North of Twinleaf Town, past Route 201, beyond the pristine, shimmering waters of Lake Verity, there stood a dense, overgrown forest that the Sandgem and Twinleaf Town natives called "No One's Land". The legends surrounding this place were numerous and changed depending on who you asked. Some would say that the forest was haunted by unholy spirits that took delight in leading young travelers to their graves. Others would say that it was inhabited by monstrous, bloodthirsty, never before seen pokemon that held no love for humans in their hearts. Most would say, "Get out of my way, I'm trying to go to work!". In any case, the forest had a certain mojo about it that invited fear and superstition and it wasn't hard to see why. The trees grew tall and claustrophobically close together with thick canopies that left the forest floor in near perpetual darkness even on bright summer days. The forest was a natural labyrinth and, regardless of whether you believed the legends or not, most people instinctively knew to stay away from this place.

Dawn wasn't like most people.

High above the treetops, in an ancient tree that dwarfed its neighbors, a lone girl with dark hair and wearing camouflage fatigues scanned over the area through a pair of binoculars. Above her, a Pachirisu with a tiny satellite dish strapped to its forehead scurried across the branches too thin to support his trainer's weight. While Dawn looked with her eyes, her Pachirisu looked with its ears. Now and then it would pick up on a distant sound, drop down to Dawn's shoulder, and point her in the right direction, chittering with anxiety all the while. Most of the time it was just flock of Starly taking flight or a cranky Zubat waking from its slumber. Sometimes they would be lucky enough to spot a pair of Staraptor dueling over territory or a Vespiquen and her Combee attendants fussing over their vast, golden hive palaces. Normally, Dawn would have jumped at the chance to study a Staraptor or a Vespiquen in the wild but today they went ignored. Today, Dawn only had eyes for one... unique Chatot.

She checked her Poketch and sighed. Five in the afternoon. Twelve hours in that damn tree. Three days in that God forsaken forest with nothing to show for it. With quivering, fatigued legs, she gingerly inched back towards the tree's trunk before slumping down and taking a seat across the branch. She leaned her head against the trunk, closed her eyes, and let the breeze brush over her face and neck. When that wasn't enough to cool her down she rolled up her sleeves and undid the buttons of her shirt, revealing a padded vest over a sweat drenched tank top.

"Tesla," she rasped, fully realizing how dry her throat was. "Come. Water break..." The Pachirisu gave a relieved squeak in reply, dropped down from the higher branches, and landed next to her so lightly that the branch almost didn't shake at all. As Tesla made himself comfortable in her lap, Dawn unhooked a canteen from her belt and frowned once she realized that there was only enough for one of them. Tesla gave her an apprehensive look but she gave him a reassuring smile in return. "Here. You need it more than I do," she said, holding the canteen to his lips. He tried to push it away but Dawn was persistent. She slid her arm under the Pachirisu and, like a mother cradling her baby, she pressed the mouth of the canteen to her pokemon's lips like a baby's bottle. "I'll be fine, just drink. Don't worry about me..." she cooed. Reluctantly, Tesla took the canteen from her and began to drink.

She closed her eyes and rested her head against the tree again. For a moment, she ruminated on the thought of quickly heading back to the campsite for more water. All she needed to do was have Rosalind, her Kirlia, teleport her there and back, it would only take a minute or two... "No way", she thought. A minute was all Jack needed to slip through her fingers again. She could not, would not sit idly by and let that monster and his gang do as they pleased... She snapped back to reality as the walkie-talkie in her pocket crackled to life and broke the silence with the sounds of audio static.

"What up, what up?" a man's voice said over the static. "Tequila Mockingbird to Buttery Nipples, come in Butter Nips." Dawn pursed her lips. How many times had she told him that they weren't going to use any stupid code names?

"I'm here, what do want Alex?" She said curtly, putting the walkie-talkie to her ear.

"Sorry, no Alex here, little lady. You must have mistaken me for someone else. You have the pleasure of speaking to the one and only Tequila Mockingbird, bounty hunter extraordinaire, connoisseur of callipygian delights, kick ass drummer, and all around cool guy. Mind getting off the line? I need to talk to that lame ass partner slash boss of mine. Can you believe she goes around calling herself Buttery Nipples? Is this bitch trippin' or what?"

