All right! This is a very short chapter, third shortest, but I'm going to make it worth it. There's only one more after this, and it's quite emotional.

In other news, I am now seventeen years old. Today is my birthday. I can now use magic, if there was such a thing. We've sailed over the 100-review mark as well, which is a pretty awesome birthday present. And, since it's been hot, I actually went swimming for the first time this season. I become practically like an animal in the water, although I'm not a junior lifeguard.

I hope you enjoy this chapter, which pushes me over the line for 100,000 words in a fanfiction. This puts me and this story in an elite group, that is of the Pokemon fanfictions with six digits in their word count. My favorite Pokemon fanfiction over 100K is The Return Of The Cursed Gift by Talkingbirdguy, clocking in at 159,101 words. That's not an insubstantial amount.

I am among the greats now. But we've got to finish this story, so we can get from a tenth of a million to a ninth of a million.

MICHELLE'S POV

Where my brother had left off, Kieran had been on the edge of death in the throne room, or at least that's the impression he gave you.

Never mind that. Let's focus on what was going on at the same time as his group had been going down that hallway, its two teenagers having transformed back into human beings.

Malcolm, Garfield, and myself were running down the hallway, trying to figure out how to get to the center of the factory. I was figuring that this would be where we would find the button, or whatever it would be, that would shut down the factory for good.

Not for the first time, I felt that the groups we had been split up into were not fair. Three strong guys, albeit with one who was weak and dying, were all in the same group, which might not have been the wisest choice for Eric to assign into a group together.

As we rounded a corner, everything was chaos.

Several grunts wearing a Team Jewel uniform had been lying in wait for us. For the most part, these were tall, burly young men wearing what looked like a black version of temple garments, except that these had an emerald green J etched onto them, in a way that reminded me of Team Rocket.

I didn't know what to do. We were definitely the weaker of the two groups. I mean, what did we really have? Myself, a hyperactive ten-year-old Zorua, and Garfield O'Shannon, who, admittedly, was a pretty strong guy. However, he had no Pokemon with him. He was all by himself, helping the two of us.

Then, something happened that made me feel a lot more confident in the way things were going.

Malcolm, as if shot out of a cannon, began sprinting over to the grunts, using physical attacks on them. I'd never known him to have such strength, and he really was being pretty impressive with the way he was using it.

Biting onto one of the grunt's legs, he spun the grunt around and around in circles, much like Mario does to Bowser. When the grunt had suffered so many swirls that he lost consciousness, Malcolm threw him out of the way.

Doing this to the other guards definitely helped us get through the group of them. As soon as that had been done, Malcolm stumbled, looking as though he was about to collapse from exhaustion. And I wasn't the strongest person, so I didn't like the idea of having to carry him to our goal.

Then, all of a sudden, Malcolm glowed with a dark red light. He seemed to stop in his tracks, but then I gasped at what was happening.

He seemed to be growing...bigger. And there were many changes coming onto his now-larger body.

Malcolm was evolving.

I had never witnessed an evolution happen in real life. I'd seen Pokemon come to school one day as a Vulpix and be a Ninetails the next, for instance. However, I'd never seen the actual act of transforming from a pre-evolved form to another. Really, it was quite something.

Malcolm grew in size until he was roughly five feet tall, growing the large crimson ponytail that was common to all Zoroarks. His fangs became longer, and I saw a grin on his face. This was the moment he'd been waiting for!

His claws grew longer and sharper as well, and Malcolm Greenlake looked far more intimidating. Soon, it was clear that he was now a Zoroark, a big step for a Zorua on its way to becoming an adult.

"Nice!" he said, pushing his claws towards each other. "I feel great! Malcolm the Zoroark!"

Malcolm went bounding down the hallway, and Garfield and I had a difficult time in keeping up with him. For the most part, we were just trying to keep him within our sights. Although it wasn't difficult to find the way we were supposed to go, since the hallway only went in one direction, the guy was fast.

Even though Malcolm was now a Zoroark, he seemed to be no less rambunctious than he had been before. He seemed pretty enthusiastic about where this quest was going, and I only wished that I could have shared his excitement. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

For one, I didn't know what we would face once we reached the center of the factory. If it was as simple as just shutting the place down, I felt pretty good about that. However, if we were actually going to be having a boss fight or something like that, I was pretty nervous.

"Do you think Lucas and Samuel are going to turn back human?" I asked Garfield.

"Honestly, Michelle, I don't know" the Irishman said. "It's very much possible that they will, or they might not. Really, there's no way to tell, you know? Hopefully, once this Quest is over, things will somewhat return to normal".

He wouldn't say whether or not that meant that the two boys would become humans again, but I got a feeling that he did. I just wanted to believe that he was right, even though it was difficult to. I'd only known him for a week or so, and I already trusted him quite a bit. After all, he'd helped us save my brother, a deed for which I was eternally grateful.

After three minutes of running, we saw a square of light up ahead. Was this a new room, or just a mirage?

Yes, I was sick of all of these boring, dark hallways. I wanted to see something different after so long, and I was greatly enthused by the sight of something that wasn't more stone.

As soon as we entered the room at the end of the corridor, I saw that it was a throne room of some description, or at least appeared to be. The throne was teal in color with a golden yellow trim, while the carpet was crimson with the same gamboge borders. It looked like a room fit for a king.

And my brother was there. Fully human. He was wearing black gym pants and a Ghostbusters T-shirt. His usual unruly light brown hair was present, and he had shrunk to his normal size. Not only that, but he was standing next to a boy who looked about his age.

Was that...the human version of Samuel Cranmore? Man, he was handsome, even if he did look like Harry Potter without the scar on his forehead. For whatever reason, I really liked this look.

"Hey, guys. I see you turned back human!" I said to my brother.

