Saylee Pokémon: 20 Deaths: 7

Key Pokémon: 29 Deaths: 2

(See the bottom of the chapter for team rosters)

"Hey, Mum!" Saylee said happily as the video connection picked up.

"Saylee! Hello, sweetheart," her mother said happily, leaning towards the screen. "Happy birthday! It's good to see your face… oh, goodness, Saylee, what did you do to your neck?"

Saylee winced, touching the welts from Python's fangs. "It's not important, Mum. They don't show that much."

"Of course it's important, sweetie, otherwise you wouldn't have kept the scars," her mother pointed out perceptively. "What happened?"

"My Mightyena died in a battle," Saylee admitted, "and her mate wasn't happy. It's fine now. He was just angry and grieving. Key returned him, and he's fine now."

"Oh, Saylee… you know, it's nice to think of you travelling with a human, but if she can't control her Pokémon…" her mother sighed.

"Mum! It's not that. Key's a good trainer," Saylee said defensively. "Like I said… his mate just died. He was grieving. Anyone could lose it. It wasn't like I was seriously hurt, and he apologized later, anyway."

"You're too forgiving, sweetheart."

"I'm really not," Saylee said. "The people really responsible for Polly's death, and Winnie, William and Teddy's… Marc, Archie and their cronies… they're still out there somewhere, and if I find them first, they're going to hospital before they go to jail."

"This Archibald Irving and Maximillion Hyland?" Byron said, wandering into the shot and sitting down on the couch next to his wife. "No sign of them here in Sinnoh, if that's any help, or their four assistants. Good to see you, by the way. Soon as the news channels here started talking about the storms in Hoenn, Jo started fretting up a storm about you, and I had to talk the kid out of flying out to come find you!"

"I'm glad he wasn't there," Saylee said fervently. Silver couldn't have done anything against Groudon and Kyogre, even with his powers… Wally getting caught up in the middle of it was bad enough. "There's been no sign of Marc or Archie here, either. That submarine was getting stocked up for a serious long-term undersea expedition. They could stay down there for months, or even years…"

"But they won't, because they'll go stir-crazy," Byron pointed out. "Most people go stir-crazy from a few hours too many in a cave, let alone a sealed little chamber under the sea. They'll either surface or go nuts and kill each other."

"I hope they don't. I can't lock them up if they're dead," Saylee growled. "Never mind them, though. Where is Silver?"

"He just moved to Oreburgh two days ago," her mother sighed, looking genuinely saddened by her stepson striking out on his own. "He passed all the necessary tests to become the Oreburgh Leader, and he's set himself to his apprenticeship with the previous Leader. He's been calling every day to let us know how he's doing, and he seems to be enjoying himself. Apparently they've got a huge fossil collection there."

"That's good," Saylee said with a smile. "Can you give me his number so I can call him next?"

"Sure, sweetie," her mother said, leaning over to her keyboard and typing up the number. It appeared at the bottom of the screen. Saylee added it to her pokégear.

"Are you back in Kanto for long?" Byron asked.

"Well, I promised to go back to Hoenn to see my friend Key compete in the Hoenn League," Saylee said, "but until then—" She glanced at her Pokégear as it buzzed, the caller ID flagging up Lavender Ranger Station. "I'm really sorry, I've gotta take this," she said apologetically.

"Don't worry about it," her mother said, looking at the Pokégear with concern.

"Saylee here," Saylee said, picking up.

"Sar Kanto?" a woman's voice said. "This is Patricia. I'm a priestess at Lavender Tower."

"Hi, Patricia," Saylee said, frowning. "Is something the matter? Why are you calling from the ranger station? Where are the rangers?"

"There are two here, Hope and Zeke, but they're both unconscious… I think they've been attacked. They're bleeding, but they're alive, and I already called the hospital in Saffron to come get them."

"They were attacked?" Saylee said, standing up and drawing a slightly incredulous scowl from Blue as he wandered into the room.

"Hey, Jo. Hey, Byron," he said, waving at the TV—Jo mouthed 'Happy Birthday' and gave him a thumbs-up—before turning his attention back to Saylee. "Who got attacked?" he asked.

"Lavender ranger outpost," Saylee muttered. "Patricia, do you know who attacked them?"

