Tamao's head was heavy when she returned to the dance theatre, but she managed to push away the bad things from her mind. She returned to her room silently, without waking up her sisters.
The only ones who had noticed her being gone were Leafia and Glacia. Leafia looked overjoyed when she returned, and, judging by the little muddy footsteps on the floor, had gone searching for her, only to return to run around in circles. Glacia just gave her a disapproving glance.
Tamao muttered some apologies, and went to sit on the corner of her bed. There was no point in getting to sleep anymore; she'd be wakening up soon anyway. Besides, upon hearing what she just had, there'd be no chance for her not to have nightmares.
" I'm such a brave person," she scolded herself quietly.
Whatever the legendaries wanted her to do, it'd probably be too much for her. Oh well; she could always run away. Even though Ho-oh could easily follow her to Sinnoh, Tamao doubted it'd drag her back by force. After all, she didn't need to save the world or anything. Surely they'd find someone else for the job.
Both Leafia and Glacia looked worried as they gazed her. Both of them could guess that she had gained even more heavy thoughts while she was away. Leafia jumped to Tamao's lap, and looked relieved when she smiled at him, and petted his head gently. Glacia hopped to her bed, and sat by her, not touching, but Tamao knew she was doing her best.
" Don't worry, I know I'm not in this alone," Tamao told them, surprised of her own words. She hadn't really thought about her pokemon as a part of the situation, even though their bond to her was so close it was obvious.
" I'm sorry," she muttered, not caring how the two would understand it.
Glacia put her head down, and then looked at Tamao slightly sadly. Leafia, instead, became quite noisy, and Tamao wasn't really sure what he wanted to tell her.
After the trainer and her pokemon had sat there for a while, the door suddenly opened, and Sumomo barged in with a loud voice, surprised when she saw that her little sister was already awake. It was quite early in the morning, after all.
Sumomo basically dragged Tamao into the living room, where the other sisters were waiting. Koume had somehow managed to make what was apparently yesterday's leftover sushi look like a delicious meal. Tamao wasn't really hungry, but she played along, just like she should.
While Tamao was nibbling her food, her sisters, all except Satsuki, who coolly looked down to her food, were staring at her with starry eyes.
Tamao couldn't help herself.
" What is it?" she asked.
Koume started grinning, Sakura giggled, and Sumomo got a little closer to Tamao. Satsuki remained quiet, like no force in the world could make her stop eating.
" Oh nothing," Sumomo said, without meaning it at all.
" There's absolutely nothing," Koume smiled, just a little too sweetly.
" Nada. Nothing," Sakura giggled.
Tamao became annoyed.
" Look, if it involves me, I think I have the right to hear it," she muttered, causing Sumomo to grin too.
" Curious?" she asked eerily.
" Yes," Tamao answered her without any emotion in her voice.
This caught the three girls off their guards, and for a moment, Tamao thought that Satsuki smiled slightly.
" I-it's nothing, okay?" Sakura giggled. And in the next instant, the three girls had rushed off the room, giggling like little girls. Their pokemon followed right after, though Vaporeon looked at her breakfast with a little longing expression for a while, before disappearing from the door.
A heavy silence was left in the room along with Tamao and Satsuki. Even when she was little, Tamao had often been a little afraid to talk to her older sister, and now that they hadn't really spoken in five years, she felt almost like she was about to blush. Satsuki, though, was still calmly eating her breakfast. Her deep black hair made her pale skin look nearly white, and her coolly elegant eyes were focused on something she thought. Her tall figure intimidated Tamao slightly, even though nothing but her expression in her looked straightforward scary.
" Your hair is too short," se suddenly said.
" Uh… huh?" Tamao gasped, not knowing how to answer.
" That's what they said. I overheard them."
Tamao stared at her sister, who wasn't even looking at her. She just ate, coolly as ever. Tamao felt a suspicious expression rising on her face.
" Too short? For what?" she asked, without being able to stop herself.
" Too short. It won't go on a bun," Satsuki answered, still not looking at Tamao.
Understanding came to Tamao. She grimaced. The reason of the starry eyes had hit her.
" They plan to make me perform?" she asked in horror.
