Thread: The Surprising Adventures of a Glaceon in Unova (Finished!)

Chapter Nine: Predator

“Wake up, Boreas!” a voice spoke, awakening Boreas from a dreamless sleep. “Team Plasma has taken a Pidove, if we leave now we may be able to trail them.”

Boreas opened his eyes and saw Black looking both sleepy and agitated at the same time trying to awaken him. Boreas got up and followed Black outside, where it was still completely dark, though the sky had a slight shade of dark blue instead of black. Octa gave him a cold stare and for a moment Boreas couldn't quite remember what his problem was and why he felt like he should return the Snivy's stare. Then he remembered and his heart pounded with anger.

No. he thought, trying to keep his anger under control, He's giving me that calm, icy anger. I'll show him I can do that too.

He managed to keep a poker face, hiding his anger and returning Octa's haughty stare without a word. Yet aside from the anger, he also felt some regret. He couldn't help thinking that Octa was at least partially right and that he was being irrational and should just apologise to his friend.

He's not my friend! Boreas angrily thought, and even if he were right, I'm not apologising to him after he insulted me and my family. He's the one who should be apologising.

I was rather stubborn and stupid, though. And maybe we really should focus on Team Plasma, rather than some predator.

No way! Team Plasma only kidnaps pokémon, while the predator actually kills them, like they did to Mum and Dad! I can't let them get away with it!

Following Black, they had reached one of the stables, where Bianca, who looked like she was sleeping standing upright, and her pokémon seemed to be investigating. “Bianca,” Black asked, “have you found a trail yet?”

“Buh!” Bianca startled, “Oh, it's you. No, we haven't. Just the place where it happened.”

The spot was littered with grey feathers and bloodstains. “Perhaps Boreas can smell Plasma's trail.” Black said.

“I wouldn't count on it.” Octa spoke with an icy edge to his voice.

Boreas furiously turned to him to tell him to shut up, but caught himself, remembering to stay as calm as Octa was. Octa gave him an infuriatingly arrogant grin, but he managed to stay calm and just started smelling around, trying to pick up a scent. Apart from the Pidove, he could smell a faint whiff that smelt a bit like burning.

“To prevent us from chasing after something blindly,” Octa spoke to Oshy, “like some simple impulsive fool who doesn't have his emotions under control, let us ask the other pokémon here if they saw something.”

While Boreas tried to ignore Octa and find the scent of their enemy and Black and Bianca tried to find other clues with their flashlights and Munny's Flash, the other pokémon interrogated the other pokémon in the stable. It soon turned out only one of them, a Torchic, had seen anything as she had awakened a moment before the Pidove had been killed. “Oh, it was horrible! It was completely dark, but then a blinking set of monstrous teeth flashed, and bit right through his throat! And before I could even cry out in shock, both had disappeared into the darkness!”

“It must've been Giratina!” a Linoone cried.

“It's come to take us all to the Distortion World!”

“Oh, Arceus help us!”

“We're going to die! Or worse!”

“Calm down, gentlemen.” Octa said, “Those who can't control their emotions in favour of logic are, after all, a danger to themselves and others. To assume that Giratina itself appeared here to eat a simple Pidove when a much more mundane predator might have done the same is, quite frankly, almost as silly as someone pursuing vengeance against a person who has never even wronged them, for something that another did.”

“Oshy,” Boreas said, grappling with keeping a calm appearance like someone grapples with a lost piece of soap in the bath, “would you please tell our local narcissistic windbag to shut his self-absorbed mouth and stop distracting me while I'm trying to bring justice to someone who clearly deserves it.”

“Yes Oshy,” Octa said, “and while you're at it, could you tell a certain unrefined simpleton to do something productive instead of attempting to avenge his poorly-bred family by killing someone who wasn't even remotely responsible for their deaths?”

Boreas wanted to respond, but Puppy interrupted him. “Look, would you two like to be left alone for a while so you can talk this out?”

“No.” both firmly said.

“At least you agree on that,” Puppy sighed. “Stop drawing Oshy and me into your quarrel.”

Continuing to search for a trail, Boreas finally caught a faint whiff of the familiar odour that hang around in the stable too. He called the humans, and they followed him as he followed the faint trail across the clearing. Black stopped when he noticed Octa wasn't following. “Octa, don't be afraid! Come on!”

“Afraid?” Octa sniffed haughtily, “I'm not afraid, you just shan't find Plasma following him.”

“Yes,” Black said as he picked Octa up and put him on his shoulder, “you're right. It'll be dangerous, but we have to go on. We won't let them get away with what they've done.”

“That's not what- Hmpf, fine.”

The trail quickly led into the forest. Occasionally a feather would lie on the ground, clearly showing they were still on the right track. As they followed the trail through the forest, the sky slowly turned dark blue and then orange. Finally, in a tiny clearing, they saw the dark shape of a Houndour eating from a dead Pidove.

“A Houndour?” Black whispered in surprise, “Then this wasn't the work of Plasma? That was a waste of- Boreas, come back!”

A crimson wave of burning rage flooded Boreas' mind, he hated the Houndour with a burning passion like a supernova and the only thing he wanted to do was to hurt the Houndour, rip its throat out, and kill it to avenge all that he'd lost. He ran out from the cover of the foliage at the eating Houndour, who only heard him coming at the last moment and let off a surprised “What-” before Boreas Tackled into its side, knocking him away from the prey and down to the ground. Before the Houndour could react, Boreas jumped onto it, trying to dig his short claws into its flesh and bite its neck to deliver the killing blow.

A moment before Boreas' jaws would have closed around the Houndour's throat it managed to stop him with its paws. No matter how hard Boreas struggled in his insane rage, the Houndour was about twice as big and heavy as Boreas, so it managed to keep him away from its throat and throw him off in the ensuing struggle.

“What the hell did I ever do to you?” The Houndour roared, “Or do you just have a death wish?”

Boreas didn't say anything, but just tried to kill the Houndour again in blind fury, but this time it easily saw him coming and bit Boreas' leg painfully hard in defence.

“Octa, Wrap both of them!”

Octa's vines wrapped themselves around Boreas and the Houndour, separating them forcibly. Boreas struggled against the vines, clawed against them, in a desperate attempt to reach the Houndour, but he couldn't win. Aware that he would never get to avenge his family, and that even if he did, it wouldn't really matter as it wouldn't bring them back, all his raging fury turned into sorrow, and he started crying. He was vaguely aware that Black threw a pokéball, trying to catch the Houndour, but he just didn't care any more.

–

It was late in the morning by the time they returned to the daycare, Boreas still crying in Black's arms. Black put him on the ground next to Octa, and said “I guess it's time to really introduce you to each other, since you've only met in battle.” He released the Houndour from its pokéball.

“Octa, Boreas, this is Lucius. Lucius, these are Octa and Boreas.”

Octa extended his hand. “A good morning to you, sir. My name is actually Octavianus, but I find that too sesquipedalian for regular usage.”

Lucius just stared at him incredulously. “What?”

“I said my name is actually-”

“Yeah, and don't you wish you hadn't? Anyway, what's the matter with that that other guy? First he tries to kill me outta the blue, and now he's snivelling.”

“My parents were killed!” Boreas wailed.

“Life is unfair, kid.” Lucius said without even a grain of the sympathy Boreas felt he deserved. “Kill yourself or get over it, but don't be whiny. Now I'm gonna find some food, so see you later.”

How can he not feel sorry for me? Boreas thought.

But perhaps he's right. Remember what Octa said about everyone needing to eat? The Zangeese and Lucius all needed to eat too. If the world's really so unfair, what use is whining about it? Maybe I really should try to get over it. I have been acting a bit whiny lately.

No! He's a murderer! And my family are all dead!

I didn't try to kill him because he preyed on the pokémon here at the daycare, though. If I'm very honest, I did really go after him out of a misplaced sense of revenge.

No! That's not true, it's because he's evil like the Zangeese!

Boreas took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and tried to be calm and reasonable. Maybe Lucius and Octa are right. It's been a month since the Zangeese attacked. I shall miss my family forever, but it's time to move on. At that moment, he wished he and Octa were still friends, so he could talk to him about it.

Octa insulted me and my family. He may have been right about some things he said, but he's still an arrogant jerk who doesn't deserve to be my friend.

Maybe I should forgive Octa and ask his foregiveness in return.

But the anger that he'd just managed to get under control slipped from his grip and refused. I'm not going to crawl back to Octa with my tail between my legs, asking for his forgiveness. Let him forgive me first. And besides, I have more important things to do first. We still haven't stopped Team Plasma from stealing more pokémon.

Chapter Ten: In Pursuit of Plasma

Boreas awoke in the middle of the night by sounds of commotion outside. He had half a mind of just going back to sleep and ignoring it, but figured that if Team Plasma was stealing pokémon, they had to be stopped. He stretched and ran outside, where he was disappointed not to see Team Plasma, just a single human in dark clothes being taken to the main daycare house, struggling against his captors. The old daycare lady opened the door. “What did you have to wake me for?” she snarled.

“We caught this guy sneaking around!”

“Ah,” the old lady said, “come to steal our pokémon, haven't you?”

“No, I haven't! Let me go!” Boreas thought he recognised the voice, and when he came closer he did indeed.

“Oh yeah?” the old lady asked, “Then what were you doing sneaking around in the forest in the middle of the night?”

“I was looking for nocturnal pokémon!” Cheren said in self-defence. Boreas realised he had better go get Black or Bianca, so he ran inside to their room, opening the door by jumping up to the handle and hanging on to it.

“Wake up!” he barked, entering the room, “Cheren is here, and they think he's a pokémon thief!”

“Zzzhuh?” Black mumbled, “I know, be quiet and let me sleep.”

“No, you don't understand, Cheren is in trouble!”

“Okay, okay. If you had a nightmare, just sleep under my bed if that makes you feel safer, but let me sleep.”

“I think Boreas is trying to tell you something.” Bianca yawned.

“Yes, that's right! You. Follow. Me.” He said, doing his best to portray each word.

“Are you hungry?” Black asked.

“Oh, in the name of Dialga's diapers! Follow. Me.”

“I think he wants us to follow him.” Bianca said, prompting a sigh of relief from Boreas. As the two humans got up, Boreas led the way outside, where Cheren was still trying to prove his innocence. His face lit up when he saw Black and Bianca. “Bianca, Black! Good to see you, could you please tell these...” he swallowed the insult he was going to use after looking around, “...people, that I'm not a pokémon thief?”

“Do you know this... person?” the old lady asked.

“Him?” Black joked, “No, never saw him before.”

“But it's- Oh, no, never seen him before either.” Bianca grinned, “He looks roguish though, you'd better be very careful around him.”

“Ha ha ha.” Cheren gnarled, “Hilarious. Now stop it.”

“Yeah, he's our friend.” Black reassured the daycare lady, “I'm sure he doesn't want to steal the pokémon here.”

Cheren angrily pushed himself out of the circle of trainers. “Hmpf, what kind of thing to do to a traveller was that?”

“I'm sorry.” The old lady apologised, “we've been having a lot of trouble lately. Y'see-”

Suddenly noise and cries for help came from one of the stables. “Team Plasma!” someone gasped.

All present rushed to the stable, where two Plasma grunts were throwing pokéballs at the pokémon inside. “Quiet, stupid pokémon, we're liberating you! If you make this much noise someone'll hear you!”

The other grunt tapped his colleague on the shoulder. “Uh, Marilyn, I think they already have.”

“Palkia's plectrum!”, Marylin cursed as she looked about and saw the large group of angry trainers, “don't try to stop us, it's for their own good!”

“If it really was for their own good,” Black said, “to be separated from humans, why do they need you to forcibly “free” them? Why don't they run away by themselves? And now tell us where your hideout is.”

“I don't think so. PLASMAAAAA!” Thick black smoke filled the air as they both threw a small smoke bomb, making it impossible to see anything. When the smoke cleared after a few minutes of stumbling around in complete darkness, the Plasma grunts were nowhere to be found, though Boreas could still hear them running through the forest.

“Quick, let's go after them!”

“Wait!” Bianca said, “Black and I are still wearing pyjamas, we can't run through the forest like this!”

“Go back quickly to change then,” Cheren offered, “I'll wait for you and my Pidove can keep an eye on the others so we can follow them. As long as you tell me what the hell is going on while we're doing so.”

–

For several hours they followed Cheren's Pidove as she followed the other trainers through the hills. The sky was already lighting up, though it was still as dark as night between the hills, when they saw flashes of light ahead and heard the sounds of combat. When they caught up they saw the other trainers were fighting a gigantic battle against some twenty grunts. Flying pokémon dived into each other in the sky, electric and fire type's attacks lighted the battle up with flashes of light. Water and ice-type attacks refracted the glowing sky and the flashes of light in unusually pretty ways, and three dozen trainers shouted commands at the same time.

“Let's join the battle, with our help Plasma will outnumber us only slightly!” Black said, but was stopped by Cheren.

“Hang on one moment. Instead of just charging in, we should try to sneak past and attack them from the rear so we have a tactical advantage.”

“Hey, that's a smart idea!” Bianca said, “We'll just, like, walk through the woods and they shan't know a thing and we'll completely surprise them!”

“As long as you keep your mouth shut instead of making your usual noise, yes.” Cheren hushed.

“Hey! I don't make noise! You make noise! You keep your mouth shut!”

“Will you be quiet?”

Black stopped the beginning quarrel. “Ladies, why don't you both shut up and follow me?”

They sneaked through the forest past the massive battle, around the daycare workers and around the grunts. When they were behind the grunts, Black said “Okay everyone, when I say yes, we all attack.”

“Black, old chap,” Octa said, “take a look at that cavern over there, it is quite clearly illuminated from the inside. It would not astonish me at all if it were Plasma's hideout.”

“Yeah Octa, you're right. You should focus on the Sandiles, as they are at a type disadvantage to you.”

With a sigh, Octa extended his tentacles, grabbed Black's head by the temples, and forcibly turned him to look at the cave. “Ouch, cut that- hey, look! There's a light in that cave, we should investigate it.”

As they neared the cave, four figures, three in grey and one in red, left it. The man in red was an old man with greying blond hair they recognised from the Dreamyard. “A few of those sukkels have managed to get through!” he said as he saw the trainers from Nuvema, “jij, jij, en jij, deal with them!”

“Right away, Sage Rood! PLASMAAAA!” The three grunts threw their pokéballs and sent out a Patrat each.

Black laughed. “Do you really think three Patrats will stop us, Rood?”

But Rood laughed too. “Of course I don't. This is just to keep you busy while I finish some administrative things I have to do. I, Rood of the Seven Sages, was once a member of the Elite Four in my homeland. I don't need the protection of grunts.” His smile broadened when he saw the startled faces of his opponents. “What, you didn't think this would be easy, did you? I'm going back into the cave now, I have some administrative things to take care of. When you're done with these guys feel free to come after me if you like. But be warned: I rarely lost as an Elite Four, when I battled trainers who had defeated every Gym Leader in the land. A couple of startups like you don't stand a chance. If you're wise, you'll retreat calmly, before my fire-type pokémon burn you to death.” He calmly walked back into the cave.

“Fire.” Octa mumbled, “Why does it have to be fire?”

Boreas was afraid of what would be waiting for them in the cave. They were nowhere near ready to battle an Elite Four, even if it was a three on one battle. He threw some sand into a Patrat's eyes when he had an idea.

“Oshy!” he said, “What happens when a pokéball breaks while the pokémon is inside it?”

Dodging a Tackle, Oshy replied: “The pokémon is automatically released by the pokéball in an instant... I think.”

Disappointed, Boreas continued the battle by Tackling a Patrat. Suddenly another lightbulb started burning, “But what if the releasing mechanism breaks?”

“Then the pokémon is stuck inside, unless the rest of the ball breaks too, in which case it is automatically sent to the PC.”

“Thanks!” Boreas said, and he ran off, jumping over an attacking Patrat and running between one of the grunts' legs. Black called after him to come back, but he ignored him and entered the cave. It was surprisingly small considering it was Team Plasma's hideout. In fact, it was only about ten metres before an underground river filled the rest of the cave. The only thing inside the cave was a big wooden table with a lamp on it. Rood was writing something on it. When he heard Boreas enter, he looked up.

“Oh, hallo daar, Eevee. Wat kom je hier zonder je trainer doen? Wil je door Team Plasma bevrijd worden?”

Boreas ignored the old man's unintelligible babbling, picked up the biggest stone he could hold in his front right paw, and ran at Rood.

