-Chapter XIII: When Problems Arise-

-Roy-

"So what's Connor's deal?" he asked.

"...I don't know. I guess Dusknoir really got on his bad side." Caroline replied.

"Yeah, I've never seen him snap like that before. Especially not to a new recruit." Alice's eyes were wide with surprise.

"Because Dusknoir almost killed us. After we thought he was our friend." Vulcan's voice came from behind them. Alice flinched, but turned around to face him. "...Still, Connor needs to trust him! He wouldn't show up without a good reason! And Amber trusts him, so there's that to think about, too!"

"It's not that simple, Alice. None of you saw what we saw. It's a lot worse than you'd think." His face had an unchanging depressed look about it. His mouth was downturned, and his eyes looked… well, depressing. Like his normally positive spirit had been broken. It was like part of him was still missing after that hypnosis.

Caroline tilted her head slightly. "It was like night-time all the time, right? That's not too bad."

"Take my word for it," Grovyle suddenly appeared next to them, actually startling him slightly. "It's far worse than you can begin to imagine."

"Where did you even come from?" Mirage exclaimed. "Even I can't move that fast!"

"I came from over there," Grovyle gestured to their left without a hint of sarcasm. "Where I lived, those that were not swift did not survive very long."

Roy took that opportunity to slip away through the wall. He was no longer essential to the conversation. After the previous encounter with Mordred, he was determined to find him again. Mordred was holding back during their earlier fight. He didn't kill Dawn when he had a perfectly good chance to stab her with his arm blades. And the Bisharp also said that he needed him alive. That raised many more questions, aside from the fact that Dawn was apparently being searched for as well. And if he could sense her in the middle of a forest, there was no doubt that any decent tracker in the Mafia could pinpoint her location with ease, which meant that she was like a beacon for their enemies.

As soon as he came out of the other side of the mountain, with a forest directly to their left, only a couple hundred meters away, he looked around at the night sky. It kind of threw him off, not seeing daylight for a whole twenty-four hours. He became tangible and laid down against the nearest boulder, staring into the cloudless night sky. "Wow… What are you doing, Roy?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

He instantly melted into shadows and swirled a mystical fire at the source of the sound, but the flames were absorbed and snuffed out in an instant. "For a ghost, you're really not that sneaky."

Grovyle crossed his arms while sitting atop a small pillar of stone, completely unaffected. Roy's jaw dropped as he came out of the shadows. "What the-?! How did you...?!"

The grass-type hopped off of the stone and paced forward. "I've picked up a few tricks. I'm a lot older than I look."

Roy realized that his jaw was still hanging open, so he quickly closed his mouth. "Um… Two things. How did you absorb my mystical fire, and how did you get out here as fast as I did?"

Grovyle chuckled slightly. "I'll answer after you. Why are you out here?"

"I simply needed some fresh air. That cave was getting a little too cozy for my taste."

Grovyle let out a short laugh. "Well, that's a lie. Tell me the truth."

Roy was tempted to play it off, but something about Grovyle made him nervous. He got the feeling that this grass-type could call his bluff no matter what he said.

"...I want answers."

The ground behind Grovyle began shifting and swelling up, and several vines two or three inches thick erupted from the barren stone ground. They formed into a reclining chair, and he eased himself into it, the vines shifting to accommodate his weight. "Answers to what?"

"Why Mordred is after Dawn."

Grovyle's expression didn't change, but Roy could just barely sense his confusion. "...Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps he was trying to recruit her before your team did. She is a powerful ally, and a formidable foe."

"But he knows that she's with us now," he recalled. "She kind of kicked his butt for a minute before you came in."

He nodded slowly. "Had any of us known that he was looking for her, we would have never permitted her to come with us."

"Too late now," Roy grumbled. "Any decent tracker could sense her from miles away."

Grovyle leaned forward slightly. "Then your team is in danger."

Roy's eyes narrowed as he looked at Grovyle more intently. "What about your group? Surely they'll be in danger as well?"

