AN: Hello, all. Told ya I'd be back didn't I? Well, it seems to be that time of year again..the holidays. *waves lil flag* whee. Although by the time you read this it'll probably be well into the new year, and if that's indeed the case (which I'm sure it is) then happy 2004 everybody! W00T! Also..I've come down with a bad case of the writer's block, so this chappy's not that great...and it's a filler. So no one yell at me, k? The next chapter should prove to be much better, I've got plans. Oh such plans! *laughs maniacally*

KEY

"blah" - speech (pokemon and human speech are written the same way)

'blah' - thought

blah - telepathy

(AN: blah)- author's note

~~~~~~- time passes

"And now we stand here face to face, isn't this world a crazy place?"- Save the Best for Last

Anyone who's been paying attention to my story so far knows by now that when things happen to me, chances are, they don't exactly turn out very happy. If you don't know, then you either haven't been paying attention or have a very bad memory. But, for once this turn of events didn't seem too bad. Emphasis on seem. Any gyarados can hide in a pond and make it's mouth a cave. (Alright, so I'm not an expert on analogy. I'm an umbreon, not a poet. Give me a break.)

This particular cave, however took the guise of a station housing wild (at least I assumed they were wild) pokemon. Inside a cold room of human building that looked abandoned (by humans anyway) was the greatest collection of urban pokemon I'd set my eyes upon, of all types, breeds, names and colors. It was a larger, and somewhat stranger display of pokemon that I'd seen on the ferry to Honen. They were all fast asleep curled up on the floor, on tables, and in little cubbies in the wall. Honestly, the place was giving me the creeps. It was too similar to the Pokemon center I woke up to a few days ago. It had the same floors, same walls, same cold tables. The smell wasn't exactly the same, but it was too close for comfort for my taste. From what I could piece together from the taillow who led me here, I'd been summoned for some reason by someone by the name of Ordalphus, and apparently I didn't have much time in coming to meet him, seeing as how the taillow was so anxious to get me here. Although, by now I figured this "Ordalphus" was taking his sweet time because I'd been sitting on this stupid pillow in the dark for what felt like an eternity.

I'd been summoned in the middle of the night, and from the looks of things I wouldn't meet this pokemon I was supposed to meet until morning.

For the fifth time tonight I took another look around at my fellow roommates, easily visible by the light of a coughing vulpix (who tend to spew out little embers when coughing). Scales, feathers, skin and fur nestled comfortably in the sweet embrace of sleep on the linoleum floor. If only this insomniac could join them. The boredom of consciousness was driving me mad.

I sighed impatiently and rolled over on my back and began the task of counting all the little tiles on the ceiling . I was at 279 when a little poochena face appeared staring into my own. His reddish nose hovered just inches from my forehead, and besides breathing rather loudly in my face he remained silent. He was beginning to creep me out. And that's saying a lot coming from me.

"So, are you going to stand there and exhale in my face?"

He sniffed my face curiously "You're awake!"

" I couldn't be staring you in the face and talking to you if I was." I sighed. It was becoming obvious to me that this kid wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon. But I suppose it was better than counting tiles. Check that, ANYTHING was better than counting tiles. I came down from the pillow to sit next to him.

"Any particular reason you came to breathe in my face, ink blot?"

The poochena cock his head to one side in a bewildered, cutesy way "Ink blot?"

"Yeah. It's something we called little dark types back where I come from. We've names for all the types.. Squirt for water, ashling for fire, sprout for grass, and so forth"

"Oh. Where do you come from, then?"

"Jhoto"

He rolled his eyes "Oh, that's a lot o' help"

"It's across the ocean."

The youngling wrinkled up his nose in a disgusted sort of way. "The ocean? That must have been terrible!"

You have no idea, kid.

"I mean, to sail in th' midst of Kyrogite territory! I'd never do it. At least, not unless it was really necessary, like takin' down a Kyrogite's base, or a rescue." An excited dreamy look appeared in his yellow eyes.

