(Thanks to everyone who has given me a review! They really do help me.)

Chapter 13

"It makes no sense! We can't stop in Twilight Town, there's no gym there!" Drake says loudly after they reached the bottom of the Black Ice Peak that Cobalt Strip was on. They were still heading north, Twilight Town being the highest town in the region.

"It makes perfect sense!" Elvina snaps in reply. Sara sighs from her position two feet behind her arguing friends, Star perching on her wrist, having moved there after Mellow settled on Sara's left shoulder. Star gave up her right shoulder perch when he started attempting to groom her wing feathers.

"Does not."

"Yes it does."

"Give me a good reason why we should stop in Twilight Town, with the next Gym is in the west."

"Because," Elvina sighs, as if she had told Drake this ten times already, "Drake, they have a mall."

"A mall! You won't catch me in a mall ever! No, no-no-no! We are not going to a mall!"

Mellow chirps dramatically from Sara's shoulder, causing Star to twitter angrily at him. "I bet you don't even know what a mall is." Star snaps irritably.

"No Drake, don't you understand? A m-a-l-l." Elvina continues, but Drake just looked at her strangely, "Isn't your backpack heavy?"

"Yeah, my backpack is really heavy." Drake mumbles, obviously not understanding the change in subject.

"Why is your backpack heavy Drake, hmmm?"

"Because Sara busted hers, but-"

"Exactly! You answered your own question Drake!" Elvina says triumphantly.

Drake fumed after that, not saying anything for a long while. Sara kept walking behind him and Elvina, carrying on a conversation with Vulpix and Star.

"That wasn't bright." Vulpix comments after Star finishes the tale of: How Star avoided Mellow all night. She'd woken up Sara by end of the story, crashing painfully into her.

"It hurt." Sara replies, "And it was two in the morning. You broke Sandsinger's record Star…"

"At least I did something. Huh, I didn't get to sleep at all." Star grumbles, shooting Mellow a glare, "Hear that, I don't like you!"

"You'll like me yet." Vulpix translated after she rolled her eyes at what Mellow had said. "Really Mellow, you should choose better pick-up lines."

Sara laughs at the annoyed chirp the Swellow replied with before he nipped her hard on her ear. "Off!" She nearly yells, shaking Mellow off her ear and clutching it.

"Dimwit." Star yells after Mellow as he flaps, rejected, over to Drake. "I ought to go over there and…"

"Don't attack him Star. That wouldn't be right, and you'll have to live with him afterward." Vulpix says loudly as Star takes flight and heads in Mellow's direction.

"Psst." A voice came from a bush as Sara passed it. She stops and looks around, "Psst." It said again, and this time Vulpix shot an ember into the bush.

"YOW!" The voice, belonging to an older boy who shot out of the bush and was patting the singed back of his blue jeans, exclaimed. He seemed to be about twelve, with a short-cropped hairstyle that made his head look bald. The red shirt he wore bore the word 'Burn' on it.

"Nice Vulpix." He said slowly, looking down at her with a wide smile on his face, "I'll battle you for her."

"Battle? Yes!" Star exclaims quickly, but Sara shakes her head.

"No, not for Vulpix." She said to the other trainer, who glared at her.

"I just challenged you. It's impolite to say no." He insisted.

Elvina and Drake had stopped, and were listening to their conversation. Drake was lipping 'Don't do it.' to Sara. "You see? We have to battle!"

"Not for Vulpix." Sara repeats, returning the glare, "I will battle, but not for Vulpix."

"What if I offer you a Pokemon if you beat me?" The boy continues, his hand snatching a Pokeball on his belt, which he tossed to reveal a black-furred, catlike Pokemon. The Sneasel extended his claws, ready for battle. Sara was staring at him, wide eyed, "Sneasel for Vulpix, eh?"

"Sara." Vulpix mumbles nervously as she sees the want in her trainer's eyes. "Don't do this…"

"Sure!" Sara said quickly, unthinkingly. The boy smiled triumphantly as he whips out a Pokeball.

"One-on-one, no time limit?" He asks.

"Sounds good." Sara mumbles as she takes a few wide paces back, the boy does the same, "I'm Sara by the way."

"Adam, nice to meet ya." He replies, tossing a Pokeball at the same time as Sara. Sandsinger appeared with a vicious roar as a snake-like Pokemon appeared from Adam's Pokeball.

"Milotic, the tender Pokemon and the evolved form of Feebas." The Pokedex drones as Sara points it at the Pokemon. "Milotic are said to be the most beautiful of all Pokemon. It has the power to becalm feelings such as anger to stop bitter feuding."

"That's a cool Pokemon." Sara mutters as she notices Star was giving her an angry look, "What?"

"I wanted to battle." Star huffs.

"Milotic, begin with a Wrap attack!" Adam yells to his Pokemon, who nods and darts forward with amazing speed and rapped around Sandsinger, squeezing hard.

"Sandsinger, try to shake it off!" Sara exclaims, her Flygon trying to do that, but failing as the Milotic just wraps around her tighter. "Use Crunch!"

Milotic finally let go after Sandsinger's powerful jaws clamped down on her middle. When she released her enemy Pokemon, Sandsinger was breathing heavily.

"Your Flygon is going to love this, Milotic use Water Pulse!" Milotic's fanlike tail waves at Sandsinger, attracting attention from her arms, in which she slapped together to create a shock wave that crashed into Sandsinger's belly.

"Sara, you're not going to win like this!" Elvina yells at her friend as Sandsinger went toppling to the ground, just to get back up again with a few scrapes and cuts.