"My apologies, Mr. Bird. I don't know anyone by the name of 'Buttery Nipples' but my heart goes out to her. I, too, know how it feels to be given an awful codename against my will by my partner slash pet manchild. If you see Alex could you tell him to stop wasting my fucking time before I find him myself and rip out every hair in that gross, unattractive mustache of his?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You did not just diss the stache."

"I did and I'll do it again. Your mustache is gross and makes you look like a sex offender. Every time you look at me I can feel it undressing me with its bristles."

"Why you gotta take it there, bro? You never see me making fun of your boobs or anything."

"What's wrong with my- Forget it, I don't care." She slid her arm out from under Tesla and rested her chin in her hand. "Alex, could you please just say what you need to say already? I'm really not in the mood for this right now..."

"Oh, I can tell. You sound horrible. Head back to the tent and get some water already, your voice sounds like you've been deepthroating a Graveler. I just wanted to tell you that I just saw a blonde kid with no shirt on get chased into the forest by like twelve other kids. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure they're either going to beat the crap out of him or he's leading them on some homoerotic truffle hunt. Hard to tell. Either way, this is bad for us. If they run into Jack before we do they'll ruin our plan... Oh and they'll get killed on the spot. That too. I'm going to leave my post for a bit and try to scare them out, 'kay?

"Do you need me to come over there and help out?"

"No, no, no, you should head back to the tent and let me handle this. I'm much closer anyway."

"But what if you actually run into Jack? You'll need my help to-

"Dawn, stop worrying about other people for once in your life and take a break. You're running yourself ragged and it's not good for you or your pokemon. I ran into that Altaria of yours a couple of hours ago and-

"Where is she now? Do you think she was close to finding the Chatot?" she asked, not realizing how eager she sounded until after she already said it.

"Even if she was it doesn't matter now. I took her back to the tent to get some sleep." Dawn started to say something in protest but Alex interjected, "I had to, Dawn. The poor thing could barely get herself off the ground. What if I wasn't around and she collapsed out there in the forest, huh? If a wild pokemon had gotten to her she'd be dead right now." Dawn's heart dropped. The thought of Marie or any of her pokemon dying alone out there in the forest because of her made her want to break down. Tesla, who had finished drinking quite some time ago, sensed her sadness and climbed up to her shoulder to nuzzle her cheek. She gave him a halfhearted smile and scratched him behind the ears.

"Take a break, Dawn," Alex insisted after a lengthy pause. "I know you're determined to catch this guy but you'll be no use to anyone if you keep wearing yourself out like this. Besides, that sister of yours must be lonely as fuck by now. I bet she'll be glad to know you're not dead, don't you think?" Another pang of guilt stabbed through her heart. She was ashamed to admit that she hadn't thought much about Casey since she left the tent that morning.

She sighed and said, "Fine. You're right, Alex."

"Damn skippy I'm right."

"Don't let it go to your head. I know I should go back soon... But I can't leave just yet. I want to-"

"Jesus titty-fucking Christ, did you not hear a word I said? Am I talking to myself right now?"

"Let me finish! I was just going to say that I want to listen in on the three stooges for a little bit before I go."

"That's a good idea actually. I haven't tuned into those douche bags for a while, maybe they'll actually have something useful to say for once... But when you're done will you please go back to the tent?"

"I will, I promise."

"...Pinky promise?"

"How do you expect me to pinky promise when we're so far away from each other?"

"Use your imagination."

"Fine, I'm imagining us locking digits as we speak."

"And I'm doing the same. Never before has there been a stronger imaginary union in the history of things that did not happen. So sacred and binding was this fictitious extremity hooking that an apocryphal god descended from the dubiously real heavens, shook counterfeit beard dander down upon our holy finger contract, and said 'This shit be the tit's meow.'"

"...You done?"

"Pretty much."

"Good. Later, dickhead."

"Deuces, bitch. Tequila Mockingbird out," he said before one last burst of audio static followed by silence punctuated by the sounds of the the forest. Dawn smirked; She would never admit it to his face but she was glad that she had someone looking out for her for a change, even if it was a pedo stached douche like him. Cautiously, she got back to her feet and looked up, her eyes searching for the particular branch that would give her the best reception.

"There," she said, pointing to a skinny branch that stretched far beyond all the others like a pointer finger. Tesla climbed up her arm, leapt from the back of her hand to the nearest branch, and lithely scampered and bounded his way up the tree like he was the world's most adorable parkourist. When he reached the very tip of the right branch, he shook his fur out to produce some sparks, just enough to make the mini satellite dish strapped to his head hum with life. Down below, Dawn fiddled with a dial on her walkie-talkie, flipping through static and foreign language radio channels until she could hear the nasally, distinctly irritating voice of B0nes.

