Chapter Ninety Two: Feel the Burn

Trainer Tower had been an impressive building, once. It was difficult to believe, staring at the lifeless husk that remained of the charred skyscraper, but Alaska knew it was true. She had only a vague memory of seeing it on television when she was younger, but the image in her mind was of a bright blue skyscraper illuminated with dazzling lights like a fairground attraction. She could remember begging her father to take them there long before she had been given Paige. For weeks, it was all Alaska had wanted; to see the tower in person, to explore the plaza with all the other kids watching Casimer and Lance battle, just as the ad had always shown.

She smiled at these memories as she gazed across the strait towards the barren island opposite. Well, kid, you got your wish. Happy now? Alaska thought with a grim smirk, wishing that fantasy still existed.

Only ten of the tower's eighteen floors remained. The paint had long faded away, the lower floors a bare whitewash while black scorch marks ran down from a jagged gash, the only sign that there had ever been eight other floors. Below, the plaza was an empty wasteland, craters and charred rubble now scattered in place of stalls and battlefields.

The only attraction the island could sell itself as now was as a haunted house, but even that would require some semblance of life. Alaska had been staring at the tower for a solid hour and had long established no one was there. No boats were docked at the pier, and there were no lights, natural or otherwise, anywhere in the ruined building. Paige had flown overhead to try and find any signs that their targets were there but found nothing; wherever Amanda had taken Sandy, it was not here.

Yet Alaska could not look away. It was far from the first place she had visited to have been touched by Team Rocket, but it was the only one still bearing the scars, and these were merely the most recent.

They should never have rebuilt that tower, Alaska thought, her gaze falling to the strait separating the cliffs she stood on from the cursed island. The world didn't need a distraction from the war. Those people deserved a memorial. She could not begin to fathom how many men, women and Pokémon had made the ocean their final resting place. Most of them were probably skeletons by now, if that, yet Alaska could feel their presence; she normally rolled her eyes at thoughts like that, but standing above this long forgotten battlefield, she could not ignore the weight on her shoulders, the bubble caught in her throat.

Yet those in the ocean were the ones lucky enough to have made it that close. In the valley beneath her, Alaska knew hundreds more had died, both those charging towards the original tower and those sent by the madman inside to defend it. But even that was smoothed and covered over, all the wounds of war sealed up with sand and concrete.

Alaska knew it had been seventeen years, that it was fine for people to move on. Yet remembering the empty town they'd flown over earlier, staring at the failed distraction they'd built on top of the dead, she knew it would take more than another glittering tower to make people forget this whole archipelago was now and forever both battlefield and graveyard. And how long before that becomes my fate as well?

She shut her eyes at the thought and sighed; if she needed a sign to get moving, it was that. "Alright, let's go," Alaska said, turning back towards Bluebell. The Ponyta was her only source of light right now, and for a moment she simply stared at her latest acquisition, watching her blue flames reflected in the unkempt grass around them, dancing across the night.

Bluebell felt Alaska's eyes on her and turned around. "Nyyyyy," she whinnied in what Alaska had taken to be an annoyed tone, and turned back towards the camp.

"Hold up! I meant we go back together." Alaska jogged painfully to keep up, and reached instinctively for the mane. It was only as pain spread through her fingers that she remembered that was a bad idea. "Fuck, seriously?" She hissed, clutching her hand.

Bluebell said nothing, merely looking back in pride. She stood stoically for a few moments watching Alaska pour barely cool water from her flask across her scorched digits before finally lowering her back legs.

"Thank you," Alaska said with undisguised bitterness. She swung her right leg over, but Bluebell straightened up before she could adjust herself properly and almost instantly began galloping. Alaska hesitated before grabbing onto the mane again, but with her butt rapidly slipping backwards, she hoped for the best and held on, sighing as she felt a cool tingle where the heat had been a minute earlier.

Wherever you are right now, Blaine, I hope there is a fly crawling around the space behind your glass eyes, you bald bastard.

It had been this way for hours. Alaska would have rather just walked through the valley, but she knew that Amanda would have rigged it in some way if she had beaten them there. Instead, she'd had to climb the steep slopes up the nearby cliffs. If her leg could carry her weight for more than a few metres at a time, Alaska would have climbed it herself, but any amount of pressure she put on the injury made her whole body shudder. Yet Paige was too obvious for any watching eyes, and the idea of Nadia cradling her in her chunky arms made Alaska snigger.