Grovyle's eyes sparked for a moment, glowing in the night as a smile formed across his face. "Don't worry about us. We'll be fine." His smile lessened. "But as long as she is with your team, and doesn't know how to control her power, it's not safe. We'll have to-"

"Out of the question." Roy snapped. He would not tolerate leaving one of their teammates for dead, even if she was like a beacon.

Grovyle narrowed his eyes and continued. "...We'll have to train her to focus her power. Right now it is unrestrained, unable to be harnessed and controlled. If she can control her power, it will reduce her trackability immensely."

Roy's expression softened. "Oh. That's… That's a good plan."

He stood up and the chair receded into the ground. "I know. But before we can train anyone, we have to move. They already know where we are. Mordred's minions found you and Dusknoir within a day."

Roy nodded. "So… do we tell the others, or…?"

"I'll tell Amber," Grovyle decided. "And she'll tell Connor, who will tell your team. Right now, they respect him, but he's quickly succumbing to anger, especially where Dusknoir is concerned. And that will cause him to lose any and all respect that his teammates have."

"Listen, Grovyle… I like you. I really do. You're a stand-up guy, with saving the world by sacrificing yourself and whatnot. But you're wrong. We're all upset and don't know what to do. We're being hunted down. This isn't a fight anymore. This is a game. Well, to Mordred, anyways. And that makes it even more stressful, knowing that we don't even have a fighting chance… And… even the strongest of us break down. Four of our teammates died less than three days ago. I'm angry, Atlas is angry, Jade is angry... But Connor's the one that leads us. And, no offense, but you haven't been here to see what we've been through. Each and every one of us respects him as the leader of our team, and there is nothing in the world that can change that."

Grovyle stood up and crossed his arms with a slight smile. "Well spoken. I apologize for my… brash statement."

Grovyle began walking towards the wall of rock. He looked over his shoulder. "Are you coming?"

Roy was about to ask what he meant, when Grovyle suddenly vanished into the stone. "...He never answered me." He floated forward and found himself back in the main chambers. Everyone had fallen asleep aside from Basileus. And Grovyle seemed to be lying down and was already asleep. Roy thought about waking him and asking about what just happened, but he sighed and laid down. He might as well go to sleep. It didn't matter, but he needed to kill some time. He'd ask Grovyle about that in the morning.

When he did go to sleep, he immediately regretted it. He had a faint hope that the nightmares were over. But they were only becoming worse and worse.

-Connor-

He shot awake to Roy sobbing. The wailing pierced his peaceful slumber as he sat straight up, then grunted in pain as the muscles in his previously broken arm tore from the jolt. "Seriously, Roy? You really had to scare us in the middle of the..." When Roy looked at him, he shuddered uncontrollably. His eyes were glowing solid red, shadowy tears running down his face. The shadows cast by Vulcan's and Amber's tails were swirling around him, seeming to be drawn in while forming creepy shapes and tortured faces, like spirits wailing in pain and intimidating images of giant pokémon. "...Night? Roy, what's wrong?"

"Arceus… Connor, please… Help me."

"What? Help you what?"

Roy's gaze made him so uncomfortable that he had to look away. Underneath his ghostly hat, the look he got made him feel like his entire being was being drawn in, like a vacuum of nothingness. When he finally got the strength to look back, Roy was mere inches from his face, his skin rippling and shimmering with the tears welling up in his eyes. "Connor… I'm sorry… I-I-I…"

The raw amount of fear emanating from Roy made Connor nearly punch him away, but he refrained. "Roy… What're you doing? What's wrong?"

"Everything. We're all going to die…" Then he sobbed. "It's hopeless…"

The others had begun stirring, and Grovyle had awoken as well. Roy scrunched his eyes closed and turned away. "It's hopeless… We're all doomed… Just like me…"

"Just like you? What're you talking about?"

"It's nothing. Just forget this conversation ever happened."

"But I-"

"I said FORGET IT!" the middle gem on Roy's chest glowed as he turned back, and exhaustion overcame him. He fell into a deep slumber.

