Hey, I think people are checking back to see if I've updated, which is encouraging, cause I take it to mean that someone out there likes this story. I don't know what got in to me but suddenly I just wanted to write for Aria and I didn't want to stop (even for dinner) until I finished. Well fortunately I did it because I have a test in New Testament Friday and not only do I have to study but I have to write the essay for it outside of class. I kept spacing out while I was studying. Anyway, I hope you like the chapter, there's some action in this one.

Chapter Eight: Manaphy

"It bowed?" Kurama asked as he and Aria sat on the front porch while Aria's mother finished patching up the Gardevoir from that morning. Aria had just finished telling him about her encounter with the Froslass in the forest. She nodded confirming her own story.

"Yeah, it was strange. Pokemon don't bow at all. And this one just walked out of the forest, stared at me like she knew who I was, and then bowed as if she had just met a queen or something." Aria propped her head in her hand trying to puzzle out why the Froslass had acted so strangely.

"Do you think that the demon had anything to do with it?" She asked still staring out at the trees.

Kurama shook his head. "I doubt it." He said. "The demon probably thinks these creatures are beneath him, plus I don't think he would order one to bow to you unless he was mocking you."

"She didn't look like she was mocking me." Aria said, frustrated she could not figure out why the creature had bowed to her of all things. She sighed explosively throwing her hands up in the air trying to forget the whole thing since she could not understand what the Froslass had been doing. She tried to turn her attention to happier incidents, like yesterday, when she and Kurama had explored downtown Botany. It had been exciting and romantic in Aria's opinion, especially at the end when he had almost kissed her.

Almost being the key word there. Mrs. Cullen's mother sense must have been tingling because she called at that exact moment about more bandages for the back room or something similar. So far Kurama had not tried again and Aria was beginning to wonder if he would at all.

"Has Botan tried to contact you at all?" Aria asked trying to find something to talk about.

Kurama shook his head. "No," He said. "I don't know if it's because she can't get through or if it's because she has nothing to tell me. But I don't like being kept in the dark."

Aria smiled. "You've never liked being kept in the dark Kurama. You get all fidgety and cranky if people don't tell you anything."

Kurama looked over at her and Aria saw a little more gold seep into his eyes. "I remember you didn't especially like it either. Kuronue was always telling you to sit down and be quiet when that happened."

"I wasn't nearly as bad as you were." Aria grumped.

"No, but you were noisier about it." Kurama said smilingly to show he was teasing her.

The two fell quiet and Kurama took the chance to take Youko's place, sending the fox towards his usual spot in the back of his mind. Aria saw his eyes change from the corner of her eye but did not draw attention to it. As the silence stretched Aria began to feel a slight awkwardness settle in. She sighed, hoping that it would not cover them and make talking impossible but she did not think her wishing did any good.

Aria twisted her head so that her cheek was resting on her drawn up knees. She looked up at Kurama and saw that he did not know what to do either.

"What now?" She asked him anyway.

Kurama sighed and mirrored Aria's position with his head on his knees, facing her. "I don't know." He confessed. "We could try to find the demon and find out what he knows." Aria shivered in fright and he sighed. "We're going to have to look for him eventually."

"No we don't." Aria said quickly. "We can-we can," She started stuttering, scrambling for a viable excuse. "We can-"

"We can wait until he finds us?" Kurama put in pleasantly.

"No," Aria said indignantly. "I was going to say we could help Mom with the Gardevoir."

"The thing your mom found this morning?"

Aria laughed. "It's not a thing. It's called a Gardevoir. They're a type of psychic pokemon and they're incredibly loyal to their trainers. Sometimes," She said her voice growing more excited. "They can make a black hole."

Kurama laughed at her enthusiasm. "It's nice to know something like that is only a few yards away from us." Kurama said looking over his shoulder in a show of mock fear, making Aria laugh.

"Relax, it'll probably be so grateful to my mom that she'll stick to her like glue and do anything she asks."

"Right so as long as your mom doesn't want us flying into a black hole, we're safe."

Aria laughed again. "Yeah, pretty much."

Their laughter trailed off and Aria realized that Kurama was staring at her in a peculiar fashion.

Actually he was pretty much just staring at her, which was probably why it was so peculiar.

Aria felt her face turn red. "What?"

Kurama shook himself out of whatever stupor he had been trapped in. "Nothing." He said quickly. "Just, nothing."

"I think you've gotten shyer over time Kurama." Aria tried to joke away the remaining unease.

