That forest that we had traversed during our short time in Johto had somewhat returned to normal, after a fierce battle rocked its world last year. The helicopter crash remained and the damage done by it; the twisted metal and raging fire was reduced to nothing but rust and fire damage, but the forest was doing its job by moving on and small plants and grass had started to grow back. Staraptor and I landed in that fateful site and searched for anything that might tell us where Morgan went.

"Nothing," I emerged from the wreckage. "Everything was destroyed in the crash."

There was one other place to look: where this helicopter was headed and where we had been brought to for imprisonment. I climbed back onto Staraptor and he took to the sky. The closest mountain range was to the northwest. There was another idea on my mind. If Morgan had escaped, there should've been a second exit somewhere on the face of the mountain. But as we grew closer, it would take months to explore all of these mountains.

"Staraptor, we're going to have to split up to cover more ground," We landed. "I don't remember exactly where we came from, because we were in sort of a rush…try northwest first," He nodded, and took to the sky.

I never liked hiking. Even as a trainer, I always prayed that I would reach civilization soon because mountains wore the hell out of me and my team. My feelings remain unchanged now that I'm a grown man, but at least I have some help from a little thing I like to call the Archaic Sword. I strolled along the edge of the canyon in search of a secret exit. For all we knew, this base could've gone on for miles under the mountains, and in theory that made a good cover. Maybe we were looking for the wrong descriptions. The base recently collapsed under the force of the sparring match between Rayquaza and Latias, so all I had to do was look for any major unusual earth displacement.

Mom was leaving tomorrow to head back home. She said the house felt very empty with only herself there from time to time, and when I asked where dad was, she told me that he was in Mossdeep City. I didn't question any further. It was dad's prerogative to fulfill his dreams, and when he did he dropped off the face of the earth. Suddenly the path beneath me crumbled, and before I could jump out of danger I was pulled down into the canyon. I had to think fast before I fell to my death. I pulled out the sword and struck it into the canyon wall, and slid to a halt.

'That battle must've destabilized this entire area,' I thought.

I pulled the sword from the wall and carved out some lines, forming a ladder and climbed back up onto the path. I lay there for a while, thinking about my life.

"I do need to give Danielle a raise."

"Star!"

Staraptor circled in the sky above me. Looks like this search just got a whole lot easier.

I woke up that morning, catching my senses and remembering what had happened a few nights before. Or was it just a dream?

"Dad?" I walked over to his room, but he wasn't in there. "Dad?" I called again, searching the house. Grandma was here, but he wasn't. "Grandma, have you seen dad?"

"Oh he came to me quite early this morning," She replied. "Said he had an errand to run and left in a bit of a rush. What was strange is that he had this—how should I put it—sword, strapped to his back as if he was going off into battle."

"Oh, never mind then," I said, smiling. "He's just probably gone off to the expo at the museum…they have a ton of them there."

It made no sense to her, but she took it anyway. It was only a matter of time before grandma saw through our lies. I went back upstairs and got dressed, and then went to the museum. Something didn't feel right. Now that it wasn't a dream, I could've sworn I heard Bianca say "Mrs. Morgan", as in Matthew's mother, Caitlyn. I arrived at the museum at a quarter past ten. Bianca's grandfather, Lorenzo, was in the library section, walking around as visitors and tourists alike studied the various documents that led to the formation of the city. He spotted me and smiled. "Good morning, Molly."

"Hello," I said. "Is Bianca here?"

"No, she's at the academy," He replied. "She's teaching a special Saturday class for young artists."

'That would be great to attend,' I thought. "Can I join?"

"Well if you hurry, you may be able to catch something."

So I left the museum, walked three canals over and turned onto the street that led to my school.

I approached Mr. Mancini's classroom, as all the signs said to do, and stood in the doorway. Bianca was walking around monitoring everyone's progress. Not only was she a great artist, but if she was a teacher I would have never second-guessed this class.

"Gentle strokes, everyone," She said. "You must take your time with paintings such as these."