He awoke pretty well-rested, in spite of the nightmare. That was really creepy. It felt really real, but he knew Roy would never act like that. When he looked toward the center of the cave, everybody else was already awake and eating breakfast, which was weird. Normally he woke up as soon as the others did. He sat up and winced at the pain in his arm. "What in the world?" He could've sworn that it was almost perfectly fine when he went to sleep. He sat up further and gritted his teeth. "Hey, Amber? Can you put some more healing paste on this thing? I think I slept on it wrong."

She smiled and walked forward. "Of course."

She pulled a small wooden bowl out of her wonder bag and rubbed the paste on his arm. It instantly began burning like acid, but after a minute, it felt way better. He placed his hand down and when he observed the morning, everybody else seemed in good spirits. They were all smiling and moving normally. Atlas had a scar running from the top of his right eye all the way down his chin that didn't heal right, but other than that, everyone was better than they'd been in a while.

Vulcan was still a bit crestfallen, but it wasn't anything they hadn't handled before. He'd be alright. He walked over to him while forcing a smile. "Hey, don't worry about it. We'll get Mordred for sure. And when we do..." He slammed his fist into his open palm. "We'll whoop his butt. Firestorm-style."

Vulcan sighed and looked down at him with watery eyes that reflected the light coming from the overhead crystal. "I know… But we don't even know where he is anymore… We were so close without even realizing it. And we messed it up…"

He gently nudged his shoulder. "It's okay, Vulcan…"

"No! It's not okay!" Tears fell down his face, and Connor leaned back slightly. "Stop telling me it's okay! Half our team is dead, I killed Rose, and in case you forgot, our house got blown up, so now we have to resort to hiding in a cave!"

"...I haven't forgotten. But... don't let it get you down."

Vulcan let out a sad laugh. "You know that I can't do that, Connor..."

"Um, excuse me? Do you know who you're talking to?"

Vulcan was clearly caught off guard by the forcefulness of his voice. He didn't even respond.

"You're talking to your best friend! The one that's been with you since the beginning! The one that disappeared and came back to save the world twice with you! I never have, and never will, tell you to do something that you're not capable of!"

Vulcan just stared at him with shock. Whether it was from the raised voice or not, He didn't know.

"Okay, I'd hate to ruin the absolutely touching moment, but Amber's got something to say." Galvantula crawled up next to them. Vulcan nodded solemnly and turned to her, followed by Connor. She stood up and looked pointedly at them. "Connor and Vulcan, as the leaders of Team Firestorm, I want to include you in the decision we are about to make."

They both stayed silent, and she continued. "After consulting with Briar and Grovyle, we have deemed it unsafe here. Mordred's group has found Roy and Dusknoir within a day. And more importantly, they are capable of taking them both down at once. Granted, we don't know how many there were-"

"There were two." Dusknoir broke in. He glanced around and gestured for her to continue. "Apologies, Briar. That's all I recalled."

"...There were two attackers, working for -or with- Mordred, that were successfully able to take down both Dusknoir and Roy at once, at night, which is when Ghost-types are strongest. So, in conclusion, we would like to inform you of this predicament before we make any decisions."

Connor hastily nodded. "If they found us already, of course we should move. Find somewhere to recover."

"Hold on," Atlas stood up. "We're already recovered. Why can't we just stay here? Let them come to us? We're all back in fighting condition! I'm sick of running!"

"We've got to get a lot stronger before we can hope to take them on," Vulcan said. "There's no telling what kind of other tricks they've got up their sleeves."
"I agree," Jade put in. "If they had psychics that could hypnotize Vulcan to the point of almost killing Connor, then they will undoubtedly try to capture one of us and do the same thing. Turning us against each other has proven to be simple work for them."

Atlas crossed his arms and grumbled something under his breath. He grabbed his paint bag and began walking. Connor placed a hand against his chest, stopping him. "Slow your roll, man! There's no rush!"

He pushed Connor's arm aside with his lower pair of hands. "Every second we spend waiting around is another second for Mordred and his group to get their strength back!"

"I don't care! I'm doing what's best for the team, Atlas! Right now, keeping us safe is my priority!"

"What's best for the team?!" Atlas spat. "What's best for the team is weakening that group, then giving it everything we've got! We have eight more pokémon on our side now! We can do it!"

