In which Lily faces a very nasty ethical dilemma testing her newfound convictions, realizes her own limits, and accepts that she might not be suited to the task she's given herself.


"Blue skies," Ash said longingly as he stared out at the picturesque view in front of them.

"White clouds," Brock added with a sigh.

"And sea as far as you can see," Misty finished, summing up the beautiful view of the ocean before them quite nicely.

It was, indeed, blue skies, white clouds, and the glittering blue sea stretching off into the horizon. Interrupted only by the taunting traffic of the industrial port whose ships weren't taking passengers.

"Oh," Ash said as he stared off at yet another bulky, silver, ship leaving port, "I wish that ship could take us off this island."

We find our heroes stranded at Puerto Vista, the only town on the island which ferries to the mainland. It seems our friends have missed the boat, and it'll be a long three hours until the next ferry.

"Shut up, narrator," Lily said, "Three hours is nothing, I've lasted through weeks of Hogwarts."

While this is true, and our heroes are in a better condition compared to the last few chapters, it's still about as much fun to wait for a ferry as it is to wait at the DMVP: The Department of Motorized Vehicle Pokémon.

Wizard Lenin, who had been quickly growing sunburnt and more irritable for it, gave her a dirty look, "Lily, who the hell are you talking to?"

"The narrator," Lily said dumbly, blinking in confusion as she took in her friend's very unimpressed expression, "You know, that guy who pipes in to remind us what we've been doing for the past few days, or where we're going, or just let everybody know we're stuck in town waiting for a ferry."

"No, Lily, I don't know, and I don't want to know."

"You should," Lily said with a sigh as she stared out at the beautiful view that she just knew was about to be ruined, "Because whenever the narrator pipes up, things always go downhill."


Ugh, it was hot. Funny, Lily didn't think they'd been on the St. Anne's that long but they'd gone from a temperate to tropical climate. With the warm, sandy, gorgeous beaches came a wave of humidity and heat that made the three hours until the next ferry seem more like three lifetimes.

Still, at least there was a ferry off this island and at least it wasn't deserted and filled with giant pokémon like Lily had originally thought. True, she didn't know why anyone would think an amusement park filled with giant, robotic, death pokémon was a good idea but they were paying the price for that in the millions in property damage Lily and the others had left behind.

Being able to buy new clothes as well as breakfast at a local café had felt heavenly.

Then they'd be back on the mainland and slowly making their way to Viridian—Make that Saffron City, Lily didn't know why she kept confusing those two.

"Pika chu chu!" Pikachu interrupted her thoughts. He pointed out towards the still blue water in excitement.

"Oh, look, it's a Horsea," Misty exclaimed, "How cute."

Peering out, just off the pier, was the blue head of a giant seahorse sticking out of the water with large red eyes directed imploringly at them.

Ash scrambled upright, a grin on his face at the thought of a brand new pokémon to encounter, and whipped out his beloved pokédex, "Hey, I'll just get Dexter to tell us about it!"

Dexter, helpful as always, piped in, "Horsea, a dragon Pokémon, this unique pokémon species' thousands of eggs hatch every spring, then the male raises them himself."

"Holy shit, that's a lot of kids," Lily said, trying to even imagine what anyone in the world could do to handle thousands of offspring every spring. Hope they got eaten by whales, she guessed.

"Fairy Clefairy?" Clefairy turned to Dragonite, a question in her lilting voice.

Dragonite just smiled and rubbed the back of his head almost sheepishly, "Oh no, not all dragons are related you know—"

"Oh Clefairy, you jokester, you're killing me!" Lily burst in, laughing forcefully. Her laughter died out and far more drily, she noted, "Seriously, you two are killing me."

Thankfully, as always, the gang seemed to have selective hearing. Brock instead peered out at the water and noted, "It looks like it's injured."

"Huh?" Ash asked, but looking closer, Brock was right. The sea dragon was sporting quite a nasty black eye and looked very scuffed up.

The Horsea let out a pitiful, "Horsea" as it looked at them.

"And there's no pokémon center around here," Misty noted with a frown. Then, with a look of determination, she brought up an empty pokéball, "I know what—"

"Hold it—" Lily started to say, preparing herself to chuck the pokéball to kingdom come, but before she could Horsea beat her to it.

