Chapter 33

Sara bit her lip when he was done with his speech. She looked from the giant statue to him, as if she did not believe he was serious that he believed the marble Scyther would enjoy it if they battle before it. When Windrider took out a Pokeball, she saw that he was indeed very serious. "But I have no Pokemon to battle you!" She said, "My only Pokemon is weak and in no shape to battle!"

"Chikpea." A low peep came from her arms. Looking down, Sara saw the Chikpea she'd been carrying around was glaring over at Windrider challengingly. "Chic pea!"

He jumped out of her arms and hopped over to the middle of the space in between Sara and Windrider, beak opened threateningly. "You have a Pokemon, even if he isn't yours in terms of being a captive of one of your Pokeballs." Windrider replied, tossing his own Pokeball to reveal a Masquerain.

The semi-large bug Pokemon spread his two wings out and cried. By the way they were spread, they appeared to be two large eyes, glaring down viciously at the Chikpea on Sara's side. He seemed to shudder when looking up at the eye-patterned wings, but the green bird crooned like a rooster and shot forward in his first attack, Peck.

Two real sets of eyes watched the battle, yet didn't. Out of sight and out of mind on top of the Scyther statue stood a Xatu with his eyes half-closed. In one eye he beheld the past, seeing what had already been and watched, observing. The other eye saw into the future, and two pathways were there.

One would lead to what he wanted, the other would not. And the Xatu couldn't allow any room for failure, this time. But patience was on his side. He would wait until the right time, until then, he would still be there. Watching, waiting.

Under him, way down under the Scyther statue, the battle was continuing, whether he was seeing it or not. The two Pokemon were evenly matched, to a point where they were doing no damage to each other. Sharpened leaves met sheer gusts of wind and neutralized together. Wing and beak cut and slapped, the fight raged on with no change in its furious pace.

"What attacks do Chikpea know?" Sara asked herself quietly, looking stumped as the watched the green bird vainly use another Razor Leaf attack on his opponent. That attack had been a guess; she truthfully did not know what the bird could do.

"I am Dexter, programmed for the use of Sara Anne Wellington." An oddly familiar computer voice chirped out helpfully. The Pokedex that Sara had thought dead for so long continued its monologue, "System malfunction restored, back in action. Please scan the Pokemon you are in need of help with."

Althea was staring; her mouth open, at Sara's back pocket. "You still have that thing?" She asked quietly, "You're worse than Drake, with his Pokemap 2000!"

"It works!" Like a miracle, as she saw it, her Pokedex had been restored… now was the time that she was happy for the old habit of putting the machine in her back pocket, even now. The Chikpea fighting for her side crooned helplessly as he was driven back by the new use of a different attack on the Masquerain's part, Icy Wind. He was suffering by the wing of the bug; the aggressive repeats of the ice attack were starting to freeze his wings to his body and feet to the stone ground.

"Chikpea know moves such as Faint Attack, Growl, and Razor Leaf. They sometimes can use their wings in battle, when threatened." Dexter droned, the computer voice not changed at all in its downtime.

Without even thinking, Sara exclaimed to the Chikpea, "Faint Attack!"

The bird perked up at the sound of the girl's voice, and quickly did as she said, and disappeared from sight. Masquerain stopped in mid-attack, seeing that the Chikpea was gone. Clueless, he turned to search for him, when he was slammed on the back with the bird's full weight.

Together they fell, Chikpea on the bug's back, to the ground heavily. Chikpea crooned his dominance over the Masquerain, and the second his ringing voice had ceased to echo, the bug used a powerful gust of wind on the ground and shot the bird off. For the first time in the bird's life, he got to experience flight for one brief, heart-stopping moment before meeting the ground again.

With one last, failing chirp, he fainted at Sara's feet.

Cheers erupted from Mothy, Arthur, and Tasgan. "Very good." Windrider murmured, clapping gently for both battlers, but his secretive smile held nothing but praise for his Masquerain.