"... and it's only been, like, five minutes since I stepped in the joint and I already have, like, five bitches running up to me trying to slob on my knob! Five! Count 'em- One, two, four, five! You were so right, Boogs- It's so easy to bag these Twinleaf sluts!" he said, eliciting loud, obnoxious cackling from Commander O'Boogie himself.

"I told you, bitch, I told you! Why would you ever doubt me, motherfucker? You know I always be dropping that pure motherfucking science, yo! I told you that small town bitches are always down to fuck!"

"You spit that bomb ass veracity, homie. Your word is motherfucking gospel, second only to the Master himself."

"Church, li'l homie. Mother. Fucking. Church!"

"Oh my God. Will you two ignunt low lifes please shut the fuck up?" snapped the raspy voice of Bloody Mary, unknowingly voicing what Dawn was thinking. With worse diction, of course.

"Who the fuck you think you talking to?" B0nes said, offended.

"Let me think, I don't see nobody else around so it must be you two useless pieces. Shut the fuck up, quit dickin' around, and help me set this place up already."

"I'll give you a good dickin', you stupid- Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, hold the fuck up! That shit you're unpacking. Is that the cheap shit I spifically told you not to get?"

"So what if it is?" B0nes let out a roar that was followed by the sound of shattering glass. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

"I FUCKING TOLD YOU NOT TO GET THE CHEAP SHIT! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME LOOK LIKE A RETARD IN FRONT OF EVERY SCRUB IN TWINLEAF TOWN, YOU STUPID BITCH!" he bellowed, his voice cracking.

"WHO FUCKING CARES?! This isn't about you, you fucking idiot! This party is just a front, remember? You think Master gives an inch of a fuck about how cheap the booze is? Quit acting like a brat and- FUCKING STOP!" she shrieked as B0nes broke even more bottles. Grunting, screaming, creative cursing, the sound of skin striking skin- a fight had broken out between the two. "Let go... let go..." Bloody Mary croaked, her voice slowly growing quieter yet raspier than ever.

"B0nes, you're fucking choke her, yo! Let go of her, let go of her, damn it!"

"SHE FUCKING DESERVES IT, THE FAT BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU STUPID-"

"Enough," a deep, gravelly, fourth voice growled. The Mad Dog. The other three quieted down so quickly that Dawn thought that she lost reception for a second. The silence was broken by slow, heavy footsteps that reminded Dawn of Darwin, her Torterra's.

"Oh, uh, hey there Ma- fuck, I mean, uh, sir," O'Boogie stammered meekly, his characteristic bravado currently cowering under a rock somewhere. "This isn't what it looks like- you see, we were just-"

"Silence," The fourth voice said with grave emphasis. He took in a deep breath and said, "There is work to be done. Master has informed me that there are intruders in the forest. The girl, the bounty hunter, and thirteen unknowns. The girl is listening to us as we speak-"

"Shit!" Dawn exclaimed, quickly shutting the device off. She had no idea how they knew she listening in on them but what she did know was that she needed to get out of there as fast as she could. Just as she was about to unhook Rosalind's pokeball of her belt, Tesla let out a horrified screech that made her jump and almost lose her balance. She spun around on the spot, the branch swaying unsteadily underneath her, and looked up to find Jack's herald, the Chatot with pupilless, obsidian black eyes, perched on Tesla's branch, its soulless eyes fixed on hers.

"So easy. So predictable," it said in Jack's distorted, guttural snarl. Dawn's blood ran cold. She didn't just hear the words, she felt them in her head. The words echoed endlessly in her mind, growing louder and louder, faster and faster, pushing out all other thoughts. The words took shape in her mind: a grizzled, skeletal hand that crushed her skull in its grip. She pulled at her hair and clenched clenched her eyes shut. It was taking every ounce of willpower she had not to scream or fall to her knees but she knew that she had to fight back. Jack had done much worse to her than this before- She wasn't about to lose to his little pet.

Squinting, she yelled, "Super Fang!", barely hearing herself over the noise in her brain. Tesla leapt at the Chatot, his large buck teeth bared, only to go arcing through empty space. Dawn let out a horrified gasp as her pokemon sailed over the branch but Tesla, luckily, was able to wrap his tail around it at the last second. Hanging upside down, the Pachirisu let out a sigh of relief.

