My head hung, unspoken sobs beating at my throat.

Exiled. It wasn't like I wasn't expecting it – the older people always whispered about me whenever I was near and shot me snooty glares. Mothers tried to keep their curious children away from me. There were only one or two kids in the town who weren't scared to be with me. The first was my best friend, Amy Shepard, her parents weren't around most of the time so she would come to stay at my house. She was small, sweet, and mouse-like - the exact opposite of myself.

The second was a rude jerk, Archer Hawken – he liked to make teasing me his favourite activity. He was just about as bad as I was, but it strangely comforted me that someone could tease me like a normal person. He was called up to the front of the meeting to be denounced as a pokemon trainer as well. He stood next to me, his head held high in defiance, his hands casually hung in his pockets, his eyes glaring at the head of the town.

Almost straight away, the two of the dragged away to get a pokemon from the professor, who was Archer's father, "You have nothing to afraid of, your father won't stand for this. My father isn't even here." I muttered to him, resentfully.

Weirdly enough, he shot me a slightly bitter grin, "My father says, becoming a pokemon trainer is nothing to be ashamed, he'll be overjoyed." My heart quenched in some sort of pity for him. "That aside, I suppose you're my rival now," his grin turned evil, "What a fitting title. Rival."

I glared, "Do we have to be rivals?"

He laughed, "Pokemon trainers always come in pairs, as rivals, or haven't you heard the stories? My father used to be a pokemon trainer," he cast me a side-long glance, "He was your father's rival. It must run in the family, eh, Falconer?"

"My father was a trainer?" I asked, wide-eyed.

He frowned, "Your mother never told you?"

"No, I just thought that he left us because he had no morals," I whispered.

"Well, no," he shook his head, "My father always tells me stories about his adventures with your father and so on."

"Does he know where-," I was cut off my Archer's father.

"Welcome, welcome!" He pushed us into his lab, "Both on your way to become trainers eh? Good, good."

"Excuse me, Professor Hawken," I said, his jolly attitude about the whole situation was starting to piss me off, "But we're being exiled. Your son is getting exiled! You may never be able to see him again, doesn't that bother you?"

"Oi," Archer started angrily, his face turning red.

But Professor Hawken just laughed, "Every boy has to leave home one day. It'll be a chance for him to actually grow up," he gave his son a stern look, "Now, here you go, your pokemon."

He handed us both pokeballs, took a picture of both of us standing there in bewilderment and pushed us outside his lab, dumping a backpack into Archer's arms, he grinned, "Have fun, kids!"

The lab door shut and I glanced at Archer, he was shouldering his bag, to which, I frowned, I should get a bag too. He looked at me, "Ready to get going, rival?"

I shrugged, irritated, "You can go ahead if you want, I want to get a bag first."

"Suit yourself, want to check out our pokemon first?"

I blinked, "Okay, on three, two, one." We both released the pokemon in our pokeballs, I was praying that it was something amazingly strong, like a charizard.

Instead, two eevees blinked up cutely at us. I stood there in shock, an eevee? Next thing I knew, Archer was pounding on the door of the lab demanding to have a real pokemon. I sighed, "Wait, stupid, remember that eevees have heaps of evolution forms? He's giving us quite a wide range to choose from with this little pokemon." I picked up my eevee, "And they're kind of cute."

Before Archer could complete his, "I don't care about cu-," statement, my eevee hit me across the face with a paw, glaring at me. Archer cracked up, "Hahaha, I guess he didn't like being called cute!" He picked up his own eevee, "You guys prefer being called strong and manly, don't you?" His eevee blinked in confusion, and gave a rather girly 'eevee?' in response. I snorted.

"Right, so I have the boy and you have the girl," I grinned, "Great."

He glared at me, "Just you wait, Jaye, I will train my eevee into an electrifying Jolteon and we'll show you just who is the best. Isn't that right, Spark?"

I blinked, "You're going to nickname her?"

"Yeah, why not? Better than being called eevee all the time,"

"Alright, I'll guess I'll name you," I stared into my eevee's eyes, "Scorch. I'll train you into a Flareon because Flareons are the best."

I woke to the smell of incense; my throat was as dry as parchment.

I sat myself up and a girl beside me looked at me quizzically, "Water," I croaked, "I need water." She nodded and sped off. I glanced around myself, coughing; I was in a little cavern at the base of the large cavern. Kyle sat slumped against the wall opposite me – he looked tired, his green eyes were staring straight back into my own. I decided to ignore him. The girl came back with the water and I sipped it slowly.

