"I knew you would see things my way!"

"Lunick! Lunick is dead!"

Protector of Silence

Chapter Thirty - A name to be called by

"Hey! Kellyn! Hurry up will ya!"

Kellyn gave the bathroom door a kick with his boot, a way of telling Keith he'd be out in a minute. Arceus that guy was impatient!

"Kel! Come on!" Keith shouted, banging the door with his fists "Buck up will ya! Seriously! You'll end up spending another eight months in front of that mirror!"

'Eight months' Kellyn thought 'Eight months since Ranger School began.'

He tried to work out what had changed in those eight months. He'd grown taller; still not as tall as Keith but tall enough to not seem drowned out by Rhythmi and Kate. His hair had turned darker, it was now a dark chocolate colour rather than chestnut-brown. And he was sure his hearing had become twice as sensitive because although everyone else had grown up, Keith was still acting and sounding like a two-year-old.

"Kel! Come on! Did you fall down the toilet or something?! Some of us have lives to be getting on with!"

Kellyn sighed as Keith put up yet another fight to get him to...well...do whatever Keith wanted him to come out and do. Giving a mental sigh, he rinsed his toothbrush and placed it in the pot with the others'. He opened the door...

...and then gave a gasp of pain and grasped his nose. Keith had apparently raised his fist to knock on the door, but Kellyn had opened it and his nose had taken the hit instead.

"Ah! Sorry!" Keith immediately apologised "It was an accident!"

Kellyn nodded and checked whether his nose was bleeding. When he was satisfied it wasn't he wrote Keith an irritated message:

What do you want?

"Well, I have a favour to ask you" Keith rubbed the back of his neck "You see, I've been hearing reports of the legendary Pokemon Celebi living in Almia, got it?"

Kellyn nodded, not understanding where this was going.

"And Celebi's supposed to live in forests" Keith continued "So I thought, why not our forest - here at Ranger School!"

You're crazy

"Crazy didn't stop Einstein" Keith put in "So, what do ya' say to you coming searching with me?"

It wasn't really a question, it was a command.

Kellyn sighed. Best get it over with.

Alright, fine. But this was your idea.

"I knew you would see things my way!" Keith swung an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders.

Kellyn gave a silent chuckle.

Yeah, you can be pretty persuasive

As Keith threw back his head and laughed, Kellyn pointed at the dorm's door and went inside. He unhooked the green cloak that Kate had given to him for Christmas from the nob of his bed. He had started using it as a some-what travelling cloak, even though they didn't really go anywhere. He was planning on wearing it on the up-coming trip to the Chiroma Ruins. He slipped the sleeves on over his arms before closing the clasp in the back of the rigid neckpiece. Dusting it off briefly, he walked over to the open door where Keith was waiting.

"Ready?" he asked.

Kellyn quickly checked himself for his styler, his pencil sharpener, his notebook and two pencils (incase he lost one). Upon realising he had them all, he nodded.

They headed down the stairs, across the courtyard and outside. Everyone appeared to be inside. They were heading up the steps to the woods in the north-east of the school and Kellyn had just looked back over his shoulder to call mentally for Luna when Keith stopped him with a grip on his wrist.

"How does she know?"

What do you mean?

"How does Luna know when you call her? I mean, you don't speak."

I don't need to

Keith pondered over this until they reached the top of the steps. Then he grabbed Kellyn's shoulder and made him turn around.

"Call her" he told a very confused Kellyn "Call her through speech, if you can. That way you'll know if she can identify you by voice."

Kellyn looked uncertain, but finally nodded. He took a deep breath, knowing what would happen, and touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Automatically his throat tightened like someone had clenched it. He swallowed and summoned all his strength, fighting back the pain massacring his throat.

"Uuuuu-nnaaaa!" He croaked.

The little white Espeon nosed her way out of the bushes near the school doors. She appeared to have hard what appeared to sound like her name, but was unsure from who and where.

Kellyn took a few breaths to calm himself, looked at Keith for reassurance and then tried again.

