The brown haired girl runs over to me, dragging along the two boys who are standing with her. One boy has a helmet of orange hair and is nervously glancing between his Pokédex and me. The black haired boy is staring at me intensely.

"Riza, Riza, Riza! You made it!" shouts the excitable girl.

"Battle me right now," says the black-haired boy, angrily pushing excitable girl out of the way.

"Wait, Calem. Let me compare Pokédexes with her first. She might not have seen some of the Pokémon you have with you yet."

"I concede your point, Trevor. Given her, it won't make a difference either way," says Calem.

"Hi, Riza, will you compare Pokédexes with me?" asks Trevor.

"How should I put this?" I wonder aloud.

"Put what, Riza?" asks excitable girl.

"I don't know who you are, any of you. I've lost my memory," I explain.

"What?!" the three cry in unison.

"So, could you explain to me?" I ask.

"Well-"

"Wait, Trevor. I'll get this," says Calem.

"No, you won't," says excitable girl. "You're still mad at her for beating you. I'll do it. OK, let's start. I'm Shauna, the redhead is Trevor and the other is Calem. There's usually four of us, but we don't know where Tierno is. He was supposed to meet us here."

"I heard he was at the fighting dojo. Maybe we should go there."

"He'll get here eventually," says Calem. "He's always late."

"On with the introductions. I'm just trekking across the region, exploring new places. Trevor here is searching out rare and hard-to-find Pokémon trying to fill up the Pokédex with as much new data as he can. Calem here is taking on the Gyms of Kalos, like you are. He also plans on being the League Champion, so, you two have a pretty intense rivalry going on right now. Tierno's trying to form a Pokémon dance team, and as you've heard, we don't know why he's late."

"Thank you, Shauna. I'm sorry I can't remember anything about you."

"Everything's gonna be just fine, Riza. You'll get your memory back in time," says Shauna. "Now, I think Trevor would like to compare Pokédexes with you."

"If it's not too much trouble before you battle Calem," states Trevor nervously.

I hand the orange-haired boy my Pokédex. His eyes dart back and forth between them as he scrolls through the contents. He hands it back to me and hangs his head dejectedly.

"Agh," he groans. "You win, like always. It's so frustrating. It took me forever to find all the Pokémon I've scanned. And you've already seen a Gible, my personal opinion of hardest target to find. You're up, Calem."

"I'm not the Pokédex filling type, Riza. You and I are battlers. Let's do this."

Trevor and Shauna step out of the way as we prepare to battle. Calem seems to be angry. I wonder what has sparked his foul mood.

"What's the matter, Calem?"

"You don't remember it, do you, Riza, our previous battle? Right now, you're acting nice, but back then…back then…arrgh, go, Meowstic!"

A Meowstic appears in front of Calem. It

S blue, so I know it's the male form, which means it's more likely to have defensive moves than its female counterpart. I send out Grumman. The Diggersby looks back at me and gives me a nod. The battle starts off quickly. Grumman fires off a Mud Shot, hitting Meowstic squarely, weighing its fur down with mud and slowing it down. Meowstic counters with Psychic, sending Grumman flying into the nearby wall of Lumiose City. I recall Grumman and send out Hohenheim, who is immediately struck by Mewostic's Psychic attack in the same manner. Hohenheim shakes off his dizziness and charges into battle with a Nuzzle attack, rubbing its electric sacs directly against Meowstic paralyzing him. The Meowstic puts up a Light Screen. Hohenheim hits the Meowstic with Electro Ball and Discharge, while the Meowstic remains paralyzed from the Nuzzle attack. The Meowstic faints.

We both recall our Pokémon. The next battle is Winry versus Calem's Absol. The Absol dashes to start the battle with a Quick Attack. Winry counters wth a Fairy Wind, pushing the Disaster Pokémon back. Winry follows up with a Petal Blizzard, when Calem calls for a Swords Dance. I switch Winry out and send in Alphonse. The Absol slams into Alphonse with a Quick Attack as soon as he appears. I tell Alphonse to Bulk Up and Calem tells Absol to Slash. Alphonse successfully uses Bulk Up only to be hit severely by Absol's powered up Slash. I use a Hyper Potion to restore Alphonse's health when he is suddenly hit by another Quick Attack. As Absol comes in to finish Alphonse off with a final Quick Attack, Alphonse launches a Needle Arm, taking a bit of damage but sending Absol flying. Absol can battle no longer.