Well, that wasn't to say Horsea ran away or ducked under the water to safety, but instead Horsea turned to the side and shot out jets of ink into the turquoise water. The ink quickly settled into the shape of two giant jellyfish, squids, or octopodes (it was a little difficult to tell).

Horsea then turned back to them imploringly and desperately squeaked out, "Horsea!"

"It's saying something," Ash said in realization.

"We have to take care of its wounds first," Misty insisted, "I'll capture it in my pokéball—"

"Hold it," Lily interrupted yet again, "Are we forgetting that no one is capturing anything while I'm—"

"Well, if what Horsea says is true we probably don't have time for that anyway," Dragonite spoke over her, looking intently down at the little sea dragon. The sea horse, on realizing that somebody understood what it was saying, eagerly came closer and started letting out a long stream of "horses" and "seas" that Dragonite nodded along to.

"Wait a second," Ash said looking at Dragonite in awe, "You can understand it?"

"Of course," Dragonite said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that pokémonese was comprehensible to him.

"That's amazing, how did you manage to do that?" Brock asked, now also looking at Dragonite in wonder.

Dragonite looked at them in confusion, "It's not really something I just manage—"

Oh god, he was going to confess, wasn't he? Lily shoved him slightly and immediately talked over him, "What Dragonite—I mean Draco—I mean Draco Dragonite means to say is that he—um—once worked at a pokémon center as a pokémon healer alongside a Nurse Joy in England."

They all looked at Lily, Dragonite included, engaged in the tale of Draco Dragonite's mysterious origins, "You see Dr. Dragonite here was once a medical practitioner for humans in the town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. However, he quickly found he liked pokémon more, and promptly switched over to become a pokémon physician and made it his life's work to be able to understand every pokémon language in the world."

Wizard Lenin, looking unimpressed and likely realizing Lily had stolen that entirely from Doctor Doolittle, noted, "I thought he was an Albanian refugee."

"—Then he went to Albania, lost all his family, and it was very sad," Lily amended.

Ash, however, didn't have the same eye for detail and instead said, "Wow, that's amazing!"

"Well, I suppose," Dragonite said sheepishly, likely not knowing what to make of praise for doing something as easy as just talking.

"But wait," Lily said, "What do you mean we don't have time?"

"Hm?" Dragonite asked, gathering his thoughts, "Oh, right, just that Horsea says the local Tentacool, whose number are beyond counting, are planning on attacking the island and destroying the city and all who inhabit it."

For a moment, none of them said anything. They all just sort of stared at Dragonite, who didn't seem to understand the urgency of what he'd just said.

"Come again?" Lily asked slowly.

Dragonite pointed out into the harbor where, in the distance, a large building was being constructed just off the shoreline, "The humans have been methodically destroying the coral reef: home to the Tentacool, Horsea, and other marine pokémon. With their home destroyed nearly beyond saving, and many pokémon forced to flee what's been their homeland for generations, the Tentacool have become desperate and vengeful. They've been swarming and destroying what boats they can, slowing human construction, but now they plan to stem it at the source and get rid of the humans once and for all."

Dragonite then looked out towards the sea with a small, considering, frown, "We probably should get out of here while we still can. It's just too bad we missed the boat. I guess we're just going to have to build another raft while Lily surfs us out to the mainland."

"Misty," Wizard Lenin said with a forced calm, "What exactly is a Tentacool?"

"Oh, they're so adorable!" Misty exclaimed while Ash whipped out his pokédex once again.

Dexter, begged to differ. The picture it showed was of a hideous blue squid mixed with a jellyfish with large eerie red globs on the top of its head. It looked as if it had come from out of space to dissect mankind, Lily could think of no better invader of the poor coastal town of Puerto Vista.

"Tentacool, a jellyfish pokémon," Dexter informed them helpfully, "Ninety-nine percent of its body is made up of water."

"Tentacool are so squishy and nice when you hold them," Misty said, a sigh in her voice as she talked about her beloved giant, murderous, jellyfish friends, "And they call the pretty red spot on their heads the ruby of the sea."

"Who calls it that?" Brock asked, looking one more sentence away from vomiting.

"I call it that," Misty justified, "It's my name for it. I don't understand why you can't see their charm. Water pokémon are so beautiful and such depth. Like Horsea right here, it's such a talented artist."