"You think so?" Kurama asked, sounding suddenly mischievous and playful. Not a good combination in a fox spirit.

Aria turned and gasped, surprised to see Kurama's face two inches from hers.

All words suddenly ran out of her head like water out of a cracked cup.

Before she could get forget that her eye color was blue and not a brilliant shade of emerald green she managed to remember how to speak. "Can I help you?" She whispered wondering if she should lean forward, just a little bit. A very tiny little bit.

And then he leaned back.

"Shyer hmm?" He said his eyes glinting.

Aria was still in shock.

Finally she exhaled and turned to say something to Kurama, who was still watching her with an amused expression, but a call interrupted her.

"Aria," Her mother yelled from somewhere near the back of the house. "Can you come here for a minute?"

Kurama was still smirking when she left him on the porch.

"Here's your dinner." Aria told Kurama sullenly later that evening as she basically dropped his food in front of him. Kurama and Aria's mother looked at her in surprise; Kurama because he had not thought that she would be so upset for so long and Mrs. Cullen because she had no idea what was going on. Aria had been in a bad mood ever since that morning and she had not spoken to anyone except in monosyllabic words all day.

The three ate dinner in an uncomfortable silence where Kurama and Mrs. Cullen kept looking over at Aria while she diligently ignored them. She finished quickly, put her dishes in the washer and went to her room without another word.

Mrs. Cullen watched her daughter stalk out of the kitchen and listened as she slammed the door behind her. Calmly the older woman looked over towards her guest. "Whatever you did I think you should apologize."

Kurama focused on his dinner rather than answering her.

"What do you mean he got away?!" Koenma cried through the communicator's tiny speaker.

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "I mean that the guy gave Hiei the slip. He. Is. Gone." He said carefully emphasizing each word to try and make Koenma understand what had happened.

To be honest Yusuke could not believe it either. Someone had gotten away from Hiei? It just was not possible. Literally, Yusuke did not think that it was possible.

Koenma sighed and put his head on his desk, nearly causing a landslide of paper to fall on his head. He caught it at the last minute though and then turned his attention back toward the communicator.

"Find him!" He shrieked. "Find out what he knows about Xryna and where he is! Ah-!"

The papers finally crashed onto Koenma's head and Yusuke snapped the mirror shut before the princeling's screaming got too annoying.

Yusuke stuffed the communication mirror into his back pocket before going out into the main room of the temple where the others were waiting. Everyone except Botan, who was probably helping to unbury Koenma from his mountain of papers, Kurama, who was still only Koenma knew where (he wouldn't tell them exactly where he was now), and Hiei, who had just decided not to show up.

"Where the heck is Hiei anyway?" Yusuke asked as he sat on the floor next to Keiko.

"How should I know?" Kuwabara asked from across the room near Yukina. "I haven't seen him since he went after that other guy that attacked us."

"He was just outside before you arrived." The tiny Ice Maiden spoke up.

"Well he isn't here now." Yusuke grumbled. He had wanted to talk to Hiei about the guy he chased. He had not even told them what the demon looked like besides the fact that he was wearing black and had a sword. Big deal. Hiei wore black and had a sword. Maybe he was fighting a mirror.

"Never mind," Genkai told him in her raspy voice as she lowered her tea cup. "What did Koenma say?"

Yusuke rolled his eyes again and leaned back on his hands. "He said we need to find the guy and get him to tell us what he knows about Xry-, I mean Him." Yusuke thought that all this stupid him stuff was ridiculous. What power could a name have? It was just a word, even if it was used to call a very old and freakishly strong demon.

An empty tea cup flew out of nowhere and hit Yusuke in the side of the head.

"What was that for?!" Yusuke yelled at his ancient teacher.

"You should take this more seriously dimwit. It took the combined forces of both the Spirit World and Makai to defeat him the first time and they could only seal him away in some long lost citadel."

"Yeah, and most of them died." Kuwabara muttered resting his head on his fist.

"What?" Yusuke asked giving the other man a strange look. "What do you know about this guy?"

"I've been looking up stuff about him in the library. I figured that since Kurama isn't here someone better do it and since you obviously weren't going to do it-"

"Shut up." Yusuke whined, tired of people ganging up on him.

"What did you find Kazuma?" Yukina asked softly, trying to deflect the fight she could feel brewing.

