A/N: Finally... I know. Anyway, yay, this chapter's gonna be a bit wack, so steel yourselves!

Emerald

7

"What's wrong with her, anyway?"

A cool shrug. "Can't really say... But don't you feel it around her?"

"What? That?"

"Yep." Eyes fastened firmly on the little chick. "...You have no idea what you've gotten pulled into."

"I may not know. But she seems really nice. Why is she hurting?"

"That ditz may be our trainer, and she may be a ditz, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have issues." He paused to let out a groan. "Don't tell me you think this is going to be like some fairytale."

"Well..." She shifted, ruffling her feathers a bit. "...Shouldn't it be?"

"No, you idiot. This isn't one of those stories your mom told you at bedtime- how you'll get captured by a loving, caring trainer who will make sure you're safe, forever, using you to battle valiantly for him or her." He let out a snort. "Let me tell you..."

"She's not evil, is she?" Eyes widening. "Why would His aura be around her if she's evil?"

He rolled his eyes, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back. "She's not 'evil', as you call it. Heck, you'd better have a very good definition of evil among these humans. You NEVER know what they'll do next..."

"But His aura's not around any other one."

He closed his eyes. "...Right."

"So?"

"She's special, I guess. Though for the life of me I can't see why."

"She's your trainer!" The fire chick let out an outburst. "Shouldn't you love her? Shouldn't she love you? Love all of us?"

His eyes snapped open as he stood up. "I never said I didn't love her, you idiot. I never said she didn't love us." A green finger jammed in her face. "...Why don't you go bug Taillow or something? He's right next door, and he's sure to have less of an urge to smack you against the wall."

"Because you've been with her the longest. You know her the best." Truth, that's all it was. Honesty. Innocence.

He twitched. "Nobody knows that girl at all."

A pause. "Why is she sad? Why did she cry?"

He softened. "They have parents just like we do... And hers disappeared a little while ago... That's why she's sad."

"Were they captured?"

He let out a groan. "You were obviously raised in a bubble."

"I know." He glanced at her, easily telling that she had rarely been out of her pokeball before.

"Literally, I see." He shook his head. "They can't be captured, got it? They aren't like us."

"I know." Her voice was soft, almost inaudible. "...You never told me why He seems to be around her."

He shoved a twig in his mouth, avoiding the question.

"And the other, too."

He stopped chewing. "The other?"

"You know... Him. The Other One."

"...Oh." A pause. "I don't know about that. It's not quite HIM, you know. The Other One. It's more like a fuzzy outline of him... Not really him."

Her mouth dropped. "Wouldn't that be a Likane?"

"Yeah."

"What, is he attracted to the aura?"

"I have no idea." He began to mutter, sufficiently annoyed with all of it and what he was about to say. "...I think he likes her, too. As in..."

"I can't hear you. What?"

"Oh, forget it, you stupid Torchic! You don't understand a thing!" He turned on his heel and stalked away, into some other fake area of the ball.

She frowned. A Likane... Around her trainer... And Rayquaza's sacred aura. Her trainer wasn't a Likane like that boy... Or that girl, the golden haired one with the sad yet icy blue eyes. She was simply different, and it didn't take much looking to see why.

"He's blessed her, somehow... And Rayquaza's only ever done that to that little child, that Seliya... And all of her descendants..." She jerked her head up as the pieces of the puzzle began to slip together in her mind. If that Likane was the Other's Likane... And her trainer was Seliya's descendant... Then, the prophecy had to be coming true.

She frowned. What had he muttered? Something about the boy Likane.

She felt sorry for him. Soon to be betrayed by the ones he loved most, including The Watcher. Betrayed, thrown out, used to finally try and beat the Other out of the world.

Her stomach felt sick. How had she gotten herself brought into this?!

"What do we have to do?" She demanded to the open sky. The whistling of leaves was her answer, and she felt... Alone. "Jirachi! Answer me!" She beat her hands against a nearby tree, not caring as they began to bleed. What could she do? If Jirachi would not answer her, there was nothing to be done. She sunk down against the tree, feeling her eyes beginning to water.

