Erin and Abadon made their way along the edge of the forest, headed to the next town. On their right was a dying field that must have at one point been beautiful, filled with pokemon like ratata, pidgey and zigzigoon, with the occasional taillow, seedot, and ledyba.  Now, as Erin looked across the once green land, she saw nothing but the dying, wilting grass. Pokemon no longer cared to live in a dying world; they have left the land that humans have forgotten. They go now to places that humans, in their quest to discover and conquer, have overlooked or discarded. These are the only sanctuaries left for them.

Erin sighed and continued walking.

"What was all that stuff on the news back in the city?"

"About the war?" she asked, glancing back to the charmeleon. "My home town is on Cinnibar Island, in the country of Kanto. Right now Kanto is going to war with Jhoto. I don't know why; nothing seemed to be wrong between the two. But now it seems that Honen will get involved, and most likely this country will be caught up in it as well. And still the failing government won't tell us why. It's simply: sign up and defend your country! Yeah right."

            "How come you aren't in your country? I'd think that you would have gone to school there instead of all the way out here."

            "Humph," Erin snorted. "As bad as things are here, they're ten times worse back home. My family doesn't care about me. They only let me study so far away so I would be out of their hair. My dad will be furious when he finds out that I've been expelled. Only one more reason not to return."

            Abadon fell silent in thought, but suddenly his stomach growled. He looked up with a smile on his face. "Can we stop and eat?"

            Erin laughed and was glad for the lightening of the mood. "You never stop eating, do you? Come on, we can go into to forest and look for a spot to rest for a while: we have been walking all morning, and you just recently battled."

The two of them made their way into the forest, which, like the field, was dying. The trees here were not sparse however, but they were old and grayish in color, while most of their leaves had fallen off, never to return. "This spot looks as good as any," Erin commented, looking around absentmindedly as she sat on the dry cracked ground.

"Yeah, sure," said Abadon, eager to eat. "What do we have?"

Erin took off her pack and searched through its contents. She brought out some dried meat and granola bars, handing some of each to Abadon, who looked on with a disappointed face.

"Is this all? This isn't food. Well, this kind of is," he said, shaking the meat, "but only kind of."

"It's fine. It may not taste all that great, but the bars are packed with vitamins and protein. Everything you need. If you don't like it then hunt for yourself like you did before you decided to follow me."

Abadon pouted and took a bite of the meat. "There's nothing to hunt in this dead forest. 'Cept maybe leaves, and they might taste better than this." Then his head shot up as he glanced quickly all around him.

"What's wrong?" asked Erin.

"Something's coming," he whispered

"What?"

But Abadon didn't have time to answer, because then an eerie voice, angry and wailing, was heard seemingly from everywhere at once. "Putrid being!" it screamed. "How dare you come here! How dare you enter this forest!" A small black shadow darted over the duo's makeshift camp, moving so fast that neither was able to lock on to it.

"Abadon! What is it?"

"I don't know, I can't tell."

"Filthy human!" the shadow wailed, then ramming itself into Erin stomach, knocking the breath out of her as she fell to the ground gasping.

In the split second that the shadow halted to recover its balance, Abadon spotted it. The next second it was a blur again. "And you!" it began again, "You repugnant excuse for a pokemon! Taking orders from one of them! You deserve to die as well you disgusting lab breed!"

Abadon ran over to protect Erin. "Stop! Don't attack her! What did Erin ever do to you? Erin," he said, talking softly to her but trying to keep his eyes on the quickly moving shadow. "It's an umbreon. I saw it after it ran into you. I think it's female."

"Oh, so you're not a lab breed," the umbreon said, stopping on a tree branch to look at the two more clearly. "That's even worse. How could an intelligent being like yourself follow one that destroys the earth?" She jumped quickly, and before Abadon had time to react, she had knocked him into a nearby tree.

"Abadon! No!" yelled Erin in worry.

Abadon stood up shakily. "I'm ok, don't get upset."

"You won't be for long." But Abadon had seen that the umbreon attacked her opponent's torso with a fast and powerful body slam and fixed his eyes to see her coming.

"There, from the left," he thought as he turned just in time to bring his clawed fist down on the umbreon's back at the same instant she slammed into him once more. They both went flying and stood up with strained effort facing each other with mutual hatred.

"Abadon! It's ok, I'm all right!"

"No! This umbreon wants to kill you and you haven't done anything to her!"

"It's her kind!" The umbreon yelled. "Her kind are killing this land. They are killing everything and no one has tried to stop them. I'm not going to let her live!" She made another leap for Erin.

"No!" cried Abadon, grabbing her ringed tail to hold her back and then threw her the opposite direction against a tree with a thud. "I won't let you hurt her!"

"Abadon..." whispered Erin under her breath, fearful for his life.

The umbreon stood up glared at Abadon with such malice that it flowed through her very being. A dark energy appeared to be eradiating from her fur. "I will not be deterred from my task!" she screamed as she leapt for Erin, attempting to pass the stubborn charmeleon. She was not expecting Abadon to grab her in mid-leap. "What! How were you able to see where I was going to move?"

Abadon scoffed. "That black aura you're emitting leaves a trail. You were easy to track."

"Impossible! Only dark types are able to see the dark aura."

"Doesn't seem that way any more, does it?"

The umbreon screamed her hatred. "You will pay for your treachery!" The black energy that had accumulated around her began to grow and spread, becoming larger and beginning to surround Abadon as well. "Let me go so I can kill the human, or you will die as well!"

"Never!" yelled Abadon. In his fury and attempts to hang on to the umbreon, his eyes began to glow in anger. The flame on his tail was growing, and the fire was spreading to consume his whole body.

"Stop it! You'll kill yourself!" hollered Erin. "Please!"

But Abadon was past the point of hearing. His whole body was covered in bright tongues of fire, growing larger by the second. The umbreon had not relented in the sickening darkness that she had unleashed. It did not matter that the fire, too, was consuming her. As long as the charmeleon was going to die from her darkness and she killed the worthless human, her life did not matter. Abadon screamed from the pressure of the surrounding void, the umbreon screamed from the intensity of the flames, and Erin screamed because she thought she would loose Abadon to the psychotic umbreon.

There was a blinding flash... and then nothing.