Whoa whoa whoa! Are you reading correctly? A new chapter of STARS is out?

Fear not my fellow fanfiction readers and writers! It is indeed the truth! I, MarLuna, have been a lazy ass and decided to get to work on the next chapter! Huzzah! What a miracle!

This story had me pulling my hair out trying to put all the pieces together in such a non subtle way. I got tired of it though, so I used the smarty pants Rymero to resume and make conclusions of what may or may not happen to clear up anyone's confusion thus far. He may be telling the truth. Or I may just change everything to mess with you guys. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. (I literally have nothing planned, I just go with the flow.)

Anyway, I hope my writing improved in the years I've stopped updating this story for no reason at all.

Hope you enjoy! (and you may totally bite my head off in a review if you want, I'm cool with that)

-JEAN-PAUL'S CHAPTER-

Yo! Sup? This is JP in the house with his brother Étienne! How you doin'?

Me? Well, considering we were in the middle of running away, I'd say not so hot.

Just a moment of thought though: Who ever thought it was a good idea to take over the world at a contest stadium? Pardon me, a last-minute-set-up outdoors contest stadium? It seriously made no sense.

"Es-tu correct?" (Are you okay?) I asked my brother through an almost pant, not that tired, since I work out a lot and this could easily be considered as my morning jog. I got the tiniest nod in reply, him going back to being a mute in my super awesome presence, but I could tell what my cousin was hiding. His blue eyes were flecked with pain and he twitched ever so often as he dared not to move his arm too much. I knew he was hurt and that he was being strong about it, but this was going to be fifth grade all over again if he didn't talk to me about it.

I pulled him into a secluded alley with me, "Montre moi." (Show me.)

"Mais—" (But—) He squeaked, but I cut him off again with a repeat of my strong vocal demand.

"Montre moi." (Show me.)

He knew the look I wore, and I could tell he was uneasy every time I felt the urge to confront him like this. He stuck his bottom lip out in a tiny pout—one that would've went unnoticed by anyone but me—but he held out his arm nonetheless. He had a stubborn look on his face, new and unbecoming, but I seized his arm and rolled up the sleeve as gingerly as I could (which was impossible). The image that greeted me was one that I expected: a long break of skin, four inches long from the top of his shoulder working its way down. To my relief, it wasn't bleeding excessively, but it was still rimmed by the bright red liquid. The skin around it was swollen as well, meaning it had time to have tried to heal itself. I'd say he had the gash for an hour, give or take. And that did not sit well with me.

"Pourquoi est-ce que tu ne m'a pas dis?" (Why didn't you tell me?)

A look of guilt flashed on his face and his eyes fled to focus on the brick surrounding us. I moved into his line of sight, and he dropped his gaze to his shoes instead, avoiding confrontation. As usual, he refused to talk, leaving me to do the guessing. I really wished he would open up, like he was able to do a few times already at school, so I had to keep pressing him. "Étienne?"

"J'veux… Je suis…" (I want… I'm…) I could tell he was focusing hard on constructing his sentence and that he was trying hard not to say something mean or cruel or just absolutely wimpy in contrast. He wanted to make his point clear, and I waited, letting him. "Je peux prendre soins—" (I can take care—)

The sentence was predictable. "—de toi-même?" (—of yourself?) I cut him off. I know I said that he was avoiding being mean, but I never said I was going to do the same. "Jamais. Je vais toujours te protéger, alors laisse-moi." (Never. I'll always protect you, so let me.)

"Tu ne comprends pas ce que—" (You're not understanding what—) He tried again, but I refused to let him, pushing my hands on my hips and staring him down.

" Étienne, je t'ai protégé depuis que tu étais née. Tu n'est pas assez puissant sans que je sois à côté de toi." (I protected you since you were born. You are not strong enough without me by your side.)

"Mais—" (But—)

I saw him reach out to me but I turned my back to him, refusing to hear him out. This stubborn trait of mine really infuriated me, but I couldn't do anything about it. In fact, it was better this way. He needed me. He had to know that. He always needed me. "Alons-y." (Let's go.)