"That's it, Riza. I'm going to win one battle, no matter what! Go, Delphox!"

Calem sends out a Delphox. Alphonse is at a severe disadvantage here. I recall him and send out May. May uses Hone Claws, sharpening both her aim and her claws. She is eyeing Calem's Delphox carefully. Calem commands a Mystical Fire. May attempts to dodge. The area of the attack is too wide, and May is hit, lowering her Special Attack. May's claws take on a translucent purple-gray hue. She strikes Delphox down with a single Shadow Claw and the battle ends.

"You poor, savage Panpour. Winning by luck and not skill must be an amazing feeling," says the injured Delphox.

May blasts over to the fallen Delphox. She holds her claws poised above the defeated Pokémon.

"May, don't do it! Return!" A beam of red light engulfs the Panpour and she is recalled before any incidents happen.

"Delphox, there was no reason to taunt the Panpour, so why do it?" asks Calem.

"An pathetic unevolved Pokémon couldn't have beaten me except through luck."

"How could you say that about May? She trained hard. I can't remember much, but I remember training with her. We trained up her Speed and Attack power to their maximum limits. You think it was luck that beat you? She didn't even use her most powerful attack!"

Delphox stares at me, its shocked expression remaining on its face as its recalled into the ball.

"I didn't say anything about May," says Calem. "Who were you talking to?"

"Delphox, of course." I may have done something wrong here.

Shauna, who has been watching from the sidelines, runs over. Trevor follows closely behind.

"Did we hear that right?" she asks. "Did you just say you were talking to Delphox?"

"Yeah. Did I never tell you guys I could do this?"

"You did not, no," says Trevor. "Calem is good at intuiting his Pokémon's cries, but he can get them wrong occasionally. We always thought you were just better at it than him, but with this new information...you act like you're capable of fully understanding them, like they're speaking human language to you."

"Yeah, it does sound like human language to me.

"So that means…in our last battle…when that happened, you knew what was actually going on. You might even remember what you did eventually, and have a reasonable explanation for it," says Calem. "I'm sorry for my previous anger at you. Something must have happened to make you do what you did last time."

"Hey guys! Sorry I'm late. I was learning this awesome dance-fighting style at the fighting dojo."

A bulky boy with cropped black hair has run up to us. He is breathing heavily.

"Tierny! You missed an awesome battle. Riza won, of course."

"The Lieutenant always comes through in the end," says Tierno.

"Who's the Lieutenant?" I ask.

"It's what you asked us to call you back in Aquacorde, remember?" asks Tierno

"Actually, no. I've lost most of my memories, including all of the ones involving you four."

"What? That's crazy. You really remember nothing?"

I nod.

"It's not all bad, Tierno," says Calem. "Riza has divulged a little information she was holding back from us before."

"Oh, really? What is it?"

"I can talk to Pokémon."

"So can Calem. That's why you're rivals. You were better at it."

"Uh, T-Tierno," stutters Trevor. "She can talk to Pokémon."

"Yeah, and so can C-Meister here. That's not new."

"Tierny, we mean actually talk. She says she hears their voices in human language."

"What? That's crazy, too. You're serious?"

I nod again.

"Hey! If that's true, I have an idea. Let's have Riza talk to all our Pokémon and she can tell us what they're like."

Shauna grabs my hands and stares at me. Her eyes are lit up with excitement.

"Riza, Riza, would you do that for us? Wait, before you answer, I just remembered something. There's supposed to be a scary house just a bit outside Laverre City. Let's all go there first!"

"Ghostly happenings aren't my thing. I'm going to train my Pokémon. Next time we meet, Riza, I'll be even stronger."

Calem dashes off. The remaining four of us watch him until he disappears from sight. Shauna hasn't let go of my hands yet. It's getting a bit weird at this point.

"Uh, Shauna? Can you let go?"

"Oh! Sorry, sorry, completely forgot. So, you wanna come to the Scary House with us?"

"You guys go on ahead. I'm going to do just a bit of training. I'll catch up with you later."

"See you there. Come on, Tierny, Trevor, let's go." Shauna grabs the two boys and drags them along after her.

I am alone on Route 14, wondering what to do next.