“Wat doe je nou?”

Boreas climbed into Rood's leg, finding the six pokéballs on his belt, and before he could react, he smashed the stone sideways into the release button of one of them. A big crack appeared in the release button, sparks flew, and the tiny Camerupt inside erupted in anger, but could do nothing about it as it was now stuck inside.

“Verdomme!” Rood yelled as he jumped to his feet, Boreas hanging on to his belt, “Smerige kleine rat, dat zal je bezuren!”

Boreas smashed the release mechanism of a Charizard's pokéball, and was moving on to the Heatmor next to it when a large hand caught his ruff and forcibly lifted him. He tried to struggle away, but he was held too tightly, so instead he threw the stone he was still holding at Rood's face, giving the man a black eye.

“Au! Daar krijg je spijt van, mormel!” Rood said, with a face as red as his clothes as he made a fist and got ready to punch Boreas. Boreas had gotten very used to humans, so he had forgotten how massively big and strong they were. He struggled panicky against Rood's grasp, trying to escape from the punch that would surely shatter every bone in his body. Suddenly two vines slashed through the air, one of them whipped Rood in the face and made him drop Boreas in pain and shock, while the other grabbed a pokéball from his belt and smashed the release mechanism against the cave wall. Immediately, Rood grabbed his last three pokéballs and threw them. A fiery heat washed over Boreas, as he turned away to run for the exit, where Octa stood. Boreas didn't care about his stupid argument with Octa any more, he at him and pounced him with gratitude. “Thanks. I thought I was going to die!”

Escaping from Boreas' hug, Octa actually gave him a tiny smile. “Don't thank me yet, we shall likely die regardless. Look!”

A massive beam of fire came at them, and both pokémon jumped to the left to dodge it, barely managing to avoid being incinerated, but now they were no longer at the exit and were trapped against the cave wall. Now that the bright ray of flames didn't block his sight any more, Boreas saw the three pokémon that had been released from their pokéballs. The first was a ghostly, floating black chandelier with blazing blue flames that hurt Boreas' eyes to look at, though they weren't bright at all. The second was an oddly-shaped shoulderless red and grey creature with flames shooting out of its massive nose with every breath it took. The third was a gorgeous white fox with gleaming fur and nine elegant tails. Boreas found himself admiring her beauty for a few moments instead of trying to think of a way to avoid dying. What's wrong with me? He angrily thought, finding it hard to look away from her flowing tails.

“Hel, Vuur, Vlam!” Rood commanded his pokémon, “Fire Blast!”

Chapter Eleven: Incendiary Inferno of Crimson Chaos Fire

The Heatmor and the Ninetales breathed in deeply, while the Chandelure's flames burned larger and larger as they prepared to incinerate Octa and Boreas. Though both tried to think of a way out, it seemed there was no escape from their impending doom. All three of their enemies spit a huge ball of flame, and just as Boreas thought his fiery, painful end was nigh, a dark shape jumped into the fiery stream. The fireballs exploded in a massive eruption of intense heat, consuming the dark figure. But when the blast of fire wore off, the figure was still standing, glowing with fiery energy.

“Flash Fire.” Lucius sneered.

“Wat?!” Rood exclaimed.

Black, Bianca, Cheren, and their pokémon stood in the cave opening. “You have an interesting way of “liberating” pokémon, Rood.”

Boreas saw Lucius was about to unleash the fiery energy he had absorbed from the three Fire Blasts back at the enemy. “No! Don't use fire-attacks!”

Lucius stopped only to look at him with contempt. “Don't tell me what to do, pup.”

“Look, if they can do that too, you'll only make them stronger!”

Lucius stopped before spitting fire, though he didn't acknowledge Boreas' correctness.

Still seething with anger, Rood said “You have defeated my grunts, I see, while you sent your pokémon ahead to cheat!”

“Cheat?”

“They smashed three of my pokéballs!”

Black chuckled. “Hey, that was a good idea! Great job, you two!”

“See?” Rood seethed, “This is the sort of thing that made me leave the Elite Four and join Team Plasma. You trainers are all cowards, who don't even respect your own rules! Just because you forced some innocent pokémon to battle for your own filthy glory makes you think you can do anything you wish! What even gives you the right to force a pokémon to battle for you in the first place?”

“Well, what about you? You claim to be liberating pokémon, and yet you use them, and in fact you were about to kill two pokémon just now!”

“Kereltje, Team Plasma only uses pokémon for real, important matters, not for petty personal goals. The liberation of pokémon is for everyone's good, especially the pokémon. If a few minor sacrifices have to be made on the way to a better world, those sacrifices are worth it. I don't expect you to understand. I only expect you to surrender. You know you can't win against me, even though you outnumber me and your cowardly cheating left me at half strength. If you dare oppose me, I will kill you and your pokémon as an example of what happens to those who oppose Team Plasma. Please don't make me do that. The screams when someone is burning to death are rather... Appalling.”

Boreas felt his fur rise in fear, and wanted nothing more than to get away from the three large, fiery pokémon about to burn him to death. “No.” Black said, “Your threats shan't work on us, Rood. We're going to stop you.”

As much as he wanted to get as far away from the three powerful fire-types as he could, Boreas resolved to stay and fight if Black did.

Cheren nodded resolutely. “Yeah. We outnumber you three-to-one, and besides, I'd love to test my strength against a real Elite Four.”

Bianca, however, was silent, and biting her fingernails. Rood smiled a disgustingly friendly smile. “En jij, meisje? Do you have a death wish too or are you smart enough to surrender? I don't want to kill you, and you don't want to die, so why don't you allow both of us not to do those things?”

Bianca's lip started trembling. “Okay.” She whimpered silently.

“Clever girl.”

“No!” Black shouted, “Bianca, don't give up.”

“I-I'm sorry. Please don't fight him, he'll kill you!”

“Bianca, please!” Black begged her, “Don't surrender! He's just trying to frighten us because he's scared of us. If we stand together, he's outnumbered three-to-one, he can't that.”

“I can't fight!” Bianca panicked, “he's an Elite Four, he'll beat us even outnumbered! Please, I don't want you to die, don't fight him!”

“Bianca, please, we need your help!”

“No we don't.” Cheren interrupted snidely, “Why would we need her help?”

“Cheren, shut up.” Black hissed.

“It's true, isn't it? We don't need the help of someone too scared and weak to help her friends when they need her help most.”

“You're not helping...” Black said between clenched teeth.

Bianca looked like she was going to say something, but then burst out in tears and returned her pokémon to their pokéballs.

“You made a wise choice.” Rood said, “Are either of you two going to surrender too, or am I going to burn you alive?”

“I told you, Rood,” Black said, “you can't intimidate us.”

“Fine!” Rood shouted, suddenly furious, “Then you brought it over yourself! Eat flaming death! Hel, Vuur, Vlam, Flamethrower!”

The next moment the entire cave was filled with fiery crimson chaos. As huge beams of fire raged through the cave, Boreas had no time to keep an eye on anyone else's actions, too busy just staying alive in the fiery hell that the cave had suddenly become. He rolled away to dodge flames, ducked under them, and fled from them. Occasionally he would catch a quick glimpse of another pokémon doing the same. He tried to at least dodge to the enemy's direction, so that he might get to attack them at some point. The air in the cave was a wild gyre, as the flames were constantly heating different parts of it. Temperatures in the cave fluctuated insanely and rapidly between a sunny day in a desert and enough heat to ignite flesh and melt bones.

Boreas saw a quick glimpse of Cheren's Pidove performing an aerial assault on the enemy Heatmor before his head was almost burnt off by a ray of fire he barely dodged. It ignited the tip of his left ear instead, but he had no time to extinguish it as he had to push himself to the ground to dodge another Flamethrower trying to incinerate him. Lucius ran past him, ignoring the flames and blood dripping from his jaws before Boreas lost sight of him in the burning fury. He extinguished his burning ear by slapping it with his paw. He yelped in pain as a momentary wave of air that would probably have set him on fire if it lasted longer washed over him.

Boreas realised how incredibly different this battle was from the Gym battle. In the Gym Battle his opponent had only been trying to incapacitate or temporarily injure him, and had kept his fire relatively cool and under control. While here there was no question about the fact that the opponent was trying nothing less than to kill him with huge, incredibly hot flames. Boreas saw a glimpse of Black rolling over the ground, his right leg on fire, before his view was obscured by a blast of flames.

Suddenly a part of the omnipresent veil of fire parted, and Boreas and the gorgeous Ninetales saw each other. She immediately drew a big breath to execute Boreas, who did the only thing he could think of: he tossed a pawful of sand into her eyes. With the sand obscuring her vision, she managed to miss Boreas, who used the opportunity to Tackle her. The Ninetales, however, easily stopped him with a claw, and backhanded him away with a slap of another claw. In a stroke of extraordinary luck, he wasn't directly hit by any fire as he hurtled through the sea of flames. He landed next to a dried-out looking yellow-green snake.

“'Tis pleasant to see you again, my dear fellow.” Octa greeted him calmly, sounding as if they had just happened to run into each other while enjoying a walk in Hyde Park, “It seems we are in a quite troublesome situation.” He cringed with pain from the heat as he sidestepped a Flamethrower.

“Enough with the stiff upper lip already, are you alright?” Boreas said as he heard a horrible screech and saw Cheren's Pidove, ablaze with fierce blue flames, fly over erratically.

“Well, the heat is quite unpleas- Watch out!” he struck Boreas with his vines, hurtling him back a moment before a stream of flames passed between them. “As I said, the heat is quite unpleasant, but the flames themselves are a rather more immediate concern of mine.”

Suddenly a dark shape emerged from the flames as Hel the Chandelure approached, firing bursts of blue flames at them. Octa and Boreas tried to run away, but the ghostly creature created a ring of horrid blue fire around them. Boreas looked up in despair at the Chandelure powering up for an executing Flamethrower, but then he saw something that gave him an idea. “Octa! Hit the stalactites!”

The Chandelure was about to incinerate both of them when Octa stretched his vines around it and hit a stalactite above. The stalactite broke off and came crashing down onto the fire-type, taking it down to the ground. Though it seemed injured, it started to move again when Octa made two more stalactites crash into it. One of the stalactites pierced the ghostly body with its tip, and big pools of a transparent fluid leaked out of the creature and immediately caught fire before Rood returned it to its pokéball.

“There's two more to go!” Cheren's Tepig, running past, called. Suddenly a torrent of fire forced Octa and Boreas to run away in opposite directions. Boreas passed a dark wounded shape on the ground and realised it was Lucius. He was unconscious and his legs looked broken, but seemed to be alive. Boreas tried to make his way to the remaining enemies to see if they could be dispatched in the same manner as the Chandelure when suddenly a beam of fire shot from the left. Boreas tried to dodge it by jumping out of the way, but it was too late.

An abhorrent gust of infernal, flames hit Boreas, much, much warmer than anything he had ever imagined possible. Every single cell in his body screamed in torturous agony, as did Boreas himself. His entire body was in excruciating anguish as the flames enveloped him. Though he had been in the Flamethrower only momentarily, the torture continued as he was on fire. He tried to roll over the ground to extinguish the agonising flames consuming his flesh, but they burned so hard that even if he did manage to extinguish something, it would catch alight almost immediately from a neighbouring body part. With the last bit of his thoughts not concerning itself with writhing in torturous agony, he realised his only hope was to find the underground river, but he couldn't even look out of his eyes to find it, as the fur around them was burning and blinded him with its intense light.

Then there was suddenly relief from the burning heat. He wondered if it was death, and if it was he wouldn't even mind as long as it stopped the pain, but then realised that it was, in fact, water being shot at him, dousing his burning body. He gasped with joy as the pain all over his body lessened to approximately the pain one would feel if his skin had been torn off and cautiously opened his eyes again. It was very hard to see through the dried-out eyes, but he saw a blue, white, and rather stupid-looking shape.

“Oshy!” he gasped, “Thank you so much! Spit water at the enemy now!”

“Already tried that.” Oshy said softly, “They just counter it with Flamethrowers, which are so hot they evaporate my water before it reaches them.” Then he ran off as a long, pained yell sounded.

Gritting his teeth in pain, Boreas managed to get on his feet and dragged himself to the enemy. He saw Munny float over and be blasted away in mid-air by a beam of fire. He dragged himself to the underground river, and unceremoniously fell into it. The water soothed his burns and stopped his fur from smouldering. Rehydrating his dry eyes in the water, he looked at the part of the cave he could see. Though it seemed there were no stalactite above the remaining enemies, Boreas managed to think of a plan. But he would at least need Octa and Oshy's help for it.

He clambered onto the shore and immediately had to duck under a Flamethrower. He found Octa, looking even more dehydrated and with a burnt tail, in the crimson chaos and told him his part of the plan. He found Oshy and as the Oshawott blasted the enemy with water to distract them, Boreas managed to find Cheren's Purrloin, the only other pokémon still in fighting condition, and together they performed their part of the plan: throwing sand into the eyes of the enemies. The sand made it harder for them to properly counter Oshy's Water Guns, though even when they were hit, it seemed to have little effect. But Boreas caught a glimpse of rising water, realising Octa's part of the plan had worked: He had collapsed the stalactites above the river, thus blocking the water's exit. The cave was rapidly flooding, but Vuur and Vlam were too busy trying to counter Oshy's Water Guns and were nearly blinded by all the sand in their eyes. The water washed over their feet, and both fire-types yelped, but when they tried to step out of it, they found more water in all directions.

“Wat nu weer?!” Rood yelled, “Vuur, Vlam, Inferno!”

They stopped trying to hit specific targets with their Flamethrowers, and instead resorted to emitting huge waves of intense fire, emerging to all directions. Though there were holes in the waves of flame that were not that hard to get through, it was hard to do this wave after wave. As they planned, the four remaining pokémon slowly manoeuvred around the two mighty fire-types, so that they stood between them and the rising river.

“Get to dry land!” Rood commanded his pokémon as the water rose rapidly. Blinded by the sand in their eyes, the two assumed this to be the direction their enemies were standing in, and they blindly charged them, firing Flamethrowers in their direction as they did so. Moments after running past them, the two fell into the deep water, releasing massive amounts of steam and smoke.

“Nee!” Rood shouted as he threw two pokéballs. Then he spoke into his Xtranceiver: “Plasma, initiate Operation G.T.F.O.!”

“Surrender, Rood.” Cheren said, walking through the thick smoke that by now filled the cave. “You lost.”

“I don't think so.” Rood said as he threw a smoke bomb and even thicker smoke filled the cave. “You may win today, but it was only through luck and cheating. Don't meddle with Plasma again, as you won't be so lucky next time.”

–

After the thick black smoke finally cleared, Rood, nor any other Plasma member, was to be found. It seemed they had been extremely lucky, as none of the pokémon had died during the battle. Cheren's Pidove had been closest, but she had turned out to have crashed into the river and was floating around on her back, badly burnt but still alive. Now that the excitement of battle was over, Boreas had a chance to examine himself. His fur was badly burnt, completely blackened and dead in some places, while in others it just looked poor and thin. The skin underneath had been somewhat protected from the fire by his fur, and though burnt all over, it only looked very bad in some spots. He did notice an awful smell of burning meat, though, and with horror realised it was his own smell.

As Bianca found her injured pokémon, Black, walking with a slight limp on his burnt leg, thanked her for joining the battle after all, while Cheren didn't speak a word to her and barely acknowledged her existence. Octa's tail had been hit with a direct flame, but the rest of his injuries amounted to dehydration from the heat. Boreas felt he had to talk to him.

“I'm sorry, Octa.” he said.

“Huh?”

“You were right, I shouldn't have gotten so angry and wasted everyone's time. And I shouldn't have insulted you.”

“No, my dear fellow, I should be the one to apologise. I might have been somewhat more considerate of your feelings, after all you've been through quite the experience and 'tis unfair of me to expect you to be entirely rational about it. And I really shouldn't have insulted your family and implied you were not worthy to interact with me.”

And with a quick hug, they forgave each other. Octa sniffed. “Oh my, you really don't smell or look too good, my dear fellow.”

“I don't feel too good either.” Boreas agreed. “Do you think I'll get better? I really wish I won't have to live feeling all this pain and looking like this.”

“Don't worry, humans are very good at treating injuries. With their medicine, I'm sure you shall make a full recovery.”

great story i really enjoyed this keep up the writing

This is epic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, both of you!

Chapter Twelve: Repose
Present

“Whew,” Aqua whistled, “that sounds like quite the battle.”

