Hi, it's me again! I'm here and bringing you yet another chapter of Hoenn Chronicles, this time with a sooner update! I know, I've been really bad about updating, and honestly I'm trying to make it up to you! Also, you may see some references from the stories my writing partners (Dark Magician Girl Aeris and Buwaro) are working on, and if you haven't already go and read them! The names of the stories are Anomaly and Tales of Flame. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this (almost) pointless crap and I won't stall anymore; here comes Chapter 16: One Down!

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Jack's POV

"So, are we swimming over there or do you have a better idea, Crescent?"

I stared over that the Vaporeon-in-disguise when I asked the question. The mutt, Greg and Idiot were also looking at him before the humans looked at each other, seeming to discuss some things and glancing at Crescent sceptically. I forgot they couldn't understand us, and there I really had to wonder about the intelligence of humans in general. They could only understand the languages they spoke amongst themselves, and yet pokémon could understand both them and any of the other species of pokémon just fine. Really, why was the world like that?

"Quit with the philosophical crap about how stupid humans are. As fun as that probably is, I know how I'm getting us over to the base and you're not allowed to ignore us anymore."

"Don't read my mind, it isn't an open book! Bloody psychic..."

"Watch it, this 'bloody psychic' can blow your head wide open if he so chose to. Besides, if you don't like getting your mind read then stop thinking so loudly," Crescent grinned at me mischievously before nodding towards Houndour, "You know what to do, right?"

"I don't want to go onto Swellow's back," Houndour whimpered when the suggestion from Crescent was made, and I couldn't help it but I smirked when he did that. Finally, the damn mutt was doing something amusing, just because he had to work with the bird. Though, admittedly I did feel a little sorry for him, but only a little, "Why do I have to be the only one who does?"

"Because you're a fire type. The rest of us can just swim over but you'll get weakened if you do," Crescent sighed and shook his head before smirking, "At least, that's the human reasoning for it, they explained it while Jack here was thinking about how dumb they were. Personally, I agree with him."

I almost wanted to laugh but for the sake of not earning any more confused looks from the humans I refrained from it. They were really out of the loop; it was then that I thought it was sort of a shame that they couldn't understand us. But, at least we could finally get to that base and kick some tail. Maybe even have a few Oran Berries after.

"Okay Swellow, be careful! You don't want to drop Houndour, we need him," Greg called out after the bird as it took off, Houndour hanging onto it for dear life before he looked down at Crescent and I, "Okay. You two, Norman and I have to swim over. Let's go so we can meet Swellow and Houndour on the other side!"

However, just as Idiot jumped into the water and began to swim Greg took two pokéballs from his belt and threw them into the air, "Go Mudkip! Lombre!" When the balls opened I saw Mudkip and this weird green thing with what looked like a green plate on its head. The Lombre and Mudkip were both in the water when Greg told them, "Swim to the other side! We'll meet you there!"

"This should be interesting," Crescent nodded to himself before looking at me, "What're you waiting for? Aren't you getting into the water?"

"Fine, fine, don't let me be lazy," I sighed when I was finally noticed again, and unfortunately it was to do something physical. Ah well, at least it was just swimming. As long as I didn't have to deal with annoying insect pokémon again I'd be able to deal with it.

But, then I guess I just had the feeling that I wouldn't be that lucky. Ah well, can't win them all.

When I finally did dive into the water I felt a cool sensation around me; it was nice to go swimming again, I'd have to do it again casually. Whenever I got time to. But, unfortunately enough, there was this nagging feeling in the back of my brain about my having to hurry for some reason. I had a feeling that Crescent was behind it but ignored the thought and instead kept swimming until I reached the sand at the other side. With all of us (except for the bird and the mutt) now soaked we looked towards the cave.

The humans probably made plans among themselves because, once Crescent and I got there, it seemed like we came in the middle of a conversation, with Greg responding to idiot, "Norman... Are you sure? We tried that last time, they'd be expecting that."

"I'm sure. For some reason, I just know it'll work out this time."

"And his being so sure is my doing," I blinked at Crescent when he said that, and it seemed to get the attention of the Lombre, the mutt, the bird and Mudkip as well; he must have been speaking telepathically to all of us but in a way that the humans couldn't hear him, "Don't worry about it. They might be expecting us to sneak in through the vents, but what they're not expecting is already in there."

