Warning: This is not standard Pokemon fanfiction. It contains scenes of
violence and some inappropriate language.

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                           Pokemon Master 

Fanfiction by Ace Sanchez.

All parts of this story may be found at the following address:
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/acey/pokemon.htm

Note: Pokemon and its associated characters are copyright by Nintendo,
Game Freak, Creatures Inc, and 4Kids Productions.

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Part 13 - Resolutions


Blinding white light. It had seemed to wash over the city in waves of hot
brightness. Though its most intense point was more toward Indigo
Plateau's western sector, it had still managed to provide enough
illumination to make the unnatural night seem as unnatural day. And even
when the disturbance had died down as suddenly as it had come, it was
still enough to shock the hordes of people who waited down below on the
streets into a terrified but silent panic.

But darkness had once again swiftly swallowed the sun and the only light
left now was that of the several burning and crackling buildings which,
not coincidentally, were coming from around the area that the breaching
had occurred.

After watching the blinding white glow slowly fade over the city horizon,
Gary closed his eyes slowly within the deep hood of his grey, long cloak.

Minutes passed in silence on the cold, uppermost balcony of the palace.
The wind that rippled his clothes had a contrasting warmness to it,
burned by the hot rays of the sudden sunlight.

When he opened his eyes, it was with sudden resolve that he abruptly
turned around to stride back into the palace. His eyes were burning,
though he wasn't sure with what emotion. The servants waiting at the
balcony entrance looked away from him. Fear? And rightly they should.

He felt both sad and joyous.


<><><>


For a time, the wind wailed a sound of hopelessness in the background,
blowing dried leaves about the high city rooftop. Leaves that had somehow
been blown up into the upper wind currents. The cold, gritty cement floor
was chilly beneath her fingers as she sat sprawled there ... beaten.

It was too late now. Though of course, that didn't matter. There was
nothing she could have done anyway. Facts were facts, and they couldn't
change no matter how much one wished for something to be. As much to wish
the sun cold and the trees to fly.

"Pathetic, aren't I, sister?" Valdera finally opened her eyes and looked
up slowly. "What was that they said about men and women? Show a woman a
man she likes, and prepared to be shown a fool. But then, you know now
that we aren't really sisters anyway."

Mistaria looked down at her, no expression except tiredness showing on
her identical face. "If you're a fool, then I guess I'm ... we're ... a
fool." She sat down again with an air of exhaustion, but without breaking
eye contact with her. Eyes that were also identical to hers.

They said that the eyes were the windows to the soul.

A pained smile curled Valdera's lips despite herself. "You know, I
thought it was all bullshit. What I found out about Professor Oak's real
business with us sixteen years ago when he visited. Though that was the
final thing that made me decide to leave Cerulean."

"What business? I don't remember Professor Oak visiting us. I didn't even
know him back then."

"That's because he didn't see you. He was more interested in me." She
paused, the familiar anger stirring itself within her chest. "I had an
idea about what he was so interested in, but didn't have any real
knowledge of what had been going on. No real knowledge until years and
years later when I had acquired more sources. But he'd been researching
us for quite some time. You know how long?" 

She could feel Mistaria's confusion through the link as she could only
shake her head.

"Since even before our birth," Valdera spat. "Oh, we were very important
to him. Very important."

"Because of the ... prophecy."

"The prophecy," she affirmed, the hatred of fate thick on her tongue.
"Throughout his life, he worked unendingly to see it come true. Maybe he
wanted to save the world from its predicted miserable end. Maybe he just
wanted glory. But ultimately, and unknowingly it is his creation now that
threatens the world. Ironic isn't it?"

Mistaria closed her eyes. "And what about us? Just how do we fit into
this?"

"We are supposedly the other half of the whole." She reached behind her
back to the old dusty diary that was held in place by her robe's sash.
"Read this." She threw it over to Mistaria who caught it without looking.
"Start on the page with the corner ripped."

"A diary?" Mistaria paused as she looked down at the worn cover. 
"Professor Oak's diary." She began to read out loud as she flipped 
through to the page she had indicated. "The Return of Light and Shadow. 
Misty and Vally Waterflower ... I have begun to confirm my suspicions
that these two children are indeed the other half of the whole. Though
there being two of them is a puzzle that has yet to be deciphered."

Valdera laughed tonelessly. "He deciphers it all right."

Mistaria ignored her and continued. "In particular, the sister named
Vally is quite interesting. I have tested the whole family secretly with
the EDS I invented and her output differs significantly than with the
other family members. Even the twin is different, but the output on her
is equally puzzling. Though Misty's readings have more in common with the
other family members, there is still a distinct difference. Both EDS
readings are unstable when taken apart but when the two are near, the
graphs interpose..." She suddenly looked up at her, eyes narrowed. "Where
did you get this?"

"Lord Garick has a whole shrine dedicated to his late grandfather.
Interesting really, when all he feels for that old man now is hatred. But
anyway this diary is one of the things I managed to steal from that place
... though I wished I had never read it afterward."

Mistaria covered her face with her hands. "You ... you said that ... Mom
... wasn't our real mother. If she wasn't then, just who was?"

Valdera saw that a paper was about to fall out of the diary that Mistaria
was holding. "That picture."

Mistaria gasped as she looked at it. Valdera knew what she was seeing. A
picture of their father holding hands with a striking-looking, tall woman
with gold hair and blue ethereal eyes.

Whose face looked almost exactly alike to theirs.

After a pregnant pause, Mistaria asked weakly, "Who's this?"

"I think you know."

She began shaking violently, the papers rattling in her hands. "B-But ...
what happened to her? Ever since I can remember, we were with Mom ... I
mean-" her voice cut off, obviously not knowing what word to say next.

Valdera answered anyway. "No one knows. Apparently not even Professor
Oak. All anyone knows is that she went away one day and never came back.
Father took it hard. Even though he shouldn't have even been with her
with him already being married and all ... the cheating asshole."

"B-But did Daisy and the others know?"

"They think we're adopted. But I'm sure they had suspicions ... after
all, we do share at least some resemblance through father's side," she
added with disgust.

Mistaria was taking another look at the photograph, her lower lip
trembling. "It just doesn't seem possible ... that this could be real.
And then I look at this woman and I see ... just who was she?"

"I think a more accurate question would be, 'what' was she. Oak believed
she wasn't entirely human."

A completely confused look was all that answered her.

"An ... elemental spirit of some kind, he believed," Valdera offered.
"The element of Light in its purest form." Then she paused, savouring the
reaction to what she would say next. "Just like the element of shadow in
its purest form ... fathered our dear Ashura. That bastard he remembers
wasn't his father at all."

Misty could only listen on in horrified silence as Valdera revealed to
her all she knew. Which was considerable.


<><><>


General Yas awoke. The smell of steaming water was what did it along with
the groaning of men and the faint screech of sirens just beginning to
wail over the city. He blinked his eyes open, his mind still hazy. He
seemed to be laying on his side in a steaming puddle of water upon
cement. Flickering flame from a few ignited patches of rubble that lay
scattered around him provided scant light in the night's darkness. Then
full awareness came crashing back into him.

He surged to one knee forcefully, still weak from the underhanded attack,
a contrast to his overwhelming anger. He looked around the wide rooftop
where most of his men still lay unconscious among smoking puddles and
slowly burning pieces of debris. Fainted pokemon lay scattered by the
dozen. Even the two Pokemon Masters he had brought with him had been
knocked down and remained unmoving. Spotting his fallen katana, he
reached down and grasped its long hilt to sheathe it back on his belt. It
took him two tries, his wrist shaking, but he did it.

Sirens continued to wail in the distance. General Kas should be here
soon. His face flushed. Kas would be on to him harder than a brick wall.
The worst of it was, is that he deserved it. He should have waited before
intercepting. He should have known. He had grown arrogant. As arrogant as
those days long ago in Dark City when he had competed to put his gym on
the map.

Maybe some things never change.

Something sparked by his boot and he saw that it was a piece of his chest
armour that he wore beneath his long coat. Little electric charges 
still caused the metal to flash black and blue.

Though anger burned within him as hot as an inferno, he could not help
but feel a disquiet at the young man's power. If anything, it had grown
over the years.

And that girl that was with him ... a Change Master. Interesting.

A feminine voice spoke up from behind him. "General, are you okay?"

He turned his head to see the blue-haired chaneller with brown eyes he
had quickly recruited on his way down here. She stood there in front of
him, the upper-city winds rustling her long black robes and clinking the
silver charms that adorned her person. What was her name again?
Cassandra. Chaneller Cassandra. She had done well, masking their presence
on the building. A top student of Lady Agatha's. And someone else that
traitor Ashura knew. He had actually saved her from his friend's attack
which had surprised him. "I am fine," he replied gruffly as he pushed
himself to his feet and straightened his coat. He glared around at the
soldiers and trainers who were now mostly conscious and pushing
themselves upright with the sound of clinking armour and rustling of
clothes. "Form up!" he called out, his hard voice sweeping over the
building's roof. "Recall your pokemon and await instructions." 

Red lights flashed as they followed orders.

He turned his head to find that the two Masters had regained their wits
and fell into step behind him. "Sorry, Sir ... I-I was taken by
surprise," one of them offered. "The water ... it allowed the electricity
to affect me and Sandslash."

Yas turned to stare into his eyes. The Ground Master was unhooded, his
dirt-coloured hair free to blow about the breeze. He noticed the smooth
cheeks, the angry eyes though without experience. Sometimes it was hard
to remember that so many of them were so young. After the wars and then
after that, the many battles with, not only the rebels but also other
miscellaneous raiders, the young were mostly all they had left. He looked
away. "No apologies. If anyone is to blame for this ... this debacle ...
it is I."

He looked up and was about to estimate from the stars how much time had
passed from when they had been paralysed, when he remembered that the sky
were still covered by the dome. And even if there were no dome, the
clouds of shadows would still render them invisible.

No matter. He knew that they had been headed west toward the slums
district of the city. He just had to gather more people before he could
pursue. They could defeat Ashura. Correction - they would defeat him. He
had a weakness. His so-called friends. He would put out a citywide search
on those other Rebel Masters.

"Are we going after them, Sir?" the Ground Master asked.

"This time we'll wait for General Kas. I want no mistakes this time and
more power than we'll need. We can't allow that traitor to ruin the
prophecy."

"There is something I don't understand," Cassandra suddenly put in, her
eyes staring, haunted, at the darkness above. "If what we are doing is 
so important, why hasn't Master Lance become involved in this?"

That well of doubt again appeared in Yas' mind. They had received no
orders, no prior warning from the Elite Four. They should have known what
was happening, and if not, they would definitely know now. In fact, it 
was Master Lance who should have been in charge of this operation. He 
knew himself as a powerful man in his own right, but he knew Masters such 
as this Ashura was not in his league. But Master Lance definitely was ... 
as for Mistress Valdera, who knew what she thought. She was as insane as 
Master Brock if not more so.

He was still thinking on a plan of action when abruptly he felt grim
foreboding.

A sudden gust of air blew out the faint fires on the roof that provided
most of the light. 

Darkness. The sound of a damp twig snapping.

"AARGAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Light chase away the shadows!" he heard Cassandra shout and a globe of
brightness in her palm lit up the roof. It revealed crimson mists filling
the air as several trainers in front of him were slumping forward, gaping
ragged holes in their chests where there were none before.

"What?" General Yas yelled in disbelief as he instantly began looking
around for what caused it. "We're under attack!" His hand grasped the
hilt of his sheathed sword.

A shadow flitted in his peripheral vision and he dodged to the left just
in time as something breezed by his ear. Another soldier in front of him
vomited blood as something struck him in the belly and sent him flying
from the edge of the roof. His scream was hideous as it faded away down
the building.

"It's Forbidden Pokemon!" an anguished soldier yelled in shock.

More screams and yells as the rest of the gathered soldiers and trainers
panicked. They turned in a mad rush toward the fire escape on the
opposite side of the roof from where they had first come in their ambush
of Ashura. Something began tearing at their back in a frenzy of cracking
bones and bloody dismemberment.

As General Yas stepped forward, the two Pokemon Masters by his side freed
their arms and covered his flanks. Cassandra silently brought up the
rear. No ... not Forbidden Pokemon ...

The number of soldiers and trainers was lessening. Pokemon were thrown
out from balls to protect them, but even if they weren't still 
unconscious from the earlier fight, they were ripped apart as easily as 
their trainers. Elemental attacks thrown just seemed to be ignored as the 
dark shapes attacking weren't even affected.

And then there was no more screaming. Besides the faint sirens and the
cold city breeze, silence.

The streams of water flowing on the building's roof had darkened to an
evil red.

General Yas closed his eyes, then opened them. "Whoever you are, you'll
pay dearly for such murder."