"You're doing a marvelous job, Bianca," Mr. Mancini added. I knocked on the door. "Come in, Melinda."

Bianca turned around. "Oh, hello Molly. Is everything alright?"

"Very," I replied. "In fact, I was wondering if I could join your class."

"Sure. Find a station."

I found a station on the other side of the classroom, adjacent to Matthew's station. He looked at me in surprise, but I reassured him that it was for my extra credit project. I needed a motive—a rainforest maybe. Trees were easy to draw; the only hard part was illustrating the rain. And with these hands, a simple creek would turn to a tsunami. I went on with the idea anyway, starting off with multiple tree trunks and then extending to their branches, each of them being overlapped by those of the tree in the foreground. As the branches thinned, I drew leaves. This was really coming along great in my mind. I kept drawing, illustrating the bark on the trees, the roots that snaked around on the ground and the path between them, meant for fictitious travelers.

"Wow, Molly," Matthew said, leaning over. "You picture is starting to look pretty good."

"Really?" He nodded. "Thanks."

I continued. This looked batter as a sketch than it did with paint, so I kept it that way. Fine streaks with the pencil made the rain. After a few months in this class, I was doing pretty well for myself.

After I was finished Bianca wrapped up her teaching session, but reassured us that she would return for every Saturday throughout the semester. Everyone left her class while Matt waited for me by the door.

"Nice job, Molly," She said, taking my picture in my arms.

"Indeed," Mr. Mancini added. "Keep this up and you'll pass that extra credit assignment in no time."

"Um…thanks," I yelled in my head. I thought for sure he'd accept this one. "Bianca, can I speak you for a minute?"

"Sure," We sat on some stools in the back of the class. "What's the matter?"

"A few nights ago," I started. "You mentioned that you got your dress from Mrs. Morgan. What did that mean?"

"You know, Caitlyn Morgan," She replied. "Why, you thought they were two different people?"

"Almost," We both chuckled. "Thanks for clearing that up."

"Oh, Molly," We both got up. "A question for you, if you don't mind," I shook my head. "Can we consider ourselves…friends?"

"Of course," I said. She smiled. "I'd really like that."

She waved me goodbye and I joined Matt at the door. I chatted with him as we walked back to his mother's store.

"So this it," I peered down into a newly carved entrance. The walls were reinforced with steel, which had buckled under the pressure of the collapse, but it was intact enough to explore. "Staraptor, you wait here at the entrance. I won't be long."

I pulled a flashlight out of my pocket and flicked it on. There was rubble everywhere, so I jumped over some rocks and slid down to the bottom. The shaft was shaped as if it were meant for a plane, and angled up to the sky. When I got to bottom, the shaft ceiling had buckled heavily; almost impassable at points. I pushed forward anyway, and eventually came into the remains of a large hangar. There were planes here, but were rendered inoperable from the impact of rubble. Dripping water echoed throughout the area. A set of stairs on the other side of the room looked accessible. These led down to that sparring area that I saw before. The ceiling had caved in, filling half of the room up, however the pathway that I emerged from was still visible. I had to make this quick; going further into this mountain and making too much noise would cut off my only exit. Plus, It was getting more and more difficult to breathe.

'Let's see what I can find on you, Morgan,' I thought.

I walked the hallway, cutting around more rubble, looking for the room that was used to analyze the sword. If I hadn't destroyed everything so fast, I could've learned something myself. There it was, to my left, and I slipped through the doorway. I spun the flashlight around, hoping that if this wasn't purely the digital age, these scientists would've had one mind to jot down some information on paper. Nothing I could find on the desks, however there were some freshly printed sheets still in the printer. I picked them up, and looked at them. They were files on Morgan himself—the scientists must've gotten suspicious of his motives—and a few other interesting documents: his mysterious pokémon and some of his plans. I studied these quick and shoved them into my pocket. I was starting to feel lightheaded.

Staraptor flew high in the sky over the beach as I looked through the documents. Morgan didn't have any past that these scientists could dig up, except that he was married. The wedding photo was too blurred to get a good picture of his spouse, but I had passed a photo shop on the way into town that took care of these types of pictures. I stacked up all the documents and took them with me to the store.