"Actually… about that…" Galvantula tilted his head down. "We can't exactly kill any pokémon in the mafia."

It took a moment for that to sink into his head. When it did, his expression went from surprised to angry in a split second. "What do you mean you can't kill any of the mafia pokémon?!"

"We're kind of from the future, man. Anything we do directly would probably alter the course of history, and that would be bad."

"So why are you here, then?! You can't even help us!"

"First, watch that tone, boi. Second, you need to lighten up. We can still protect you without killing your enemies!" He changed his stature and imitated Atlas' voice, "How can you help us, Galvantula?" He returned to his normal position and used his regular voice. "Oh, I'm glad you asked, muscles! We can disable and knock out as many pokémon as we want, but you guys have to deal the finishing -or killing- blow, otherwise that's a whole 'nother mess we've gotta deal with."

Atlas relaxed slightly, but Alice spoke up. "Why do you have to-"

Briar interjected. "If we alter history by killing anyone in the past, especially ones directly tied to your team, such as the Mafia group, we would have to live in the altered timeline, which would be drastically different than it is now, causing us to have to come back to the past again and fix it, resulting in another incident similar to the one two years ago."

Alice narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but eventually nodded at Briar's unrelenting glare.

Connor nodded. "Alright… Fine. Amber, let's get a move on"

Tyranitar stood up while Celebi's eyes glowed, opening the entrance. "Amber, you might want to take them out of here."

"Why?" Caroline asked.

"Because I'm going to take down the shelter and make it harder for that group to pinpoint our location." Tyranitar replied.

She rolled her eyes and followed Grovyle out of the cave. Vulcan walked next to Amber, followed by Roy and Dusknoir. Jade just floated through the wall, and Alice and Atlas followed next to Briar. He took up the rear with Basileus, Mirage and Galvantula.

"So… Basileus."

"Yes?"

The side of his face that had an eyepatch was facing Connor, so he couldn't tell if the Sceptile was looking at him or not.

He slowed down and kept his voice at a low whisper. "About the whole… Temporal Guardian thing-"

Basileus whipped his head around to face him. The ferocity in his eye made anything he was about to say turn into silence. "...Never mind."

Basileus nodded solemnly and kept walking. After they exited the tunnel, it was mid-afternoon, and a partly-cloudy day meant that the sun was blinding to look at, especially reflecting off of the mountainous stone.

"...Forgive me, Connor… It is a sensitive subject."

He shrugged and tried to be nonchalant about it. "Eh. It's whatever. You're a temporal Guardian. So's Celebi and Lapras. How does the rest of the group not think you're the leader? I mean, you kind of fit the bill, with the authoritative figure, the eyepatch and all that stuff. Next to Amber, they seem to look up to you."

Basileus went to speak, then stopped for a moment. "...Amber was the one that made this possible. Her incantations can span across time somehow. They reached Celebi and I, then we gathered the rest of the pokémon you see before you."

She can travel across time… That settles it.

Connor knew the Sceptile was holding information back, so he decided to play the whole amnesia card, which he didn't like doing very often. "Back when I was a Mudkip… Grovyle said I was the leader of the Insurgo."

"That is correct. You were."

He continued. "And that when I was a human, I had some incredible power, or something."

He nodded slowly and smiled. "You actually saved my life at one point… Twice, actually."

"But… Amber introduced you guys as the insurgo, and she sure as heck seems like the leader. That means that she was the leader after I came here, right? How did that happen?"

He shrugged. "Originally I was second in command. But when you went through time the first time… You accidentally travelled too far back. You met her in a prehistoric jungle. Her abilities were extraordinary, allowing her to absorb the power of any being she came into contact with and use it as her own, all without having a negative impact on the being affected."

"A Charizard had that ability?"

He nodded. "She was not evolved when you met her. But after you brought her back to the future, everybody held her in high esteem. She helped us fight Dialga's army one final time, and I let her become the new leader in your place. I hadn't expected to come back after the future had been changed."

"...Huh. That's confusing."

A tiny hint of a smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. "You would get it if you remembered."

"Oh… Low blow, man. Making fun of my amnesia? I can not believe you." Connor jested.