She wiped them, remembering a firm rule of the Seekers. Crying was for fools. Crying did not help to get rid of the meddlesome spy, the mistake you'd just made, the pokemon you were losing a battle against. Crying was useless.

But she so wanted to cry now.

What would she have to do to Deo? She couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to him. She hated to say it, even to think it... Seekers were not supposed to feel love, even for their siblings. If you were ordered to desert them on a mission, and you didn't, that would be a great loss for the Seekers, their plans being wrecked. That sort of thing wasn't ALLOWED.

She clutched at the tree all the same, whispering to herself.

"Please, Jirachi, tell me... I need to know, especially if it's Deo! Please!"

She felt the familiar presence reluctantly slide into its place in her mind.

"I don't want to tell you." Childish once more. But she felt it growing aggravated.

"Don't I deserve to-"

"Don't tell me about DESERVING things," the voice said in a miserable moan that came out a whine. "...It hurts."

"You can grant it, can't you?" She pleaded. "You don't even need to use your powers to tell me what we have to do. Please!"

Silence, and she felt it trying to slip away from her. However, she grabbed onto it in her mind with a vengeance. "You will tell me. You have to! I wish you would!"

Something snapped inside that little part of her, a part of her that was not quite her.

"Don't force me. Please don't. Please!"

She blinked. If she wished it, then Jirachi would have to do it?

"Yes," another small, quiet, pleading whine. "I'm tired of being pushed around like that. Always watching, always keeping wishes for people, that sort of thing."

"I could make you tell me what we have to do. Is it truly so horrible that you can't tell me? I must know, Jirachi!"

"...It's dreadful, Jira. You'll go beserk if you hear it. I won't tell you." Now, instead of childish, the voice was growing more mature as it painfully drew out the explanation.

"I won't. I promise."

A quiet, sad giggle. "Promises don't mean anything, anymore."

"What do you mean? Of course they do."

"No, they don't. You promise one thing, but wish another. You promise one thing, but you do another... You lack self-control."

"Coming from the pokemon that acts like a child." She was sick of this argument. So what if she went berserk? She could help Deo... She had to help Deo... Like he always helped her, back when they were little kids. When she was deemed useless for her lack of fighting skills, and he lost his cool. Two dead. Later he said he had been told to do it.

That was when the first problems with Deoxys had started.

"...Jira?" A probe, reaching out. Jirachi had probably already read her mind.

She didn't respond. Let Jirachi know how that felt.

"...Don't blame it on yourself, Jira. It isn't your fault at all, Deoxys and him. It's always been that way, even before you." She paused. "It's always been that way between you and me." A soft sigh. "You do have a right to know, Jira, and I'm sorry I wouldn't tell you. But still, I want... I don't want to tell you. Don't make me. Please." Pleading...

It almost broke her heart, that deep sorrow inside of her, pleading with her to let it go.

"...For now, Jirachi. But I want to know eventually. And tell me this. Does it have to do with my brother?"

She waited as silence responded, and she could feel the little piece that was Jirachi thinking.

"It's very much to do with your brother."

"Thank you."

"Don't forget what I told you." Warmth, a smile. "It isn't really your fault... That stupid Other..." A sad smile. "That rhymes."

"What?"

"That stupid Other." Another sigh as Jirachi gave a soft humming noise. "...My brother."

"Deo, have you ever lost anyone?"

The question was out of the blue, a tired one asked by a lonely girl.

He stiffened, refusing to look at her green eyes, the ones that were now so dark and hopeless, almost.

But something made him answer.

"Yes."

Her hands, sitting in her lap, tightened on the fabric of her dress. "Who was it?"

He shrugged, something he seemed to do for an answer all the time. She had perhaps lowered his defenses for a second...

"Just somebody." He paused, his lips tightening. "...Somebodies."

