Jason Creight awoke in a cold sweat.

He shoved himself into an upright position. He looked around, but at first, his eyes refused to focus. He reached up with his left thumb and forefinger to rub at them, but he lost his balance on his paralyzed rump and ended up on his back. The wind was knocked out of him, hardly helping his situation.

He passed out.

When he came to a scant few moments later, it was to the sensation of something warm and wet running down his left temple, down the side of his head, matting his hair and pooling slowly under it.

He groaned and gingerly touched it with his left hand. Blood, as he suspected. He reached behind his head, grabbed his backpack, and rummaged through it without looking. His hands found several articles of dirty clothing, his Sing earplugs, his Pokedex, but sadly, no band-aids. He sighed, then reached for a softer article of clothing.

He pulled out a sock. As soon as he saw it, he grunted. "No, thank you."

He put the sock back and pulled out a shirt on his second attempt. He dabbed at his head, and tried to remember what had happened.

*I was dreaming,* he thought. *And in that dream, I was able to stand. I was running, too. I looked up and saw a red sky. Blood red. The clouds were black.

I was running in fear.

I was afraid for my life.

But why?*

He pulled the shirt away from his wound and saw that the cut was not serious.

*Stings like hell, though,* he thought.

He saw that the sky was still midnight blue, and the temperature reflected the color perfectly. Jason shoved himself further into his sleeping bag and was suddenly thankful that he'd chosen to wear a sweater for the night.

It was getting colder. It was already November, mid-fall. The trees had shown their pretty colors in all their resplendent glory, but then they had turned the ugly brown they all managed to become before they fell outright. Jason remembered that along their way through Johto, his cadre had passed near several small towns that'd had kids playing in leaf piles.

Jason continued to stare up at the sky. It glittered with stars, unaffected by the glow of any nearby city. It showed no sign of producing a sun any time soon.

He reached into his backpack and grabbed his PokeGear, intending to check the time. When he read the digits, he groaned.

1:37 a.m.

He reflected on the sequence of events that had eventually led him to this point in his life. Upon examining them in retrospect, in detachment, he suddenly realized that grown men had undergone less torturous experiences and gone berserk as a result. Or, even worse, committed suicide.

To his own alarm, Jason began visualizing himself going off the deep end. He wondered what it had been like for those countless others, what it had been like to intentionally kill themselves. Drowning, slashing, bullets...

Jason came to the conclusion that the end result was pretty much the same for all of them.

They were all dead.

He stared down the length of his sleeping bag, his eyes coming to rest on the anorexic, unfeeling structures that he had once taken so much for granted.

Not for the first time, nor the last, he cursed those legs. Cursed the day he'd lost use of them.

Cursed himself for causing the loss.

True, it had been the Tentacruel that had confused his Raichu. And it had been Raichu that had sent the electric current into the water Jason had occupied.

But that really didn't make much of a difference to him. He knew that the one who had devised the plan in the first place was himself.

It was his fault.

It had been his fault when he'd cared enough to destroy his own family.

It had been his fault when he'd run away.

It had been his fault when he'd started training.

It had been his fault when he'd allowed Kelly to travel with him.

It had been his fault when Daniel came to Pallet Town to hunt him down-- twice.

It had been his fault when he'd lost his legs.

All of the blame was on his shoulders.

Something in him wanted so desperately to snap. He chuckled, giddy with this sudden, unexpected burst of borderline insanity.

*What part of me is that?* he wondered. *Where would I snap, eh? My legs? I wouldn't even feel it. And what would I do if I snapped? Leave? Where would I go? Kelly and Tommy would surely find me, wherever I went.*

And then his thoughts fell back on themselves.

*Suicide.*

Jason continued to stare at the stars.

They continued to stare back.

*And what if I did it?* he wondered, frightened though he was of the dark path these sudden thoughts were leading him down.

He shuddered to think of flinging himself over a bridge.

He shuddered to think of slashing his wrists.

He shuddered to think of *death.*

*And yet, somehow, against all odds, I still survive,* he thought.

*Why?*

He looked for his answer in those enigmatic stars.

He found the answer lying three feet away.

Everything began to fall back into place, into that sense of order in the midst of the chaos of his own mind.

*I have to stay sane,* he thought. *For her sake, if not my own. I can't give in to it.*

He reflected on the times he and Kelly had gone through. It was no secret to Tommy--or for that matter, anyone in Pallet Town--that they cared for each other on the deepest emotional level.

Then the perturbing night of Jason's long-awaited return to Pallet Town came to mind.

Jason's spirit sank low again.

He still hadn't told Kelly about any of it. He doubted if she could understand, and he felt that it would simply complicate their lives by dwelling on events past.