Horsea looked as if it didn't know whether to preen or to insist the gang focus on far more important matters.

"Regardless," Wizard Lenin said, with a glare that reminded them to focus on the problem at hand, "The point is that hordes of these things, which are each three to five feet tall and strong enough to snap the necks of five men at a time, will be swarming the city any moment now hell bent on destruction."

"Yes, that's right," Dragonite confirmed.

"Well, it's been fun," Wizard Lenin said with a cheery smile before looking at Lily, "Lily, time to build that raft. Now."

"Hold it, we can't just leave things like this!" Misty insisted, blocking his path with her arms outstretched.

"Yes, we can," Wizard Lenin insisted back.

"No, we can't!" Misty motioned towards the small, picturesque, city of Puerto Vista, "If we just leave not only will the reef be destroyed but the city too. We have to talk to whoever's in charge!"

"No, we don't," Wizard Lenin said cheerily.

"Yes, we do!" Misty said, hands on her hips and looking as if she was not going to be budged no matter what Wizard Lenin said, "Look, we'll split up. Lily, you know surf, you and the other water pokémon should go down and talk to the Tentacool with Horsea. Go down there and tell them to wait while the rest of us talk to whoever's responsible for all this."

Lily opened her mouth, closed it, wondered how she was supposed to bring up that while Dragonite was fluent in pokémon, Lily wasn't.

"Are you nuts—" Wizard Lenin balked but Misty wasn't having it.

"These people have to be reasonable. Even if the Tentacool weren't going to attack, they're destroying their homes! Pokémon and humans are supposed to live and work together."

Oh, shit, Misty was right. Well, not about the pokémon and people currently living together and working in harmony, Lily had seen enough evidence that that certainly wasn't true. However, the ideal solution to this and the whole pokémon battling thing in general was not the massacre of either humans or pokémon, but somehow bringing both groups forward together into a brighter future.

Which meant Lily was going to have to talk to these very angry jellyfish.

"And you think it will be that easy?" Wizard Lenin asked.

Misty didn't get a chance to answer though as, right at that moment, one of the many silver vessels exploded out in the harbor. The ship split in half, engines burning and producing foul black smoke, while sailors screamed in terror as they jumped overboard.

"I don't know if it'll be easy," Brock said as he ran towards the edge of the pier, taking in the damage in growing horror, "But whatever we do, we better do it quick!"


Horsea guided their way down from the water just beneath the pier into the harbor itself. Swimming swiftly behind her was Squirtle, Staryu, Starmie, Goldeen, and last and the worst swimmer of all of them Lily herself.

She didn't necessarily think she was bad at swimming, but she'd be the first to admit that the Dursleys hadn't paid for any lessons and she had little to no experience being underwater and not drowning. However, thanks to her limitless power, Lily also now had the miraculous ability to breathe underwater, so she supposed it wasn't too bad.

Just as Dragonite had translated, most of the coral reef in the harbor had been destroyed. A vast wasteland of gray sand was interrupted by patches of bleached and dying coral. The bottom was littered with abandoned anchors, barrels of toxic chemicals, and sunken debris.

As they swum further out towards the sea, local pokémon began to gather around them. The dark eyes of the Tentacool watched their progress, translucent red spheres on the top of their heads gleaming in the filtered sunlight. Lily was reminded of crows perched high in branches, looking down at the world with black, contemptuous, eyes as they waited for you to drop dead so they could feast on your bones.

A dozen turned into a hundred, a hundred into three hundred, and soon they were by thousands of glaring Tentacool. One glance at any one of them, Lily thought, and it was clear they were far past the point of negotiating with anyone.

Unfortunately, surrounded as they were, it also became clear that there was no turning back now.

Lily glanced at the others, they each glanced helplessly back, clearly having no idea what to say either. No, clearly expecting her to step up and say something as their fearless leader, because of course they were.

Lily opened her mouth then closed it. She abruptly realized two very important things. First, she was underwater and that made it difficult to talk. Second, even if she could talk, she wasn't going to understand a word they said.

Misty really hadn't thought this one through.

The Tentacool didn't move, however, the red blobs on their head began to glow in unison while their eyes narrowed.

"Squirtle!" Squirtle said, casting a desperate look towards her.

