Once again, Lucy's not only awesome, but belongs to Crime Scene Fairy, who's writing a second fanfic on Lucy and Joel that I can't wait for! So watch for it!

Sorry for the cliffhanger on the last chapter! However, I must not be all that sorry because I have another one in this chapter. :) Honestly, it's just so much fun to watch people squirm. I know, I'm heartless. They're just so much fun!

Actually, these last two chapters have been so much fun to write. I love having my characters get the crap (nearly) beaten out of them. Action is awesome. :)

Enjoy!

Spenser

The first thing that I saw when I arrived on Fearow was two Gyarados fighting… wait… was that Joel and Lucy? No way. Those two couldn't be working together. I mean, they weren't even arguing. Okay, just kidding, I think Lucy just took a swing at Joel.

But for the most part, those two seemed to be doing just fine, so my eyes moved onward until I spotted Cameron not too far away. He would put me to some use. I made my way over to him as quickly as I could, dodging some rogue Pokemon. "Reporting for duty, Leader," I ran up to him, saluting sharply.

He looked relieved. "Thank Arceus, Spense, we could use you," he replied tiredly, looking exhausted.

"No problem, buddy," I replied, grinning easily, "What do you want me to do?"

"Solana went running into the jungle looking for the source of this," he pointed vaguely toward the middle of the jungle, "I usually have a buddies system going on whenever any of my Rangers go into the jungle. Can you help her?"

"Solana's here?" I asked, every nerve tingling. Then I felt stupid for asking. Of course she was here. Where there was danger, there was Solana. "Yeah, of course, Cam. We'll find the source of this."

"Spenser," Cameron stopped me before I left, "This isn't normal. The Pokemon aren't responding to being captured. There'll be time for speculation after we stop this, but just keep an eye out for anything suspicious. This reminds me of the Team Dim Sun problem in Almia with the Gigaremos, but a hundred times worse. Just be careful."

"I know, you, Joel, and 'Lita would be lost without me," I joked in reply, but it was lost on Cameron, who just looked concerned. I shrugged and took off toward the jungle.

I have to say, I never really liked the Summerland jungle. Whenever Cameron needed an extra Ranger or two, I usually sent Solana and Lunick. It was humid and hot and sticky… and let's just say I was particular about my weather. Plus, the fact that it was so much quieter than the chaos going on in the beach gave it a bit of a creepy sense. I kept a wary eye out and kept walking, attempting to contact Solana via styler.

"Voicemail, voicemail. Solana, where are you?"

There was no reply. I tried again. "Solana? Are you there? Hello? Answer me, please?" I finally just yelled into it, knowing that Solana sometimes just ignored me. "Solana!"

"Yes, I'm here, Spenser," Solana snapped at me, but I could hear a tiny bit of a smile in her voice, "Jeez, you'd think I was in danger of dying or something."

A rush of relief flooded through me. "Well, you could've been," I smart-mouthed, knowing she wouldn't like it, "Where are you?"

"I'm just following the thumping sounds that Cameron heard just before this chaos started. Except they keep moving and I keep walking in circles. It's so frustrating."

"Oh, well I'm just below the entrance to the relic," I replied, looking around at the scenery. There was the base of a cliff behind me and an open space in front of me with trees at the edge. There were no Pokemon in sight, which freaked me out. There usually were, at least the last time I had been here, which I think was with Joel when we took the Relic challenge.

Then, I heard loud thumping that I hadn't recognized before when I had been too worried about Solana. "Uh, I think that noise is right near me," I said hesitantly. Yeah, it was definitely getting louder. A lot louder. Oh, Arceus. Something was crashing through the trees.

"Solana, you're not running toward me right now, are you?" I asked hopefully.

"I don't think so," Solana replied, sounding confused and a tiny bit worried, "I'm not really too close to the Relic."

"Yeah, I didn't think you had gained that much weight while you were gone," I muttered under my breath.

"What did you say?"

At that moment, two enormous Tyranitar came sliding into my clearing and I dove out the way just in time as they slammed in the cliff base behind me. Holy Suicune! If I hadn't moved, I would've been literally between a rock and a hard place.

"Spenser, are you okay?" I heard Solana's voice come through my styler.

"Um, two battling Tyranitar just almost crushed me," I said shakily, "So yeah, I'm doing fine."

"It must be a territorial battle," Solana explained, sounding too calm for my liking, "Believe me, once they are engaged in a territorial battle, almost nothing will distract them. Just stay calm and get out of their way until I can get there. Two against two are better odds than two against one."

I had no problem with what Solana was saying. "And if these guys were fighting before all the other Pokemon went crazy, they could be causing it in some indirect way."

"As much as it's a spotty theory, I'll go with anything at this point," Solana admitted. "Besides, I was thinking the same thing."

The two Tyranitar backed away from each other, spitting with anger. "You know, I've been thinking, why can't it ever be two raging Caterpie? Why do angry Pokemon always have to be so damn big?" I complained, not moving from my spot.

"Cause the world hates you, Spenser," Solana responded dryly.

"I'm starting to think so," I answered, tentatively taking a step back. Crack. I stepped on a twig.

"Yeah, the world definitely hates me," I said grimly as the two Tyranitar turned their heads toward me almost curiously.

"What happened?"

"I thought you said nothing would distract them," I said wildly, my voice cracking into a higher pitch at the end.

"What did you do, Spenser?" Her voice almost sounded accusing, as if I purposefully attracted attention to myself.

"I stepped on a twig! By accident!" I protested at her accusing tone. The Tyranitar on the right roared and powered up a Hyper Beam, sending it in my direction. I rolled out of the way, activating my styler. "You better be hauling ass right now, Solana!"

I heard Solana huffing and puffing on the other end of our styler connection. "Yes, Leader, currently hauling ass."

Lucy

"Is it just me or is this just not working?" Joel yelled at me, pushing down my head and ducking as a Hyper Beam shot over our heads, exploding in the water behind us. It was so close, I could feel the heat.

"Well, I know why you would think it could be just you, seeing as you're not the brightest bulb, but in this situation you're right," I replied, eyeing my Gyarados as it glared at me.

"Arceus, Lucy, you really know how to piss me off," he answered exasperatedly.

"It's a special skill," I managed a grin, waiting for a chance to fit in a capture. Joel was right. Several times we had made the capture, but the Gyarados had not responded. We were fighting a losing battle no matter what we did. But what else could we do? We were the only thing that was stopping the Gyarados from destroying the whole community.

Joel's Gyarados lunged at me, but Shieldon used its Poke Assist, throwing a ball of energy at the Gyarados which caused it to stop its attack abruptly. "Shieldon, you should've saved that for our Gyarados," I complained, "Now we wasted it."

"Thanks, Shieldon," Joel smirked at me, then went to work capturing the Gyarados, seeing as it now couldn't attack.

"Yeah, well, if you could take care of your own Gyarados, Shieldon wouldn't have to cover for you," I glared at him.

"Got it!" Joel yelled exuberantly and I saw his styler acknowledge the capture. The Gyarados apparently had a different idea. It slammed its head down inches to the right of Joel, who just narrowly missed being hit as I pulled him back, surprised at my own strength. We landed in a heap, not for the first time today.

"We're screwed, aren't we?" Joel said simply, managing to untangle himself with as lot less fuss than last time. He stood up, offering me a hand and I took it.

"Yeah, pretty much," I replied, meeting his eyes and realizing that we had actually just agreed on something.

He shrugged, facing the Gyarados again. "Might as well go down fighting," he smiled and I felt this weird feeling, like I respected and even admired his calmness. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I didn't want to make this soppy.

That's when I saw the two Staraptor approaching from the sky.