Author's Notes: Thank you all for reviewing. Nope, none of the trainers were shipwrecked on the island, although I find your asking that oddconsidering what happens in this chapter. And nope, the rock is not a Sun Stone, Midnight Phoenix. Good guess, though.

This chapter could really have been three, as it switches perspective in the middle. The part where it is told from Trevor's point of view is really short, though, so I decided to include it here and add Katherine's next chapter to the end. Events go together better that way.

Chapter 20: The Truth

Katherine was considerably unnerved by the Gengar's laughter. It was a horrible, mocking sound that rolled out across the meadow in terrible waves. She shook the red stone frantically. "Work! Come on!" she grunted desperately. The stone gave no response, remaining as unremarkable as ever.

The Gengar stopped laughing, his grin more mocking than ever. Maintaining a firm grip on Jeremy, who seemed to be feeling the adverse effects of blood rushing to his small head, he began slowly to advance. Katherine felt frozen, unable to move. She held the stone out stupidly in front of her, watching him draw nearer. At last her reached out his unoccupied hand and grabbed the stone away from her, arm moving in a blur too quick for Katherine's eyes to follow. He turned it over once before his face with interest, then tossed it carelessly over his shoulder into the wildflowers, narrowly missing a Sunkern.

"I'm impressed," he snorted. "I see that Ailrianor treats his agents well. Is that all?"

"I...I..." Katherine stammered, eyes bulging. The Gengar chuckled again at her surprise, enjoying her fear.

"So why did you really come here, since you obviously didn't intend to do me any harm? Were you perhaps interested in picking some flowers?" he asked mockingly.

"I came to free the Pokemon and trainers here," she replied as boldly as she could. "They must surely see how they have been mistreated and I intend to aid them in any way that I can."

"Niinetales!" came a snarl from behind her. Katherine whipped around to see the Ninetales glaring at her with fury.

"This trainer speaks the truth!" an Ekans shouted, speaking in English so that Katherine could understand him. Katherine heard his voice distantly, briefly realizing that he must be another cursed trainer. He seemed far away, however, and his voice distorted by time and space. She was held captivated by the Ninetales' glowing eyes, fire burning deep within them.

She lost all sense of the world around her, instead becoming a part of a distant one. From somewhere, she thought she heard a different voice. You think that you know everything...

"We'll be back home this afternoon, darling. Mummy's left some nice food and water for you. You be a good girl while we're gone, okay?" said a woman, oddly blurred and distorted, as though only half-remembered. Her voice was warm, but equally distant.

"Dear, if we don't leave now we'll be late for the ferry," came a deeper voice, its speaker unseen.

"Yes, yes, I'm coming," the woman sighed. She turned and trotted from the room, high heels clicking on the hardwood floor. She shut the door behind her, and Katherine was left alone.

There was a vague notion of the passage of time, light sliding across the floor, shadows growing. A strange darkness clouded the afternoon, distant rumblings and roarings. A terrible wind picked up, screaming and howling angrily at being kept from Katherine by walls and roof. Katherine, for her part, hid under a heavily embroidered sofa, shivering fearfully at each great bellow of thunder, at the hissing of rain lashing windowpanes.

Still more waiting. The storm blew over, the night came, but still Katherine waited patiently. Time seemed to blur, days rolling over one another in a confused jumble of loneliness and thirst. There seemed to come a time, much later, when Katherine realized that she was alone, unwanted.

Would you like to know what it's like? someone asked Katherine. Confused, Katherine didn't know what she should reply when, suddenly, the world snapped back to the familiar. The Ninetales gave a shriek of pain and whirled around, kicking out with a hind leg at a Houndour that had bitten one of her tails. Her entrancing eyes were no longer boring into Katherine's, and the trainer slowly began to collect her consciousness.

The Ninetales was suddenly beset by Pokemon of all varieties, from tiny to formidable. She snarled and blasted flame at them, trying to shake off the ones that had latched their teeth into her hide. The Gengar was suddenly among them, his dark presence doing even more to repel the assailants than the regular gushes of fire. The field was aflame, bursts of fire erupting where an errant Flamethrower broke across the flowers. They burned furiously, becoming burning torches and, finally, smoldering skeletons.

Katherine shook her head, trying to clear it. What had that been? Scenes from the Ninetales' past revisited? She slowly became aware of the action around her. The Ninetales had given up any semblance of organized fighting, merely snarling and blasting flame wildly, trying to shake off the numerous attackers that swarmed over her. The Gengar found himself equally beset. Katherine realized that he was no longer holding onto Jeremy and wondered where the Rattata had disappeared to.