"Why are you still carrying him around?" Althea asked, when they were back in Sara's room. After the battle's end, they had been ushered out quickly and back there. It was as if they had wanted the only 'useful member' of Sara's team to faint.

"I don't know. He's cute… and he helped us back there. At least I would like to thank him." Sara replied distractedly. She stared down at her Pokedex, like she was waiting for it to grow wings and fly away. Thankfully, it did not do that, at least.

Her Vulpix snorted gently as she looked down on the still-fainted form of the Chikpea. "We still don't even know his name."

"Hopefully he'll tell us it. You sound better Althea." Sara looked up at her bleached Vulpix with a raised eyebrow; the fox was standing on her own on shaking paws.

"Better… yeah, right…" Althea snorted as she collapsed in a white-furred heap. "I don't even know what happened. You still haven't told me about it. You've been knocked out for around three days, something had to happen."

"You're right, something did happen. But most of it, even I don't know." She replied, flipping open the Pokedex again. "Do you remember Adam?"

"Of course. And I remember you nearly lost me to the said human." The Vulpix let off a curl of smoke from her mouth.

"Yeah, well, he returned." Sara mumbled, "With Famulus… the guy with the greasy hair. And they flew in on Famulus's Aerodactyl and stole Karen."

"…Well, at least they didn't want me."

"Right, well I followed them on Sandsinger with Star following us. I hadn't let you out after that; I was saving you for reserve. So we arrived at this cabin place and found Dominus there with that wolf… thing called Catastrofate. They had Karen in a cage by then."

"So then you talked to Dominus and threatened him, right?"

"Uhh… no-"

"You did… by now, I know how you handle some things."

"Okay, fine. I threatened him. And he threatened me back, of course. But that was when Dominus started talking freaky and saying he wasn't Dominus. And it got really confusing for a moment, but that was when Catastrofate started talking like human and said he was Dominus!"

"Uhh…"

"Then everything grew dark when Catastrofate, or Dominus, held up his hand and pointed it at me. And then I woke up here after having the strangest dream…"

"Alright, now ya got to tell me about the dream." Althea replied with an impatient flick of her tails.

"Well, everything was really dark… and in the darkness I could hear a really harsh voice telling me to hold on to what I have. There was a shadow in the darkness, it hung over me. When I was around the shadow, I wanted to go to sleep. And then I remember Rena, and nothing else. That was when I woke up here."

"Well, when I guess was around when you fainted, my Pokeball got really cold. At first I didn't think of it, but after a while, it got so bad that I was shivering. It lasted for a while, until somebody broke my Pokeball open. Any later, then I think that I probably would have died." Althea sighed.

"Pea? Chikpea!" The Chikpea had woken up by then, and had heard some of what Althea had to say.

"No, it was worse then what you were feeling today." The Vulpix replied, "It was over a longer period."

"Hey Chikpea…" Sara murmured, "Uhh… thanks for what you did today. You didn't need to do that, you know."

"It was nothing." Althea translated, giving Chikpea a strange glare about at the end of what he had to say.

"Spill it, what else did he say?" She said neutrally.

"Eh, what? Nothing, that was what he said." Althea replied. Chikpea jumped up and down, making a loud racket as he contradicted the Vulpix was frantic shakes of his head. "He said nothing else."

"I think his actions say otherwise. Spill, or I shall start calling you Snow White."

"You'd name me after a person from an old fairy tale?"

Sara just smiled at the fox, "Well, answer one last thing and I'll leave you alone, Vulpix of mine. Were is your Pokeball now?"

"Uhh… hehe… I really don't know."

"That could be a problem, you know."

"Yeah, but I think it's broken now."

"But, that would mean I'm not your trainer anymore…"

"This is the place. Her wavelength is here, I can feel it." The Natu chirped disappointedly to what seemed like empty air as he stopped on a large rock and looked out. Ahead of him loomed a giant castle with several ramparts that painted a ghastly picture with their black spires reaching up to the clear sky.

