First of all, if you want to understand scheduling/the long wait for this to be updated, check my profile and read the update near the top. Or don't, it doesn't rlly matter if you don't care that much.

Also I got this question in the comments: will Ash end up with Dawn or May? And the answer is no. This pairing will be Ash and Lillie. I know I put Dawn and May as the other characters in the info for the story, but that's because they're more major than Lillie is in this story. Lillie's still important, but they drive it forward a bit more in this one compared to the next one. So yea, and sorry if that disappointed some people.

This is just another sneak peak as an apology for leaving this just sitting here lol.

Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN POKEMON

Sneak Peek 2:

The Unknown

"Gahdamn."

Jade examined her appearance in the mirror, frowning. To put it simply, she looked haggard. Her skin was pale and clammy, and her lips were cracking like she hadn't had any water in days. Her eyes were bloodshot, and the huge dark circles underneath them were especially noticeable. Her hair was still in the ponytail it'd been in the night before, but instead of just being a bit looser from sleeping in it, it had a nest of leaves and grass woven in, along with a few streaks of dirt for good measure. Her clothes were still the ones she'd been wearing, but significantly dirtier and a bit wrinkled, and even had a few tears here and there. The coat she remembered wearing looked the same, but was discarded on the floor beside her, like it had been stripped off and carelessly thrown to the side.

"I look high as fuck," she grumbled. "No way I'm going to class like this."

"Wow," Gary finally said. "You look high as fuck."

"It's almost like you want me to punch you in the face," Jade retorted flatly.

"I mean, not me, but I know half the people in school probably fantasize about you doing such things to them."

Clearly indented in the ground were Lillie's footprints, but what made them unusual was the fact that with each step, they sank roughly 3 inches down into the ground.

The rock-hard, firmly packed dirt ground.

"What the hell…?" he muttered, shifting a bit. The footing felt as sturdy as ever beneath him, and every time he lifted a leg, there was barely even an outline of where he had stood. "H-how?"

"I don't know," Jade said quietly. "But I think she was right when she said that that night had something to do with it."

While Ash just nodded in affirmation, Gary's eyes widened, and he looked absolutely shocked as he seemed to be finally piecing everything together. "So then-"

"That's right," Jade murmured, a dark look in her eyes. "Even though she looks the same, that storm changed Lillie, and whatever she is now is incredibly heavy…"

"It wasn't me!" he cried. "Haven't you ever heard of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?!"

"Oh I've heard it plenty!" the officer said sharply. "I've heard it from people trying to get out of trouble! Now FREEZE!"

"I heard you!" Paul snapped, his blood beginning to boil. "Don't yell at me!"

"Oh did you now?" the officer snarled, gripping the gun tighter. "Cuz from the looks of it, I'd think you'd gone deaf! Now I want you to-"

"I FUCKING KNOW!" Paul roared angrily. "YOU WANT ME TO FREEZE-"

And just as those words passed his lips, a blast of cold wind suddenly shot through the room, accompanied by the distinct crackling of ice…

"That little bastard," he hissed, pure spite and anger laced into his tone. "He pretended to be my friend, and then the second he had a chance with her, he stabbed me in the back and left me for dead. Then he had the nerve to make me believe it wasn't even him, misdirecting me so I would go after that other guy instead..."

"So who did it?" Ash suddenly asked.

Gary, Jade and Lillie all lifted their heads, looking mildly startled that he had broken the silence.

"Who did it?" Ash repeated when no one responded. "Does anyone have any ideas?"

"...No," Jade told him blankly, her voice tinged with regret and a bit shame. "All we know is that it had to have been someone with powers. Nothing else could've done damage like that. But it couldn't have been any of us; we all have alibis. The only option is that there was someone else who followed us and got powers, but it's gonna be near impossible to narrow down that list. There's just too many people who would've cut through those woods that night."

"And some might not even have been students," Gary added. "For all we know, someone was taking a late night stroll and happened to stumble across the storm after we were knocked out."

"But Serena said that it disappeared like five minutes later, and neither she nor the others saw anything," Ash pointed out. "And there's not really a chance anyone got there before us, cuz it was only there for like a minute at most before we got there. Plus, it was a really small storm. We would've seen someone if they were on the other side while we were there."

The group fell silent again, but this time it wasn't because they had nothing to say. They were all thinking, trying to come up with a way someone else could've gotten powers that night. But nothing was coming to mind for any of them.

"How 'bout this," Lillie suddenly suggested, snapping everyone out of their thoughts. "Let's just go over the alibis once more. Make sure we didn't miss anything."

Jade narrowed her eyes at the girl, anger flaring in their green depths. "You don't seriously think one of our friends... did that, do you?" she asked sharply, sounding like it pained her to get the sentence out.

"No, but I know that the chances of someone else coming into contact with the storm are incredibly slim," Lillie replied firmly. "Hell, I don't think anyone else got powers that night at all. Which means that, no matter how much we don't wanna believe it... one of us is responsible."

"Serena, please," May suddenly piped up, her voice quiet but pleading. "We need you if we want to stand a chance. You know what they're planning, you know all about what's going to happen. And I can see that you recognize just how wrong it is, so please, be the better person and help us."

Another flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and Dawn flinched as it struck the ground only a few blocks away. But as the light died down, she suddenly realized something.

"Oh fuck," she muttered, blue eyes widening as a realization hit her.

"What?" May asked anxiously. She and Lillie pushed closer, straining to hear her response over all the noise.

"Didn't you see that?" Dawn cried, her voice shaking with horror. "The lightning turned blue!"

"Blue?" Lillie repeated, confused. "But Ash can't change the color. He can just generate and control it."

"Exactly," Dawn replied shakily, her eyes still trained on the sky. "He can't change it. But think about it. A storm created from powers, and lightning created from powers. What do you get when you combine them?"

"...a pretty dangerous lightning storm?" May asked, confused. "But, I mean, we already knew that."

"Yes, but don't look at it like it's a normal storm," Dawn told her. "Because it's not. It's a storm created from powers, which were created from a similar storm six months ago. If this were a normal one for those circumstances, Ash's lightning would've stayed the same. But it turned blue. Just like-"

"Just like the one in the woods," Lillie finished, understanding finally dawning on her.

Dawn nodded, finally directing her gaze towards her friends. "Exactly. I think... I think if this keeps up, if they keep fighting, they're..."

She paused, hesitating for a moment, and even though they were watching her expectantly, both May and Lillie already knew exactly what their friend was going to say as she opened her mouth again.

"I think they're going to recreate the lightning storm that gave us our powers."