Well, happy holidays everyone! Here's a long chapter as a belated Christmas gift.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Polished Stone

-

Since the morning, Prowler's behavior was strange and distant. She stayed out, carrying the kitten and often disappearing for the day, coming back sometime after Elliot fell asleep at night. She hissed and snapped at Caw, chasing him until he flew into the distance or Elliot recalled him.

Elliot didn't ask her why she was acting like that. He felt a sense of anxiety and wrongness – he didn't want to say anything, so he just hoped things would go back to the way they'd been. He hadn't really understood what Prowler was talking about that morning, and there'd be no elaboration. They headed toward Pewter.

At the end of one night, in the strange false dawn before the sun had rose, Elliot awoke, or half-awoke. He didn't move in his sleeping bag, and his eyelids were still heavy, half opened. He watched the world with a sense of dreamlike distance, slowly falling back asleep.

Prowler was lying near him. He felt relieved she had returned. She was curled around the kitten, purring comfortingly and licking it.

The kitten mewed occasionally. It trembled, and its front paws kneaded blindly. Its head was nuzzling up against Prowler's side.

Prowler continued purring and licking as the trembles became shudders, and she continued as the shudders subsided. Finally the kitten lay still. Prowler continued licking it for a bit, and then she stopped. She remained curled around it for a while, and then at last she stood, picked up the small body in her jaws, and swallowed it.

When Elliot opened his eyes again, he found Prowler rubbing her side against Din's, then licking some of her fur straight. It was morning. He sat up, looking around.

"Where's the kitten?" he asked sleepily. "Where'd he go?"

((Not he,)) Prowler corrected mildly.

"Well, where's she?"

((Not she. It.))

Elliot felt cold suddenly. "I don't understand."

((The kitten was a it.))

"Where is it now?"

((It is dead.))

"You didn't – Prowler you didn't – you didn't –"

((It died. It was misborn. It could only die.)) She looked at him. ((Why do you look upset?))

"Don't you even care? After all the time you spent taking care of it, you-"

((It was a good death,)) Prowler said.

"That's a horrible thing to say!"

((There are worse ways to die. There are worse ways to live,)) Prowler said complacently. ((It was lucky to be misborn.))

Elliot shuddered and looked away from her.

-

-

Pewter was a dull gray place, built in a sort of mammoth depression in the surrounding rock, and ringed by stone walls. Although all the cities and buildings of Kanto had more than a passing similarity to each other, the houses Elliot encountered on the way in seemed somewhat more coarse and rough, as if built for heavy use and with little time or interest in unnecessary finishing touches. The difference was slight, something only one used to such minor variation would pick up, but it was certainly there.

The people seemed to look different too, although Elliot thought it was probably his imagination – making them seem somehow smaller and yet tougher, craggy like everything else, and uninterested in things around them. Not everyone was like that, but to Elliot, it seemed like there was a sharp difference between them, with some people seeming no different than anyone he'd seen in other cities, and others seeming uniformly shorter, silenter, and just different, more remote maybe. There didn't seem to be anyone in the middle.

Elliot was glad to be there. Out in the wilderness, there were only his pokemon. Here there were other people, distractions from the thoughts he had out there.

He headed towards the Pokemon Center. Inside there everything was normal, the same as it always was. He handed the Nurse Joy his pokemon and sat down, thinking about the upcoming gym fight.

The Pewter Gym was a rock-type one. He started looking though his pokedex, checking his pokemon's attacks. He had three pokemon that were weak against rock types, which left Din, Discord and Prowler. None of them were really that good of a choice, but he hoped that some of them might have effective moves.

Discord's listed moves didn't look promising, but the pokedex informed him cheerfully that by using defense curl, he could double the power of a rollout attack. That would have to do. Rollout might be able to keep Discord protected long enough to do some damage. Elliot didn't notice anything new in Din's moves, so he'd just have to stick with the usual strategy of direct attacks. And Prowler...