"I think it might have been the… odd group of people who came into the Tower, asking for Mr Fuji. There was a young man, blond, grey suit, who came in, saying he wanted to talk about funeral arrangements… but when I gave him directions to Mr Fuji's, I saw him leave, and a group of other people were waiting outside and followed him. They were all dressed in the same odd grey clothes, and they had green hair…"

"Grey and green…? Hey, Blue, do you have the Ghaliya picture?" Saylee asked, briefly covering the mouthpiece on her Pokégear.

"Is everything alright, sweetheart?" Johanna asked, leaning forwards.

"This one?" Blue said, pulling up the picture drawn from the memories of a dying Girafarig on his own Pokégear. It was a fuzz of vague colour, but there were some shapes that could be human that were mostly grey with green on top.

"Some people who might be the people in this picture just turned up at Lavender Town and might have attacked the rangers there," Saylee said, returning to her pokégear conversation. "Patricia, did you see anybody with purple hair?"

"No, just the blond man and his green-haired friends… they're chasing people away from Mr Fuji's, and people have heard them arguing… the ghosts are starting to get agitated. That was why I came for the rangers, but…"

"I'll be right there," Saylee promised, standing up and mouthing 'sorry' to her mother and stepfather. They both mouthed 'Good luck' back and switched off the video call. "Where are Carrie and the other Marowak? Where's Hernan?"

"One of the oldest Marowak just died. They're serving her funeral down in their catacombs. None of us dare go down there. Hernan and Tobias are the only ones that can go down there that aren't Cubone or Marowak. Without them, the only ones who can calm the ghosts are Mr Fuji and Hayley, but…"

"Get every living person you can reach to the Ranger station," Saylee ordered. "I'll fetch Mr Fuji." She hung up. "I've gotta go," she said apologetically to Blue.

"Yeah, anybody agitating the ghosts is bad news," Blue said, pocketing his Pokégear. "I'll come with you."

"You don't have to," Saylee said, gripping his hand. "I mean, if the ghosts are getting riled up…"

Blue shuddered. "Yeah, that freaks me out," he admitted, "but so does sitting in a corner sucking my thumb while my girlfriend goes to fight murder suspects." He squeezed her hand back. "C'mon. Let's go so we can come back. I think Daisy has cupcakes planned."

Saylee nodded, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Then they went down to the main training hall where most of their Pokémon were relaxing for the afternoon. "We have a situation in Lavender Town," she announced loudly, drawing their attention. "Who wants to come resolve it?"

"Ooh, I hate that place," Charlotte said with a shudder. "It's so creepy."

"What's happening in Lavender Town?" Tobias asked sharply.

"Professor Hawkshaw's killers are there, or people who dress like them," Saylee explained, returning Nadia, Molly and Zac as they hurried over to her.

"Are they after the graves, then?" Mary asked nervously.

"Could be," Saylee said, continuing to return Perun, Eric, Oberon, Skye and Sanborn as they each, in turn, raised paw or wing to indicate a desire to come help. "Could be the graves. Or it could be…" We're best off if they're picking a fight with Hernan and Carrie's clan. At least they can control their power.

"C'mon, let's go," Blue said, returning a selection of his own Pokémon and climbing onto Pete's back. Saylee returned Tobias and Mary and climbed into Chaz's old harness on Charlotte's back. Above them, Steele and Sheska pulled the hatch in the roof open, allowing them to fly out. "If we get out there fast enough, the only people they'll get to pick a fight with are us."

{}

"My gods," Henry muttered, polishing his glasses. An archaeological camp had sprung up around the dome again, featuring as many police officers as archaeologists. Attempts to go down the stairs in the middle of the cavern had been driven back by the Unown, but the mysterious little Pokémon didn't seem to object to the icicles being removed. One of the oldest ones, of a lady in seventeenth-century armour, had been set up in a container surrounded by heat lamps. The ice hadn't melted in eight hours of exposure; the floor around it was bone dry. A call had gone out for trainers with Slugma and Macargo to bring them to crawl over the ice, although people were questioning if it was ice at all. It didn't melt, and not even a sliver could be chipped off.