As she thought over the brief experience she had had as the Ninetales, or, as she had the impression, as the Vuplix, she soon realized what had happened. She was owned by the rich people that lived in the mansion. Some sort of pet. But then they left for somewhere and didn't come back. The storm...

A snarling Persian darted past her, racing towards the vicious melee. Katherine suddenly broke free of the spell that seemed to encircle her, opening her eyes to the horrible destruction before her. The Ninetales was bleeding freely from numerous wounds but still fighting. Injured Pokemon, most badly burned or shivering uncontrollably from one of the Gengar's attacks littered the area, and the fires begun by the Ninetales' careless attacks were beginning to spread, consuming more of the field. "Wait!" cried Katherine in horror. "Stop this! Listen! Stop it!"

She tried to get into the fight, pushing battle-crazed Pokemon out of her way. She received a nasty bite from an overexcited Furret as she tried to shove him aside and narrowly missed being hit by a gush of flame. The Pokemon seemed to realize what she was doing, however, and began to back away. A few even dashed off to try to put out the fires. Katherine wondered briefly where the Gengar had gone off to, as he had apparently abandoned the fighting. The Ninetales was eventually left alone, panting with exertion, eyes beginning to glaze with pain. She still snarled as Katherine drew near.

"What is it, Katherine?" the Ekans asked in an almost irritated tone. "Our Mistress must be brought down if we are to be free again."

Katherine was sickened. "Yes, but not like this!" she cried. "This is just wrong! It's barbaric. The Ninetales should be punished, yes, but you don't have to kill her and enjoy yourselves in the process!" She looked around at the Pokemon, some of whom were shifting around a bit guiltily, not looking at her. The Ninetales gave her a dazed look of disbelief, finally succumbing to her wounds and slumping to the ground.

----

Trevor was surprised at how quickly it had happened. It became apparent that the trainer's odd stone wasn't going to work and she unwittingly fell into the Mistress' trap, gazing into her hypnotic eyes. Clearly, the Mistress intended to lay her curse upon this unfortunate girl as well. Somehow, they would need to distract her, force her to break eye contact.

Seth remedied the problem for Trevor. Seeing the Gengar distracted, watching the rapt girl with amusement in his red eyes, he took off, flying low and off to the side. The Gengar didn't even notice him until he was a mere foot or so away, coming at him from the left. The ghost turned and instinctively put up his stubby arms to shield his eyes from the Spearow's sharp beak, losing his grasp on Jeremy in the process.

The dazed Rattata dropped to the ground with a thump. At first he could only lie there dumbly, but he quickly recovered and dashed away. Seth left off harrying the ghost and flapped back to the large assembly of Pokemon, leaving the furious Gengar to realize that he had lost his hostage.

"Attack!" Trevor yelled, slithering forward to follow his own orders. The other Pokemon, seeing the Gengar suddenly lose his leverage, dashed forward, bearing down on their Mistress. The zealous Malkendro acted first, grabbing one of the Ninetale's flowing tails in his jaws and biting down hard.

This was sufficient to break the Mistress' concentration, and she turned her attention from the trainer who was, fortunately still human, and found herself suddenly beset from all angles.

After this it became a confusing blur. Trevor recalled a wave of paralyzing darkness that washed over him as he received a clout by the Gengar, numerous scratches received as a result of coming too close to other fighters and a slightly singed tail from a close encounter with a Flamethrower.

The trainer had regained her senses apparently, as she suddenly began to try to force the combatants apart. Trevor withdrew reluctantly, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He slowly returned to himself, a small trickle of guilt pushing through his excited, buzzing head. "What's the matter, Katherine? Our Mistress must be brought down if we are to be free again," he announced before he had fully returned to himself, trying to chase away a slight feeling of resentment.

Her reply brought the guilt down on him in a great, crushing wave. He looked about him and saw devastation, Pokemon burnt and bleeding, many from wounds inflicted by careless comrades. Trevor was near an area where still-warm ash littered the ground, the remnants of a cluster of wildflowers. The Mistress was down, barely able to muster the strength to hold her head high.

"I didn't really realize what we were doing," he admitted, angry at himself for making such a lame excuse.

"Clearly," Katherine replied dryly. "Look, I want to know what's really going on here. Something's Magikarpy."

"What is there to know?" Seth snarled, clearly bitter at seeing his revenge averted. He was badly burned on his right side, feathers blackened and stripped to skeletons. "She put a curse on us and turned us into Pokemon! She trapped all of the Pokemon living here! She killed all of our Pokemon!"

"Killed all of your Pokemon?" Katherine asked in horror. The Ninetales shook her head angrily, but Katherine wasn't watching her. "Do you have any proof?"