"Pájaro Mansion, how quaint." Only the bird sitting atop the rock heard the sarcastic, booming voice. He made a slight chirp at the Lugia that had spoken, and Artimus continued on, "She got here, of all places."

"Where now master?" The Natu asked blankly, "I have found her wavelength here."

"Now you must converse with my sister." Artimus replied, "I suspect this will make her happy, if nothing else will." And he cut off the connection on that bitter note.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." Sundav sighed, "I cannot sense Althea anywhere. My apologies, old friend."

Solorite had been looking pretty awful the past two days. He'd lost his only daughter, the cub that was the only living reminder of his lost love, a beautiful Ninetales. His fur was matted in places from being unkempt, and his dark orbs were bright red from 'no sleep' as he kept saying.

The warm beach off of Slateport was not very busy; it was a perfect place for a bright bird like Sundav to be, and also for a rare Pokemon like Solorite. At least without Rika around, they had enough peace to come up with plans; some that would never be mentioned to the others, other plans that could work, with some thought. In truth, the both of them were scatterbrained.

The Ho-oh could feel a slight brushing of another psychic type's mind, one that wanted urgently to talk to her. For a split-second, she thought it was Artimus and opened the connection with a slight flutter of hope. "Lady Sundav, Lady Sundav!"

A cheerful, shrill voice met her ears instead, and Sundav flinched visibly. "I have something to tell you!" He continued, "It's really, really nice!"

"Can't it wait? I'm waiting for important information…" She replied, "My brother is about to contact-"

"It's from Artimus though!"

Solorite was giving her a questioning look by this point at the very annoyed look that had crossed Sundav's face. But that was when it changed; she suddenly was sitting up straight again with a tiny smile of hope. "Yes?" She prompted the Natu expectantly, "What is it?"

"It's Lady Sara! I've found her wavelength!"

"I never thought I'd see the day that I missed Star's uninvited comments." Althea observed gently as she and her trainer sat in Sara's new, official room.

"You have no idea." Sara murmured back, "We don't even know where we are, for goodness sakes! She… no, all of our friends, could be millions of miles away!"

"Pea." Chikpea nodded, "Chikpea."

"What'd he say?"

"I don't want to tell you."

"You're so helpful, Althea. Soon I won't even understand you, if our luck holds out."

"Don't jinx it!"

"What will happen if it does occur, though?"

"You'll throw another Pokeball at me and find a Translator."

"I have no Pokeballs, and my Translator is gone." Sara replied with a sigh and dug in her pocket, "These are the only things I have."

On her palm, balanced there, was a miniature bell, her Pokedex, and a small shard of the firestone she'd once had. The shard glowed the same fiery red and orange, but upon further investigation, was completely useless for evolving Pokemon. (Sara had poked her Vulpix with it.)

"Chic pea!" Chikpea squealed, plucking the bell off of her hand and tossing it. He followed after with an uneven glide.

"Chikpea enjoy round or shiny objects." Dexter said helpfully upon being pointed at the pleased Pokemon.

"Idiot." Althea coughed under her breath.

"Where's Squee?" Puff asked with his eyes huge. "Where's Meep?"

"I don't know kid." Amber snorted, "Why don't you ask your trainer?"

"He left!"

"Why don't you ask his friend?"

There was a pause, in which Puff stared at Amber, and Amber stared back. Finally, the Squee squeaked, "Where are Meep and Squee?"

The Combusken let off an exaggeratedly long sigh, but it was Woop that answered this time. "They went to where the Marshmallow People live, in the big city of the marshmallows!"

"Really?"

"Sure!"

"Yaayyyy! I wanna go!"

"I'm surrounded by simple-minded idiots." Fiendre stated simply as he got up and walked off. An amused group sat under the tent with their Pokemon, the ones that understood the conversation were hiding smiles behind one hand, or in Devon's case, tapping the Translator that was his wristband.