" It would seem so, at least they mentioned buying you a kimono," Satsuki mumbled, taking her cup of tea, and once she had quieted down, taking a fast sip from it.
" You can't be serious! I haven't danced for five years, there's no way I could…"
" I have nothing to do with this. It's their idea," Satsuki interrupted her, sipping her tea again.
Tamao quieted down. It would seem that her three other sisters had run off to buy the kimono, so there was no need her to wait for them.
Satsuki started cleaning the table, and Tamao rose to help her. In silence, the eldest and youngest sister cleaned up.
Once done, Satsuki left the room without a word, leaving Tamao on her own. Glacia and Leafia came to sit by her feet, gazing after Satsuki. Leafia raised his head, looking at Tamao with a questioning expression.
" No point staying here alone. Let's go out for a while; we'll give those legendary pokemon a chance to come and tell us what exactly they want," Tamao told him.
The pokemon nodded, and ran off to Tamao's room. Glacia followed after him. The two were back once Tamao had put on her jacket, which was now pure green, Koume had apparently washed it. Leafia had Tamao's smaller bag, one where she kept only the items she needed the most (for shorter outings, when she could leave her full bag somewhere), and Glacia had Murkrows pokeball. Tamao thanked them, and put the pokeball in the bag, and swung the bag to her shoulder.
" Let's go," she said simply.
It was a fine, sunny day outside. A slight wind was blowing, but it was not as cold as last night could have made one think. Tamao soon realized she had to take off her jacket. She didn't bother to take it back inside, though. She didn't know how long she'd be out.
Leafia seemed to like the weather, but Glacia looked like she was a little sick. Warm days, especially sunny, were a little harsh on the ice type pokemon. There was nothing that could be done; Glacia would just refuse if Tamao would ask her to stay in the theatre.
Tamao had no idea where to go. She wasn't in the mood of meeting old friends and other people, because she'd have to repeat her journey again to them. Plus, with these heavy things on her mind, it'd be hard to pretend to be chirpy.
While she had been thinking, Tamao had wandered into route 37 without even noticing. It was as late as when Glacia sneezed by an Apricorn tree that Tamao looked up and realized where she was. Her pokemon didn't seem to mind; they probably hadn't even noticed that she had been wandering around aimlessly. Tamao felt a little cold, and put on her jacket again.
Tama sighed, and as if as an answer to her sigh, she started hearing rustling from the bushes left to her. She turned her head, and waited for a Growlithe, or maybe a Stantler, appear. She was prepared for a battle; the wild pokemon around here had always been keen of battling. Leafia was growling slightly, and Glacia was making an icy glance at the bushes.
However, when a slightly small, but still impressive looking Ninetales appeared from the bush, Tamao couldn't help but to just stare. Never mind that stone evolvers hardly ever appeared in the wild, or that there weren't any Vulpix around here, but that Ninetales looked really tough; Tamao thought that it was probably around the level seventy, and she knew of no pokemon with such a high wild level, beside some Snorlax.
Leafia and Glacia had realized too, and they both quieted down, getting as close to Tamao as they could, waiting for instructions.
While Tamao stared at the pokemon, who merely gazed back at her, she started hearing rustling from the bush again. And in a few second, a familiar looking blue-haired girl had appeared in front of her.
" Oh," Tamao gasped slightly in surprise.
The equally surprised Crystal didn't make a sound, but her mouth was slightly open.
But before neither of them could say anything, another familiar voice yelled from further away in the bushes. Crystal sighed theatrically, and turned towards the bushes.
" Eusine! I'm here!" she shouted, apparently as loud as she could, since the loudness of her voice startled both Tamao and her pokemon. The Ninetales wasn't moved, though.
Soon enough, Eusine had crawled out of the bushes. After straightening his back, he looked at Tamao, and despite him hiding it, some surprisement managed to escape to his face.
" Lady Tamao," he said simply.
" Hello there," Tamao answered him.
Crystal looked at the two for a while, and then bended over to the Ninetales. She patted the pokemon's head, gaining Tamao's attention. But before Tamao managed to speak, Eusine had already started talking to Crystal.
" Any luck?"
