Okay. I'm well north of 7,000 views at this point, with only a few more chapters to go in the story. I have not had quite the same desire to write as of late, but I'm going to keep churning these out. In exchange, I would love to get more reviews than I have been getting lately. My goal for this story, as I have stated before, is 100, and if I write a sequel I am aiming for 200. (That said, I won't abandon the story just because I get that number). At this point, I am leaning towards writing one, but I'm going to put up a poll on my profile as to whether you want it or not.

Once the poll receives 20 "Yes" votes, I will begin the story if I have already finished this one. I do have an idea for what might happen after this story.

Answer: I'm a pretty strong swimmer, and I walk on the treadmill. I'm not very athletic, though; I don't play any sports.

Question: What do you think is going to happen after all is said and done? I really am curious about this.

With that, let us begin the chapter!

SAMUEL'S POV

I was watching Michelle sleep when I felt a stab of fear radiating off of the dining car. Not a small amount, mind you.

Normally, I didn't set too much store by these things. Really, fear was relatively commonplace, and it's one of the most powerful emotions there is. Of course I would be noticing it. The question that was far more consequential was, what was causing this fear? Was it a group of enemies that had somehow snuck onto the train? Was it Team Rocket?

I tapped Lucas on the shoulder. He wasn't asleep, but he had been pretty absorbed in staring out the window at the Alaskan countryside. I wanted to make sure that he was ready for whatever was about to happen. We might need a Zoroark on our side.

Eric and Garfield had already gone downstairs for some lunch. I knew that Lucas was not hungry, and neither was I. If we had been, we would have gone to the dining car. Since each group of passengers had only one specified time that they were allowed to be in there in order to eat, we were willingly forgoing our one chance to have lunch, figuring that we'd get to eat dinner later anyway.

"Do you think they're okay?" I asked him, before mentally slapping myself in the face. To Lucas, that question would sound absolutely ridiculous, because of the fact that he couldn't sense aura. I could, and I could tell that a lot of people in the dining car were in great fear. But Lucas wouldn't see why I should be worried about them.

Sure enough, the Zoroark turned towards me and asked, "Why wouldn't they be? I would think that this train would be pretty safe, wouldn't you think?" He had a confused frown on his face, and I wished that I could have shared my ability to sense aura with him, or rather allowed him to sense it as well.

"Are you talking about the dining car?" Kieran asked. "If so, I know. I can sense it too".

I had almost forgotten that Kieran also had the ability to sense aura. I was going to have to make sure to ask him about that one of these days, although I would have to make it soon; I didn't know how much longer he had to live. Indeed, I didn't know how long I had to live.

"Should we go down there?" Lucas asked. "I don't know what you're talking about".

I decided to patiently explain it to him, even though I knew that time was likely of the essence. "Kieran and I are sensing a disturbance in the dining car" I said. "You know that our friends are there, so let's go see what it is!"

"Should we just leave Michelle here?" Kieran asked. "She seems to be having a nice nap".

"Sure. Let's" Lucas said. "I just want to deal with this problem, though. I'd rather not wake her up; I bet she barely got any sleep last night, from the jet lag".

We got up, leaving Michelle dozing in her chair. We made our way down the stairs, and, sure enough, we heard the sound of wheels clanging against tracks, in a way that did not sound normal. It was likely that something had to be wrong with the train, or else there wouldn't be anything like this going on.

As we got into the dining car, I was shocked by the sight.

A group of Fire type Pokemon were standing on the other side of the car. A trio of Vulpices, Growlithes, and Torchics appeared ready to set it on fire. The literal fire in their eyes attested to that.

"Lucas London! You are on this train, correct?"

The teenager who had become a Zoroark held up his arms like someone allowing themselves to be arrested by the cops. "Yes. Are you guys Team Rocket?"

"No, Lucas! You can't go back to them!" I yelled. Although I didn't sense the intention in Lucas to give himself over to Team Rocket again, I couldn't overemphasize how much I really didn't want him to. This had resulted in him being experimented on, drained of a significant amount of blood, and hospitalized in a Pokemon center for two days. There was no way I could let him go through that again.

Lucas turned around and smiled wryly. "Who said I'm going to? If anything, you're the one who should stay back!"

I realized what he meant. Fire types were very strong against Steel types, and I could get seriously hurt in this fight. It wasn't a fact that I was a particular fan of, but I knew that this was the way things worked. For this one, I would definitely have to be careful.

I looked at the table that Eric and Garfield had been sitting at. A hamburger had been placed in front of the younger man, but he had yet to take a bite out of it. He was holding it and pointing it away from the Fire types, as if he was going to throw it for them to fetch, in order to make it so that they would be distracted, and we would be able to get away. I was confident that this could work.