The two figures in black, hooded garb turned to him, unanswering, as they
kicked off various ruined bodies from the edge of the roof. Their faces
were hidden by the shadows of their hoods not unlike the cloak of a
Pokemon Master.

One of them stepped forward lifting one of its hands in a fighting
stance. Dimly, Yas noticed it was wearing the black fingerless fighting
gloves of the same type that Ashura had always worn.

"Rebel scum," the Fire Master shouted as he crossed his palms out in
front of him. "Die! Fire Blast!"

The massive cross-shaped beam of fire left his hands like a comet
directly at the two black-garbed figures. 

Yas narrowed his eyes. That bad feeling of his was getting worse. "These
aren't rebels."

The black-garbed figure that was closest stepped into the blast and
lifted its hands. Shockingly it caught the fire attack within its palms,
wrestled briefly with it, then jerked its arms apart. Red and yellow
sparks that was all that was left of the elemental attack flared into the
air in a bright display of contempt.

"I-Impossible..."

The Ground Master stepped forward, his brown cloak drifting in the wind.
"My turn." He reached within his clothes and removed his poke-ball which
he enlarged within his hands. "Sandslash, Slash!" he ordered as he threw
it.

Terracotta energy flared out from the ball which formed into the large
spike-backed rodent pokemon with claws as long as a man's forearm. It
flew forward using the thrown ball's momentum in its lunge toward the two
figures, growling.

This time it was the other black-garbed figure that stepped forward. In
disbelief they watched as it reached out and caught the sandslash's
wrists in each of its hands and flipped over its head using the startled
pokemon's inertia against it. In a midair handstand above it, the figure
twisted once, violently crossing the sandslash's arms with a crack, then
came down on it's reverse side forcing the sharp claws into the back of
its own neck. There was a sickening tearing sound and a splash of blood.
The Sandslash's headless torso stood for several more seconds before
toppling over with a splash.

The black-garbed figure glanced at it briefly before tossing the
sandslash's head off the roof of the building carelessly. It giggled.

The Ground Master stared woodenly at the dead body of his pokemon. Then
he cried out in pain and loss as he collapsed to his knees.

General Yas took a step backward. He now had some idea of who these
people were, but he didn't want to believe it. He couldn't. To do so
would undermine his very beliefs and make his whole life that he had
lived past Dark City a mockery.

Someone stepped in front of him. Chaneller Cassandra.

"General ... We'll hold them off."

He looked past her at the two black-garbed figures once more. They had
lowered their stances as if ready to pounce. Obviously they were through
playing with them now. With the soft hiss of sliding steel, he withdrew
his katana from its sheathe in one smooth motion and slashed the air with
it once. His mouth tightened in determination. "We will all hold them
off." Though he knew that what he said was just a dream.

One thing was now different. Now he was looking forward to General Kas'
intervention. But where in Hell's shadows was he?


<><><>


The horses were snorting nervously, wisps of fog escaping from their
nostrils in the cold air.

General Kas eyed the pitch-black horizon of shadow with deadly vigilance,
his large gloved hands tight on the reins of his apprehensive mount.
He and a company of soldiers had received an alert from the guards that
indicated some trouble at the edge of the dome, so after leaving
General's Butch and Cassidy group behind, they had ridden hard to the
southern outskirts of the city to investigate. It had been somewhat
difficult to press through the large crowds of people, but with efficient
dispersing by the soldiers they were able to continue on their way in
undue time along backstreets and roads.

When they arrived, he had spotted nothing out of the ordinary. Lord
Garick's protective dome still held fast. Out here past the outer
residential areas, the urban development was more scarce, there being
more trees and plant life than man-made buildings or roads. The damp
longish grass they're mounts stood upon swayed in the chill breeze,
coloured dark-grey in the shadowed air, at least until it joined the dome
somewhere out there in the distance, where it was just black.

But they had just been about to turn back to the city to resume the
search for the rebel Masters when the spectacular elementary light storm
had stopped everything.

After that, there was nothing that was going to stop him from galloping
back to the city as soon as possible.

Except maybe, something that had suddenly caused the man in front of him
to fly off his horse and fly backward in the air screaming as he was
sucked into the black abyss of the dome wall. His scream had been
abruptly cut short as his body disappeared into the shadows.

General Kas stayed utterly still as he continued watching the horizon.
His men looked on in apprehension. Even though they and their horses were
still quite far away, and the protective dome had been completely black
and opaque when it had first been formed, he thought he could now see
slightly through it, as if it was gaining more and more transparency as
time passed.

A muffled girl's cry came from behind. General Kas turned around to glare
at the soldier who was holding the young girl they had captured earlier
captive atop his horse in front of him. "Tie the little bitch's gag
tighter," he growled as he shifted his black gaze to the girl herself.
She looked about fourteen or fifteen and had long brown-black hair and
brown eyes. What made her suspicious was the green forest cloak the girl
was wearing, the type of clothes that a Rebel Grass Trainer wore.

This time a muffled protest came from their other captive as the soldier
obediently tugged the girl's gag tighter forcing her to her expel a
breath in pain. General Kas just nodded and the black-haired boy, hands
tied together and attached to the same horse to be dragged along, was
punched in the stomach by one of the other soldiers. Blood dripped from
behind the boy's gag but he didn't cry out, only releasing a tight breath
at the powerful blow.

The two had been found just a little shy of the city outskirts as they
passed through. A quick search of the area revealed they had come from
the sewers. The sewers were at one point connected to the Victory Road
tunnels. Therefore these two must be part of the invading rebel group. He
would interrogate them on this later - painfully.

Just now though, he was more concerned with the state of the black
barrier that shielded Indigo City from harm. Outlines of terrifying dark
shapes flitted about in the horizon behind the barrier.

A slight beeping noise from his coat pocket almost startled him. Angry
from the surprise, he ripped out his handheld communicator and activated
it. "Kas speaking," he barked abruptly. "This had better be good."

For a moment, all he could hear was the scratchy sound of static... and
something else in the background ... high pitched. Screaming? Then a more
familiar voice spoke up, though what wasn't familiar was the exhausted
tone full of anxiety.

"Kas? Kas? Where the hell are you?" the voice shouted. "Are you back in
the city yet?"

"Yas?" 

No response now, just static. 

He yelled louder, "What the hell is going on over there?"

Static, then, "I-I've been betrayed! I think ... sentinel ..." More
screams filtered into the communicator. "You're not in the city yet? Get
here *now*-" The communicator went dead before he could say more.

Kas narrowed his eyes as he jammed the communicator back into his pocket.
"Men, prepare to move out!" he bellowed, as he checked the fit of his
mace attached to his belt. "Trouble back home!"

Thunder sounded as hundreds of hooves stormed away north back to the
city.

When all that was left in the city outskirts besides trees, grass and
dirt roads, was silence, a large muscular shape lifted itself up from
lying prone on the ground.

Angry mahogany eyes glowed bright in the dark. "General Kas," Bruno mused
as he cracked his large knuckles. "I believe that's one more favour I owe
you." 

He took off in a run after the small army, maroon cloak billowing behind
him, the ground trembling beneath the heavy steps of his boots.


<><><>


Elsewhere, north-east toward the other outskirts of the city, in the
backyard of a house, Erika leaned against the wall of the half-collapsed
garden shed from where she and Giselle had run to for cover. The Grass
Master had just ripped off her deep green hood, spitting out green blades
of her namesake as she did so. "W-What was that?" she stammered out 
rhetorically, looking up at the dark night sky. The clouds trapped within
the dome above were still slowly settling from the enormous crack in the
dome that had erupted when it seemed like the sky was breaking. It
ridiculously reminded her about that old nursery rhyme ... about some
foolish pokemon who believed the sky was falling.

Beside her Giselle was staring off into the distance toward the city
centre, a dishevelled hand cupped above her eyes. "Wow," was all she
could say. Swallowing nervously, she continued breathlessly, "I'm not too
familiar with recognising Mastery work when I see it, but that light ...
the fun must have started already."

Erika pushed herself upright from where she was leaning and dusted her
cloak off from the dirt and loose bits of foliage that had scattered over
them like a sandstorm when the storm had been at its peak. "That must
have been Misty's sister..."

"I didn't know Daisy, Violet and Lily were so powerful."

"Not them, lackwit. Her twin ... Valdera. You know her, she tried to kill
you once some time ago on one of your missions."

Giselle laughed. "I know. I was just having fun. And I wouldn't be
surprised if a woman didn't want to kill me - out of jealousy." 

Erika coughed discreetly at that.

But a worry line suddenly marred Giselle's perfect forehead as she
reached into her lab coat pocket to lift out her EDS. She fiddled with it
a bit. "I've got to admit though ... that storm ... I haven't seen
readings its like since dear Ash blew up our home ... if I knew about
this back then when Val caught us that time near Fuchsia, maybe I should
have been more scared."

While Giselle was busy, Erika looked around if the coast was clear.
The night had calmed down again, and there was no one around on the
suburban road at the front of the house except for a rolling tumbleweed.
After pulling her hood back over her head and tucking a few stray wisps
of blue-black hair back into her cloak, she pushed on again this time in
a faster jog. "You can analyse that later, but like you said, the fun's
started," she declared, staring west toward the city where the light had
first originated. "We better hurry." Giselle gave her an irritated look,
dropped her device back into her coat, and followed.

For a time Erika led the way, being careful to keep to the shadows along
the foot path among leafy hedges and overhanging front gardens and trees.
The area seemed deserted, but she remembered the patrol that had passed
them earlier and made sure to keep alert. And for some reason she just
had the feeling that someone was watching them. Then again, ever since
they had started on this extraordinary quest with Misty and Ash, that
feeling was not an uncommon one. She should have grown used to it.

What was not common now, was the oppressive silence not including the
sounds of their steady breathing and the tapping of boots and the
clicking of high heels. It was as if they were the only two people left
in the world. Before there had at least been the faint sounds of many
people celebrating in the city, but now there was absolutely none, as if
the light storm had scared everyone into forced muteness. There was also
a slight texture to the air, she could feel, a denseness ... that told of
a coming storm ... what kind of storm, she wasn't exactly sure. Which
didn't make much sense when an actual storm had concluded just several
minutes before.

Thinking on those disquieting thoughts, Giselle's voice almost startled
her when she spoke up from behind with uncharacteristic nervousness.
Maybe the strange silence had been getting to her too. "I wonder if
everyone got inside safely. Well, we know that Misty must have made it in
judging from the light show - those two always did rub each other the
wrong way - but I wonder if the rest did ... that hottie Ash, Bruno, his
son ... my little sister."

Erika shook her head within her hood, but was glad for the distracting
conversation. "I can't believe you, Giselle," she said with some
exasperation. "Do you really like Ash, or is it just a point with you to
go after any male you see? He's already got enough problems with his
love life without adding *you* into it."

After a suspicious period of time, it was a throaty laugh that answered
her. Erika jerked her head back briefly to see Giselle's brown eyes
glowing, a wicked smile on her red lips. "You actually believed that I
could hold a tendre for dear Ash?" She laughed again with genuine
amusement. "Of course not! I knew from the first time I saw him, all
those years ago at Pokemon Tech, that there would be nothing but problems
with a boy like him. And even back then, dear Misty seemed to stake claim
to those problems."

"But why then with all the flirting?" Erika was a bit outraged.

"Oh, you know how I love to tease! Jealousy is such an amusing emotion.
Besides tweaking Misty's nose, it also helps dash my little sister's
hopes ... hero-worship is all good and fine, as long as it doesn't get
disgusting." She frowned then at a thought. "But then Ash was no fun.
He's too dense to even know what flirting is."

"Maybe he's just not interested." At the resultant indignant huff, Erika
smiled knowing Giselle couldn't see it from behind her. Though Erika had
found out a lot about Giselle's inner thoughts and now knew her not to be
such the shallow woman she at first came across, it was comforting to
know that at least there was some shred of normalcy returning in
the female doctor's arrogance.

They fell to silence again. At least until Giselle brought up the thing
that Erika had strongly hoped she'd forgotten. "Okay, you know a lot
about my life-story ... I think it's only fair for you to talk about
yourself now."

Erika stubbornly remained silent, not even letting out audible breaths of
air as she jogged now.

"You hate men, right?" Giselle stated knowingly.

"I ... do ... not ... hate ... men," she gritted out, using anger as a
shield over the hurt her sudden memories over the subject caused.

Giselle's voice suddenly turned serious. "Maybe you should talk about it.
If you let it stay inside you ... it would be like a splinter that wormed
its way inside your finger. It stays there ... and it hurts more and more
and more ... until it's finally removed. I didn't realise it was like
that, until I talked about my problems ... keeping the secret inside of
me."

Erika sighed.

Hearing it, Giselle grew encouraged. "Something about the problems with
my emerging gift nothing compared to yours?" she prompted.

