A/N: Here's Chapter Four! Thanks everyone for reviewing. Keleri, your comment about Sue-ness was understandable, but think about it—if he didn't have one of the last controlled Pokémon in the world, well, there would never be a story, would there? I mean, you can't write a Pokémon fanfic about the people who stay home and never become trainers.

So, anyway, chapter 4! I hope you like it!

Chapter Four: A Dream and a Nightmare

Sky and Dylan blinked back the afterimage of the flash. Their vision cleared, and sitting on the floor in front of them was—

A rock.

It wobbled a little, and a shower of dust and chips of stone cascaded off it. Two almost invisible creases in the rock widened to reveal large eyes, colored deep brown. There was another shower of dust, and two arms, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of it, flexed and stretched.

It swiveled around to regard them with its unblinking gaze. Another unnoticed crease cracked open to reveal a mouth. It made a strange noise in the back of its throat, like hundreds of rocks grinding together to make a single sound.

"It's a Geodude," said Dylan. Sky didn't answer. Dylan glanced over at him. Sky was staring at the Geodude with a rapt fascination. He looked like he was only half there. It was a look that Lisa sometimes had when she looked at a picture of a Latios or Kyogre, or when she was trying to think through a difficult problem.

"Sky," said Dylan. "Hello?" Sky blinked and looked over at Dylan. He shook himself. "Uh, yeah," he said in a strange tone. "Um, I was just thinking about—how cool it was that you got a Pokémon." Dylan wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Sky stress the word "you" just the tiniest bit.

"Yeah," said Dylan. "But—how the hell am I gonna tell my parents about it? I mean, a Pokémon isn't gonna be easy to keep around the house, especially a Geodude, and—" He broke off. Sky was staring at him like he had just said he was going to paint the Geodude purple and make it wear a dress. "What is it?" he asked.

"You've just gotten a Geodude," Sky said in a tone that suggested he was trying to make himself believe what he was saying. "You're one of maybe two hundred people in the world who still has a Pokémon. And you're going to just keep it at home as a pet?"

Dylan was confused. "What do you think I should do?" For a moment, Sky looked like he was going to answer, but then he shook his head. "If you can't think of it by yourself," he said, "then you couldn't do it anyway."

Dylan was starting to get angry now. "What can't I do?" he asked in a tone of voice that implied a challenge. If Sky had been thinking straight, he wouldn't have said anything.

But he wasn't, so he answered, "Can't handle a Pokémon if it came with an instruction manual!"

Dylan was fast moving from confused to angry. He didn't understand what Sky was getting worked up about, but he wasn't going to sit and take Sky's insults for much longer.

"Just stop being a jackass and tell me what the problem is," Dylan said, his voice still sounding reasonable. He was slow to lose his temper, but dammit, Sky was pushing the line.

"I'm a jackass?" said Sky in a loud, belligerent voice. "I'm not the one who practically got a Pokémon shoved into his lap and started making plans to housebreak it!"

Dylan clenched his teeth. "Stop insulting me and tell me what's wrong!"

"Oooh," moaned Sky with fake pity, "did I hurt the mama's boy's feelings?"

Dylan's patience snapped. He had tried to figure out what he was doing to make Sky so vindictive, but his friend was just being unreasonable. If Sky wasn't going to explain why he was dishing it out, he was going to start taking it.

"No, you didn't," said Dylan, his eyes narrowed with anger. "All you did was have a little temper tantrum. A little baby powder should take care of it."

The Geodude that had inadvertently started all this watched patiently, waiting for someone to tell it why it was being let out. Its unblinking eyes stared as it tried to decide which one was its new trainer.

It straightened up. Now something was starting to happen. The odd red-haired person was shouting loudly. It walked out of the room, making noises that indicated it was heavier than it looked to the Geodude.

The brown-haired boy who was yelling after him must be the Geodude's trainer. That settled, the Geodude decided to get its trainer's attention.

It opened its mouth and made its presence known to its trainer.