Kuwabara, glad for the chance to show off to Yukina, instantly got a goofy smile on his smile on his face. "Well," He said with too much bravado, although Yukina did not notice. "I found this one book in Koenma's library that's really helpful – the others weren't helpful at all – and it says that that guy had these headquarters somewhere in Makai, nowhere ever knew where, and he basically kept everybody under his thumb until they found a way to lock him in some special kind of rock in his castle."

Yukina looked worried. "How did they find the castle if no one knew where it was?" She asked.

"One of his servants spilled the secret, but he died in the battle so we don't know where the place is. There are a couple descriptions of the surroundings from a couple people who attacked the place, but they were busy thinking of how to defeat Xryna rather then the pretty scenery."

"Well what did those say?" Keiko spoke for the first time. "Maybe there's a special landmark or a marker we can look for."

"Naw," Kuwabara said. "Most of them just say that the castle was surrounded by trees or something like that, but I'll keep looking."

Keiko nodded, a worried look on her face whenever she thought her friends, Yusuke especially, was going to get into potentially fatal situations.

"Let Botan or the toddler sift through the books; we need to find that minion. It'll be faster to get information from him than from that stupid library."

Genkai rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration as Kuwabara rose to the bait and started yelling at Yusuke. She missed the calm and quiet Kurama and Hiei. Or at least she missed the way they could get the other two to be quiet quickly.

"Shut up the both of you before I throw you in the pond." Genkai snapped, the arguing finally pounding her last nerve into dust.

Both boys instantly shut up.

Okay, so she could make them quiet too, but she was old, and they were too irritating.

Deep in one of the many wild forests of Makai, three creatures listened to the Spirit Detectives continue to argue as soon as the old lady left. The light from the picture was the only light in the old and decaying room, but even that seemed to waver a few inches from the hunk of crystal that projected it before it dissipated and was sucked up by the ancient stone that sat in the middle of the room as if some giant had thrown it there in a haste to get rid of it.

In fact, the whole room looked as if the grand, almost royal, family that must have lived there had left in a great hurry. In most of the other rooms, chairs were turned over, water glasses and open books sat abandoned, and in the largest bedroom a lady's once fine dress was laid out on her now moldy and disintegrating bed cover, ready for her to put on.

And then there were other signs.

Dark stains splattered on the walls smeared down to lead to the bones of creatures whose names had been lost or forgotten long before they had planned. Their clothes were now tatters and dust surrounding their thin frames.

But over the millennia the decaying citadel had stood undisturbed by all except the wind and the rain, and the shadows that had been trapped there for so long had almost given up hope.

And then one day…

One day, a young man with lightening bright hair stumbled upon the ancient ruins. He explored what he could and saw the bones and dust and stains on the walls. He saw the ancient black rock tossed carelessly in the middle of the grand, high room.

And he heard a deep vibrating voice that shook his bones, whisper to him, promising him everything that he could ever want and more. The man did not believe the voice, but the seductive tone and alluring feeling of how the rock's dark power imbedded into every stone of the secret castle made him realize-

If he had this power, he could have anything.

Of course after a short time, he had realized that it would not be as easy as he had first though. Xryna was not a force to be taken lightly. Arashi truly feared the ancient force trapped within the other worldly rock, since he could kill him with no more than a stray thought. That was why as the viewing crystal grew dim, Arashi stood, waiting patiently, like any good servant, for his master to speak.

"Arashi..." The deep surreal voice seemed to slither out of the rock. Arashi had learned a long time ago to suppress the shivers that unconsciously ran across his skin. It did not look good to be afraid of something you wanted to dominate. But out of the corner of his eye he saw the phoenix that his master kept around for errands shudder at his ghosting voice.

"Tell the girl she has a week. Let's see what our little Bluebell can do."

Arashi bowed, not as deep as others who feared him but enough to show his deference for Xryna's ability. He did not mind going back to that pretty and pastel world so long as he was allowed to cause some kind of havoc. Testing the little bluebell would lift his spirits, if nothing else.

"Hikari," Xryna whispered mischievously, wanting to push the demoness to her breaking point. She had a fiery personality, and was beyond insulted by the fact that she was being forced to work as an errand-girl. But Xryna had her captured her young daughter along with her and he kept her tribe under constant watch. The lady of the phoenixes had no choice. "Hikari my little fire-bird, I need you to do something for me my sweet." Hikari shuddered again, but this time Arashi figured that it was because the phoenix was subduing the urge to uselessly blast the ancient stone Xryna was trapped in and turn it into glass. "You need to see what they're planning to do to us my fire-bird. I'm sure the two kings each have their plans by now. You have five days to discover their plans or I'll have to assume that you've run away from me darling and I'd hate to think of what would happen to little Kisara if you did."