"You were talking in your sleep last night," Kyle started suddenly, "You said the name, 'Amy Shepard'." I looked at him, still bitter of yesterday's events. "I know someone called Amy Shepard," he said slightly eagerly, hoping to get a reaction out of me.

I rolled my eyes, "Amy Shepard is a common name."

"She's my cousin," he explained, "She followed me from Oakroot, when I stopped there shortly before coming here."

"Where is she?" I wondered if she had forgiven me for leaving without saying goodbye.

"Let me take you to her," he held out a hand, which I ignored.

The stroll took about five minutes, before we reached a little clearing on the opposite side of the cavern, it had grass growing in it. I spotted her almost immediately, short black hair, creamy white skin, small stature, but Kyle watched as I just stood there silently before sighing, "Amy!" Amy's head shot up, before she made her way over to us.

"Kyle," she greeted him warmly, "Rumour has it, you've found another one for your little leadership team. I heard she was a bit of trouble."

Kyle gulped as my eyes narrowed, "Yes um, this is her right here." He nudged me forward, Amy blinked at me.

"Ooooh hi there," she giggled, "I'm Amy Shepard. Who are you?"

I cannot believe that Archer once had a crush on this ditz, "Jaye Falconer."

She stared at me, her grin disappearing, "Jaye? Is it really you? I can't believe it! Where's Archer?" She quickly glanced over my shoulder hopefully, which annoyed me even more.

I grit my teeth, "He's not coming, Amy, not ever."

A hand flew to her mouth, "Really? Oh I'm sorry, Jaye, I never thought that he would," tears started to form in her eyes, "I always thought that the two of you would come back."

"Amy," Kyle started, "Don't-,"

I gripped Amy's arm, "My mother, Amy, how's my mother?"

She blinked stupidly, "Mr. Lore is treating her like usual."

"What's 'like usual'?" I snapped.

"Badly," Amy pulled her arm out of my grip, "You know the Mr. Lore is on the other side, Jaye, when you did bad things, it impacted on her."

Her words froze my blood into ice, "I-."

"No, shut up, Jaye, you have to learn that what you do effects other people! It effected your mother, and it effected Archer too! Because of what you did, your mother is basically traumatised and Archer is de-,"

"Shut up!" I clamped a hand over her mouth, fear making my voice loud, "You weren't there, you weren't there!" Sobs clutched at my chest, "You weren't there!"

"Jaye, calm down," Kyle's arms were around me, dragging me off Amy, but Scorch managed to bite into his leg, making him yelp and release me. Quickly, Scorch ran over to me and stood in front of me, bristling and growling at Amy, before nudging me across the cavern.

I was halfway across the cavern before I bumped into Kev, he stared down at me, "Awake then, are you?" He eyed Scorch before beginning to set off again, "Archer's service will be held tomorrow. Don't cause too much trouble." I wanted to shout and scream at him but I clenched my fist and shut my mouth.

"He's not that bad, really," a musical voice greeted my ears, I looked up to see the beautiful woman in the blue gown, Frey, she stared down at me kindly with amazingly blue eyes. "He doesn't like to see you messed up like you are right now, so he thinks that if you let go of the past, it'll be for your benefit. And don't be too hard on Kyle either, he's trying his best to be your friend, Jaye," she turned her gaze down to Scorch, "I can see your flareon is fiercely loyal to you. Remind me to let you meet my vaporeon, Drifter, sometime." She gave me a bright smile and patted me on the head before floating off.

"Oh, hey fire girl," a new voice came from behind me, I turned to see Neo standing with a dragonair beside him. He smirked as I stared in awe at the pokemon, "Amazing, isn't he? Dragon pokemon will always be the best, though I suppose fire pokemon aren't that bad either."

"Wow," I breathed, walking towards them, Scorch trotted beside me, looking rather resentful that I was paying attention to someone else's pokemon. "Wow."

Neo eyed me warily, "I hope you aren't going to throw another spastic like you did yesterday. He doesn't like that."

I glared sharply at him before returning me attention to the dragonair, "What's his name? Does he have a name?"

Neo laughed, "Of course he does, can't go around calling him 'dragonair' all the time! I call him Aires." He patted the dragonair's head.

"Can I touch him?" I asked.

"You can try, but he doesn't really like strangers," seeing my crestfallen face, he grinned cheekily, "But let's call it a challenge."

"Alright," I rolled my sleeves up and faced the dragonair, "Let's see if you can withstand the power of Jaye!" I glanced down at my flareon to realise that it was laughing, at me! "Scorch! That's not very supportive of you."