Dylan was shouting after Sky, giving him instructions on where to stick his friendship, when he heard a sound behind him. It sounded like a cross between a cough and an avalanche.

He turned around and looked at the Geodude. That was something he was going to have to deal with later. Right now, he needed to talk to Sky.

He walked over to the Geodude and picked up the Pokéball lying on the floor next to it. He patted the Geodude absently and pressed the button on the ball. The Geodude appeared to break apart into glowing fragments, which leapt towards the Pokéball as though they were magnetically drawn to it. They coalesced around the glowing node inside the Pokéball, which clamped shut. The diode on the button glowed red.

Dylan slipped the Pokéball into the pocket of his jeans. He looked back into the box that had contained his Pokémon, and noticed that there was something else inside that he hadn't noticed.

It was a note. Dylan picked it up and read the last thing that his grandfather would ever say to him.

Dylan, it read, I hope I'm doing the right thing by giving you this Pokémon. It was the last one I ever caught, and I never trained it much. I wanted to give you an untrained Pokémon for two reasons. The first is that everything special about keeping a Pokémon comes from having one that you trained yourself, that you traveled with and taught, healed and fed, a Pokémon who you've been with for its evolutions and helped to deal with its defeats.

The second reason is the reason I'm writing this note at all. I never told you what happened to my other Pokémon after I retired from training. About a month after I quit, I received a request from the government for my Pokémon. I was told they were needed for a research program to try to discover what caused the Pokéball immunity that so many wild Pokémon have developed. It was to be a two-year-long study.

I sent my Pokémon to the address they provided, inside their Pokéballs. It was a lonely two years as I waited.

After the time was up, I wrote to the government, asking for my Pokémon back. I received a reply saying that they were needed for longer than they had expected, and that no one could tell how long it might take. I got angry at this, and I sent a letter saying that they had no right to keep them from me. I received no reply.

I would have gone straight to Indigo City and demanded my Pokémon back in person, but of course I couldn't; by then the roads were impassable without Pokémon to protect you. Things passed like this for many years, but I never forgot my anger over my Pokémon.

One day I found the Pokéball that held the youngest and weakest of my Pokémon, the Geodude that I left to you. The Pokéball was lying forgotten in my attic, covered with dust. I decided then that I would go to Indigo City and find out what had happened to my Pokémon.

When I announced my intentions to my family and friends, however, they were horrified at the idea of me going to Indigo alone, with only my very weakest Pokémon to defend me. Instead, an old friend of mine offered me the use of a Machoke that was descended from one of the Pokémon belonging to his great-great-grandfather, a remarkable man nicknamed Mr. Pokémon. So I used the Machoke instead, and I made it to Indigo Mountain without ever needing to use Geodude.

When I talked to the government officials there, I was told that no study on Pokémon had been performed. I didn't believe them. I investigated and searched and did everything I could think of. But I couldn't find any proof that they were lying, nor any clue to the whereabouts of my Pokémon.

It appeared that my Pokémon were gone for good. But I did have one last Pokémon. I decided that I would not waste his potential power by releasing him to the wild. I left him to you.

I want you to train him. I loved the life of a trainer, and I want you to experience it too. Also, I do not wish for one of the last trainable Pokémon anywhere to simply mingle with the wild ones and disappear.

The life of a trainer is hard, but deeply rewarding. If you can do it despite the odds against you, then you are a better trainer than I ever was. When I watched you grow, I saw a spark in you that hinted that you could be a great trainer someday. It takes hard work to turn that spark into something more. Maybe you will choose not to.

But if you choose to try to be a trainer, then I wish you all the fortune and strength that a retired trainer can hope to give.

---Grandpa.

Dylan dropped the letter. He felt a surge of anger. Who had stolen his grandfather's Pokémon? What right did anyone have to take the creatures that Alexander Imena had raised from infancy? Now his grandfather was dead, and his Pokémon didn't even know it. If he could, Dylan thought, he wanted to find them and release them from whatever their captors wanted them for.