"Oh, yes," Seth replied darkly. He then blinked and looked a little put out. "Um, if we can find it, I guess."

The two Pokeballs had been lost in the scuffle, but a search of the field quickly turned one of them up. Trevor picked it up in his mouth and presented it to Katherine. The trainer took it uncertainly, a look of apprehension on her face.

----

Katherine turned the cold metal object over between her hands, inspecting it from all angles. It was a Pokeball, no doubt, and a nonfunctional one at that. The driving mechanisms and inner circuitry were now a mere lumpy mass of metal, the entire interior rendered useless and apparently the victim of some sort of fire. The Pokeball was stuck open, a position that Katherine found too much like a screaming mouth.

What could do this to a Pokeball? she wondered. If anything had been in here when it was destroyed, then it was certainly not still alive. This condition couldn't have been a result of a release maneuver; the Pokeball wouldn't open for long enough to allow such significant structural damage to occur. She was at a loss for a few moments, then a wisp of memory came drifting back to her. Somehow, it might be possible to manipulate a Pokeball so that expend its own supply of energy, rather than re-using a Pokemon's own...This would recreate a Pokemon's physical form, but it would essentially be a soulless creature...The Pokeball would be ruined...The remaining energy, the Pokemon's soul, would forcefully exit the device, probably destroying it in the process...

Oh, no, Katherine realized, Not killed, but far worse. But if that is the case, and the Ninetales really did try to split the Pokemon from their soul, then where are they?

She turned to look at the Ninetales, which was on the verge of swooning. If Katherine wanted answers, there was no one else to turn to. She reached down into one of her pant pockets and felt around for a basic Potion. That would be enough to keep the Pokemon lucid, but not enough to give her sufficient energy to try anything funny. She pulled it out and twisted the nozzle, preparing to administer the spray medicine.

"What are you doing?" the Ekans hissed at her in consternation.

"I'm getting answers, like I said," she replied. "Don't worry, I won't give her too much." She bent down over the Ninetales, who snarled vehemently, and misted her with the bottle. The fox Pokemon yelped as the antiseptic stung the scrapes and scratches that crisscrossed her hide, snapping at Katherine's hand. The trainer had already pulled back, however, depositing the empty Potion bottle in its pocket to be refilled later. She then waited for the artificial stimulants in the liquid to do their work, dulling pain and exciting the body's healing mechanisms. The Ninetales began to look better. Finally she heaved herself back into a sitting position, remaining silent and refusing to thank Katherine for her help. Katherine didn't really care.

"What exactly did you do to these Pokeballs?" she asked.

"Tales!" the fox Pokemon barked.

"She's not going to tell you," a small voice observed from the undergrowth. Jeremy popped out from between the flower stems. He had a wide scrape running down his left side and a nasty bruise on his head but seemed otherwise none the worse for wear. "Looks like I'm back to playing translator, huh?"

"Oh, you'll tell me, all right," Katherine told the Ninetales grimly. "I don't have any love for you, you know that. I would just as gladly leave you to the mercy of your victims. And in fact, if you decide to torch me or don't cooperate, that's exactly what I'll do. I'm just trying to find out the truth her. If you're so beyond reproach, you shouldn't have any problem with that."

The Ninetales glared at her venomously, then responded. "Taales. Ninetales nine nineninetales nine. Talesnine tales tales ninetales."

Jeremy rolled his eyes as he translated, "Oh, it's just the usual, you know, "I was helping them, it was for their own good, blah, blah, blah," but she denies having killed them."

"I know that," Katherine responded contemptuously. Jeremy and the other Pokemon gave her surprised looks, but she ignored them. "What did you do to the Pokeballs?"

"Ninetales. Tales tales ninetales," the Ninetales responded.

"Nothing," Jeremy reported. "She says she gave 'em to somebody called Grottlis, told him to take them off of the island and set the Pokemon inside them free. They were as they are now when she got them back."

Grottlis...that could only be the Gengar. The Ninetales' response clicked in Katherine's head, the last piece falling into place. Well, one of the last pieces anyway. If Ailrianor had wanted him gone, why had he sent her off with a fake magic rock instead of a real one? Had he not known that it wouldn't work or something?

"I think I see what's going on here," Katherine announced grimly. The assembled Pokemon and humans looked up at her eagerly. "This Gengar, he's a long-time pal of yours, isn't he?" she asked the Ninetales. The Ninetales nodded once, curtly.

"So you trust him, right?" Katherine continued. Another nod. "And he's the one who taught you to use all of your magic and stuff, when you evolved, and he helped you set up the curse that's on the island?" The Ninetales responded in the affirmative, and Katherine nodded herself with satisfaction.