Hikari dipped her head in acknowledgement but did not say anything before she quickly left the room. The closing door echoed around the empty space, but no one listened.

"Go Arashi…" Xryna said his voice fading as he dismissed his only loyal servant.

Arashi left, taking a different way than Hikari, who had probably left through some window to fly off like some savage animal. Instead, he wound his way through the old and crumbling corridors to a back room that had no lights of any sorts. The single large twisting rip that led to the Bluebell's pastel world glimmered with its own strange half light, although Arashi had stopped noticing things like that long ago and without hesitating he walked through the rip into leave filtered sunshine.

As the sun began to rise above the water's edge, sending a brilliant array of reds, oranges, and yellows scattering across the undulating waves, Aria sulked. She sat at the edge of the water, arms wrapped around her knees as she stared unseeing out into the sun painted water.

She still did not understand. Why hadn't Kurama kissed her yesterday? Didn't he want to? Was he not interested? He said he still liked her, but what if he didn't? What if they had changed too much?

Aria put her head down and sighed in frustration. Boys and relationships were difficult, especially when someone put them together.

"Phi hello phi girl."

Aria looked up wondering where the tiny voice had come from. But as she listened to the waves crash relentlessly against the sand and the different bird-like pokemon cried in the trees, she dismissed the vague noise as imaginary and put her head back down on her arms.

"Phi girl over here."

Aria looked up again and this time scanned the forest as well as the ocean, but she was still alone.

"No-no phi, over here."

The voice was close by now and Aria turned to the craggy rocks that sometimes had tide pools swimming in the spaces between them. Carefully Aria crawled across the fine sand and peered down at the closest swirling pool.

And then fell back on her butt as a flurry of blue and red sprang up splashing water all over the frightened girl.

Aria screamed, afraid that the Froslass had come back under some order from the neon blonde man that had tried to kill Kurama and threw up her arms to protect her face.

But all that fell on her was water.

"Phi phi silly girl. I don't bite. I don't have teeth."

Hesitantly, Aria peeked through her arms and when she did not see anything big with a plethora of fangs standing over her she slowly lowered her arms to look at what she was speaking with.

The small smiling Manaphy waving happily at her was close to the last thing she ever expected to see talking to her.

"Hi phi phi!" The little creature said.

Aria distantly felt her mouth drop open. The Manaphy's mouth had not moved when he (she? Aria could not tell) had spoken to her.

"This can't be happening." She finally whispered.

The small little creature cocked its head to the side and gave her a confused look. "Why?"

"Because it's impossible." Aria stammered forgetting for the moment that she was responding to what she was half convinced was a hallucination.

The Manaphy smiled again and jumped up and down like a happy child. Laughter burbled out of its mouth and it clapped its fingerless arms together.

"What's so funny?" Aria demanded.

"You're a funny flower-girl." The pokemon giggled again before leaping back into the water.

Aria quickly stood up and ran to the waters edge, ditching her sandals before she hit the surf. She scoured the salty water, kicking up sand and obscuring the already thick water as she walked deeper into the chill water.

The water blue pokemon popped out of the water a few feet from Aria with a cheerful wave. "Phi! Over here. This way." With another cheery "phi" the Manaphy dived back under water.

Aria waded after the swift creature, skimming the water with her fingers to see if the Manaphy was just below the surface of the sandy water. But instead of running into the small pokemon, the Manaphy burst out of the water again ahead of her crying, "Catch me if you can!"

Aria continued to chase the happy pokemon in the twisted game of tag until her legs began to ache halfway up the beach. Finally she stopped and leaned her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. Her pant legs were soaked from the knees down and her feet were starting to feel prickly with the cold. Manaphy popped out of the water at its regular few feet away and looked back at Aria.

"Aren't you going to get me?" The Manaphy asked.

Aria shook her head. "No, no I'm too tired."

The curious creature swam close enough so that she could look up into Aria's face. "Why?" It asked as it uttered a tiny phi.

Aria coughed a laugh. "Because I don't usually run like that," she said, "just like you don't usually talk."

The Manaphy cocked its head again. "But I always talk like this." It said sounding like a child asking why she could not go outside. "You're the ones that don't usually listen to me."

Aria stared at the rare creature, her amazement increasing.