Then he realized what he was thinking of. He was thinking of taking his grandfather's final advice—and become a Pokémon trainer. How could he? His grandfather's letter notwithstanding, it would be nearly impossible to be a trainer in these times. He would have one Pokémon, his Geodude. How could anyone be a trainer with just one Pokémon? Dylan didn't like to brush off his grandfather's wishes, but thinking of being a Pokémon trainer would not be very realistic.

Dylan heard the door to his room open behind him. He turned around and saw his father standing there.

"Is something wrong?" asked his father quietly. "Sky looked pretty angry when he left."

Dylan almost sighed with relief. He was glad that it was his father who had come up to talk. Mark Imena had inherited his father's quietness and tact. He knew how to ask a question without bruising any egos, and how to treat a situation with care. It made him very good at dealing with people.

"Yeah," sighed Dylan. "We did have...an argument." His father nodded.

"Not a really bad one, I hope," he said softly. Dylan winced. His father raised his eyebrows. "A bad one?" he asked.

Dylan nodded. "I guess I'll have to go talk to him after I show you and Mom what grampy gave me."

"Tell you what," said his father. "Why don't you go find Sky now? You can tell us about what you got later."

"Mom won't—" Dylan started to say.

"I'll talk to your mother," said his father. "You go talk to Sky."

Dylan smiled gratefully. His dad left the room and Dylan followed, closing the door behind him. He walked downstairs and out the door.

As he biked along the side of the road, Dylan tried to think about what he would do about Sky. He needed to talk to Sky, but first he needed to know what to say. That meant he needed to know what was bothering him.

And for that, he realized, he needed Lily.

As Dylan and Sky had grown older, they had started to notice Lily's talent for understanding people. She could get inside someone's head and figure out what they wanted and how they thought. She had resolved more than a few quarrels in the past, and Dylan hoped she could help with this one.

He turned his bike onto Elm Street and stopped in front of Lily's house. He ran up the driveway and knocked on the door.

He heard someone approaching the door. It opened, and there was a teenage girl Dylan had never seen before. "Yeah?" she said.

"Um, can I talk to Lily?" said Dylan. The girl nodded. "One sec." She turned and called Lily's name. Lily walked in from the next room.

"Hey Dylan," she said. "What is it?" A baby started crying upstairs. The teenage girl swore and ran upstairs.

"Um, can I come in?" asked Dylan.

"Sure," said Lily. Dylan stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He and Lily walked into the kitchen.

"Your parents found a babysitter, huh?" Dylan said. Lily nodded and sat down at the table.

"So what's wrong?" she asked. Dylan sighed.

"Sky..." he started, but he couldn't think of how to explain.

"Are you two pissed at each other again?" said Lily.

"Yeah," Dylan replied. He described what had happened. Lily's eyes lit up when he mentioned the Pokéball, but she grimaced when Dylan told her about what Sky had said.

"Can I see the Pokémon?" she asked when Dylan finished. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the palm-sized ball. He pressed the release button. The Pokéball opened, and there was a flash of light. When it cleared, the Geodude was sitting on the kitchen floor. It looked at Lily and made its rumbling noise again.

"Wow," Lily breathed, staring at the Pokémon. "A tame Geodude." She looked up at Sky. "I don't know what made Sky so angry," she said, "But I think I know where we can find him."

"Where?" said Dylan.

"The Tower of Grays," Lily replied, still staring at the Geodude. Dylan slapped his forehead.

"Of course!" he said. "Let's go find him." He lifted the Pokéball up and started to recall the Geodude.

"Wait!" said Lily. "Why do you need to put it back in its ball?"

Dylan was confused. "How else would I get it to the Tower?" he asked.

"Well," said Lily, "it could sit on your handlebars or in your backpack or something."

"First of all," said Dylan, "It's got to weigh about forty pounds. It's not going in my backpack, and it would upset the balance on my bike. Second, don't you think it's better if the whole town doesn't know that I have a Pokémon? I'd rather not announce it to all of Lavender just yet."

"You're right," said Lily. "Okay, let's go." Dylan returned the Geodude to its Pokéball and followed Lily outside.