That left only Bluebell, though it became clear that she was not as unhappy with the idea as Alaska was. She refused to allow Alaska onto her back, and it had taken twenty minutes of negotiating, something that Damian and Charizard had to assist with, and burnt hands to finally convince her, and even then she had made sure the climb was as uncomfortable as possible, running so quickly Alaska felt every twinge and pang in her throbbing leg.

Bluebell seemed to have remembered the various cracks and holes in the ground, making sure to go over each one as she cantered down the slope. The constant jolting made Alaska seethe, but she had to endure it. This was a test, that much was obvious, and Alaska was not going to fail it. I've had robots explode in front of me, I've watched my entire city crumble to the ground, I've been judged by the gods – it'll take more than a moody horse to break me now.

Despite this, Alaska was relieved when they finally reached solid ground again, the town slowly coming into view. Though if she hadn't been keeping a keen eye out for it, they easily could have passed it by; only a half dozen houses at random intervals had their lights on, with a gentle but dim glow coming from the generator on the far side near the overhanging cliffs.

Alaska was not surprised there were no streetlights; the town was the least populated place she had ever visited. At a generous count, she doubted there were more than eighty people living here. There were close to that many houses, but she had only seen about a dozen people since arriving that afternoon, and boarded windows and overgrown lawns suggested many of the homes were unoccupied.

When she and Damian had arrived earlier, Cath, the Pokémon Centre's sole nurse, had caught them staring at the streets. "Hasn't been the same since the tower fell," she'd said. "Those who left said they had to find work, that there was nothing here for them without it, but they're lying. This place is cursed and they know it, they just can't admit it to themselves, cause then they'd be cursed too."

She had been kind, clearly glad for the visitors, but had had to return to her real job at the adjoining health clinic where she and one ageing doctor made sure the locals were healthy if not happy. The Pokémon part of it was only a small waiting room barely bigger than an office cubicle, with a regeneration machine three models out of date shoved in the back of the clinic.

It didn't have any rooms for passing trainers – the tower had run all of that – meaning Alaska and Damian were forced to camp out in a small park behind the clinic. The nurse had suggested they take one of the empty houses, but as Alaska rode past the still, shadowed buildings, she was glad they had declined the offer. Somehow, sleeping out in the open filled her with less dread than the thought of being inside those walls.

Bluebell's hooves clip-clopping on the cracked tarmac echoed on all sides. The sound was loud enough Alaska thought they'd wake the town, but no curtains flickered as she passed, no eyeballs peered at them from the dusty windows. Despite the nurse's implication they were rare travellers, their arrival that afternoon had attracted only a young girl barely past ten, whose wide-eyed gaze still haunted Alaska hours later.

She sighed with relief when she finally caught sight of the flickering light of a campfire up ahead. "Honey, I'm home," Alaska called quietly as they neared the centre, shuddering as her whisper carried as loudly as if she had stepped on glass. She was still grimacing with embarrassment when Bluebell turned a corner and Damian and Charizard appeared.

"Hey." Damian looked up briefly from his spot by the small fire before turning back to Charizard; the Fire-type filled the space, long tail snaking around Damian's tent, while his wings were lazily outstretched as far as they could go.

"Is he alright?" Alaska asked as she clumsily climbed off Bluebell.

"He's fine, just worn out, I think. I shouldn't have flown him so far when he had just evolved. Probably wasn't good for him."

Alaska opened her mouth to say something but, after a lengthy pause, brought her lips together and turned towards the fire. It was barely warm enough to fight back the chill, but Alaska was glad for anything after the frosty ride home. "You want to go inside your Poké Ball or sleep out here?" She called to Bluebell.

"Nyyy," the Ponyta replied with an air of indignation, and she cantered towards the edge of the park, sniffing a spot before sinking to the ground. She threw Alaska one final frosty look before shutting her eyes.

Alaska turned back to the fire and rolled her eyes. "Alrighty then."

"You two have fun then?" Damian sniggered.

"Such fun, it was a real laugh," Alaska said bitterly. "Especially as there was no sign of Sandy whatsoever."