-LINEBIATCH-

"I finally found you!" The always familiar annoying voice of the female member in our team screeched as I felt hands on my shoulders the second I stepped out of the alley. I started in surprise and grabbed onto one of her hands, flipping her over my shoulder in one quick movement. She screeched in alarm but let herself fly, landing with a rough thud.

When I finally realized it was just Addison, I rolled my eyes and lightly tapped her arm with my boot. "What do you want?"

"What do you mean: "what do you want"?" She glared, shaking her head around with the most attitude she could manage from the ground. "Help me up, I'm getting dirty and it's your fault I'm down here."

I bent down, grabbed her under the arms, and hoisted her up in front of me. "Now what do you want?"

She pushed out her lower lip in a cute little pout and crossed her arms. Well, she did at first, but then shifted away to try to rub at her sore back. Maybe I shouldn't have flipped her, since she was in pain now. "What, you don't want me around?" She turned her eyes to my cousin. "Can you believe this guy?" He shook his head. She held out her arms out to me. "See! He agrees with me!"

"Uggh, Addie, out with it," I attempted to bite at her hands that was swatting at my face. I couldn't tell if she was trying to pet me or seduce me. Not that there was much of a difference between the two, I would've fallen for either.

"Okay, okay, geez," She huffed, blowing her hair away from her face as it swayed in her way. "I really need to tie my hair, my goodness—"

"Addie."

She snapped back to attention. "Right right! My reason for finding you!" I could feel the answer on her lips and it was rolling around in her mouth, but instead she smiled coyly and batted her eyelashes at me. "I wanted to see you."

I blinked at her. "Addie."

"Damn, you didn't fall for it!" She hissed, snapping her fingers and letting out some sort of frustrated grumble.

I shook my head at her antics, a small smile creeping on my lips. The truth was that I would've fallen for it if Étienne hadn't been here. I was as attracted to her as she was to me, and I swear sometimes I felt like I had to pin her to stop being so provocative. Of course, I hadn't done it before, but I had figured out ways to distract myself and bug her at the same time.

"If you don't come out with it, I'll just ditch you here." I turned around made a motion of walking away.

"No! This is important!" She instantly jumped on my back, nearly making me fall over with the sudden added weight. I grabbed onto her legs and shifted her on my back until she was comfortable, before spinning her around in circles so fast that I knew she was already dizzy. She was weakly pounding on my back, "Sh-shtahhhhp… Jayyyy-peeeeeee—"

"Tell me and I'll stop!"

"A-arrêtez, vous deux! On a pas le temps à gaspiller!" (S-stop it you two! We don't have time to waste!) Étienne grabbed my arm, stilling my movements.

Addie nodded on my shoulder. "That's true."

I turned my head towards her, holding back my snap for her having wasted our precious time. "So what did you want to tell us?"

She shifted on my back. "Well, I'm not exactly sure. I'm going around warning other STARS." She started counting off her fingers. "First, our phones and devices' wireless and receptions have been blocked off, so there's no way for us to contact each other, so messengers—like me!—are going to be running back and forth to send information." She moved to her second finger. "Two, it's for that reason that we decided that it's better and safer for everyone to move into groups of four or more." She ticked off another finger. "The grunts suddenly changed tactics, so be careful."

"Changed tactics?" I questioned, since I didn't even know that was possible. Typically grunts did what they wanted (as long as it went along with their master plan) and didn't care about the consequences. So plans and tactics were hard to wrap my mind around—these guys were actually organized? Such a shocker!

"Yeah," she jumped off my back and planted herself between me and my cousin so that we stood in a triangle. "They started by dividing and conquering—which we did the same to hold them off—but as soon as one of the tower pillars started getting destroyed, the grunts' behaviour turned weird. Giles noticed that we were getting closer and closer together, which meant closer and closer to the Space-Time towers."

"What's that about?" I wondered, putting a hand to my chin. Étienne looked conflicted, having an idea but then quickly changing his mind, getting another one before wiping it away from his mind. He looked like he was having a much better time thinking of reasoning than I did. "As-tu des idées, Étienne?" (Got any ideas, Étienne?)

He ended up shaking his head meekly. He must've been able to contradict his own ideas then, which was a bummer since some of them might actually help us out more than restrict us, but the poor boy wasn't going to talk. He was too worried that his ideas could lead to humiliation, which was impossible, since his guess was as good as mine (or even better, since I had nothing) but that's simply how he thought.