The fact that Aqua sounded impressed gave Boreas immense satisfaction. “It was.” he said, “I'm lucky to have survived it all, really.”

“You're lucky to be clever enough to think of ways to defeat those pokémon. If you hadn't been there, none of them would've been defeated. Not only that, but there would be three more of them.”

Boreas gleamed with pride after her praise, but tried to be at least a bit modest. “I'm sure someone would have thought of something to do. Octa can be very smart when he's not too busy wasting his intelligence on showing off how intelligent he is, y'know.”

“Perhaps, and they might've dealt with one or two enemies that way. But all six of them? Not much chance.” She moved a bit closer to Boreas, so that their flanks and thighs were touching. “If you were burned, it must've left some scars you could show me...”

“Nah, the humans are really very good at healing wounds. The fire didn't leave any scars, and if it had they would have disappeared when I evolved.” Then, realising what he'd said, he thought: Why'd I say that?! She was so obviously flirting, and I said no?

Seeming slightly disappointed, Aqua said: “Okay. I guess it's for the better that you don't have any scars, innit?”

“Yeah, of course.” Damn humans and your medicine, couldn't you have left me one scar?

“Now that you've told me this, I understand your hate for Team Plasma much better.”

Boreas was glad that she was acknowledging his correctness. “I knew you'd come around after I told you more about them.”

“No, no, you misunderstand me. I meant that I understand why you dislike them so much now: I wouldn't like people who set me on fire and tried to kill me either. That doesn't mean they're wrong, though. I still agree with them. Humans and pokémon don't belong together.”

Boreas couldn't believe it. “What do you mean you agree with them? They stole pokémon from the Daycare, they set me on fire and nearly killed me, they tried to manipulate people's dreams to make them release their pokémon, and they really hurt that Munna when forcing it to make Dream Mist!”

“Okay, first of all, even if they were horrible people, that doesn't mean they're wrong. As for the things you named, I don't see why the stealing of pokémon from the Daycare was such a bad thing, as they were liberating those pokémon. While trying to kill you and the others was rather cruel, you have to remember that you were attacking their local headquarters and they were defending. And you angered him. While I certainly don't think lethal violence was an appropriate response, he is of course only a human. I don't see what's so bad about influencing people's dreams either: if that makes them see why they have to liberate their pokémon, what's so bad about it? I agree that hurting that Munna in the process was bad, but that was just the action of individuals inside Team Plasma, not the organisation.”

“I'll tell you why it was wrong to...” he suddenly felt the soft touch of Aqua's tail wrapping around his. He blushed and his tail felt as if it was on fire again, except without the pain this time. “...To kidnap... um... To steal pokémon's people from the... uh... Sorry, I've completely forgotten where I was, let me start again: it was wrong to- Okay, that is very pleasant, but also extremely distracting.”

“What is?” Aqua said with a look of purest innocence.

“Nothing.” Boreas decided to play along and tried to free his tail from her hold, which wasn't easy as her tail was both longer and stronger than his. “To steal those pokémon was bad because those pokémon were friends with their trainers, and now they'll likely never see their trainers again.” With great effort, Boreas managed to produce a coherent sentence while at the same time managing to stifle his laughter and trying to release his tail from Aqua's grasp.

“If those pokémon really wanted to stay with their” she giggled softly as Boreas managed wriggle his tail out of her hold and started hunting for her tail now, “with their trainers, they can just go back to them once they're free in the wild.”

“Not if they couldn't find them.” Boreas managed to graze her tail, but she pulled it away too rapidly to catch it, “Unova is a big place, who knows were their trainers are. Or they could be too young to find their trainers again. Or maybe they'll die in the wild before reaching their trainer.”

“Maybe, but think of those who find they don't want to go back. They can finally enjoy freedom.”

“But if they wanted freedom,” he felt her fur brush against his tail for one tantalising moment as he almost managed to catch her tail, “they could just leave their trainers. It's not as if any trainer takes special measures to ensure their pokémon don't run away. They don't need to, because pokémon don't want to leave their trainers.”

“I think that's just because most pokémon just don't know any better.”

“But what-” Boreas let out a frustrated sigh as Aqua's tail evaded his once again. “You're too fast, I can't do this.”

Aqua stopped evading him. She was about to say something, but Boreas immediately grasped her tail the moment she wasn't expecting it. Aqua laughed, “Not bad. I see you weren't boasting when you told about tricking your opponents.”

Boreas caressed her tail softly. “No. There's no need to boast when the truth speaks for itself.”

Aqua returned his grin and caressed his tail back, almost massaging it. A warm, happy feeling spread through Boreas' entire body. He really became aware how much he liked Aqua, and had a sudden urge to embrace her and to stroke her pointy, finned ears, but figured that might be moving a bit too fast. “Well played.” Aqua said smilingly.

Boreas had half a mind of just enjoying her company and chatting about anything, but the fact that she still agreed with Team Plasma bothered him. “Hey, about Team Plasma messing with people's dreams: don't you think that's a rather underhanded, manipulative thing to do? I mean, if they want to convince those people they can just present their arguments and convince them instead of manipulating their dreams.”

“Some people just close their minds” Aqua responded, “to other opinions, convinced that they are right. With those people, manipulating their dreams might be the only way to convince them to release their pokémon.”

“No.” Boreas said, “I don't agree. It still a dirty, underhanded tactic.”

“Don't you think it's a tiny bit hypocritical for you to be complaining about people using underhanded tactics?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that using tamato soup and stalactites as weapons and breaking pokéballs are underhanded tactics too. And I haven't even mentioned the worst part yet: pretending to surrender only to grab my tail the moment I least expected it.”

Boreas laughed. “Okay, so maybe I'm not the best person to be berating them for that, but I've never used trickery to manipulate someone into doing things against their will. And besides, they've done so much worse than manipulating dreams.”

“They have?” Aqua asked, “why don't you tell me more then? I'm still willing to be convinced, and you're a good narrator.”

“Okay. The next time I met Plasma was in Nacrene City on an awfully hot day in June. W I was heavily shedding fur in the heat, and thus very itchy, warm, and irritable, while Octa, Lucius, and Toxica really enjoyed the Sun and-”

“Hang on.” Aqua interrupted, “Who's Toxica?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you about Toxica.” Boreas still found it hard to concentrate with Aqua's tail and his intertwined closely, “Toxica is an Oddish we met while we were at the Daycare. We stayed there for more than a month, you see. First it was to heal our many injuries and rest, but a very good nurse named Entropy worked at the Daycare, so we were pretty much completely healed in just a few days. She even managed to make my fur look somewhat decent again. After that, we stayed for a long time to train, help around at the Daycare, and just to have fun. There was a lot of fun to be had there, I even made friends with some other Eevees.

But at some point, I became very restless. Even though I was having fun at the Daycare, I wanted to move on. It almost felt as if the hills were calling to me to come see what was on the other side of them. So at one point I gave in. I left the Daycare and climbed one of the hills, to see what was on the other side. It turned out there were more hills, so I climbed one of them too before returning to the Daycare two days later.”

“Your friends must've been worried about you if you were gone for so long.”

“They were. Black was furious and very happy to see me again by the time I came back. But the next day I left again to climb another hill. And I basically kept doing that until we left, always on my own except for this one time I convinced Octa to join me...”

–

Past

“...But when the actors got to the part where they re-enacted the murder, the king got up and left the room, clearly indicating his father's ghost had been speaking the truth and had indeed been murdered by his own brother, the new king!” Octa narrated.

“I see.” Boreas said, “So what happened next?”

“Well, this is where it gets quite fascinating: his mother summons him, requesting an explanation for the odd behaviour he exhibited earlier, and on his way there he passes the king, who has his back turned and isn't expecting a thing.”

Boreas was somewhat disappointed by this rather anticlimactic conclusion. “Oh. So I take it he kills him?”

“No, my dear fellow, that's the really quite fascinating part, he doesn't. You see, as much as he hates his uncle now that he knows the truth, he can't bring himself to commit cold-blooded murder.”

“But why?” Boreas asked, “The man was an evil monster, he murdered his own brother!”

“Oh yes, he most certainly was. But taking a life in cold blood is not an easy thing to do, you see. And it's a good thing that it is, for it helps us differentiate the heroes from the villains. And- Oh, lisping Lugia, it's starting to rain.”

Boreas noted that big raindrops were starting to pour down from the sky. “So it is. It'll probably just be a quick shower. What happened next?”

“What happened next is us finding shelter. Come on.” Octa hurried for the nearest copse of trees and sheltered under their leaves.

“I would think a grass-type like you would enjoy the rain more.” Boreas said as he joined Octa..

“There is a distinctive difference between a grass-type and a plant, I do hope you know that.”

“But what- Ack!” Boreas's feet suddenly hit something as he walked through the grass, he heard a feminine voice yelp, and he tripped and fell into a puddle. An Oddish popped up out of the ground.

“Hey! What'd you do that for?!” She yelled.

“What'd I do that for?” Boreas shouted back after shaking the water out of his fur, “How was I supposed to-”

Octa interrupted him. “I apologise for my companion's behaviour, madam. 'Twas rude of him to awaken you from your sleep like that, but I assure you he did not do it on purpose.”

“What are-” Boreas started, but was interrupted.

The Oddish's anger seemed to disappear quickly. “Oh, it's fine then, I guess. My name's Toxica.”

Octa bowed. “'Tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Toxica. My name is Octavianus.”

“Yeah, but he likes just 'Octa' better, 'cause Octavianus is too sesquicentennial.” Boreas intermitted.

“Be quiet.” Octa said patronisingly, “I do actually prefer Octavianus, but 'tis just a too sesquipedalian name to use in everyday conversation.”

“It sounds pretty cool, though.” Toxica smiled.

“Why, thank you.” Octa said with a little bow, “The name has been in my family for twenty-seven generations. I do rather like Toxica too.”

“Thanks. I picked it myself.”

“Yourself?”

“Yeah, we Oddishes aren't much for family life. We just sow our eggs in the ground like seeds and are done with it. I wouldn't know whom my parents are, and presumably they wouldn't know they have a daughter either. But you mentioned twenty-seven generations? That's quite a long time.”

“As a matter of fact, I know my entire glorious family tree for the past thirty-five generations. The name Octavianus entered my family twenty-seven generations ago, when my ancestor Octavianus the First, together with his trainer, Do-”

Boreas interrupted him, recognising what was going to happen and wanting to prevent it. “It was nice meeting you, Toxica, but we've got to go now that it's stopped raining. These hills won't explore themselves, you see.”

“Now hold on, my dear fellow,” Octa halted him, “I am telling a story to the lady.”

Boreas was starting to be very annoyed by both Octa and Toxica. “You were telling me a story, why don't you continue it while we walk on? And then you can also tell me about your namesake ancestor.”

“I would prefer to tell it to the lady. Besides, we awoke her, and I doubt she shall still be able to catch sleep today. It would seem to be our duty to entertain her until the evening.”

“Yeah,” Toxica said gladly, “That sounds good. Tell me about your ancestor.”

“Until the evening?” Boreas said, “But that's way too long! I want to go on now!”

“Why don't I walk with you for a while, then?” Toxica suggested.

“An excellent idea!” Octa said.

Boreas sighed. He didn't like the fact that Toxica would be joining them, and hoped that she would leave soon so that Octa would continue his story.

Chapter Thirteen: Deceit in Nacrene City

Boreas was warm, itchy, and annoyed. All three of those conditions had the same cause: summer had arrived with its asphyxiating heat. For day on end the Sun was all alone in the sky, not a single cloud in view, and it seemed to have decided to use all that space it had for itself to perform some incredible acrobatics: very early each morning it would rise in the north-east, climb higher and higher, seemingly attempting to reach the zenith, and only barely failing. Then it would just hang around near the zenith for several hours, shining almost straight down on the world, before finally and very slowly sinking to the north-west, where it would set very late in the evening. About an hour after the last light in the sky had disappeared, it reappeared again as the Sun was preparing to do the whole trick over again.

Boreas' fur seemed to have decided to abandon ship after a few days of the stifling heat, as he was heavily shedding, making him very, very itchy, and every time he scratched large masses of hair would loosen. Yet there always seemed to be enough left to make him feel miserably warm, and this made Boreas very annoyed. He only had conscious memories of two seasons (he had been born in winter, of course, but by the time he was old enough to go outside it was well into spring), but he had a growing suspicion that this would be his least favourite of all four. What made him even more annoyed was the frustratingly chirpy behaviour of Octa and Toxica, their chloroplasts bringing them enormous amounts of energy every day. Lucius seemed to be enjoying the stifling heat too, as Boreas could've sworn he had come close to cracking a smile at several points.

And now it seemed they were about to reach Nacrene City, where he would probably be even warmer, itchier, and more annoyed. He didn't know if he would be able to stand another boring grey city filled with boring grey humans. But as they approached, Boreas realised this city was rather unlike Striaton. He heard faint sounds of music, talking, and laughter. And the city seemed to be made of low buildings entirely, missing the tall grey flats that Striaton was filled with.

As they entered the city, an incredible mix of colours assaulted their eyes: every house was painted in bizarre colours, from red to blue, and everyone was wearing differently coloured clothes. Many people had even dyes their hair in all kinds of bizarre colours. Pokémon walked freely among the humans and it seemed there was some kind of market going on, as many humans were performing music in the streets, or dancing, or selling drawings and paintings. Some were painting or drawing, or even sculpturing on the spot, and everyone seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. The contrast with Striaton couldn't possible have been greater. Though some of the musicians and other artists were pretty bad, and the insane mix of colours looked quite overdone and ugly, Boreas liked Nacrene infinitely much more than Striaton.

Black and his pokémon were just sort of staring at the jolly chaos around them, bedazzled by the endless display of colour, when a blue-haired human in neat black and red clothing jovially slapped Black on the shoulder.

“Hey there, new in town?” he asked. He had a truly bizarre hairstyle, with two large spikes pointing up above each ear, and a long yellow scarf that almost reached the ground.

“Uh...” Black said somewhat startled, “Yeah, I am.”

“Welcome! My name's Sly, and you look like you want to know more about Nacrene.”

“Uh...”

“Well, you have to know that Nacrene is a city full of artists. Everyone here practises some form of art, either professionally or as a hobby. And on a sunny day like this, we all go outside to show off our art and earn a bit of money with it. Cool, huh?”

Black nodded, somewhat freaked out. “Uh... Yeah. It's pretty cool. What kind of art do you practise?”

Sly laughed a very odd little “hehehehehe”-laugh. “Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that. Many people wouldn't consider half of it a real art. Anyway, are you looking for the pokécenter?”

Black nodded, and Sly gave him directions and made his exit.

“Weird guy.” Toxica said.

“Yeah.” Boreas said, “I wonder what he's up to.”

“I highly doubt he's “up” to something, my dear fellow.” Octa said, “The gentleman quite obviously enjoyed a proper upbringing that only one with noble ancestry such as myself would have. Didn't you notice the proper bearing and the walk?”

Boreas and Toxica shrugged.

“Quite, I remember now that neither of you would have had much chance to observe those of good ancestry, myself excepted. But let me assure you: that gentleman's upbringing and ancestry was as proper as mine.”

Toxica and Boreas just shrugged again and followed Black to the pokécenter. Just as they were passing a band of trumpeters, a little, cloaked old lady bumped into Black and nearly fell over. Black apologised and helped her to her feet, and then they continued.

They arrived at the pokécenter and entered. A crimson-haired nurse stood behind the counter.

“Hi,” Black said, “My name is Black, and I've just arrived in this city to challenge the Gym. Do you have any rooms free?”

“Sure.” the nurse said, “My name's Torment. Can I see your trainer's card?”

“Sure,” Black said, reaching into his pocket. “Here it... Hmm, must have put it in my backpack...” He rummaged through his backpack, more and more frantic, “What the... It's gone! Everything is gone! My trainer card, my trio badge, my money! I've been robbed!”

“I bet it was that Sly.” Boreas growled.

“Total codswallop.” Octa protested, “It must have been that little old lady that bumped into him. A quintessentially proper gentleman like sly would never steal something.”

“Oh dear,” Nurse Torment said, “We'd better get the police then.”

“'Afternoon, all.” a bearded policeman who had just entered the pokécenter greeted them, “I'm officer Grim of the Nacrene City Police Department. What's all this then?”

“Officer!” Black gratefully greeted the policeman, “I've been pickpocketed by someone. They stole my trainer's card, my money, and my badge.”

“Righto. Please describe the incident and the stolen items to me and give me your ID number.”