That was odd. He was sure he'd seen her use bubble or bubblebeam, but that wasn't listed in her moves. Oh, it was a TM move they could learn, he found. That explained it.

Prowler's moves were pretty much the same as Din, but he figured she'd be able to do okay at the gym after seeing how well she'd fought the wild onix. Satisfied, he flipped the pokedex shut and looked around.

On the wall was a poster advertising the Pewter Museum. That sounded interesting. He decided to go there once his pokemon were healed.

The people around him were chattering, the same as it was in every other Pokemon Center.

"Look," someone was saying. "It can't all be a coincidence. Four missing all at once?"

"Oh, come on. The Viridian Gym's closed more often than it's open. Doesn't need to be something huge going on for that to happen."

"And the other three?"

"Who knows? Can't anyone take a break without you crying about the sky falling?"

"I didn't say that!"

"Then what are you saying?"

"Look, even if the Viridian Gym was closed for other reasons – well-trained psychic, poison and water types all off somewhere, and something going on up north of Cerulean if half the rumors are true. It's obvious what's going on!"

"Yeah, what?"

"A clefairy space ship! It's obvious!"

"Uh-huh. Because a space ship, that's the sort of thing you need a water type for."

A bell dinged. Elliot stood and retrieved his pokemon, then headed out.

-

-

Elliot looked at the museum. It was a big building, with a large double door and two huge stone pillars holding up an overhang at the top of the front steps.

Elliot had never been to a museum. He thought the building looked very museum-like, from what he'd seen on television, at least. He started up the stairs.

There was a girl standing at the top, on hand resting on the right stone pillar. She looked like she was seventeen or eighteen, much too old to be a trainer, although she was wearing a long coat that blocked any view of where a pokebelt would be, and she had a calm, almost melancholy expression.

"What are you doing?" Elliot asked.

She turned to him, looking slightly surprised. She must not have heard him approach. "I was just looking at the stonework," she said. "They replaced these recently." Her voice was soft, somewhat dreamy.

"Oh. Were the older ones too old? Falling apart?"

"They were too old." She sighed. "Beautiful work. I saw them years ago. They don't make things like that anymore. They could have lasted…centuries longer. But they were in the wrong style, not modern enough. So they smashed the old ones and had them replaced."

"Oh. That's too bad."

The girl's hand traced an almost invisible discoloration, a hairline crack. "Do you see this? The stone is flawed. Full of this. Before long, it'll break and have to be replaced. Cut and polished stone it like that. It shows its flaws." Her fingers traced another line. "If it isn't cut properly, cracks can be created. Finding a perfect piece of stone, cutting and polishing it properly, it's practically a lost art." She sighed again. "These won't last fifty years. I wonder, when they replace these, if they'll even bother to make the next pillars from rock."

Elliot didn't know what to say. After a moment he asked, "Are you from around here? You seem to know a lot."

"No," she said. "I'm not from around here. No one here knows how to work stone anymore. It's such a shame. All the people here can do now is hack apart the rock. No subtlety...but it's what happened to those who stayed." She sounded distantly amused.

"Where are you from, then?"

"Oh, off in the north," she said vaguely. "It's where my family lives." She smiled at him. "But this must not make much sense to you. You're lucky, you have no sense of history, and if the world is better or worse than before, you won't notice. Go on into the museum. It wouldn't do for you to be seen carrying on a conversation with the likes of me."

-

-

At the front desk to the right side of the door, Elliot handed the attendant 50 pen. He continued on into a wide room.

There were two large glass cases filling up the space, each holding strange-shaped bones. Elliot walked around the first, examining it carefully. It looked like a cross between a scyther and a flat stone, like one he'd use to skip across a pond. It was about as big as him. He read the blurb on the side.

Kabutops, it read. A primitive pokemon that lived in the sea.

That didn't tell much, Elliot thought. He went to the next case.