Five minutes later, they braked in front of the Tower of Grays. As they walked inside, Dylan noticed that the channeler standing guard by the stairs looked different than usual. In fact, Dylan thought, she seemed almost nervous.

He looked away from the channeler and saw that Lily was already running up the stairs. He hurried after her, forgetting about the channeler.

Dylan followed Lily through the door to the second floor. Lily started looking around for Sky. She started to speak, but Dylan held up one hand.

"What is it?" said Lily.

"Listen," said Dylan, cocking his head to one side. There was a strange noise coming from the floor above. He hadn't heard it on the first floor because of all the chanting and music, but now it sounded very loud. He looked up, but he couldn't see anything through the hole in the ceiling.

"Come on," he said to Lily. He walked up the stairs to the third floor. The noise was coming from behind one of the larger piles of memorial blocks. He walked over and looked behind it.

Sky was there, playing with Specter. He didn't notice Dylan there. Dylan wrinkled his forehead in confusion. The game Sky was playing with Specter was strange. Specter was hovering a few feet off the ground. Sky was tossing apples to him, and Specter was shooting the apples out of the air with his Lick attack. But Sky had a whistle too, and occasionally, when he threw an apple, he would blow the whistle and Specter would do a back flip or some other trick before shooting the apple. Slowly, Dylan began to understand.

Dylan wasn't a genius. He wasn't unusually quick-witted or bright. But he always got good grades in school because of his ability to concentrate. When he was trying to work out a problem, he would bring a huge amount of mental focus on it until he figured it out. It was slow but very steady, and he had solved more than a few knotty problems with it.

Just now he had been thinking about the problem of Sky. He had turned the facts over and over in his mind on the way to the Tower, and now, faced with this last bit of evidence, he realized what had been bothering Sky. Dylan thought about Sky's sudden change of mood when he had seen the Geodude. He thought about Sky's reaction: "...how cool it was that you got a Pokémon." He realized now that the emphasis on the word "you" had not been just his imagination. He remembered Sky's surprise that Dylan intended to keep the Geodude at home. It all fit.

Sky wanted to be a Pokémon trainer.

He had always been fascinated with Pokémon, and Dylan and Lily had thought it was just Sky's natural curiosity. Now he knew differently. It had been jealousy, plain and simple, that had made him angry with Dylan.

Sky glanced over and saw Dylan and Lily standing there. His face tightened. Without saying anything, he put away the whistle, lifted his backpack, and started to walk away.

"Wait," said Dylan, running over to Sky.

"What?" said Sky sulkily. Dylan sighed.

"I'm sorry that I didn't realize that you wanted to leave town," he said. "I didn't know that you liked Pokémon so much."

Sky's eyes widened. "You know that?" he asked, incredulous. "How?"

Dylan shook his head. "Just a guess. Look, Sky..." he paused. "I don't know if our parents will let us leave. I don't know if it's possible for us to be trainers. But if it is, I'm willing to try."

Sky grinned. He shook Dylan's hand. "Alright," he said. "But let's..." Dylan didn't hear the rest of what Sky said. A massive headache suddenly struck him, and he grabbed his head, groaning.

"Dylan?" said Lily, concerned. "What is it?"

Specter turned around to look at Dylan. His eyes narrowed, and he flew straight at Dylan's head. Just before he would have hit, a Dylan's vision blurred, and he saw a wispy shape float up from around his head. The shape materialized into another Gastly. Specter made an angry hissing noise and hit the other Ghost with a Lick attack. The Ghost floated a few feet away.

Suddenly, a channeler came running down the stairs. She looked panicked, sweat standing out on her forehead. She saw Dylan, Sky, and Lily, and stopped, looking frantic.

"What are you doing here?" she yelled hysterically. "Get out! It's not safe!"

"What's not safe?" asked Lily, but the channeler didn't answer. She ran down the stairs like a demon was after her.

"We should go," said Lily nervously, heading for the stairs. She stopped as another Gastly floated down from the ceiling, hovering in front of her. She turned around. Two more Gastly appeared, drifting around the piles of memorial blocks.

