Hi! And again so soon! I'm being really good... :)

Well, I now have another beta by the name of Rain. He's a really pretty blue, with crimson mixed in in random places on his fins. He's so pretty. I miss Skye.

I now have.... ::thinks:: 4 milotic, and as for good level pokemon, my strongest is a level 88 absol. Knows bite, thunderbolt, ice beam, and arial ace. Booya.

Enjoy the chap.

Disclaimer: I own all names, personas, Shayla, Evil leader of Team Magma, and Kaiyou. If you want to sue me, know that it won't be worth the trouble.

Price For Freedom

Chapter 7

Patterns

I never knew how much I truly hated his face -the one I had admired for years- until I saw that sneer on his older face.

I lunged.

I jumped through the air, claws outstretched, teeth bared. I wanted to taste his hot blood on my tongue, the same way he had felt mine on his hands. I wanted to tear his skin from his muscles like he had done to me so many times before. I wanted to sink my teeth and claws into his body and rip him apart.

He was surprised. I guessed he didn't quite expect me to grow a brain for my own and learn that what he did to me was wrong. So he didn't have much defense against my attack once he realized I wasn't jumping into his arms to become his lap dog again.

My claws dug into the flesh beneath his neck, and above his collarbone. He screamed in pain, and then glared up at me. His hand reached for his side, where my former comrades waited, but I stopped that movement with a thunderbolt.

I heard a gun cocking to my left, but I didn't want to move. I had been dreaming about this day for the whole time I had been left behind -seven years. I didn't want to leave this spot. Not until I saw Death take his life.

I then felt something furry and spiky ram into my right side, pushing me off of my former trainer. I skidded across the slick tile floor, and lifted my own head to see Tai's. "Get off of me!!" I roared, to which he looked up to me and snarled.

"The hell do you think you're DOING?!" he shouted while raising his fur to become actual spikes. "That dude was about to shoot you!"

BAM!!

A bullet flew over my head, and sunk into the wall behind me. Tai pushed me up, and ran over to a nearby overhang, which would shelter him from the bullets. I saw him run to the overhang, but I looked back to my former trainer. He was getting up! NO!!

I began to run back to finish my job -to kill the man that stood before me. But the jolteon had other plans. He grabbed my black, webbed tail and began pulling me towards the overhang. He could see the guns being cocked.

Unfortunately for him, Tai's little paws didn't have the traction on the slick floor like my claws did. I began to run forwards, despite the jolteon weighing me down, when something black and gold rushed up from the ground and hit me, sending Tai and me into the Void.

-----

I looked around to see the same blackness that was the Void. I cursed and began to go back to the real world when Eclipse stopped me.

"I told you not to reveal yourself once you saw him," he scolded, glaring at me with his red eyes. "How could you lose your control like that?"

I noticed I was panting. I closed my mouth and swallowed in an effort to regain control of my breathing. I glared back at the umbreon. "You don't understand. You've never been in that kind of situation. Where you've been tortured and mutilated by your Master, and then, after so many years of mental abuse, you see him and-"

"Oh, be quiet," Eclipse interrupted in a cynical tone I had never heard from him. "Of course I know. I've had five trainers. Each one was worst than the last. I ran away from my last one. Of course I despise them all. They were horrible humans, and they deserve to die, according to my accounts. But I have never, upon meeting, have tried to kill them."

He shook his head. "You don't act like a Dark, Ayako. Otherwise, you would have seen that there was another choice you could have made."

I glared. "What do you mean?"

He looked at me. "So many pokemon believe that their trainers are their best friends. Some have the fortune of being correct. Others are living in a lie. And those pokemon who do get abandoned or traded believe that, upon meeting their former trainer, the human must either be killed or worshipped.

"But no one ever sees the other choice. Just walk away. That's what I've done with all of my other trainers, even the one that set me on fire four times. It is not my choice to decide their fate, only the beings higher up in the hierarchy. If I were to decide their fate for them, the Pattern would be disturbed."

I cocked my eyebrow. "Pattern?"

He nodded. "Dark pokemon have the gift of seeing the Pattern. It is the strings of Destiny and Fate that link everyone and everything together. The psychics have a partial understanding of the Pattern, but Darks are the only ones who can accurately predict the outcome of a certain event, given they are not too involved with the event in question.

"Which leads me to my next point -you cannot kill your trainer. Not yet. We must wait until the Pattern no longer uses him in the Design."

I growled. I was already confused by the fact that he was telling me of something ancient and powerful, something I was supposed to be able to see and use (yet I didn't think I could) and now he was telling me I couldn't kill my former trainer until the "Pattern" thing no longer used him. Eclipse growled softly to get my attention.

"Remember, you are not a deity. You do not have the right to decide which humans deserve life and which deserve death. Do not mistake yourself for something greater than what you really are. Yes, your trainer abused you. Yes, it is ethically wrong. But, there is nothing you can do about it now. Trying to get revenge for what happened so many years ago is the equivalent to taking poison and waiting for your former trainer to die."