She then began on a speech that seemed at first unrelated. "You really don't like humans. I guess I understand that. You think that they are tyrants, that they mistreat Pokemon. Well, look around you." Katherine spread her arms wide, indicating the meadow, some small patches of flame still showing in the distance. The Ninetales obliged, glancing coolly around once, then returning her gaze to Katherine face blank.

"Don't you see?!" Katherine yelled, growing exasperated. "You're the tyrant now! You talk about humans as slavers? Hah! You're the slaver here. You trap innocent Pokemon and trainers and force them to do your bidding. Why, you'd make a fair human yourself!"

The Ninetales did not take this revelation well. She bared her teeth and snarled, eyes blazing at the insult. Katherine merely glared down at her and continued her tirade. "So you didn't have a great life. So maybe some humans messed it up for you," Or they died in the storm, more like, Katherine thought to herself, "but that doesn't give you some sort of excuse to declare yourself "Mistress" of the entire island and take it over. And what's worse, you start attacking innocent trainers simply because they're human. All of this destruction and hate...it's all because of you."

If Katherine had expected the Ninetales to burst into tears and begin weeping something along the lines of, "My god! What have I done? I'm so terribly sorry! I wish I could take it all back!" then she was sorely disappointed. The Ninetales only growled more viciously. Then she whirled away from Katherine to look back out over field, eyes fixing on something lingering near the forest's edge. "Taaales! Ninetales Ninetaaales!"

"She's calling for that Grottlis person," Jeremy informed Katherine. "Says to get over here and not try anything funny.

The Gengar materialized next to the Ninetales, bulging up out of her shadow to stand beside her. "Yes, Sasoliar?" he asked.

"Tales. Ninetalestales ninetales!" the Ninetales hissed to him. Katherine watched with satisfaction as the Gengar shot a quick glance at her, fury in his red eyes, then proceeded to try to soothe the Ninetales' temper.

"Just what you asked me to do with them, of course, Sasoliar," he replied. "The ruined Pokeballs are an unfortunate side effect. Don't trouble yourself with them."

"Ah, and the ever-helpful friend appears," Katherine observed caustically. "So, Grottlis, if that's your name, I'm not fooled by your smooth words. If this Ninetales sinned, it was the sin of ignorance, of naiveté. You, on the other hand, were ever the one there to point her in the right direction. The one to drop a hint about how to control someone's mind or lay a curse upon them. And of course, you were only too glad to relieve her of the burden of dealing with all of those Pokemon that the trainers brought in with them. The question that one might ask is, what's in this one for you?"

"What's in it for me?" the Gengar scoffed. "Does one really need a reason to help a friend in need? Is it so evil to ease the suffering of a poor lost soul?"

Katherine paid him no heed. "Yes, you had a tidy little arrangement running, didn't you? You had yourself a blissfully ignorant servant, only too willing to keep the island under control so that news of your exploits wouldn't leak out. Meanwhile, you had a reliable source of Pokeballs and a tidy way to do away with their owners. Most tidy indeed. What did you do with their Pokemon?"

The Ninetales looked shocked. "Tales? Ninetales, tales ninetales tales?" she asked the Gengar pleadingly.

"She wants to know if it's true or not," Jeremy muttered to Katherine.

The Gengar's shifty eyes darted around. Katherine loomed over him on one side, six Pokeballs gleaming at her waist. He was surrounded on all other sides by a wall of living Pokemon, all glaring at him accusingly. There was only one way for him to escape now. Stalling, he began to draw on the dark energy constantly flowing through the world. He was annoyed when, as always, the mysterious meadow seemed to put a damper on his efforts. Still, he worked quickly, talking all the while. "Looks like you have me, little human," he spat, pretending to be helpless in the face of her accusations. To his right, Sasoliar's face collapsed into a look of horror and sorrow. "The game is up. And I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed. It was so easy, you know, to fool you all," he felt the necessary energy within his grasp. "What a pity that you'll never be able to do anything to me about it."

He suddenly lunged sideways, directly at Sasoliar. The startled Ninetales wasn't able to react quickly enough as the Gengar grabbed her neck firmly with his short hands, their grip seeming to reach beyond flesh to the sould beneath. He sank away into nothing, pulling the Ninetales along with him. She struggled, but to no avail. Katherine lunged forward at the Gengar, but he had already dissolved into nothing. The Ninetales gave one last wail before she, too, disappeared, carried off to who knew where.

Her last plea rang out across the meadow, lingering on the uneasy air. To Katherine, it was merely a last wail of despair before the Ninetales was dragged away into the abyss. To the Pokemon in the field and those others who could understand them, it was far more. Their Mistress' last words were etched into their brains with a burning intensity.

Forgive me...