"J'en ai une!" (I have one!) Addie suddenly cried. "What if they want to subdue us?"

We just looked at her.

"Well duh." I said eventually, dulling the excited light in her eyes. "That's what they've been trying to do the second they tried to take us over."

"No, I mean," she sighed exasperatedly at me, as if I was the stupid one, "what if this is their "Plan B"?"

I shared a look with Étienne, who looked conflicted. "...that's kinda lame."

"You think of something better then!" Addie smacked my arm, because, lets' face it, I was being unfair.

On the spotlight, I couldn't refuse. I had to stall for time though, in case my brain could actually think up something. "Howwww abbouttttttt..." It wasn't working! Think brain, think!

"Guys!" Rymero came running, waving both his arms above his head, looking distressed, his mawile trailing behind him in such an intimidating manor that I wanted to kick it in its face (I have a bad habit of wanting to hurt scary things, like that giant mouth it has). "We need to get out of here!"

"What's wrong?" I called, because my brother sure wasn't going to, and Addie just mumbled a "does he know what's going on? I haven't even told him anything yet—I just started running around—how unfair—"

"The Triple Js filled me in about everything—"

"Tripe Js?" Addie asked, snapping out of her sudden weird ramble of being unable of doing her job right. "I thought there were only two?"

"Jillian wanted to join in the fun." Rymero shook his head at the mere thought of that girl trying to match the two other ninja boys. It was a wonder she even got allowed to. "Anyway! They told me everything!" He made hand motions here and there, to emphasize his point. "They told me how the grunts wanted to lure everyone back to the towers, which doesn't make sense since their boss is at the top—"

"The boss is at the top?" Addie hissed in surprise, eyebrows shooting up. "Why isn't anyone trying to stop him?" I smacked her over the head, because she was being a pain, interrupting the poor boy's story telling. She was really bad at staying silent.

"May I continue?" Rymero asked, lacking the sass or sarcasm I was sure he would've totally used at this moment (it was the perfect moment for it). Once he got out nods, he went on. "Their boss is at the top of the towers, so why would they want to lure everyone closer? No one seems to get it, so I had the Js scope out the higher ups and figure out what's going on. Luckily for us, Kyle, Hina, and Rin subdued one of them near here, and they eventually spilled the beans of the operation."

That piece of information got all of us to huddle closer, wanting to hear every single detail. However, since Étienne, Addie and I didn't have any of our pokémon out to help us defend us and warn us of danger. There was Rymero's mawile though, but it was clinging to the boy and glaring at us with eyes that said we were either too close or being a nuisance.

"They're trying to open the distortion world."

"Wait, hold up—" I held up a hand as a pausing motion, placing my other one to my forehead as I tried to think things through. "First, they took the Soul Dew and agitated Latios and Latias—" I got nods, I continued. "—then here, I heard they're messing with Darkrai—" More nods. "—and now they want Giratina, who's living in the rumoured distortion world?" Again with the nods. "I don't see what involving so many legendaries have to do with anything!"

"Exactly!" Rymero echoed me, holding up a finger. "That's what I thought!" He paused. "Until I researched further about the Soul Dew. The Soul Dew contains the soul of a latios, and it can be used to activate the ultimate Alto Mare defence mechanism."

"So?" Addie joined it, her expression back to confused. We already knew about the defensive machine in the museum, but the soul of a latios part was new.

Rymero made a circling motion at us that's usually used in charades for us to keep thinking further. "Sooooo... if that latios can create a condensed form of his own soul, then what's stopping anyone else from doing that?"

I placed my fingers to my temples, rubbing them in soothing circles. "I still don't get the point."

Rymero was pretty patient though, because it didn't faze him. "What I'm guessing is that they've taken the Soul Dew so that we can't. They don't actually plan to use it, but rather find other legendaries to pull in the same situation." His tone grew sophisticated as he spoke more and more about his theories. "If the Latios' power can hold down all of Alto Mare with the DMA, then wouldn't a more powerful legendary pokémon have an even wider reach? Could it even lock down the whole world?"