"They're almost all soldiers," Key said, looking around at the various icicle people being set up within the police cordon. "It's only the recent ones that are researchers…"

"Well, all the old scriptures say that the Regis were made for humanity to protect and help them," Sei said, skimming through dozens of scans of old texts on the media reader in her hands. "All humanity, not any group in particular. Look, here's a story from the sixth century about the Regis of two different villages vanishing as soon as they went to war… they returned three hundred years later, and vanished again as soon as they were forced into battle against each other… on and off, all through history."

"So you're saying that, basically, they got taken away until we learned to play nicely?" Jenny said, looking around at the icicles. "And anyone who tried to force the issue…"

"I wonder what's changed now, though," Megan said with a frown. "Why are we being allowed access again, not only to the sleeping place of the Regis, but to retrieve the bodies of the people taken by the Unown…?" She hurried off towards the icicles, glowing with scientific curiosity.

"I can hazard a guess," Thomas muttered.

Key dragged him away from the other humans as Seka and Jenny leaned over to read something on Sei's media reader. "Do you know what this is about?" she asked quietly.

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Obvious, isn't it?" he muttered. "Regular humans proved plenty of times that they couldn't be trusted to use the Regis properly. But now you've got your humans that are more than that. The Regis aren't for you to use—they're for them."

"I disagree," Manami said. "They were made to protect humans, not be used by them. So now they're needed to protect humans again…"

Key stiffened. "You mean… from the Orbs being misused?" she said. "From Groudon and Kyogre's power being misused?"

"She's got a point," Thomas conceded. "I wouldn't trust those Magma or Aqua assholes to use a Magikarp safely, never mind the power of the gods."

"…I think we need to go to Mt Pyre," Key said, remembering that Saylee had left the shards there—the last fragments of Groudon and Kyogre's power. "I think we need to go to Mt Pyre right now."

{}

Lavender Town, even on a good day, was wreathed in the light purple mist from which the town took its name. The tall, stately tower that rose half-out of the mountainside was actually something of a calming sight on a good day; the pale, weathered stone and the thick vegetation growing from the ancient masonry could be quite pleasant to look at.

The black mist starting to pour from the tower windows told Saylee that today was not a good day.

"They're outside Mr Fuji's," Blue called, pointing down at the group of people outside of the largest house still standing near the tower. As they circled downwards, they saw that three green-haired individuals were standing back and watching silently as a blond young man in a grey suit spoke to an irate-looking Mr Fuji.

"Nobody move," Blue ordered as Charlotte and Pete landed either side of the group. Blue immediately released Sam and Mario—his huge, tough Blastoise and Machamp. Saylee released Mary and Tobias. Tobias stared up at the Tower with a concerned expression.

"Good grief," the blond young man said in surprise, actually spinning on the spot to stare wide-eyed at Saylee. "What a lot of frightening-looking people. Can I help you at all?"

"I'm taking you all in for questioning about the assault on two rangers near here and the murder of Professor Melody Hawkshaw," Saylee said, walking up to the blond. "All of you please come quietly to the nearest ranger station. Are they bothering you, Mr Fuji?" she asked.

"They sure are, coming around here and asking questions about scientific research or some rubbish," Mr Fuji said, crossing his arms and scowling. "I don't know if you know anything about Kanto, mister, but I can't remember what I was doing before twenty years ago, so it don't mean a damn thing to me what documents you found my name on!"

"What? …Right," Blue said, narrowing his eyes on the strangers. "C'mon, you lot, let's leave Mr Fuji alone and go for a walk." Sam clicked out her cannons, and Mario started physically pushing the three green-haired people towards the road to Saffron.

"Excuse me! We aren't doing anything wrong!" the blond complained, releasing a fat blue-and-white feline Pokémon that Saylee didn't recognize. "Who do you think you are, trying to arrest us? Get them!"

Saylee stepped back as Charlotte jumped in to intercept the blue-and-white Pokémon as it leapt at Saylee with a hiss, claws extended. The three green-haired people, who had been standing quietly throughout the altercation, suddenly leapt into action, releasing a trio of Golbat that Wing Attacked Mario to the ground. They also released several round, blue, metallic Pokémon that lifted Sam off of the ground with some kind of psychic energy.

"Mary, get those Golbat!" Saylee ordered. "Tobias… can you do anything about those blue… whatever they are?"

"They're psychics," Tobias said, flicking his wings to send a barrage of Shadow Balls at the blue psychics. Mario got up as Mary zapped the Golbat away and punched out the fat Pokémon that Charlotte was grappling with.