There was that word again. "What in the name of Mew is a Kyrogite anyway? First that Java character accuses me of being one, and now this."

The poochena cocked his fluffy head "You mean you don't know? Wow, you really are new. Practically everyone's around here know of the Kyrogites and Groudonates. You've at least heard of teams Magma and Aqua, right?"

"Nope. But there's something called "Team Rocket", I think. I don't know what that is, though. Are you going to explain this to me or not?"

"Well, I've only been here a couple of moths, I can't exactly explain it very well, but I know the Kyrogites are really bad an' we're tryin' to stop 'em."

"Why?"

"Why? Hmm. Never asked, really. Ordalphus really seems to believe in our cause, though, an' he's really smart, so he must know what he's doin'.

"If…you say so, inkblot"

"Anyway, Kyrogites work for Aqua, an' , an' helping' Team Magma t'stop Aqua from takin' over th' world-"

"Taking over world?" I repeated. Sounded like a tired plot from one of those old cheesy comics trainers left behind in my thicket all the time.

"Well…that's basically what he means. That's all they'll tell me."

"I see…."

Inkblot scowled at me "No, you don't." A weird forlorn look crossed his face "Lemmie guess, you don' believe me an' think I'm crazy, right?"

"Inkblot, after what I've seen in the past week I've decided the entire WORLD is crazy. But then, my father always said a surefire way to tell if someone's insane is if they think they're sane and everyone else isn't. So…if you think you aren't crazy, but the rest of the world's crazy than you're the one that's nuts. But if you think sometimes that you ARE crazy, but not..or is it the other way around?"

"What?"

"Oh…I forget. Sometimes I just don't know what in the name of shade I'm talking about. And this smell's messing with my head."

The inkblot grinned "Heh, you're funny. I'm Tikatt, by th' way." he said. I think we both had a feeling the "inkblot" nickname would stick, though. But everyone keeps callin' me Tik, like the bug. I don' think they like dark types around here that much. You an' me are th' only ones here. I think they just have to get used to us. It's mostly rock, ground, steel and fire types here, along with a few flying, electric, psychic and normals But Ordalphus says we really need more electrics."

"That's it?"

"Some others, poison and bug used to be with us too, but they left. Some joined the Kyrogites, which is why they tell us not to associate with 'em anymore. And the other dark types and ghosts won't join us or the Kyrogites. I don't know why, but I think that might be why the others don't like me very much."

That was no surprise. Most Pokemon, especially urban and trained pokemon, didn't like darks or ghosts very much. Beliefs about being spawn of darkness and evil had been around for eons, which came about because we aren't very…sociable creatures. That and the whole attacking trespassers thing. They used to tell young eevee trainers to only let their pokemon out in the day or to use a stone on it quick as they could, lest it transformed into the "evil eeveelution" that was supposed to eat pokemon eggs and murder children in the middle of the night. Where THAT part came from I'll never know, but the way I see it some idiot mixed up my kind with the sneasel (which eat pidgey eggs, don'cha know. Not like that's bad either. If the pidgey don't want their eggs to be omelets than they shouldn't leave them out in the open like that. It's common sense.)

"But where did ye come from? You just arrived today on a ferry, right?"

"Indeed. On some ferry that came in this morning." A look of scorn crossed my face "With my 'trainer'" The word was like acid in my mouth.

The inkblot's eyes grew round, yellow eyes shining with spellbound fascination "Ohhhhhhh, Did ye get separated from yer trainer?"

"you could say that. But really, I just decided to explore the city on my own"

"By yerself?"

"Of course, I've gotten along just fine all these years on my own, haven't I? I need no trainer to tell me what I can and can't do. I wanted to explore, so I left."

"Ye mean ye ran away, Ozaki?"

"Yeah."

"You goin' back?"

"If I feel like it."

"Wow. Was…was your trainer mean t'you?"