After the policeman had taken Black's police statement and left, he approached the nurse. “Nurse, I know I don't have any papers or money, but may I please sleep in the pokécenter anyway? I can sleep on the couch here in the waiting room if you don't want to give me a room.”

“Well... It's against the rules, y'know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Black said with a sinking feeling.

“So go right ahead.”

“Thanks. You're an angel.”

–

The next day, Black and his pokémon dropped by the police station to see if there was any news of his stolen stuff.

“I'm sorry, but there's no officer named Grim in the city.” the policewoman Black was talking to said.

“But there is. He took my police statement yesterday, a big heavy man in a black beard, you must know him.”

“No such officer works in Nacrene, sir, but we have been getting reports of someone impersonating a policeman. Would you like to make a police statement?”

–

That afternoon, Black and his pokémon wandered the town grumpily. Without money they couldn't even buy ice cream to cool them down on the blazing hot day, and without a trainer's card they couldn't challenge the Gym either. At one point, someone quickly sketched something on a piece of paper as Black passed her. She showed it to his pokémon while he wasn't looking, and they saw it was a caricature of him, looking incredibly grumpy. With a shushing gesture, she put it in his pocket without him realising anything, to his pokémon's great amusement, and left.

As they walked the city's outskirts, they suddenly saw a familiar face.

“Look, it's N!” Boreas said.

Suddenly Sly appeared from the crowd, jovially slapped N's shoulder, and started talking to him. From the angle they looked on this time, it was quite obvious that he was in fact pickpocketing something from N's backpack.

“Hey, Sly!” Black shouted as he ran at the pickpocket, “Give back what you stole from N and me!”

“Hmm?” N looked up.

“Uh oh.” Sly ran off. Black and his pokémon pursued him through the crowd. It seemed they were going to lose him, but then a Pidove flew over and landed in his two-spiked hair. Sly struggled to get it out of his hair, and in doing so he lost enough speed that Black could overtake and tackle him to the ground.

Surprisingly, Sly laughed. “Congrats, it's rare that someone manages to not only find me, but also catch me. Hang on, I'll give you your stuff back.”

“You know I'm going to hand you over to the police anyway, right?” Black asked.

Sly grinned. “Of course. But I had some fun, that's what I'm doing it for in the first place.”

“You pickpocket people for fun?”

“Yeah. You should try it sometime, it's hilarious. Did you realise I pickpocketed you thrice yesterday and a fourth time just now?”

“What?”

“Yeah. When I introduced you to town I stole your money and your badge from your backpack, when I bumped into you, disguised as a little old lady, I stole your trainer's card from your pocket, and I stole your watch when I was disguised as Officer Grim. Ah, I can see from your reaction you hadn't even noticed it was gone. Finally I stole a caricature of you from your pocket just now. My, you're looking grumpy on it.”

Black took back each of the items as Sly gave them back. “So you do this for fun?” he said in disgust, “Don't you realise how much annoyance and problems you cause to the people you rob?”

Sly shrugged. “Not my problem. I'm just having fun practising my art. Besides, I don't always pickpocket. Yesterday evening I was bored with it, so I sold someone a map of a treasure buried in the Giant Chasm.”

“But you might even kill someone with that! The Giant Chasm is incredibly dangerous!”

“Not my problem. I'm an artist, and I'm just practising my art. I told you most people wouldn't consider my art art.”

“That's because it isn't!”

“See, I told you.”

“Look, how is stealing an art?”

“Not just stealing. I consider cheating and lying part of it too. And I'm not going to explain how they are an art, it's unlikely that I'll convince you.”

“Hmpf, you're just a sad kleptomaniac who tries to justify his actions.”

“I don't try to justify my actions, I already told you I don't care. And I'm not a kleptomaniac, but an artist.”

“Well, I'll just let the police sort you out, Sly, if that's really your name, which I doubt.” He pulled Sly to his feet, “And give back my watch and trainer's card, I noticed you steal them this time.”

Sly gave them back. “Not bad. And now- oh?” He squinted, surprised by something behind Black, and when Black instinctively looked for a moment, he immediately ran off, throwing a pokéball. A ferocious Krookodile appeared, and immediately made a massive tremor, knocking everyone nearby off their feet and shattering houses' windows. Then Sly got it back into its pokéball as he ran off. Black followed him the moment he got back to his feet, but Sly had disappeared around a corner. They searched for him, but couldn't find him.

“Such a noble, proper gentleman.” Boreas teased Octa.

Octa blushed slightly. “Well, quite. It seems I was mistaken there. It appears 'twas just a part of his act.”

“Boreas, Octa!” N greeted them as he caught up, “How are you?”

“Splendid.” Octa said.

“Fine.” Boreas lied.

“Hello to you too.” Black said annoyed.

Ignoring Black, N talked to his pokémon: “I see you have new friends.”

“Ah yes, allow me to introduce you,” Octa said, “N, these are Lucius and Toxica.”

“H-hi.” Toxica shyly waved using her leaves, “Can you really talk to pokémon?”

“No,” Lucius sneered, “he just happens to respond exactly to what we're saying, idiot.”

“Hey!” Octa berated him, “Now that is no way to treat a lady. Nor, in fact, is it any way a civilised man would treat a gentleman. To treat another-”

Lucius rolled his eyes. “Just shut up, you dandy.”

“Dandy?!” Octa seethed, “How dare you, sir! I shan't shut up. You, sir, are a barbarian!”

“Octa,” Boreas said, putting a calming paw on his shoulder, “Calm down.”

“Yeah,” Lucius sneered, “Listen to your boyfriend, Octa. Calm down.” he imitated Boreas' tone.

“He is not my boyfriend.” Octa spoke icily, “We are friends, a concept you are likely unable to comprehend.”

“Whatever.” Lucius said, “Keep telling yerselves that. I'm gonna go stand over there now.”

“What's his problem?” Toxica wondered.

Boreas shrugged.

“A general lack of manners, intelligence, and civilisation, 'twould seem.” Octa seethed.

N was about to say something, when Black interrupted. “So, N, what do you want?”

N seemed genuinely puzzled by the question. “What do I want?” he thought about it, “I... want to see things no one can see. The truths of pokémon inside pokéballs. The ideals of how trainers should be. And a future where Pokémon have become perfect.... Do you feel the same?”

Black, in his turn, was now puzzled. “What? Uh... I guess, yeah.”

“Is that so? I think my friends and I should test you to see if you can see this future, too. Claudia?”

The Pidove that had stopped Sly from fleeing earlier came flying down from a rooftop and landed before N.

“A battle, eh?” Black said, “Lucius, fight that Pidove! Bite!”

Lucius jumped at the Pidove, but she was faster than him and repelled him by flapping her wings and making a Gust. After he was knocked about by the Gust, Lucius once again jumped Claudia, who couldn't stop him this time. Lucius bit her, drawing blood and leaving nasty bitemarks.

“Sorry, but I'm out of here!” Claudia screeched as she flew off panicky.

“That was easy.” Lucius sounded surprised.

N chuckled. “It seems my new friend wasn't quite as ready for battle as she had me believe. But my other friend will make up for that. Go, Baltoy!”

A weird little balancing top came around the corner. “Ha, is that all?” Lucius boasted as he bit the Baltoy. The Baltoy didn't even seem to feel the nasty bite it received, and reciprocated by rapidly slashing Lucius multiple times with its arms, spinning around. Lucius bit it again, and once again the Baltoy completely ignored the Bite and reciprocated by multiple rapid scratches. Lucius was the one bleeding now.

Boreas though this all very weird. “Octa, shouldn't Lucius' Bites be very powerful against a Baltoy?”

Octa nodded. “If the simpleton is doing them properly, the dark energy such a bite should be infused with should overwhelm a telepathic mind. Ergo, he's not doing them properly. A pity, 'tis such a shame to see him hurt because of his own incompetence.”

“I told you,” Lucius gnarled as he was hit by the enemy again, “shut up!”

Boreas couldn't help think that the Baltoy was moving in rather strange ways for what was essentially a living top. It moved sideways, and dodged in ways that seemed physically impossible for it. Its flat arms were also leaving distinct claw marks on Lucius' skin. Suddenly a story his father had once told him sprang to Boreas' mind. “Lucius! Try using fire!”

“Shut. Up. Pup! That's stupid!” Lucius gnarled.

“Just use a fire-attack, if I'm right it'll work much better!”

“Well, you are wrong, dipshit. Because that is a ground and psychic type, so fire will do little, while my bites work extra good. So stop bothering me with your stupid suggestions.”

“It's not a Baltoy, it's a Zorua! So just try using fire!”

“Are you blind as well as stupid? It's a Baltoy, look at it. And now shut your trap!”

“Idiot.” Boreas and Lucius said at the same moment. Half a minute later, Lucius was defeated.

“Octa, it's your turn!”

Octa switched in. “Hello, Diego, long time no see.” he said as he launched a Leaf Tornado at the enemy.

The Baltoy was so surprised by Octa's words that he was caught up right in the middle of the Leaf Tornado. The storm of leaves completely enveloped him. When the Leaf Tornado dissipated, a large, black shape with many eyes stood in its centre.

“Holy buckets!” Black cursed, “It evolved!”

“No, it didn't.” Octa calmly spoke, “He's just trying to intimidate me. But his illusions shan't work any more.” He put extra force behind the words by accentuating them with a Leaf Tornado, which the Claydol dodged with a jump a real Claydol could never have performed.

“Diego, drop the disguise,” N said, “they've seen through it.”

The Claydol disappeared into thin air, and in its centre was a Zorua with several cuts made by viciously sharp leaves. Immediately after dropping the disguise, he jumped at Octa and scratched him several times with his claws. Octa slapped Diego with his vines, knocking him off, and Diego tried to Bite Octa. Octa quickly dodged, and then suddenly a brilliant light enveloped him.

Diego jumped back startled, and the light made it hard for Boreas to see what was happening to his friend. He was scared, and hoped nothing was wrong. Squinting, he managed to see Octa's silhouette in the radiant light. It was rapidly changing, growing longer and sleeker, and leaves sprouted from his back in the process. Less than ten seconds after it had started, the light disappeared.

“Splendid.” Octa the Servine remarked. Boreas noted his voice was lower and more melodious than it had been before. He saw Diego had retreated to N's shoulder. “Diego, would you be so good as to come down from there so I can celebrate my evolution by winning this battle?”

“Not today.” Diego surrendered, “I don't think I can beat you now.”

“You win.” N said to Black.

“Wow, you evolved!” Black congratulated Octa.

“As you can see, my friends aren't strong enough to save all Pokémon.” N said, “Maybe I can't solve the equation that will change the world. So, I need power... Power enough to make anyone agree with me. Then, we will be friends.” he walked off.

Boreas joined Octa, surprised at how much larger he had become. “Octa, you look awesome!”

“Thank you, my dear fellow.”

“Y-yeah.” Toxica whispered. Boreas noticed she was blushing a deep purple and seemed to be staring at the ground. “Really, really awesome.”

Chapter Fourteen: An Archæologist With Backbone

The Nacrene Gym was a big stately white building with classicist architecture and sculptures of ancient pokémon outside. Before entering, Black paused for a moment to talk to his pokémon.

“The Gym Leader here uses the normal-type. That means none of you will be at either a type advantage or a disadvantage. So I'll simply use the most powerful among you. Good luck.”

They entered a magnificent hall with all kinds of archæological and palæontological exhibits, such as ancient skeletons, fossils, sculptures, and reliefs. The hall was dominated by a beautifully reconstructed skeleton of a draconian pokémon.

“Do you want to visit the museum, sir?” someone standing next to the door asked, startling Black. “A ticket costs 10 pokémoney.”

“And... What about the Gym?” Black asked. “Is it here?”

“Oh, the Gym? It's-”

“Thank you, Mr. Picklecopter, I will take it from here.” a scientist said, “my name is Hawes, and I'll take you to the Gym. It's just in the back of the museum, you see. Do you mind if I give you a small tour before I show you the Gym?”

“No, that's okay.”

“Then walk this way.”

Black followed Hawes. The first exhibit they stopped at was the large dragon skeleton. “This fascinating skeleton was once a Dragonite. It lived about 5000 years ago, and when it was alive it must have been one of the most powerful pokémon in all of Unova. Wild Dragonites are incredibly rare and have territories the size of a small continent, you see. Even in modern times, a human capturing them in the wild is completely unheard of. Very, very rarely, a powerful trainer manages to catch a Dratini and train it all the way to a Dragonite, but such a process takes an incredible amount of time and energy. In the era when this Dragonite lived, humans worshipped them and would often make sacrifices to them. The bones of this Dragonite showed severe damage when they were dug up, so it is thought that it perished in an accident.”

He led them on to a relief of an insectoid pokémon. “This is a relief of a Kabutops, a pokémon that used to be extinct before a technology to revive them from fossils was perfected.”

He continued the tour, showing many interesting exhibits, and finally he showed a bright white stone. “We're not quite sure what this is. It seems to be just an ordinary white stone, but it's impossible to make any marks on it. My wife is still researching what it might be. My wife is the director of this museum and the Gym Leader, see, a very strong and kind trainer named Lenora. And her Gym is just through that door there. Good luck, you'll need it.”

“Thanks.”

Behind the door was another large room, full of books stacked in large bookcases. There must have been thousands of books in the library, and Boreas just stared at it in bedazzlement. Octa had taught him how to read at the Daycare, but there had been only a few dozen books there. He had never imagined this many books existing in the whole world, let alone together in a single place. Between the towering bookcases were paths. Most of the paths were thin, but one of them, the central one where they were currently, was several metres wide and divided the library in two. In the middle of the wide path, a woman with dark skin and blue hair curled up into a large cloud-like shape was reading a book on a table. She looked up when she heard them enter.

“Are you the Gym Leader?” Black asked.

“Yes.” She said, standing up, “I am Lenora, director of the museum and Gym Leader. Are you a challenger?”

“Yes. My name is Black, and I want to challenge you!”

Lenora swung her apron over her shoulder to reveal a belt of pokéballs. “Well then, Black, I'm going to research how you battle with the pokémon you have lovingly raised! Shall we use two pokémon each?”

Black nodded.

Hawes spoke up. “The challenger and Gym Leader Lenora will each use two pokémon. They are not allowed to use items, and a pokémon that has been switched out counts as having been defeated. Begin the battle!”

“Schliemann,” Lenora threw a pokéball, “Test this challenger's worth!”

A Herdier appeared from the pokéball. “Lucius, begin the battle with a Howl!”

As Lucius howled, charging into combat, Boreas felt like a small friendly town that was expecting to get a new road built through it, greatly boosting its economy, when the government suddenly announces its going to build the road through the neighbouring city that keeps dumping their toxic waste into the town's fields instead. “Lucius? But I thought I...”

“Well,” Octa said as Lucius and Schliemann started their battle, “he did say he would use the most powerful pokémon. I would assume that to mean myself and Lucius.”

“But I'm better than Lucius!”

“The time you tried to kill me says otherwise, pup!” Lucius sneered, dodging the Herdier's attack.

“But I was enraged out of my mind and not thinking properly then. I could beat you if I was calm and using my brains.”

Lucius scoffed. “Of coooourse you could, pup. You're becoming as cocky as your bo- ARP!” Schliemann hit him with a grievously powerful Take Down which knocked him away in a nearly straight line until he hit the bookcase a few metres back with a massive thud. He managed to get back on his feet, badly bruised, one leg dragging behind him, and very angry. “STOP DISTRACTING ME, PUP!”

Schliemann charged Lucius to finish the battle with another Take Down, but Lucius managed to sidestep just in time and the Herdier ran into the bookcase instead, nearly making it fall over with his ferocious strength. Lucius immediately used the opportunity to dig his teeth into his enemy, and followed up by singeing him with an Ember. But Schliemann was faster than Lucius expected, and managed to hit him with another Take Down, knocking him to the ground. Lucius growled and cursed in pain, but couldn't get up any more.

“Challenger Black's Houndour is unable to battle. The score is 1-0 in favour of Gym Leader Lenora.” Hawes announced.

“Damn,” Black cursed, “That Herdier is strong! Octa, show off your newly evolved skills!”

“With pleasure.” Octa stepped forward.

“Octa, begin with Growth!”

Octa grew five lengthy vines, one from his tail, one from each hand, and two more from the leaves on his back. His opponent tried to use Octa's momentary distraction to take him down, but Octa dodged the attack with an incredibly agile slither. Then, when his opponent had passed him, he Vine Whipped him with all five vines, causing five ugly marks on the Herdier's skin. Schliemann tried to attack him, but he whipped up a Leaf Tornado much larger than Boreas had ever seen him use, which caught the Herdier and blew him right back to his trainer, wounded.