"Nice try, guys," Blue said, grabbing one of the green-haired people and forcing their hands behind their back while Sam lifted the other two by their necks. "That wasn't suspicious at all…"

"You're all under arrest," Saylee said, stalking towards the blond man, who smiled in an unsettling way and pulled a remote out of his pocket.

"Look, I didn't wanna do this…" he sighed, holding up the remote, "but there's twenty-four blast charges connected to this button here. Wanna guess where they are?" Saylee glanced up at the tower. "Bingo! We figured we might have to… negotiate aggressively to get the lowdown on the Mew Two project, so we prepared a few party favours."

"Threatening all those graves…" Mr Fuji gasped, wringing his hands. "What kind of evil are you?!"

"Evil? Don't be melodramatic!" the blond said, rolling his eyes. "We're going to make a better world! Knowing how to manipulate the power of the gods would help, buuuuuut…" He smiled over Saylee and Blue's Pokémon, frozen still and watching the detonator in her hand. "Every little helps! Your Pokémon look cool! Line up over there and show 'em all to me!"

"What the hell are you blabbering about?" Blue demanded.

The man waved the detonator at the ruined shell of the old house across from Mr Fuji's, reconstruction work having never really reached Lavender Town like the rest of Kanto. "You and your girlfriend stand in front of that wall and release all of your Pokémon," he ordered with a grin. "I wanna see 'em all! But tell 'em that if they attack, the Tower blows."

"I think I know what he's planning," Saylee murmured to Blue, "and it's going to blow up in his face, hopefully not literally. Just go along with it." Blue sulked but did so, standing with his back to the wall and releasing Gary, his Arcanine, Ryan, his Rhyhorn, and Adam, his Alakazam. Saylee released Zac, Molly, Nadia, Skye, Oberon and Sanborn and explained to them that they had to obey the blond human or graves would be blown up.

"Ummmm… but if they're threatening graves," Molly said, looking around in confusion, "won't it be like Mt Pyre when—"

"Probably," Saylee muttered. "What now, blondie?"

"My name is Mercury, not blondie," Mercury said loftily. "Now I want you to take the empty pokéballs and crush them. Every single one. Or else…" he waved the detonator in the air.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, you psycho," Blue grumbled, dropping his pokéballs to the ground one at a time and grinding them under his heel. Saylee did the same while her Pokémon watched curiously.

"You'd think you'd feel something when they do that," Zac commented.

"You'll feel it soon," Mercury promised, looking to his subordinates. "Right, you three! Get out some Ultra Balls and catch all of these Pokémon! Go in the pokéballs quietly and no harm will come to the Tower or your trainers," he added sweetly to the Pokémon.

Pokéballs don't control a Pokémon's mind, Saylee thought. The first time he tries to use any of them, they'll destroy him. And I know Tobias can get out of his pokéball of his own will.

As can I, Adam's voice said in her head and, presumably, Blue's. I expected it would be something along those lines, but I must warn you that it will not get that far…

Saylee jumped as something cold touched her ankle. She looked down to see clammy black smoke flowing across the ground, roughly at mid-calf and rising every second.

"Wh-what the hell is this?!" Mercury screamed as black mist enveloped him. Saylee heard more screaming but, thankfully, no explosions.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, dropping to the ground with her hands over her ears as howling filled her brain. She reached for Blue, who was shaking violently, staring blank-eyed into the mists. "I'm sorry, I'm trying to protect you, I swear I am…"

The screaming faded as Mary and Tobias approached, the latter of whom was glowing brightly. "I've told them all to leave you alone," the Togekiss said. "They will… they're focusing on them."

"I wish I could return everyone," Saylee muttered. With Tobias protecting her, the mist didn't seem as dark; she could see through it to where the rest of her Pokémon were shivering in fright while Mercury and his three lackeys writhed and screamed on the ground. Mr Fuji was standing serenely over them, holding the detonator with a disgusted expression.

"We'd better at least call for them to get closer," Blue said shakily. "PETE! SAM! MARIO! GARY! RYAN! FOLLOW MY VOICE!"

"ZAC!" Saylee shouted. "MOLLY! SANBORN! CHARL—huh?"