"Why isn't it working anymore?" He asked, puzzled, "It was just a moment ago…"

"Probably dead. It looked cheap, anyway." Drake answered distractedly. All throughout the past couple of days, he'd been only spoken in broken fragments that normally made no sense at all. He had been caught with his eyes wandering the sky, self-consciously not looking anywhere near where the groups of Pokemon were, or to where Sara normally sat.

The only one that got a little more attention from him then normal was Seadra, but even he was looking a bit neglected.

"I made that."

Pocky's retort was quiet, but full of annoyed emotion. It went right over the brown-haired boy's head though; he continued to stare into space.

"Lift your heads, smile!" Sundav ordered as she walked back to the area, ignoring the awed looks she was getting from just about everyone who didn't know her personally. "I did it! I've found Sara's wavelength!"

"With help." Solorite coughed under his breath, and continued in a more hearable tone, "And we're trying to contact the missing Pokemon as well!"

"But Sara first." The Ho-oh added quickly.

Raggedshadow's breath did not increase in rate, she did not even flinch. "That is not the reason for my appearance." She replied with a sharp growl, "Indeed, it was far worse then the Pokemon you named. Have you ever met a Drasgar?"

"I cannot say I have." Saladreth replied, "Care to elaborate?"

"…The fire dragon?" Sandsinger asked absently, "Yeah, I've heard of them."

"What?" She continued, looking around at the many pairs of eyes set at her.

"Yes, the fire dragon." Raggedshadow replied sharply, "These wounds aren't just claw scars, claw scars can heal up so that it does not appear that much fur was lost. Mostly these are white burns. If they had turned black, I would look worse then a splotchy Miltank."

Meep and Squee had paused in their game of 'chase Star around the tree' to listen. Even the Swellow had stopped next to them, for once, and not up in the tree instead. Karen cleared her throat and asked another question before the Persian would be too upset to answer anymore. It was a phase that she, at least, wanted to take advantage of. "So are you going to continue?"

Raggedshadow looked around at the mass of Pokemon around her, and nodded once, stiffly. "It was a few twelve-moons ago." She murmured, "Back when I still had a trainer…"

She swallowed and lashed her tail once, before continuing, "He'd angered a very powerful man who sent his Drasgar upon us, and the dragon tore us up nicely for his master. The only one to live to tell her tale was… me. But I should have died. And frankly, there is nothing left here for me."

"But you're still useful… if you can find a human that can-"

"-Tolerate my defects, then I'll be a lucky little girl." Raggedshadow's laugh was more of a harsh cry, telling of what she lost in a way that no words that escaped her mouth could have.

"I seem to be asking this a lot; are you thinking what I'm thinking Sandsinger?" Stormshadow inquired.

Raggedshadow looked from the large water dragon to the female Flygon, and back again. Her look was puzzled, but soon at least it would be explained to her.

When Sara sat down at the large birch-wood table that had little engravings of birds on it, she was feeling dizzy and sick. It was like two somethings were poking at the back of her mind, trying to get into her inner thoughts and feelings. At a glance at her arm, she knew that she was ghostly pale, but Windrider and the rest didn't seem to be noticing.

Althea and the Chikpea were still tagging along with her, but neither of them knew why they were doing so. For protection? Perhaps, but what was there not to feel warm and friendly about?

But as Sara's slightly blurred gaze looked through the crystal statue of a graceful swan, she thought she could see something wrong with the seat behind Windrider, it looked as if it had two extra sets of arms. She saw him pick up a wine glass and raise it to her with the words of, "For a wonderful battle, we toast to you, Sara."

His and her glasses, as well as Mothy and Tasgan's, were upended and a good bit of the wine (or in Sara's case, cranberry juice) was drained away from each. It somehow made her feel better, and sleepy as well.