Lily stepped forward, holding out a hand to stop them. The glowing abruptly stopped, good, they understood that much. Slowly, Lily began to move her arms and body, attempting to convey the idea of "try not to destroy all of humanity in your revenge" and "we sent up our friends to negotiate with the enemy" through interpretive dance.

Lily felt as if every eye in the entire world was on her.

When she paused after the first movement, preparing herself to move on to the second dance number, no one said anything for a single second. Then Squirtle fell over laughing. He collapsed onto the seabed, pounding his fist into the dirt, while he let out loud guffaws, "Squirt squirt squirt squirt!"

Lily hoped he remembered that, in her infinite mercy, she had decided not to kill him when he'd poisoned Pikachu and he'd do well not to push her. Either he didn't remember that, or he didn't care as he just kept laughing.

This was it, Lily had to learn how to speak to them. She had to connect with the inner pokémon that Clefairy swore was in there somewhere. Lily closed her eyes, desperately tried to focus, but somehow that just made Squirtle's laughter louder.

To hell with it, there was clearly only one thing left to do. If Lily couldn't go to them, she'd make them come to her.

Lily lifted her hands and carved out a pocket of air from the bottom of the harbor, one large enough to fit not only herself and the gang but also the horde of Tentacool. Then, with one large breath of air, she transformed every one of them into a human capable of speaking directly to humans.


As it turned out, talking to a horde of identical, red-eyed, blue-haired, naked men who spoke in unison was possibly more unnerving than talking to a horde of angry telepathic jellyfish. The other poké-people Lily had made had all more or less seemed human. Sure, sometimes Dragonite didn't bother to put on a good show and constantly let hints slip, but at least he kind of acted like a person.

These guys looked as if they didn't even know how to go about trying.

Squirtle, who'd turned into a blue-haired brat around her own age, seemed to be thinking the same thing, "Are you sure you don't want to turn them back?"

"Shut up, Squirtle."

Squirtle quickly closed his mouth and none too subtly stepped back with the rest of the water pokémon, now water poké-people, who had accompanied Lily down to the bottom of the harbor. All of them, from the elegant and beautiful Goldeen, to the tiny and adorable Horsea, watched with wide eyes while making it clear that whatever Lily did from here on out was all on her.

"So," Lily said slowly, clapping her hands together. The Tentacool made no response, no movement, instead their red eyes all flashed warningly in unison again.

Because that wasn't creepy, or anything.

"So," Lily started again, "I know you're planning on trashing the human city and drowning its occupants, but you really shouldn't do that. I know that they've had no respect for your home, that they've captured you and sold you into slavery, and I know that as it stands if things get any worse, you'll probably die but—"

Well, that was a very good point, wasn't it? If Lily was them, she'd certainly be pissed as hell. Hell, she'd probably have led the charge ages ago to drive the human filth from their shores. When put like that, she really should be offering them a helping hand. The trouble was, that for all her talk, the idea of going and destroying an entire city made her… squeamish. Especially since most of the citizens probably had nothing to do with any of this.

Plus, destroy the harbor and then it'd be Lily's responsibility alone to get the gang off this island.

"Look, let me start over," Lily said with a sigh, "I can restore your home no problem, I can even try to protect it if the humans just go and do it again."

And they would, and she could tell looking in their eyes that they knew it too.

"I'm not saying I blame you for being this angry, I don't, and ordinarily I'd be all for the cause. It's just that it's not all of them up there. Many of them have nothing to do with this and don't deserve to have their home destroyed in return."

Horsea, likely seeing that Lily was struggling, hopped forward and piped in. Horsea was by far the tiniest out of all of them gathered here, young enough that it was impossible to tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Still, with those large red eyes and bright blue hair, the kid probably could have won an alternative beauty pageant. Well, if it wasn't for the giant black eye.

"She's right," Horsea said, "Not all humans are like that, they can't be. Until recently the coral was untouched, and we lived here for a long time without any problems."

The Tentacool opened their mouths and responded in unison, each with the same exact voice, "We had thought the ships would be the end of it as well. Yet, the humans have gone further than that."

As one they gave Lily a challenging look, "We're going to end this and end it now. Any pokémon that gets in our way will meet the same fate as the humans."

