I still couldn't believe that it had happened. I numbly stood there while I saw the new human taking a couple of pokéballs to the red headed human; what they said was clear but at the moment wasn't at all important to me. Mudkip had been returned to her pokéball before Greg also handed it over to the woman; blankly I stared at all of the humans while they looked to me. When they tried to suck me into the artificial environment of my pokéball though, I jumped back and shook my head violently; there was just no way! Alexa couldn't have been gone...!

"Aw geez, I forgot... that thing will only listen to her," Greg sighed while shaking his head at me, causing me to narrow my eyes at him (not that he could see it because of the veil on my head). The human didn't have to make it sound like I was some sort of delinquent! "We're never going to be able to work with Ralts like this. Might as well give up on him now..."

"We'll worry about that later. Right now the most important thing is to find wherever Team Rocket is keeping Alexa," The man talking to Greg closed his eyes while he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest; I couldn't help but blink at how worried he seemed. It was almost like, to him, Alexa was... "Taming a Ralts is the last thing I'd worry about, considering the situation my daughter is in."

No wonder the man was worried. I remembered my parents being like that when those two pokémon came after us a year ago; they held the safety of my brother and me far above their own. They gave their lives to make sure we lived on... I snapped out of my memories before I looked up to the man, nodding towards him and approaching him. If his goal was to save and protect Alexa, I would support him. But only until she was safely out of there; I didn't have to trust him just yet...

The man blinked at me before giving me a weak smile and placing a gentle hand on my head, "Well, I guess you're on the same page, even if you don't like us. Can Nurse Joy take you in to make sure that you're in top shape before we start searching, little guy?"

I nodded in response before crawling out from underneath the man's hand; then, before I could do anything else, I saw a red beam of light coming towards me before said light jerked me forward. I ended up crying out when this happened, right before I looked around; I saw the place where I had been eating berries with my little brother... I was inside of the pokéball again.

I looked around before shaking my head and sitting down; I felt warm light coming from all around though... It was rather refreshing really. It made me feel like I had a lot of energy, even if I was a bit hungry at that point. However, something made me jump nearly right out of my skin while I felt this light; someone's voice was talking to me. It was distinctly female but I could tell it was a pokémon speaking with me through a telepathic connection.

"So I see your trainer has been taken by Team Rocket. I suppose it is time for my interventions to begin," Wildly I looked around to find the source of the voice, but unfortunately there was no one there. Maybe I was going crazy... "You're not losing your mind, Ralts. I really am here and I can hear your every thought."

"Wah!" I cried out and fell backwards from that while still trying to pinpoint the location of the pokémon that was talking to me; was it possible that she was in my pokéball too? "Who are you? More importantly, where are you?"

"I'm not in your pokéball so don't bother looking," The voice began to laugh while I stared into empty space in the sky; honestly this was getting way too weird. Sure, psychic pokémon could speak with each other through this sort of connection, but from what I knew, they had to know what the other looked and sounded like at the very least! And I didn't recognize this voice at all... "I'm more powerful than that. Besides, I've known who you were and what you sounded like since you were a newborn."

"Stop reading my mind!" Frantically I shouted while shaking my head in a vain attempt to drive the other away.

"Stop thinking so loudly and pay attention then," The voice sighed at me before something appeared in front of me; I had to blink and rub my eyes a couple of times before I realized that a projection of a star-shaped pokémon was only a few feet in front of my face, "Your partner is currently unconscious on a bed so I can't really tell him too much at the moment-"

"Partner?"

"Jack, the Treecko your trainer had. You've met him before," I rolled my eyes at the memory, and what irritated me was that the voice chuckled soon after; she was reading my mind again! "You two are part of something much larger than you could imagine, but you'll find out more about that later. Right now, the most important thing is to rescue your trainer, is it not?"

I paused when the star-shaped pokémon mentioned Alexa; now that I wasn't infuriated with her for reading my mind, I frowned with the worry that began to plague me once more. There just wasn't any way to find her... the humans wearing black had left no trail to where they wanted to go. All I could remember was that they were going in a direction away from the large building I was in when Alexa's father had come in...

"Stop getting lost in your own thoughts please; I'd rather you pay attention when I'm trying to give you valuable information, and I really dislike repeating myself when it's unnecessary," I jumped when the pokémon had sighed to herself; apparently I was the one who was being irritating at that point. Sheepishly I nodded towards her before she spoke to me again, using her mind once more, "Now, I'm going to give you a visual on where the Team Rocket base is hidden. However, from where you are it will take at least three days on foot; things will happen to your trainer within that time, things that may or may not be irreversible."

"What sorts of things?" I floated above the ground once more and began to approach the projection; one thing that really annoyed me was that she wasn't looking at me while she was talking to me; her eyes were closed the whole time! But, more importantly, she wasn't being specific on exactly where this base was going to be! "What's going to happen to Alexa?"

"I cannot see into the future, Ralts. This is only a hypothesis of mine," The pokémon shook her head at me when I stopped, stunned while merely staring at her. So, that was it? "I also cannot physically help you other than giving you the location; it is too soon..."

"Too soon for what?"