Crystal made a grimace.
" Just for your information, Ninetales aren't supposed to track by scent. That's something Arcanines do."
" Well, we don't have one, so I thought your Ninetales was the next best thing. But apparently, you've concentrated too much on giving her a little boost in her special attack to mind her other convenient abilities," Eusine started whining, and Crystal opened her mouth in anger, but Tamao managed to butt in.
" So that Ninetales is yours?" she asked Crystal.
Crystal's expression softened.
" Yes, she's mine. I caught her while visiting Kanto," she answered politely.
" Really? Probably one of the last ones from there… Their amount in Kanto has gone down critically, it seems that soon you'll only be able to find them in Hoenn," Tamao chatted without thinking after, sort of nervously.
Crystal didn't seem to notice.
" I've heard of that. Very unfortunate, thinking that they were originally discovered in Kanto," she said thoughtfully.
" Indeed," Tamao agreed, and Crystal nodded.
Eusine had followed the two talk with a confused expression, but he had now had enough.
" Umm… Excuse me, but I believe we were doing something extremely important," he started, and gained annoyed look from Tamao and a furious glare from Crystal.
" Oh, come on! We haven't even seen a flash of Suicune for two moths! Taking a little break will not turn anything to the worse, taking that we're as far away as we can be! Besides, if you still believe Suicune will just appear all of a sudden, it might as well do it - " Crystal shouted at him, causing Eusine to cover his head with his arms, but she was interrupted by a sharp gasp from the two pokemon standing at Tamao's feet.
About on the same time, Tamao, Crystal and Eusine turned their heads to their right. A blue light was shining faintly from the forest, and it kept getting stronger, coming closer. Leafia yelped and hid behind Glacia, who seemed to be paralysed by fear; she merely stared at the light, with her teeth pressed together.
And in a split second, a slender, blue pokemon had appeared from the forest. None of the three human or pokemon had any trouble in recognizing it; they had all been in its presence before.
" Now," Crystal finished her sentence, but was not yelling anymore. Her voice sounded as mesmerized as her face looked.
Eusine stared at the legendary pokemon with his mouth open, and Tamao couldn't help but to feel nervous. Had the pokemon finally come to tell her what she was supposed to do?
Suicune looked at the three human who all seemed too surprised to move, and their pokemon who seemed nervous around the legendary. It leered, and turned around, looking almost playful.
Eusine's eyes widened, and he made a quick movement towards it, but in the instant he did it, Suicune started running, a lot more slowly than it was capable of.
Eusine, who had already gotten over the biggest shock, reacted faster than the two girls.
" After it!" he shouted, causing Tamao and Crystal to snap out of their amazement.
In the instant, Crystal had returned Ninetales, and called out an impressive looking Dragonite, and a very big Noctowl. She jumped on her Noctowl, and Eusine ran to the Dragonite, but turned to Tamao.
" Will the lady come with us?" he asked hastily.
Tamao was surprised that she had the option, but nodded quickly and withdrew Leafia and Glacia. Crystal and the Noctowl appeared in front of her, and Crystal gave her a hand. As Crystal ordered the Noctowl to the air, Eusine got on the Dragonite's shoulders. The pokemon started flapping its wings without an order, and soon they were all flying through the air.
When in air, Tamao noticed that Suicune had stopped and was looking up at them as if waiting. When it noticed the three riding the pokemon, it started running again. With an amazing speed, the two pokemon glided after it.
Tamao felt like she was dreaming. There she was, riding a huge Noctowl, along with Crystal and Eusine flying by them on a Dragonite, chasing after the legendary Suicune running though the foresty landscape, glancing up at them every now and then, but seemingly running oddly slowly.
Eusine would sometimes throw down a Master ball (who knew where he had gotten so many of them from), but missing each time.
Crystal ordered a hypnosis attack from Noctowl every time the Suicune seemed to be looking up, but somehow it managed to look away fast enough every time Noctowl tried to make it fall asleep.
The chase seemed to go on forever. Tamao didn't know what to think; on the other hand, she didn't wan the Suicune to get away again without somehow explaining her what it wanted from her, but she wasn't sure if Eusine and Crystal capturing it was okay either. All she could do was to hold on tightly to their ride, and observe the situation, that seemed to remain unchanged.