"Meaningless..." The Chatot whispered from nowhere, making a second wave of pain and confusion course through Dawn's skull. Dawn's eyes darted all around her for any sign of the bird. Sometimes she would find it above her, the next second below her. She would blink and find multiple identical Chatot sitting side by side on the same branch, she would blink again to find dozens, hundreds, thousands of them glaring at her from every direction, and blink again to find them all gone as if they were never there to begin with. Shadows danced around her without anything to guide them. Night and day flashed cycled before her eyes, the sun and the moon racing across the sky in nauseating, hyper accelerated arcs, as if the whole world was put on fast forward. She was at the top of a tree yet she felt as if she was trapped at the bottom of a pit, being accosted from all sides by faceless tormenters. Between the illusions and the babbling in Dawn's head, the Chatot was doing its best to make her go mad, to defeat her without even touching her, just like its master. And it was working. Dawn swayed on the spot, barely able to keep her balance or think straight anymore. Her eyes watering from the pain, she clenched them shut and tried to block out the world out until she suddenly felt a small weight land on her shoulder.

Already knowing what it was, she opened her eyes to find the Chatot perched on her shoulder, staring blankly at her face with its huge, black, insectile eyes. There was a brief moment of calm as the two stared directly into each other's eyes until the Chatot tossed its head back, threw its beak open unnaturally widely, and revealed a human eyeball that pulsed and swiveled in the back of its throat. Despite herself, Dawn screamed and instinctively staggered backwards over the side of the branch. Quickly realizing her mistake, she lurched forward as she fell and thrashed her arms out in front of her. She managed to awkwardly and painfully catch the branch with the crook of her elbow but it was a wasted effort. The branch snapped out from underneath her and sent her arm spinning behind her, useless and broken.

She would have screamed if weren't for the wind whipping at her from all sides and pushing every last bit of air out of her lungs. With her face to the sky and her back to the ground, she craned her neck back to look up- or down as the case was- to see the verdant expanse of No One's Land racing towards her. She wouldn't have to worry about hitting the ground. If she hit any of those thick, knife-edged branches, she'd be dead before she even got there. Assuming she even made it there at all. Fighting gravity, she fumbled blindly for Rosalind's pokeball with her good arm. Once she was sure she had the right one, she wrenched her arm upwards, ripping the ball and the hook that held it in place completely off. She wasted no time in beating the pokeball against her chest, releasing the light locked within. Before the Kirlia had even fully materialized, she shot her other hand into the shimmering ether before her and shouted, "Teleport!", against the roar of the wind.

For one fleeting moment the whole world stopped completely. All of Dawn's pain was gone along with every other sensation. She couldn't see anything, she couldn't hear anything, and she couldn't feel anything, not even the weight of her own body. For that one moment, she basked in what it felt like to not feel, to feel truly numb, truly weightless... which made it all the more painful when she hit the ground with as much grace and subtlety as a lead weight. The padded vest she wore absorbed most of the impact but that neither stopped the wind getting knocked out of her nor the ripples of pain that coursed through her. Weakly, she rolled onto her side and curled into a fetal position. She laid there for about a minute, taking deep breaths and trying to get her thoughts back together.

Opening one eye, she found Rosalind brushing dirt off her weird built-in skirt a few feet away from her. "Rosie," Dawn called. "Jack found us... andTesla's still back there. Go back and bring him here before something happens." The Kirlia nodded knowingly, pirouetted on the spot, and vanished mid-twirl.

"Is that you, Dawn? Are you okay?" she heard vaguely over her shoulder. She didn't respond but she knew right away that the voice belonged to her little sister, Casey. She heard some movement behind her and felt a gentle hand touch her shoulder. Dawn squinted her eyes open to find Casey's staring back at her, a look of anxiety and concern etched on her sickly thin face. While Dawn's face was tanned from spending too many hours out in the sun, Casey's was as pallor white as a cloud or a sheet of paper. For some reason, the short shorts and yellow floral print T-shirt she wore were dripping with mud.

"Why are you all muddy?" Dawn asked inanely, not quite sure why she cared at that particular moment.