"Luuuu-naaaa!"

This time Luna looked in his direction.

"Peon! Peon!" She opened her mouth in what may be a smile before bounding towards him.

Kellyn beamed and tried to call her again. But this time however silence was determined to stop him. His throat tightened to the point of collapse and his head throbbed from lack of oxygen. Before he knew what was happening, he fell backwards. Thankfully, Keith caught him before he hit the ground.

"Kellyn! Kel are you alright?! I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to push you that hard! Kel!" the ginger cried.

Kellyn wanted to tell Keith it was fine, that it wasn't his fault; but there was little or no way to tell him this through speech and he couldn't see his notebook. He couldn't see much: only two heads, one with spikey white ears, that looked like Keith and Luna.

"H-Hang on!" Keith panicked "T-There's a stream up ahead! Can you walk?!"

Kellyn gave a weak shake of his head. His limbs all felt numb.

"R-Right!" Keith sounded beyond nervous "Don't worry! I've got this!"

Before Kellyn knew what was happening, he felt Keith's arms wrap around his back and below his legs and felt himself begin lifted into the air.

'Ah! Keith no!' He panicked and quickly grabbed Keith's shoulders to stop himself from falling.

"Don't worry, I won't let you fall" Keith reassured him "If I do, feel free to punch me until my eyes fall out. Just make sure our other roomies don't help you out." He grimaced at the thought.

Kellyn snorted with laughter and loosened his grip, closing his eyes.

'Thanks for trying Keith' he thought.

He felt the bobbing motion as Keith walked along, keeping a tight grip on Kellyn to make sure the younger boy didn't fall. After about five minutes, Kellyn heard the sound of running water and Keith's constant bobbing motion broke it's rhythm as he began wading though something. Kellyn knew they'd reached the stream. The wading stopped and after a few more rhythmic bounces, Kellyn felt himself being lowered to the ground. He opened his eyes and saw Keith had lowered him onto a patch of grass under a shady ash tree he was leaning against.

"Feeling any better?" the ginger asked.

Kellyn looked up at the green and brown branches above him and let out one of those signature unusually high sighs. He opened his notebook and, upon realising that his head was staying still enough for him to focus, wrote a message.

Is it Ok if I stay here for a while?

"Oh, of course" Keith nodded "I'll just go ahead a little. I'll be back in ten minutes."

Kellyn nodded tiredly. Keith nodded back with that signature cheeky grin and disappeared somewhere behind the tree, presumably heading deeper into the forest.

Several minutes past, Kellyn spending every second of them gazing transfixed at something; be it the tree branches and the sky, the stream, a blade of grass or a flower. Once in a while Luna would call out to him and he'd stroke her or pat the top of her head with a warm smile before staring at something else.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there before he heard the sound of something snapping and then something even worse: an agonised scream. Although what made it worse was the way after a second it stopped abruptly.

'Keith!' Kellyn scrambled to his feet, suddenly not feeling so painful any more.

Luna sniffed the air and bounded into the trees.

"His scent's this way! Come on! Hurry!" Luna looked over her shoulder at Kellyn who was attempting to run beside her.

A minute later, they reached a small clearing, mostly taken up by a large hole about six metres wide. Kellyn peered in and saw, about 20 or 30 feet down, the shape of a figure. It was lying completely still and not making a sound.

'Oh Keith! Why didn't you watch out for the edge?!' Kellyn despaired.

It couldn't be! It couldn't be his best friend was...

'No!' Kellyn tried to call out Keith's name, but it came out as a strangled squeak. He tried again, but it had the same effect. The third time though, something happened. The figure stirred.

"Keeeeth!" Kellyn squeaked in a voice so high it sounded more like a Pokemon's.

A single brown eye opened.

"K-Kel?" he whispered.

Kellyn gave a high-pitched sigh of relief. Keith was alive at least. But he'd fallen a long way and would mostly like have at least one broken bone. And he didn't like the way Keith was lying on his back. The way his head was resting on the ground plainly said that it pained him to move his neck; and even though his chest was rising and falling his breath came in long gasps, leaving Kellyn to assume he may have broken a rib or two.

