Been a while, but finally here's the next chapter. Hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 17

Arcanine bounded through the trees at a breakneck speed, he had to get back as soon as possible. Gary was left stranded in the forest, he couldn't lose his trainer and her friend, he couldn't live with himself.

He was so helpless. All he could do was get Ash and Gaz back quickly enough so he could go back and rescue Gary. He picked up the pace once again hoping the velocity wouldn't knock off his passengers.

Back in the forest, things were starting to look bleaker and bleaker for the young Professor. Despite him pressing as much pressure as he could the wound was just too deep, and blood kept trickling out between his fingers. His hand was beginning to loosen as he felt himself become colder and tired.

This wasn't lost upon Umbreon who began frantically nudging Gary to try keep him conscious.

"Breon, Umb, Umbreon." It cried rubbing his head against his trainer.

"It's not looking good, Umbreon." Gary whispered. "If the worst happens, I want you to take my Pokéballs and bring them back to everyone."

"Breon." Umbreon said quietly and filled with sadness.

Gary's eyes closed and shutting off the faint light he had from the moon.

He was going to miss out on a lot. He wasn't going to be able to get his certification to be a full-fledged Pokémon Professor. He was going to miss out on another couple years working alongside his grandfather. At least he got to see Ash win a league, he never thought he'd see that in his lifetime.

Plus, he never got to tell her how he felt.

'What a cliché final thought.' Gary laughed in his head.

Umbreon was beginning to panic. Was his friend just going to pass away right in front of him while he just watched. He noticed the moonlight gleaming off something far down the forest trail that Arcanine ran through. Being a Dark Type Pokémon, Umbreon had pretty good vision in darkness and saw that the object reflecting the moon was a pokéball. Could someone have lost this while traveling? It wasn't one of Gary's pokéballs, Umbreon would recognise it.

Umbreon was desperate though, he picked up the pokéball and brought it back to Gary, he began to nudge Gary until he jerked and noticed it.

"Huh?" Gary said, bemused at the sight of Umbreon holding a pokéball. Umbreon dropped the ball into Gary's limp hand. Gary understood the message, but he barely had the strength to lift his arm and throw the ball.

After much more a struggle than it should have been Gary managed to throw the ball a couple yards. The ball burst open and a beam of light emerged. The energy manifested itself into a pink and cream creature with curls hanging from it ears.

"Dino?" The Audino spoke in confusion, not seeing her trainer nearby.

"Umb, Umbreon." The Dark-Type Pokémon pleaded to the newly emerged Audino.

Audino looked over to see Gary slumped against a tree.

"Aud…" Audino gasped as she rushed over to the young man on the brink of death.

She kneeled beside him and placed her hands over the wound. Umbreon looked on as Audino's expression turned to a face of pure concentration. She then began to glow green. The energy then began to build up around Audino's hands, the energy then began to transfer over to Gary causing him to also glow with the eerie green light.

This continued for several minutes as Umbreon looked on anxiously. Eventually Audino's hands stopped glowing and she let them drop to her sides with a sigh of exhaustion. Soon after, Gary also stopped glowing.

'I thought death was supposed to be warm.' Gary thought. He was cold, it almost felt like there was a breeze passing through him. 'I was right about the darkness though.'

He was so tired. Shouldn't these feelings be gone by now? Why is he feeling fatigue after dying? And what was that sound? It was a very faint calling of sorts. He concentrated as hard as he could to try and hear better. It sounded like a faint cry.

"Umb…Bre…Umb."

Gary was too curious, as he always was. He had to know what it was. He tried harder and harder straining to hear the call a bit better until…

Gary's eyes shot open as he took a huge gulp of air. All his senses came back to him at once. The smell of the forest pine, the feeling of his sand against the soil, the sound of the breeze rustling through leaves, the sight that took him away from the darkness and the stale taste of his own blood in his mouth.

"Breon." Gary's Umbreon jumped excitedly onto him, filled with pure joy that his trainer had miraculously survived.

"Umbreon? It was you that called me." Gary realised. "What happened?"

He lifted his hand from the wound that had almost killed him. The last he could remember it was pouring blood but now it seems to have stopped. There was just the large, dried stain from before.

"How did I survive?" Gary whispered.

He looked to his right to see an Audino, seeing that Gary was relatively okay she gave him a big smile.

"Dino!" She exclaimed happily.

"Did you heal my wound?" Gary asked, he received a nod in response from the Normal Type. "Thank you so much, I could never repay you." Audino just continued to smile.

"Okay, I've had enough time to recover we need to get back to the others." Gary used a tree for leverage as he pushed himself back up to his feet. He let out a sharp gasp of pain. The wound may not be fatal any longer, but it still hurt like hell.