"Are you saying that I'm the one that's really talking to you?" She asked speaking slowly as if that would help her figure out what was happening to her.

The Manaphy smiled again, regaining its happy manner as it nodded a yes to her and let out a loud, "Phi!"

Aria thought her heart must have stopped. She knew her thoughts all came to a screeching halt, except one.

This isn't possible. This just isn't possible.

Aria was so lost in her thoughts, well, thought really, that she did not notice that the Manaphy had frozen in fright at the sight of something behind her on the beach. Then with a terrified cry the childlike creature dove beneath the ocean's surface and swam away as quickly as it could.

Aria snapped out of her stupor when water sprinkled onto her face and head. She looked around, searching for the rare water pokemon.

"Manaphy?" Aria called. "Hello?" The little creature did not resurface.

"What's the matter Aria?" A low pitched unfamiliar voice suddenly appeared behind her. "Did you lose your friend?"

Aria spun around, splashing water everywhere, hoping against common sense that Kurama was the one standing behind her or someone from school or town.

But as she managed to stop herself from falling over, Aria saw in horror that the unfamiliar voice had a frighteningly familiar face. Ever since she had seen his sharp face almost three days ago as he stood over Kurama's battered form, she had been terrified of its return.

This situation was probably why.

"Good morning Aria."

Aria did not know whether to try and run or just stand there screaming for help like some stupid damsel in distress. Of course she was a damsel, so to speak, and she was distressed, but that was not reason to start screaming.

The man stepped forward and Aria quickly rethought about screaming.

"What's the matter Aria?" The man asked conversationally as he smiled, showing teeth so white they looked like someone had supercharged them with electricity. In fact, his whole body looked electric, from her almost glowing teeth to his lighting colored hair. His eyes, even though they were a sable shade of brown, had a charge of their own, which kept Aria rooted to the ocean floor. The color kind of reminded her of the tree in the forest that had been struck by lightening a few years ago, its limbs and trunk all black and burnt and its roots withered and surrounded by little flakes of ash.

"I'm supposed to be giving you a message from my master," The man went on pleasantly as if he was talking about something normal. Heck, maybe he was. Maybe this was normal for minions of frighteningly powerful, universe crushing, older than dirt demons that had been trapped by mortal enemies.

"But," he continued, "I think that I would like to try something else first."

As he spoke a bright, crackling, yellow-white light begin to grow in the palm of his hand. First it was barely the size of a dime, but then it quickly grew to a quarter, the bottom of her mom's favorite coffee cup, a half blown balloon.

"Get ready," The man said as the snapping, crackling light grew even bigger.

"Run!" A small voice called behind Aria, but she could not bring herself to look away from the man or his light.

"Get set." He spoke again in the same agreeable way as before. Aria managed to blink as she felt the ocean start to swirl around her unpleasantly. She should run. She should hide. She should do something.

"Run."

"Run!"

Both the man and the Manaphy spoke at the same time, but Aria could not force her body into action and instead stood there stupidly as the demon threw the writhing light at her.

All Aria could do was throw her hands up in front of her face.

Sweet sugar she was such a damsel.

There was an ear splitting clap of thunder as the ball of lightning struck, making Aria flinch, her old fear of storms managing to squelch the fear of death just for a moment.

And then there was nothing.

Slowly, her ears still ringing from the thunder, Aria lowered her arms. The man was standing there, looking peeved that she was still in one un-charred piece. Aria was amazed herself that she was still able to breathe without any kind of pain.

Looking down as she inspected her body, she realized with a start that she the sandy ocean floor and the many shells that littered the bottom and usually cut her feet when she forgot her swim shoes in the summer. The water had been pulled back away from her feet and legs in an almost perfect circle, keeping her safe from the lightning.

"PHIIIII!"

Aria's head shot up at the Manaphy's pained cry. The little creature was four feet away from her held up in midair by a thick stream of water it had called up. But the man had used the water to direct his lightning up to Manaphy. He did not smile like Aria thought he would. He merely stared at the wailing creature as if it were an annoyance and beneath his notice even more than a worm crawling on the sidewalk.

Finally the Manaphy gave up and let the water holding it up fell back into the ocean, the unconscious creature following it. Water swirled back around Aria's legs too, rushing into the void the Manaphy had created.

Aria rushed forward and grabbed the pokemon out of the water before it had a chance to drown. She was not quite sure if that was possible for a water pokemon, even if they were unconscious, but she was too panicked to think about that as she hauled the small blue creature out of the salty water. It was still breathing, but Aria still wanted to get it to her mom as soon as she could.