"Everything I said could have been a lie, you know. How do you know I'm not lying?"

"Eh. You don't seem like the lying type. And it sounds like something I would do as a human, and Grovyle mentioned her too, in the future."

Basileus nodded and regained his neutral expression. "We're here."

Connor didn't notice, but during the length of their conversation, they had already walked several miles, all the way back to Apple woods. Which, even with Celebi putting them in a temporal field to speed up time inside of the area surrounding them, was a long way to walk in less than a minute. They stood at the edge of the forest, and Amber closed her eyes while clasping her hands together. Galvantula leaned towards him and whispered, "Watch the horizon, man. This part's so cool!"

Before he could ask what that meant, he felt a massive shock wave ripple across the entire landscape. Waves of earth heaved underneath them, and a flash on the horizon blinded him. When his vision cleared, the mountain that they had come from was gone in a cloud of dust. His jaw nearly dropped as Tyranitar, still mega-evolved, sprinted almost as fast as Mirage, appearing in front of them in a blur of green and red. His skin glistened like he just got coated in wax, and the cool air around him began steaming from the raw power emanating from him. He took a deep breath and smirked. "That was fun…"

Amber rolled her eyes in response. "You also got the attention of every pokémon on this side of the great mountain range."

"Hey, if I didn't do it, then they would have had our scent like crazy! They probably have a tracker in their group! I did us a favor!"

"Let's just get out of here." Connor said. "Where are we going next?"

"I'd like to take shelter in the forest," Grovyle commented. "It's where at least six of us are strongest, provides many tactical advantages since we don't know what species our opponents are, and it's well-hidden from our foes, with lots of mystery dungeons for them to potentially get lost in."

Galvantula laughed and gestured to the treeline behind them. "And, to top it off, plenty of trees nearby, G! I think this forest is perfect!"

"But," Jade interrupted, "What if our opponents are strongest in the forest? That may very well be the case, since they ambushed Dusknoir and Roy at night in a forest and were able to not only subdue them, but capture them and erase their memories of the encounter."

Grovyle nodded and looked to Briar. "We have already anticipated that possibility. There aren't many pokémon better versed in jungle combat than our species, and if push comes to shove, we have Tyranitar. We will be fine."

"I'd still feel safer if we knew what species those two pokémon were," Basileus said. "but complaining about it won't do anything. I agree with my son. We should take shelter in a forest… One that is far from here."

Dawn smiled and clasped her hands together. "I could teleport us again."

"Roy, Jade and I will shadow-travel," Dusknoir quickly put in. "I do not wish to teleport by psychic warping again."

"Agreed," Jade said.

"Same here," Roy agreed. "It's not good for our health."

"Meet us at the southern entrance of treeshroud forest," Basileus said. "And do not be late."

"Understood," Dusknoir replied as he began dissolving into shadows. "Let us see which form of travelling is faster, shall we?"

Then they all vanished. Dawn smiled even wider. "Can I teleport us now?"

Amber nodded. "Yes. Try to keep us together, and don't hurt yourself in the process. Treeshroud forest is on the opposite side of Immanis. A lot further than fifty miles."

Dawn giggled. "Pfft! Please, I can do it! I don't have to transport three ghost-types this time!" She paused for a moment, then said, "a hundred poké says that we'll get there before them."

She closed her eyes, and everything around Connor became solid white and gold, zipping by in a blur of motion as he was teleported alongside the rest of his group.

So this is Chapter 13. I hope you guys enjoyed it! I'm delving a bit deeper into Roy's past, and there appears to be even greater tensions between Atlas and Connor now. That being said, go ahead and leave your questions, comments, concerns and theories in the form of a Review or PM! It is always appreciated!

And I regret to inform you that the next Firestorm Battle Royale will not be uploaded until tomorrow, due to work and school and parents making me work at the house when i'm not at work. And writer's block. Bleh. That's why I write all my stuff in advance for you guys. Each and every one of you is special to me! Aerojester, OnyxWhip, Kurashi, DeoxysSpeed, Grey917, thank you guys for being my most active readers! You guys help me to keep writing! Much Love!

-PL