"Are you a psychic pokémon?" Oh, right, Mudkip didn't know that Crescent was some legendary pokémon called Mew. She blinked and shook her head in confusion, "You look like a water pokémon."

"Long story, no time to explain now," With a sigh Crescent looked towards the entrance, "We should go in now-"

"What about the Ralts?" This time it was the mutt who spoke up. Crescent seemed even more annoyed before he got up towards Idiot and prodded at one of the pokéballs on his belt. It seemed to get the message across because Idiot nodded and let Ralts out of his pokéball then.

And, the second he did that, I found myself about three metres in the air.

"OIY! Put me down you bloody Ralts! I didn't do anything!"

"Ralts, put him down!" Apparently Idiot had no power over the tiny one because I kept going higher and higher into the air, "Ralts, if you're going to do that I'm going to have to withdraw you to the pokéball! Then you won't be able to help Alexa!"

That definitely got the pokémon's attention, but it didn't work out in my favour. Bloody hell... Those two words went through my mind as I began to plummet, right before my fall seemed to slow down and I landed on my feet, "What-"

"You can thank me later," Crescent smirked before he nodded towards the entrance, "Now come on, let's go already. We've gotta get your trainer back, remember?"

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Ralts' POV

I was just about to give Jack the beating of his life when my trainer's father stepped in. As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point. Beating the Treecko would have to wait.

Shame, the Vaporeon stopped him from going splat too.

I took one last look at the humans before we went inside. It was Jack, the Houndour we met at Dewford, Mudkip, Crescent and I at this point. I kind of felt nervous floating around in the dark like this, and it didn't help that the hallways kept flashing red and loud noises kept going on and off. Of course I hated almost everyone who was there; in fact the only two I didn't hate were Crescent and Mudkip. But, as we rounded a corner, something almost made my eyes pop right out of the veil that was covering them.

Something that looked like Crescent's real form floated right by in front of us, chased by several humans in black clothes. The floating cat stuck his tongue out at the humans as several darts shot right through him, "Can't catch me idiots! Just keep following me and I can kick all of your asses!"

I could only gape as the cat zoomed around the corner, the humans furiously following it. It didn't help that the cat wagged his rear end tauntingly in front of the humans, in fact it probably made them even more mad. Whether or not that was a good thing was difficult to determine then. Jack finally said something worth saying, "Was that Crescent?"

"No, I'm Crescent."

"Then who the bloody hell was that?"

"Anti. Are you done with the stupid questions now?"

Okay, didn't like Crescent anymore. He was mean, and even if I didn't like Jack his questions weren't stupid. I didn't have time to dwell on it though as Crescent ran forward, "Come on, we don't have all day! With them chasing around Anti, we have time to get to the human who can stop all of this!"

I had no idea what the Vaporeon was talking about but I had to take his word for it. However, something out of the corner of my eye distracted me; Alexa! Quickly I began to float off towards her, she seemed to be going somewhere else. Why was her hand twitching like that? Maybe I could try and help her...

"Ralts, get back here! You can't help her right now unless you come with us," I nearly jumped when Crescent invaded my mind like that, looking back towards them now. Unfortunately, what I saw in front of my face was a growling pokémon that looked like Houndour. But, it was larger and a lot scarier looking, something that Crescent seemed to note with only two words, "Oh fuck."

"So you trouble makers have returned. If the others weren't busy chasing Mew we would have found you before now," I looked behind me and saw the human that controlled the growling pokémon (and formerly Houndour, but as far as I knew the latter was on our side now) smirking before she pointed a finger at me, "We should have finished you off when we had the chance. You and that other little Ralts..."

What did she... No. It couldn't be. I stumbled back into the larger pokémon before I was thrown into the air painfully, landing on the ground beside Houndour. I didn't even cry out, the shock was so much; it was those two? They had...?

Houndour looked away from me while Mudkip, Jack and Crescent just looked confused. I didn't pay attention to them though, Houndour was my current interest. And he was looking depressed, guilty even. It couldn't be, but still I had to ask, "That was you? You attacked us those years ago...?"