*And future,* he amended ruefully.

He vividly remembered the insane, wild man's look in Creight's eyes. Eyes, Jason knew, that might have one day become his own, had his older self not come back.

But it wasn't Creight's near-insanity that still haunted Jason's dreams.

It was his loneliness.

His despair.

Jason knew he had to come to terms with that.

The problem was knowing who to go to.

Obviously, that person wasn't Kelly.

*But what about Tommy? Or Sam?* Jason asked himself. *Why not talk to them? They know Creight's story. Why do I still choose not to say anything?*

It was true; Jason was inexplicably unnerved at the prospect of telling either Tommy or Professor Oak about the *full* story. Possibly because it involved such personal emotions.

Jason had had no problem understanding Creight's desire to confide his full story only to his younger self. And he still didn't.

Perhaps he was attempting to honor Creight's memory.

Jason sighed and tried to stop analyzing himself. He was no psychiatrist. He knew that.

The simple fact was that he didn't want to tell anyone what had happened that night. It was too personal, and for the moment, too confusing and bewildering to him.

He looked back at Kelly. Creight's loneliness had prompted him to go to such extreme measures to stop his past and prevent his future. And his loneliness had prompted him to go to Kelly's room that night and confess undying love to her.

Jason had told Tommy about that part. But what he'd refused to tell either Tommy or Oak was that Creight had pushed and shoved his way into the position of Team Rocket boss.

All for Kelly's sake, supposedly.

Because Creight believed he loved her.

Jason didn't know what he felt when he looked at Kelly. He didn't know if it was love.

"Sure isn't hate," he muttered.

But he *did* know that he and Kelly cared for each other on a deeper level than boyfriend and girlfriend. Even after he had left her in Pallet Town to pursue his own future, he had still cared, even if he'd refused to admit it.

*I care,* he thought. *But is caring enough? Or does the relationship need to go deeper than that?*

Jason didn't know what to feel.

He look up to the stars once more.

"What is it you have planned?" he asked aloud. "Where do we go after this?"

Jason heard rustling over to the side. He turned toward it, and saw that Tommy had awakened, possibly to Jason's question.

And Tommy was the one who answered the question.

"You go any direction you choose, Jason," he said. "Hopefully, you'll choose the right one."

Jason quickly attempted to change the subject, though he knew that from Tommy's response, he'd not awakened the younger teen with his words. He'd awakened on his own. "Hey. I was hoping you'd wake up. I've been feeling sort of lonely, being the only one awake."

"Really?" Tommy was amused.

"Sure. And I'd like to know why you don't want to show your... other Pokemon to Kelly. If you don't mind telling me."

tommy shook his head dismissively. "No problem. I just want her to think it's worth something."

Jason chuckled. "Isn't it?"

"Sure. Why did *you* think I was trying to hide it?"

"Dunno. I just figured you were trying to annoy Kelly."

This time it was Tommy who scoffed. "Close enough."

"Nice to know."

Tommy searched the face of his secretive, paraplegic mentor. "This thing between you and Kelly... it's really bugging you, isn't it?"

*Nuts,* Jason thought. *I was hopoing he'd stay off the subject.* He sighed heavily. "Yeah. It's a weird relationship we've got. And I came back for the weirdest of reasons."

Tommy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You came back to save her because you cared about her. What's so weird about that?"

Jason knew that Tommy was trying to make the situation sound normal. *It's anything but, though, and he knows it.* "Because it was Creight who let me know that that's what happened in his time."

Tommy shook his head. "Are you ever going to stop thinking about him? He doesn't exist, and according to this timeline, he never did and never will."

"It's hard not to think about looking into your own eyes and seeing that kind of madness, that kind of loneliness in them. Creight wasn't a mirror image of me, he was ten years older." Jason threw his arm up in frustration.

A long pause followed. Tommy spoke after those uncomfortable moments.

"There's something else, isn't there? Something you're not telling me."

Jason nodded dismally. "Yeah."

"Is it something you want to talk about?"

Jason bobbed his head in a defeated manner. "I'll have to, sooner or later. I guess I'd prefer it be you than a psychiatrist."

Tommy accepted the statement as a compliment. "Want to go somewhere private?"

"Yeah. Hang on a minute."

Three minutes later, a note explaining Jason and Tommy's absences to Kelly was on Jason's sleeping bag, and Jason, still in his night sweats, was comfortably seated in his wheelchair. "Let's go."

Jason and Tommy went off the path a little way, and stopped at a small bridge spanning a creek.

Tommy situated himself, prepared to hear the rest of Creight's story.

Prepared, that is, until he heard it.