"Hello," I said, entering.

"Good morning," The clerk replied. "What can I do for you today, sir?"

"I was wondering if you could digitally enhance this image," I placed it on the counter. He picked it up and looked at it.

"Yes, it's possible," He said. "…give or take an hour."

"Thanks."

Mrs. Morgan, as I saw fit to call her now, was driven to boredom, standing behind the counter and reading a magazine. There were very few dresses on display that she made herself, but it would take months for that to change. I walked up to her, curious about her last name. While I had walked with Matthew to her store, it started to give me thoughts and I felt I needed some clarific.

"Mrs. Morgan?"

"Hm?" Well that was definitely her last name.

"…Is everything okay?" I couldn't push myself to ask her.

"It's a slow day," She replied. "However two people came in today and were fitted for dresses."

"That sounds good."

"Really?" She asked. "Because…honestly I thought there would be…more."

"Three days after you opened?" She shrugged. "Two fittings in one day is a great start."

"Well," She checked her watch. "With your words of wisdom, I'll surely have more visitors tomorrow. Would you help me lock up?"

"Of course," We spent a couple of minutes locking up the store and the three of us walked back home. I asked if I could come by, where hopefully, I would ask her.

"So how did your Saturday class go, Matthew?"

"Oh, it was great," He said. "I drew an open field."

"Kind of plain."

"Yeah, but it was nothing compared to Molly's picture," I blushed. "You should've seen the rainforest she drew."

"It was nothing, really," I whipped it out of my bag anyway. "Bianca said it was pretty good, and I'm happy with it. Now I have to start my extra credit project."

"What do you plan to draw?" He asked.

"I don't know yet. I haven't thought about it much."

When we arrived at their house, I found that in the time range, a majority of the boxes had been emptied and furniture was unwrapped. It was slowly turning from a storage unit into a home. Mrs. Morgan offered me something to drink, which I took, and then revved up to ask her the question.

"Mrs. Morgan, could you tell me about Matt's father?" I said quickly.

"Wow, it's been a while since someone's asked me that," She said. "Most of the time he was caught up in his work, but he always found time for Matthew. He really looks up to his father."

"He never told me that."

"Yeah, he doesn't speak much about him," She continued. "He was the hardest hit when he passed away. You know, Cora was a gift for his sixth birthday."

"He told me," I really didn't want to ask this next question, but it wasn't getting any better from this point. "His father was a scientist?"

"A scientist with a lot of ambition, yes," She said. "There was this one project that he was working on before he passed away that just ate at him until he figured it all out. Here, I have a family photo."

I walked with her to the living room, where she picked up a picture off of the coffee table and gave it to me. The portrait was taken in Olivine City more than ten years ago. Mrs. Morgan looked the same as she did now, something I would have to tell her later, and Matt was still just a kid with a Chikorita tugging at the edge of his jeans. It was a beautiful portrait…until I looked at his father. Then the entire moment changed.

"Here you go, sir," The clerk said, handing me an enhanced version of the photo. "This a friend of yours?"

I looked at the picture and sighed. "You could say that."

I left the store and looked at the picture again. Morgan's spouse looked like Caitlyn—it was Caitlyn, actually. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Morgan married her, and their eventual son Matthew…was now Molly's best friend. She would be devastated to hear the news. Of course, they were all victims in Morgan's madness. Morgan faked his death and abandoned his family, and with his whereabouts unknown at the moment, I couldn't just go and tell them this. Now that I knew, I changed my mind and decided to keep this secret. I walked over to the pokémon center and called home.

"Danielle," I called. "Hey, can I speak to—"

'Calvin, oh thank god you called!'

Her voice sounded urgent. "Is everything alright, Danielle?"

'Molly needs you,' She said. 'She wants you home, now.'

"Okay okay, just calm down," I said. "I'll be there as soon as possible."

I hung up and ran down to the beach, found Staraptor and took off towards Alto Mare.