From behind the Fire types stepped a young man wearing a black jumpsuit. Sure enough, sown onto the front of said jumpsuit was a red version of the eighteenth letter of the English alphabet. Which meant one thing, and one thing only.

"Team Rocket!" Eric yelled, springing upwards like a clown out of a jack-in-the-box. He pushed myself, Kieran, and Lucas to the side, jumping in front of us. It was clear that he wanted to protect us, but one thing you should know about me is that I am very reluctant to allow others to risk their lives for my sake. Call me noble, call me old-fashioned, I don't care. That's just not the way I like to live, letting others risk themselves on my behalf.

Eric threw out his blue Pokeball, the one that contained Golem. The Rock type appeared out of a beam of light, and immediately began pursuing one of the Vulpices, which responded by using Ember.

I had to jump back in order to avoid getting hit by it. Indeed, it was best that Eric was standing in front of Malcolm, because his pants took most of it. And I saw something that I did not particularly need to.

Eric Owsley, this tough military guy, wore tighty whities. Quite a significant amount of the Calvin Kleins were visible, and I was very shocked by this. Hopefully, he wouldn't notice, because he needed to keep fighting.

I decided not to mention it, and I lobbed an aura sphere into the group, trying to break them apart. For reasons stated above, I couldn't have just charged in there; I had to attack from a distance thanks to my type disadvantage.

Thankfully, it seemed that the only damage that had been done to Eric was to his dignity. To his credit, he threw out his red Pokeball, the one that contained Haunter.

I could tell that he was cursing the fact that he had never thought to purchase a Water type Pokemon.

"Don't use Zubat!" Lucas called to Eric. I knew why he said this; after all, this was the way that the Londons' home had been ruined, the continuous mixture of fire and poison making the place completely unlivable. Admittedly, most of that had been due to the fire rather than the poison, but still.

Lucas bared his fangs in frustration, since he couldn't even do anything. I might have only known the young man for a couple of weeks, but I knew that one thing Lucas London could not live with was not being in control. He always wanted to have some degree of power over the situation at hand, and yet here he was, completely powerless to help Eric.

Suddenly, Michelle ran into the car, making it seven of us against the army of Fire types. She looked as though she had just woken up from a nap, which, of course, was true.

I wondered why nobody had entered with a fire extinguisher; maybe they were too scared to, in which case I didn't understand why they had volunteered to do that job if need be. Wasn't that part of your rights and responsibilities as a passenger or crew member?

"I just woke up and saw that all of you were gone. Let's kick these Fire types' asses!"

Just then, Golem lurched to one side, banging into the wall of the train with a sound that made me cover my ears in order to avoid my eardrums bursting. When I say that, it is no exaggeration. It felt like my ears, as well as my aura sensing organs, were going to explode, probably splattering all sorts of juices all over the train car.

The dining car lurched in one direction, while the train was moving in the other direction. More specifically, we were moved to the right, and I heard one of the most terrible sounds in the world. It was the sound of something detaching.

The dining car had separated from the others.

It was just like something you might see in an old Western movie, made far more terrifying by the fact that it was real. We were about to go careening off the tracks!

This wasn't good news. Looking out the window, I saw that we were about to go off of a bridge. Even if we could survive the fall, which was doubtful, the river below would kill us. The fast-moving whitewater, over a hundred feet below us, was nearly impossible to swim in. I hadn't seen any other members of our group swim, but I knew that I was pretty good at it. Still, I knew enough about falling from such a distance to know that it was nearly impossible to live, that hitting water from such a height would be akin to hitting concrete. Really, there was going to be little difference.

"We need to get the car connected to the others again!" Malcolm wailed. "Otherwise, we're all gonna die!"

"Don't be like that, Malcolm!" Eric scolded the young Zorua. "Think positively".

Indeed, it was hard to think positively when you were about to go flying a hundred and fifty feet off of a bridge. We were already tipping over, and I would rather go out on my own terms than get crushed by a train car. I didn't want to die like this.

"I'll call Crobat!" Kieran yelled. "Then, we'll jump onto him. Are you guys cool with that?"

There was no need for him to ask this question, really. If we didn't try to do this, we would die anyway. I could see the conductor, running towards the door that had formerly led to the dining car, but I knew that his efforts were hopeless. We were still stuck in here with the Fire types, who, for the most part, were panicking about their likely fates as well.

Thirty feet below the edge of the bridge, I saw the sight that I was becoming used to.

"Crobat! You got him!" I cried.

"Might as well jump" Eric said.