But around the time she started getting anxious, the situation changed. Suicune started fastening its steps. Slowly but surely, the chasers started to fall behind. Eusine shouted something, and Crystal shouted something back at him, but all Tamao could see was the legendary pokemon slowly becoming more and more distant, until all of a sudden, while not even being that far away, it disappeared in mid air.
Tamao, Eusine and Crystal all made a sharp gasp at the same time, and both Noctowl and Dragonite slowed down in surprise.
But before any of them, human or pokemon, could even manage to think about anything, a bright light flashed at them from somewhere below.
Noctowl made a shriek, which was instantly followed by a similar shriek from Dragonite. And before she knew it, Tamao could feel a powerful pain entering her body from Noctowl. She shouted in surprise, and closed her eyes. It was as if a strong electric current was running through Noctowl to her, and obviously Crystal too, and Eusine's constant gasping made it clear that the same was happening to him as well.
Not even a second could fly by, when Noctowl completely lost the control of his wings, and the pokemon and the two human riding him started falling towards the ground with an amazing speed. Tamao managed to open her eyes, only to see Eusine and Dragonite falling too. She saw thin rays of electric crackly through the air around them, and realized that an electric force as strong as a lightning had hit them from below.
Tamao didn't even need to guess what had happened. As they fell down, she saw that there was a big pond, conveniently just there where they were about to fall.
And on the moment she hit the water harshly head on, causing it to splash to amazing heights, she saw a flash of a big, yellow, tiger like pokemon running away from them.
" Just what I thought," Tamao managed to think while sinking in the water, just before getting herself together, and starting to swim towards the surface. It was hard, since she had not had any time to inhale, so she did not have much air in her.
When she finally got to the surface, Tamao had to breathe for a while. When she looked around, for a moment the fact that she was alone managed to scare her, but in the next one both Crystal and Eusine had appeared through the surface. Crystal got herself together with an amazing speed, and recalled her two pokemon, out of which Noctowl was struggling to stay on the surface, and Dragonite seemed to be calming down, but still in panic.
Tamao sighed slightly, but that only made her cough out some water. It seemed that none of them was hurt, miraculously. Raikou apparently had a good aim.
" Goodness," Eusine gasped, and started coughing too.
" Ashore," Crystal managed to get out of her mouth, but she gulped in some water with that, and coughed worse than the two together.
Tamao made a sound of agreement. Slowly, the three shocked trainers started swimming towards the small sand area around the bond, surrounded by a deep-looking forest. Crystal had apparently swallowed a lot of water, since her eyes seemed foggy, and she had a hard time swimming. Eusine seemed to be the one best of, and instantly swam to her, helping her ashore.
Tamao reached the small beach first, but she managed to hurry to the grass before falling down, not wanting to dirty her clothes. Her heart was pounding like crazy, and her breathing was fast. She was fine, but still in shock. She also felt a slight hysteria crawling into her, now that the fear had almost completely vanished.
Eusine, who was supporting Crystal, soon fell down by her. Crystal made a little squeak, but wasn't hurt. For a fairly long time, the three just lay there, trying to get in as much air as they could. Water was falling into the grass from them, and the wind that had managed to blow between the trees made them slightly cold. The sun was shining high in the sky, drying them out little by little.
Then, Eusine started laughing. Crystal turned to her back, and smiled weirdly. Tamao just gazed at them, too tired to ask them what was so funny. Luckily, the two started talking.
" Man. That Raikou," Crystal muttered.
So she had seen the pokemon too.
" This was indeed the harshest way to get us off from Suicune's track ever," Eusine laughed in agreement.
Tamao started to understand.
" So this didn't surprise you?" she asked, surprised of how faint her voice sounded.
Eusine chuckled.
" Oh no. Suicune always has a way to escape us. Usually it just runs so fast we can't catch it, but every now and then it does something to get us off its trail. Though it's never been anything this harsh," he told Tamao, who didn't find the right words to answer him.
" I believe lady Crystal has even had a taste of Raikou's thunderbolt before too," Eusine continued, and glanced at Crystal.