The three kids tried to move slowly towards the stairs, but three more Gastly floated over. Dylan, Sky, and Lily stood terrified as more and more Ghosts appeared, surrounding them.

"What happened?" said Sky in a loud, nervous voice.

"Some of the channelers must have failed," said Lily, giving a nervous glance to a Gastly that had been creeping up behind her. "But I can't understand why."

The twenty-odd Gastly began moving in closer and closer. Specter hovered protectively in front of the three of them. But he was one Pokémon, and while he kept a few of the Ghosts at bay with his attacks, there were just too many. Desperately, Dylan reached into his pocket and threw the Pokéball in front of him. The Gastly moved back from the flash of light. They regarded the Geodude uncertainly, not moving any closer, but not retreating either.

Suddenly, the cloud of Gastly parted. A menacing dark purple shadow took shape in front of the Geodude. Two cunning eyes blinked open, and a pair of shadowy claws appeared in front of it.

It was a Haunter.

Dylan swallowed nervously. Sky backed away, staring at the Ghost Pokémon. Lily stared as if hypnotized, her terror plain on her face.

The Haunter wasn't intimidated by Dylan's Geodude. It moved closer. The group of Gastly seemed to take courage from this and they moved in as well. Dylan decided that the game was up. "Run!" he yelled, and the three of them broke and ran. Dylan grabbed the Geodude—it was surprisingly heavy for such a small Pokémon—and ducked under the group of Gastly, somersaulting onto his feet. He saw Sky run straight through one of the Gastly, and Lily swiped her hands at a pair of them, which moved out of the way just long enough for her to run out of the deadly circle. Specter materialized in front of them again.

They ran for the door, but suddenly Sky saw the world go black. He felt a terrible pain, as though claws were scraping through his brain. He collapsed on the ground. Lily saw the Haunter use its Night Shade attack on Sky, and as he fell she rushed back to help him.

"Dylan!" she screamed to Dylan as he ran towards the stairs. He turned and rushed back over. He saw the Haunter turn towards Lily, its spectral claws rising up as though it was preparing to slash her. Dylan yelled angrily and put on an extra burst of speed. A Gastly tripped him and he fell heavily to the ground.

"Geodude!" he yelled desperately. "Help Lily!" The Rock Pokémon rolled across the wooden floor, using its hands to launch itself up and towards the Haunter for a tackle attack. The Geodude crashed harmlessly through the Haunter, not hurting it at all. The Ghost Pokémon was startled, however. It flew backwards, looking around.

Dylan got to his feet and rushed over to Sky and Lily. Sky was slowly getting to her feet, but Lily had been paralyzed by a Lick attack from the Haunter. She lay on the floor, shaking uncontrollably. Only her eyes could still move, and they were quite plainly terrified. Dylan looked up to see that the Gastly were all retreating. A group of channelers was chasing them up the stairs, chanting and making warding gestures.

But the Haunter was still there.

Geodude and Specter moved over, ready to defend the three kids. But Specter was weakened badly and Geodude was completely useless against the Ghost-type. Between them, Dylan didn't think the two Pokémon stood a chance.

The Haunter moved forward. Specter abruptly shot towards it, and it flew backwards. Then it cackled and hit Specter with a Night Shade attack.

Dylan saw that the Haunter was distracted for the moment. He knelt down to inspect Lily. Her muscles were still locked up, the uncontrollable shaking her only movement. Dylan tried to ease her into a more comfortable position, leaning her against the wall and brushing hair out of her eyes.

Sky, however, was watching the battle. Specter was getting badly beaten by the Haunter. He tried to use a Lick attack, spitting a gob of venomous saliva right at the larger Pokémon. But he was simply too weak and too injured. The Haunter cackled and engulfed Specter with the black cloud of its Night Shade attack. The Gastly was almost done for. He sagged in the air, defeated and broken. Sky realized with panic that another attack like that would kill Specter.

"No!" he shouted. "SPECTER!"

The Haunter moved in, preparing to deliver the final blow.