Kieran was the first to jump out of the window, like an action hero from a movie. He spread his limbs out like a skydiver and managed to grab onto the end of its body. He managed to pull himself onto Crobat's back, steadying things a little more.

"Go ahead and jump!" Garfield yelled. "I'll die valiantly, in battle against these things".

"No!" Lucas cried. "You're coming with us!"

Taking the large man's hand, Lucas pushed Garfield out, who, I saw, barely managed to get a spot on Crobat's back. The Zoroark then jumped out himself, followed by Malcolm, who, I noticed, was clinging to Lucas's ponytail.

That was actually pretty cute. Unfortunately, three of us still needed to get out of the train car.

We tipped over further, to the point that the windows were nearly touching the tracks. I knew that everyone else was safe, but the Fire types were making it pretty uncomfortable to be in this heat. We had to jump out.

"You go first! I'm going to make sure you and Michelle land safely before I jump" Eric said.

I looked back at the older man, allowing my face to look a combination of angry and worried. I could sense that he had only the best intentions in doing so, but it was hard for me to comply with his recommendation. For one, I was kind of afraid of heights. And, in a situation like this, "kind of" afraid could mean afraid enough to risk dying in a falling train car filled with Fire types.

Michelle stepped to the window and leaped out, grabbing the side of the thing's wing. At that point, I decided to do the only sensible thing that there was.

I jumped.

LUCAS'S POV

It had been quite something, let me tell you that much. I had never thought that I would end up jumping out of the window of a train car, but that was what I was forced to do.

There was the sensation of falling, the wind whipping all around my fur and ponytail, and I was spreading my limbs like a skydiver. If I was going to die now, at least it was going to be in one of the most badass ways imaginable, even if I was not going to get mauled by a bear.

Eventually, all seven of us had gotten onto Crobat. It was a lot more difficult to fasten the harnesses when you were already in the air, but we managed to do them. Then, we could just enjoy the ride.

"I hope the other people in the train are fine" Michelle said. She looked at me with a very worried expression on her face.

Eric looked back at both of us severely and began barking out at us. "You do realize that we're the most valuable people right now? I'm not glad they might die by any means, but we have to do what we can to shut down this factory!"

"But if-" I began.

"Don't feel bad about it, Lucas London! The way it was going, there was no way in hell that we were going to be able to do anything about it. The train car was already tipping over! Now, we've just got to deal with it, get down to Seward!"

"How long until we reach Seward?" Malcolm asked, sounding anxious to get there.

"A couple of hours?" Kieran said. "Hard to tell. All I know is, we just barely got out of there alive. You should really be grateful for this guy".

As he said that last sentence, the dying man was patting Crobat on the back of the head. I had never seen Kieran show such affection towards one of his Pokemon. I didn't know, either, why the Pokemon he summoned had such loyalty to him, either. That was a question I was going to need to ask him sometime.

Sometime soon, because Kieran did not have a very long time to live. Whether it was a few weeks or a few months, the fact remained that Kieran Mortimer would soon be dead. The question was, would it be during our quest? How much longer would it take?

For the most part, I trusted Kieran a lot more than I had at the start of this quest, partly because he had been so open with us about his secret. He could have killed us, but I had figured that, if he was planning on it, he would have done so already. Certainly it would be harder now that we had Eric and Garfield with us, both people with quite militaristic personalities. Surely they would be able to protect us against anything Kieran might try.

I decided not to think about those things, or at least try not to. Instead, I tried to focus on the scenery below us. It really was quite something.

Trees, trees as far as the eye could see. There were quite a few mountains nearby, capped with snow all year round. Below us, some leaves were turning, but the vast majority of the trees were evergreens. I wondered what kinds of Pokemon lived in the forests down there. Perhaps some Deerling and Xerneas, but I didn't know.

Hopefully, we weren't going to have to fight any wild ones. If so, I wasn't sure how well that was going to turn out. I'm not the best fighter, and that had never been more clear than when we were on the train just now.

Even though Eric had reassured me that it wasn't my fault, I wasn't completely confident that this was the case. After all, we could have stopped them from being able to detach the dining car from the others. I was pretty sure that the other passengers on the Alaskan Railroad were going to be pretty pissed that they wouldn't be able to eat lunch or dinner on their way south to Anchorage.

In the distance, I saw what I thought was Denali, the highest mountain in North America. It was just like pictures I had seen of it, except that it looked even bigger in real life. And, looking down at the vast wilderness, it occurred to me how small all of us were.