Erika sighed again and slowed abruptly to a walk, removing her hood again
as she did so. Giselle just managed to stop from colliding into her and
stepped up to walk side by side with her instead. "I've never told anyone
this before ... not even Misty."

Giselle nodded attentively.

Dark melancholy thoughts welled up within her mind. The familiar feelings
of five years ago made their presence known. It felt like a vice was
crushing her lungs. "You know about the year of Return ..." Darkness
clouded her vision. "The year it all started ... when Giovanni - may his
soul never rest - upset the balance." She turned a sideways look at her.
"You must have been about fifteen or so then."

"Fifteen and a half," Giselle said, as if the half was vastly important.

"You know that after the Returning ... our potential as humans had been
released. Released when we had no right to. The Gods, or who knows what,
had stripped us of it long ago and I doubt we were ever meant to have it
back. We dubbed creatures of the elements as pokemon. What we didn't know
was that us humans were creatures of the elements as well ... just
forever sealed."

Giselle was thoughtful. "The reason for which we've discovered these past
several years unfortunately. We're just lucky that only those still
particularly strong with the trait managed to 'evolve'. If every human
had gotten command of some element, I doubt the world would still be here
by now." She let out a sad laugh.

"Anyway," Erika interjected, "you were fifteen and a half. When did you
start changing?"

"Around sixteen. Just like everyone else. We discovered it was like a
second puberty."

"Exactly. At least you had a little time. Guess how old I was at the time
of the Return."

Giselle didn't even blink. "Your file says you're twenty-six now, so you
must have been around twenty-one - my age." She bit her lower lip in
thought. "Your ... gifts ... must have begun to emerge immediately."

Erika closed her eyes. "Exactly. I had a fiance then ... he had just
asked to marry me."

"Really?" Giselle blurted in complete surprise. "How come I never heard
of him then? What happened to him?" Then a cloud crossed her features as
an obvious feeling of dark premonition seemed to sweep her. "On second
thought I don't think I want to know."

"You were the one who was so eager to know about me," Erika said
unmercifully, as much as to herself as to Giselle. She turned to look at
her again. Giselle's naturally pale skin seemed even paler, as if someone
had added water to her usually milky complexion. It was obvious even
underneath the smudges of dirt over her cheeks. "You've hidden it, but
you do have affinity for the earth ... with your Ground Mastery ... you
must be able to manipulate the terrain we walk on ... maybe even the
nature of yourself to more closely resemble your element. I've seen more
than one Ground Master to be able to protect themselves with the changing
of their skin to stone. Tell me, what do you think my gift allows to me
do?"

"Manipulate Grass ... flora, anything to do with plants, gardens ..."

"But what about my own nature?"

"Well for one thing, you wear those perfumes, when you don't need to."
Giselle smiled a small smile. "You naturally smell like the flowers you
work with."

The humour failed to pierce her dark melancholy. Her resentment over
herself could be submerged, if briefly, but never forgotten. "More than
three quarters of all Grass Pokemon possess a dual nature. It just about
is an actual trait of the Grass element. Tell me, what is this nature
that most of these pokemon have?"

Giselle blinked. Then gasped, her mouth moving, but no words coming out.

Erika stopped walking completely, the darkness seeming to rise up around
her due to her quiet anger. Anger at herself, anger at fate, anger at a
world that pushed its inhabitants to a life of love, then perversely
punished a person, refusing it that life. Her green eyes would be glowing
she knew, her elementary nature uncontrollably rising within her
dangerously - she could feel the sweet power within growing so that her
skin tingled with it. She didn't notice Giselle unconsciously step away
from her in apprehension. "That's right. I am poison. And I cannot
control myself as would a Poison Master can do. How can one control the
nature of oneself? As if a flower could suddenly decide that it was
possible to fly. As if the poisonous leaves of the plant hemlock could
suddenly decide itself to be edible." She closed her eyes briefly,
remembering the guilt, letting it wash over herself in painful waves. "I
killed my fiance. There is no nice words for it. Of course I didn't mean
to kill him, how could I kill the man I loved?" Her soft voice cracked.
"But I killed him."

She fell to silence. Shadows passed over them and the night from the
above moving clouds. The tall dim lamp posts that lined the street they
were following gave a haunted look to the houses and trees around them.

Giselle hesitated. "Erika ... I don't know what to say-"

She finally looked at the doctor. There was uncharacteristic compassion
in her eyes. She forced herself to smile. "You don't have to say
anything. I was resigned to myself long ago. What is suffering to a
woman?" She gathered her long green cloak about herself and prepared to
continue walking once more when she caught a dark shape at the corner of
her eye up above and behind them. She wouldn't have even noticed it if
she hadn't been so distressed she had been looking at everything and
nothing. It was crouching atop one of the many tall lamp posts that were
the street lights. A leaning back and a tenseness in those squatting legs
warned that it was about to leap down at them.

"Giselle, move!" she screamed, pushing a startled Giselle out of the way.
Though she couldn't see the dark figure above them clearly, in fact it
being just a shadow, she somehow knew it had hostile intent. In the same
way, she knew this thing was incredibly dangerous. It was fortunate that
her unhappiness in remembering unpleasant memories had left her with an
excess of elemental power bottled up within her. "Razor Leaf!" she
shouted, as she furiously backhanded the air in front of her with her
right arm, fingers outstretched. Her cloak arose up around her in a
powerful gust of wind as the green energies coalesced in a split-second
about her fingernails that then shot forth diagonally upward in a wide
spray of glowing, green, shrapnel-like foliage.

Darkness flashed. The top of the tall lamp post was suddenly shredded
apart into numerous jagged pieces as if it were made of paper and not
steel. Hot steaming metal fragments hissed as they began to fall about
the street.

"What the hell, Erika, what are you doing using elemental-" She was cut
off with a gasp as in her peripheral vision she now noticed the person
behind them when they had turned around. It was dressed in black
robe-like garb but with its head covered by a deep hood, face hidden
within its shadows, as if it were a Master.

Erika spun around, her cloak whirling. Just as she was launching
another attack, it immediately crouched and exploded directly at her, its
booted feet smoking in a slide, right arm bent backward, the left
stretched to the front, gloved palm outspread in her direction. 

Reflexively, instead of releasing her attack, Erika forced her hands
together with a green thunderclap forming her ebony staff and moved
desperately to block. However the relieved thought that she had defended
in time was shattered in the same way the centre of her staff shattered
when the sliding palm bow incredibly broke through to strike her in the
stomach. She didn't even have time to feel the unbelievable pain before
she was stricken further in rapid succession by a right-handed palm blow
to the side of her face then a roundhouse spinning kick that lifted her
into the air.

But before the figure could finish her off with a final blow, Erika was
surprised to see Giselle suddenly behind it, locking its elbows with her
arms in a tight pincer hold. Instead, Erika arced downward, bounced once
upon the street, then slid several feet away on her back before momentum
ran out. The incredible damage she had taken almost forced her to black
out, but she struggled to remain conscious, the blue-black patterns of
the sky above her swirling around in her scattered vision.

The sound of Giselle struggling with the person came to her then, after
which the noise of someone landing next to her then sliding away. Erika
groaned and pushed herself to her side to see Giselle crouched behind
her, brown eyes blazing in confusion. "His ... fighting style," Giselle
gasped, a trickle of blood running down her lip, "did you see it?"

Pain lanced in her side and she let out a soft scream as she covered it
with her hand. A rib was definitely broken. "I-I think I felt it more,"
Erika offered weakly as she followed Giselle's gaze to their attacker.

The black-garbed figure again lowered itself into the stance that it held
just before it had attacked her, left palm forward, the right arm
trailing behind, elbow bent. Once again, it thrust forward, boots
sliding, small clouds of street dust flying in its wake. 

This time it was attacking Giselle.

Ignoring the agony in her side, Erika gathered as much elemental energy
as she could in such short time, then sprang to her feet, backhanding the
air on front of her. "Razor Leaf!" she shouted again, this time sure she
would connect.

Unbelievably the person in black-garb ignored the attack, still sliding
forward directly at Giselle. Erika gasped as the extremely sharp leaves
just seemed to slide around the black-garbed figure as if there was some
slight repelling force to deflect them.

Giselle blinked in surprise at how ineffectual the blast was, then was
suddenly franticly defending as the man reached her and began complex
hand and arm strikes. She could only deflect every second or third attack
and panted as each blow that was on target broke through her defences.

Erika swiped a short lock of blue-back hair away from her face then was
sprinting forward to help when Giselle managed to land some counter with
her forearm slipping a palm thrust awry. A sudden twist of her body
allowed her a brief opening to the figure's centre which she took
advantage of with a sudden sideways kick with the toe of her high-heeled
shoe into its crotch.

However a dumbfounded look appeared on Giselle's face when the
black-garbed man barely paused before spinning in a high kick which
caught her on the jaw sending her flying away to collide into a tree by
the side of the street. She slid down its thick trunk, stunned. "That ...
that's impossible!" she stammered weakly.

Erika ceased moving forward. She frowned and studied the figure again. He
was slim - the hooded garb that the man was wearing was somewhat loose -
but at every movement that he made, it showed the lines of a slender
though muscular body. He was also somewhat taller than either she or
Giselle, probably standing at a few inches under six feet. Abruptly she
let out a surprised breath of air as she took a closer look. Was that
binding at the man's chest, visible through a gap in the garb?

A giggle escaped from underneath the dark hood.

What the hell?

The hood was ripped away with one gloved hand.

It revealed a woman's face, her shoulder-length red-brown hair
now free to glide about her neck. Though a childish smile shaped her
dark-red lips, there was an evil glow to her brown, almost black, eyes as
she stared at them with contemptuous amusement.

"Good grief ..." Erika let out a breath in recognition.

The sound of a stick snapping behind them reflexively made her turn
around.

Another black hooded and garbed figure stood there upon the street. The
hood was also thrown back to reveal another woman, this one with
light-blonde hair and creepy green eyes.

Giselle was looking at them both, her head twisting this way and that.
"I always wondered what became of Gary's Cheerleaders."

Erika just ripped out and threw one of her green poke-balls as fast as
she could. "Scyther, Fly now!"

"Saiii!" her green, mantis-like pokemon cried as it flapped its
wings to take off. Jumping up to grab its hind legs with both hands as it
passed over her head, they took off.

"Giselle! Grab my legs!" she shouted. "We're getting out of here!"

"You don't want to fight?"

"Their fighting style! You know whose it is! So we're getting the hell
out of here!"


<><><>


Two figures in long, grey, over-cloaks and light armour raced along the
city street, dodging various crowds of panicked civilians, most of whom
were running toward cover of buildings. One had a short bob of aqua hair,
the other with dark-blonde hair tied in a ponytail.

"That way!" Butch rasped, his voice even more hoarse than usual as he
pointed at a distant black-cloaked man dart into an alleyway between two
high-rise blocks about forty feet away.

Cassidy spotted him and smiled grimly. "That's got to be him!" She
checked her poke-balls attached to her belt and her sheathed broad sword,
then sprinted faster after their last glance of the fleeing figure.

Butch followed at her back as she roughly pushed past yet another
frightened-looking woman blocking the sidewalk, then barrelled through a
tight group of other men and women, knocking more than a few of them off
their feet. He took a brief glimpse back at the sprawled people. "Strange
isn't it, that despite these people all panicked and fleeing after that
Mastery storm, they're all more quiet than usual? I would have expected
ear-deafening screaming at the very least."

"You want ear-deafening screaming? Just tell a woman you like her,"
Cassidy quipped as they finally reached the mouth of the alley and
sprinted within, jumping over a few overturned garbage cans and
frightening away a pack of rattata feeding on the smelly rubbish.

"Why do I have to do that?" his scratchy voice replied behind her, " when
I can hear it from you by raping you harder than usual?"

"You only wish it was rape, you frog-mouthed fool," she growled as she
reached the end of the alley and quickly looked both ways. "There! He
went left past those ruined flats toward Fourth Street and the abandoned
construction zone!" She could just see the black-cloaked and hooded
figure dart around some fallen lamp posts and various road debris.

"How do you know that's even Ashura?" Butch asked as they resumed the
chase.

"I saw his eyes underneath that hood," she said, breathing hard now. They
had been chasing him for already quite some time. "Only one person has
glowing golden eyes like that."

"How about Mistress Sabrina?"

"Sorry, I didn't see a pair of tits on his chest," Cassidy replied dryly.

"What a shame."

