Hello! I'm happy that so many of you care about Tai, it says that ya'll love him as much as I do. As for using my names on your games -go ahead! I don't mind. I do that. I also named my little jolteon Tai -it suits him perfectly. (He has a quirky nature) ::smile:: Though, I don't know the fates of any pokemon yet -save for Kaiyou. Tai might die, or maybe someone else. Who knows? I could work it to Demi's advantage and kill the evil trainer man. Maybe. ::smile::

As for the whole "Pattern" thing, I realize that it might have been a little… deep… for some of you. Not that I'm calling you morons, but I will have little explanations about it throughout the fic and maybe that'll help ya'll understand it a little better. I have to say myself, it is a tad… abstract and vague. But I'm sure ya'll will get it sooner or later.

Disclaimer: all names, personas, the evil trainer man, Kaiyou and Shayla belong to me. Don't sue me, for it will not be worth the trouble.

Price for Freedom

Chapter 8

A Predicament

Kaiyou opened his eyes.

"Holy shit," Tai whispered. I agreed.

The Dark clone's great head lifted a little, and he surveyed the room with his deep, crimson eyes. Again, I found that I could not tear my gaze away from him. Then, he discovered that there was glass encasing him and then, with a mighty wave of energy, shattered it to pieces.

The wave forced its way through all of our bodies, and from what I could tell, it was painful for everyone, save for me. What little damage had been done to me was gone, and I felt more powerful than ever.

But that was when Kazu screamed.

"KAZU!!" Tai yelled, and turned in the direction of his brother.

The jolteon, without a second thought, ran to the entrance hall where the other pokemon were staying. I watched with an air of aloofness as Tai ran to his younger brother and began to try and drag the bleeding espeon away from Kaiyou. The jolteon looked at me for a minute, as if he was silently asking for my help, but I didn't move. I couldn't move. He glared at me and continued in his work.

I saw Kazu. He had blood all over his body, mostly around the jewel on his head and his side, where I would later find out that that was an old scar from a kabutops's scythe when the espeon was very young. Tai had told me it would never completely heal, and that spot was a weak point in his furry purple hide.

I wanted to help him. But I couldn't move. Against my will, my head turned towards the Dark Legendary. He was standing on all fours, staring at me. When we made eye contact, he gave the slightest of nods, and then turned back to the humans who were congratulating themselves.

My former trainer began to speak. "You see his power?! You see how he makes the pokemon retreat from his mere AURA?! He is the greatest pokemon that ever existed, better than Mewtwo, better then Celebi, better even, than Lugia HIMSELF! He will be the ticket to our reign of-"

Suddenly, he stopped short. His body was bent backwards a little, as if something was pushing him down. He began to make choking noises, and started have convulsions all over his body. I looked up to the new legendary to see his deep crimson eyes glow a deathly bright red.

Then, Kaiyou spoke. (You think I will bend to your will, human? Do you really think that I, a new Legendary, will disgrace myself in following your little scheme when I know what will happen if I do? Groudon must NOT be awoken. Niether should Kyogre. These two Titans should remain dormant, until the right time comes. Not now. Not until the Earth needs to renew itself.)

Kaiyou's hold on the human broke, and my former trainer fell to the floor with an unnatural thump. Kaiyou then looked to me, and I found myself walking towards him, and stopped at his side. Shoko saw this, and became infuriated for some reason.

"Demi!" he cried, "Get away from him! You don't know what he can do! He's almost killed Kazu! GET AWAY FROM HIM!!"

Kaiyou half snarled. (What do you take me for, dragon? An insane murderer given new powers? I will not hurt her. She acts like this because I am a Dark deity, to be quite frank. You would do the same for Moltres, Entei, or Ho-oh.)

The flygon, Skye, snarled. "You're no legendary! You're a clone, like that Mewtwo!! You have no right to call yourself a deity!!"

Kaiyou narrowed his eyes at the sand dragon. (Think what you wish, desert dragon, I care not. I have more important things to do than be pulled into trivial squabbles.) He then looked at me again, and, again, I was unable to control my movements. He began to walk forward when a yellow blur rushed up from the floor, and would have hit Kaiyou had the Dark Clone not ducked. The yellow blur rose from the floor and shook itself off.

Kaiyou turned his great body to look at Tai full in the face. (Yes, jolteon? You wish to speak to me?)