"I'm sorry," The dog pokémon's ears flattened against his head while he closed his eyes, and I could feel more grief filling my chest as he spoke again, "I didn't want to. I had no choice, I was working for former Master back then..."

"Stop being such a baby! I know I enjoyed killing them," The other pokémon spoke behind us before she started to laugh, "It didn't matter if Master ordered you to or not, you still did it! I don't know about you, but I was finally glad to stop their screaming over their precious children!"

I simply stared at Houndour, allowing both his words and those of the other pokémon to click. With their human, they had been the two... The pokémon that killed my parents, leaving my brother and I orphans...?

An overwhelming anger began to emerge, voices from the outside trying to overtake my emotions, but all for nothing. Nothing but uncontrolled rage made sense at the time and it was then I felt building fury spill to the outside. Everything became white, my skin felt not, and I felt that I was changing dramatically. Two words came to mind, two words that would alter my life forever.

I'm... Evolving.

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Jack's POV

"What the hell is he doing?" I couldn't help but gape as Ralts started to emit blinding white light. I had to shield my eyes with my paws just so I could bear to look at him. Was this some dangerous psychic attack I didn't know about?

"I think he's evolving!" Mudkip shouted out her answer, proving me wrong before she looked to Crescent, "What do we do?"

"Run for it! Ralts' new form will handle things here, but we'll be killed if we don't leave!" There really wasn't a more convincing argument than that. But, somehow I doubted that Ralts' new power wouldn't hold a Lanturn to Crescent's strength.

With just Mudkip, the mutt, Crescent and I now, we managed to escape, now hearing cries of battle on top of the alarms in the base. That would probably take care of the larger mutt and that bitchy human. But, I had to wonder where Idiot and Greg were. Were they in the base already or still standing outside? It didn't matter, we'd blow this base up ourselves if we had to!

... We'd get Alexa out first of course. I knew I was forgetting something... But, it wasn't going to be as easy as that two step plan. There was still the bloody contraption on her head, and just taking it off wouldn't do any good. It would kill her, something I remembered from the last time we encountered Team Rocket. So, just how did Crescent plan to get the bloody device off of her?

We kept running away from the battle cries, and soon enough it was only the blaring sirens and flashing red lights surrounding us now. Why did all of the hallways have to look the same? Surprisingly Crescent seemed to know where he was going though, and soon enough he stopped in front of a door before he used his psychic powers to open it.

Inside there was a human in a white lab coat, kind of like the one Trunk always wore when I was kept in his laboratory? Yeah, like that. The human stared at us and started shouting something but luckily enough Crescent interfered, via psychic powers of course, "Kazu! Stop freaking out, we're not part of Team Rocket!"

Unfortunately it only seemed to confuse the human more but he was once again cut off by the pseudo Vaporeon, "Look, all you need to know is that I'm a friend of Eve's, or Evetwo as you'd know her. And that I'm here to help you out in freeing both your friend Reiko and that girl Team Rocket's experimenting on! Now will you just let me look at the damn screen for a second?"

"You're not being a smart ass. What gives?" I asked the question as Crescent jumped up onto a chair (once the human named Kazu had gotten out of the way) and looked at the computer screen. He ignored my comment completely, instead taking on a face that looked very very sour, "What now?"

"Crescent...? What's the matter?" Mudkip seemed to be worried about the look on his face, and unfortunately it was worrying me too. And then the mutt had to speak up as well.

"Will the girl be okay?" Houndour's ears were once again flattened against his skull as he whined out the words, seeming the most distressed out of all of us.

"Kazu's been working his ass off to deactivate the machine during this chaos, he hasn't done it yet though..." Crescent bit his lower lip before he looked at the mutt, Mudkip and I. And then, he finally spoke the words, "Right now, she's in the middle of an order. To exterminate Reiko Himegawa."

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Ooooh cliff-hanger! I needed to do that, it's been the first time in a while that you've been stuck with one of those. But yeah, I'm glad I could finish up this chapter on a very tense note, mostly because it gives me somewhere to start. Keep reading if you want to see how this whole mess wraps up! Until the next chapter, I have to keep writing and working with school! So, see you all next chapter!