"Son of a bitch." Gary cursed as he finally got to an upright position. He once again glanced at the Audino.

"There's no way there's a wild Audino living around the Tohjo area, you must have a trainer, right?" Gary asked.

The Audino nodded and then pointed to something behind Gary, it was an empty pokéball. He went over and picked it up.

"Oh, this is your pokéball?" Gary asked and he received another nod. "Maybe this is one of the pokéballs Team Rocket confiscated and they dropped it accidentally. Audino, thank you for everything I'm going to return you and then we'll meet up with the others and I'll find your trainer for you, it's the very least I could do for you."

Audino let out a happy cry in agreement as Gary returned her, he placed the pokéball beside his own inside his jacket before turning to Umbreon and kneeling beside him.

"Umbreon, thank you so much too. If it wasn't for you calling, I'm not sure if I could have made it back. Not to mention for staying with me during everything."

Umbreon smiled and then licked the cheek of his trainer causing Gary to laugh at the ticklish feeling. He then stood up again, letting out another grunt of pain.

"Okay, let's go fin the other's, I'm going to need you to guide me in the dark. And go slow."

Umbreon brushed against Gary's leg and they began making their way back in a slow trot.


The frontier brains led the group back to the Battle Tower. Anabel opened the doors and allowed them all in.

"Make yourselves at home, you're welcome to stay as long as you like." She told the group.

"Thank you so much for this Anabel." Leaf chimed, grateful for the chance of a place to stay.

"It's no problem at all." Anabel waved off. "Lucy is staying over anyway, and we enjoy the company."

"Exactly, it's a pleasure to host you here." Lucy agreed.

"The pleasure is all mine my darling, I would travel over mountainous terrain and through the depths of the deepest seas to just stand in the same room as you." Brock spewed as he knelt in front of Lucy.

"This isn't the time idiot." Misty screamed as she clocked him in the head. "She's not interested, and our friends are still missing."

Misty dragged a dazed Brock back across the floor. People were so distracted at the sight that no one noticed the blush on Lucy's cheeks.

"As much as I enjoy all your shenanigans," Brandon shouted dryly. "My assistance is required in Sinnoh. Apparently, there's been disturbance to some ancient structures over there so Professor Rowen has requested me. I hope your friends return safe."

Brandon nodded to Anabel and without any further delay left the premises.

"He doesn't waste any time, does he?" Max noticed, shaking his head.

"Okay, it's time you guys explained." Leaf spoke up. "After all that happened why is there two Team Rocket members hanging around with us now?"

"It's 3 actually, you twoip." Meowth corrected.

"A talking Meowth?" Leaf exclaimed in shock.

"The real trick is keeping him quiet." Iris quipped.

"To answer your question, we got into a battle with a lot of Team Rocket members." Brock explained, somehow already covered. "We fought them off as long as we could, but they eventually got the best of us. Then, believe it or not, these three showed up to help us and hold off the rest of Team Rocket."

"You might not know Leaf, but we have a lot of history with these three." May told her. "They've been trying to steal our Pokémon for years now."

"Can we be sure this isn't a trap though?" Serena asked sceptically. "What if they had it planned with the other members beforehand in order to trick us into trusting them?"

"That's a good point." Leaf agreed.

"Because they saved my life." Cameron spoke up.

"What?" Serena asked in shock. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I tried fighting them off as long as I could, but I wasn't strong enough. All my Pokémon were knocked out. The Mightyena was about to attack me. I knew it was because the same thing almost happened to Ash earlier. It was about to go for my neck but those three came and saved me and everyone. Because I was too weak."

Serena grasped both of his hands in hers.

"I know you fought as hard as you could, from what Brock told me it wasn't a fair fight to begin with. But you and Max both did great. You held them off for long enough, if you had tried to do more it would have been more dangerous for everyone. I'm proud of you, and so happy that you're safe."

Serena could see Cameron slightly perk up at her words and she pulled him into a big hug.

Max was looking on, for some reason it made him angry. Cameron's Lucario was the last one standing on their side. What right does he have to be upset? Does he not realise how strong he was? Max wished he could be as strong as him.

"Max are you okay?" May asked her little brother, sensing his discomfort.

"I'm Fine." Max answered shortly.

"This is the quietest I've ever heard you three." Dawn said to Jesse, James and Meowth.

"This is a lot to take in for us too." James told her.

"So, why did you decide to help us?" Iris asked.

"Haven't we done enough for you already?" Jessie snapped.

"Fine. This is the last question." Misty told them.

The trio glanced at each other for a couple seconds. Jesse then took a deep breath and began to explain.

"We were tasked with following your little group and reporting back to the boss, usually we'd use this as a prime opportunity to steal Pikachu, but the boss seemed so terrifying when he gave us the order. More terrifying than usual anyway."