“Gym Leader Lenora's Herdier is unable to battle. The score is 1-1!” Hawes pronounced.

“That's quite the pokémon!” Lenora complimented Octa as she threw another pokéball, “But no matter how grim the situation, I'll use my scientific skills to find a winning strategy! Go, Dubois!”

Octa bowed to salute the Watchog that appeared from the pokéball, and tried to Vine Whip it, but it managed to jump in between his attacks, and hit him with a bone-crushing Retaliate that connected with a phenomenal noise and launched him off his feet, several metres through the air before he landed on the ground. For a moment it seemed the battle was over, but then Octa got back up. He began counter-attacking the Watchog, but it was clear that Dubois was faster and even stronger than the Herdier was.

“Isn't he amazing?” Toxica whispered reverently. She was intently staring at Octa, blushing and with a perverted grin on her face.

“I guess.” Boreas said, rather annoyed by her.

“He's so strong, and cool, and smart, and attractive...” she gushed.

Toxica was really beginning to get on Boreas' nerves, but he couldn't help but agree with her that evolution had increased Octa's abilities by an impressive amount. He wondered when he would evolve, an then he wondered what he would evolve into. He had never really given the matter thought before, but now he realised that he would have to decide at some point what he wanted to be, or be stuck with something random for the rest of his life. He remembered how easy Zeph had found the choice and how he had always known he wanted to be a Jolteon. Tears shot into his eyes as he realised with a pang of grief that Zeph would never get to be a Jolteon. Damn, he thought, I thought I was over it...

Drawing a deep breath, he managed to calm himself down enough to think about what he wanted. I could be a Leafeon like Mum. He pictured himself as a Leafeon, walking in a forest and enjoying the warm summer weather instead of suffering in it. He really liked the idea. Yeah, I want to be a Leafeon.

But then he realised that being an Espeon would be great as well. He thought of all the things he could do with psychic powers. Then he was suddenly snapped out of his reverie by a yelp of pain from Octa and Toxica drawing a startled breath as Octa was violently crushed between his enemy's Take Down and the bookcase. It seemed things were not going well for Octa: while his enemy was clearly hurt and losing energy, Octa himself seemed to be at the end of his abilities.

He missed the Watchog, who quickly retreated after pinning Octa to the bookcase and was now getting ready to finish it. Octa extended his vines, and Dubois was ready to dodge them as he charged, but Octa didn't attack his enemy with his vines, but the floor. He pushed himself off the ground with his vines and launched himself over the top of the two metres-tall bookcase. Immediately after landing on the other side of it, he pushed the bookcase, which was severely weakened due to the several Take Downs it had absorbed. With a monumental creaking, the bookcase fell over, right on top of the charging Watchog who couldn't get away in time.

The three humans immediately rushed over and together they pulled the bookcase up far enough that they could rescue the Watchog from under it. “I'm sorry about messing up your library like this.” Black apologised.

“No need to be.” Lenora said, returning her Watchog to his pokéball after checking if he was okay. “I suppose having a battle in a library is just asking for it. I should probably battle outside from now on.”

Hawes seemed to suddenly remember his role as judge. “Gym Leader Lenora's Watchog can't battle. Challenger Black has won the match!”

“That was so cool!” Toxica praised Octa.

“I just thought about what Boreas would do in my situation, and did so. It worked quite staggeringly well, didn't it?”

“We should go celebrate your victory and evolution this evening, Octa!” Toxica said. “Remember that pub with the pokémon serving we passed on the way here? We should go there for some dinner!”

“Yeah,” Boreas said, “We should go celebrate your victory and evolution there.”

“Uhm...” Toxica said, “I meant just Octa and me, really.”

“Yeah,” Boreas smirked, “So did I.”

“Why don't we all three of us go celebrate?” Octa intermitted.

Both the others sighed. “Hmpf, fine.” they grumbled.

–

That evening all three were having a lot of fun on the pub's terrace.

“...So with all my strength I launched myself upwards at least five metres, still only barely reaching the top of the gargantuan bookcase, and I pulled my limbs and tail as close to me as I could, for I could've broken my neck if I had hit the bookcase and landed badly as a result. Then, with a phenomenal thud nearly breaking my ankles, I landed on the ground and immediately began executing the second part of my brilliant plan: I set my shoulder and all vines to the mighty bookcase, and with an outpouring of titanic strength I managed to topple it, so my opponent was crushed by the colossal falling bookcase.” He finished his glass of wine. “In the name of snowman Rayquaza, some days I amaze even myself.”

“That's the fifth time you've told that story,” Boreas said, “and every time you tell it it gets better.”

“That's because I tell it better each time, my dear fellow.” he poured himself another glass, “Of course, you inspired me to it. A toast, to my good friend Boreas: as clever as a brain pie, and just as impulsively rash as one.”

They toasted and drank from their glasses, though Boreas was pretty sure something had gone wrong mid-metaphor.

“Of course,” Toxica, drinking with a straw due to her lack of arms, said, “You were also incredibly brave to fight that Watchamacallithog in the first place.”

“Oh yes!” Octa agreed, “It was a foul, monstrous, hideous, dangerous, powerful, gigantic,-”

“Don't forget smelly.” Boreas intermitted.

“Yes, thank you, my dear fellow, I shan't. Smelly. Very smelly. As smelly as the moist hole of a Skuntank suffering from terminal colon cancer. I do not know if you are familiar with that particular smell, but smelly 'twas. A smell that would have frightened off an anosmic Muk. What was I talking about again?”

“Your fiendish opponent.” Boreas reminded him.

“Of course! And what a smelly creature 'twas! Smelly and hideous enough to make a grown pirate weep and wish for his mother to please give him a cookie!”

“Terrifying!” Toxica added.

“Grotesque!” Boreas added.

“Ferocious!” Toxica added.

“Nauseating!” Boreas added.

“Indeed.” Octa agreed, “It must've been hand-picked by Giratina himself.”

“From the darkest corners of the Distortion World.” Boreas added, “Where a thousand and five Hydreigons scream for naught.”

“Yes, that particular spot!” Octa agreed.

“Not hand-picked!” Toxica disagreed, “Banished! Banished because old Giratina was too scared of it stealing his dark throne made of forty-two obsidian Garchomp-skulls!”

“Forty-seven!” Boreas improved.

“Forty-twelve, actually.” Toxica bettered herself. “And Octa defeated all forty-twelve... What were they again?”

“So I did!” Octa said, “A toast to me!”

They toasted again and downed their glasses. “Boreas, pour me another glass, please? I'm an arm short of being able to do it myself.” Toxica asked.

Boreas tried to pour her another glass, but after the first few drops nothing came out any more. “Hmm...” Boreas said, “must be clogged.”

He looked into the bottle and saw it was not clogged, just empty. “It's empty.” he announced gravely.

Octa chuckled. “A blessing in disguise, my dear fellow, for I do think we've all had quite enough.”

Boreas and Toxica couldn't possibly disagree. “Did we pay already?” Toxica asked.

“Yes, remember, when we ordered the food and the wine.”

“I'd toast Black right now for giving us the money if we had wine left to toast with.” Octa said.

“We had to work for it, though.” Boreas said, “Or rather, we had to work to make him understand what we wanted.”

“Great guy, Black.” Octa said, “But he has an unmatched ability of not understanding what you're saying. But he is friendly.”

“Brave.” Toxica added.

“Team Plasma!” Boreas said.

“Yes, he is all that too. Noble and Team Pla- Hang on, no, I don't believe he is a member of Team Plasma, my dear fellow.”

“No, not Black in Team Plasma, but just Team Plasma. Look over there!”

“'Tsounds to me like you've had quite too much to dri- Arceus' balls! You're right!”

Several Team Plasma grunts were walking through the twilighted town, looking around to see if no one was following them.

“C'mon.” Boreas said, jumping to the ground. He fought a momentary battle with gravity over whether or not he would manage to remain standing, and won. “Let's follow them, they're going in the Gym's direction.”

Chapter Fifteen: The Stolen Skull

When Team Plasma arrived at the museum, they started trying to open the door without setting off the alarm.

“I propose one of us leaves to get Black and Lenora,” Octa whispered, “While the other two stays here to observe Plasma's actions and, if the possibility should arise, thwart them. My dear fellow,you're the fastest runner, would you do the honours of getting human reinforcements?”

Boreas liked neither the idea of running away from the action or the idea of leaving a tipsy Toxica alone with Octa. “I think it would be better if Toxica was the one to get help.”

“And I think it would be better if you went to get Black!” Toxica bristled.

“No, Octa may need my help here, so you should go.”

“Well, he may need my help too!”

“Boreas has a point, I'd really rather have his wits on my side should the need to stop Team Plasma arise,” Octa said. “Toxica, would you please go fetch Black? Pip pip!”

Giving Boreas a foul look, Toxica said “Okay” and left.

A minute after Toxica left, Team Plasma managed to get through the door without setting off the alarm. “We have to stop them!” Boreas started running off, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“Hold on, my dear fellow.” Octa said.

“C'mon, let's go! We can't let them do whatever they want in the museum!”

“And how are we going to stop them, hmm? Methinks the tipsy two of us don't stand much chance against twelve grunts carrying Arceus knows how many pokémon.”

Boreas stopped. “I hadn't thought about that.”

“Well, that is your general problem. Rash behaviour is what causes one to get into trouble.”

“Yes, and pride is what keeps one there,” Boreas retorted.

Octa was about to deliver a comeback to that when Team Plasma came bursting out of the door, their leader carrying the skull of the Dragonite skeleton.

Boreas escaped from Octa's grip. “I don't care how bad our chances are, we can't let them get away!” He ran at Team Plasma and stood in their path growling.

“Hey, look guys! It's a cute little Vulpix!” A grunt said.

Boreas growled to make it clear that they wouldn't get past him and that he didn't appreciate being called a Vulpix. “Haha, look, it's growling. Let's take it to Sage Gorm, we may get a small reward.”

A couple of them threw pokéballs that Boreas easily dodged and escaped from. Then they sent out a mass of Scraggies, Sandiles, Patrats, Trubbishes, and Purrloins. The whole group of them attacked Boreas, when suddenly a Leaf Tornado knocked a lot of them away. “I wonder why I keep rescuing you from tribulation you get yourself into.” Octa, standing next to him, said.

“Hey, I didn't ask for your help!”

“Quite, but you did need it.”

“Hey, a Servine, Sage Gorm will certainly reward us for that one! Surround them!”

The pokémon quickly surrounded Boreas and Octa. “Excellent,” Octa said. “Do you have any other brilliant ideas?”

Then, suddenly, a wave of water from the river washed over the land, flooring several Plasma grunts, and a furious female voice cried out: “How dare you desecrate Draco's remains?! You'll pay for that!”

A Scraggy was knocked down by another aquatic attack, and then Boreas saw the source of the attacks: a thin, serpentine blue pokémon. He didn't know what species she was, as he had never seen a pokémon like her.

“Goodness gracious,” Octa spoke reverently, “'tis a Dratini! Let us help her defeat Team Plasma!”

They joined the fight alongside the Dratini, but it was soon clear that they were just outnumbered too badly to win. All three were tiring rapidly, when they heard Lenora's voice:

“What's going on here?”

“Uh oh, it's the Gym Leader! Let's skedaddle!” As per usual, they threw some smoke bombs for a quick escape.

Once the smoke cleared, Boreas could see the Dratini was very upset. “No! In the name of Rayquaza, I failed!”

“Don't worry.” Boreas reassured her. “I can still smell their trail, so I can lead you to them.”

“Oh!” It seemed almost as if she hadn't noticed him and Octa until now, “That would be great. I have to get that skull back, you see, it was once the progenitor of my entire family.”

“Then you descend from that Dragonite?” Octa asked.

The Dratini nodded. “By thirty generations.”

“Oh well,” Octa boasted, “My family goes back thirty-five generations. Our progenitor's name was Equinox, a truly grandiose Serperior whom-”

“Well, mine may only go back thirty generations, but those thirty generations do constitute a history of five thousand years. I doubt your thirty-five go back even a tenth of that time.”

Octa bit his lip nervously. “Well, quite. Perhaps my family does not go back that long, but in the end, 'tis all about the achievements of its members, is it not?”

“Quite,” Boreas said imitating Octa's voice, “And correct me if I am thoroughly mistaken, old chap, but did one of thine ancestors not invent the ballpoint pen?”

“No, not quite,” Octa said, annoyed at Boreas' mockery, “but I do have an ancestor who was quite possibly single-handedly responsible for the success of Sir Edward Slateport's expedition on which he discovered Hoenn.”

“Oh.” the Dratini said, “Well, my ancestors were worshipped as gods by humans for several thousands of years across an entire continent. My name's Capella, by the way.”

“Others call me Boreas, for 'tis my name. My acquaintance here, a gentleman of great skill and ego, is named Octavianus, but he prefers others to say Octa when using the vocative, for Octavianus, though a glorious name to bear, is quite too polysyllabiccally sesquipedalian to use in conversation.”

Then Boreas saw that Toxica had returned with Black and Lucius. “You're a pair of loonies, that's what you are.” Lucius said by way of greeting.

Capella was looking rather confused after the impersonations and the sudden arrivals. “O...Kay... So, let's follow them, I'm sure your humans will get the idea soon enough.”

–

Present

“Hold on.” Aqua interrupted, “I'm getting stiff from all this sitting, I need a stretch.”

She got up and stretched her back. Boreas couldn't take his eyes off her gorgeous body as she stretched. His eyes traced her long, strong finned tail, her wide hips, her waist, but when he reached her head, he saw she was looking at him with an eyebrow arched quizzically. He quickly looked away, feeling himself blush like a tamato.

“I should warn you:” Aqua spoke, her voice very close to his ear, “males have died for this body.”

“I don't doubt it,” Boreas responded as he looked back to see she was now sitting very close to him, “but I would rather live for it, if it's all the same to you.”

“I may just take you up on that offer...”Aqua whispered.

They looked deep into each other's eyes, and it felt as if time had stopped. Then suddenly a voice called “Boreas! Where are you?!”

Boreas closed his eyes in annoyance. Not now, he thought, can't you wait just a bit longer?

He heard a splash, opened his eyes, and saw Aqua had disappeared. “Aqua?” he asked, looking into the water, “Come back, please, it's just Black!” but Aqua didn't resurface, and he didn't see her underwater either.

The motorboat came by and its human pilot saw him on the rock: “Boreas! Thank all the legendaries I found you again! Come on board!”

Boreas looked in the water around the rock again and saw nothing, so he sighed and jumped into the water, swimming back to the boat. After he had swam a few metres, Aqua's head suddenly appeared from the water right next to him, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and disappeared under water again. Boreas was so surprised and joyed that he completely forgot how to swim for a moment and sunk underwater, accidentally breathing in some water. Coughing and spluttering, but with his cheek feeling warm and rosy, he resurfaced. He tried to see where Aqua was, but she had disappeared again. He was starting to believe the stories about Vaporeons being able to melt into water. When he reached the boat after a few more metres, he was lifted on board by Black, who promptly hugged him and ended up all wet.

“I'm sorry, Boreas,” he said, “I didn't notice you had fallen out for a very long time. I'm just glad I found you again.”

He put Boreas down, and Boreas immediately shook the water from his fur. Only then did he notice that there was also a Servine in the boat, who was now looking rather wet and annoyed.

“Oh, sorry, I didn't see you, Octa.” Boreas apologised.

“Quite,” Octa muttered.

“So, how did things go with those grunts? Is everyone alright?”

“Yes, we were all fine, my dear fellow, until Black suddenly showed up without you and made me rather worried for your well-being.”

Boreas hadn't considered that yet. “Sorry.”

“Now, Black may believe you fell out of the boat, but I know you better than that and thus suspect you jumped out because it seemed like a really good idea at one point.”

“You're quite right there.”

“I know I am. What puzzles me is this: what prompted such behaviour?”

Boreas arched an eyebrow suggestively. “Can you think of nothing that might make a male act like that?”

“A lady?”

“That's right.”

“You jumped off a boat on a river while having little to no swimming experience because you saw a lady?” he sighed, “You have surpassed yourself, my dear fellow.”

“Not just any lady.” Boreas defended himself, “She was... So cute, and nice, and gorgeous, and smart, and sexy... I mean, her fur was so soft and blue and gleamy, and her tail was so long and strong, and her smile was blinding... And her eyes... Oh, her eyes...”