Don't get me wrong. Eric and Garfield were both pretty big guys, and I'm pretty large as a Zoroark. Still, it was nothing as compared to the vast state that lay below us. It was also pretty chilly in the air, but my fur insulated me from the worst of it. The humans among us had worn clothing from the Pokemon center, but all of our bags were left in the gold star section of the train, for we had foolishly thought that we would be going back to it, an assumption that we had been very, very wrong about.

All I was left to think about was the quest. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced of it.

I was a pretty despicable human being, or Zoroark, former human. (Maybe I'd become human again if we completed this quest, but I wasn't counting on it. Possibly the articles of clothing that Team Jewel had created, in order to commit what might be considered terrorism on the innocent citizens of the world, would make their curses permanent. And, the more I considered it, the more unlikely it seemed, since I highly doubted that people would come back from the dead, if people truly had died from the curses brought upon by the clothing).

But my friends had risked so much to save me from the clutches of Team Rocket, and so I felt more than a small degree of loyalty to them. At this point, I was practically willing to follow them to the ends of the earth, if they had literally followed me into that dank dungeon. You could, I supposed, consider that to be the end of the earth.

And, in exchange, when I had had the chance to do more in order to save the people on the train, I had not been able to do it. At least, not to the extent that I should have tried. Should I have been more aggressive, used more attacks?

The problem was that, when a Zoroark used its illusions to take the form of another Pokemon, it didn't copy all of its abilities. I would not have been able to use the water cannons had I turned into a Blastoise, for instance. Based on that, one could make a very convincing case that I had done all I could.

Even all I could have done was not enough. That was a humbling thought, and deeply disturbing. I felt like a grade-A jerk, but I couldn't dwell on it.

We flew south for several hours, and I was starting to wonder just how big this state was. I had read somewhere that the distance from Miami to Los Angeles was approximately the same distance from the southeastern corner of the state to the southwestern. If so, I wondered what the distance was from Denali to Seward.

At a certain point, however, we saw a large city below us. Garfield woke up from a nap (I swear, I had thought that the dude never slept during the day) in order to say, "That's Anchorage!"

Indeed, it probably was. According to a map we'd seen on the train, we were getting close, but we weren't quite there yet. It would probably be another forty-five minutes to an hour.

I was surprised that Garfield had been able to nap on the back of a Crobat, because of all of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. I felt like I could have run laps around Seward as a warm-up. I was tempted to hold my hands high above my head like someone having a great time on a roller coaster, but I wondered if the others wouldn't like that. Certainly, I didn't want to hit them on accident and sweep them off of Crobat's back.

Eventually, the ocean came within sight. The midafternoon sun was casting sparkles of light all over Resurrection Bay, as well as the town below us.

Seward was essentially a small town in the shadow of a small mountain covered in pine trees. An esplanade ran for several miles along the ocean, with hotels, restaurants, and mobile homes lining it. A rocky beach was on the other side of the esplanade, framed against the ocean, which did not look like a color you would have expected for a place this far north.

Most people would picture it as a dark, navy blue color. Instead, it was a far lighter color, more like you would imagine a tropical body of water to be like. I noticed the other members of my group letting out gasps at the sheer beauty of it.

Crobat then circled towards the ground, spreading its wings, before dropping us next to the aquarium. I stood up, only now realizing just how stiff my legs were.

Now, standing on terra firma again, the guilt hit me full-force. Nobody else looked too happy, either, even though we were closer to achieving the goal of our quest than we had ever been.

"It's okay" Samuel said, patting me on the back. "Things are going to be all right. Let's see what's going on in the aquarium. Can we find out more about this town?"

"Good idea" Eric replied. "Let's go check inside, see if anyone is going to be able to tell us of any good hotels".

With that, we stepped inside the building. It was about four in the afternoon, and many schoolchildren had already gone home for the day, or were just hanging out at the aquarium. The young woman at the front desk looked fairly surprised to see us, which wasn't surprising.

After all, Seward was a small town. I would be shocked if she regularly saw groups of people looking similar to us, particularly since some of us were Pokemon.

"Where is a good hotel we can stay at?" Garfield asked the woman.

The woman behind the desk started typing something into her computer, constantly looking back up at us. Eventually, she said, "The Lucario Lounge, Seward is the best place for you guys. It's about a mile down the esplanade".

"Man, Lucario Lounges are everywhere" Kieran said. "I guess it's a pretty big chain, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is" the woman behind the desk said. "Just walk along the avenue, and you can't miss it. At least, not if you're looking for it".

Eric and Kieran thanked her before leading the way out of the aquarium. Looking down the path, I saw that the esplanade was a much longer path than it had looked from the air. Indeed, it might feel even longer when you had just spent four hours on the back of a Crobat and were feeling quite stiff as a result.