***

The scientists buzzed about the dark lab, lit only by the eerie green light emitting from the containment tank.

Some of the scientists were understandably panicked, while others were frighteningly calm.

"We'll have to transfer the specimen to a larger tank. No smaller than a number 16," said one of the scientists, a stocky man named Grist.

"If we remove it from this one," another objected, "it'll be contaminated!"

"Particles of dust are negligible contaminants," said Grist. "Anyone else against physical removal? And with solid reasons, please."

"Its brain is too developed to risk it," said a third scientist, a redheaded man named Elledge. "It may awaken if we remove it from the fluid, and we haven't inserted the code commands. Speaking of awakening, why haven't you ordered the stronger sedative I've been asking for?"

A dark figure entered the lab.

Immediately, instinctively, the scientists snapped to attention.

Several believed the lab had just become twenty degrees colder.

"I don't want it to be suppressed," said the figure.

"You don't understand," said Elledge. "Suppression by sedation is the only thing preventing it from blowing the lab, and the man who funds the lab, to atoms. Quarks. Sub-quarks."

The figure grunted. "Do you not think its health will be at risk if you give it stronger doses?"

"It's resisting the doses we're giving it now. If it takes even one more cc, its system may be damaged. The sedative needs to be changed."

The figure sighed heavily. "Fine, then. Your sedative will be here in twelve hours."

"That's not good enough," Elledge pressed. "It's growing exponentially. We've been trying to slow its growth rates, but its resisting the slowdown. It's resisting everything we give it, except for the nutrients. If we don't transfer it to another tank, it'll burst free of this one within three hours."

"And we need half an hour to get the right ratio of nutrients and sedatives in the mixture," added a scientist in the background.

"And another half hour to fill a number 16 tank," said Grist, feeling decidedly bolder.

"So there you have it," said Elledge. "We need that sedative within two hours."

The figure's eyes were two slits of contempt. "Very well. You will have it within two hours."

He turned to leave.

But the scientists all heard the veiled threat he tossed over his shoulder.

"This had better be worth it."

After a moment of uncomfortable silence following the figure's departure, Grist turned to Elledge. "How do you suggest we deal with transporting it from this tank to the number 16?"

"Teleportation with a Kadabra."

"Not an Abra?"

"Larger risk of psychic feedback."

"Not that much larger."

"We can't make any room for error."

Whenever a psychic Pokemon or psychic human made use of teleportation abilities, they memorized the structure of every single molecule, every single atom of their target. They then dematerialized the target and sent the original atoms to their destination. Through a complex process of projected energy/matter conversion, they reassembled their target at the designated destination. Thus was the death of countless Pokemon trainers, and the "rebirth" of those same trainers, all within a matter of seconds.

Grist didn't need to ask why they couldn't use an Alakazam. They didn't have one, and even if they did, it would have been of little use; such highly evolved Pokemon often threw away such abilities in favor of attacks.

And of course, trying to raise one now would be pointless.

"Fine. A Kadabra, then," said Grist. "You need any help on those ratio calculations?"

"I'd've had them finished by now if these amateurs weren't bothering me about that thing," said Elledge, indicating the tank. "But yeah, I could use some help."

The tank was the most brightly illuminated object in the lab; all other lights were set on low. It was the greenish tint of the fluids within that tank that bathed the lab in such a green glow.

But the object floating within the fluids was the focus of the entire project.

It was a living being.

It wasn't human.

But one couldn't really call it Pokemon, either.

The best term any scientist could come up with was "creature."

No longer the size of an average goldfish, it was close to exceeding the limits of the containment tank. Its small wings had surged in their growth rates, along with everything else in it. Those wings shone in the light. They were black as space, impenetrable as titanium.

Its entire body was the same terrifying black color, shining in the same hypnotic manner.

The creature was of constantly growing proportions, growing so quickly that the naked eye would have no trouble watching the process. Its cells multiplied as rapidly as bacteria, granting it a regenerative process that could not be measured by modern charts.

Even as the scientists worked, it continued to evolve.

And not even its creators could stop it.

***

Two hours, fifty-five minutes later, the new containment tank had been filled with the life-giving nutrients and the life-protecting sedatives.

The creature was straining against the glass of its own tank. Spiderweb cracks began to grow across the surface of the glass, producing a mesmerizing fractal pattern.

"We'd better get this in the next twenty seconds," a scientist warned.

"Okay, then," said Grist. "Kadabra, teleport the creature to the new tank."

The armor-plated, spoon-wielding psychic Pokemon that was Kadabra bgean to concentrate, to focus its power on the creature in the tank.

The creature disappeared in a flash of light, leaving a leaking tank.