'Oh Keith' he thought. A tear came to his eye that he quickly wiped away - tears couldn't help Keith now.

"...Kellyn..." Keith coughed, but he sounded like he was being strangled as he did "...Can't...move..." He looked up at Kellyn, his brown eyes dull with pain "...Get...help...please..." His head then rolled to the side and his eyes shut.

For a few seconds, Kellyn was paralysed with the fear his best friend may have passed, but then left a wash of relief as he saw Keith's chest rise and fall. He was alive, for now. He needed help.

Kellyn looked down at his friend one last time before rising to his feet and running.

Kellyn crashed to the ground for what much be the seventh time. He growled with annoyance. How come a forest on a island could be so big?! Not to mention confusing! Panting, he sat against a tree and tried to get his breath back.

'Try and find a way back to the school' he told Luna. The white Espeon nodded and bounded off into the bushes. For a moment, everything was peaceful beyond Kellyn's pants of exhaustion slicing the atmosphere. And then that moment ended.

"Run! Quickly!"

"Don't look back! She's coming!"

"Watch out! Don't get caught! You'll never get free!"

Kellyn turned his head and saw a flock of Shinx, Cherbi and Oddish running across a small clearing. Suddenly, something shot down out of the sky and struck a Shinx with a funny lightning-bolt marking on it's forehead on the back. The Shinx had just enough time to contort it's face into a plainly terrified position before it froze, literally! Within a second the Shinx turned a brilliant gold colour and didn't move. It didn't drop to the ground dead or anything dramatic like that, it just froze. His white pupils dilating, Kellyn remained as still as the Shinx for a second before he heard a loud roar overhead followed by the sound of a vehicle, probably a motorbike, speeding towards him. Acting by instinct, he rolled sideways into the bushes and crouched there.

After a few seconds, a bunch of motorbikes rolled out from between the trees and stopped in a semi-circle around the Shinx. One man, probably their leader, shook his head as he dismounted from his motorbike and picked up the Shinx. Another man placed a funny white base thing on the ground. The first man placed the Shinx on the base and mounted his motorbike again. But before he did, he pushed a little lever on the base to the top of the gauge. A clear dome materialised around the Shinx and the base floated into the air so it would be level with Kellyn's head if he were standing.

"Not here" the second man muttered. The roar sounded again and Kellyn hugged his knees tightly. A Salamence flew down into the clearing with a woman dressed in purple and black on it's back. She had ice-blue hair, narrow golden-grey eyes and on her lower arm there was a grey gun-like gauntlet.

"Did you get it?" she asked the men in an impatient voice.

"Negative, sir" the leader told her "Just a Shinx."

The woman growled, tightening her fists. "Shinxes. As if finding a white Espeon out here wasn't hard enough!"

Kellyn felt his blood run cold. A white Espeon? They were after a white Espeon?! They were after Luna?!

That was too much for Kellyn.

In his shock, he allowed himself to let out a squeak of shock and fear.

Automatically all heads turned towards the bush he was hiding in.

'Oh Arceus!'

He heard a click as the woman prepared the gauntlet to fire. He heard a bang and automatically he sprung out of the bushes behind a tree. But suddenly his legs felt heavy and dragged him down. Unbeknown to him, his eyes briefly flashed blue-white. He looked down at his legs briefly. They were coated gold and he couldn't move them. At least he could move everything else, his psychic powers must have stopped the damage spreading. He tried to get up, but his legs felt like they were encased in concrete. He dragged himself a metre or so before he found himself at the gun-point again. The Salamence was glaring at him only a few metres away, the woman with her gauntlet ready.

"For meddling with our affairs!" she growled.

The gauntlet launched a blob of white-gold out. Instinctively, Kellyn trust his palm out and his eyes flashed to their irregular colour. The blob stopped in midair before shattering into harmless particles of gold and white light.