They finally reached the abandoned construction zone and skidded to a
stop, dust flying from the old road, looking for any sign of him.
Everything was dreadfully silent except for the sounds of their tired
expelled breaths and the faint wail of sirens behind them toward the
city's centre. As Cassidy looked around, the cold wind raising goose 
bumps on her face, she was slightly spooked by the forbidding nature of 
the place. There were various wrecked hulks of old construction machines,
crumbled cement blocks all throughout, half-finished buildings, dark
empty places beneath crevices and grey, withered spider webs in just
about every corner. Her nostrils crinkled as the smell of old mould and
musty dirt wafted along in the breeze. She remembered that this area was
where the Pokemon League were building a new elemental stadium until work
stopped on it when the Dark Wars erupted. Now it was just a place where
murderers probably liked to hang out.

She liked it.

"There he is," Butch croaked and she looked where he was pointing to see
a shadow slip into the entrance of one of the only actually completed
buildings in the lot - a multi-levelled cement car-park structure.

"Let's go. We've wasted enough time," she spat out, then ran over to the
ground floor of the building, following the long, cracked
half-dirt-half-granite road that led to its entrance.

When they got there, there was a red and white boom-gate blocking their
way. It was attached to a small compartment that was probably supposed to
house a guard, but all it actually housed was sticky cobwebs and old
dirt. Rather than walk around it, Cassidy drew her sword and slashed it
once, then kicked it away with a powerful roundhouse before the detached
gate could fall to the ground.

As they walked toward the centre of the car-park's ground floor,
Cassidy's sword still drawn, the sounds of their footsteps echoing around
all the empty space around them, they could suddenly hear a soft tapping
on the floor above.

"There," Cassidy said, her eyes spotting the ramp to the next level on
the opposite end of the floor, half-hidden by various cement support
struts that were evenly spaced about the area.

They ran quickly across and up and around the ramp. But when they reached
the next level, there was still no one. Just another abandoned floor of
the car-park. Although now they could hear the tapping above their heads
once again.

"What the shadows," Butch rasped softly.

"Just shut up," she cut him off. "Over there." She indicated the ramp to
the next level again on the opposite side of the floor.

This continued yet again when they ran up that ramp too, no one there but
sounds above, and then yet again, and again. Cassidy was beginning to
feel incredibly frustrated when abruptly they were up the last ramp and
there was no more roof above them. They had actually ran up all the
floors of the car-park and reached the very top. Cassidy's shoulders
heaved as she breathed hard after all the running.

But they were finally rewarded. The black-cloaked and hooded figure
they had been chasing all this time stood there, his back toward them,
staring out toward the centre of the city. Staring where the tower of the
white-marbled Palace of the Elite Four stood among various dark
skyscrapers, in front of a horizon made up of dark-clouded skies of
shadow.

Cassidy reached within her over-cloak and retrieved the object that
Sabrina had given her earlier. She grasped the night-black ball in her
free hand, the other still holding her drawn sword. This was going to be
too easy ...

"Prepare for annihilation," the figure said, still with his back turned.

Cassidy immediately felt a sinking feeling. 

Butch groaned.

A sinister female voice from behind them coming up the ramp said
sultrily, "And make that double."

A white panther-like persian uncurled itself from the shadows to their
left and growled at them, red jewel on its forehead gleaming in the
reflected lights from the city.

The black-cloaked figure spun around, ripping off the hood to reveal
bright blue hair over shining, green almond eyes. A pair of sai knives
appeared, spinning, in his fists. "I can't believe you guys actually fell
for it!" James laughed gleefully. "I mean, *we* would have actually fell
for it if someone did it to us." Laughingly, he flicked a switch on a
cord with a twist of his elbow and two small light-bulbs, like christmas
decorations, that were attached to his eyebrows lit on and off with
yellow light.

Hot fury was boiling up in Cassidy's face, and she could feel her cheeks
turning red. "YOU!" She threw the black poke-ball with disgust on the
ground and grasped the hilt of her sword in two hands.  "This was a
complete waste of our time!"

Butch also drew his matching sword from the sheathe at his belt
with a long echoing ring and slashed the air testingly a few times before
turning to face Jessie behind them. "I knew something was wrong, Cas, but
as always you were too eager," he rasped in annoyance, his maroon eyes
narrowed. "But this won't be a complete waste of time when we dispose
once and for all of these three fools."

Jessie let out a trilling laugh and tossed her red ponytail, her
dark-blue eyes flashing. "You two are so amusing. I think we might even
let you live before we find out if Fuchsia is still standing so we can
collect the money posted on you ... the notice did say 'dead or alive'
after all. I'm willing to be lenient."

"You don't even have a pokemon!" James added as he threw away the black
cloak behind him to be caught by the upper-city wind and fly away to
drift on the wind's current. Underneath he wore his usual black ninja
garb just like his partner. "I bet even Persian could have his way with
you!"

"Perr ... what do you mean, 'even'?" Persian hissed angrily.

"That's right," Jessie mused, a finger tapping her chin. "You don't have
any pokemon now? We killed your last one ... or maybe because of that
silly League rule that civilians and incompetents are not permitted to
handle them?"

Cassidy glanced at their white persian. He had lowered his centre of
gravity in preparation to pounce, black vertical-slitted eyes narrowed,
its long tongue licking its chops. She tossed her blonde ponytail
contemptuously and laughed loud in irony. She let one hand let go of her
sword and reached to the back of her belt. "Oh, we have a pokemon all
right," she said evilly, her eyes locked to Persian. "You might even know
it ... or should I say..." Quickly she detached the red and white ball
and enlarged it before throwing it to the side to cover their flank,
directly in front of Jessie and James' pokemon. "Or should I say, you
know her!"

There was a flash of bright white light as their pokemon emerged. Another
white persian, though slightly smaller and sleeker, but with longer claws
and fangs. Her vertical slitted eyes shone green in menace and a soft
frightening growl reverberated about her throat.

Jessie and James' Persian sprung to his normal height, completely
surprised, feline eyes as wide open as they could go. "M-M-Meowsy?"

Jessie and James were no less surprised as they stared at the pokemon.
"Persian? You mean ... that's the girl meowth all those years ago?" they
said simultaneously.

But that wasn't the only surprise. Cassidy smiled as Persia stopped
growling and stared at their rivals' male persian in disdain. Her sharp
fangs slashed as she hissed in a soft female tone, "Perrr ... dirty
street meowth ... surprised to see me?"

"Per ... Y-You can talk!"

Her vertical-slitted green eyes gleamed. "I can kill too." And with
that she let out a frightening, animalistic and female roar, pouncing to
the attack.


<><><>


"You've accessed Shadow," Valdera abruptly exclaimed, interrupting into
what she had originally been saying.

Misty felt more than a little confused at the sudden accusation, when
already she had been feeling bewildered over just what her ... twin ...
had been explaining. "What?"

As the upper-city wind blew her golden hair waveringly, Valdera's aqua
eyes glowed soft as she seemed to give her a once-over. "I can see its
traces upon your hands."

Misty looked down at her hands, still encased within the blue fingerless
half-gloves she favoured, turning them up palms-first. "Shadow?" She
laughed without humour. "I couldn't access shadow if my life depended on
it."

Valdera was still staring at her hands, a frown beginning to form on her
face. "That ... pain ... I felt hours ago," she said softly as if to
herself. "It was you using it." She let her eyes rise to meet her own.

A dim recollection surfaced within Misty's mind. Of yellow-cloaked men
charged with electricity, turning blackened and dead.

Valdera's eyes that were boring into hers narrowed. "Yes ..."

Misty took a step backward in shock. The ledge her boot stepped upon
abruptly crumbled and she looked back to see she had almost stepped off
the edge of the building. She turned her gaze back. "That's impossible."

"It should be impossible, yes. After all that I've told you, you know you
are Forbidden. I am Forbidden. And Ashura is Forbidden. But you and me -
we are different to Ashura." Her slender eyebrows rose. "But what does
'Forbidden' actually mean? It's just a word. A word that humans used to
describe the elements of Light and Shadow ... but the word that should
actually be used is 'Forgotten.' These elements were lost until the
advent of dear Ashura and yours truly. The world exists in a balance ...
the elements of nature a part of that balance ... and so in turn, every
living thing in this world are a balance of the elements. It was an
imbalance of the world's elements that created this stupid prophecy in
the first place."

As Misty listened, some of what Valdera saying already known to her,
while others new, it all made a startling sort of sense.

"Every living thing is of itself, a balance. But in some, certain
elements are stronger than in others. You know this to be true because of
all the different element types of pokemon there are." Valdera then
smiled weakly. "But there were never any Light and Shadow types until
recently were there?"

Misty shook her head.

"No... and that is the problem." She stared into her eyes, the identical
gaze disturbing. "And you using Shadow is a problem. I ... am Light. With
all the pretty speeches you gave me earlier, you do want to save the
world, don't you ..." Suddenly a fleeting look of frightened
determination crossed over her face that was all too familiar. 

Valdera began to step closer, and Misty felt the stirrings of a terror
she had not felt of such magnitude in her life. She didn't know if it
originated from herself or Valdera, the joined feelings too close. She
looked back over her shoulder again, seeing the distant, black depths of
the street down below.

"Ever since I felt the first suspicions, I've been running away from this
my whole life," Valdera said softly as she continued walking closer, the
long folds of her shimmering white cloak swaying in time with her
footsteps. "But as Sabrina once told me, you cannot run away from
destiny." Her hands began to lift slowly, palms first, even as her aqua
eyes began to blaze with cold blue fire.

Astonishingly, before she even realised what was happening, Misty was
raising her own hands, palms first to match her. She felt her own eyes
begin to blaze light of equal colour. Inside, she could feel the power
mounting within her, as if she were calling her element to attack. And
yet it felt different this time, as if the power was unfamiliar to her,
though she had been mastering it ever since it had manifested within her
after the day of Returning, so long ago. And at the same time, it
contrastingly felt the same, as if something else was returning within
her, something she had lost before she had even been born.

"This was always meant to be no matter how I fought it," Valdera was
saying. One tear escaped from her eye, trailing a long wet trail down her
right cheek. Barely ten inches separated them now, their open palms in
front of them, almost touching. "You are me, and I am you ..." she
repeated her haunting words from before. "Exactly what does that mean you
ask? Though I'm sure you've known it inside for some time now, since the
end of our last fight."

Misty barely felt the words form within her mouth. As amazing as it
seemed, she knew it was the truth. "We are one person ... split into
two."

She nodded once. "The Forbidden elements, Light and Shadow, turned
out to be too powerful for but one person to hold within themself
... which should explain Ashura if you think about it." She took one more
small step. Only an inch separated their palms now. "And it explains us."

Both their eyes dropped to their barely touching hands.

"Eventually, all dualities will become one."

In Misty's mind, the world seemed split into two, the two halves of it
sliding around in her vision.

Suddenly Valdera turned away explosively, tears streaming from her
burning blue eyes, long blonde hair violently whipping away along with
the folds of her cloak and robe worn beneath. "I-I can't!" she cried,
almost incoherently, before jumping powerfully away off the edge of the
building.


<><><>


It was hours ago but it had all been so confusing. One moment he had been
desperately chasing after Duplica from rooftop to rooftop after their
disastrous meeting with one of the League Generals ... the next moment
the world had gone insane.

Time seemed to stop and he had just begun to feel an enormous build-up of
power to the north-west when the dark sky above seemed to shatter in
glorious brightness. The sudden white sunlight had momentarily blinded
him, and the resultant shockwave forced him to fall to his side in
mid-stride and slide uncontrollably.

The roof's ledge in front of him had not been enough to stop his
momentum, and he had shattered through in a tight cloud of cement and
rock. After that, it was a blur in his mind as he somehow broke his long
fall by rebounding off falling rubble and various building walls.

Currently, Ash had just opened his eyes, blinking, leaning against the
base of a shuddering apartment building. What he didn't know was exactly
how long he had been out and how long since the elemental disturbance had
ceased. His mind was still fuzzy from the effects as he retraced through
his memory on just what had happened.

Thinking back on what had caused such a powerful storm, he wasn't
so much as alarmed because of its obvious deadly power, but on how
familiar that power had been to him. It felt as if it had been calling
him, calling like a siren's call.

Gradually, he was broken out of his thoughts by the faint sounds of
people running everywhere. Smoke and dust in the air caused him to cough
as he wearily pushed himself to his feet, swiping a lock of black hair
from his eyes. He was almost knocked over again by a sudden earth tremor,
the sound of cracking and crumbling cement all around him, but he managed
to regain his balance as he looked around the dark street. It wasn't as
abandoned as it had looked from up above with various people running
about in fear.

"Pikachu," he whispered to the opening of his pack behind his cloaked
shoulders. "You okay in there?"

"Chu."

"Good to hear it. Just stay in there for the meantime. It's crazy out
here."

Just then a loud crack sounded up above them and he looked up to see as a
huge chunk of the building crumble off and begin to fall. Desperately he
looked about the street for who would be in danger and noticed a woman
running toward the direct point of impact. She seemed desperate and
unaware of what was falling above her.