Kadabra's eyes suddenly grew wide with unrestrained, unbridled terror. It began screaming anguished screams that resounded throughout the lab. "DAA- BRAAA!!!"

Scientists swore collectively, knowing this shouldn't have happened. Grist raced up to Kadabra and grabbed it by the shoulders. "Focus! Send it into the tank! Focus!"

But Kadabra couldn't focus. Even in its dematerialized state, the creature was unbearably powerful. The patterns Kadabra had memorized to initiate the teleportation were now invading the patterns of Kadabra's own neural pathways. The pathways were being severed, rerouted, and reconnected, so that anything the frantic lead scientist said to it became nothing more than unintelligible gibberish, and anything it saw became an insane kaleidescope that would drive humans into psychosis.

In a last ditch effort to rid itself of the creature's infestation, Kadabra sent it to a random destination. Whatever else was happening in Kadabra's mind, it knew that the creature would harm it no more if Kadabra would just send it away.

Kadabra then keeled over, no longer able to bear pain nor any other sensation, and died.

The scientists had not witnessed the psychic barrage the creature had bombarded Kadabra with. Nor had they witnessed the creature's rematerialization.

Because the creature did not rematerialize in the new tank.

Grist cursed, cursed again, believing that the creature had not been saved, that it had died along with Kadabra.

And then they heard the roar.

It wasn't human.

And they doubted if it could be called Pokemon.

The roar echoed within itself. It was a roar elicited only by existence itself. It spanned the harmonics, heard and unheard, all at once. It was louder than they could bear... yet softer than a whisper.

It was coming from outdoors.

Despite their better judgment, the more determined scientists, including Elledge and grist, ran outside.

It was pouring rain. Lightning crackled across the black, clouded sky. The pelting, driving rain had already turned the packed dirt around the lab to the consistency of mud.

The scientists' determination led them through the muddy terrain of southern Cinnabar Island.

And then they saw the creature.

Many gasped in horror.

Many more turned and ran.

One scientist grabbed Grist by the lapels of his soaked lab coat.

"This is all our fault!" he yelled.

"No!" Grist responded. "It's alive; the whole point of our experiment was to make it live!"

"Don't you understand?! The code commands were never implanted!" the scientist screamed. "We don't have control over it! No one does!"

Grist's face became a window to his horror as he realized that the scientist was right.

They had *no* control.

The creature was wild.

It roared.

Roared again.

Grist whispered his final words.

"What have we done?"

And the volcano, Mt. Cinnabar, which had lain dormant for so many years...

Blew.

***

Though it was Jason's PokeGear that rang, it was Kelly who awoke to the sound.

She groaned, rolled over, and reached out to wake Jason up.

Her hand hit his empty sleeping bag, and the note he had left.

She frowned and read the note.

"Had to talk in private. We're nearby if you need us."

Kelly sighed, then reached into Jason's backpack and pulled out his PokeGear. The caller ID feature identified the caller as Professor Oak, much to her surprise. She hit the "call" button. "Hello, Professor."

"Kelly?" Oak's disembodied voice rang with surprise. "I thought I was calling Jason."

"He's indisposed at the moment. Anything I can relay?"

"Yes," Oak gravely responded. "Mt. Cinnabar had blown sky-high, and it's taken the majority of Cinnabar Island with it. Jason has a rather vast collection of flying Pokemon, and I was calling to let him know that I'm taking them to help with rescue and relief efforts. His water Pokemon, too."

Kelly sat up, instantly on alert upon this news. "I'll tell him. Anything you want or need me to do?"

"Yes. Make sure he doesn't try to go there himself. He'd just endanger himself. This is for the professionals. That goes for you and Tommy, as well."

"Right."

"Good. Meanwhile, best you get on to the next town for more news, unless one of you has a radio upgrade in your PokeGears."

Kelly shook her head. "No, none of us does."

"Then you'd better get yourselves some in the next town."

"Okay. Stay safe, Professor."

Oak snorted. "Somehow, I doubt this situation will permit it. But thank you, Kelly."

He hung up.

Kelly hit the "end" button and sighed. The sun wasn't even up, and already disaster had struck. She knew she wasn't going to get any sleep now; she started getting dressed.

This was going to be a long day.

***

The Pokemon gym was dark. Dark as the night sky above it.

Trainers didn't go to the gym at this hour because it impeded on their idea of common sense.

Not even the elite trainees visited the gym at this hour, despite the leader's encouraging to do otherwise.

The gym was almost totally unoccupied.

Almost.

One figure sat alone in it.

His eyes were closed. Even if they had been open, even he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

But he didn't need to have his eyes open to know the gym inside and out.