"Hold it!" Lily cried out, "Hold it, I'm serious, I am for the cause, but you have to give them a chance. They might have no idea what they're doing to you, humans can be very oblivious sometimes."

She pointed to the surface above their heads, "Right now some human companions of ours are trying to get them to halt construction. At least give them a chance to talk to these people."

The Tentacool looked unimpressed, "We've given them years of chances, look where it's gotten us."

"I'm not asking for another ten years, just another few hours," Lily insisted, "Look, if they don't pull through, if they keep at it even after hearing what it's doing to you, then you have my full permission to take back the island."

"We're not asking for your permission—"

"And I will help you do it!" Lily added in, and that did the trick, that struck them speechless.

"Say what?" Squirtle asked.

But Lily did mean it.

"If the humans can't realize what they're doing," Lily said slowly, never taking her eyes off the swarm of Tentacool, "If they continue, despite the warnings of their imminent destruction, then as a pokémon myself, I will have no choice but to join your cause and sack Puerto Vista."

Once again, they had no response for that, either verbally or with simple facial expressions. Instead, their eyes glowed, flashing now and then, while Lily watched and tried not to be nervous about their final judgement.

How was it, she wondered, that these people were outweirding the Clefairy?

Finally, just when Lily felt like she might burst from the tension, the answered, "We agree to your terms."

Before she could let out a sigh of relief they continued, "The humans have one full day of cease fire to actively show a change in their ways. If they do not, we hold you to your word."

"Thank you," Lily said with a small bow, making to return the water to its prior position and swim to the surface.

"Leave now, however, and the agreement is forfeit," the horde of Tentacool informed her.

"Come again?"

"The humans come to this realization on their own or they don't come to it at all. You wait while we wait, for one full day, or we attack not only them but also you."

"Oh," Lily said lamely, letting her arm fall to her side. Slowly, she looked around to the rest of the gang, "I don't suppose any of you have a deck of cards?"


About a half hour later and Squirtle was valiantly trying to teach his pokémon companions the basics of poker.

He rubbed at his hair yet again, sighing as he said, "Listen, poker's not that hard, you just—"

Goldeen, an elegant orange haired woman with creamy skin, looked down at the cards in both confusion and distrust, "How do you even know this?"

"Look, I picked up a lot of human culture out in the wild," Squirtle said, "You might even say I'm an expert."

Lily didn't know if the ability to use a spray can counted as being an expert in human culture, but she wasn't going to disagree. It was better than looking past him and noting that they were still being guarded by the thousands of motionless, murderous, Tentacool.

"But why bother?" the golden-haired and dark skinned Staryu asked, looking in askance towards its older brother Starmie.

"I do not try to understand such human things," Starmie answered wisely in turn.

"You do it because you get bored!" Squirtle said, "It's not that hard to understand!"

Apparently giving up, Squirtle tossed the deck of cards back to Lily, who caught them in one hand. He then walked over towards her, leaned in close, and spoke softly into her ear, "Look, not that this isn't fun or anything, but say it doesn't work out on Ash's end, are we really going to just sit down here and then wreck the city?"

It was impossible to tell if the Tentacool could hear him or not. As always, they gave no indication one way or another, but Lily had the feeling that they could hear and understand every word.

"I may have dug a few pits in my time," Squirtle continued, "But I also didn't blow up the entire town if you catch my drift."

Lily more than caught his drift. She was pretty sure that none of them, aside from the Tentacool themselves, wanted to blow up the city. Horsea looked particularly nervous, probably because he or she (Lily really could tell with that kid) had tried desperately to warn the gang already. Right now the kid moodily was poking at the sand and trying not to look any Tentacool in the eye.

And the trouble was that Lily couldn't go back up there and tell the rest of them that it wasn't just serious, it was really serious, and they were working on a constrained deadline. If the humans did anything in the next twenty-four hours, even if it was before the gang got to them, then the city was toast. Worse, even if they didn't do anything, they had to produce some unmistakable sign of friendship by the end of the time limit or they were toast.

It was clear that the Tentacool wanted the humans to go and give them the excuse to blow up their city.

Lily closed her eyes and tried to will everything away. She had to find a way to reach out telepathically to Wizard Lenin. Once, when he lived inside her head, this had been laughably easy. Since then she'd never managed it, but she'd also never tried.