"I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? They sure as heck aren't."

"What?"

"I haven't lost them in death, you know." He lowered his head, his face darkening, his lips barely moving as he spoke. They slowly rounded into... A smirk... "Just in mind. I guess that's not as bad."

"They went insane?" Even in her own darkness, she couldn't stop herself from feeling remorse for his own problems... Surely, they almost dwarfed her own.

His tone got frosty. "Ha. Yeah right. They gave us up, you know. I wouldn't mind, but Jira was more prone to get attached, back then." A frown. "They made her cry and they didn't care."

"W-who were they?" She was completely startled, now. Neither had spoken of their family, or even their hometown.

He shrugged. "My parents. I guess my aunt and uncle are the only ones we literally lost. But then, I was the one that-" He had been almost dazed. But now, he seemed to get a shock as he came to his senses. "You don't want to hear about that," he stated mechanically.

"No, I do, Deo... Just let it out... It hurts to keep it in, Deo, so don't do that... Don't hurt yourself..." She wanted to say, 'I know it from experience.' But she didn't.

Eyes met, teal with green, both looking at each other in a different way, a different light, a different thought.

Even though they were sitting outside, alone, outside the town, the wind almost icy as it blew against their backs, she felt warm.

"I'm sorry I can't help you," she whispered. "I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to go over their disappearance, to help you more..."

He opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, then slowly shut it. He let out an almost strangled sound, but couldn't break away from her looking at him.

She finally closed her eyes shut tightly, breaking whatever magic there had been in the gaze.

"...I want to help you get back home."

He finally spoke. "I never wanted to go home."

Her eyes snapped open as his closed.

"But- you- Deo..."

"I don't want to, but I should. It's pointless for me to be out here, but I don't want to leave. I don't want to go back. There, I'll be... I'll be somebody I've never wanted to be, that I despise being. Even now, home haunts me just like he does. ...No, it's not home. It's just mine. Home is where you're happy. I don't even have a home."

She stood, unable to look at him. Deo was not happy. He would never be happy. He had some deep hurt inside him that would never, ever be healed over. A cut on his heart that no amount of medicine could heal. Only something that he would never accept would heal it. And so he would never heal.

She could only say one word.

"Sorry."

Because he would never accept warmth. He would never truly accept it, she thought. He would never accept love.

The Other... She had heard that was what some called Deoxys. She clutched her hands to her head, feeling almost violated. "Then you... Then you..."

"Don't hold me accountable for what he's done," Jirachi chirped nervously, his old personality beginning to come back. "R-really, I have nothing to do with his connection to Deo... It's something you're born with, not something we give to you personally. Did you know that?"

"All I know," she said in a deadly low voice, "Is that the reason that my brother is always like that... In pain... Is because of somebody you seem quite familiar with."

"But I'm not," Jirachi said softly. "I'm not at all. Deoxys may be my brother, but he's not my friend. He might have been, once. But now... Now, he's just my brother. I have no obligations to him, except to see him off this planet."

"To see him off this planet?!" Jira gave a sharp little intake of breath. "What-"

"It's complicated, Jira. And I'm REALLLYYYYYY tired," Jirachi said, beginning an annoying whine. "So, I'm just gonna leave now."

If that thing... Deoxys left the planet, then Deo would be... He would be free...

He could always feel when it was coming. As he lay down that night, the sickening wave of nausea sped over him, cold as if he'd just turned into ice. Yet his heart burned every time he took a breath.

He was up in seconds, unconsciously racking his memory for where she was sleeping, and started searching for her. The feeling had come for him often enough for him to recognize the early stages. If it got to the blind stage, there was no way he could get to Jira in time for her to tie him down someplace, to try and control him while the dark...thing... pushed its way into his mind, eventually controlling him. Entirely.

He let out a short gasp as his head began to pound painfully. It was horribly dangerous for him to be completely loose, Deoxys in control, as he became lost in the dark pits of his mind. The red hot prickes of anger began to poke his mind, sizzling as he stumbled through the house towards Jira's room, and he was hardly keeping the next stage off. Two more to go, he thought desperately. Faster, Deo...