"Why are you all jacked up?" Casey countered, helping her sister sit up a straight. Dawn took in her surroundings. They were in a small, circular glade that was naturally fenced in by the surrounding trees. The canopy above them was thinner there than in the rest of the forest and cast the ground below with subdued golden light and long jagged shadows. Behind her, an orange tent and a small campfire stood in the center of the glade. "Come on Dawn, tell me what happened!" Casey said, growing impatient.

"The Chatot showed up out of nowhere, scared the crap out of me, and made me fall out of a tree like a gigantic, fucking loser. That's what," Dawn said bitterly. Out of all the defeats she had suffered at the hands of Jack and his Chatot, of which there were many, this had to be the most embarrassing. Casey's eyes grew to the size of hubcaps.

"You fell out of a tree?! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Should I get band-aids? Is this a problem that can be fixed with band-aids?" Casey said frantically, talking a mile a minute. Dawn facepalmed. Why did she have to say anything? She should have just lied and pretended everything was still okay.

"Casey-"

"Quick! How many fingers am I holding up?" She said holding up three fingers way too close to Dawn's face.

"Wha-"

"Oh God, you have brain damage! What do I do? What do I do?! Dawn! How do I cure brain damage?"

"Casey."

"Can you fix it with band-aids? Crap, why am I asking you, you're the one with brain damage!"

"Casey!"

"Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh-" Dawn clasped her good hand over her sister's mouth.

"Calm. Your. Tits. I'm fine, understand?" She really wasn't. A lancing pain coursed through her other arm from where it hit the branch. She could feel it swelling up around the inside of her elbow and it was getting harder to move it without making her want to scream bloody murder but she wasn't about to roll up her sleeve and make Casey freak out again. She took her hand away and, even though Casey was silent, her brow was still furrowed with worry. Dawn got to her feet and tried her best not to meet Casey's anxious gaze. "Look," she said with a sigh. "Even if I was hurt, I don't have time to waste getting patched up here. I'm going back out there as soon as Rosie-"

"Let me go with you this time, please, please, please!" Casey pleaded, tugging on Dawn's sleeve. Dawn just rolled her eyes. Ignoring her, Dawn snatched her arm away and tried to make her way to the tent but Casey ran up in front of her to block her path. "Dawn, please! I can help, I swear!"

"Something tells me Jack's not gonna be afraid of an anemic eleven year old who's never trained a pokemon before. That reminds me, did you remember to take your pills today?"

"Yes, mother, I took the damn pills. And for your information, I have trained a pokemon before. I've been training with Professor Rowan's old Monferno and Prinplup while you and Alex have been away and- OW!" She yelped as Dawn gave her a hard pinch on the arm and twisted. "What was that for?" she asked, sniveling.

"How many times have I told you not to mess around with those two? If I can't even get them to behave, what makes you think you can-"

"I've been making progress with them, look!" she said, taking two pokeballs out of her back pocket.

"No, don't!" It was too late; Casey had already tossed the balls in the air, flooding the area with brilliant, white light. Prinplup materialized first and immediately started whimpering and backing away as soon as he laid eyes on the girls. Monferno appeared second and, just as Dawn feared (and expected), took one look at Prinplup, let out a ferocious battle cry, and wasted no time in lunging at him. They wrestled on the ground for a bit before the Monferno, predictably, came out on top and started beating the ever living shit out of the Prinplup, cruelly punching, kicking, and biting at every inch of the other pokemon it could. Prinplup squirmed futilely under the onslaught of blows, crying and screaming pathetically all the while.

"Okay, I haven't actually been training them "well", per se, but I really do think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough with them. Almost. Maybe. Um... I can handle this, okay? Just let me-"

"This is so stupid. Give me the damn pokeballs," Dawn said, trying to wrench them out of Casey's hands. Casey resisted and, with both of them refusing to let go, they were soon locked into their own much tamer struggle.

"Hop off my nuts! I said I can handle this!"

"No you fucking can't! Let go already, I don't have time for this!"

"No, you let go!"

"I'm literally two seconds away from slapping the shit outta you, let go!"

"No, they're mine!"

"Quit acting like such a baby!"

"Why don't you quit acting like such a cock holster?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. What the sororiciding fuck did you just call me?"