Damian's face sank. "Ah," he said simply, and for a minute that hung limply in the air.

"Yeah," Alaska replied finally, lazily tossing the word out there.

The silence carried on for several tense minutes before Damian grabbed something from near Charizard and passed it over. "Kebabs. Cath thought we were looking peckish."

"How nice of her." Alaska accepted the plate and tore into the charred meat.

"So are we going to One Island tomorrow?"

Alaska didn't reply for a moment, pointing at her mouth to blame the fatty meat she was hastily chewing, but in reality, she had no idea what her answer was. "I guess so," she said finally after some rapid swallowing. "If they were going to come here, they'd be here by now. There's no sign of anyone expecting them or preparing for their arrival, so they have to be somewhere else."

"And if they aren't on One Island?"

"Then we keep looking."

The words were heavy in the air. Alaska and Damian locked eyes for a few moments, daring the other to address the task before them, the impossibility of their situation, but they simply let the silence roll unbearably on.

It only lasted a short time before Charizard suddenly grunted, shifting his wings and exhaling loudly, and the moment was gone. The two did not laugh – the quietness of the town weighed heavy on their minds – but they managed a brief, reserved snigger, their eyes meeting again across the dying fire.

Damian leaned back and rested against Charizard's wing. "You know, I think that girl we saw before recognised me."

"You think?"

"Yes, I do," Damian replied huffily.

Alaska raised her hands defensively. "There was no tone to my question, thanks."

Damian smiled awkwardly but carried on with his story without comment. "I was thinking about it a lot while you were gone. I don't know if I was imagining things and she was just stunned by our very presence, but she looked at me like she knew me, I'm sure of it."

"And? Don't you get that all the time?"

"Yeah, we used to. Only in big cities or Pokémon Centres. No one really talked to us cause we were always surrounded by crew members, but you could see them watching us and pointing us out to their friends. I'm not going to lie, it always felt good when people saw us. I didn't come on this show just to disappear into the background once it ended.

"But when that girl looked at me, I realised this is the first time someone's recognised me since… since this all started," Damian continued, his voice shaking on the last few words. "I don't know if anyone knows anything yet or when they will, but it made me realise that people aren't going to look at me like that girl did once they find out. They'll see me and think 'that's that stupid kid who got caught up with Team Rocket'."

"No one's going to think that," Alaska said quickly. She glanced briefly over her shoulder and saw Damian was looking straight up at the stars, his eyes shimmering in the dying firelight, and she respectfully turned away. "If we can stop Amanda, no one will think any lesser of you. You'll be a hero, just like your old mate Red."

Damian laughed, disrupting the silence as harshly as an explosion. "Alaska, how many times have you fought back against them now? Has that made anyone like you any better?"

Alaska said nothing. She simply smirked and walked towards her tent, a wave of fatigue suddenly hitting her full force. "Are you sure you don't want to bunk with me?"

"I'd rather stay with Charizard if that's okay."

"All good, see you in the morning." Alaska watched Damian for a moment as he rolled over, tucking his body in closer to Charizard's, the Fire-type subconsciously wrapping his wing around his trainer. The sight made her smile, but as she zipped the tent shut and began undressing, Alaska was aware of the empty space around her. She looked at the other side of the tent, so bare and huge without Sandy there to fill it.

Alaska lay down on her sleeping bag, her legs pulled in to her chest, and she stared at the canvas ceiling, thinking of the tower, the valley, Damian's final jibe, Bluebell, everything, her mind a turbulent ocean churning with a thousand different thoughts, only one sticking out. Where are you, Sandy? Are you safe? Are you still alive? Please come back to me. I need you, Sandy, I really truly need you.


Crack.

Sandy sat up immediately. She had no idea if she had fallen asleep yet or not, but the fact she was immediately conscious suggested otherwise. The noise was loud enough to have woken her up; as it sounded again, her first thought was to look at the fire, but the pile of twigs, stones and rubbish from the bottom of their bags could barely produce any light let alone make a sound like that.

Yet Sandy could still hear it as though it was right next to her, a solid snap echoing through the night. Cautiously, she edged herself towards the edge of the waterfall. The night was so dark that all sense of perspective had disappeared hours ago, the world suddenly a two-dimensional black plane.

