the dark, and even though Silver chased after them, he fell further behind until they seemed to be lightyears away in the unimaginable space beyond. Failure. The paralyzing fear and affliction of it. Doubt, helplessness, disappointment, and anger. Unable to go on but knowing he could never stop—not with such pathetic feelings born from weakness—he noticed the soft warm blankets enveloping him and he finally woke up, the source of his stressful dream buzzing up above him on a cabinet.

"—the amazing Team Rocket!" the amateur radio announcer went on. "It's been three years but we've rebuilt the team and—"

Averting his eyes to the ceiling, Silver noticed a leathery old face peering down at him through candlelight. Too stupefied to yell or even move, Silver stared back, grasped his blankets up to his nose, and held his breath until he recognized it was a woman. What is UP with me and old ladies? he thought after brief introspection, rolling away and sitting up. He shrugged off his blankets. "Why am I here?" he asked her, holding his drowsy head and listening closely to the Team Rocket broadcast. "So they're still out causing trouble…"

The old lady stood up. "You were brought here by a sexy woman," she explained, wandering away to switch the room light on. "She asked us to watch over you. Then she left!"

Silver paused at this description before turning away. "No clue who THAT is," he said, jumping out of bed. And I didn't hit my head and forget, Silver thought bitterly. I won't forgive that giant woman for pulling that Dragon Show-off Stunt twice!

Taking a moment to gain his bearing and fully awaken, Silver focused when he recognized how familiar everything was. I've seen this before, he thought, looking behind him at the dining table beneath the far window. Of course… I know this place. Isn't this that daycare? And that old woman. She's related to that guy—

The side door slid open and (right on cue) Ethan, the childhood friend, appeared. "Grandmother!" he yelled, out of breath. "Team Rocket—they took over the Radio Tower—during Crystal's early-morning radio interview! They tricked her out of her pokemon and I was no match… We need to gather the strongest pokemon here to fight them off!"

"Hold on," the old woman answered. "We can't just take our clientele's pokemon and thrust them into danger."

"They're already in danger!"

Scoffing at the noisy scene, Silver stood up. "You both have a good point," he said, turning away. "But they negate each other, so shut up."

"Huh?" Ethan emitted and moved closer, squinting his eyes at Silver. "Hey. Have we spoken before?"

Silver frowned uncomfortably and turned away. "No," he answered, "I'd never speak to a weakling like you." And at this, he recalled that ONE time he prank-dialed Ethan from Lyra's phone and—sweating profusely—he filled with further discomfort and added embarrassment. I can't believe it, I only did it one time, Silver thought critically. Of course, it was a dumb idea, but I only blew into the phone! How could he recognize my voice through something like that alone?

Ethan crossed his arms finally. "Hey. You know Lyra, right?"

Though Silver was sweating so much now that he needed a new shirt above anything, he searched for his jacket—which he only just then noticed was missing. "Humph," he scoffed forcedly. "Who DOESN'T know about Lyra? Among us top trainers, she's something of a legend."

Ethan leaned over his grandma's shoulder, observing something. "Hmm, that may be true. But. Your name's Silver, right?"

These correct assumptions could no longer be mere coincidence. "Why?" Silver demanded, his discomfort surmounting. "Did Lyra herself TELL you about me?"

"No," Ethan said, holding up Lyra's old cape, all the candid photos of her, and Silver's trainer's card. "But I found these babies in your jacket pocket!"

Turning completely red, Silver shielded his face with one hand and jumped at Ethan, attempting to grab his stuff back with the other. "What gives you the RIGHT to STEAL other people's THINGS?" he yelled, his rage building every time Ethan slipped away. "GRRR, hold still you—"

"—Hmm, if your name is Silver, which is the name of the one who broke into the lab," Ethan muttered, holding his chin in thought while dodging all of the boy's attacks, "then that means your Feraligatr was Elm's Totodile. And your Sneasel. He was probably that Pokemaniac's…"

Silver stopped to search his now empty pants pockets. "What did you do with MY pokemon?" he snapped.

"He didn't do anything, dear," Ethan's grandmother spoke up, handing Silver back his jacket. "Your pokemon were all dirty and fatigued so I bathed them. Feraligatr and Sneasel were having a good time so I left them in the daycare and put the rest back in here." She patted the jacket.

"That's right," Ethan added. "On my way here, I noticed them CANOODLING in the front yard with some Ditto."