The whole idea of other pokémon being able to turn into magical balls of souls baffled me, but I couldn't deny the possibility, as it was better than what Addie came up with. "Then why'd they do after Darkrai? To test it?"

Rymero nodded. "I'm guessing they're looking for a legendary pokémon that can completely defeat them, to assure that it's strong and useful. But since Darkrai's having a hard time holding them down and protecting this city, it failed the test."

"So now they're looking for something stronger." I filled in the blank.

"And that's Giratina." Addie added.

"M-mais..." (B-but...) Étienne suddenly cut in. "C-comment e-est-ce qu'ils vont faire ça?" (H-how a-are they going to do that?)

We had to take a step back to consider that. Étienne had a point. Legendary pokémon only come out of hiding when the world (or the part of the world they are in) is in a state or crisis (except for latioses and latiases, who fly everywhere and just want to have fun all the time) so why would Giratina come out, when everything's almost maybe kinda in control? It isn't chaotic enough.

"That's why the grunts are trying to bring everyone to the towers." Rymero filled in. "They have something planned." A small embarrassed smile reached his lips. "The whole Giratina and Distortion World is just speculation though—I could be wrong!—but from the activities that has been going around here, the grunts don't seem like they'd be going after Palkia and Dialga, who live around those two towers, that they are carelessly destroying."

Addie couldn't hold herself in at that. "Or maybe they're destroying it to anger them and have them fly over like angry parents ready to scold their children?"

Rymero shrugged. "Maybe? I don't really know how calling out legendaries work, so we're sitting ducks."

"Wanna know what's funny?" I brought up, suddenly remembering a fact. "You came running to us to get out of here and run away, but we're still here, just leisurely talking away about legendary pokémon."

"Oh. That's right." Rymero appropriately changed his facial back to distressed. "Let's get out of here!"

"Why?" I grumbled.

His looked changed back to exasperated. "Really? After everything I just explained?"

"No, I mean," I tried again, resisting a laugh, "why are we running away?"

"We're running from the towers to avoid whatever they have planned for us. It just reeks with danger!"

Addie shrugged and nodded, at the same time. "He's got a point."

"True." I agreed, and Étienne nodded once I mentally asked for his opinion.

Lead by a surprisingly able tactician I didn't know we had, we fled the furthest that we could from the towers.

-LINEBIATCH-

But that didn't explain why, half an hour later, the four of us were lying down on a roof we somehow managed to climb, peeking at the contest tent that was conveniently placed right in front of the Space-Time Towers.

"I thought we were supposed to get away from here." I grumbled.

"JP, shut up—" Addie smacked me over the head, squinting through the binoculars latched onto her face. "—I'm trying to see if that grunt over there is going to pee himself!" Coincidentally, there was a leafeon nearby that looked suspiciously like Addie's, and it was randomly grasswhistling in all sorts of directions when the grunt wasn't paying attention, scaring the ever living gengar out of the poor antagonist, who was desperately holding his hands to his ears and trying not to fall asleep at the sound.

We all gave her looks when she started cackling to herself.

I swear to Arceus, she needed a better hobby than scaring the booty.

"We're here so we're not caught in their schemes, but we can still keep an eye out and try to stop them whenever's necessary." Rymero finally answered me after a long moment of awkward (caused and kept alive by Addie).

"...isn't Tyson still in there?" Addie finally spoke some intelligent sounds. "I know for sure one of the STARS were supposed to stay in the tent and make sure no one tries to tear it down (and to keep watch over a captive grunt)."

"...I suppose someone should go warn him." I finally caved. Rymero simply shrugged, because there weren't much people close to the towers yet, so there was still time to move around and enjoy the fresh air. We eventually settled on playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, to figure out who'd be the unlucky soul to go fetch the STARS member in the deflated-looking tent.

"3, 2, 1—GO!" We synchronized, having played the game too much in our spare times, shaking our fists to the beat. At the GO!, we dropped our hands at the center of our makeshift formation, holding different shapes.

I had rock.

Étienne had rock.

Rymero had paper.

So did Addie.

Rymero and Addie faced off, matching fierce looks on their features.

"3—"

"2—"

"1—"

"GO!"

Rymero was rock.

Addie still ad paper.

She lost.