Reflexively, he threw a loose fold of his cloak over one shoulder and
lunged forward in a sprint, after her, his boots pounding the ground. He
almost thought he wasn't going to make it in time before he frantically
dove forward in a long arc, caught her, then hugged the woman with him to
safety as tons of rubble and debris crushed down on the spot she had just
been underneath. They rolled for several more yards before stopping and
he continued to cover her with his body as bits of cement, rocks and dust
from the impact behind showered over them. He closed his eyes as dirt
clouds glided over their bodies.

"Still saving damsels in distress, Ash? Some things never change."

"Misty?" Ash exclaimed, shock and relief welling up in his heart as he
pushed himself up with both arms on either side of her and opened his
eyes. 

But it was blonde hair instead of red that met his vision.

"Almost," Valdera said with bitter humour as she lifted herself up,
pushing him back lightly to sit on his lap.

Feeling profoundly uneasy, he could only watch as she stared at
him with eyes that were so ... hauntingly the same. "Valdera ... I ..."
Confused, he forgot what he was going to say. He thought fast, feeling
foolish. "I ... Long time no see, I guess."

"I make you feel uncomfortable, don't I? ... Ash."

He recoiled, jumping back out from underneath her, then slipped in the
dirt to land on his backside.

"Don't I remind you of a girl that you once knew ...?" Her blue eyes were
shining with knowledge as she crossed her legs in front of her and
arranged her white cloak more comfortably. "Tell me ... what is the real
reason you left me three years ago?"

A sudden spurt of defensive anger burned away his awkwardness. "You know
why!" He swallowed as the familiar argument came easily to his lips. "I
couldn't be a part of that anymore. ... the League ... I couldn't
take it anymore."

She laughed bitterly. "After all this time, you still lie to yourself.
Though I can't blame you. If ever there's a professional at
self-delusion, you're looking at her ... or at least half of her." She
combed a long tendril of her hair from her cheek in a gesture that was so
familiar it was painful. "You were so lethargic, you wouldn't have cared
about all the things the League were doing ... you couldn't take it
anymore, all right ..." She suddenly pushed forward and leaning in close,
her face inches from his. "You couldn't take me looking so much like the
girl who hurt you."

But instead of pushing her away, Ash could only stare into her eyes. As
he looked into their swirling blue depths, he could sense something about
her that he had never felt so strongly before. A warmth. A realisation
that ... what? What was it about her that was so different, yet so the
same? He was so confused.

Valdera's eyes widened, obviously not expecting such a reaction. And
neither had he. "I ..." she began, "I ... can't believe this."
Surprisingly a sheen of tears appeared in her eyes. Abruptly, she leaped
to her feet, twisting a fold of her white cloak violently around
her waist.

Then she was gone. The pattering of her boots faded into the distance to
be swallowed by the ongoing wail of sirens and buildings crumbling and
people shouting.

Unmoving, silent, Ash could only stare at the corner where she had just
slipped around. He felt he should be feeling something ... guilt?

But for some reason it felt right.

"Vally!" a sudden voice called, interrupting the jumble of his mind.
"Vally, where are you going?" A blue blur with long, red hair came
running from around the corner of the building next to him then abruptly
stopped in mid-slide, almost colliding with him.

And there she was.

"Misty ..."

"A-Ash," she stammered.

Everything around him seemed to fade. There was suddenly a million things
he wanted to say to her. And a million things he didn't want to say. He
wanted to apologise. He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to cry that she
was safe. But most of all, he wanted to tell her that - no, like he had
made up his mind before, he couldn't put her through that again. But
although he had pledged to himself that he would never be so selfish
as to want her again, suddenly it just didn't seem as important. Either
way, he couldn't say a thing because he had locked up, and his very soul
felt as if it were bare in front of her.

And for some reason, to his mind's eye, an image of Valdera kept
juxtaposing alongside his view of Misty. What was it that he felt about
her? About the both of them?

Minutes passed. He looked at her. She looked at him.

Then the sound of a pebble crunching underfoot interrupted their silence
and they both turned to see someone they had never expected to be there.

"So we're all together again," Brock whispered softly, standing so still
on the street before them, the only movement was the wavering of his
longer brown spiked hair and the long cloak of equal colour being blown
about by the wind. His slitted eyes were glowing softly upon features as
harsh as stone. "How fitting to end this, like at the time it all began."

"Brock," Misty said angrily. To Ash's complete surprise, she stepped
forward protectively, blocking him with her body. "For the sake of our
one-time friendship, please stop this."

But Ash couldn't stay quiet any longer. He stepped around Misty to face
his old friend. "What's wrong with you, Brock?" he asked forcefully.
"What happened to the friend I knew, who was more like a big brother to
me ... you were never like this before."

At the sight of him, Brock's lip tightened. "You're still so naive, Ash.
It seems everyone has changed, except for you." He shook his head slowly,
his spiked brown hair floating in the cold city breeze. "You ask what
has happened to me? Life is what happened to me, Ash. I had dreams too,
but unlike yours, they were all shattered. Pokemon Breeder you ask? Not
after that bitch, Ivy, made sure I knew I would never be acceptable. I
enjoyed coming back to her and making her suffer before she died. She
certainly deserved it after the evil things she's done. Reuniting with my
family some day? Not likely after the wars made sure all of my siblings
were dead. My father may as well be with the snivelling coward he's
become. And raise a big family with a girl I loved back in my hometown?"
He said this staring hard at Misty. "Not after seeming to like me, then
going off with my best friend leaving me behind to stare at a dust
cloud."

It was Misty's turn to shake her head. "I don't believe you were. You
were in love with the idea of being in love."

A powerful brown aura suddenly surrounded his large frame. "How could
you, a pitiful deceitful woman, know how I feel?" he growled, his eyes
flashing. "I once fancied I liked you, but now is a different story. I
feel nothing for you and other women but an overwhelming hatred and a
desire to use and discard. You are all nothing to me." He turned back to
Ash. "But for you ... let's continue this where I left it before at South
Lavender ... even if you turn insane like you did then, it will be of no
use... there will be no more surprises."

"You're wrong about one thing," a new voice interrupted from above them.

Ash recognised the voice and looked up. She was standing on the roof of a
nearby low-lying building, her blue hair flying in the wind. "Duplica!"

She jumped down and joined them, facing Brock, with he and Misty on
either side of her. "Now we're all together again." She had a troubled
but determined look on her face.

The corner of Brock's lip quirked. "You're right. This can't finish
without the girl that made it possible to split you and Misty up."

"What?" Ash blurted in surprise. He stared hard at Brock who was
beginning to smile unpleasantly. "Don't push Duplica into this. She's the
only one here who's innocent."

"Ash," Duplica said hesitantly, gaining back his attention. Her brown
eyes were sad. "I'm sorry."

"But-"

"Women are all the same," Brock interrupted. He stared hard at Misty and
pulled something from underneath his thick brown cloak. "Remember this?"

Ash looked at what he was holding. It was dusty and worn with age but he
could still immediately recognise it. Red and white and with the logo of
the League on it. It was once his most prized possession. He had lost it
in the confusion surrounding the days around when Misty had left him.

It was his hat.

"Where did you get-"

Misty gasped at the sight of it. Her blue eyes began to shine with the
sheen of tears and she fell back a step. Her long red hair fell over the
side of her face as she stumbled.

Brock laughed. "It makes me wonder how she can actually stand the sight
of you after what you did."

"What I did?" Ash ran forward to grasp the shoulders of Misty's cloak.
But she shook free of him furiously and retreated several more steps
backward, sobbing, her tearful eyes now fixed upon him with a remembrance
of pure betrayal. "Misty!"

But she only shook her head in silence and collapsed to her knees upon
the street. A faint aura began to surround her.

The air began to rapidly drop in temperature.

He turned back to Brock, anger beginning to fill his blood despite his
urge to remember that this was his friend. "What did you do to her?"

"Isn't it funny how the simplest of triggers can make people remember so
much?"

"Remember what?" His eyes swivelled back to Misty. She seemed catatonic
as she sat there, her eyes full of some past horror that only she could
see. Tears streamed down her cheeks now, her arms dangling by her sides
forgotten. The forceful city wind seemed to be getting colder by the
second and the dark lightning-filled sky above began to rumble with the
promise of yet another storm.

Brock smiled even more as he stared at them. Ash's hat disintegrated
within his hand, turning to black dust which blew away in the breeze.
"You."

"No! I don't believe you!" he replied furiously as he fell to his knees
in front of Misty. "I've never done anything to hurt you, Misty." He
grabbed her cold hands. "I would never-"

Blackness. Darkness. Shadows.

Abruptly he blinked and found himself standing within a sea of dark
emptiness. Feeling profoundly confused, he stared at his now empty hands,
then lifted his eyes. It seemed as if he had woken up in a place of pure
night - there was nothing all around him for as far as the eye could see.
Nothing besides an ethereal chill to the air that was slowly seeping
through his skin to the bone. 

Where was she? 

He paused as he looked around again. 

Maybe a better question was, where was he?

A child's faint haunting laughter echoed behind him and he spun,
startled at the sound. 

Nothing. Just dark horizon.

The laugh sounded again and he turned back to where he was originally
facing. This time he saw her. In the distance, a cute little girl with
red hair in a sideways ponytail and wearing a yellow dress was skipping
away into the nothingness. She looked about five.

And very familiar.

"Misty?" he exclaimed in surprised confusion. It looked like her ... or
at least a much younger version of her.

The little girl stopped and looked back at him with big blue eyes. Her
pupils widened upon seeing him. She quickly lifted up her skirts and ran
off.

"Misty, wait!" He didn't understand a thing, but he initiatively sensed
that he could finally get some answers. After securing his cloak and
pack, he began to run after her.

As he ran, he distantly wondered about the place he was in. It was
strange. Even though there were absolutely no features about in the dark,
barren surroundings of nothing, he could still run as if there was a
floor he was standing on. He pulled a half-smile at that. Unfortunately,
the girl could too.

However it seemed as if the emptiness they were in was beginning to
lighten ... and solidify. Without even fully realising it at first, all
at once he was in the middle of a forest. And not just any forest, he
noticed. Viridian Forest. A younger Viridian Forest. The Viridian Forest
of his childhood.

Dried leaves and grass now crunched underfoot as he continued running,
thin golden beams of sunlight filtering down to the underbrush from the
high canopies of trees. The sweet smell of moist greenery gradually made
itself known to his nose. But for all that his other senses made it seem
as if he really were running within the old forest, his hearing did not
as there was absolutely no sound of wildlife to indicate it as populated.
Like there was nothing living in the forest. Just the sounds of the
noises he himself had been making. Feeling distinctly uneasy at the
thought, he pushed springy branches away from his eyes with one arm while
the other held folds of his cloak back and the strap of his pack.

As the latest batch of prickly leaves brushed away from his eyes, the
little girl was suddenly right in front of him, standing there, waiting.
Desperately he locked his legs together and skidded sideways, his cloak
floating behind him. He managed to stop just in front of her with only
two feet to spare.

Big blue eyes stared up at him, unflinching now, despite the top of her
head only reaching up to the middle of his thigh. Her little hands were
resting on the hips of her yellow dress, a cute pout on her small pink
lips. "Mister, why are you fowowing me?" Her voice was childishly
annoyed.

All of a sudden flustered, Ash blinked and scratched his head. "Um ...
err. I just wanted to ... ask you ... some questions." Close up now, the
girl's resemblance to Misty was indeed uncanny. It had to be her ... as a
child. Except one thing was different. This girl's red hair was streaked
with one long tendril of golden blonde, on the bangs on the right side of
her face.

One of the girl's slim eyebrows rose at his scrutiny. "Qwestions?"

He thought fast. "I'm ... lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

The girl looked at him suspiciously. "My mom told me not to speak to
stwangers ... but you don't look so scawey close up." She looked side to
side quickly then back up at him. "We in my fwiend's mind," she said
softly in a conspiratorial tone.

"Your friend?"

"Yeah. She not vewy happy. Happy like I am. She sad all the time." The
little girl looked down, an unhappy expression on her face.

"How come?"

"It long stowy." Then she looked up at him, eyes brightening. "But she
happy befowe! Wanna see?"

"Um-"

The girl abruptly turned, gesturing with her small hands. Ash was
surprised as it was the same sort of gestures that Misty had made when
she was using her element abilities. But it was even more surprising when
the forest to their left began fading into something different. The land
split into two and water began to flow through it in a slow moving river.
The sound of trickling water gushed as it splashed past. When Ash
blinked, it was Misty there, twelve years old, sitting on the edge,
fishing on that day long ago. She had a peaceful look on her face, but an
underlying sense of loneliness.