Sandy had to follow the sounds of Onix's heavy breathing, reaching out until her hands brushed his rough head, and only then did she stop and looked out into the world. She saw nothing. She blinked, letting her eyes slowly adjust, but even then she could only see a faint outline of the cliffs opposite. The great grass sea she had admired that afternoon had faded into night, leaving nothing but an imposingly empty space. Whatever might be moving down there making that noise, it may as well be invisible.

Maybe I'm just imagining things. I'm probably going crazy. I probably already am. Maybe someone is just trying to lure me off the mountain, some Pied Piper type hoping I fall off the cliff. Probably don't realise they'd be doing me a favour.

The thought shuddered through Sandy's body, leaving a trail of guilt and shame in its wake. What is wrong with you, girl. With a carrying sigh, Sandy flopped backwards onto the rock, letting her legs stretch out into the open air. Now that she wasn't searching for noises in the dark, once again could she let the sound of the waterfall wash over her. Sandy forced her mind to focus on the pleasant rush of water, she made herself stare at the stars and admire the sheer quantity that was unveiled to her in this pollution free paradise. Sandy knew if she had come here before any of this had started, the sheer majesty of this sight, these sounds, would have her in tears. Yet no matter how hard she tried, her mind refused to budge from the million things that had been occupying her thoughts for the last few hours.

"Free."

Sandy tore her eyes away from the stars; for a moment she was terrified that she could not see Butterfree and her heart began to beat faster, the same feelings from that afternoon rushing back. It wasn't until two shining pink eyes appeared in the darkness that Sandy was able to calm down, and within seconds Butterfree was floating into view, her Compound Eyes guiding the way.

"You shouldn't be up," Sandy whispered in a tone she hoped sounded stern. It was an obvious failure; Butterfree rolled her eyes dismissively and landed softly on Sandy's chest. Sandy sighed and smiled, fighting back more tears, and rested her head against Butterfree.

"I thought I had lost you."

"Freeee."

"That was incredible what you did before, but never do it again, okay? I don't know what I would do without you."

Butterfree nodded slowly. Sandy smiled back before looking back up at the stars, well aware Butterfree was simply appeasing her. If they were ever in a similar situation, Butterfree would do it all again, just as Sandy would always try and defend her. These false reassurances would tide them over until they had to face the next horror, but Sandy knew this was not the last time she would feel this way. It was a cycle of risk-taking, fear generation, guilt, apology, and moving on as though it's never going to happen again. The only thing that would ever change would be when they were finally pushed too far.

And then what? Am I supposed to just carry on until I serve my prophetic purpose? Or is that going to be my actual limit? Sandy thought, feeling a sudden tingle in her feet, still dangling over the edge. I mean, it turns out I can't function without Alaska. She probably would have brought the whole valley down on that Donphan, but at least she would have stopped it earlier. If I can't live with her, I need Butterfree, but I know who I'd rather have over the other. I'm already such a failure I don't think it'll matter either way. Maybe I should just move a little more this way, she thought, putting her feet against the cliff and pushing so her thighs slid forwards, I can just skip past it all.

Sandy shut her eyes, savouring the thought, losing herself in the moment, for a second finding peace. That was until something moved behind her: suddenly remembering she wasn't alone, Sandy sat up so quickly she nearly threw Butterfree over the edge.

"Sorry!" Sandy made sure they were both secure on solid ground before turning towards the noise. "Lachlan?"

A grunt echoed out of the darkness. "It's me, you can relax."

"Couldn't sleep either?"

Lachlan said nothing, shuffling forwards until his face was illuminated by the feeble glow of the fire. "It's freezing," he mumbled at the flames.

"We can try and find some more stuff to throw onto the fire," Sandy said. Again, she was greeted with silence. "Or not," she mumbled spitefully. "Weepinbell, do you think you could produce some leaves for us? Weepinbell?"

Her question hung in the air unanswered. Panic surged through Sandy, a million fearful thoughts rushing through her head. Butterfree seemed to sense her fear and turned around, her eyes blinking into life again: in the pitch black, the pink glow was as bright as a spotlight, making the water glow like strawberry syrup and turning the cracks in the floor and wall into deep, shadow-filled crevasses.