Neo muttered something to dragonair, and the pokemon basically snickered, Neo smirked, "Alright then, Jaye, give it your best shot."

"Just you watch," I ran towards the dragonair as fast as I could, but Aires only stayed there until the very last moment before disappearing. "What? Hey!" I spun around to see Aires next to my pokemon, where I had started off. "Come back here, you!"

Neo rolled his eyes, "Your too headstrong, always rushing forwards when you can get an enemy from behind."

I eyeballed him, "What do you do? Stab them in the back?"

His grin wasn't all that pleasant, "If I have to."

I shivered, there were some seriously strange people in the cavern. I had to focus. I turned to the dragonair, "Scorch, hold it down." Obediently, my flareon stuck his paw onto Aires, confused how he was supposed to be able to actually hold the dragon pokemon. From behind me, Neo laughed. I let out a noise of frustration before pelting at full speed towards to the two pokemon. Aires pretended to look scared and panicked, but once again, he vanished at the last moment. "Gah!" I scanned the surrounds but he wasn't anywhere. My eyes fixated on Neo, who was point upwards.

Oh, he was in the sky. Great. I fumbled for my pokeballs only then realising that I had left them back where I was sleeping with my bag. I huffed, crossing my arms, this wasn't fair. The dragonair snickered again. "This isn't fair, Neo!" I exclaimed.

"Isn't it? I bet if I was the one trying to touch your flareon, you'd allow him to burn me as well," Neo raised an eyebrow. He had a point.

I stood there, getting more and more aggravated by the fact that the dragonair was in the air, where I couldn't catch it. If only I had remembered to bring my other pokemon with me, then I could use charizard and get there. Scorch looked at me rather apologetically. I didn't quite notice the whooshing sound behind me until and hand grabbed me and hoisted me up into the air, and on the back of a pidgeot. "Neo, what are you doing?" Kyle's voice rumbled from behind me.

"I'm giving her a challenge," Neo retorted, glaring. I had a feeling that these too didn't get along too well. "She was the one who wanted to touch Aires."

Kyle muttered something about dragon trainers, but then he turned to me, "You want to touch the dragonair, Jaye? He doesn't like strangers."

"Neo already told me that," I snapped before I remembered Frey's words about Kyle. I wasn't too ready to forgive him yet though, "Oh forget it, just help me out here would you? You're the one with the flying pokemon. Get me to that dragonair."

"Yes sir… I mean, ma'am," Kyle grinned, his pidgeot flew upwards, I blinked in confusion. "Higher, Swiftwing," he urged.

"Um Kyle? The dragonair isn't up that high," I turned to Kyle.

"Hmm? Oh don't worry, this may seem a bit scary at first but I don't think Neo would like to be responsible for the death of you," he grinned mischievously.

Realisation dawned on me, "Oh no you don't-," but it was too late, his pidgeot did a flip, which knocked me off the pokemon and sent me hurtling down towards the dragonair just below me. The wind was rushing through my hair, my eyes were drying and I heard the startled yell of Neo from below.

A familiar whisper came to my ear through the whistling of the air, "Close your eyes, Jaye." Listening to the voice, I closed my eyes, this was going to be a hard landing, on the ground.

There was a soft thud. Funny, I thought in my rather befuddled state, the ground is softer than I thought it'd be. I opened my eyes to a world of blue, and a slight noise of annoyance came from above, I looked up into the dragonair's face. Oh.

I wasn't dead.

There was huge ripple, and scared that I was going to fall again, I clung to the dragon pokemon with all my might as he flew back down to the ground. I slid off; I wasn't ever going to do something like that again.

"This was her challenge, so some kind of 'group effort'," Neo glared at Kyle.

Kyle ignored the dragon trainer, and grinned sheepishly at me, "Sorry about that Jaye."

I shook my head, "Don't worry about it Kyle."

Neo huffed, "Come on Aires. See you later, Jaye," he nodded to me, "And you as well, I suppose, loser."

I glanced between Kyle and Neo's back, "Does he really dislike you that much?"

Kyle laughed, "Well, I wouldn't say that I'm his favourite person, but we'd support each other in a fight, if it came to it."

"That's because you have to though," I said.

"Maybe I'll tell you the story then, if you forgive me," he said hopefully.

I sighed, "Fine, I forgive you already. There are just some things you've got to do."

"Yeah," he nodded, starting to head back to the small cavern where my pokemon were, "Alright then. Neo and I both came from the same place; we're both trainers of Willowwood town. Back when we were exiled, the head of the town was the only one who was really into the whole punishment thing; the rest of the town was rather against it. Thankfully, though, that's changed now – seeing as Willowwood is on the side of the Resistance. This was about seven years ago now, I was nine and Neo was ten when we were exiled together." He looked at me, "Trainers are always exiled in pairs, but I guess you know that by now, and they always become rivals and usually they stay as rivals."