"I just heard it from Alex this one time, please don't pinch me again :("

"Casey, if you don't let go right this second, so help me I'm gonna-"

The threat died in Dawn's throat as she heard a loud pop followed by a high-pitched, throaty, hissing noise that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Casey spotted the source of the noise first and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Dawn about-faced to find Rosalind and Tesla struggling on the ground, both of them covered in each other's blood as well their own. Tesla let out the wretched hissing noise again and tried to bite at the Kirlia with a terrifying savagery that Dawn had never seen from the little guy before. It was taking all of Rosalind's strength just to keep him at arm's length. Her face, arms, and chest were covered in dozens of lesions from where Tesla had bit and tore at her with his teeth. Tesla, on the other hand, to Dawn's abject horror, had one, long, red gash that ran all the way from his left shoulder to his right ankle. The cut was perfectly straight and precise; Dawn could tell it was made with a knife just from looking at it.

Rosalind's eyes glowed with fluorescent blue light before she sent Tesla sprawling backwards with a wave of psychic energy that made the air ripple like water. Tesla jerked and writhed on the ground as if his whole body was on fire, squeaking, hissing, and spitting dementedly. Dawn whipped his pokeball off her belt and cried, "Tesla, return!" The red beam of light hit Tesla and wrapped him in its aura like it was supposed to but instead of getting sucked back into the ball, Tesla let out the harshest shriek yet and somehow made the aura burst into a million red shards of light. More berserk than ever, he fired off a wicked Thunderbolt straight for her head.

"Everybody get back!" Dawn barked, just barely ducking under the blast of electricity in time. The bolt came so close that she could already feel the skin on the back of her neck blistering from the heat. Keeping her body low to the ground, she closed the distance between them with long, quick bounds, occasionally having to roll out of the way of an incoming Thunderbolt as she went. Once she was close enough she lunged forward and pinned him to the ground with her forearm. "Easy, easy!" she said desperately as her pokemon thrashed underneath her. "It's me, don't you remember? Snap out of it, you gotta remem- AHH!" she screamed as Tesla plunged his front teeth deeply into her arm. Gritting her teeth, she resisted the overwhelming urge to jerk her arm away and forced herself to keep pinning him down. Moving it made her bad arm blaze with pain but she powered through it and forcefully tapped Tesla's pokeball against his head. The ball sucked him in this time and after, a few tense seconds of volatile shaking, successfully trapped him inside.

She stayed there, kneeling in the grass long after the battle had ended. She tried to make sense of what happened but the more she thought about it, the more surreal it seemed. How had she gone from cradling him in her arms, giving him the last of her water, to trying to stop him from killing her? The new gash in her arm pulsed brutally under her sleeve and made rivulets of blood drip down her hand. Dawn knew she should have been in pain but instead she just felt numb. The fact that he couldn't remember her, the trainer he'd been with since the day he was born, hurt more than all the bite wounds in the world. She slowly got back to her feet and turned around to find Casey and Prinplup staring at her, frozen with apprehension, while Monferno glared at her unblinkingly, business as usual. Rosalind, on the other hand, was sitting cross-legged and enveloping herself in a white light that slowly made her cuts fade away.

"I-I-I've never seen him like that before..." Casey said, breaking the silence. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know but..." She stopped to swallow the lump that had been forming in her throat. "But what I do know is that I'm not gonna let Jack keep doing whatever he wants. No one fucks with my pokemon and gets away with it..." If Jack thought this was enough to stop her then he was dead wrong. He could fill her head with as many visions as he wants, he could toss her off a mountain, he could turn every last one of her pokemon against her. She wasn't going to rest until he answered for every last man, woman, child, and pokemon he'd hurt. "You said you wanted to help me, right?"

"Yeah?" Casey said, perking up.

"You still can't come with me but you can start by getting those two back in their balls. After that, go wake up Marie and bring her to me." Casey deflated like a balloon. "Bring the first aid kit while you're at it. I can't fight Jack with both my arms fucked up like this."

"What do you mean both arms?"

"I... may or may not have messed the other one up when I fell out of the-

"Ha! I knew you were lying! I knew you were really-

"That's alright Casey, keep gloating. It's not like I'm bleeding out or anything. I'm sure you and my exsanguinated husk will have a lovely time circle jerking over how right you are all the time. Maybe over some fucking tea and crumpets."

"Okay, okay! I'm going already, sheesh!" she said, going about her tasks and grumbling under her breath as she did. Once she was out of earshot, Dawn sat down across from Rosalind, who was too busy Recovering herself to acknowledge her presence.