She blushed slightly, and looked straight at the sky above them. She then started talking in a pretty causual voice.
" Sure; twice, even. Both five years ago. I guess I went a little too close."
Tamao sighed, and turned to her back too. She was holding her bag with a harsh grip, which she hadn't loosened since the fall, not even when swimming. Miraculously, the bag was still shut, and nothing had fallen out. No items, and most importantly, her three used pokeballs were safely in the bag.
After a while of resting, the three got up, and took off their jackets (or, in Eusine's case, cloak), and hang them to a three currently bathing in the sunlight. They all decided to stay by the pond until they had dried out. After all, they had no idea of their current location, since none of them had been paying attention of where they were heading while they had been chasing after Suicune.
Crystal was currently fishing up her hat from the pond, making annoyed sounds, and Eusine kept teasing her by betting that she'd soon fall in.
They had let her pokemon out of their pokeballs, to check if they were all okay.
As Tamao was looking for her pokeballs from her bag, she gazed at the pokemon, amazed.
It seemed that Crystal owned a powerful looking Feraligatr, a small and sweet scented Bellossom and, Tamao's heart had made an unpleasant bounce when the pokemon had come out of her pokeball, a slightly restless Umbreon along with her Dragonite and Noctowl, who both seemed to have recovered from the fall after Crystal gave them some Full Restore each.
Eusine only had three pokemon, the same he had five years ago, the only difference was that his Haunter had evolved into Gengar. His Drowzee and Electrode seemed to have gotten stronger too.
When Tamao let Leafia and Glacia, and even Murkrow, out of their pokeballs, Leafia instantly ran up to her, looking worried. Glacia came up to her quite quickly too, but kept an eye on Murkrow, who seemed to be rather confused. But before any of them had managed to do anything, Murkrow had got on his wings and started to fly off.
Tamao got on her feet and shouted after him.
" Please – break as little as possible!"
Eusine and Crystal looked at her a little confused, but didn't ask, since Crystal's hat had drifted a little closer to them, and it kept them busy.
Ninetales walked up to Tamao. Now that she had time, she seemed interested in Leafia and Glacia. Leafia happily followed her, quite noisily too, and Glacia followed them, remaining a little more distant to them though.
Crystal had managed to fetch her hat, and as Eusine tried to make her fall in anyway, she had sidestepped, causing the boy fall in the water himself. She had laughed hard, and run off without helping him up.
So, Tamao had walked up to him, just to get something to do, and helped him out of the pond. He seemed angry, but hid it quite well by concentrating on getting his hair in order. Crystal was getting to know Tamao's pokemon, and was surrounded by her own. Eusines pokemon came to greet Tamao cheerfully, remembering her somewhat. As Tamao chatted to them politely, she saw a small flash of blue light in the forest from the corner of her eye.
She looked at the point where she had seen it, but didn't tell Eusine the truth when he asked what was wrong.
After Eusine had managed to dry out a little, again, the three gathered together, but their pokemon were still running around the little area, Feraligatr in the pond itself.
" So, any idea where we are?" Tamao asked them, and Eusine looked at Crystal, who was holding a pokenav in her hand.
" Nope. It's still too wet to work… I knew I should have saved my money for a Poketch," she said, and seemed to sulk a little.
" I guess we'll be stuck here for a while, then. There's no point in starting to wander around; we'd just get completely lost," Tamao thought aloud, with Crystal agreeing.
Eusine looked up at the sky.
" It is getting cloudy. I hope it will not start raining," he mumbled.
" Those aren't rain clouds," Crystal told him, and he looked down.
Even though the clouds in the sky were pure white, they did cover the sun quite nastily, making them all, especially the still wet Eusine, cold. The pokemon returned to their trainers one by one, hoping to be withdrawn into the warmth of their pokeballs. Soon, only the three human were left outside. Glacia would have wanted to stay outside, but since Leafia had been cold, and would not have agreed to withdrawn if Glacia stayed outside, she had gone in too. Sometimes Tamao just had to admire the bond of her two pokemon.
Tamao looked at the pond, as it started to get darker. Darker and darker… Oddly dark, actually. Unnaturally dark.