In the middle of the glow, nestled near Sandy's bag a few feet away, Weepinbell was staring gloomily back at them. Sandy relaxed the second she saw her, but as her eyes met her Pokémon's, Weepinbell shifted, rolling onto her side out of sight.

"Weepinbell?" She repeated, but the Grass-type pointedly ignored her. What have I done now? Sandy thought, stifling a groan. "Should I go talk to her?"

Butterfree shook her head. "Free Free," she whispered and pushed herself off Sandy's chest and began fluttering towards Weepinbell. She moved slowly, her feet nearly dragging against the ground; the sight made Sandy's heartache, but she knew better than to intervene.

She left Butterfree to it and instead shuffled closer towards the fire. "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep again tonight, it's so bloody freezing."

Lachlan said nothing. He didn't even look at her or acknowledge her in any way; he simply stared into the dying flames, his eyes two pinpricks of orange light.

"So are you mad at me as well?" Sandy snapped. "You know, I'm not the bad guy here. Sure I may have stuffed up a little bit, but it's not my fault we're on this island or that we got attacked. Well, I could have picked the other path, but that doesn't mean everyone can just blame me. I'm not Alaska, I haven't caused any of this, so you can't just fucking ignore me!"

With a noise bordering on a shriek, Sandy lunged at the fire; the charred twigs and bits of rubbish were sent flying, the last of the fire snuffed out instantly. Complete darkness consumed the cave; Sandy could see nothing, and almost jumped in fright as Lachlan began shuffling about just a few feet away from her.

"Well, I can at least blame you for that."

Sandy scowled into the night. "That's not funny," she said bitterly, well aware that he was right. "At least it got you talking again."

"Oh come on, is it always like this with you?" Lachlan groaned. "I wasn't ignoring you, I just… I just want to process this without talking about it, okay?"

"Sounds like ignoring to me," Sandy shot back.

"It's different!" Lachlan snapped. "I can't talk to you about this and pretend that we're on the same level. You've been shot at and hunted down by robots, I'm only a few days into this nightmare, and what I've experienced so far is nothing compared to you. Our experiences in having near-death experiences are so far apart you'd need a bridge to join them together."

"Well, you've been part of this for a long time whether you've been paying attention or not."

"See, that's what I mean!" Lachlan snapped, and Sandy could sense him standing up, felt his presence suddenly looming over her. "I knew this afternoon that you were judging me because I was tired climbing up the hill. Well, I'm sorry that I haven't suffered as much as you, Sandy! I'm sorry that Amanda and that Buzz guy have done all these things to you and Alaska, I'm sorry that I probably enabled them, I'm sorry that I never helped you or stood up for you when I had a chance, okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything, but it doesn't really matter now if I'm sorry or who's had the shittiest month, because Amanda's coming for all of us now, and at least you have a chance at defeating her."

Sandy wanted to yell but stifled it down, but instead digging her fingers into the ground. "Where is all of this coming from? You can stand up to her as well, you know."

"No, I can't, because I SUCK!" The word exploded out of Lachlan's mouth, hitting Sandy full force. "I'm terrible, I'm not going to survive any of this. I've been training my Pokémon for months now but I am so unprepared. How am I supposed to stand up to robots and guns and shit if my Graveler can't take down a wild Donphan? I mean, I might as well walk off the cliff right now because I'm dead already."

"Lachlan, please don't talk like that," Sandy said, reaching blindly for him. "It's not going to help anything."

"Well, that's not surprising, because I'm not going to help anyone, am I?" The emotion, the tears, the sadness Sandy had sensed in Lachlan earlier was unavoidable now; maybe it was the darkness that had drawn it out, but each word that poured painfully from his mouth was heavy with suffering. "I only signed up for this bloody show because I thought I'd get better, that I might be able to show my brothers I'm not entirely shit. They always used to make fun of me, they never let me play with their Pokémon, everyone always brought up the fact I lost my classroom's Rattata when I was like five.

"But I'm the first one in my family to even get an official starter before, let alone evolve it! They didn't think I'd make it past Viridian Forest, but they were wrong, weren't they? I really want to go home with a Blastoise and rub it in their faces, but I'm never going to see them again now… I don't have to tell them that they were right, that I should've just stayed home because this really isn't worth dying over… I really don't want to die for this."