"Yeah" Lucas replied. "Kieran's not doing too well, though. The instant we got in here, he just collapsed. I'm worried about him".

I looked over at the man my brother was talking about. Kieran Mortimer, whom we had all known was slowly dying, was kneeling on the ground, as if praying, desperately trying to catch his breath. Every exhale sounded like a dragon with a sore throat.

"Are you okay, Kieran?" Malcolm asked him.

Eric chuckled, although he had been keeping an eye on Kieran at all times. "I see that our little friend evolved. That said, he doesn't know not to bother Kieran".

"What do you mean?" Lucas asked.

"I'm...dying" Kieran rasped, sounding worse with every syllable. I could tell that he was trying to get back into a standing position, in order to die with more dignity, but I got the feeling that he wasn't going to be able to.

Kieran Mortimer was dying right before our eyes.

LUCAS'S POV

Even though all seven of us had been reunited, and my sister looked no worse for wear, and we were humans again, and Malcolm had evolved, I wasn't exactly walking on sunshine. Indeed, things looked pretty bleak for one member of our group.

Kieran was breathing heavily, clutching his chest as though he was having a heart attack. Which, quite possibly, he was. Of course, I couldn't be sure of this, but he certainly didn't look like he was having an easy time staying conscious.

"Thanks...guys" he gasped.

Garfield patted him on the back. "Don't focus too much on talking, Kieran. Just focus on breathing. You're going to be fine".

"No, I'm not" Kieran replied, sounding reinvigorated by the falsehood that Garfield had just said. "You know as well as everybody that I have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and my life expectancy is short. Plus, my doctor told me that my death would feel something just like this".

"Really?" I asked. "You don't even get to die in your sleep?"

Samuel shot me a look that said that he wasn't impressed with that. This was something I supposed I understood. Such a joke had been in bad taste, particularly with what was happening with Kieran.

"It's okay, Lucas. I'm at peace with this. I've known for years that I was going to die young. I had just...wanted to create a little chaos on my way out. But I realized…".

Kieran sank into a coughing fit, and I could barely make out his next words after he emerged a good fifteen seconds later.

"...that it was more important to do something good with the time I had left. I swear to Arceus, I wasn't deceiving you guys at all. I was being genuine".

"That's good to hear, Kieran" Eric said. "I didn't know why you were attacking us, honestly, that day back in Quebec".

The young man coughed again. "Simple. Create a little chaos...that was it. I was able to sense your position on that hill thanks to my aura sensing abilities. It's...possible...that this was a gift Arceus gave me in exchange for my disease. Can't say it was worth it" he said, half chuckling, half hacking.

"Your life was worth it, Kieran" Garfield said, patting the gaunt man on the back. "Without you, I highly doubt we would have been able to complete this quest".

"You still need to shut down the factory" Kieran said, barely louder than a whisper. I had hearing that was better than it had been during my childhood, but not as well as it had been during my time as a Zoroark.

"How can we do that?" Samuel asked. The more I looked at him, the more nerdy he looked, and I wondered if he was as much of a social outcast as I had been at school. One thing was clear: Once I got back to school, I would be far less of a social outcast. Indeed, I'd be anything but one, with people clamoring to speak to me about my adventures. I would have to decide how forthcoming I would be willing to be about that.

"There's a large red button somewhere in this throne room" the dying man rasped. "If you press it, you will shut down this factory once and for all. Things are going to be good. I'm sad that I won't...be there...to see it with you".

I couldn't help it. I felt a tear making its way down my face, and I started holding Kieran's hand. It was already starting to cool down.

"Go, Lucas London. I'm sorry...I caused...such trouble…".

After that, his hand went limp in mine, and he collapsed even further. There was no sign of life left in his eyes.

With that, Kieran had died. There was no way around that fact. Although he hadn't sacrificed himself to save us, or to help complete our quest, I knew that this had to have all been worth it, somehow. He had done so much to help us with everything that I somehow had a hard time believing he was dead.

But still, the fact remained. There was no way around it; one of the members of our group had perished of an illness that none of us had done anything to be able to prevent. And yet, our quest was going to be so easy to complete. All we had to do was have someone press the big red button and shut down this factory. After that, there would be no more humans turning into Pokemon, no more humans dying after putting on luxurious clothing…

"I'll do it" Malcolm said. The Zoroark had clearly been affected by Kieran's death, but perhaps not quite as much as I had been. To his credit, he wasn't crying; he was still focused on the task at hand.

Malcolm ran over to the red button on the wall next to the throne and jammed his claw into it.

ERIC'S POV

As soon as Malcolm had pressed the button, the throne room started shaking like a plane with a very high level of turbulence. Not a place that you would want to spend a lot of time in, that was for sure.

As disappointing as it might have been that Kieran's body was about to get crushed by the immense weight of stone that was about to come crashing down on us, we had no option but to let that happen.

Lucas and the others, who had been crowding around Kieran's corpse, ran over to me. Using Mesprit, I was able to teleport us out of the factory and back to the beach.

We had done it. I could have kissed the ground once we were out of there. Our quest had been successful, after all. There seemed to be little else to worry about.

"Let's take the boat back" Samuel said, sounding despondent. "Find a way back to the mainland, then to Ted Stevens Airport. How far can your Mesprit teleport? Can we go all the way back to New England?"

I thought about it for a second, looking at the forested mountains along the shore, the light waters of Resurrection Bay, the town of Seward far away. "Not that far" I replied. "We might have to fly".

A VERY short chapter, but the next one will likely be the longest in the entire story. It'll need to be 9.5K words or so in order to get me over the line of 110,000 that I'm shooting for. Even so, I'm in that smaller category now of 100+K stories now, so that's pretty awesome.

With that, Seventeen-year-old SnowLucario is out.