There was a pink flash as something appeared next to Mr Fuji. "Grandpa?" a girl of about twelve said, grabbing Mr Fuji's arm and staring in confusion at the smoke. "What's going on?" She turned to the other figure that had appeared with her. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Saylee gasped as she recognized the strange, pale figure of Mewtwo in the smoke. The hugely powerful psychic had raised its bulbous fingers to its forehead, pressing them down hard as he slowly sank to his knees. He looked like he was in immense pain. "EVERYONE GET AWAY NOW!"

"TELEPORT AWAY!" Mr Fuji shouted desperately. "YOU CANNOT TAKE THIS, YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T! YOU MUST FLEE, YOU MUST—"

Then Mewtwo screamed in pain. There was a flash of light, and then darkness.

{}

{}

On Thursday, Sir Terry Pratchett died, with a cat sleeping on him and his family around him. As ways to go, it's pretty good.

When I was about twelve, my dad gave me his copy of The Wee Free Men to read. It was transformative. I read it while eating, while walking to and from school, while I was in the bath, sneaking it under my desk to read when I was bored in maths, staying up to read it until I passed out on the pages. I was enraptured by Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegle and a story about stories. I was ecstatic when I found out there were more than thirty more books in the same world by the same author (although I was initially disappointed that they weren't all about Tiffany). I read them all, and then I read them again and again and again, and I still reread them now and find new things in them every day. The Discworld series changed my life and changed me. These books have moulded so many of my beliefs, my morality, how I feel about people and the world. They infected me with Sir Pterry's tremendous love of words and stories. Reading Discworld was the point where my love of reading started to spill back out into an interest and love of writing. Because of Terry Pratchett I love crafting stories and want to spend my life doing it. I write because of Terry Pratchett and the world he created atop four elephants on the back of a gigantic turtle. So much of who I am is because of him, and that world, and the people in it. To me, this is so much more than the loss of a celebrity. It's the loss of somebody who made me who I am, a loss that tore at me when I found it out, and the world is a lesser place for his no longer being in it.

But it's also so, so much greater for his having been here, and how very blessed we are that he left so much of himself behind. The Disc remains, the stories remain, and we are all gifted.

If you've never read any Discworld book, I cannot give you any better life advice than to do one of two things: either pick up The Wee Free Men, Guards! Guards! Or Wyrd Sisters as a starter and let the light of Discworld into your life, or, if you can't access the books, look up Mark Oshiro's "Mark Reads Discworld" series on YouTube. Mark has so far read I think nine of the books, aloud and on-camera, so his videos are kinda like a free audiobook while also including Mark's commentary and theorization, which I love because it transports me back to the feeling of experiencing the Discworld for the first time. Please check Discworld out. You will never read anything that will do more for your mind and your soul.

In memory—because I think he'd like people creating because they were inspired by him, almost as much as he liked orang-utans—I'm trying to get a bit more serious about writing a fantasy novel that I've been rolling around for a while by blogging daily on the tumblr "burnthatbridge". The novel is called We'll Burn That Bridge When We Come To It and has its original basis in this very nuzlocke world; I more or less came up with the idea by taking some of the characters I created for this 'verse and transporting them into a fantasy setting, and then suddenly worldbuilding and politics and fictional history and mythology and elves and dwarves and dryads and kelpies and fairies all happened and it stopped being a joke and started being a legit idea. Please check it out if fantasy is your thing :)

Finally, I feel like I should announce that I finished writing the first draft of Calamity Calls some months ago and as such what happened here in Lavender and what happened next are not me taking my grief out on the readership. At least, not Pratchett-related grief…

SAYLEE

Zac the Linoone, Molly the Azumarill, Skye the Altaria, Sanborn the Sandslash, Oberon the Bellossom, Nadia the Camperupt

GUEST STARRING

Charlotte the Charizard (from the end of Blood and Bone), Tobias the Togekiss (from After Armageddon and Blood and Bond), Mary the Ampharos (from Blood and Bond), Eric the Espeon (Red's Espeon), Perun the Pikachu (Red's Pikachu)

KEY

Thomas the Grovyle, Leslie the Linoone, Python the Mightyena, Manami the Azumarill, Shikoba the Swellow, Topaz the Flygon

BLUE

Sam the Blastoise, Pete the Pidgeot, Adam the Alakazam, Gary the Arcanine, Mario the Machamp, Edgar the Exeggutor