"You're amazing, you know that?" The Kirlia allowed herself to smile slightly at the compliment. "Thank you for rescuing him despite... all of that. I know you must be tired but I have another important job for you." She waited for Rosalind to finish Recovering so she had her undivided attention. "I need you to stay here to protect Casey. If one of the Others shows up... do whatever it takes to keep her safe. Kill them if you have to. Understand?" Rosalind stared blankly at her face, her eyes hollow and narrowed slightly. After a long pause, she nodded. "Good. If Jack shows up or if the situation is too much for you to handle, grab Casey and teleport out of there as quickly as possible. Even if they don't show up and I'm not back by morning... assume I'm dead and take Casey back to the lab anyway. Whatever you do, don't let her go looking for me. Do everything in your power to keep her in the lab, okay? If Alex shows up within at least one day, do everything he tells you to. He'll know what to do next. If he doesn't show up within a day, assume he's dead too. After that... if both of us are dead..."

She had gone over the plan a thousand times in her head, accounting for every possibility except this one. The thought of leaving Casey alone in the world with no one left to take care of her scared her more than Jack and death combined. She did her best to push the thought out of her head as often as she could but it was always there, looming in the back of her mind, infecting her with uncertainty.

"We won't let it come to that," she said with more confidence than she felt.

"I'm back," Casey said cheerfully as she came out of the tent with a first aid kit under her arm and Marie following dozily behind her. "Sorry it took so long, this one refused to wake up." Yawning, the Altaria sauntered haughtily over to Dawn and rested her head in her lap. Dawn wanted to pet her but her arms were growing more painful and unresponsive by the second.

"Let's get this over with." She stretched her arm out the best she could and, at the expense of filling her mouth with the metallic taste of blood, she pulled her sleeve back with her teeth. One look at the gash was enough to make Casey scream and drop the first aid kit. "Casey! Get your shit together!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she said as she scrambled to pick up the kit's spilled contents. She looked back and forth between the wound and Dawn's face, looking like she was about to cry. "I-I can't do this. What if I mess up and make everything worse?"

"You won't mess up, just do everything I tell you to and go slow, okay?"

"Okay..." she said, still unconvinced. After several minutes of eye watering pain, Casey having at least three panic attacks, and some creative cursing from Dawn, they were able to do a halfway decent job of cleaning the wound and dressing it with medical gauze. Dawn was certain she was going to open it up again by the end of the night but it didn't matter. Stopping the bleeding was more important for now. With a spare blanket and Dawn's instructions, Casey also made a makeshift sling for her other arm. "How do you feel?" she asked as she finished tying the knot behind Dawn's neck. "Is it too tight? Too loose? Do you think I should do it over again? Are you sure you don't need more bandages? I'll admit, I have no idea what a suppository is but I feel like it would be useful in this situation and-"

"Casey, calm the fuck down. You did great," Dawn said as she got back to her feet. She wiggled her fingers and brandished her arm around to get a feel for it again. She wasn't going to be striking fear in the hearts of her enemies any time soon but beggars can't be choosers. She returned Marie back to her ball and had Casey give her Monferno and Prinplup's. With Tesla and Rosalind effectively out of commission, she needed all the help she could get, even if it came from... those two. Prinplup was a spineless coward that was afraid of his own farts but Dawn hoped that, if presented with enough danger, he would at least try to defend himself. Monferno, on the other hand, was a wild card. Getting him to fight wasn't the problem, he already loved to beat the shit out of anything that moved. The problem was that he hated her so much that would probably start messing with her in the middle of a battle just for kicks. Dickhead. "I'm going to leave Rosie here to look after you while I'm gone, okay?

"... Are you sure that I can't come with you?"

"I'm sure," she said with a slight edge to her voice that showed that she was done talking about this.

"Okay..." she said dejectedly, looking down at her feet. Dawn put her hand on her shoulder.

"There's no shame in not being able to fight. Be glad that you don't have to go through all the crap me and Alex have to go through, okay?" she said sweetly, trying to get her to cheer up. To her dismay, Casey lifted her face to reveal eyes gleaming with tears.

"That's the problem!" she croaked. "I hate that you guys put yourself through hell every day and all I can do is stay at lab or the tent and hope that you actually come back. I want to do something- anything- to help you guys but I'm just so fucking useless I-" She was interrupted by Dawn pulling her into a one armed hug.