Her pole then hooked a ten year old Ash. In complete surprise she studied
the wet, bedraggled figure she had swung onto shore. After a short series
of events, including a scolding for the tired-looking pikachu she had
spotted in his arms, it ended with ten year old Ash tearing off with her
bike, and Misty cursing after him.

Ash winced at the memory.

But the little girl watching it with him was smiling. "She don't look
wike it, or reawise it, but she wiked that boy and his pikachu ...
excwept when he stowle her bike!" She giggled, a tinkling sound.

It was so infectious, even Ash smiled.

"Now this one is when she reawises something about the boy." She gestures
anew and this time, the area shifts to just normal forest. In this one,
ten-year-old Ash is standing up to Team Rocket for the first time with
his new caterpie. Twelve-year-old Misty is watching.

"And this one..." The little girl gives life to another memory, and then
another. Ash is smiling again as he remembers the various mishaps and
adventures they had, given life by the infant Misty in front of him.
Ultimately, images of him and Misty wrestling around at the bottom of a
Victory Road pit trap come into being, each with furious looks on their
faces, bruises covering each of them. He had even gotten a black eye.
Before finally admitting they liked each other, trust them to beat each
other up to a pulp.

"But the boy is what make her vewy sad," the girl said suddenly, softly,
her images disappearing like smoke in the wind.

Thunder rumbled roughly in the distant sky and abruptly shadows fell over
them as the sun's light cut out. Startled by the sudden mood change, Ash
looked up past the upper canopy of the forest to see thick blue-black
clouds that were not in the bright sky before, slide over the golden sun,
covering it as a hand covers a candle flame. It was as the present real
world ... a world covered in shadow. An icy wind flapped the edges of his
cloak and he could feel strands of his hair being blown about, rustling
in time with the shuddering leaves of the trees and bushes around him.

His eyes returned to the little girl apprehensively. She stood looking up
at the shadowed heavens, skin pale as chalk. There was a new frightening
darkness to her eyes as the black clouds were reflected in their deep
midnight depths. Her yellow dress was no longer bright yellow, but
instead had blackened to match the gloom around them. Her bright red hair
was dark as welling blood, the streak in it, white as coldest snow.

Without a further word, she gestured once, paused, then let her small
arms fall limp by her sides. But this time her blue eyes blazed, glowing
artic ice in the shadows cast by the clouded sky above. As the image she
wrought came to being, Ash stepped backward, one hand shading his eyes
from the now fiercely blowing wind.

Darkness flashed then formed. Misty, eighteen years old, watched by the
grassy shore as a correspondingly younger Ash stared out over the
violent rippling waves of the lake, his back turned toward her. The cold,
hard wind blew unrelentingly, rustling their clothes, even causing her to
shiver. The sky was clouded grey, no sun visible.

"Ash?" There was a growing puzzled look on Misty's face. "I thought ...
you wanted to see me."

The other Ash didn't turn around. "Hi, Misty." A few more seconds passed
before he finally turned his head, looking over his shoulder, offering
her a sad smile, the wind blowing his longish black hair slightly over
his brown eyes. "I ... just wanted to talk."

A concerned look appeared in her own blue eyes. She rushed forward and
hugged his arm. "What's wrong?"

He seemed to stiffen at the touch, then sighed, as if resigned. "Nothing
really ... it's just ... how long have we been together?"

At the question, Misty stepped backward, letting go of him as if his arm
had turned into a snake. A frightened suspicion slowly rises into her
eyes. "What ... what are you trying to say?"

"Nothing ... oh, I just ... I think I need a little time alone. You know
how you went back to Cerulean to visit your sisters a couple months back?
I think I need some time to myself too."

"You ... you want to leave me?"

"Just for a little while."

Ash watching the scene couldn't keep his silence any longer. "What the
hell? That didn't happen!" He looked at the little girl, as if to beseech
her. "I don't remember that! It's completely wrong!"

But the little girl didn't answer - she was still watching the sad scene 
unfold. In it, Misty was now backing away from his alter-ego, who had 
returned his silent vigil on the tumbling waves of the lake. A tear 
trickled unseen down one cheek as a single question of why was stuck fast 
in her mouth.

Ash shook his head and continued weakly, "It's ... wrong..."

"Well of course it's wrong."

At the matter-of-fact voice, Ash looked up quickly to see Sabrina
standing there, her twilight blue-purple cloak and green-streaked long
hair impossibly still and calm in the wake of the violently cold wind.
Falling leaves that blew around them seemed to fly right through her as
if she wasn't quite solid ... her or the leaves.

He narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

As if she hadn't heard him, she continued on in that emotionless voice
she had. "But then, what you remember isn't exactly correct either."
Nonchalantly she waved a hand to the side. An image instantly appeared,
that of him and Misty by the lake, him on his knees asking her to get
married. In the same movement, she banished it with another flick of her
hand.

Confused, Ash shook his head forcefully, even as he unconsciously
retreated a step back. "That's not true. I remember that day like it was
yesterday."

For the first time in what Ash thought was probably years, Sabrina
offered a sign of emotion. A strange half-smile that seemed more sad than
amusement. "You'd be surprised how unreliable memories can be, especially
on matters of great emotional distress."

Numerous things suddenly began to start making a frightening sort of
sense. Amid the turbulence of a thousand thoughts in his mind, all he
could do was ask softly, "I don't care about me, but what exactly did you
do to Misty?"

She nodded at the scenes the little red-haired pony-tailed girl was 
still watching. "Altered her memories ... made it seem like you were 
drifting away from her day by day." She said it as if she were reciting 
the weather.

"Why?"

Sabrina's luminous twilight eyes locked on to his own. "Why is the sun
bright? Why are the shadows dark? Why is water wet? Why are rocks hard?
It just is. Just like life is. Just like destiny is. Without pain, there
is no incentive to grow. Both of you being apart, forced both of you to
grow stronger. To grow stronger or die. To grow stronger or let the world
die."

Anger made his eyes blaze with golden fire. "This has all been one big
game to you, hasn't it? Well I have news for you. I don't give a damn
about this world! It can go to Hell where both it and you belong!"

Sabrina stared at him, unwavering. "That's not true. You care a lot about
the world. About the people you love. And pokemon. Being hurt as you were
may have made you thought different, but think of all that you've done in
the past years."

Ash offered a grim smile. "Kill a lot of people."

"In the protection of what you care about the most."

Ash cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand, some of the continuous
raining leaves around him disintegrating in the force of his anger. "Like
I said, defend me all you like, but I know what I am. For shadows sake,
I'm even insane! There's something inside of me that probably wants to
destroy the things I care about as much as I want to save them." He
looked back at the girl. "What I want to know is if you just made it seem
like we were drifting apart, why does she hate me so much?"

Sabrina followed his gaze once more. "Watch."

Ash noticed that the scene the girl was now watching had changed once
again. In it, Misty was walking through the forest, expressions of
determination and worry warring across her face. She looked haggard, as
if she hadn't slept in days. Her skin was pale, her long, red hair
uncombed, so wisps had escaped from her ponytail to fall across her eyes,
which seemed slightly swollen. Her clothes seemed as if they had been
haphazardly put on as if she hadn't cared what she wore - rumpled jeans
shorts and a frayed blue jumper.

"Hurgh?" her Starmie grunted in query which was hovering in the air as it
followed her close behind.

"We're going to find Ash, Starmie," she replied without taking her eyes
from the front as she navigated around trees, shrubs and rocks. "I'm
worried about him." She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. "He
hasn't been acting himself lately. Like he's avoiding me. And now he's
been missing for two days..."

"Hurgh..."

"Yeah I know that he's old enough to take care of himself now, though
knowing him, maybe that isn't a very good excuse," she said wryly, though
with an underlying sense of upset. She brushed a stray tendril of hair
away from her cheek, then stepped off the trail toward the area Ash
usually frequented, past two tall trees and various medium-sized stones.
"I-I just wonder what's kept him so busy that he hasn't had time to see
me..." She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "I mean did I do
something wrong?" Then she laughed softly to herself, though it sounded
more sad than amused.

Ash watching the scene unfold, could only stare in silence, his chest
feeling constricted. When had this happened? He had no idea. Only that he
felt so bad that Misty had felt that way.

New sounds of people talking softly abruptly arose behind several trees
down the slope and the Misty in the image quickly stopped, obviously
recognising the voices.

Ash could too. It was him. And another girl.

They were laughing softly to each other. "This is nice," the girl was
saying. "I love camping."

"Well you know how I have to leave for the Indigo Plateau next week, I
thought it would be fun."

Misty's blinked though her face didn't change expression as she stepped
quietly closer to peek a look past one of the covering trees. At the foot
of the grassy slope stood a clearing where a small tent was pitched, next
to a slowly burning campfire.

In the image, Ash and a blue-haired girl sat facing each other
cross-legged, their knees touching.

Duplica? He was shocked. More than shocked. And that was supposed to be
him down there.

But if he was surprised, it didn't seem as if Misty in the image,
watching, was. She just held a frightfully blank expression on her face.
If her eyes weren't still open, it was as if she had fallen asleep. Her
starmie beside her floated completely still.

The Ash and Duplica laughed again at something else. His hat. He had put
it on her head, and she looked cute wearing it.

And then they kissed.

Misty stood up, turned around, and just walked away in silence.

The scene faded away.

The little girl collapsed on the ground, sobbing, her face hidden within
her hands.

Ash just felt numb inside. "None ... NONE of that happened," he stated
tonelessly. Then as what he had seen slowly began to sink in, he began to
feel something. He could feel the constriction in his chest rise, his
palms stinging as his fists tightened, the nails digging into his skin,
his eyes burning. 

That something he was feeling was anger. Pure fury.

Thunder cracked in the sky and forks of jagged blue lightning streaked
across the cloudy heavens. It began to rain, the wind blowing it almost
horizontally across the tops of the forest. The air thickened with
blowing leaves and now hard downpour as the rain found its way past the
upper canopy to begin drenching everything in sight.

He whipped around, the air around him crackling with black electricity,
black electricity that his body was now giving off uncontrollably. Flying
leaves and rain steamed to nothingness as it met the hot aura covering
him. 

In complete contrast, Sabrina looked at him calmly, her arms nonchalantly
behind her back.

"How DARE you." His forearms raised of their own accord, elbows locked to
his sides, his fists glowing bright in the shadows around them, black
with held lightning.

Sabrina's eyes flicked briefly to his spitting hands, then back to his
face. "Much as that scene helped destiny along, I'm afraid I can't claim
personal responsibility." She looked pointedly behind him and her form
brightened, her eyes glowing yellow and he knew she was using her psychic
abilities.

He turned and saw that the scene the little girl had created faded back
into being to continue where it had left off, after Misty had left.

The Ash and Duplica weren't kissing anymore. In fact, Duplica looked
kind of upset.

Someone tall stepped out from behind the tent. Someone tall with longish
spiked brown hair, with dark skin, and wearing brown forest clothes. His
slitted eyes held a hint of satisfaction.

"I have to say, you're pretty good," Brock said to Duplica with a smile.
He held a rough hand over his eyes to scan the top of the slope where
Misty had been watching but was of course long gone. "I think she bought
it."

The 'Ash' suddenly blurred, then shrunk to a little violet amoeba-shaped
ditto. Duplica abruptly stood up. There was no mistake now. She looked
furiously upset. "I can't believe you're so happy about it," she blurted,
looking at him. "You just really hurt the girl you professed to me that
you're supposed to love."

Brock just shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. "I don't see
why you've got a reason to be upset. You also love Ash don't you? Now
you'll have him."

Duplica just looked more and more distraught. Then a growing horror began
to appear in her brown eyes as she stared at Brock, faintly smiling at
her, as she slowly realised what she had done. "I don't know how I let
you convince me into doing this. If I really loved Ash, I would have
wanted him to be happy." As her ditto jumped to her shoulder, she began
to turn, determined. "I'm going to stop this..."

"Fine, confess what you've done. But not only will he know why you did
it, are you prepared to have Ash hate you?"

That stopped her. Her brown eyes welled with tears. "What happened to
you, Brock?" she asked softly, rhetorically, without turning back to
look at him. "There's something wrong with you." She put a hand to her 
forehead, but then stopped at the feel of something there. Ash's hat, she
was still wearing it. In sudden saddened disgust, she wrenched it off and
threw it on the ground, then ran away into the trees, a tear trailing
down her cheek.

Brock watched her flee for a moment. Then shaking his head yet again, a
confused look suddenly entered his eyes. "What happened to me? I don't
know," he answered the empty air. Then his eyes hardened as he looked
down at where Duplica had thrown the hat. He stepped over and picked it
up.

The scene faded away again.

To Ash, the world seemed as if it had been tipped upside-down. His anger
had left, and what replaced it was once more, a feeling of numbness.
Dimly he felt the rain leaking over his wet hair, plastering it across
his head, the rain now being free to strike him.