It was...Elliot wasn't quite sure how to describe it. It had big wings and thick back legs, a little like a charizard, but it didn't have arms, just claws on the ends of its wings. Its head was huge and coarse, almost like a cross between a ponyta and a feraligator, and it had big, blunt-looking teeth. Elliot thought it looked ugly, deformed, and sorta...scary.

He read the information. Aerodactyl, it said. An extinct prehistoric pokemon. Scientists are unsure if it flew or only glided.

Extinct pokemon...Elliot had never really thought about that. He wondered if the pokemon he'd read about in the burned journal had been one people had thought was extinct. It didn't really seem right for pokemon to just disappear...

Elliot looked back up at the winged thing nervously. Although, maybe it was okay for some pokemon to be gone.

There wasn't anything else there, so Elliot headed up the stairs. He saw a big model of a rocket and a flat glass case with a bunch of stones. The plaque by the rocket model informed him it was a replica of the first rocket to bring people to the moon.

The moon...Elliot thought back, trying to remember if he'd learned anything about it in school. He didn't think so. He knew people had landed on the moon, but couldn't remember ever having it explained to him. It was just sort of part of the world, like it'd always been that way. He wondered when it had happened, what had gone on then. Were they still sending people up? Elliot didn't think so, he'd have heard of that. But if they'd stopped, why?

He moved to the next display. A bunch of boring whitish-grey rocks. He looked around for the explanation. Moon rocks, he read. Well, that was a little more interesting...he glance back into the case. But they were still just rocks. They weren't letting out space viruses or mind control rays or radiation that turned the glass into a monster.

Elliot headed back down. On the ground floor, he saw a short man in a long white coat who looked like his idea of a scientist. The man rushed up to him.

"It's good to see a young person interested in learning," he said strongly, reaching out and shaking Elliot's hand. Elliot felt something hard and cold pressing into his palm.

"Wha..." Elliot started to say, but the desperate look in the man's eyes silenced him. He stared at Elliot for a moment silently, as if pleading for him not to ask the question.

When the moment passed without a sound, the man released his hand and walked off hurriedly.

Elliot didn't know what to do. After a moment, he continued out of the building.

Outside, he looked down at what was in his hand. It was a polished yellow-orange stone, with something black and spiky in the center. He glanced back at the museum doors. What was the big deal? He put it in his pocket and started off, looking for the gym.

-

-

The Pewter Gym, like some of the houses Elliot had seen, looked somehow rough-hewn, and it was blockier than the other gyms Elliot had seen, looking like it was built with a more utilitarian bent. The doors were large and square, made of a heavy grey metal. Elliot had to lean against the side of the door and push hard to get it open.

Once he'd widened the gap enough to squeeze through, he entered. It was dark inside, and when the lights suddenly snapped on after he'd gotten a few feet in, he took a started step backwards.

There was a boy, a lot older than Elliot, standing at the other side of the room. Between them was an arena, one with stones that looked like stalagmites seeming to come out of the floor. "So," he said, "you've come to challenge me?" He didn't wait for an answer. "We'll fight two on two. Agreed?"

"Okay," said Elliot, feeling relieved he wouldn't have to use Din. "Go, Discord!"

The gym leader looked decidedly unimpressed. "Geodude," he said, picking out a pokeball and throwing it. "Tackle."

"Uproar!" Elliot yelled, clapping his hands over his ears.

Discord inflated, opened his mouth, and began to produce a sound that was a strange mixture of a scream, bellow, and nails on a chalkboard.

The other boy yelled, covering his own ears and cringed, his eyes shutting. The geodude let out a cry of its own, stopping where it was.

"Great!" Elliot shouted over the noise. "Now use defense curl, then rollout!"

Discord flattened his arms and legs against his body and began to spin. He rolled toward the geodude. He struck it, knocking it back a few inches, then rolled away. He started to return for a second hit, his speed building.

"Tackle!"