"It's okay... it's okay..." she cooed as Casey sobbed against her shoulder. Her stomach knotted with guilt. Casey was still just a kid. She didn't deserve any of this. None of them did. "This is the last time you'll have to worry about us, I promise. We're going to beat Jack once and for all and make everything go back to normal," she said, not knowing just how wrong she was. She waited for Casey to finish crying on her own before finally letting go her. She put her hand back on her shoulder, smiled, and said, "Just believe in us, okay?" Still puffy eyed and runny-nosed, Casey reciprocated the smile.

"Okay..." Dawn gave her little sister a kiss on the forehead and stooped down to hug Rosalind before turning her back to them and heading towards the forest. The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon and the forest was growing darker by the second. Once she was a little past the treeline, she stopped to take one last look at them. Neither of them had moved from the spot and they were both gently waving at her. She gave them a thumbs up and gave them a reassuring smile before walking further into the all encompassing darkness of No One's Land.

It was going to be one hell of a night.

Chapter 3, getto da ze!

So in this chapter, we took a break from Diamond and Pearl's antics to follow a few new characters. Those of you that read the first iteration of Diamond Fists will recognize a few of them, namely Dawn, Alex, and Jack. You also probably noticed that their roles and even their personalities seemed to have taken some drastic changes just like Diamond, Pearl, and Sharon have. I think the biggest reason why I wanted to do this redux was to take the characters that didn't have an important role in the story or ones that I just wrote poorly and try to change them for the better/give them more important roles.

In the first story, Dawn was Prof. Rowan's cute granddaughter who was prone to shyness and crying at the drop of a hat. She was mostly there to be the potential love interest, the referee for whatever stupid argument Diamond and Pearl got into, and almost nothing else. Now she's a strong, independent, black woman who don't need no-

Hmm? ... Seriously? Well, I'll be damned. I've just recieved word that Dawn is not black. Oh well, three out of four isn't bad.

Moving right along, we have Alex, who in the first story was basically just a goofy pot head that liked to make music sometimes with his good buddy, Alistair. Aside from some comic relief, he didn't really do much. Like, at all. But here he's gotten a significant age-up and is now a bounty hunter for some reason? And he's hanging around Dawn instead of Alistair now? And he's even got a grody pedo stache now? What's all that shit about? I could just tell you but where's the fun in that?

Now onto Jack. Ohhhhhh man, this guy. More than any other character, he is the one that I wanted to change the most. Consequently, he's also the character that has gone through the most changes. He basically started out as this useless, one-note joke character that grew into this sort of minor villain/sort of ally/I had no idea what the fuck I was doing BLRAHAAHBLRBHABLRHABLRBLR. He and his talking Chatot, which may or may not have been the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, were basically this hamfisted and woefully awful satire of fundamentalist Christians/people who blindly follow religion. I was a 15 year old in a Catholic high school and I thought I was being SO EDGY, okay? Later on in the story I decided to try fleshing out Jack's character a bit more by giving him a "dark" (and by that I mean utterly fucking ridiculous) backstory that involved him breaking out of the abusive orphanage he lived in. Do they even have orphanages anymore? I don't even know.

Gone are the days of being a piece of shit joke character. Jack has gone from gullible, Christian kid to being the mysterious, unseen leader of the Othersiders, the group of thugs terrorizing Sandgem Town that Dawn has sworn to defeat. He strikes fear in the hearts of both his enemies and his underlings, he seems to always know what's going on around him, and his Chatot, now The Herald, has weird teleportation/mindfuck powers. What the heck is this guy's deal, you ask? Patience, friend. We'll find out soon enough. But the real question is: do we really want to know?

And lastly we have Casey, who is, in fact, a returning character despite the name change. I consider her to be a spiritual successor to the character of Topaz who, like Jack, was a completely useless character. I decided to change her name because, seriously, fuck that other name with a rusty, iron ladle. See kids? This is why you wait for the 3rd version to come out first before you start throwing random gem names out there. Anyway, I chose the name Casey for pretty arbitrary reasons. I was listening to Bonfire by Childish Gambino while trying to pick a name and the line "Made the beat then murdered it- Casey Anthony," came on and it just clicked for me. Besides their clothes and appearance there aren't many similarities between Casey and original recipe Casey. While Topaz was Pearl's bratty adoptive daughter (don't ask...), Casey is Dawn's high-strung and sensitive little sister. One of the few noteworthy things about Topaz was that she was one of Jack's best friends from the orphanage. Will that connection carry over somehow to this story? Who knows?

Anyway, I've been rambling on for far too long. Until next time, peeps.