I shrugged "I could've gotten worse. The kid knows how to pick out a good name anyway" Tikatt sighed and stared down at his paws dejectedly "I used t'have a trainer once too, but he wasn't very nice. It wasn't his fault though, we battled a lot, a whole lot, but I kept loosing all the time. The only time I didn't lose a match was with a wormple, but anyone can beat them. I didn't mean too. I tried to be stronger, I really did. But I just wasn't good enough, so he yelled a lot kept me in the poke ball all the time and got poke chow instead of the good stuff his stronger pokemon got. But it really wasn't his fault, I know I should've been stronger but somehow I just couldn't. I don't know why. Anyway, one day, my trainer stopped by Rustburo t'look at shops an' stuff. She let me out of my poke ball and told me to leave right then and not come back 'till I was a pokemon worth having. So, here I am. I came to learn how t'be strong, like Ordalphus is. But so far, I haven't made much progress an' everyone looks at me funny when they see me."

Inkblot shook dust off his fluffy gray head, as if could shake out the memories out with it. He noticed the concerned look I was giving him and wagged his tail, smiling. "Bt that don't bother me. 'Cause after I'm done here I'm gonna be the very best like no one ever was!"

I licked my muzzle thoughtfully "like no one ever was… where'd I hear that before?"

Tikatt shrugged "I dunno. Heard it on some show once."

The vulpix behind me suddenly began to cough violently, spewing fiery hot coals all over the floor, which got into the fur of a zigzagoon that panicked and began running in frightened circles and screaming it's head off. In the distance pawsteps could be heard rushing towards us, no doubt to see what the screaming was all about. A chuckle shook my sides. Maybe this place was creepy, but it had it's moments. I turned to ask Tikatt what he thought of the incident, but he was already dashing off in the opposite direction. Weird. I decided not to think on it and went back to the flaming zigzagoon. The taillow from before, a girafarig that looked very familiar, and an aron rushed to the scene, apparently to help.

Not that anything they did was anything close to helping; if anything they made things worse. The taillow flapped it's wings madly in an effort to extinguish the flames and succeeded in making them worse, so that now they roared across the zigzagoon's back, so that the flames spread even more and ran into a very shocked taillow. Now both of them were ablaze, one panicking in circles by land, one panicking by air and still not doing anything to help the situation. The aron tried to stomp out the flames (the ones on the ground, anyway), and the shining metal that covered it's body turned a glowing red, overheated from the blaze and huddled in a corner whimpering. As for the girafarig, it saw the fire could be more easily spread my air and desperately tried to bat the fluttering frightened inferno out of the air. For once, the effort was a success- in a sense. The taillow was indeed batted out of the air, but somehow I doubted the taillow's being slammed into the wall, (extinguishing the flaming feathers) and leaving a charred blot against the smooth white wall was part of the plan.

At that point a very agitated looking pokemon- the oddest I've ever seen, it looked like a living, floating sun stone- rushed in and with a blast of psychic energy lifted a pile of dust and dumped it on the zigzagoon, smothering the flaming pokemon. It made an unhappy sound, glared and floated off elsewhere to do whatever strange sun-tone shaped things do. The aron made a sad sound and followed it, still glowing a warm red. The charred tailow blinked sooty eyes and slid on the cool linoleum, leaving a bird-shaped imprint on the plaster and coughed up a little cloud of smoke. Then it sighed and collapsed against a, equally charred zigzagoon. As for the vulpix, as to whom the entire charade was caused, it cleared it's throat nervously and walked away like nothing happened.

A huge white fanged grin spread across my face and I burst out laughing. Maybe it was mean spirited, it may have been cruel and insensitive, it may have been rude, but more importantly besides all of that it was hilarious. The girafarig gave me a nasty look and hobbled off toward it's companions.

I shook my head in amusement. Perhaps this place had some good points after all. I sighed and rested against the pillow once more listening to the distant sounds of bedlam few rooms down. I smiled a cunning little smile as sleep finally began to set in. Maybe I wasn't an insomniac after all, perhaps all I needed was a little chaos.