"See, it's pretty, isn't it?" Jirachi was cheerily observing the stars with an exasperated Jira.

"Why couldn't you stop talking when I was going to sleep?" She asked, almost angry, but not quite. Her usual calm demeanor was replaced by a sleepy one. "Do you know how annoying-"

She was interrupted as a wave of dread struck through that tiny part of her mind with Jirachi in it.

"What is it?" She asked, almost a whisper.

"Jira, get back to the house NOW!" His voice was almost a shriek as she stood, bolting into a run.

"What's going on?!?!"

"Deo's having... Deoxys is..." Jirachi couldn't describe it in words. "Why does he have to be his Lakine?" A moan from him as Jira sped up. "He's after Rayquaza's energy, he's doubtless to be... But I didn't think Emma was radiating that much of it... Why in the world would it be-"

They were both stopped in their tracks as Emma stood in their path, her green eyes glowing as she let out an inhumane laugh. It was Emma... Yet it wasn't. What in the world had happened to her? Why was she standing outside, looking like... That?

She heard a soft moan from the house that Deo and she had been staying in for the night... Emma's.

She could only watch as her brother stumbled out of the house towards her, obviously in pain, until he finally noticed Jira and lunged towards her, almost collapsing at her feet.

"Jira, I'm sorry... I couldn't find you... The blind stage is next, Jira, only one more after that and he'll be in control-!"

"We've got to get him away from Emma. The sooner the better!" Jirachi screamed. "If he gets ahold of Rayquaza's energy, who knows what he could do!!"

Taking his hand, she painfully dragged her brother away from the Emma... The Emma that was so wrong. What had happened? How could Emma have turned into that... Beast, with eyes glowing too brightly, hair wildly tangled, floating about her face like she'd been struck by a tornado. Her hands raised to the sky as her throat made that horrible noise, that laugh that was not Emma's laugh at all...

"Jira, I can't see...!" She could not spare him a look. She was hurrying along too fast.

"You'll have to trust me, Deo! Just come!" He obliged, but she felt him beginning to slow down... The tiredness... And when he shut his eyes, the next time he opened them, he would be Deoxys, not Deo.

Frantic, she tried to speed up. "Deo, don't go. Please, don't go... Don't let him in, not yet, just a bit longer- Deo!"

He went limp, them being just past the outskirts of the town nearest to Littleroot. She could hear water swishing nearby...

No... He couldn't be... She leaned down as her fears were confirmed.

He lay there, moonlight almost avoiding his body entirely, his eyes closed, barely breathing.

It had begun once more.

A/N: Wowsers, that chapter was WEIRD... I'm sorry if it's a bit confusing. If you've got any questions, ask me. I'm really bad at making sure everybody knows what I'm talking about! And I know the part with Deo and Emma is sappy... I promise I won't write anything too sappy (I can't write romance... TRUST ME!!) in the future. No kisses or anything, just they know they like each other (EWWW KISSY FACE!!!). Well, maybe not so much on Deo's part. Dude. Anyway, I'll have fun writing the next chapter... We get to see the evil!!! Yaaayyyy!!! Okay, so ask me if you've got any questions.

CandyKins- Welcome to the gang!! Thanks for reading!!!

Parrot-san- Thank you for telling me!!! I'm sorry, it just sounds like "Jiranchi" when they say it in the movie and stuff, so I naturally assumed that's what it was without looking it up. I fixed it here, though!! Thank you!

Orangen- Thank you for reviewing AGAIN!! You've really supported me. THanks!! Anyway, yep, I put down some stuff on the pokemon. I just had to act like Torchic was innocent and stuff, and Treecko was sarcastic. So stereotypical, but I mean, I couldn't have cute little Torchic be macho!! Anyway, thank you so much for everything!

Well, see you again soon!! Yep!