Brock betraying them. Duplica loving him. Brock betraying them.

Duplica loving him.

What the hell? He wasn't even worth loving.

Brock betraying them.

There was something wrong. It couldn't be true.

Sabrina answered his thought. "It's true. How do you think I even got
involved? He asked me for help, and I knew he was going to ask me."

He turned back to her. "And of course, you helped him."

"Of course."

His thoughts turned back to Brock. All that time, he thought Brock was
his friend. Like all friends, he loved them, fought for them, defended
them, cared about them. Friendship was one of the only things that he
truly believed in, in fact had been the only thing he believed in, those
times when he thought all was lost.

But friendship could not go only one way. Friendship was a two-way
relationship, just like love - in fact a different kind of love. Just
like unrequited love could not ultimately survive, an unrequited
friendship could not either.

He felt betrayed.

Which he rightly should. He *had* been betrayed. In a dim part of his
mind, a horror arose. A new feeling toward his once old and trusted
friend had begun to rise. Was it hate?

But then the rational side of his mind interfered. If it was hate, it was
definitely not undeserved. He thought back to all that had happened. What
Misty and others had been telling him all along. But his unbreakable
loyalty had kept him blind to the truth.

He laughed softly to himself. Only in a world like this, was an
unbreakable loyalty a distinct character flaw.

Brock had not only destroyed his relationship with Misty, the love of his
life, all those years ago, but had been actively trying to kill him, not
just once, but repeatedly. There was no question that Brock hated him.

And instead of redressing the wrong, he had offered his life for Brock to
take. And would have, if Valdera had not stepped in and saved his
worthless life.

"But of course, like you know now, you weren't spared from the psychic
manipulations either," Sabrina said, breaking his train of thought. "But
I didn't think that you could actually protect yourself from them
somewhat."

With growing unease, Ash focused on her eyes that knew so much. "What do
you mean?" he asked uneasily.

"Think. If Misty only left you, why would you have held so much hate and
betrayal for her before you met again all these years? Whereupon, your
close contact with her would naturally make you both remember your love,
your souls, if not your minds."

"I-I don't know." But he was afraid he did know. Unbidden in the darkest
corner of his mind, forgotten memories stirred. Forgotten memories that
he just somehow knew had broken him once before.

"How wondrous the human mind is. When something hurts it so much to the
point that it could not recover if it allowed itself to know, the mind
seeks to forget. To cover. Misty wasn't the only one stubborn. When she
left, you didn't just give up on her, did you?

"I ... I ... don't remember."

Not even acknowledging the false-sounding claim, Sabrina continued. "Of
course you didn't give up. We're speaking about *the* Ash remember?
One-time Pokemon League champion. No ... you found her."

And then the forgotten memories exploded over him, out of the dark
corners of his mind.

He closed then opened his eyes.

A figure suddenly materialised out the air in front of him. Misty. Her
eyes held a look that frightened him to the core. It wasn't even anger or
upset. It was strangely indifferent. And that's when he knew something
was appallingly wrong. He could have taken the anger of a hundred Mistys,
because that meant she was normal. But this indifference ...

"Why did you follow me?" Misty asked softly. She was wearing a blue
travelling cloak, a new one that flapped loosely in the wind. A small
brown backpack hung off one shoulder. Her long red hair seemed darker in
the evening air, worn loosely over her shoulders and back, different to
how she usually wore it in a ponytail. It made her seem more mature,
beautiful. Unapproachable. 

The forest around them was quiet.

Just like all those years before, Ash was taken aback, as if this was
some crazy re-enactment. He looked down at his clothes, and it wasn't the
black, Pokemon Master cloak he wore anymore, but the brown, forest cloak
that he wore before the wars. Even the hard rain had disappeared, and
though they were still in a forest, it wasn't Viridian anymore, and it
was evening, the moonlight shining down upon them through the cracks in
the branches high above.

He found himself saying the correct lines. "Why are you going? Why did
you just go? I don't understand."

Her aqua eyes looked over him with all the life of a pair of cold
unliving sapphires. "I'm going away. To live my life."

"But I thought ... I love you. You said you loved me. So why are you
leaving? We're a team."

She shook her head, her face still indifferent. "Love. It's such a strong
word. We were so young, did we even know what love really is?" She looked
at him directly, her gaze flat. She answered herself. "I don't think we
did. We romanticised, what was really just a childhood faze. We just
mistook friendship for something more. We're older now, we know better.
We're adults ..." She paused. "At least I am ... You're still just a 
kid ..."

Deep hurt replaced his confusion. "Just a kid?" he whispered.

Not hearing him, she went on, "One day you'll realise that you don't even
love me, when you realise what love is ... just like I don't love you."
She paused. "Who knows? Maybe that day passed for you already."

The world was fast dropping out from underneath him. "But ... when did
you decide this? Maybe you're acting too fast." He swallowed his pride,
anything to keep her with him. "Please, just come back with me, and maybe
we can make it work. I *will* make it work. I'll prove it to you that we
just didn't mistake friendship. And of course, we *are* friends first and
foremost, and that's what makes us work so well together. For our sake,
just come back, at least for a couple days, and we can sort this out."

"I don't think so," she said calmly. She looked away from his eyes, and
brushed her loose hair away from her cheek. "Besides ... I met someone,
while you were away that last time."

His chest constricted. First with disbelief, then with anger. An anger 
that swiftly grew so much, he didn't know if he had ever felt this angry
before. "So all of this that you were saying was just an excuse, to leave
me for this new guy." He laughed sickly at himself. "Some older guy I
take it, with all your talk that I'm just a kid. No matter that I've
probably accomplished more in the short time that I've lived, than this
guy will accomplish in ten of his lifetimes. Well I guess the joke is on
me." He stared hard at her, and she still couldn't meet his eyes. "So who
is this mystery guy that you're dumping me for like some old pet that's
no fun anymore? Forgive me if I'm morbidly curious."

But Misty just turned around, as she shrugged her pack more firmly on her
shoulder. "Let's not drag this out and make it more unpleasant than it
already is. We can still leave here as friends."

"Oh, the 'just friends' line now? How predictable." His eyes narrowed at
her back. "But save it. A friend doesn't just walk off when a new friend
comes along. A friend doesn't abandon their friends. You walk off, and
we're strangers. Though the way you're acting, you were always a
stranger, I just didn't know it."

"Goodbye." She began walking off.

"Wait," he growled. He ran forward and stepped in her way, grabbing
something from within a fold of his forest cloak. "I was going to
give this to you eventually, I just never found the courage, though now
there's no point. But I still think you should have it."

She looked blankly at him.

He took out the small box and opened it, revealing the ring, a perfect
blue diamond set within its slender, golden band. "I know you won't wear
it, but just have it, as a sign of the friendship we once had. You can
even throw it away later as you should, so you don't even have to think
about me, but at least I know that I showed you our time meant something
to me." Then he stepped out of her way and turned his back. His voice
deadened without expression. "But after this, it's true what I said. We
are strangers. Goodbye."

And when she had gone, he collapsed to his knees upon the leafy ground of
the forest. He didn't know how he had kept it inside of him for so long,
but the grief slowly escaped. There was no more anger now to cover him
like an anaesthetic. "Just a kid ..." he mumbled brokenly to himself as
he stared at the foliage upon the ground. His eyes burned.

Inside all he could feel was emptiness.

He closed his eyes, then opened them. 

Not surprised, he was back in the haunted dreamscape Viridian Forest of
earlier, the rain still pouring, the leaves still blowing around him
in a powerful artic wind.

It was all a mistake. 

Misty hadn't been throwing him away as he had no doubt believed back
then, but only trying to save herself further hurt at the hands of who
she believed to be him. There was no mystery guy. In fact, she probably
meant Brock, which he already knew, she had only gone to him as friends.
Which he had obviously mistaken as something more.

She had been lying to save herself.

But now that he knew the cause of all their problems, the deeply held
memory which had just assaulted him, no longer had any power left to
hurt. Instead he felt elation, the first true happiness he had felt in
five years.

He turned to Sabrina, who all this time had been watching him in the
rain. Then he turned to the little girl who still lay upon the ground in
front of him, sobbing softly to herself, barely audible in the howling of
the wind and rain and thunder.

He felt a surge of fierce determination. "I don't care what you think,
Sabrina, but now that I know what happened, nothing's going to stop me
from putting this to right." He briefly swivelled his heated gaze to
her. "Not even you."

Sabrina lifted her hands palms forward in apparent surrender. Incredibly
she smiled, and it was a true smile. It seemed kind of wrong on a face
that usually wore such seriousness. "Of course not, Ashura. I wish you
good luck." She hesitated slightly. "And if it helps, I am sorry. For
everything." Her form flashed white, then she disappeared.

Without pause, he returned his gaze to the girl. He stepped forward
slowly, now feeling unsure, when just a second before he had been
confident. All he knew was that to reach Misty, it was through this
bizarre avatar of her, this cute figure of her childhood.

At the wet sound of his footsteps, the little girl stirred, then looked
up to face him. Her water-darkened red hair was plastered to her face. As
she watched him approach, a startled recognition entered her swollen
eyes. She jumped to her feet and stepped backward away from him, all the
while fury beginning to darken her cute face.

He stopped.

"It's you!" she accused, her shrill scream sounding above the wind and
rain. "I wecognise you now! You're that boy that hurt my fwiend so much! 
Only all gwown up!"

"Yes..." He swallowed. "It's me, Ash."

"You're not goin to hurt her anymowe, you hear me?" Her childlike voice
suddenly turned serious and slightly deeper, Misty's adult voice. It
seemed terrifying coming from the apparent little girl. "NOT ANYMORE."

Ash swallowed again, as the little girl's hair turned black, as well as
the dress she was wearing. Her blue eyes blazed with power as they stared
at him with anger and contempt.

Then, amazingly, she started growing. Growing older before his very eyes.
Her limbs lengthened, slenderly curved legs and arms, as well as her
body, the black dress increasing in size to match her. Breasts formed
beneath the upper part of her dress and even her hair lengthened in
proportion to her size, losing the ponytail to hang loose midway down her
back. Cute childish features on her face matured, the baby-fat
disappearing, to form into her adult countenance, high cheekbones over a
pert pointed nose, pink-tinged well-shaped lips, elegantly arched
eyebrows over bright blue eyes that were framed by sooty, dark lashes.

In seconds, an adult Misty stood before him, only one with long, black
hair, as black as his own, instead of red. But the gaze full of ice-cold
hatred had evolved perfectly, the expression still upon her face as she
stared at him, her lips tightened in anger. The black dress she was
wearing, cute on the girl, held a deadly sensuality on the adult, the
mini-skirt only reaching to her mid-thigh, the sleeveless top, tight upon
her chest, and wet from the rain so that it left her curves with very 
little to imagine. The sandals the girl had been wearing had changed to
knee-high leather boots that matched her hair and clothes.

She let out a hard laugh, her teeth flashing white in the darkness.
"Isn't it enough that you already invade my mind with your memories, and
yet you still come here in person?" An aura of blackness abruptly
enshrouded her body and instantly, rain that fell near her froze to a
chilling white fog which drifted around her. A twisted half-smile turned
her lips. "You are not welcome here."

Resolute, Ash stared unwaveringly into her glowing blue eyes. "Misty. It
was lies. All of it." He took another step forward.

"Lies? Like that you loved me?" She looked pointedly at his booted feet
that had stepped toward her. "So eager for pain, dear Ash?" Her aura
flared for an instant.

Burning agonising pain shot all over his skin, and he almost gasped at
the torture of it. It was like an artic-cold wave of fire that bit into
his flesh like a thousand acid-tipped needles. Even the skin that was
covered by his cloak and clothes was not spared from the anguish.

"Leave here and never come back," Misty said softly, dangerously. "Leave
me and never come back."

He shook his head once, then determinedly tried to shove away the
feelings of pain to a back corner of his mind. His whole body burning
with dark ice, he took another step forward. "This pain is nothing
compared to the pain we've kept inside of ourselves all these years, each
thinking that we betrayed the other," he forced out calmly. "You were
right. I should have listened to you all along. It wasn't us who betrayed
ourselves, it was Brock. Even all the way back then."

"Words are nothing but gusts of breath in the air. Empty gestures of
meaninglessness." Her aura flared once more, and the thousand needles of
cold fire that seemed as if they were ripping into his skin magnified a
hundred-fold.

This time Ash gasped audibly and he could feel tracks of hot tears
beginning to leak down his frozen cheeks, the heat perversely causing
even more pain upon the pale skin of his face. But he still managed to
take yet another step forward despite the impossible agony. "Misty, this
hell on earth that we created for ourselves - it should be over! We're
free now. All those people playing with our lives ... we should take our
lives back for ourselves. And show them that they failed to break us." He
managed to stumble a few more steps forward so that only a few feet of
distance separated them now.