His legs were crossed, his palms loosely pressed together in his lap. His breathing was minimal, almost nonexistent.

He mentally reached down inside himself, as he had so many times in the past, and tried to find the point where physical and mental passed into the mystical.

It was his window to the only heaven he would know in this life.

Closer. Closer. So close...

And then the scent of one of his students wafted under his nose.

He smiled. The one who'd just entered the room had totally evaded his ears, but his nose was as good as the trunk of a Donphan--or so he liked to tell his students. "Hello, Peter."

He could detect no sign of surprise in Peter--no sharp intake of breath, no vocal confirmation, no audible bodily shifting. *Good,* he thought. *He knows my skills well. He will be one of the greatest of my students. I can only hope he will return to teach those that follow.

But why is he here?*

"Respects, Master," Peter responded.

Peter had been away, training and battling against some tough competitors near Indigo Plateau. Though the boy had not yet registered for a Pokemon league, the master knew that his former student had desired such competition to futher hone his skills.

"You have returned," the master noted. "I am pleased. I am also surprised. I thought you would stay at the plateau longer than this."

"The reason I've returned is a rather serious one," said Peter. "Mt. Cinnabar erupted nearly two hours ago. Even now, lava is pouring all across Cinnabar Island. Gym leader Blaine has disappeared. Many have already died, and many more are still on the island, despite rescue attempts."

The master frowned almost imperceptibly. "I wonder why I was not informed. I have encouraged the students to stay in their waking moments as the spirit moves them."

"I don't think the students are given to watch the news at 4:00 in the morning. Most of the city is sleeping at this point, no matter how people claim to pull all-nighters."

The master sighed. "Very well. Then why come here, if the rescues are occurring at Cinnabar?"

"More destruction has followed in the wake. Fissures in the earth have appeared between Cinnabar and here. Some areas have been flooded, others are burning in wildfires. I believe that Mt. Cinnabar's eruption wasn't natural."

The master finally opened his eyes, though they still could not see anything. He stood, walked to the nearest wall, and said, "Shield your eyes."

He then flipped a switch that activated a pair of low-setting strobe lights hanging overhead. They revealed a character hidden beneath a simple black robe and hood, the depths of which stubbornly refused to be penetrated by the light. Peter's hands had not moved from his sides; the master decided that from within the hood, no other protection from light was needed.

"So, you believe that the destruction is being caused by a Pokemon?" the master asked.

"I believe it's being caused by a creature with greater power than even the strongest Pokemon of the Elite Four combined possess," Peter responded.

"Then why come to one of the Elite Four for help?" the master asked, grimly amused.

"I didn't come to ask for help. I came to assist in protecting the city."

"You believe this creature is coming here?"

"The damage is in a straight line, and this city is on that line. Maybe the creature doesn't mean to pass through, but it will be if it keeps heading straight."

The master smiled a tight smile. "And you believe you can help defeat this creature when you yourself say that the combined Elite Four cannot?"

"I remember what you taught me, Master," Peter quietly answered. "I believe in the power of one."

The master waved his hand dismissively. "There is no master here. There is only uncle and nephew here."

Peter pulled his hood back around his shoulders, revealing blazing blue eyes, long whitish-blond hair, and a determined expression. "In that case, Uncle Koga, I ask you as your nephew: do you still believe in the power of one?"

Koga responded with an expression as determined as that of his oldest nephew. "I must. As you must. If this threat is as you say, it is all we will have in the upcoming battle. But I also believe in the power of the heart. And the heart beats stronger when it is with allies. You must call your brothers and friends. We will all face this threat together."

Peter nodded once. "Yes, we will."

***

Jason shook his head. First he turns Tommy's perceptions of Creight upside- down, then Professor Oak does the same thing with Jason's Pokemon collection.

*How much worse can a day get?* he wondered, as Kelly finished explaining Oak's reasons.

As if on cue, Tommy's PokeGear began to ring.

Kelly groaned, thinking that one call a day was quite enough.

Tommy paid no attention to the groan and examined the caller ID. He glanced up in surprise. "It's Peter."

"Who's Peter?" Kelly whispered to Jason.

"His oldest brother," Jason replied. "Also known as the Star Wolf."

He hit the "call" button. "Peter?"

"Tommy, I know this is abrupt, but I need you to come home. Right now."

Jason's head snapped up. Kelly raised an eyebrow. Tommy frowned. "Why? What is it?"

Wolf's whispered reponse was one name.

A name that held no meaning for Kelly.

A name that sent shivers down Jason's spine.

A name that froze Tommy to the core of his being.

"Tirenza."

Jason Creight gaped on.

To Be Continued