Sara's heart was racing, she was starting to panic. What were Sandsinger's attacks again? Her mind went blank as her dragon Pokemon turned her head back, waiting for an order. "Uh… use… Wing Attack?" She finally says, stating the first attack that came to mind, Star's main attack. Surprisingly, Sandsinger charged her enemy and slapped her across the face with one of her wings, however awkwardly.

"I didn't know Flygon could do Wing Attack." Drake mumbled to Elvina, who just shook her head.

"Let's finish this, shall we Milotic? Use Ice Beam!" Adam orders, and his Pokemon nods. Vulpix shuffles nervously, knowing what would happen.

Milotic shot an icy beam that chilled the air at Flygon, hitting her mark well. With a finally cry, Sandsinger went toppling to the ground, shivering hard. Sara recalled her Flygon quickly, feeling it become cold as her Pokemon entered it. She couldn't raise her head to look at Adam, whom she knew had returned his own Pokemon and had walked over to her, hand extended to get Vulpix's Pokeball.

"I'm sorry Vulpix." Came out to her Pokemon, who was backing away slowly from Adam and letting out a small blast of fire to keep him away.

"No!" Vulpix roars as she turns around and runs into the underbrush, out of sight. Adam followed her, still without her Pokeball.

"She'll be back." Elvina mumbles to Sara, having approached her, and patting her on the back. Sara finally looked up, her eyes clouded over.

"No she won't. I failed her, she's gone for good." Sara blurts. Star brushed her feathery wing against Sara's cheek as Elvina got a secretive smile.

"She will be back. You still have her Pokeball." Elvina says, pointing to the ball clutched in Sara's left hand. "Vulpix can't go too far from her Pokeball, you know."

"She's right." Star mumbles, sounding amazed, "That's right! Vulpix is going to come back!"

"And when Vulpix returns to you, Adam will be there. This next time, you'll battle him again." Another unfamiliar voice added. Sara whirls around to see a short girl, her hair already graying in areas, grinning at her. "Vulpix should be coming back soon." She continues, lilac eyes glittering mysteriously.

"And how do you know?" Drake pipes up from over Sara's shoulder.

"I'm psychic Drake." She continues, ignoring his question of 'How do you know my name?' like she gets it a lot. "And I know what the outcome of the most things will be already. It's depressing, knowing the future, knowing that no surprises await me."

"So you know our names, who are you?" Sara asks, unsure about how credible a psychic could be.

"I am Rika, silly. And maybe you should heal your Flygon, Sandsinger wasn't she? Yeah, of course that was her, anyway, I'd try Elvina's backpack for a Revive."

Elvina blinks at Rika as Sara digs into her backpack and pulls out a slender metal package, which was full of yellowish liquid. She let Sandsinger out again, the Flygon had stopped shivering but looked pretty bad. Sara caught what seemed like a glare from her Pokemon, but felt that she'd deserved it as she offers the Revive to Sandsinger.

She looked better afterwards, which was a relief for Sara. Sandsinger wordlessly returned to her Pokeball for a rest as Rika yawns widely. "Which Pokemon do you think you'll use against his Milotic the second time?" She asks.

"Uh… Star?" Sara mumbles, casting a glance at her fluffed-up Swellow, and noticing that she had company hovering close by, Mellow had come back. He landed on Sara's forearm just as Rika began speaking again.

"No, no. Your Swellow will stand little chance against a Milotic, no offense there Star. You won't be able to use Vulpix either. So what choice do you have?"

"I have to use Sandsinger again?" Sara exclaims thickly.

"Noooo! Think about it a second…"

"Uh, I should borrow Dorovi?" Drake snickers at that as Rika shakes her head. "Foam then? No, of course not." Sara named off all of Elvina and Drake's Pokemon before saying she was stumped. Rika, annoyingly enough, found this quite hilarious.

"Think Eevee, think Karen. You didn't forget about her, did you?" Rika's tone was taunting. Sara blushes and nods. "Well you're going to use Karen in the next battle."

"You know, from my experience, I've found that psychics are big fakes." Elvina grumbles, but Rika seemed to ignore her.

"Anyway, there will be a solar eclipse today-"

"That's going to happen tomorrow, smarts." Elvina cuts her off, smiling happily, "See? She has no clue what she's talking about."

Rika continued like Elvina had said nothing, "-and your Eevee will be ready to battle after it. Quite ready, if I do say so myself."

"Oh, and what do you prophesize oh wonderful psychic?" Elvina continues pointedly.

"That Karen will become powerful enough to beat a Milotic, that's all." Rika replies with a shrug. Elvina had a very annoyed look on her face, obviously not taken to psychics at all.

"Do you all want to know what I prophesize? I say that since the sun and the moon are both in alignment in a solar eclipse, which is going to happen tomorrow, which has a big effect on the tides in oceans, rivers, and lakes. My suggestion to you Sara, to solve your problems, is to drink more water."

Drake smothered laughs at that, but Rika found it far from funny. "It will happen today, and I'm not even going to start on what's going to happen to your Pokemon inside of the eclipse. Sadly, I cannot change the future, but this is one of those times I wish I could. Huh, good luck to you Sara."

They watched Rika turn and stomp off into the underbrush, dazed. "Good riddance." Elvina grumbles before tapping Sara on the head quickly. Mellow, whose additional weight had made Sara's arm numb, took flight and rested instead on Drake's shoulder. Elvina finally spun Sara into the right direction and pointed.

Perching on top of a young twig of a tree was Sundav, and the very vibrant light bird looked slightly impatient. "You scared her away." She growls at Elvina before continuing, "The time has arrived that I always have dreaded, a full eclipse, which dear Elvina, shall happen today. I cannot be there for you Sara, even if it does last just under ten minutes time." Her emerald eyes were focused on the sky, where a dark patch had started to creep over the sun, Sundav began to fade as it gained more ground. "And so it begins. Best of luck as always, Lady."