She looked up, remembering the reason why the Manaphy needed help in the first place. The man watched her with revulsion, showing his distaste for the child-like Manaphy plainly.

He also had another lightning ball in his hand.

"Let's get this over with shall we?" He said, his opinion of the girl going down every time she breathed.

Aria, wet and sopping, stared in wide eyed undisguised fear as the man began to hurl the wad of fatal electricity straight at her torso, so it would stop her internal organs like a penny in a finely tuned machine.

Fear can let a person do things that otherwise would be impossible, like eighty year old woman lifting cars off of their husbands or people throwing televisions, stuff like that.

In this case, Aria's fear drop kicked an iron door in her head that had been sealed and bolted so many times it looked more like an array of chains and irons than a door.

As the contents lying in wait behind the door swept into Aria's conscious mind, Aria realized that she was standing on dry land again.

And that the man was cursing her behind a curtain of rippling water that was arched over her like a bubble. The water sparked with its new electrical charge, but it soon faded as the electricity dissipated into the vast ocean.

"Very good little girl." The man spat angrily. "But tricks like that won't help you defeat my master and you know it. You have a week before he razes this foul world and its simpering inhabitants to the ground. I suggest you run away before then." Then he was gone, disappearing through the dense trees and out of sight.

Aria was too disturbed by her two near death experiences to comprehend what the lightning man had just said. She tried to distract herself by attempting to get out of her new protective bubble, but in the end she just had to run through the inch of vertical water, getting even wetter than she already was. In a daze she ran home, trying not to jostle the injured Manaphy in her arms.

Fortunately, Mrs. Cullen was sitting on the front porch waiting for her irritated daughter to come home. She was hoping to talk to her about whatever it was that had happened between her and Kurama or at least give her some advice so they could fix their friendship. But when she saw Aria sprinting across the yard, sopping wet and terrified, she called for Kurama to get a towel and jogged to her daughter.

"Aria! Aria, what happened?" She asked grabbing the girl's shoulders trying to get her to look at her.

"F-fell," she stammered, her teeth starting to shake from the unusually chill weather. "Fou-found i-it in the w-wa-water."

"Okay," Aria's mother said soothingly, thinking that the Manaphy's terrible state had her daughter upset. Usually she was not so easily shaken as this. Maybe her fight with Kurama was more serious than she had thought. "It's okay I've got her." Mrs. Cullen said taking the little creature from her as Kurama appeared with the towels. He handed Mrs. Cullen a smaller one before wrapping a bath towel around Aria's shoulders. "Sit her down." She told him as she swaddled the Manaphy and walked toward the house.

Kurama nodded and put an arm around Aria and led her across the grassy lawn. She clung to his shirt with one hand, keeping the towel in place with the other. "He-e's b-back." She told him, tears starting to leak down her face, mixing with the ocean water.

"Who's back?" Kurama asked as he pulled down Aria next to him on the topmost porch step.

"T-that m-m-man," she stuttered fearfully, "tha-at e-elec-lectric man."

Kurama still did not understand. "What electric man Aria? Who is he?"

"He is Arashi, servant to Xryna."

Aria shrieked and jumped at the sudden voice, her head jerking up to see who was in her yard. Kurama, wondering why Aria had screamed like that, followed her gaze.

The Froslass that had bowed to Aria the other day was standing calmly in her front yard, gazing solemnly up at her and Kurama.

Aria was quiet for a moment as she shook and sobbed. "Wh-who are y-you?" She asked, her voice a little steadier, not sure she wanted to know the answer. "And what do you know about this?"

"I am called Frost, and I have been sent by my Lords Kyogre and Suicane to help you. You are the Lady Alastrina, servant to my king, Arceus. You are the also the only that has enough power to break Xryna."

The Froslass's declaration was too much for Aria to handle. There was a roaring in her ears as black spots began to cloud her vision and she collapsed backwards in a faint. Kurama, who had not heard the Froslass say anything and wondered why Aria was staring terrified at the creature, caught her before she hit the porch deck. He looked over at the pokemon for a moment, but when it made no move to attack, he carefully picked Aria up and carried her into the house.

The end. Of this chapter at least. As a real ending its terrible, but anyway. I almost had my own fainting spell this week, it wasn't pleasant. I'm rambling. Actually I think I'm trying to avoid studying. Darn it!

Please review person out there who keeps checking back to read about Aria. Thank you! Bye.