"..."

"Hey!"

"Someone else was talking to me. They want me to come down a lot sooner than I had planned," A sigh left the weird pokémon while she shook her head, I was just about to ask about what she was talking about before she interrupted, "You'll know all that you need to when the time is right. Right now, I have to cut off my connection with you; here is the location I promised, Jack shall receive it too once he becomes conscious."

All at once the world around me vanished, everything surrounding me becoming one big, black mass. I nearly panicked when I saw a light coming from below; when I looked more closely at it I saw an island below me, a cave where humans in black suits and pokémon were roaming together in and out of the entrance. Something was strange about those pokémon though... their eyes were hazed, as if they were in a hypnotic trance some psychic pokémon could use on others. But, before I could do anything, I was in the artificial environment of my pokéball again.

Honestly, I had to wonder if I was hallucinating or if that pokémon was really trying to help me. I didn't even get her name out of that experience though... It's worth a shot. What harm could it do to search for Alexa there? I sighed to myself and looked around at the lush forest in the pokéball. The sooner I found Alexa, the sooner I could forget about the star-shaped pokémon and get on with my life...

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Bright lights were probably the first things I saw when I woke up again. I shielded my eyes when this happened before looking over my body; for only taking one shot I really came out badly from that fight. There was white cloth on every inch of my body (except probably my head, right now I couldn't tell but it didn't feel like there was anything new there); it made moving a little tougher but at least I could still move. Bloody Houndour had to burn me this badly... at least nothing worse could have possibly happened while I was knocked out.

But, unfortunately, in a couple of seconds I'd find out exactly how wrong I was.

"It looks like Treecko finally woke up..." Idiot was here, he just walked into the room when I stared at him, "I take it you don't know the bad news yet?"

"If it doesn't involve a shortage of Oran Berries I'm not interested," I rolled my eyes at him before looking behind him to see Mudkip and Greg coming in. Great, just what did those two want? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good; they all (Idiot included) had expressions on their faces like the one Alexa had when she was talking about her mother. None of them were happy, in fact now I was starting to get curious about how they could possibly be so upset. And then, I noticed that there was someone missing from the little group, "Oiy, why isn't Alexa with you all? I don't see here anywhere, I thought she'd be worried enough to check on her favourite Treecko."

Mudkip only closed her eyes and shook her head at me which caused a bit more confusion to set in. Just what was going on that they weren't telling me? It was almost as if someone had died, they were so serious!

"Jack," This time Greg was talking to me; I almost disliked him as much as Idiot but he definitely said something worthy of my attention this time, "Norman told me about what happened... while you were knocked out, Alexa was kidnapped by Team Rocket."

... well, that explained why they were so serious all of a sudden. I ended up frowning a bit before my eyes turned towards Mudkip, "I guess if that's true, we have only one thing left to do..."

"And that would be?" Mudkip jumped up onto the bed to talk to me while the humans simply watched as we conversed amongst ourselves; it wasn't like they'd be able to understand us but it seemed like they were trying anyway. Bloody gits... "What do we have to do now?"

"Drink that strong Oran Berry Juice I had earlier!"

I couldn't help but find it amusing, the way Mudkip fell onto the floor after I had said that. But seriously, what were we going to be able to do if Alexa really had been taken by that woman and her two mutt pokémon? Unless we had some sort of idea about where she was taken there was no point in wasting my time and energy over it...

"I take it he said something stupid," Greg sighed while he got confirmation from Mudkip, but in all honesty I didn't think it was stupid at all; what was a better way to pass the time than drinking Oran Berry Juice? "You talk to him while I discuss things with Norman, okay Mudkip?"

Great, I was going to get lectured. I sighed when Mudkip jumped back onto the table, and the moment the humans left she went off on me, "Drinking Oran Berry Juice? Your trainer just got kidnapped and that is all you can think about?"

Looked like I made her mad. I tried to put on my best smile and took the intelligent approach, "Well, if I hadn't fainted I would have run anyway, damned burn..."

Maybe telling the truth wasn't so smart, something I found out when I was whacked with Mudkip's tail rather harshly, "Bloody... what was that for?"

"You're so insensitive! What happened to the Jack who attacked the one Poochyena I couldn't fend off? You actually were trying to help defend your trainer then, what happened to that?"

"You're even more annoying than the last Mudkip I had to deal with," I sighed while dully looking around the room; this was boring, listening to that water pokémon going on about how I should have been more responsible and caring than that. It wasn't the most important thing in the world... "I don't see why you're getting so worked up over it. She's not your trainer."

"No, but she is yours! And, if you haven't noticed, the guys who took her are out to hurt people and pokémon! What do you think is going to happen to her when her pokémon is doing nothing but getting drunk?" She was glaring at me but honestly I didn't care; something other than Oran Berry Juice started to get into my head, a thought of something else I needed.

"Will you shut up? I want to go to sleep."

Again I had said the wrong thing; just narrowly I avoided Mudkip's tail slamming against my head again. This time though, she just kept coming which was really beginning to exhaust me; I was still only at half-strength after all, seeing as the damned burn was still there. And then, I was hit square in the chest with a stream of water Mudkip had fired at me, causing me to fall onto the floor. The shock of pain coaxed a groan out of me before I shook my head, "Take it easy! You're fighting an injured pokémon, is that really your style?"