" Hey, don't you think there's something strange…?" Tamao started as she turned around, but stopped quite quickly.
The darkness hadn't fallen because the clouds had covered the sun. There was a strange, pitch-black mist drifting in from the forest. The mist kept spreading around the pond, slowly covering the sky too, making it so black Tamao could hardly see.
" Wha-?" Tamao gasped, and turned to look at where Crystal and Eusine had been. The two weren't standing anymore. In fact, Crystal was lying on the ground, with her eyes shut, looking like she was having a horrible nightmare. Eusine had crouched by her, looking scared. He looked up at Tamao, moving his lips, but without making a sound, when suddenly a painful look grew to his face. All of a sudden, he made a strange sound, and collapse don the ground too, right beside Crystal.
" Hey! What's wrong with you two?!" Tamao shouted, and crouched by the two.
Both of them seemed to have lost consciousness, and seemed to be in pain somehow.
It was obvious that it was because of the mist. Tamao became scared, and started waiting for an unexplained pain to hit her, causing her to collapse too. Only it never came. She just sat there on the ground, dull and confused, not knowing what to do.
Suddenly, small wild pokemon started running from the forest. A herd of Rattata, Oddish, Sentret and every possible little pokemon Tamao could imagine were running past her, extremely upset by fear. As Tamao stared at them feeling more scared all of the time, the little pokemon started collapsing, just like Eusine and Crystal had. None of them made it even to the pond, they all just fell down, and looked like they were seeing the worst dreams of their lives.
Tamao managed to get to her feet, but all she could do besides that was watch in horror was more and more pokemon kept running out of the forest, and collapsing right around her, even at her feet. The mist kept getting darker.
For a while, Tamao thought she was about to collapse, probably just out of fear, since it seemed that the mist, for an unknown reason, had no effect on her at all. However, she suddenly saw a flash of red light in the corner of her eye, soon followed up by a yellow flash, and finally a blue shine right in front of her. And before she knew it, Tamao was surrounded by the three legendary beasts. In front of her, Suicune, to her left, Raikou, and to her right Entei.
" Unnn!" she gasped lowly, pushing her hands harshly on her mouth.
Suicune howled, and walked over to her. Tamao just stared at the pokemon into the eyes, when it suddenly bended down. Tamao looked at it for a while, and backed a little.
" W-wait! No way I'm riding you!" she gasped, her voice sounding weak and scared.
Enter made a threatening growl at her, and Raikou started moving anxiously from one leg to the other.
Suicune just looked at Tamao, calmly. But still, Tamao felt like she had no other choice. Even though it annoyed her, she decided to do what they wanted, for now at least.
So, Tamao threw her leg over Suicune's back, and before she knew it, she was sitting on the purple cloud wavering under her.
Suicune took off at an amazing speed. Tamao held on as tight as she could, which was not very much, because her hands were weak due to fear, but she managed to hold on.
Entei and Raikou were running by them with an equal speed. As they kept running deeper into the forest, Tamao could see the mist getting darker in a speed double as amazing as Suicune's. It was like whatever was causing the black fog was coming towards them as fast as the legendary beasts were running towards it.
Even in that horrible situation, Tamao managed to make it worse by wondering why on earth the legendary pokemon wanted to take her to the source of the mist. There was no way she could stop it or anything; she didn't even know what it was!
Suddenly, the beasts stopped. Tamao almost flew from Suicune's back in surprise, but got herself together quite quickly. For a while, the pokemon just stood there on the small treeless area, without moving and inch, with the black mist swirling around them. The only sound that could be heard was Tamao's wildly beating heart.
And then, before Tamao managed to take a calm breath, a deep black ray flew from the forest, hitting Raikou like a whip, throwing the pokemon back, while sizzling horribly as the pokemon roared.
Enter responded faster than Tamao's eyes could follow. It fired a horrifying flamethrower into the woods, where the black mist seemed to be flowing from. The flames swirled from Entei's mouth, somehow seeming to ignore the trees around them, like they were saving all the burning power to the enemy hidden there.