The woman seemed taken back for a second, but then she growled a word Kellyn understood perfectly.

"Lunick!"

Kellyn froze. This woman knew his brother?

"Lunick is dead!" She growled "There is no way for you to have...!" She stopped as a look of realisation came over what he could see of the woman's face "The child! You!" She pointed a finger at Kellyn "You're eleven, are you not?"

Kellyn gave a small, terrified nod.

"Answer me! Are you eleven?!"

Kellyn nodded frantically, not wanting to taste the bullet of that gauntlet a second time. He didn't know if his powers would save him again.

"You" the woman's eyes had narrowed by now "You're the child he swore to protect." A sly smile tugged at the corner of her lips "Lunick is a fool! He could barely move a paper clip with those powers - and he honestly thinks a mere child can draw out their potential!"

Kellyn titled his head to the side in confusion. What was this woman talking about? Sure, he was pretty angry for two reasons:

A. She called him a child.

B. She called Lunick a fool.

The latter was the one that wound Kellyn up the most. No one, and I mean no one, dared badmouth his brother!

He swallowed his anger and wore his confused face.

"Still can't control your powers" the woman commented "Your brother couldn't either. It took him until he was ten to learn to talk." She lost her smile "You look confused. Oh, of course - Lunick died before he could tell you about your powers. Well let me care to enlighten you."

She paused, mostly likely preparing for an explanation.

"The powers you possess, are almost unique. They can't be created or destroyed, only passed on. When a bearer dies, the being nearest to them obtains their powers. Lunick knew this, which is why he always kept that girl, Solana, beside him. Then he started to show feelings for her, and he started to fear the idea of getting her in trouble by passing his powers onto her. He didn't want his death to just be the start of misery for her. Then the war broke out, and trying to find another passer became nearly impossible. So Lunick had one choice - to master his powers to keep him alive. Then, they found you." The woman folded her arms "An abandoned baby - the perfect passer. You may have only been three months old, but already Lunick knew this was his true heir. What better heir than a child you raised yourself? Slowly, he fed his powers into you, leaving just enough to prevent his death until you were old enough to learn to use your new powers. But after the disappearance of his little friend Solana, he grew careless. This led to his death, a pointless accident of a death. He had only one option left - to hide you in the most secluded part of Almia. Hide you from the people who wanted your powers." She smiled again "Including me."

After this long speech, Kellyn paused for a while. His hand slowly moved up to his locket and unlocked it. He stared down at the picture of his 'older brother' on the left. The picture showed him when he was thirteen. Midnight blue hair, aqua-blue eyes and a contagious smile; how could a boy as ordinary as this hold such a dangerous and outlandish secret? He looked at the woman and tilted his head to the other side.

"You're wondering why people want your powers, why they're significant, aren't you?" the woman asked "You apparently don't know the legend." She raised her chin "'A child with two colours of eyes, with the gift of ancient Pokemon, shall by the snow-drawn Espeon, decide the fait of all the regions of the world'." She looked sternly at the still confused Kellyn "In short, a child with psychic powers and eyes that change colour, will gain a partner in a white Espeon and decide the fait of all regions."

Kellyn paled. He? He and Luna were supposed to decide the fait of all regions?! This was insane! Okay, he'd never exactly been a normal kid; but this was nuts - even for him!

"That's why we need to find the white Espeon" the woman explained further "Someone would be willing to pay millions for something as rare as that. But now," She pointed her gauntlet at him again "You and the white Espeon are connected, you just don't know it. However, wherever you are, it'll be drawn towards you. And if we were to capture the both of you..."

She gave another sly smile. Kellyn, despite being terrified, pointed at her and tilted his head. The woman understood.

"What's my name you ask?" she smiled "The name is J. Pokemon Hunter J."

She looked just about to launch when they both froze stock-still. They had both heard it. The cry of a Pokémon.

"That's a...!" Hunter J began, but she stopped, probably in shock.

Then Kellyn heard the same voice 'speak'.

"Kellyn! I found someone who can help us! Kellyn!"