That shut me up and forced me to think. Why had I attacked him? Well, duh, because I hate him. But why couldn't I just walk away? What was I trying to prove? That I had become independent of him and no longer thought he was a god? Or maybe…

"Hey, Xena? Can we leave?"

I looked behind me to see Tai darting his head about, obviously scared out of his wits. He was gulping about every five seconds, and was shaking. He slowly made his way to my side, and then glared at Eclipse.

"Hey, Socrates, are you done yet? I want to get the hell out of here," the jolteon demanded, while simultaneously trying to look intimidating while being scared witless.

Eclipse merely smiled. "Are you afraid, Jolteon?"

A shaky "No" came from Tai. Eclipse's smile remained and then turned to his side, where he poked the Shadow, and a swirling vortex appeared.

"This will lead to the overhang," Eclipse explained. "You first, Thunder Dog."

Tai glared at the umbreon and then made his way slowly to the portal, where he glanced at me for reassurance. I gave him my "You're-being-a-retard-for-being-scared-of-that" look and he rolled his eyes in response. He then jumped in and disappeared.

I made my way to the portal when Eclipse began to speak.

"I must tell you…" he began softly, "…that if you continue on this path, it will lead you to more pain than ever."

Since he was to my left side, I turned to face him, completely astounded and appalled of what I had just heard. "What?" I asked of him, and he turned to open a different portal.

"The path that you are on now," he repeated, as if that would clarify everything. "There are two fates of which I cannot see… It is too clouded. Too uncertain. There are too many variables that could change… but one thing I am certain. There is one line that ends abruptly. One life that will cease to exist -and it will be someone close to you." He stared at me. "I believe you already know this, don't you?"

I snarled. "What are you talking about? I don't know any of this Fate crap."

He smiled knowingly. "It's in your blood to know. You're an absol. Even if you shun your Dark element to full capacity, you would still be able to sense when natural disasters are coming. Especially since you're so strong. You've been feeling the little ripples, haven't you? The little quivers in the atmosphere that always indicates that something is going to happen. Something bad. You know it, don't feign ignorance."

I began to walk towards him slowly. My facial expression matched my mistrust of this "Pattern". "And who, exactly, is involved in this little 'mishap' that's supposed to happen, hm?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Don't mock me. You know I speak the truth. But I guess you would see the Pattern a little better if you relied more on your Dark element than smothering yourself with lies and deceits. You shun your Dark element. Why? Is it because you believe you're evil?"

I jumped and tried to catch him in my claws, but he disappeared before I even landed. He reappeared behind me. "There's no way that you could catch me that way. The Void is the center of Dark and Shadow. Normal or any other type attacks simply won't work. Now, if you don't mind, I must leave."

I couldn't help jumping in front of him. "And where do you think you're going?!" I yelled, angry at the fact that he wouldn't shut up about the fact that I rely more on Fire and Ice attacks than Dark. "Aren't you going to help the others with Kaiyou?!"

He disappeared and then reappeared by the most recently opened portal. "No," he replied. "That would upset the balance. My part is done. Now, go back to your Jolteon friend, he's on the verge of chaos. He doesn't trust me. Especially alone with you." And with that, he leapt through the portal and left me alone in the Void.

I sighed and then turned to my own portal, which was swirling lethargically. I shrugged and then leapt through it, not eager to find out what was on the other side.

---

Tai, as Eclipse told me, was going insane. He was shouting when I stepped through the wall, and when he saw me, he tackled me.

"The HELL have you been?!" he shouted, standing above me as I tried to get back up. "I thought that stupid Umbreon -Eggplant or whatever his name was-"

"Eclipse," I muttered.

"…Whatever," Tai said dismissively. "I thought he had done something to you because I had told you that he could trap you in that freaky Void thing and-"

"Shut up, Tai," I muttered again. I had just been struck with a large headache. "Your voice is annoying me."

He gawked at me. "Well, that was rude," he commented, and then came over to my side. "Does Xena have a headache?" he asked in a baby-talk voice, to which I merely glared at him.

I then felt something. Like a pulse. I lifted my head and scanned the room, to find everyone was standing still and listening to my former trainer talk. Tai was about to say something, but I hit him in time to shut him up so I could hear what the human had to say.

"And now, with no further delay, I present to you, the key to Groudon's awakening and our triumph over Aqua. Kaiyou! AWAKEN!!"

I trotted out to the floor and saw the great beast give a mighty spasm when my former trainer pulled a lever, which made a nearby Raichu begin to perform a thunder. The electricity was channeled by two wires connected to the Raichu's cheeks, which ran into the tube and ended at Kaiyou's heart. My eyes were glued to Kaiyou, because, for some reason, I couldn't take my attention away from him.

My former master gave a signal and the Raichu stopped the electrical flow. The room was silent.

Kaiyou opened his eyes.

-------------------

Well, that's it! Hopefully I'll be able to update more often.

And why can't you get Lugia on FireRed or LeafGreen? Why….