The two pokemon collided. This time the impact knocked the geodude back several feet. Discord's spinning wasn't interrupted. He spun along the ground and started to head back to the geodude again.

"Try seismic toss, Geodude!"

The geodude reached out its hands as Discord barreled toward it, and managed to stop the jigglypuff and hold him back. But Discord continued to spin. The geodude, low-level and of not particularly hard composition, let out a deep cry as bits of its fingers began to crack off.

The fragments were too small to be seen by either trainer. The geodude shoved Discord away with a groan, and Discord spun away.

"Geodude! Seismic toss!" the Gym Leader ordered, sounding annoyed.

The geodude again grabbed Discord when he approached, and was again in a position akin to trying to hold a spinning drill between its hands. This time it executed the toss, throwing Discord against the stone floor and finally breaking the attack. One hand broke in the process, at the place that would be just below the wrist for something with bones and joints.

Rocks don't bleed. Still, it went against League protocol to leave a visibly maimed pokemon in the ring. It was recalled, replaced by a rhyhorn.

"Tackle," the Gym Leader ordered again.

Discord was smacked into the wall, bounced against the floor, and then into a rock. He groaned painfully and fainted.

Elliot recalled him and picked the next pokeball off his belt. "Go, Prowler!" he yelled, tossing the Ultraball.

She appeared, noticing the odd faux rocks of the gym. The rhyhorn in front of her she sized up, judging her chances.

Behind her Elliot was yelling something ridiculous about bubbles. She didn't need a distraction, not for this big thing.

She started to circle, watching his lumbering attempts to turn and keep facing her. She thought she might be able to take one or two hits by him safely, but he was obviously strong and even a single blow might be crippling.

She heard the second boy saying something to Elliot, his voice mocking. Deliberately, she turned to look over her shoulder at him, and the nervous rhyhorn charged.

Prowler slid out of his way and slashed at his side as he kept going, unable to check his momentum fast enough.

Rhyhorn would never be considered speedy, but they could get up to a decent speed given time and a straight line. They were at their worst in a situation that required them to keep changing direction, as they were unable to keep up and their attempts to do so only wore them out fast.

She flexed the muscles in her paws, sheathing and unsheathing her claws. She focused, seeing a shine behind her eyes, imagining the transmutation. It wasn't easy to do, not as automatic as just clawing and biting, or with as much room for varying levels of skill like her bubbles.

She had only used the attack once before, the time outside the familiar almost-mountain. But she had seen it before. She focused.

The other boy yelled an attack name she hadn't heard before, and the rhyhorn tossed his head, throwing one of the rocks at her. She jumped out of the way easily. He kept going, smashing the fake rocks and throwing them. They weren't hard to dodge but she watched carefully – to be hit by one of those would hurt.

It didn't take the rhyhorn long to finish pulverizing the rocks, leaving only gravelly fragments and the hard flat substance of the floor.

"Take down!"

She twisted to the side, clawing him across the face and tearing off one eye. The rhyhorn screamed, maddened, and he tossed his head with surprising speed, the horn clipping her side. The blow shook her but wasn't enough to slow her down.

The rhyhorn was blind on one side now. She slid in, slashing at his side, tearing off chucks of his armor until one leg gave. He was still dangerous, even like that, and he struggled, trying to hit her with his horn. It would be hard to finish it –

- And so she was surprised when the dark grey turned red and the pokemon sucked back into the ball.

Elliot noticed the Gym Leader's face looked perfectly cordial, even somewhat respectfully impressed, as he handed over the Boulder Badge. But he also had a strange distant look, as if he were already thinking about something to come and was wrapped up in the planning.

-

-

While Elliot was heading back to the Pokemon Center, a trainer challenged him to a three-on-three match.

Din lost the first battle, against a victreebel. Sono finished it off and made a good attempt against the next pokemon, an undersized arbok, before fainting. Elliot picked Prowler.