"How long were you following us for?" Dawn asked.

"From just after when you left Pokémon Tech." James told her.

"So, it was you who ordered Giselle to be captured?" Brock questioned.

"Actually, we had nothing to do with that." Meowth told them.

"You expect us to believe that?" Max scoffed.

"It's true, we don't have the authority to call for something like that, we could only alert the boss of your whereabouts." James explained.

"I'm going to skip to the real question." Anabel stepped forward to face the three. "What is Team Rocket's plan? What are you up to?"

"We don't even know that much!" Jesse said through gritted teeth.

"So, you conveniently don't know anything?" Serena asked in disbelief.

"Believe it or not, it's the truth!" Meowth shouted. "Our only job was tracking you!"

"Then why did you help us?" Misty asked.

"While on stakeout we ran into Butch and Cassidy. They explained there would be an operation and we should stay out of it." Jessie began to explain. "Naturally seeing those two acting as if they were superior rubbed us the wrong way. We got there and saw all you twerps in a sticky situation. We weren't going to step in, our teammates had finally stolen your Pokémon, including Pikachu. Although we then saw that the new recruit was going to kill the lead twerp."

"If you saw Ash about to be killed why didn't you step in then?" Leaf probed.

"There were so many Team Rocket members there, we were scared." James admitted. "In Team Rocket treason is punished by execution. Who wouldn't be scared of that? Luckily the Frontier twerps came in to save the day."

"If you were so scared then why did you step in for me?" Cameron questioned.

"Look, we don't like you kids." Jessie began. "But you are just kids. We don't want to see you die despite our differences. We just wanted to steal your Pokémon to try get a better position for ourselves. We know we're not good people, but we couldn't live with ourselves if any of you had of been killed."

"So, you had no idea that there was an intention to kill any of us?" Brock asked.

The Team Rocket trio glanced at each other once again.

"To be honest, we knew that was part of a greater plan." Meowth admitted. "We've actually been considering leaving Team Rocket for a while now. The atmosphere is so ominous now. Everyone in the organisation is scared of the higher ups. We were no different. We knew this was a possibility and we went along with it. Until now."

The room was filled with silence for a couple of moments, the heaviness of the atmosphere and the words from Jessie, James and Meowth weighed down upon everyone.

"Can I ask something?" May spoke up. "So, since your job was to follow us, did you tip off the rest of your organisation that we were here?"

"We… we did." James answered hesitantly.

"Then it was your fault we were even in that situation!" May shouted. "If you hadn't have told we were here Ash and Cameron wouldn't have been in danger! And now Ash, Gary and Gaz are missing in the forest in the middle of the night! It's your fault!"

The three Team Rocket members couldn't even muster a reply.

"Maybe it's the fact they saved my life talking," Cameron started. "But I think this would've happened either way."

"How?" May asked.

"I think he's right May." Brock told her. "Remember Ritchie was on the boat with us, we know now that he's a member of Team Rocket. Even if these three didn't, Ritchie would have tipped them off."

"That still doesn't make them innocent!" May protested.

"Be that as it may," Lucy interjected. "There has been some disturbance around here recently. Right Anabel?"

Anabel nodded.

"There's been a lot of wild psychic Pokémon congregating around this area recently. I've been able to sense them. I thought it may have been due to my Pokémon and how sometimes their telekinetic energy can attract similar Pokémon. However, there was an excess of them so I knew that couldn't be the reason this team. Plus, with those Pokémon there's been more people around too. I could only deduce now that those were Team Rocket scouts."

"So, what does that mean?" Iris asked.

"It means that Team Rocket had some business here anyway." Lucy explained. "Your group showing up was just the perfect coincidence for them."

May hung her head, she was looking for someone to blame to make herself feel better. She leaned against a wall and slid down it until she was in a sitting position. She wrapped her arms around her knees and took a deep breath to try and control her emotions.

"I just want Ash to be safe." She muttered. "Please Ash, please be okay."

Suddenly there was a large cracking noise.

Appearing in mid-air out of nowhere, an Arcanine fell to the ground. It had two figures on its back which fell onto the ground when the Arcanine landed. May jumped up in fright. She looked on in shock as her eyes fell on one of the people who Arcanine was carrying.

She darted forward as quickly as possible. She saw the strewn body of Gaz to the side but instead she ran straight to Ash.

She kneeled beside him and placed her head on his chest. She prayed and closed her eyes as she concentrated as hard as she could.

Then she heard it.

A faint heartbeat.

She couldn't help it. Tears began to flood out of her eyes as she gripped onto Ash's body, sobbing in relief that he was safe.

Please follow, favourite and leave a review if you wish. Hope you enjoyed. Stay safe!