Sandy knew as soon as Lachlan started sobbing what might happen next, and she leant forwards to catch him as he dropped to the ground, the sound of his heartbreak pulsating through the dark. She groped the air until she felt the boniness of his shoulders and then pulled him close, feeling his body shaking against hers, wincing as his deep, rhythmic crying vibrated through her eardrums.

She wanted to say something to comfort him, but as Sandy stared at the outline of Lachlan's back, looking at her fingers interlocked against his spine, her words failed her. How can you make someone feel better when you feel the exact same way? She could only think of what he had said, of the sad truth she didn't want to acknowledge.

I wonder where he fits into this prophecy. Where do the three of them fit into this puzzle? Are they meant to do something, save someone, stop everything, save the world? Or at they just catalysts like my parents, existing so that Alaska could be spurred on her journey, so she had something to guide her down the path towards heroism? If he died, how is that going to change anything?

"You are not going to die, Lachlan, because you are not going to face Amanda alone. I will be there, and so will Alaska, and so will all the gym leaders and champions and elites that are on our side. You are going to fight alongside us, you are going to help defeat these arseholes, and then you can go home and tell your brothers to go fuck themselves because you just battled alongside the gods."

Lachlan snorted through his sobs, a pathetic yet joyful sound that made Sandy smile into the small of his neck. "We'd have to actually get back to the mainland for any of that to happen."

"That's true," Sandy laughed weakly. She slowly stroked his back, waiting for the tears to stop, waiting for this moment to pass before the burden of someone else's emotions pushed her over the literal edge.

"Do you know what it's like to feel inferior to everyone around you all the time?" Lachlan mumbled after a few minutes.

Sandy was glad for once that it was dark, that no one could see her grim smile. "Of course."

"It sucks, doesn't it? To know you aren't going to be good enough, no matter how hard you try, there will always be someone better than you."

Unintentionally, Sandy let go; as if in reaction, Lachlan's grip on her tightened, making her shudder slightly, but it only lasted a second before his arms fell away. Sandy could just see the night's sky reflected in his wet eyes, see the dark shape of his head disguised by the moonlight, and hoped there was a smile somewhere amongst there. She didn't wait to inspect though, a sudden desperation running through her.

It didn't take long for her to fumble her way through the cave back to her bag, back to Butterfree and Weepinbell. Sandy couldn't help but look at Butterfree first, a familiar stab of worry at what had happened that afternoon, but she wasn't here for her.

"I know why you're mad at me," Sandy said, leaning towards Weepinbell. She reached out for the Grass-type but she shuffled away again, her body bristling at her trainer's touch. It was impossible for Sandy not to be hurt by this, but she couldn't pretend she didn't understand.

"I get it. You couldn't stop Donphan either, and you had to lay there in the grass like some used condom – sorry, that's the first thing I thought of, and now I can't get it out of my mind. You're not a used condom, I should add, but I know what it's like to feel like one."

Sandy paused in order to groan, ignoring Butterfree's disdainful look. "This isn't coming out right. What I mean is; I can tell you felt like shit today. I made you feel like shit, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have forgotten about you, that was a dick move on my part. And I've probably made you feel like I've forgotten you for a while. I've been so preoccupied with all this stuff going on inside my head trying to find myself and my purpose that I'm wandering even further off course."

"Like 'random island in the middle of the ocean' off course?"

Sandy ignored him. "What I want to say Weepinbell is that I do love you and I do value you. I probably don't say it enough, but I mean it, I really do. If I didn't think you were ready for this, I wouldn't give it to you."

She reached into her bag, shoving her hand right down to the bottom; in amongst spare clothes and old rubbish, her hand brushed against the sharp, smooth surface of the stone. Sandy pulled it out and brushed off the dirt and filth that accumulated since Daisy had given it to her in Celadon, allowing the faint green glow to shine through. The light was reflected in Weepinbell's mesmerised eyes, and Sandy blinked back fresh tears as she put the Leaf Stone in front of her Pokémon.

Without hesitation, Weepinbell leant forwards and closed her mouth around the rock. A few moments passed without anything happening, and the Flycatcher looked up at Sandy and Butterfree with disappointment clear on her face.