“I do hope she had two of them, my dear fellow.” Octa quipped.

“I'm serious, Octa! She was completely worth jumping off the boat for. And she even was interested in me too. She wanted to me to tell about all our adventures, and she was flirting with me...”

“Fine, so you jumped off a boat on a river while having little to no swimming experience because you saw a perfect goddess of love.”

“I didn't jump off directly. I tried to ask Black to just stop the boat and wait for me while I went to talk to her, but-”

“-He didn't understand a word you said.” Octa finished his sentence. “So, I expect she must have been surprised at you jumping off the boat to meet her. What did you say to this...”

“Vaporeon. Her name was Aqua. I told her that my Blizzards were usually powerful enough to freeze a Heatran, but with someone as hot as her nearby I couldn't even manage a cooling breeze.”

Octa burst into laughter. “I do hope that's a joke.”

“It isn't.”

“My dear fellow, the one time you actually tried to use a Blizzard you almost got everyone in the room, including yourself, killed. And I quite doubt it could have frozen a Heatran.

“I know.”

“So you were beginning you communication with this lady with a lie. And directly telling her she's “hot”... Not quite the way one treats a lady, my dear fellow. Did she tell you to bugger off?”

“No, actually.” Boreas said with a grin, “she laughed and asked me to join her on that rock.”

“Well, I would have.”

“Yeah...” Boreas said, “I'm not about to tell you that you're hot in the first place. Anyway, we had a most pleasant conversation until you two suddenly appeared and chased her off.”

“Oh, I do apologise for thinking your life might be in danger and attempting to save it.”

Boreas tried to engage Octa in conversation, but it seemed he was not interested in hearing a detailed description of Aqua's cute, perky ears. So pretty soon, Boreas was once again staring off at the horizon in boredom. He hung a bit over the edge of the boat and looked down into the water. Suddenly a splash of water hit his face and a pretty blue face surfaced very close to his as Aqua grabbed a hold of the boat.

“Boo!” she said, giggling at Boreas' startled reaction.

“Aqua! I'm so glad to see you again!”

“I could hardly just let you go,” she said.

“I-”

“Not without hearing the rest of your story,” she added, somewhat to Boreas' disappointment.

“Oh, okay, I can continue the story. But why don't you join me on board? It can't be easy to hold on to the boat like that.”

Aqua climbed on board, taking a large splash of water with her. Octa and Black turned in surprise. “A Vaporeon!” Black enthused, “Octa, Leaf Tornado!”

“No, I don't think I will.” Octa refused.

“Boreas, Ice Beam! C'mon, listen to me!”

“Boreas,” Aqua asked, “could you please tell him not to try and catch me? I don't like that kind of behaviour. At least,” she added with a wink, “not from humans.”

Boreas growled as Black grabbed a pokéball, but he just didn't listen. When he raised the pokéball, Boreas figured there was only one way to stop him and Ice Beamed the hand he was throwing with. Black yelped in pain as the ultra-cold beam hit his hand, and the pokéball flew away and harmlessly landed into the river.

“Okay, fine! If you don't want me to catch it, just say so!” Black went back to steering.

“Thanks,” Aqua said with a teasing smile, “but I thought you couldn't even produce a cool breeze with someone as hot as me around?”

“Uh...” Boreas stammered, trying to think of something, “Blizzards and Ice Beams work very differently, that's why I can still make an Ice Beam. I couldn't do a Blizzard, though.”

Octa decided to introduce himself at that point. “You must be Aqua,” he said, “My name is Oc-”

“-tavianus, but your nickname is Octa, I know. Boreas told me all about you.”

“Interesting, he told me all about you as well.”

“Oh?” Aqua said with a twinkle in her eyes, “I don't hope he told you all about me.”

“I don't think he did. But he did give me quite the detailed physical description.”

“Hm-hm.” Aqua said with a half-smile that made Boreas feel even more embarrassed than Octa's words alone already made him feel. “I'm sure he did.”

Trying to change the conversation's topic, Boreas said: “Why don't I continue telling you about our trouble with Team Plasma?”

“Great idea!”Aqua said, sitting down next to him.

“Do you mind if I listen in, my dear fellow?” Octa asked.

Several possible answers shot through Boreas' mind, all along the lines of “Of course I mind you listening to me talking to the girl of my dreams and making any potential flirting rather awkward, idiot!” but instead of saying any of these rather rude things, he said:

“Of course I don't mind!”

“The boat's too small not to overhear you in the first place,” Octa apologised.

Then ask Black to return you to your pokéball! “Yeah, you're right. So as I was telling you earlier, we met Capella the Dratini when Team Plasma stole the Dragonite skull, and together with her and the Gym Leader, we pursued Team Plasma out of town. They soon entered a maze of a forest named Pinwheel Forest, and started leaving individual grunts behind to slow us down. That didn't work very well, as they were absolutely no match for us and Lenora. We kept chasing them and slowly gained ground...”

Chapter Sixteen: A Good Servant, but a Cruell Master

Past

“...I just don't know,” Boreas said while dodging the Sandile's jaws, “First I thought I wanted to be a Leafeon, then an Espeon, then a Glaceon, then I came back to Leafeon again, and now I just don't know. What do you think I should evolve into?” He counter-attacked the Sandile, knocking it out.

“I see.” Octa, defeating a Scraggy with a Leaf Tornado, said, “I think it might be fun if you were to evolve into Leafeon, together with Toxica we would be the three grass-type amigos. On the other hand, you don't quite possess the temperament of a grass-type.”

“What do you mean?” Boreas asked as they moved on from the defeated Plasma grunt.

“Well, us grass-types are all to varying degrees vegetable. And being vegetable, sometimes one finds one has to do what plants do: just be patient and calmly let everything come to you. Methinks that is not quite your style, my dear fellow. Of course, evolving to a Leafeon might be an important learning experience for you, and as such it might teach you some patience and equanimity. However, methinks you might make a good Flareon. Of course, the idea of another fire-type in the team seems rather less appealing to me than another grass-type, but considering it would still be you it would not be problematic.”

Boreas hadn't considered being a Flareon yet. “Maybe you're right. Being a Flareon would be cool.”

“I know. Incidentally, methinks we might be getting close to the fellow carrying the cranium. If I counted correctly, the grunt we defeated just now was the eleventh.”

Boreas frowned. “Did we just defeat a grunt?”

“Yes, remember, while we were discussing your potential future evolutionary metamorphosis.”

“Oh yeah.”

Suddenly a human in the most bizarre clothing Boreas had ever seen jumped out of a tree right in front of them. Boreas started growling at the intruder, but then Lenora greeted him. “Burgh! You startled me, what are you doing here?”

If someone had taken an insane Darumaka, trained it to walk upright, glued a loofah to the top of its head, strategically shaved its eyebrows, injected it with an almost lethal overdose of every psychostimulant on the planet, poured super glue all over it, and then let it loose to rampage through a clothing store and a working paint factory, the result would not look exactly like Burgh, but those who knew him would certainly consider the similarity eerie. “I was looking at the bugs in the trees to get inspiration for my art.” Burgh explained.

“Did you see Team Plasma pass by?” Lenora asked.

“No, but I did hear someone run by. That distracted me from the bugs, so I looked around and saw you.”

“Then they're close by?” Lenora asked.

“Oh yes, just up in the tree I jumped down from.”

“Team Plasma, not the bugs!”

“Whom?”

“The guys we're chasing!”

“You're chasing someone?”

“Yes! Team Pla- Oh, forget it, just come with us, we might need your help!”

As they ran on, Lenora introduced Burgh and Black: “Burgh, this is Black, a trainer who's on a quest to collect all badges and has already defeated Chili and me. Black, this is Burgh, Castelia's Gym Leader.”

“I prefer to think of myself as an insectious artist in the first place, and Gym Leader in the second, though.”

“Insectious?” Black inquired.

“Yeah,” Burgh nodded.

They rapidly approached the final Plasma grunt, and were soon close enough to hear his running footsteps ahead. Then they entered a clearing after the grunt. A small river ran through the middle of the clearing, and towards the edge there was a big, moss-covered rock that pulsated with odd energy. The exhausted, panting grunt handed the skull to a bald old man in blue clothing standing by the river.

“Hoots mon, how are ye holding up, laddie?” the goatee-wearing man asked the grunt in a Scottish accent.

“I... Have failed, Sage Gorm!” the grunt panted, “We couldn't lose the pursuers, they managed to follow me here!”

“'Tis nae important, laddie.” Gorm said, “I will defeat them meself. 'Tis even better this way, lad, as this allows me to fix it so they never interfere with us again.”

Lenora stepped forward. “You're outnumbered, Gorm, you're not fixing anything. Hand over the skull and come with us.”

Gorm laughed. “I be one of Team Plasma's Seven Sages, lassie. Even if there are three of ye, ye cannae defeat me. And don't start pointing out that ye are Gym Leaders. That doesnae matter. Ghetsis, the founder of Team Plasma and another of the Seven Sages made sure all of us are much more powerful than even the strongest of Gym Leaders, let alone B-list Gym Leaders like yerself and Burgh.”

“Don't break your arm while patting yourself on the back, Gorm. Just give back that skull and no one has to get hurt. What do you want with it in the first place?”

“Ah, now that be a good question, lass. As an airchaeologist, I take it ye're familiar with the fact that a fossil can be revived?”

Lenora nodded.

“We are going to revive this Dragonite. It is one of the most powerful pokémon in existence, and will be a great asset to our cause.”

Capella seemed to be just about ready to attack him at this. “I can't let you do that,” Lenora spoke as she and Burgh threw six pokéballs each to unleash their full teams so that their side stood seventeen pokémon strong.

“Gorm,” Black said, “you can't win, give up now!”

Gorm swept aside his blue cloak to reveal six black and yellow pokéballs on his belt. Boreas immediately rushed over to him, picking up the biggest stone he could hold on the way, climbed into his leg, grabbed a pokéball with a Gastrodon in it, and smashed the stone into the button sideways. But to his surprise the button didn't crack or break in any way. He tried again, to no result. Then a powerful hand grabbed the scruff of his neck and he was lifted into the air.

Black approached Gorm. “If you do anything to hurt him...”

With his free hand, Gorm threw a pokéball, releasing a gigantic Gyarados between him and Black. “What will happen if I do, lad?” he asked as Black backed away from the huge beast. “Thought ye could pull the same trick twice, dinnae ye?” he said to Boreas, “When Rood told aboot his defeat at yer trainer's hands, we all switched ta ultra balls, which are much more resilient than normal pokéballs.” He tossed Boreas over his shoulder, and as he flew through the air in a large parabole, Boreas saw him throw his other five ultra balls, unleashing a Gastrodon, a Carracosta, a Crawdaunt, a Cloyster, and a Kingdra. The grunt sent out a Sandile and a Scraggy. “Return yer pokémon, lad.” Gorm said, “they wadnae make any difference in this battle, and I dinnae want ta get them hurt.”

Boreas plunged into the river, and started flailing about wildly to try and stay afloat, as he didn't know how to swim. Then a massive wave flooded the river and took Boreas with it, as it washed over the clearing. Helpless in the massive wave, he hit Octa, knocked him over and landed on top of him, faces mere centimetres apart.

“This really isn't the time, guys!” Lucius, swimming clumsily, snapped.

Boreas got off Octa and felt himself blush. “It's not what it looked like!”

Lucius smiled a crooked smile. “I won't tell anyone.”

Octa rolled his eyes. “Oh, do be quiet. We have more immediate concerns.”

The six powerful water pokémon were creating wave after wave, rapidly flooding the entire clearing. Boreas managed to find a way to stay somewhat afloat in the increasing water levels. Octa hit the enemy Gastrodon with a Leaf tornado, and it cringed in pain with deep cuts from the leaves all over.

“Octa,” Boreas cheered, “You're hurting it!”

“Quite.” Octa basked in the praise, “As a grass-type, I have a natural advantage to these aquatic creatures, despite their power and-” an Ice Beam missed his head by millimetres, leaving a white trail of frost where it had grazed his face, “-Holy smokes, that was close!”

Boreas was fiercely jerked away by a powerful current as the water-types had finished flooding the clearing to their liking and were now making whirlpools, currents, and gyres in the water. Boreas was powerlessly forced over the whole battlefield by all sorts of conflicting currents. He passed Kindgra breaching the water and producing a bright, luminous pulse that hit Burgh's Dwebble directly. Small chips of its rocky shell rained everywhere. He saw several attacks just bounce off Cloyster's shell harmlessly, and saw Carracosta effortlessly flicking Lenora's Minccino away as it tried to attack. He found himself in a spot with calmer water were three familiar looking leaves broke the water's surface. With horror, he realised Toxica was drowning and tried to get her above water by pulling on the leaves. She surfaced as a massive beam of high-pressured water blasted by.

“Hey, what do you think you're doing?” she asked angrily.

“Saving you from drowning!”

“I won't drown as long as my leaves are above the water, idiot, and I was keeping an eye on-” Suddenly she kicked him in the right side of his face, kicking his head to the left, and immediately he felt a sharp cut on the right of his neck as the Crawdaunt's attempt to decapitate him with its mighty pincer was barely foiled by her quick reaction. There was no time to thank her, however, as the Crawdaunt immediately proceeded to try and cut him in halves. Boreas tried to swim away, but his swimming was really awful, and though Toxica tried to stop the Crawdaunt, it had its mighty pincer in place within two seconds. Just when it seemed Boreas would have to go through the rest of his very short life half as heavy as he used to be, a heavily bloodied Schliemann the Herdier came flying out of nowhere and hit the Crawdaunt's claw, making it give Boreas' tail a bit of a trim instead.

Toxica produced a cloud of spores that Boreas was wise enough to stay out of, but completely enveloped the Crawdaunt as it Crabhammered Schliemann out of his way to get to Boreas, who was swimming away. Toxica yelped and a second later Boreas felt the sharp pincer close around the base of his tail, lifting him up upside down while it lifted up Toxica, whom had been grabbed around her head by the other pincer. For a moment the Crawdaunt just stared at him with small, cold eyes, and Boreas felt mortified that he could be about to lose his tail.

“Please,” he begged the Crawdaunt, “don't cut it off. I surrender, just let me go and I'll leave the battle.” Of course he wasn't actually going to surrender while his friends were still fighting but just making false promises to save his tail. Toxica said something, but it was unintelligible as the pincer covered her mouth.

The Crawdaunt's small eyes seemed to consider it for a moment, then turned an expression that might have been bundled with a malevolent grin in a creature with facial expressions.

“No, please,” Boreas negotiated, “I'm very attached to my tail. I know, I'll even turn to your side if you let me go!”

The Crawdaunt's cold eyes kept that same malignant expression, and Boreas was just starting to think about how nice it had been to have had a tail until now, when the Crawdaunt was stricken from behind by five vines, making it twitch in pain and drop Toxica and Boreas.

Octa was going to say something, but had to swallow it when Crawdaunt angrily snarled out at him with a big pincer. Boreas jumped onto Crawdaunt and tried to Bite it, but its thick exoskeleton was impenetrable to him. He did provide enough of a distraction for Octa and Toxica to hit it multiple times with grass-type attacks, though. After a while it seemed to realise that Boreas was no threat to it and it ignored him to attempt to Guillotine Octa instead. Boreas climbed to the crustacean's head and dug two of his claws into the only vulnerable part of the Crawdaunt: its small, pebble-like eyes. The Crawdaunt hissed in pain and attempted to kill his blinder, but Boreas just jumped off his enemy now that it had effectively been made unable to battle.

Then a massive wave caught Boreas as the Gyarados surfaced between him and his two grass-type friends and launched itself to the air. Just behind its head, a much smaller serpentine creature with one of her wing-like ears missing had latched herself on. It seemed that while she wasn't actually managing to hurt the Gyarados, she was still distracting it enough that it didn't partake in the battle.

After finding another relatively tranquil part of the water, Boreas looked around. It seemed Crawdaunt was the only enemy who had been made unable to battle, while only about half of their side was still fighting. He saw Octa, Toxica and Dubois the Watchog battle the Gastrodon together in a very shallow part of the water. They seemed to be doing surprising amounts of damage, and Octa was adopting quite an arrogant swagger in his fighting when an Ice Beam suddenly came from the left and hit him right in the chest. Boreas screamed in fury as he saw his friend collapse, and tried to charge at the enemies, but found the current too strong. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Octa stand up again, albeit with a face screwed up in a pained expression.