"Let's go to the Lucario Lounge" Michelle said.

We began walking down the esplanade, dodging people's Meowths, Growlithes, and Vulpices. For such a small town, it did seem quite busy at this time of day.

"The plan for tomorrow?" Malcolm asked.

"Excuse me?" Eric said. "What do you mean by the plan for tomorrow?"

"Well, what are we doing tomorrow? Looking for Team Jewel?"

"Yes" Eric replied. "We're getting a boat, and then Lucas is going to use the remote to search for it. Do you still have the remote?"

"I do" I said. Somehow, the remote had stayed in my backpack the whole time. Of course, that was because I had not taken it out.

At the same time, however, I was reminded of the purple flower's antics at the Pokemon center, how it had gone from in a cell with me to the table beside my hospital bed. I assumed that the remote would have the same properties, but I couldn't be sure. I couldn't be sure of anything anymore.

MICHELLE'S POV

After a nice dinner at the hotel, we all went to bed, and I woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than before. Slowly, I was overcoming the jet lag that had plagued all of us ever since arriving in Alaska.

As I ate a muffin from the breakfast buffet, I stared across Resurrection Bay, looking at the wide, light blue expanses. I knew that we were going to have to use the remote Lucas had been given by the Flower Queen, in order to figure out where we were going to have to go. There was no real way to know where it was; I couldn't very well picture the exact hexadecimal color that the field was.

"Where are we going to rent the boat?" Samuel asked Eric between bites of his apple turnover.

"There's a place about half a mile down the other side of the esplanade" the oldest member of our group said. "It's fairly cheap and easy to get a small luxury motorboat, and just take that across the bay. Maybe some in Kenai Fjords National Park, too".

"We'll have to have a lot of gas in that tank" Kieran replied.

"How'd you know that?" Garfield asked the gaunt man. "Have you ever been in a motorboat before?"

"No" he said. "My family could never afford it. All of you rich folks are lucky".

"For the record, I don't have any huge secrets as to why I'm rich" Eric said, holding up his hands.

"What do you mean?" Kieran asked.

"I just inherited the money" he said. "My parents were pretty rich, and they're both gone now. But that's a story for another day".

I didn't really like the way Eric just tossed the memories of his deceased parents aside. Then again, I supposed that I was doing very much the same thing now. The only difference was, I had managed to do the mental gymnastics to completely make myself sure that I didn't really care. I barely remembered that my mother had died.

I'm sorry, but give me a break. It can really distract you from grief when you get sent on a quest to collect magical flowers, your elder brother is kidnapped by Team Rocket and nearly killed, and you escape from a falling and burning train car in Alaska. That's just not something that happens very often.

I supposed that I felt pretty bad about that. It wasn't something that had been my fault; rather, it had been because of Kieran calling his Poison army to defend against the Fire army.

Of course, I now knew, or at least had a pretty good idea, why Kieran was so attracted to Poison types. He was slowly dying, as if there was poison in his system, so it made sense. What I didn't know was where the Fire army had come from.

I did have my suspicions. Perhaps this evil organization the Flower Queen had told us about, Team Jewel, was responsible. That was a theory I could get behind.

After our breakfast was over, we checked out of the hotel and began walking along the avenue towards the boat rental place. It was slightly chilly this early in the day, but nothing I couldn't handle. After all, I was used to New England winters, so this should be no problem for me. At least, that was what I had been figuring.

We arrived at the boat rental place, where Eric and Kieran picked out a Boston Whaler. As it was lowered into the water, Lucas appeared to be trying to increase his focus. He took out his remote that had been given to him by the Flower Queen.

"What did the Flower Queen say about using that for navigation?" I asked him. "By which I mean, how will I know when we are getting close?"

My brother said, "I think she said it would beep, getting faster and faster the closer we got to our destination, or maybe it would heat up. Now that I think about it, it was almost certainly the latter".

"We'll need heat on this boat" Samuel said, laughing.

Even on the shore, it was easy to tell that it was quite windy. The Lucario's aura sensing organs were waving in the breeze, but it would likely be far worse at sea.

Still, I felt ready for that. I knew that this was a necessary evil, in order to go along with the quest. I could deal with a little cold weather.

"Let's do this" Lucas said, pumping his fist.

It is entirely possible that this, not the longest chapter in the story, might be my last chapter as a 16-year-old. I might no longer be this age by the time the next one comes out.

I was going to make the search for the factory more of this chapter, but I decided against it. I'm figuring that it'll be better as the start of the next one. Not many people are reviewing, but I guess people are busy with finals and such.

In any case, read, review, and wait for the next chapter! There are still a few more to go.