'No!' he cried mentally 'Stay away! Please!'

As he thought this, he gave what could only be described as terrified squeaks and shuffled towards the bushes, dragging his paralysed legs behind him. But now he was starting to hear the sound of something crashing throught the thick bushes to the right.

"Well well, that worked better than I thought" Hunter J smiled, then looked down at him "Hear that? It sounds like your counterpart has found you."

"Peon!" On cue, Luna skidded out of the bushes.

Stealthily, Hunter J spun round and fired at Luna. The white Espeon squeaked in fear and leapt to the left, just saving herself.

"Kellyn!" she squeaked, leaping up and grasping the spindly low branch of a tree in order to dodge a second attack.

'Luna!' he cried mentally 'Get away! Run! Quickly!' But Luna showed no signs of leaving. She just kept on dodging the relentless attacks; still, Kellyn wasn't sure how long her luck would hold out.

"What's going on down there?!"

Kellyn looked up and smiled at what he saw. He raised his styler to the sky.

"Kellyn! What are we gonna do?!" Luna cried as she bounded over another attack. She was careful to not draw attention to her friend and master.

She dodged another attack and noticed he had the antenna of his styler visible.

'Capture complete' he spoke silently.

"What are you talking about?! Kellyn!" Luna cried. Kellyn signalled for her to come to him.

'Over here! Quickly!'

"Are you insane?!"

'Probably. You wanna escape? Then get over here!'

"You better know what you're doing! Or we're both toast!"

Luna changed direction and pounded towards Kellyn. The Salamence moved in behind her and Hunter J fired. Luna ran as fast as her little legs would take her, but she knew she would never make it. But she saw Kellyn's eyes narrow slightly and his eyes flash from their enchanting blue-green colour to a soul-chilling blue-white. She skidded to a halt and heard the sound of something exploding behind her. But that wasn't why she stopped; she had lost herself in those blue-white eyes.

'Lunick' she thought sadly 'Where are you when we need you?'

'Luna? What's the matter? Come on! She's getting ready to fire again!'

Luna snapped out of her trance and bounded into Kellyn's arms. He looped one arm around her and raised one hand to the sky.

'Staraptor!' he called 'Now!'

"Star!" A large grey bird swooped down from the sky, grabbed Kellyn by his shoulders and disappeared with him and Luna above the trees.

Hunter J fired one last time, but the missile missed the Staraptor's left wing and both flying objects vanished from sight. She growled.

"Lunick" she growled "You've made your choice." She wore the smallest of all smiles "And this time not even death can protect you or your little gift."

Kellyn was exhausted. His legs were weighing him down and it was starting to agonise his fingers to cling onto the Staraptor. Luna was clawing at his cloak, frantic not to fall into whatever was below them at this current moment, be it sea or land. Eventually, Kellyn had to squeeze his eyes shut to focus on something other than the pain.

'We're...going down' he brain came to a rather surprising realisation 'We must be near land. Luna said she found someone. Maybe...maybe Staraptor found them.'

They must have been near to the ground, because when Staraptor suddenly let go he immediately faceplanted it and rolled along like a fish. He didn't dare open his eyes, even when he stopped rolling.

"Recover!" Luna's voice yelped.

The...whatever it was encasing his legs thinned slightly - or maybe it vanished completely, he wasn't sure. But either way, his legs ached.

"Luna? What is it? What's wro...GREAT FLAMING PIE IN THE SKY! Kellyn what happened?!"

'Who's that?' Kellyn tried to place the familiar voice, but his brain was too fuzzy to put the pieces together.

"Kellyn! Don't you dare pass out on me, Solider!" He was fairly sure Luna slapped him across the face as she said that, but it had small paws so it was a fairly lame slap. And he was so out of it Luna may as well have not bothered.

"Kellyn, no! Stay awake! Argh...stay here! I'll get help!"

As the darkness overwhelmed him, Kellyn smiled as he finally placed that voice.

'Kate. (Sigh). Thank Arceus.'