Suicune jumped a little backwards, and Tamao got the feeling it was protecting her, since Raikou got right up, and thick rays of electric started sparking around its tail. It threw its tail forwards, and a huge, sizzling bolt of lighting materialized form it, and disappeared into the woods, swirling around the flames Entei was still firing.
As Raikou kept firing those bolts, and Entei looked like it didn't breathe at all by constantly firing the flamethrower, Suicune stayed back, seemingly conscious of the girl riding it.
Soon, Tamao started hearing sounds from the woods. They were like yelps, roaring and whining, but they had a strange, creepy echo in them. The mist seemed to be getting blacker, if possible. Tamao drew a sharp breath, but that was when Suicune, all of a sudden shook her off its back. Tamao fell to the ground quite gently, and watched as Suicune rushed forward with its mouth open wide, and suddenly a huge, fast blast of water started coming out from it, quickly hitting the goal of Entei's and Raikou's attacks, hiding in the woods.
A terrifying roar filled the forest, and echoed painfully in Tamao's ears. She made a weak scream. And on the moment she did, what she had least expected happened; the roar stopped completely. For a while, only Tamao's now stopped scream was echoing in the woods.
The three legendary beats stopped their attack. For a moment, Tamao thought that Suicune looked satisfied. The three then backed up, and were soon standing behind Tamao, completely still. Tamao looked at them, in a confused panic, until she started hearing lights steps approaching from the woods.
Tamao turned her head forwards, and stared in horror, as all the black mist seemed to concentrate into one shape, approaching her slowly from the forest. The form was of a huge canine, just like the legendary beats. It didn't focus into any details, it just swirled as long, thin legs, a fragile looking body of mist, and a face shaped weirdly, reminding Tamao of every possible canine pokemon she had seen.
The creature kept getting closer and closer, and soon Tamao could have touched it, if she would have reached her hand. She couldn't do it though; she was paralysed by fear.
The creature, whatever it was, tried to come even closer, but Suicune responded to this by firing a beam of rapidly shining bubbles at it, making it yelp. Entei and Raikou growled.
Tamao somehow understood the situation; they wanted her to see the creature, or it to see her, but they weren't going to let it have a chance to hurt her.
The creature turned back to Tamao, after quickly recovering from the attack. Suddenly, the most was starting to fade away from its face, swirling around Tamao. Tamao could only stare as the mist covered the three legendary beats from sight, and it seemed like she was alone in a complete emptiness with this strange creature.
As she stared, two, brightly shining yellow eyes lit to the misty face of the creature. Tamao gasped, though she didn't know what had caused her to do it.
The eyes focused on her, and the look in them was not furious or aggressive. It was… happy? Happy, but still overflowing with sadness.
Tamao stared right into the eyes, and suddenly started feeling dizzy in her head. She couldn't think clearly; her head was spinning wildly, and the only thing her eyes could see were the yellow eyes.
Slowly, Tamao reached her hand towards the creature trying to touch it. For a moment she thought her hand was covered in a dark indigo kimono sleeve. She looked deeply into the yellow eyes, and saw that deep in them, a small flame was burning in each eye.
" Ugh!" Tamao let out, and felt once again like she was about to collapse. Worry appeared in the yellow eyes staring at her, and as Tamao fell backwards, her hand slightly touched the mist. While there was no sensation in her hand whatsoever, the touch caused the memories of ten full years flow back to Tamao's mind, alive and clear.
" No… It's no true…" Tamao mumbled, as she hit the ground. The yellow-eyed creature took a stop towards her, apparently deeply worried about her, and was instantly fired by a hydro pump, flamethrower and thunderbolt. It roared, and the mist started slowly vanishing from it'sbody, and around it.
Tamao's eyes shot wide open, and she reached her hand automatically towards the creature. A horrifying scream came out of her mouth.
" Umbreon!" she shouted with all her power.
And by that, the realization hit her too. As she looked at the vanishing mist, the yellow-eyed creature slowly backed into the woods, becoming invincible as the mist disappeared.
As the forest started clearing up, Tamao finally did what she should have done ages ago; she collapsed to the crowd, and her consciousness slowly faded away, with her last moment awake being spent by the image of what had become of her beloved Umbreon.