Tai rose and snarled. "You're going to pay for what you did to Kazu!!" he shouted, taking a step forward and sending sparks everywhere. "He's nearly dead, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!" The jolteon launched himself forward, but Kaiyou disappeared into the shadow and reappeared again when Tai had flown past and landed flat on his face. I would have laughed if the situation weren't so grave.

Kaiyou narrowed his eyes again. (Your brother will be fine. That is of course, if you stop trying to fight me and start trying to save him. Your trainer is on her way. She will prolong his life until she is able to get him to professional help. There, he will be fully recovered. You don't have very much time now. He is dying without you there.)

I could tell Tai was torn. Should he believe the clone and run to his brother or try and kill the clone before any more pokemon could be hurt? Finally, he ran back to Kazu, occasionally slipping on the slick floor.

I looked up and saw Kaiyou smile, but, looking past his ebony and golden head, I saw something horrible.

"KAIYOU!" I shouted, "WATCH OUT!"

He looked up and then saw the army of fighting pokemon and newly added Sableye fall from the ceiling and began to beat on him. Somehow, this prevented him from going into the Void, and collapsed under all of the attacks.

"NO!!" I shouted, and then tried to tear my way through the army with my aerial ace. Unfortunately, a machamp caught me in the side with a mega kick, and I flew through the air. When I hit the floor, my eyesight went dark. The last thing I recall was the sound of Kaiyou's bestial voice screaming in pain.

It still echoes in my ears.

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I don't know how long I was out. All I know was that, apparently, Shayla did come and rescue us all, and we were flying to the nearest pokemon center via private jet thanks to a rich trainer who owned the milotic Shiro.

I opened my eyes to see Saji's grim face above me. When he saw that I was fully awake, he asked softly, "How do you feel?"

I didn't know the answer myself, so I rolled over (I was on my back) and responded with a muffled "Fine." He sighed and I looked at him and became aware of the weariness that had taken over his features.

But of course, I knew why he was like that. "How's… Kazu?"

He looked at me for a moment and then looked towards the door to the room we were in. "He's sleeping, from what I understand. Shayla and Tai are both in his room… they haven't left him since they got on. Shoko's out flying with Amburna to try and relieve some stress. I was to make sure you woke up."

A bitter smile formed on my face. "Nice to know they care."

He almost glared at me, but then he stopped himself. "We are concerned. But Kazu's hurt worse. You know that."

The scizor, who had been sitting on the steel floor with me, stood up. "You can go and see Kazu if you want. I'm going to go outside with the others." With a slight nod of the head, he turned and walked out the door. I looked out the window to see Shoko and Amburna flying, and talking from the look of it. I sighed and shook myself, to try and wake my body back up. I ventured out of the room and followed Tai's musky scent to another steel door lined with about thirty others in a long hall. I pushed my way through and found Shayla and Tai sitting beside a bandaged and beaten Kazu, who looked unconscious and was lying on a white futon. I slowly made my way towards the group. Tai noticed me first.

At first he just looked at me with no real emotion in his chocolate brown eyes. After staring at me for a while, he looked back down to lay his head on his brother's side, and didn't look at me again. Shayla, apparently having noticed the jolteon's movements, looked behind herself and smiled softly when she saw me. "Hey, girl," she said. I winced when I heard her strained voice. "Come in. There's plenty of room."

Awkwardly, I slowly made my way into the room, where I could see Kazu more clearly. He was sleeping, (or unconscious, I couldn't really tell) and he had bandages wrapped around his head and around his middle. There were red splotches where the blood had leaked through. Kazu was lying on his left side, exposing the side wound. Tai's head was placed on Kazu's front leg, and the jolteon was staring out the window, apparently looking at nothing in particular.

I sat down across from Tai, facing his brother's back. "How is he…?" I asked softly.

Tai looked at me, then back out the window. "Hell if I know. All I can tell is that he's still bleeding and I can't do a bloody thing about it." His face grew more melancholy. "He's dying, I can smell it."

I winced. So… was it Kazu's life that Eclipse warned me about? Was it the espeon's life that ended so abruptly? I hung my head slightly and stared at the floor. I felt horrible. I didn't even get to warn either of the brothers of Eclipse's prediction. Then maybe this wouldn't have happened. If I had listened to Eclipse, then….