"Canoodling?" Silver repeated, unsure as to what this meant but certain it was absolutely no good. After slipping his jacket back on, he pushed past Ethan, retrieved his belongings, and then ran out the side door—Ethan following him in turn.

When the two boys ran past the hot spring bath and into the lush indoor garden, they happened Feraligatr, who was cuddling in the big center gazebo with a beady-eyed, pink copy of himself. So strange was the sight, the two boys couldn't help but stop and gawk uncomfortably.

Overcoming his shock, Silver groaned in disgust. "What IS that thing?" he demanded and pointed at the pink Feraligatr, duly unsettled by its counterfeit appearances.

Ethan chuckled in amusement. "I told you earlier, your pokemon were CANOODLING with some Ditto," he said, using that difficult word yet again. "Didn't you know? Ditto are total players. But can you blame them? If you could morph into anyone's strike zone, I think you'd do the same." Ethan snidely folded his arms behind his head and added, "I mean, you'd kinda have to… if you're aiming for that person…" He then snorted in light of Silver's stalker memorabilia.

"Shut up!"

"Hey." Ethan put his hands up. "I understand your pain. And I only meant that Lyra's tastes are just that abstract."

Silver huffed. "What? Is that supposed to help me feel better?" Despite his efforts to act cool about this, his curiosity caved in. "What are they?"

"I'm talking super fighting robots," Ethan explained, holding his arms out to demonstrate the dimensions of something. "And space aliens!"

Silver stood very still to contemplate these dimensions, and as he was doing so, his Sneasel walked up on him and began using his back legs as a scratching post. "…What are we talking about again?" the boy wondered aloud.

Before Ethan could reveal any more secrets, a massive magic circle appeared underneath the gazebo—from out of nowhere—and consumed the entire room with its cosmic, primordial energies.

"Hmm… did Grandma install new deck lights again?" Ethan wondered aloud, watching the symbols on the magic circle glow white and reverberate with deafening space drumming.

Silver held his ears, certain that these were NOT deck lights. "Sneasel!" he yelled, outraged at being subjected to such an anomaly. "What did you DO?"

Sneasel, no more sure himself, mewled pitifully and climbed up Silver like a carpeted pet tower, his claws digging into Silver's chest as the three of them watched the magic circle intensify and rob their perception of reality. Soon enough, they—and the gazebo with Feraligatr and his mate inside—were flying over rings of light, the universe, imploding nebulas, more magic circles, forests, oceans, rainbows, skies, cities, and all sorts of mind-numbing astral nonsense.

"Great Golbats," Ethan said as they hovered over the magnified view of a circuit board and then a fiery red sunset. "This is just like my Grandpa's desktop's screen saver!"

Unable to keep anywhere near as calm as Ethan, Silver yelled in existential pain and grasped his face, his mind peeled away by the terrifying rapidness of the seemingly random images (and also Sneasel's claws). "What… what the f..." He held his head as they passed through a rumbling volcano and then unexplainably between the charging clouds of a lightning storm. "Make it stop, it's violating my mind!"

Ocean waves crashed and the previous volcano exploded. Once again, they were hovering through the very image of space—in the middle of the mind-crushing void—and over their little blue planet which buried all their insignificant worries on its tiny, far-away surface.

"You know," Ethan said, noticeably shaken in spite of his level-headedness thus far. "This was all very weird. But at the end of the day, I'm sure a pokemon did it."

"I don't think it's over yet," Silver retorted. And it wasn't. Before he could even close his mouth, the image of space rifted in on itself and they were pulled inside a time warp, the insides of a living cell, a galaxy, and then a monochrome eclipse which spun around to reveal they were approaching the planet at a breakneck speed. By now, Ethan was screaming and Silver was squeezing Sneasel—the both of them hyper-ventilating and suppressing the very real urge to cry.

In a final flare-up of light, the initial magic circle re-appeared and flickered in and out of their physical plane before dying down, taking all its disturbingly preachy imagery with it, and phasing them back into the daycare's lush indoor garden with everything still intact. It was almost as if their incredible journey had never even transpired.

Silver, continuing to hyper-ventilate (well after reality had been restored), jolted when he noticed a giant egg with blue oval spots roll down the nearby gazebo steps. "Y…you," he started uncertainly, pointing a shaky finger at Ethan. "Tell me. What is that thing?"

Ethan, proud that his talents were naturally recognizable (especially by a brute like Silver), went forth and retrieved the egg. "It looks like a pokemon egg," he said, holding it close to his chest and turning it over. "A Feraligatr egg, to be exact." He held his ear closer in thought. "I wonder… if this is directly connected to what just happened. If so, we've just witnessed a miracle!"