Usually, but there's always an exception, I noted. Kyle continued, "I found this place first, but soon enough, Neo came stumbling in, both his pokemon and him were rather injured. He too, had a problem with the idea of letting go of the past. He'd been trying to save someone when they caught him and beat him up, but he managed to escape into that tunnel that I met you in. He owes me because I helped him, but he doesn't want to have to owe me anything because he's my rival."

"Oh," we'd reached the cavern, and I gathered my stuff together. "So, is that what you usually do? Stand by that tunnel and wait for other trainers to just appear out of nowhere, then you grab them and take them here?"

"You make me sound like some sort of kidnapper," Kyle said with mock resentment, "But I guess you could say that. Anyway, you should get ready, Old man Kon has requested that you, I and Neo go on a patrol to get resources from Juniper City today."

I frowned, "But that takes about a day's run!"

He shook his head, "We'll be taking the tunnels, that means we won't have to go around Mt. Ash to get there. We should be back here by midday tomorrow, if you ride your rapidash, Neo takes his dragonair and I take my pidgeot. The tunnels are wide enough for that if we stay in a straight line."

"I could ride my charizard," I said, he looked at my sceptically, "Or not… fine. Well, I'm pretty much ready as it is." I turned to Scorch, "I'm sorry, I know you hate being inside the pokeball, but I can't let you just run along behind us."

Scorch huffed, but did as he was told. I called out my rapidash, "Hey, Cinders, guess you and I will be going to quite a ride today."

"Oi, you two," Neo's voice called to us, "Are you going to hurry up? If you don't get a move on we'll be back by nightfall, and Kev would throw the biggest tantrum known to humankind."

Kyle grunted in response, but we both knew that Neo was right. I climbed onto my rapidash's back and Kyle summoned his pidgeot. I glanced at Amy as I passed her, she did not look back at me, but continued on with her work – a sour look on her face. I could hear Archer's laughter ringing just on the edge of hearing.

I squeezed my eyes shut, one more day, just one more day until I had to say goodbye to him forever.

-Somewhere in Raeonn-

I almost felt sorry for the kid, as his prison guard, I had formed some sort of attachment.

It wasn't mutual. His food lay untouched on the tray next to him; he'd turned himself away from it as much as his chains would let him. It was almost as if he was trying to deny its existence as to not give into the temptation. In his ill health, he looked even younger than he was.

Was he intending to starve himself?

I turned my gaze to his jolteon beside him, it had basically collapsed next to him but the kid couldn't do anything about it. I remember his eyes burning with pain and hatred when the boss wouldn't let it be healed. If he had a jolteon now, it must mean he started off with an eevee and he didn't seem the type to just be happy with such a pokemon. Rumour had it his partner-in-crime, the one the boss was trying so hard to capture, had a flareon.

Had they both started off with eevee?

The sight of it all – the weak kid and the jolteon was so pitiful. The boss wanted to break him, wanted the kid to join our side so that he could control him and eventually his friend.

"Hey," I tried to start up a conversation, "Why aren't you going to eat?"

His head swung around to glare at me, even in the weak state that he was in, his eyes still burned with fury and defiance. "The stronger I get," he said through forced teeth, "The faster the time comes when your boss tries to turn me to his side and train me to become his weapon to hurt pokemon trainers like me."

"So you intend to starve yourself to death instead?" I stared at him incredulously.

"I was going to die anyway if you people hadn't found me rescued me. You've already taken away the dignity of dying somewhere like there," the intensity of his hatred rose, "I'm not helping you people get Jaye as well."

"But what if it wasn't Jaye?"

"Jaye is all that matters," his voice dropped to a whisper, "I don't care about anything else."

"She thinks you're dead."

"I soon will be. It's better if she think I died an honourable death back in that cavern instead of rotting to death helplessly in a cell, listening to plans of her capture," his hand trailed to the jolteon's head and rested there. "It's better if she thinks I died fighting."

End Chapter 2.

Author's Note:

Okay, this was actually a really boring chapter. I'm sorry.

Hopefully the next one will be more exciting, with Jaye, Kyle and Neo heading off to get supplies from Juniper City, and the boss of the crime syndicate will do whatever it takes to keep Archer alive.

Poor Archer, I'm sorry you are getting so mistreated.

Please read and review. Reviews bring hope. :)

~ MFT