"Stop beating yourself up, Xena," Tai mumbled. I looked up at him to see him staring at me with an emotionless face. "It's not your fault. You didn't know, and neither did I. No one's to blame here."

I sighed. "If only that were true," I mumbled. That got the jolteon's attention.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, lifting his head off of Kazu's shoulder, but placing a little paw to replace it. "There's no way you could have known."

I walked away from him to the window and sat there. "Eclipse… he told me-"

"Shut up about that damn umbreon, Demi," Tai snapped, cutting me off. "I hate him and everything he has to say. He couldn't have possibly said anything of importance."

I glared back at him. "He did. Now if you would just shut up and let me talk, you would know." Tai's face snarled, but then he put his head where it had been on his brother's form and then muttered, "Fine. Talk then."

I sighed and then turned to the open window, which revealed a beautiful sky. I paid no heed to it. "Eclipse told me, after you went through that portal in the Void, that someone close to me would die. He didn't know who, but he said that it was one of two people. He didn't say who the two people were, exactly, but apparently…." I looked at Kazu and then placed my gaze to the floor. "I should have told you sooner, but… I guess I…"

I heard Tai scoff. "That's rapidash shit. He didn't know anything… He probably just guessed. There's no such thing as a Pattern doo-hickey, so there's no way that any Dark can see it and interpret it."

I looked at him. "How did Kaiyou predict Shayla coming then…?"

He glared at me. "He's a legendary. Maybe not a real one, but damn close. All legendaries have special powers -Celebi can jump time, Lugia can summon storms, Rayquaza can live in space or something. Maybe he can predict like the psychics can, or maybe he just saw her coming out the window, I don't know. All I know is that Fate is a bunch of crap. So is Luck." He stopped for a moment and then looked away from me. "You can't rely on any of them because they're not real."

He picked himself off of the futon and looked down at Kazu. "There's nothing that could have predicted this," he muttered, staring at his younger brother. "Nothing scientific, nothing ethereal." He then looked up at me and gave me a stern stare. "So don't you swallow any of that umbreon's shit, you hear me? I don't want to hear about him anymore. His name alone makes me want to vomit."

"Why do you hate him so much?" I whispered, mostly to myself than to him.

Tai stared at me. "Because… I hate umbreon. I hate them all. They think they're so high and mighty, that they know all of the secrets of the universe. I hate them because… because they're Dark….and that makes them evil…"

I cocked an eyebrow. "So I'm evil?"

He shook his head. "I thought you would be, but you're different, I guess. You're not all that bad, once the Xena thing has been peeled back." He looked at me cautiously and then became nervous. "I-I mean, you're not… evil… just really bitchy, and mean, and-"

"I get your point," I muttered. Why was he so nervous all of the sudden? He was only talking to me… Nothing big….

He swallowed. "But, still… Mom had always told us, me and Kazu, when we were really little, that we should never evolve into an umbreon. That would mean that the little dark side we all have would grow and consume us, and then we would become evil…" He looked down to his brother. "I never really questioned that… When I got older, I guessed her hatred for umbreon had come from the fact that my father was killed by one." He looked up at me. "She's a vaporeon and my father was a flareon. The umbreon that had killed him was… well, hunting. The umbreon's trainer said that the umbreon mistook my father for something else, but I could never figure out what."

My face fell. "That's horrible," I murmured, thinking about my own parents. To my current knowledge, they were safe and sound and living quietly on the route from Fortree to Lilycove. Both of them. I saw Tai shrug.

"The umbreon that killed my father was put down immediately, but still… After that, my mom was, and probably still is, under a dark cloud. Nothing could cheer her up. It devastated her even more that Kazu and I were leaving with Shayla, and that almost made me want to stay home. But she told us to go, and when we tried to stay, she used water gun to get us out of the house." A small smile came over his face. "She never was a selfish one." Then he gave a small cough. He looked around the room and muttered, "Dammit, I'm homesick now…" He yawned and stared at Kazu for a moment.

He then lied back down and placed his head on Kazu's shoulder and went back to staring out the window. I lay down myself, closed my eyes, and waited until we got back onto the ground.

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Well, that chap was a little choppy… but oh well. I love you all. ::smile:: I'll get the next chap. to you as fast as I can. I've already got a good start on it. :)

Ja