(Like usual.)

I stifled a laugh behind my hand, but she noticed it and smacked me anyway. Sticking out her tongue, though looking unhappy and disgruntled, she crawled down the side of the wall and faced the grunt she was bullying beforehand.

The grunt gasped as soon as he saw her, pointing at her in one surprising moment. "Trainer!" he cried.

She mimicked him, reflecting his surprised expression with her own fake one. "Grunt!"

"AHHHHH!"

"AHHHHHHHH!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Addie was easily fed up with the weird yodeling session. "VEE, DESTROY HIM!"

One leaf blade and a bunch of scary quick attacks later, the grunt had pissed himself at least three times before he went running, tears rolling down his face as he cried for his mother.

At the sound of a crying and wailing grunt escaping, the tent's door opened (just the fact that a tent had doors of all things was also surprising) and like Addie had assumed, Tyson came running out.

"Addie?" The poor boy looked confused as to why the hyperactive young female was laughing to herself in the middle of nowhere. "I thought I heard a crying grunt?"

"Ah, you missed him," Addie shook her head, "it was quite a sight to behold."

"Coming from you, that doesn't surprise me." He shook his own head in amusement. "So why are you here?"

"We came to get you, silly!" Addie chirped, making a motion to the three of us waiting on the top of the roof building nearby, like unashamed stalkers. We gave them a wave and he waved back in confusion.

"Why?" He looked even more confused now that he registered us to be his precious friends and teammates.

"Because the grunts are going to lead everyone here for some evil reason and we need you outta there before it happens." Wow, Addie, I'm impressed by how well she was able to convey that message to him in one sentence.

"Oh, okay." Tyson easily accepted it with easy strides (we were teammates after all) and turned back to the tent to call for his pokémon. His grumpig came bouncing out, nearly destroying the door as it went and almost jumping on Tyson's head for a hug, and his Mr. Mime Jr. followed suit, trying to mimic the bigger pokémon's bouncing but failing. The two trainers, once were well equipped with their pokémon and ready to bounce (see what I did there?), came running in our direction.

"CAN'T ESCAPE!" A voice suddenly echoed, and the earlier grunt with his soiled pants came running back, three of his angry-looking friends right behind him (his trail of pee nearly made them slip and fall a few times though).

"What's wrong?" Addie laughed. "No need to be so pissy!"

The grunt went red in the face. "Payback time!"

"I'm soooo scared!" Addie couldn't stop her laughing, unable to take him seriously after having bullied him for so long.

"Should we help them?" Rymero asked as we watched them call out their pokémon. There was a glameow, two koffings, and a zubat. I scoffed at the idea of them being tough.

"They can handle it."

Handle it they could, because although the grumpig decided that this fight wasn't his and stayed glued to his trainer's side, the Mime Jr. had fun making random walls appear and getting the enemy pokémon running face first into them at the most inappropriate times, getting a huge laugh out of Addie, who still couldn't be serious, and breaking the nose of an angry glameow. Before the grunts could even think of their pokémon extracting revenge from them, they were knocked out by a well-time grasswhistle and leaf blade, which made an instant KO.

The two STARS highfived, knocked out the trainer grunts with another grasswhistle, and dragged the sleeping beauties inside the tent to tie them up with the other one already there.

"C-c'etait trop facile..." (I-it was too easy...) Étienne realized just as the duo excited the tent after dragging the last two inside. "Something's not right..."

"Correct!" A suddenly booming voice screeched in our ears from behind. "You are clever!" I heard a thump next to me and saw Étienne flop, out like a light. I heard Rymero call my name in warning, and I turned, startled, to fight off the random evil stranger, but it was a step faster. "Too slow!" and with a swooping motion to the back of my neck, I was hit into unconsciousness.

QUESTIONS (the line thing still sucks, so if there's actually a line separating this part, then I'd be amazed! )

1. Take a really popular movie and pokemon-i-fy it! 8D (not a question/slapped)

2. What should I do to make it up to you guys for the super mega long wait?

3. HAVE YOU BOUGHT POKEMON X OR Y ? WHO WANTS TO SHARE FRIENDCODES AND SPAM EACH OTHER WITH O-POWERS?

Have a nice day!

-Mar