Silver dropped Sneasel and held his breath. "No way," he uttered, his face turning blue from the lack of oxygen. "Are you saying. Are you trying to say. That all of that just now… is how pokemon are born?"

Ethan cradled the egg and smiled. "Well… uh. Yes, I suppose so! Congratulations, Silver. You're a PokéGrandpa!"

Silver glared unforgivingly at Feraligatr and then exploded. "IDIOT," he yelled, shaking his fists ballistically at the clueless pokemon. "Why are you BIRTHING through time and space AND at such a critical moment? Team Rocket is taking over as we speak! This is UNPARDONABLE. You fill me with shame."

Understanding this now, Feraligatr frowned and appeared deeply ashamed as well. Who knew if he would ever be pardoned by the boy!

In spite of all this drama, Ethan forced a smile. "Aw, come on now. You can't begrudge your pokemon a little bit of romance on the side. Besides, what's done is done. And life must go on." He held the egg out to Silver. "Do you want to keep it or not? If not… my Grandma says these make phenomenal quiche."

Silver ripped the egg from Ethan's hands and gave him a fierce scowl. "This is mine," Silver said, holding the egg away. "And if Feraligatr won't take responsibility for it, I will." And he held it guardedly at his side, because perhaps he saw a little bit of himself in that thoughtlessly-made, abandoned egg which had a lone prospective future as quiche. Or perhaps, it was because Sneasel was going nuts meowing and begging to have it as a delicious snack. "You dumb house Sneasel!" Silver scolded him. "You can't eat this! You'd just barf it up anyway!"

Feraligatr, understanding the nature of the conversation before, wobbled up beside Silver and took the egg in his gargantuan blue hands. Bending his clawed fingertips backwards, he took extra care holding it, showing he was going to make a promising father.

"So you understand?" Silver asked him, watching as Sneasel now begged and pleaded with Feraligatr instead, the new master of the snacks. Feraligatr nodded and Silver huffed, greatly relieved. "Good," he went on. "Only the weak abandon their young. Don't disappoint me."

Grinning, Feraligatr nodded slowly. "Fra fra," he rasped out between breaths, standing straight and holding the egg up high. Grinning with his gleaming knife-like teeth, he held his head back—opened his mouth—and carefully placed the egg on his tongue, gulping it down like a pill.

Silver watched, mouth agape in horror as a large blue bulge crept down Feraligatr's neck.

Feraligatr had eaten his unborn child.

"Uh…" Ethan uttered, shocked but not nearly as traumatized as Silver now was. "At least he took responsibility for it!"

Facing away, Silver slumped and held his fists against his forehead in searing mental anguish. Is this… Is this the final proof that I've failed to teach my pokemon trust and love? he wondered, trying to comprehend why any creature would eat its own baby. Of all the reasons, this one made the most sense. It's because I taught him to be this way…!

Sneasel, crestfallen now that Feraligatr had packed the snack away, abandoned their brooding master and went back to his own business back around the gazebo. Ethan, left alone with Silver, cautiously patted the boy's shoulder.

"It's not your fault, man," Ethan said gently. "It might seem senseless to you, so much so that you'll torture yourself wrapping your head around it, but sometimes… you just have to accept. Pokemon move in mysterious ways."

Silver looked up, strangely consoled by the boy's words, but then quickly annoyed. "Don't touch me," he snapped, pouting at his misfortune.

Without anything to add, Ethan glanced away and caught sight of Sneasel walking out from behind the gazebo with a pink Ditto copy of himself—and most likely the same Ditto that bred with Feraligatr earlier. Walking arm in arm, the two began nuzzling each other and purring.

"Oh no!" Ethan cried, clenching his fists and trembling. "I don't think I can take this kind of love triangle!"

Catching sight of this scene as well, Silver held his head and yelled a big 'NO!'

Rushing in on Sneasel, Silver grabbed him away and ran out of the garden, with Ethan and Feraligatr racing after them just as pressingly.

~To be continued…~


Hm… I wanted to cram the Radio Tower part in here but it's been a few months since the last chapter release. Gotta throw SOMETHING up for you guys until then. (Well at least it's not Sneasel's throw-up!)

For as much as I'm withholding the coveted Radio Tower part from everyone, I really need to add more climatic stuff after it, huh? No problem. Got lots in store... Heheheh.