Distantly she felt the minds and energy of everyone around her, the strong, dispersed, presence of the Tentacool thinking nearly as one, the nervous edge of Squirtle, Starmie, Staryu, Goldeen, and Horsea…

On the shore there were the others, a feeling of nervousness and frustration about them too, and somewhere in them… She couldn't find him. She knew he was there, she could feel him, but she couldn't get any closer than that.

She hadn't tried to get into his head, to contact him like this, because she'd been afraid of this very thing.

He'd blocked her and anyone else trying to reach him. Lily no longer had special access to him, and she never would again. He was his own free-thinking being now and there was nothing she could do about it.

She almost gave up, returned back to her own head and thoughts, but just then she had the feeling that somewhere out there someone's door was wide open. She rushed forward and found herself stepping into a familiar laboratory and looking at a familiar face.

"Oh, it's you," she breathed in relief, "Thank god, I managed to get a hold of somebody."

The pale purple-eyed man glanced up at her, blinking in surprise, "You're back."

"Yeah, and it's not good," Lily said, walking across the floor to take a seat next to him, "The city's about to be attacked—"

"The city?"

"Oh, right, we last talked on the boat," Lily said, realizing the last time she'd seen him had been just after escaping the St. Anne when he'd urged her to come directly to Viridian City.

"Well, we got off the St. Anne but ended up shipwrecked on a small island," Lily explained, "We found the only city on the island which runs a ferry to the mainland, but it's about to be attacked by vengeful Tentacool unless we can somehow get the humans to stop destroying their home in twenty-four hours."

Lily didn't give him much time to process that as she noted, "You can warn them, right? The Tentacool are kind of holding me hostage, making me wait down here until time runs out, but you can telepathically warn the city, can't you?"

"I could," the man mused, "But I don't see why you're caught up in all of this."

"I just—" Lily tried to find the words to explain, "I understand why they're angry, they have a right to be, but at the same time destroying someone else's home just makes even more destroyed homes. We can't build a future like that in this world and I want everyone to be able to work together. Humans are wrong, but they don't deserve death for it."

"Are you sure?" he asked, and for a moment, she swore his eyes burned.

"Yes, I'm… I'm sure they at least deserve a chance," Lily said hesitantly.

"Of course you do," he said with a small, sad, smile, "You're still so very young."

She wanted to say something to that, tried to think of something to say to that, but before she could she found herself wrenched back into her own head. The Tentacool lifted their heads in unison, and their lips curved upwards into cold smiles, "It seems the humans have given their answer."

"Oh, shit," Lily said.

She summoned the water back, returned everyone to their true form, and vaulted herself back up to the surface, praying it was just some pleasure cruise passing overhead at top speeds.

It wasn't a pleasure cruise.

"Can't you people lay off for once in your lives?!"

Team Rocket, racing ahead in a speed boat armed with several harpoons as well as a wooden barrel with a giant picture of a Tentacool crossed out on it, looked up in confusion and narrowly avoided crashing into her.

"Hey it's that poké-girl!" James cried out just as Jessie swerved the boat, "Watch where you're going!"

"James, you moron, we don't tell her to watch where she's going," Jessie said, hitting the back of his head, "We tell her to sit there and be quiet while we catch her."

Lily, however, didn't have time for that. Instead, stalking forward, she slammed her hands down on the bow, "Are you people nuts?! Don't you realize what's at stake here?"

"Of course we do," Meowth said with a very smug grin, "One million dollars to whoever eliminates the Tentacool infestation."

"Let's try the destruction of this entire town!" Lily corrected, "Maybe this entire island."

James looked over at Jessie, "I don't remember hearing that part."

"Well, you're hearing it now, jackass!" Lily said, "If you do anything, and I mean anything, to these Tentacool then that pleasant little coastal town over there is yesterday's news."

"You must be joking," Jessie said with a sneer, "What could a bunch of slimy Tentacool do to—"

Lily didn't need to correct Jessie this time, because the Tentacool in question had already surfaced. Just as Misty said, the red orbs on their head glittered in the sun, shining like rubies on the surface of the sea.

"One, two, three—" James started to count, paling dramatically as he started to realize the utter futility of counting the swarm, "Um, Jessie, I don't think we brought enough of that paralytic for all of them."