A strange meal followed of a roasted bird of some sort, potatoes that had everything you can think of and more done to them, and finally, cheesecake for dessert. Throughout the meal, Sara could get no good look at Windrider, and he even left right in the middle of the serving of the roasted bird to take up the stairs before she could get a good look at him.

It was all just… strange, in a word. It was strange in the fact that more and more she noticed that she and her Pokemon were getting to the point where they were accepting more food on a full plate, it was strange when they were shooed away just the second that Althea stopped picking at her food.

The next morning, Sara woke up, feeling better, to a completely silent room, apart from the gentle clucking of Chikpea in his sleep. Althea had one of her reddish-tinged eyes fixed on her, "You're awake." The Vulpix said absently.

"Yeah…" Sara replied sleepily, "I am."

An awkward pause lapsed in between them for a while, before Althea murmured, "Wanna go explore?"

"We'll never find our way back." Sara said quietly to the Pokemon she was carrying as she took yet another left turn and ended up in another stretch of hallway that was decorated with maroon and gold wallpaper in the same strange feather pattern they kept seeing.

Althea, the only one that had come along for the ride, nodded silent agreement. "But perhaps we'll get outside if we continue on like this." The fox murmured, "I'd like that…"

As if her words jinxed them, the next door that Sara opened greeted the two of them were a beam of sunlight. They were on another stone slab like the Shrine of Flying was on, but this time there was no giant stone Scyther at the end, just a small stone house-sized box. The large door that led inside was open just a crack and darkness loomed inside.

"Are we going in?"

"Why not?"

A couple of minutes later, after struggling with the heavy door, Sara and Althea had gotten into the house-box and were poking around it. There was a desk lamp sitting on a small, dusty little chair that still had some life left in it and in the wall unit, it gave them light enough to see what there was standing in.

A small study, probably for filling bills and keeping up with checks. It was lined with books embossed with golden writing that had developed a layer of dust. "This place is boring." Althea complained, nudging Sara's leg, "Let's go…"

Sara had to nod in agreement with her; the ten year-old's want to be around boring books like this was nonexistent. But that was before one book in particular caught her attention off the dusty bookshelf at eye level to her. Instead of being a business book, it was labeled 'Journal 1990-1995'.

"I think I found something." She replied instead, took the book unceremoniously from the shelf and let it open to a random page. If by luck or by fate, it happened to land on one that soon got her full attention.

October 21st, 1991,

Father has gone crazy; him and his Xatu will destroy this mansion with their plans of 'remodeling' it. Truth be told, I believe his want for material possessions is irrational and immature for a man of his caliber.

Or perhaps it is just as it should be, the two of them plotting against me. I know he doesn't want me to inherit the mansion, so he's trying to get me to hate it too much. It's because of my… issue. I know it to be true. He's embarrassed to have a son that has wings.

But mark my words, Pájaro Mansion shall be mine. I just need to bide my time and wait for the old man to croak.

Eric R. Windrider

Sara read the page to her Pokemon and they exchanged slightly puzzled looks. "I wonder what this means." The girl murmured, flipping to another page, this time landing on the last one that had been marked on.

April 7th, 1995,

Finally, it is done. Father finally is gone, without his will being changed… The mansion and all its servants are mine! And Mackenzie didn't think it would happen… but now the only thing left to do is to give away that stupid clingy Xatu of Father's. I personally don't know what its problem is anymore. The thing just goes crazy at the sight of me. Perhaps he's trying to get revenge upon me for Father.

Whatever it is, at least he knows what really happened.

And after that, the message was cut off without any more. Sara sighed in disappointment and shut the journal. As she was beginning to put it back, the stone door opened again and a very startled-looking Windrider came eye-to-eye with her.

"What are you doing here?" He recovered, going to a furious tone in seconds just as Sara finally saw fully what he'd been hiding this whole time. Two of the upper portion of Scyther wings were jutting from his shoulder blades.