The arbok was young, perhaps newly evolved. She was of decent strength. Prowler fought her for only a short time before a slash left a long bloody line on the snake's back and it vanished into the trainer's Greatball. She picked another and threw it.

A towering brown giant appeared. Elliot pulled out his pokedex and pointed it.

Prowler darted forward and slashed at one ankle as the pokedex reported the thing to be a ursaring. The ursaring snarled and swatted at her, faster than Elliot expected. Prowler was tossed back, flying through the air. Elliot thought for a moment it was over, but then she twisted and managed to land on her feet. The two pokemon stared at each other.

"Dynamic punch!" the girl yelled.

The ursaring growled and swung a paw at Prowler, who dodged. The thunder and fire punches she dodged as well, forewarned by the trainer.

"Faint attack," the girl said. The ursaring vanished and then Prowler felt something huge smash into her side. She slashed at it reflectively, hitting the pokemon full in the face.

Prowler managed to stand. The ursaring had her paws over her face, and Prowler could hear wordless, pained moans. The ursaring recovered after a second, dropping her arms to hang loosely by her sides. She was in better condition than Prowler, with only two shallow if painful cuts.

Prowler had fought a ursaring before. It had been strong then as well. She remembered the sickening crack when it had hit...

This one wasn't nearly that strong, but there was no one to help her, just a boy who wasn't more than a kitten.

The other trainer looked past the fight to Elliot. "Looks like it's a draw," she said. "Let's call it a tie."

"Oh-okay," Elliot said.

The ursaring lumbered back. Prowler didn't understand, but she mirrored the action, limping back to Elliot. He petted her head irritatingly, but she tolerated it.

"Your persian's pretty good," the girl said. "Much faster than Constella."

"Your ursaring's a really good fighter, really strong," Elliot replied.

The girl nodded. Elliot had the sudden, irrational thought that what was happening seemed almost scripted, a scene out of a show where it was obvious to everyone but the characters what it was leading up to. "I've been training him for more than a year now.

"Hey," she said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to her. "Why don't we trade pokemon? My ursaring for your persian?"

The whole thing had a weird feeling of deja vu to it, as if he was hearing the words before she said them. He was left dumb as she spoke, her voice like an echo.

He recovered. "No," he said. "I couldn't." He reached down to touch the fur on Prowler's back.

The girl looked like it was no big deal, but somehow, she also looked a tiny bit disappointed and...relieved. Maybe he was just imagining that, though.

-

-

Back at the Pokemon Center, Elliot gave the Nurse Joy his pokemon again and sat down to wait. He felt the hard stone in his pocket and pulled it out, turning it over between his fingers idly. He had no idea what it was. The pokedex was able to analyze some items, so he decided to try that.

"Amber," the pokedex reported. "The fossilized remains of tree sap. Pure forms are typically desired, as they are used in making jewelry, but some scientists are interested in amber that has managed to entrap insects within it, in the hopes that they might be able to extract the DNA and revive ancient pokemon."

Cool, Elliot thought. He looked at the stone again. That thing in the center might be an insect, although he couldn't be sure. He transferred it to a pouch in his bag and then went over to the videophones, calling home.

He told his mother where he was and about the gym fight. She told him how proud this all made her, and then suggested he visit home, since he was so near. "It'd be good for Merci to see you," she told him, "after you've been gone so long."

-

-

"Yeah," the boy said, recalling his electrode. "I guess trading pokemon is pretty popular around here."

The trainer was the third who had offered to trade a pokemon for Prowler. The explanation reassured him for a moment, but then he thought to himself how odd it was that so many formidable trainers, who all seemed so experienced, would be living in Pewter.

-

-

"You lost?"

"I had no idea he'd gotten so far. It wasn't like I was warned someone would be coming. He looked like he'd just started. He used a jigglypuff!"

"Yet you lost."

"I wasn't expecting the second pokemon to be so strong. And that persian still shouldn't have won. If I didn't know better I'd think it had used metal claw."