Finally, something I said that made her stop going after me instead of starting her up again. I couldn't help but sigh in relief as Mudkip jumped off of the table and looked at me apologetically, "I'm sorry... I guess I'm just mad at myself; first, I lost to that Gym Leader's pokémon, then I couldn't stop those guys in black from taking away Greg's friend."

I had to wonder exactly what a 'Gym Leader' was but I wouldn't ask about it; my bastardous mouth just couldn't be stopped from saying something idiotic, "So blaming me is your outlet for your own failures then?"

I expected her to attack me again after that, but it never came; instead she sat down and looked to the floor before her eyes closed. Bloody... she was going to cry wasn't she? I hated it when girls turned on the tears; that was what that Mudkip and Torchic did whenever I didn't laugh at their jokes...

At least this one's reasoning is better. I sighed before approaching Mudkip and talking to her again; I wasn't going to make her listen but it was worth a shot if I could keep her from being too noisy, "Look, you did all you could. All you can do is rest and regain your strength to try again another day. At least you still have that chance, right?"

I thanked whatever gods there might have been then. It actually seemed to have worked. She stopped and blinked at me before nodding with a weak smile, "Right... you should rest too. I guess if I was facing a couple of grass pokémon at full strength while I was weakened, I would run too. Now... I'm going to go get some rest with Greg, you get better too okay?"

"Don't know how I'm going to get better but some bloody Oran Berry Juice would help," Mudkip gave me a flat look while I smirked, right before she shook her head and left the room through the sliding metal door. It was then that I gingerly climbed back onto the bed and just sat there, allowing sleep to consume me. At least, I thought it was sleep until I realized someone in the room was trying to get my attention. I didn't care who it was... they were disturbing me. Unless they had a damned good reason for trying to wake me up (like another bottle of that juice) then it wouldn't be any of my concern...

"Go away. I'm trying to sleep."

"I can't do that. I need to talk to you and I won't stop pestering you until you pay attention to me."

Ah, some psychic pokémon was trying to mess with my head. It wasn't the Ralts that Alexa had captured either, it was a different pokémon. A female one, she sounded like one of those types who was always happy. It wasn't like I cared though... I was going to pelt this one with the rudest line I could come up with at the time; "Look, I don't know who you are but I am trying to sleep. If you don't leave me alone I'm going to kick you to the bloody moon."

"I'm already on the moon. And, even if I wasn't, I doubt you could do something like that."

...whatever the hell this pokémon was on, I wanted to know where I could get some.

A low yawn left me when I sat up, although something really made me wonder; where did the bed and the Pokémon Center go? I was floating in black space with this weird star-shaped pokémon in front of me. And, when I looked below, I saw that we were floating above a cave with the people in black going in and out, along with their pokémon.

"What kind of bloody dream is this?"

The pokémon kept her eyes closed while a smile tugged at her lips, right before she made that telepathic connection with me, "This is more of a vision than a dream. I'm showing you where your trainer is."

"Yeah..."

"This isn't an effect from the juice you had earlier, even if it may seem like it is," She chuckled at me while I could do nothing but blink at her; just what the heck was she playing at? "This is where your trainer is being held prisoner by Team Rocket. Your trainer's other pokémon, Ralts, also knows this location by now."

"Ya huh... and you're not just some hallucination cause by that strong Oran Berry Juice?"

"Ask Ralts when you wake up to confirm whether or not I'm a dream or if I'm real. Regardless, I have to leave now; it's a shame, I had more of a conversation with Ralts. But, you will see me again."

I realized that the star-shaped pokémon was fading now, fading into the black that surrounded us. However, before she disappeared completely she said one more thing; "By the way, humans call that refined juice 'Wine.' I thought it would be a fact of your interests."

"Uhm... thanks," And then, she was gone. When I blinked I was sitting up on the table again. About a minute later, Nurse Joy, Idiot, Greg, Mudkip and Ralts came into the room when I hopped off of the table. Moving was still a little difficult because of the burns but whatever Nurse Joy had used on me was working wonders... it hardly hurt at all by that point.

"Hey, Ralts?" The other pokémon turned to me, but unfortunately I had caught Mudkip's attention too; honestly she was one of the last pokémon I wanted to talk to about drunken hallucinations but there was no better time to ask about it, "You didn't get visited by some crazy star-shaped pokémon did you?"

"Ah... so she did tell you too then," Ralts squeaked out the words with a nod, right before he looked up to Idiot, "I guess we'd better get going then. I was able to communicate to Alexa's father about the location I saw; he knows where it is. We're going to a place called Dewford Island."

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I'm sorry, I have to end this chapter here. Big thanks to all of the people who reviewed! For all of those who haven't been; suggestions on how to improve the style of my writing (less confusion between POVs, pointing out some verb tense confusions I may have put down, ect.) or correcting me on some facts about the pokémon universe that I may have been wrong about would really help a lot! Keep reading, I promise another update will come soon!