Whether her face changed as she erupted into light, Sandy couldn't tell; she and Butterfree both had to shield their eyes as the cave was suddenly illuminated, the glow radiating from Weepinbell's changing body enough to blind them. The light was harsh after so long spent in the dark, but Sandy forced her eyes open, squinting at Weepinbell through her fingers as she blossomed before her.

All Pokémon seemed to simply grow when they evolved, but that had never felt more applicable than looking at Weepinbell: in her glowing, metamorphosing form, her body simply expanded, like a balloon being rapidly inflated. It was only as the light faded, disappearing as quickly as it had started, that Sandy, her eyes burnt white, was able to see the changes, illuminated by Butterfree's Compound Eyes.

The leaves on her side had grown, her skin was lighter and spottier, and a large frond now covered her mouth like a solid green lid, bordered at the top by two sharp eyes. At least they were meant to be sharp; every Victreebel Sandy had seen, either in person or in photos, had always looked angry, with eyes harsh and narrow as they stared viciously at their foes. Her Victreebel may look like that one day, but right now her eyes were soft, nervous, staring at Sandy almost in fear. Sandy had never considered before what it must be like to have your body change so quickly, what it must feel like to be something one second and then the next be inside an entirely different skin.

Blinking back tears, Sandy shuffled towards Victreebel until she could fit her arms around her. "You look stunning," she whispered, staring her Pokémon directly in the eyes, and then fully gave in to the hug. She felt Victreebel relax into her embrace, and Sandy smiled as the sharp leaves wrapped around her midriff.

A wave of warmth washed over her that Sandy knew had nothing to do with the hug; she glanced back to the fire and saw actual flames were dancing, making the dried streaks on Lachlan's face shine orange. "I think I've built it a bit better now, it should last us the night," he said, smiling like a small child looking for praise.

"That's great," Sandy said, sinking down against her bag, one arm still wrapped around Victreebel. She was still cold, her mind was still laden with thoughts, but with warmth already spreading through her, at least now she might be able to get some sleep, put everything aside for a few hours. Things will look better in the morning, she told herself, hoping it was not a lie, but she had no idea what else it could be.

"Is there anybody up there?"

For a moment, Sandy thought she was dreaming already. Every part of her froze except her eyes, which darted around the cave looking at the others, wondering if they had heard it as well or it was just her. That was when muffled noises started, and Sandy could tell they were coming from the bottom of the cliff. She stared at the open space with hesitation, not sure if this day was about to get even worse.

Suddenly the entire cave was lit up by orange light; once again Sandy had to throw her hands over her face, but she could tell this was a Pokémon – friend or foe, she wasn't sure, but the heavy thump of wings told her

"Are you kids trainers? What the bloody hell are you doing up here?" It was the same voice as before; it was masculine, speaking with drawn-out vowels and a high inflexion – not the voice of a supervillain, Sandy decided, and slowly she lowered her hands and faced the light head on.

She had never seen a Tropius in real life before, but she knew the Pokémon before her had to be one; what else would have giant fronds for wings or have bananas hanging from its neck, especially ones that were illuminated orange? Her tired, battle-weary mind looked at the Pokémon for a moment wondering if it was the one that had talked, but something moved on its back, and a second later a fully grown, bearded man was standing in front of them.

"I was sure I heard someone up here, but Jolly thought I was going mad." The man looked back at his Tropius and let out a booming chortle. "I told him I get to eat one of his bananas if I was right, so looks like that's pudding sorted, isn't it Jolly?"

"Troo!" The Tropius grunted, shaking his mighty head and causing the light to dance across the cave.

The man laughed again as he turned back to Sandy and Lachlan. "So tell me, are you kids supposed to be halfway up a mountain looking like death cooled down, or would you like a lift back to base camp?"

Sandy looked at the man for a moment, letting the words sink in, and then she began to laugh. She could feel everyone watching her, even Onix, finally stirring from his stretched out slumber, but Sandy ignored them all, staring past the bearded man and his hearty chuckle, looking out into the world she couldn't see. You lost, you didn't beat me.

She turned back to Lachlan after a moment, taking a zealous pride in his worried face. "Told you I made the right choice."


Small note: I have edited the prologue just a little bit. No major plot changes, just tidied it up and made it a little more interesting. If you haven't noticed it, feel free to have a look! Will hopefully have major Viridian Forest-arc edits by the time of the next chapter