Though Boreas didn't know it, the Ice Beam that had hit Octa had actually been intended for Burgh's Leavanny by its creator, the Cloyster. Leavanny had dodged it, however, and it had passed through a particularly large wave that Kingdra was using to try to drown the several pokémon that were battling it together. The Ice Beam had lost most of its energy to the wave, and this is how Octa managed to survive taking it to the heart.

When he swam through the Gastrodon, avoiding the currents, Boreas found himself in a very deep part of the water, and then the Gyarados surfaced once again just in front of him, still trying to remove Capella from his neck. As it flew up into the air, Boreas grabbed a hold of its fin in an attempt to help Capella. As they flew above the battlefield, he crawled up the Gyarados' body, finding himself next to Capella, whose left ear seemed to have been torn off, leaving only some heavily bleeding remnants. The Gyarados flew through the trees' foliage, attempting to remove the pests on his back.

“Boreas!” shouted Capella, “I'm trying to get to its” they dived underwater, “gills, but it keeps protecting them!”

“Hgrblurplplpl!” said Boreas, realising he couldn't speak underwater. The Gyarados swam upside down and scraped its back to the ground, and with a massive thud, Boreas was torn off its back. He gasped for air when he reached the surface. A current so strong he barely managed to keep his head above the surface forced him along until he reached a shallow and pretty calm spot and found himself right next to Octa and four others, fighting Kingdra and seemingly losing.

“Ah, my dear fellow,” Octa greeted him, barely ducking out of the way of a Dragon Pulse, “'Tis my supreme desire for the next few words out of you mouth to be “I have a plan,” for we could use a plan as cunning as a fox who used to be professor of cunning at Oxford, but has moved on and is currently working for the United Nations commission of international cunning planning.”

The water level rose rapidly. “Have you ever been in a situation where you stopped talking like that?” Boreas asked incredulously as the Kingdra made a rapid spiral current that was developing into a massive whirlpool.

Octa gleamed with pride. “Never, my dear fellow! 'Tis the mark of a great mind to have the capability to remain eloquent in even the most perilous situations. But do you have a plan?”

A rogue downward current pulled Boreas under, and when he resurfaced he said: “No. Not right now!”

They spun around ever faster and closer to the centre were the mighty Kingdra was waiting with a malicious grin. Lenora's Minccino reached the middle first, and as soon as she did so, the Kingdra and the current it produced pulled her deep underwater. “You must have some idea!” Octa pleaded.

A light flashed underwater five times, and the Kingdra resurfaced alone. “No. Except...” Boreas had a faint idea, “This forest is rumoured to be the home of Virizion! We could call for his help!”

Octa stared at him incredulously. “Honestly?” he asked, “Your brilliant plan is to hope for legendary interference? I have come to expect better ideas from you.”

“I never said it was brilliant!” Boreas defended himself as he was approaching the Kingdra closer and closer, “Why don't you think of something better if you don't like it?”

“Fine, then, we'll try calling Virizion.” Together, they called: “One for all, and all for one!”

But Virizion didn't appear. “Well, 'twas worth attempting, I suppose.”

Boreas was caught in the inner current of the whirlpool, and approached the grinning Kingdra was massive speed. “No! Boreas!” he heard Octa shout, but there was no fighting against the current. He reached the centre, spinning sickeningly fast, and was forced underwater by the Kingdra. He tried to fight to get back up, but he was absolutely no match for the Kingdra and the current. As the current trapped him underwater, a bright light shone from Kingdra's mouth as it prepared to execute him with a Dragon Pulse.

Suddenly Boreas' every cell blazed with a bright white light, and he was filled with a feeling of joy and power, despite his impending death. After a moments confusion, he felt as if every part of his body was connected to the forest around, and noticed he was growing with amazing speed. His ears and tail were losing their fur and turning flat and leaf-like. Leaves were sprouting from his body and his fur was losing length and turning yellow.

But I don't want to be a Leafeon.

It was a simple realisation, but he was completely sure about it. Despite what he had thought earlier and how much help he could be in the current battle as a Leafeon, he simply didn't want to be one. He concentrated on being an Eevee, and noticed he was shrinking again. The leaves that had sprouted on him fell off into the water, and his fur grew rapidly longer and browner. His ears and tail returned to their old state again, and finally the sense of connection he had felt with the forest around him disappeared. The light stopped, and then Boreas noticed he was no longer underwater but in shallow water with Octa.

“What happened?” Octa asked, “Why did you not evolve?”

“I realised I didn't want to be a Leafeon.” Boreas said. “What happened to the whirlpool?”

“The Kingdra was so surprised by your sudden near-evolution it forgot to maintain its whirlpool. Within seconds it ended, and because it had collected so much water for it, all that water flowed away and took us with it. 'Tis good to hear you have narrowed down your choice of evolution, incidentally. Do you intend to keep having epiphanies at the last moment of evolution or do you intend to make a choice beforehand?”

“Just get- I have an idea!”

“Ah, excellent!”

“What if we threatened to kill Gorm? He would probably recall his pokémon then.”

“What an uncivilised idea,” Octa said.

“They're trying to drown our trainers too, in case you hadn't noticed, and have already killed at least one of us.”

“Two wrongs don't make a right.”

“Okay, maybe they don't. But unless you want them to kill us all, we should do it anyway. We're on the verge of defeat. We may have defeated three of them, but I don't see us defeating the other three, and there's only six of us left, four if you don't count Karrablast and Munchlax, who are about to disappear into Kingdra's whirlpool. Hey, Leavanny!” he called Burgh's Leavanny swimming by.

“My name is Salvador, you know.” The Leavanny said haughtily.

“Sorry, Salvador. I need your help. We're going to take Gorm hostage, and I'll need your scissors for it.”

“How shall you get to Gorm?” said Octa, who seemed to have resigned to this course of action, “Cloyster is guarding him fiercely, Ice Beaming anyone whom approaches. I assume you have considered a way of dealing with this lethal icy tank?”

“We'll have to distract it,” said Boreas.

“And by we you mean me,” said Octa.

Boreas nodded.

“Alright, then I shall go distract the mighty creature that can probably kill me with a single attack and is nearly impervious to damage.” He sighed, “you know, I really detest ice-types.”

Octa approached Gorm on his own, as the others were either distracting and/or being killed by Gyarados or Kingdra or doing their part of the plan. When he approached Gorm, Cloyster rose from the water, slightly opening its shell, and lashed out at him with an Ice Beam that made him shiver though it missed him by more than a metre. Octa retreated a bit, but found that the Cloyster wouldn't follow him. So he Vine Whipped it, to absolutely no effect, except that it tried to kill him with another Ice Beam. So he launched a Leech Seed at it instead. The seed nested in an indent in Cloyster's shell and rapidly grew roots all over it, eventually penetrating the opening and reaching the small black creature inside. As its energy began draining, Octa launched a Leaf Tornado at the Cloyster. Though most of the sharp leaves harmlessly hit the shell, a couple managed to get in, and the Cloyster shivered visibly.

“Oh?” Octa said, “so you do have some weakness. Let me try that again from this safe distance...”

The Cloyster rapidly swam at Octa, shooting Ice Beams. “Muir, come back here!” commanded Gorm, who was treading water with the ease of an experienced swimmer, but it was too late as Salvador had positioned himself on his back with a scissor around his neck.

“Surrender,” Boreas growled, “or he cuts your throat.”

Though Gorm couldn't understand him, apparently the message was clear as he returned his pokémon to their pokéballs. “Kich! Ye win.”

Without the water types to keep the water they had built up around, it all flowed away immediately. As the pokémon trainers tended to their pokémon, Lenora angrily took the skull from Gorm's hands. “You murdered my Minccino, you bastard!”

“Aye, regrettable, but evil must be opposed at all costs. Besides, ye blinded me Crawdaunt.”

Lenora slapped him. “That can be healed in a pokécenter, but Agricola is dead forever!”

Gorm didn't care. “'Tisnae so bad anyway, we can afford ta abandon the dragon skull project. We'll be going now.”

Before anyone could object, the grunt had thrown his smoke bomb, a minor scuffle happened in the darkness, and Boreas heard several splashes. By the time the smoke cleared, Team Plasma was gone.

wow, amazing chapter, i wasn't expecting a pokemon to actually die in that battle
i am very intrigued by how the rest of the story will go
keep up the amazing writing

Chapter Seventeen: The Endless City

Present

“Now hold on, my dear fellow,” Octa interrupted.

“What is it?” asked Boreas, annoyed at the interruption.

“'Tis just that my recollection of that battle differs somewhat from yours on one specific point.”

“Does it?” said Boreas while giving Octa a dirty look.

“Quite. When that Crawdaunt was about to decaudate you, I don't remember your brave and heroic speech about how 'twas unwise of it to follow Gorm as its master and how it should release Toxica, for killing her would be a most wicked and useless thing to do. As I recall it, you were pleading for your tail's continued attachment to your body and negotiating your surrender when I saved you.”

“Were you?” Aqua asked.

Thanks Octa, Boreas thought bitterly while smiling apologetically. “Yes, I guess I was. But I was only lying, not actually going to surrender.”

“How noble,” said Octa.

“Look,” snapped Boreas annoyed, “I had to say something. I didn't know you were about to rescue us, and I had to try to save my tail and Toxica's life.”

“By making false promises.”

“Yes, by making false promises. It's a lot more sensible than letting it kill Toxica and cut off my tail.”

“I agree,” Aqua winked, “it would've been a shame to lose such a nice tail. Though that part sounded a lot cooler when you told it.”

Basking in the compliment he had just received, Boreas said: “Well, that's why I embellished it.”

“Sure.” Aqua said, “That was your motivation behind it.”

“Anyway,” said Boreas, quickly changing the subject, “I hope you see now what a bunch of bastards Team Plasma is.”

“What for?” Aqua asked, “stealing an old fossil skull and attempting to revive it is hardly a heinous crime.”

Boreas chuckled. “Don't let Capella hear you say that. She was furious about the desecration of her ancestor's bones. Though that does show how arrogant they are, they will gladly steal something that's not theirs if it so happens to be useful to them, not caring about others. But what is more important, I think, is that Gorm tried to kill us, and actually succeeded in it with Lenora's Minccino.”

“Sure, but he was defending. It's not as if he sought you out to try and kill you. And it doesn't invalidate their point that humans and pokémon should be separated.”

Octa answered. “No, it does not. But quite a lot of other examples invalidate that position. Think of all the pokémon whose lives have been improved by their friendship with humans. My own family has a long and noble history of friendship with our breeders and trainers. Or take Boreas-”

“I intend to,” Aqua shamelessly said.

Boreas felt as if he was melting on the spot and blushed uncontrollably and tried to say something, but couldn't manage anything.

Aqua giggled. “You're very cute when you blush, d'you know that?”

Boreas decided he had to say something. “Yes.” Yes? He thought, what yes?

“Well, quite,” said Octa with an arched eyebrow. “What I meant was: take Boreas as an example. Without humans, he would not even be alive to trade innuendos with you today. My dear fellow, did you tell the lady about that unpleasant incident in Castelia yet?”

Boreas realised he hadn't, and that it would likely convince her, but still felt as if his tongue was glued down. “N... No.”

“Well, 'twas a few weeks after the skirmish in Pinwheel Forest that we arrived in the luminescent capital. However-”

“I'm telling the story.” Boreas said, “As Octa said, it took us a few weeks to get to Castelia. First we had to return to Nacrene to get to the pokécenter, as some of us were pretty badly wounded. I mean, Capella had had most of her ear torn off, and Karel, Burgh's Dwebble had had his shell destroyed by a Dragon Pulse while he was inside it. Luckily the pokécenter was able to heal everyone's wounds and mend all broken bones. After that we spent about a week in Nacrene before we left. But by then Capella had become good friends with us and was satisfied that her ancestor's remains would be better protected, so she decided to come with us.”

“As a team member?” Aqua asked.

“Well, she said she's just accompanying us, but she's really become a team member as much as Octa or I now, Black has even used her in Gym battles. Though if you asked her, she would probably still say she's not on the team. Anyway, after a week or two's travel through Pinwheel Forest, we crossed the Skyarrow Bridge into Castelia.”

–

Past

A breathtaking view opened up as they left the forest behind. The broad mouth of the river opened up wide ahead, the setting Sun's light reflecting off the waves like a million sparkling jewels. Over the river, a bridge spanned, but it was not just any bridge. It was very high, had two levels, and looked as elegant as a Ninetales and a Milotic performing ballet together. Far away on the other side of the river, the Sun was setting behind an incredible number of spires that were only visible because of the sharp contrast they provided in front of the Sun. The Sun itself was deep red, very close to the horizon, and pretty dim, as one could look straight into it without discomfort. A glittering Skarmory flew over while Finneons made small jumps out of the river's water.

“Wow.” Boreas gaped in awe at the view.

“Behold,” Octa spoke, “Skyarrow Bridge, the only suspension bridge in Unova, as well as the longest and highest bridge in the land, which shall take us to Castelia City, radiant capitol of Unova!”

“Yeah,” Lucius said mockingly, “we know.”

They walked through the guardhouse and stepped onto the pristine white bridge. The late day's sunlight gleamed off the white surface. The wide bridge travelled upwards in a helical shape at first, making a loop over the stretches of Pinwheel Forest before it went straight ahead to Castelia. Deep below them, waves washed on the shore and salt and fresh water mixed. Between the water and the pedestrian bridge, cars drove over the lower surface. Massive spires that suspended the bridge rose up far above Skyarrow Bridge's surface. To the right, the calm and broad river separated the land into two, while on the left ships floated on the great sea. As they continued over the bridge, the Sun set and twilight set in, making the distant forest behind them disappear into darkness. But as it grew darker, the approaching skyline of Castelia City only became clearer, as it was illuminated with thousands of tiny lights.

Finally the bridge reached the other shore and descended. Castelia's skyline disappeared behind the closest buildings as they neared the ground. After one final look back at the beautiful, illuminated bridge against the dark night, they entered the guardhouse and Castelia.

–

Castelia was astonishing, amazing, abnormal, and many more adjectives beginning with an A. Huge skyscrapers were everywhere, towering high into the sky and dwarfing humans and pokémon alike. And yet, despite the omnipresent grey buildings, the city did not have the lifeless atmosphere of Striaton. Instead it seemed as if everyone on the planet had come to Castelia, making the city a mad and busy hustle.

Despite first appearances, Castelia was not all buildings. When they walked through the city the day after they had arrived, Black and his pokémon found the large park that formed the city's centre, Nucleus Park. The park was a complete chaos were people sunbathed, danced, performed music, flew kites, sold ice cream, trained their pokémon, discussed philosophy, walked over the bicycle paths, cycled over the pedestrian paths, swam in fountains, carved their initials into trees, and much, much more.

They also found the docks of the city, with their many piers. Ships from all over the world arrived at the docks and made Castelia's endless ensemble of people and pokémon ever more endless.

Now Black and his pokémon were exploring the inner city. They entered a street that was devoid of people. Boreas' ears twitched in the empty street when he heard a group of suspicious people in long coats sneak around the corner, following them. He bit the leg of Black's trousers to draw his attention.

“I've noticed them.” Black whispered without looking around. Then, suddenly, eight Team Plasma grunts walked out of a building ahead, blocking the road. They turned around, but the suspicious people behind them threw off their coats and showed themselves to be Plasma grunts as well. Black's pokémon formed a protective circle around him.

“Gutentag, herr Black,” said a long-haired old man with a moustache as he left the building the grunts had come out of. He wore long brown robes.

“What do you want?” Black snapped.

“How rude.” the old man said, “Let me introduce myself. My name is Bronius of the Seven Sages, and I've come to welcome you to my city.”

“Your city?” Black scoffed, “Funny, the mayor's name didn't sound like Bronius to me. Of course, it could just be your stupid accent being hard to understand.”

“Very funny. Let us get straight to business, then. You have become a thorn in Team Plasma's eyes. You... Beschädigtest the operations of Rood and Gorm. One does not trouble Team Plasma without consequences. After Gorm alerted us all about his defeat, I knew you would be coming to Castelia next, and ordered mein men to look out for you. It was probably just luck that allowed you to defeat Rood and Gorm. But perhaps not, and in that case I don't want you walking around freely.”

“So you're going to kill me.”

“Kill you?” Bronius seemed insulted, “do you think I'm a barbarian? I am a forgiving man, and we could use a man with your talents. Why don't you join us? You must love pokémon, don't you see they are much better off without humans forcing them to obey?”