"Never mind all of them," Jessie insisted, looking utterly panicked as she dove towards the wooden barrel, "We just need to get enough of them."

"Don't—" Lily shouted but Jessie had already thrown the thing over the side.

In truth, she probably could have and should have stopped it. Perhaps Lily wondered, or hoped, that if some of them could be paralyzed for a moment she might wriggle out of her bargain. Or perhaps it was just that everything seemed to move in slow motion and she was frozen in place.

Regardless, the barrel fell over the side, emptied its content, and where there was once a Tentacool, with a flash of blinding light, there was a twenty-story tall jellyfish with twenty times as many tentacles.

As one, the Tentacool turned to look at Lily expectantly.

Lily looked hopelessly across the bay and to the town. For this one, perfect, moment it looked just like a post card. Taking in a deep breath and squeezing her eyes shut, Lily lifted her hand and summoned the small hurricane that would flatten Puerto Vista.


"Why would you blow up the town?!" Ash asked. Lily was sure the others would have, but, as it stood, Ash was the only one who could withstand the cold, dead, eyes of the Tentacool.

Tentacool perched on what remained of every building, streetlamp, and transformer. Like oddly blue and round crows, they looked down upon the humans, watching their mass exodus from the city.

Every human had survived, Lily had ensured as much and could at least count that as a win, but their new jellyfish overlords made it clear that humans were no longer to be tolerated in Puerto Vista.

She, Ash, Misty, Brock, Wizard Lenin, and everybody else were currently one of many in the long mob heading to the ferry docked in what was left of the harbor. Clefairy grasped onto one of Lily's hands with tiny claws, Pikachu rode on Ash's shoulder, and the newly acquired Horsea stared out from the safety of Misty's backpack. If Lily stared hard enough, she imagined she could see the first officer on the bridge desperately calling the mainland asking what the hell had just happened to Puerto Vista.

"I was really hoping you guys would pull through," Lily whispered, trying not to look at any Tentacool directly.

"We only sent you down there so that you could talk to them!" Ash said, "If you couldn't I should have just gone down myself!"

"Oh, because that would have—" Lily shut her mouth, because, actually, that would have gone better. Ash had this weird ability to give inspiring speeches every now and then, somehow, she could just picture him managing to talk them out of it and switch religions. That, or even if he couldn't stop them, he at least wouldn't have washed away the city himself.

"I thought you were trying to teach pokémon and humans to get along!" Ash said.

"I am trying!" Lily hissed back, "It just… Well, you know, didn't go so well."

"You're not doing a very good job!" then, with a sly grin, he noted, "You're worse than me at pokémon gyms. At least I win eventually, you just blow things up."

"Your commentary is not appreciated, Ash," Lily said, and with that she tried to walk a little faster in order to signal that this conversation was officially over. Ash, unfortunately, as always, didn't take the hint.

"How are you supposed to help people and pokémon if you don't even know how people think?" Ash asked, "You really should let me train you already, and I promise, we can make sure nothing like this ever happens again together."

Lily was about to decline that generous offer when Ash appeared to decide for her, "You know what, that's it, I'm going to train you whether you like it or not. I'll show you what great things people and pokémon can do together and the next time something like this happens we'll save Puerto Vista for sure."

"For sure," Lily responded weakly, trying and failing to smile back at him. She just wished this day was over already, she was too tired to even say no to Ash. Or, maybe, she was starting to realize that she might need his help after all.

If it couldn't be Wizard Lenin, who believed in nothing but bloodshed, and it couldn't be that other guy whose name Lily couldn't remember, then surely, somehow, it had to be Ash.

As they boarded and began sailing away, staring back at the terrified humans left on the dock awaiting the next ferry, the sun began to set. In the town of Puerto Vista, on the shore and in the harbor, a thousand rubies glittered until the sun finally sank and one by one they winked out.


The ocean has become peaceful once more. As our heroes leave Puerto Vista behind, they set off for their next pokémon gym and their next pokémon adventure.


Author's Note: Lily tries to be the big damn hero - immediately results in death and destruction everywhere. And in the episode that didn't happen, not-shockingly, Ash and the gang failed to talk Nastina out of certain death.

Thanks to readers and reviewers, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Pokémon.