“Oh, as if!” Octa scoffed.

“No,” Black said, “you're just a sad bunch of hypocrites who want to force your ideals down everyone else's throat and I will never join you.”

“Schade. I had hoped you would cooperate, but in that case, you we will have to liberate your pokémon.”

“Never!”

“I don't remember asking you anything. I don't want your permission to liberate them, as I don't need it. You don't get a choice in the matter,” he sent out a Gigalith, an Archeops, an Aggron, a Rhypherior, a Magcargo, and an Omastar. “I will now battle you to liberate your pokémon. If you really are special, you can probably defeat me.”

The six powerful rock types charged through the thin street, creating tremors with each step. Octa made a Leaf Tornado to try to hit as many of them as possible, but it didn't faze them. Soon Boreas had to dodge huge rocks flying around, and powerful arms trying to crush him. He barely managed to get away from Archeops' piercing claws, dodged the Iron Tail of Aggron, and avoided Magcargo's attempt to incinerate him, only to find himself alone in front of the Rhypherior.

The massive beast towered above him, seeming as tall as the skyscrapers to Boreas, who didn't even reach to its knees. It brought a massive, powerful arm down, almost crushing Boreas, and immediately after he had to dodge its other heavy rock arm. Boreas thought just keeping an eye on its arms was enough, but when the Rhypherior suddenly turned around, he saw too late that there was a huge rock on the end of its tail. With a bone-crushing impact, Boreas was launched into the wall by the heavy boulder. He fell to the ground and found his consciousness, as well as quite a lot of blood, quickly escaping his body. He tried to concentrate on staying awake, but his view became unfocused, he heard some unintelligible mumblings, and sank away into darkness.

Interesting chapter, the description of walking over the bridge seemed a bit over done for me, but that's probably just me.
The battle scene as usual was really well written, but short, unfortunately.
I am really enjoying your part of the story that involves Aqua in the present, it's really interesting.
Anyways keep up the good writing, and I can't wait to read more.

Originally Posted by Akimbo

Interesting chapter, the description of walking over the bridge seemed a bit over done for me, but that's probably just me.
The battle scene as usual was really well written, but short, unfortunately.
I am really enjoying your part of the story that involves Aqua in the present, it's really interesting.
Anyways keep up the good writing, and I can't wait to read more.

It's probably not just you that thinks the part about Skyarrow Bridge was overdone, because I actually agree. But, you know, that part of the game was pure scenery porn, what was I going to do except try to match it?
You're in luck if you liked the battle with Bronius and the present day business, as there will be more of both in the next few chapters.

Chapter Eighteen: Liberated

The first part of Boreas' consciousness that returned to him was a severe, throbbing pain over most his body, but especially in his left legs and flank. When he opened his eyes, an unfocused pattern of blinding white and deep black assaulted his eyes, and the severe physical pain in his body was joined by a splitting headache, dizziness and nausea. His head was as foggy as London in 1952, and felt as if there was a Frenchman living in it.

A voice said something, but to Boreas it was as intelligible as an aphasic with a severe speech impediment standing on the other side of a wall speaking Czech while enjoying a mouthful of thick yoghurt with fruity bits.

“Mmwuh?” Boreas mumbled while trying to get up, but he cursed “Mew's splanch!” when he found out that was a really bad idea as the pain in his legs increased from the sensation one might feel some seventeen hours after a car carrying two morbidly obese parents and their adorable baby daughter had driven over one's left foot to the pain one might feel if one took a particularly large, prickly cactus, dipped it into the juice of Naga Viper peppers, set it on fire, and inserted it into one's own rectum. In addition to the pain intensifying, Boreas immediately collapsed to the left, on top of his left legs, which were now under his body in unusual positions and screaming with pain like a stereotyped housewife seeing a mouse and Edward Cullen at the exact same moment. He tried to get up, but it only worsened the pain and didn't work. But then someone gripped him, put him on his other side, and moved his legs to positions were their pain was much more bearable.

“Don't move, my dear fellow,” a voice spoke kindly, “you have broken both left legs, as well as several ribs. You shall only make things worse by moving.”

Boreas felt a lot better now that he knew that whatever was going on, at least Octa was with him. “Octa? What the hell happened? Why do I feel like a particularly large Rhypherior smashed me into- Hang on, that's exactly what happened, isn't it?”

“Indeed. You have been unconscious for several hours, my dear fellow, and are likely feeling very poorly right now.”

“Really? I hadn't noticed that myself yet, thanks for pointing it out. But the battle! What happened? Did we win?”

There was a slight pause. “I'm afraid we didn't, my dear fellow.”

“What?”

“I don't know if you can see it, but we are currently in cages in what seems to be some form of pokémon gaol of Team Plasma.”

Boreas' eyesight was indeed coming back, and now he could see he was in a small cage inside a white room with other cages in it. The cages were stacked up on each other in two stacks. “Then how did you get in here to help me?”

“Vines, remember.”

“Oh yeah. What about the others? Is everyone alright?”

“We are all present, albeit not in excellent condition. None of us is in as poor a condition as you, though.”

“What about Black?”

“We don't know his location and status. We were taken here by grunts as soon as we had lost the battle, and unfortunately we lost sight of Black and Bronius.”

“Oh damn,” Boreas said.

“Oh, as you so rightfully put it, damn,” Octa said.

“So what happened to us being liberated?” Boreas wondered, “why are we in these cages instead of in some forest somewhere?”

Octa snorted. “Methinks Team Plasma uses the verb “to liberate” in some novel context.”

Finally, Boreas' splitting headache largely cleared and the dizziness stopped, and his eyes would finally focus properly. It seemed he was in the top cage of one of the two stacks of cages, and he could only see the top cage of the other stack, which contained Octa, who was covered in several large, ugly bruises and some deep cuts. If he very cautiously moved his head, he could see the upper half of the cage under Octa, in which Toxica, two of the leaves of her head partially torn off and with one black eye and several cuts, was looking around nervously.

“'e alrigh', guv'nor?” a heavily accented voice asked.

“Who's that?” Boreas asked.

“Wotcher, name's Thomas.”

“Hi, I'm Boreas.”

A light, feminine voice spoke up. “And I'm February. It's nice to meet you.”

“'Ear choo.” Thomas whimsically bettered her.

“Yeah, it's nice to meet you two too. Is there anyone else here I don't know?”

“No guv, Febby an' I was the only tews what was 'ere in the Jimmy Nail until they tossed'choo in wiff us. 'Ear choo gots a bit of an unscheduled meetink wiff Team Plasma.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah,” Febby said, “Octa told us all about it.”

Boreas dragged himself to the cage's lock very carefully and started messing around with it to no end. “'Tis no good, my dear fellow,” Octa said, “I already tried that.”

Boreas sighed frustrated. “Well, we can't stay here, we have to do something!”

“Calm down, guv,” said Thomas, “I've been 'ere five days, ain't nuffink choo can do 'cept wait.”

Boreas shuddered at the thought of having to remain inside the cage much longer. “Wait? But I want to get out now!”

“Calm down, my dear fellow. You'll only hurt yourself. Why don't we talk for a while to pass the time, hmm?”

“Fine,” grumbled Boreas, “What do you want to talk about?”

Octa seemed to be unable to think of something for a moment. “Thomas, February, were you two stolen from the same trainer?”

“I ain't stolen from anyone, guv'nor,” said Thomas, “I'm me own free pokémon, livin' in this here city by meself. Humans is incredibly wasteful, they is, an' they throws away enuff food for me to eat like a king each day. But a couple of days ago, I was just mindin' me own business when these Plasma dental flossers shows up an' captures me, takin' me 'ere. Febby showed up a day later.”

“I see. What about you, February?”

“They stole me from my trainer,” Febby suddenly sounded very sad, “I was in my pokéball on her belt, and they pickpocketed me.”

Boreas heard sniffing sounds. “Hey,” he tried to support her as best he could, “don't be sad, I'm sure she'll come rescue you. And so will Black, mark my words.”

“But what if she doesn't notice I'm gone?” Febby sounded panicky, “I'm so weak and have so little use in battle, maybe she doesn't even miss me!”

“Nonsense,” Boreas said, “I'm sure she misses you terribly and is trying to find you right now.”

“D'you think?” Febby sounded less sad.

“Sure. And if she doesn't, she doesn't deserve you, and Black will rescue you together with the rest of us!”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, “Boreas is righ', Feb. She'll come for choo, I'm sure.”

“But there's so many of Team Plasma, even if she comes, she wouldn't stand a chance.”

Capella spoke up. “Wars aren't won by numbers, little one. Even if they are outnumbered, they can still win by superior strategy and skill.”

“Shh! Someone's coming!”

Two Plasma grunts entered the room with buckets of berries. “Right,” the bigger one said, “Let's give this lot their food and get out.”

They pushed some small berries into the cages. Boreas mimed the act of pickpocketing to Octa, who extended his vines to carefully look for the grunts' keys.

“So how long do we have to feed this lot any more anyway?” the smaller one asked.

“A week I guess. They usually ship them to the castle on the 25th.” He was feeding Boreas right now, “Don't think this Poochyena here will be much use there, though. Sage Bronius messed it up pretty badly, and it looks weak in the first place.”

Boreas growled at the man for his insult and for calling him a Poochyena.

The grunt turned around, and Octa retracted his vines just in time. “Huh,” the smaller grunt said, “I wonder if they'll let us keep it if it can't work.”

“What's the use of a pokémon what can't work or fight?”

“It has nice fur. My wife'd love a fur coat.”

“A whole coat off that runt? You might get a hat out of it.”

“Heh, I guess.” they left the room, leaving Boreas feeling very insulted and worried for his skin's future.

“I'm sorry, my dear fellow,” said Octa, “I didn't manage to steal their keys. But if they really do intend to keep us here for a week, I shall have plenty chances to try again.”

The thought of staying there for a week made Boreas shiver, but he tried to banish the thought by thinking about other things. “What's this castle they're going to take us to?”

Nobody seemed to know that. “Dunno, guv,” said Thomas, “but i' doesn't sound much like liberashun to me. Course, it didn't sound much like liberashun in the first place, 'cos I was a free pokémon. Blimey, what's the bloomin' use o' liberatin' me from human masters if I don' even 'ave any?”

“Yes,” said Capella, “and I'm not a captured pokémon either, I'm only travelling with a human. Anyway, Boreas, we should make sure your broken bones heal properly.”

“What d'you mean? Can't they do that in the pokécenter?”

“Not if it's been too long since they were fractured. Those machines can't do their work properly if scarring tissue has formed, you see, as it means your own body is repairing the damage, and if the machines would do that too it all becomes one big cross-repairing nightmare. So we should make sure the bones heal properly, or you could be cripple for the rest of your life. Or at least until you evolve.”

“Okay, sure, what do I need to do?”

“We need to make sure the two halves of the broken bones are touching each other in the right way. Octa, you can reach Boreas, right? Do you have any experience with this sort of thing?”

“I'm afraid I don't.”

“Then I guess I'll have to talk you through it. By the way, putting the bones in the correct positions is going to be about as painful as breaking them was in the first place, so be warned.

Boreas gulped. “Okay. So how do you know what to do with a broken bone anyway?”

“Well, when you get to be a hundred and seven years old, you learn a thing or two along the way, I guess.”

“107?!” exclaimed everyone else in chorus.

“Yeah, is that so strange? I know it's a bit older than most of you, but not that much, is it?”

“Yes it is,” Boreas said, “I'm barely half a year old, you're more than two hundred times as old as I am!”

“Wow, that's young.” said Capella, “I guess it all depends on your species, other Dratinis would consider me relatively young. I could easily have nine centuries ahead of me.”

“Blimey,” said Thomas, “That's quite some longevi'y chore kind 'as.”

Octa set Boreas' bones in place with Capella's guidance. Boreas didn't know what he found worse: the pain or the annoyance at Lucius, who was sniggering to himself and making some very annoying remarks about the situation.

–

The only way they knew it was night was the light suddenly went out and the entire room became dark. Without any light everyone fell asleep very quickly. Everyone except Boreas, that was. He lay awake with a throbbing pain in his entire left side, while his right side was uncomfortable. He felt like changing position, but Capella had told him he should try to keep the same position as much as possible, as his bones could easily shift positions without a cast. Then he found out he was not the only one awake, as he heard Toxica's voice:

“Octa? Are you awake?”

“Hmm? Yes, I believe I am.”

“Well, I can't sleep, and I wanted to ask you something...”

“I shall be happy to enlighten you with the answer.”

“I was wondering... What's it like to evolve?”

“It is... Well, 'tis... I say, 'tis quite difficult to describe.”

“Really? But you normally have such a way with words.”

“I do, don't I? Yes, I shall endeavour to describe it... It feels very odd indeed. It feels strange, but also pleasant... As if one is turned into a liquid and inserted in a different mold that one's body is changing form to fit. One can actually feel their body alter, and watch it happening from inside.”

“It must feel so weird... But after you have evolved and you have turned into this awesome new form... I mean, you became so much bigger and stronger... And more handsome... And more charming... And your voice became so... Sexy. Do you think when I evolve, I'll become amazing, like you? So strong and attractive?”

There was a bit of a pause. “I'm afraid you shan't. Your evolution possesses a notoriously unpleasant odour and is not exactly aesthetically pleasing.”

“Oh,” said Toxica in a very disappointed voice.

Boreas had to mask his laughing as a very odd snore as something very malicious in him cheered for Octa's obliviousness.

–

The week passed incredibly slowly, and yet it was not slow enough. To just lie still in the same cage was intensely boring, but Boreas was scared of whatever would happen on the 25th. Though none of them knew exactly what would happen that day, they all had the feeling that they had to escape before then if they ever wanted to see their trainers or freedom again. Octa had tried pickpocketing the grunts that fed them every day, but it seemed they just didn't carry the keys. No-one slept on the night of 24 July, as they were desperately trying to think of a plan for the next day.

“Octa,” said Boreas, “What if you just wrapped your vines around their necks and threatened to strangle them to force them to let us out?”

“I'm afraid that shan't work, my dear fellow,” Octa replied, “I don't think I quite possess the strength to strangle a human, and-”

“Nonsense!” said Toxica, “you're worth a million of them!”

“Yes, well quite. Thank you. But I'm afraid 'tis only in terms of intelligence, civilisation, and decency that I'm their superior.”

“And charm,” Toxica interjected, “and good looks and-”

“Look,” Boreas interrupted her annoyed, “can we get on with planning our escape?”

“Quite,” Octa said, “as I said, I probably don't possess the strength to actually strangle them, and even if I did or could make them believe I did and thus force them to open these cages, methinks they do not have the keys to our gaol at all, so I'm afraid it would be utterly pointless.”

“The way I see it, if they're going to take us somewhere, they'll either have to open these cages or carry them around. If it's the first, they'll have the keys, while if it's the second... I guess we could attack them while they're carrying us so they drop us, and then... I don't know, but it's better than cooperating. Lucius, you could spit fire at them, right?”

“Yeah, obviously. Don't be expecting no infernos, but I could probably hurt them pretty badly.”

“Great, and you could do that wave-thing you did when we first met you, Capella!”

“I'm afraid not. I'm not a water-type, so I can't just create the water. I can only manipulate what's already there. And I couldn't do a Thunder Wave without paralysing myself in this cage.”

“I could poison or paralyse them with my spores!” Toxica quipped.

“Great! Febby, Thomas, could either of you do something?”

“'Fraid not, guv,” said Thomas, “we ain't no use tew choo unless we's out of these cages first. What'chore plan, anyway?”

“I don't have a plan, beyond improvising something to get us out of these cages. Can you think of something better?”

“No, guv, chore plan o' improvisin' sumfink tew get out an' then scarperin's the best we can do.”

“I agree,” said Capella, “and I think we'll all need our sleep tomorrow. Let's try to sleep the last few hours of the night so we may be alert to opportunities tomorrow.”

After it had been silent for a while as everyone tried to fall asleep, Boreas heard a small voice say his name. “Boreas?”

“Yes, Febby?”

“Do you think we'll make it?”

“Of course we will,” Boras lied, “I'm sure of it.”

“R-really? Because I don't want to go to this castle... I just want to go back to White.”

“Don't worry,” said Boreas in the most encouraging tone of voice he could muster, “I promise you will get back to White.”

Great chapter, i'm now really intrigued as to what pokemon thomas and february are, you've done a good job hiding that from us

and i laughed really hard at 'scenery porn', never heard of that before