The deadly anger shining in Misty's eyes wavered. To start being slowly
replaced with fear. "D-Don't step closer!" she screamed. "I will not be
hurt anymore! I will not be vulnerable! I won't! All love is ... is pain
... sorrow!" 

This time her aura, when it arose, did not subside, and Ash could not
believe that it was possible to feel so much pain, the frozen fires now
burning though his veins and arteries, dark rivers of pure, chaotic
torture. "M-Misty," he choked, feeling blood well up in his throat, his
black hair falling across his eyes. "Loving and being loved ... it means
being vulnerable. But don't you see? Just like all things in life, there
is risk and reward. The greater the risk, the greater the reward. I
understand now. Love is one of those things." Then putting everything he
had into it, he forced himself to take the last step toward Misty finally
closing the distance. He prepared himself for yet more pain, such pain
that could probably even kill him even though he currently didn't even
hold a physical form.

However, strangely, at the words, Misty's eyes just widened in complete
shock. "What you just said! It was just like ... she ... said ..."

At her confusion, he didn't waste the opportunity. He quickly raised his
arms and hugged her tight, his arms wrapping around her back. Her body
was stiff, ice-cold, and wet with rain. He held his cheek to the side of
her head. More incredible pain thrashed at him, but he ignored it. "Misty
... you once said to me that I didn't understand love. Well, if hurting
inside, a million times worse than you had just done to me because it was
on the outside, at the knowledge that you didn't care about me, that you
weren't by my side, that you were throwing our friendship away, that you
never wanted me with you ever again ... if hurting like that means I
don't love you ... then love couldn't exist. But it does. And I'll say
this now so that there is absolutely no mistake. I love you, Mistaria!
And make sure that no matter what happens, you never forget it!" He
lifted his cheek from hers and leaned back to stare into her eyes. He
focused all that he was feeling into his softly glowing gaze, into his
warm embrace.

At first her body was hard, unyielding, her blue eyes as cold as frozen
granite. Then all of a sudden she softened, warmed. Her arms which had
been rigid by her sides raised to return the hug, first hesitantly, then
unbreakably tight. Remarkably he could see the wet tendrils of her long
hair slowly lighten to her usual dark red. Her eyes moistened with tears
as he continued to stare into them, the icy depths deepening into a warm
ocean. "Oh, Ash ...!" she cried. "I accused you of not understanding love
... but it seems like I was the one all along who didn't understand it.
Or I understood it, but never admitted it to myself. But now I know." She
stared harder into his eyes and her mouth slightly opened. "Now I know
that I've always loved you ... maybe even from the first when I fished
you up out of that river ... I knew I was more upset than I had a right
to be when I saw you that day. And now I'll say it again so there's no
mistake with me either. I love you, Ashura, and you better make sure that
you never forget it either!" Her eyes blazed back into his returning all
his feelings if not more.

When their lips finally met it was as if the forest of her mind around
them did not exist. Nothing existed except for the two of them. 

It was a kiss of a new beginning.

A kiss of how things were meant to be.

A kiss of return.


<><><>


Ash opened his eyes and found himself back upon the cold street, still on
his knees, his hands holding Misty's as she kneeled in front of him.
Distant thunder intermittently rumbled in the skies above, behind and
below the horizon dome of shadow that covered the city.

Misty's eyes were open, staring into his own, shining blue in the
darkness, happy, tear tracks along her cheeks. She was smiling, and that
smile made him feel that no matter what happened from now on, he ...
*they* would succeed.

A coldness on both of his cheeks from the passing wind told him that she
was not the only one who had cried.

Misty's eyes left his and went behind him, narrowing, a chill entering
their aqua depths so that they darkened to the blue of a winter ocean.
"A-Ash ... make everything right," she whispered, and then she sighed,
leaning forward on to his chest, immensely tired. Her eyes closed.

"I will," he said, holding her gently. His head then turned, his eyes
burning as he recalled what he must do. Like before, like when he had
found out who was responsible, the anger welled up from within, hot,
boiling, begging to be released. The anger was darkness ... the darkness
his element.

Duplica was standing in front of him, her back toward him, as she seemed
to be covering them from Brock. She did not know he was back and was
still talking to the man he had called friend. 

"You're a sick freak, Brock," she was saying with quiet anger. "He was
your *friend*. She was your *friend.* I've tried to forget what you made
me do, but I couldn't. So I tried to atone for all that I've done. But
look at you. All these years what have you done but create pain and
suffering wherever you go? What have you done but betray and keep
betraying?"

Ash couldn't see him from where he was kneeling with Misty in his arms
behind Duplica, but he knew that Brock was smiling ... a smile full of
malice. "Pain and suffering?" He laughed. "True, but it was mostly pain
and suffering for women ... stupid bitches like you ... and you all
deserve it."

Ash had never realised it before, but there was a wrongness, an ugliness
to Brock that was now just so obvious ... and it must have been there
since ... who knew when. Even back at the Rebel South Lavender base when
Brock had tried his best to kill him, he had been making excuses for him,
still thinking that Brock was a good person. Brock was right. He really
was naive.

"Like I said back then, there's something wrong with you, Brock," Duplica
continued quietly. Her tone had calmed but Ash knew she was anything but,
as her violet cloak suddenly writhed along her body, floating with her
hair, as a bright, purple aura surrounded her. "I know Ashy will let you
off, just like he always has, because he's just that kind of person.
Loyal to a fault. So *I'm* the one who is going to finally take you out."
She paused for a second, looking him over. "I can sense your power ...
this Forbidden prophecy has magnified it. But power doesn't matter when
you face against an element of opposite reaction. Water, Grass, Ice ...
I'll let you choose your death."

Brock laughed harder. "Females are so amusing! But amusing is all you are
- to use and dispose of, just like toilet paper." His tone frightfully
hardened. "But you won't be just amusing. You'll also be dead."

"I don't think so, Brock."

Startled, Duplica turned and stumbled backward. "Ashy?" she asked
hesitantly, her elemental aura disappearing.

Revealed now, Brock focused his slitted eyes on him. His muscular arms
were folded against his long, brown Master's cloak. "So sleeping fool
awakes!" he shouted derisively. "It's been an entertaining ten minutes
waiting for you to finish, staring like an idiot at your red-haired
whore, but Duplica was excellent company ... for a harlot."

Ash looked back down at Misty's unconscious face, his eyes softening. So
it had only been ten minutes. It had seemed like a lifetime in there. And
maybe it was. Then, concentrating, he cloaked them both in shadow.

"Running away, Ash?" Brock called out as he watched them disappear. "I
really wouldn't have expected it of you. You may be incredibly stupid,
but I know you're not a coward."

When he finally reappeared a few moments later in the centre of the
street in front of Duplica and facing Brock, Misty was safely deposited
in the alleyway behind the building a block away, sure she was safe from
harm while she recovered. "No, I'm not running away, Brock, not this
time," he said, the darkness raised within him, and still rising, so that
a wind emanated from his body, blowing his longish black hair to float in
the breeze along with folds of his thick cloak of equal colour. He could
feel his eyes heat as the golden light pulsed from within. "Not accepting
who you are and what you've done, is a form of running away. But no more!
You were my friend once - a best friend. But now I honestly don't see
where that friend has gone. I see a man I don't even know, let alone
recognise. All I see is a shade, a ghost, that has nothing to do with my
friend." His eyes burned. "A shade that must ... MUST be stopped."

Brock's slitted eyes creased and his voice grew quiet. "I see you must
have found out or you wouldn't be so serious. How?" Then the corner of
his lip quirked and he turned his narrow gaze on Duplica. "So that means
you found out about her too."

At the pointed look, Duplica gasped, quickly looking at Ash. Somehow
sensing that he knew as she looked into his face, her light-brown eyes
moistened closed as a sob escaped from her lips. Her head bowed, blue 
hair blowing over her cheek, and there was an expression of pure 
misery on her face. "Ash ... I-I," she said haltingly, "... hate me if 
it will make you feel better. This may sound pathetic ... but all I can 
say is  ... I'm sorry."

Looking at Duplica, the anger he was feeling, bursting within, suddenly
dropped, to be replaced with a yearning sadness. "Duplica," he said,
smiling weakly, "I don't blame you for any of this. All I can blame,
besides myself for being so ignorant, is your choice in ... men. I'm
really a poor choice for any woman ... I don't even like myself. But,
Misty ... it's a wonder that she could still take me back." He choked,
knowing that he was saying all the wrong things, as usual. "I should be
the one saying sorry. I do love you too ... in a way ... but not-"

"-That way," Duplica finished for him, her head still bowed. And this
time she smiled too, though it was a bittersweet smile, a smile of
regrets. "I understand ... and to confess, I had given up on you ... had
to give up ... when I learned the truth." She looked up at him, all of a
sudden serious, determined, her brown eyes abruptly familiar, fierce.
"Because your mother, Cordelia, was my mother too."

Ash just looked at her, silent. If there was an emotion greater than
complete surprise, shock, astonishment, he was feeling it. The world
seemed so still, so far away. So completely fitting and yet foreign at
the same time. 

His voice was soft, almost a breath. "You're my sister."

She nodded, her brown eyes glowing now, softly gold. The same as his
mother's, he had realised. The same as his.

Her smile turned more genuine. "One day I was going to tell you, but-"

A brown flash. And then Duplica was suddenly stumbling backward, a soft
cry of pain that was cut off almost before it had even started, her waist
all red, dripping, a long sharp spear of dull rock embedded in her side.

Immediately, Ash turned, the dark energies within him exploding inside.

Brock was clearing his throat, standing sideways, one of his
arms still extended from the throw underneath his thick, brown cloak.
"Excuse me, Ash, but you two were making me sick." He grinned
maliciously, his thin eyes, underneath long, jagged brown hair,
swivelling back to Duplica, who had collapsed to her hands and knees upon
the cold, rough street, bleeding profusely. "Besides, she was only a
girl, even if by some twisted, disgusting chance of fate, she was really
a relation."

The anger screamed at him to be let out, once and for all. But as he
looked back at Duplica, he was torn between helping Duplica, and going
after Brock. After a split-second of indecision, he started to turn
toward Duplica.

"N-No ... Ashy-boy ..." Duplica said faintly, though her eyes were fierce
as she looked up at him from the ground, one arm clutching her side, the
other holding her upright on the street. "I-I'll be ... okay. You know
me. Just get that son-of-a-bitch ... for Misty, if not for me." She
sighed as she lay down, still looking up at him until he turned, as if to
make sure that he would do what she said.

His mind now clear, Ash looked back to Brock. He let his fury take full
reign, his elbows raised, arms bent, and the cold wind around them
exploded in a sudden fierce gale. The deep sound of thunder rumbled in
the domed heavens above, faster, quicker, and long tongues of black
lightning came into being, streaking across the horizon. The wind
exploded his cloak around him, lifting his hair above his forehead and
out of his eyes once again. Dim streetlights that lined the road by their
sides cut out to darkness as their glass lamps shattered, along with all
the windows in the buildings behind and before them. Cement and brick
walls groaned under the tremendous pressure, and the sounds of people
screaming in fear filtered to them from distant blocks.

Black darkness, his black darkness, shadows, enshrouded his form,
electricity as dark as his element crackled and hissed all along his
length.

"Pikachu."

His black pikachu, silent and ready, unwilling to interfere until now,
leaped out of the pack still worn on his back, and stood on his left
shoulder. His pointed ears and jagged tail were raised in anger, and the
cobalt-blue eyes were glimmering, small body sparking as much as his own.

But Brock still seemed unperturbed as he stood tall, his cloak flapping
in the wind, watching them with those ever-enigmatic eyes. "Impressive,"
he said. "Much more impressive than when you first challenged me for the
Boulder Badge back at Pewter City, all those years ago." He smiled in
remembrance. "When your pikachu could barely shoot a Thundershock and
could only win by cheating." His face hardened and the smile disappeared
as if it had never been. "Well now I'll show you, what I, myself, learned
over the years."

Brock's muscled body under the flapping cloak began to radiate with brown
light as he lifted his arms to the sides. Slowly the skin of his arms and
the parts of his chest and neck that were visible began to visibly
solidify. Hard planes and flat angles formed, morphing to grey and
brown-tinged rock, and incredibly, despite how big he already was at over
a head taller than Ash himself, he actually seemed to increase in size.
Even the skin of his face turned to stone, and the mouth and eyes in that
face were now as hard as the material they were made from. Hard
boulder-like fists, flexed and unflexed. Only his long, jagged, brown
hair remained unchanged, flying about in the wind.

The slits in that rock face that were his eyes gleamed as red-tinged
earth. "And of course ... my pokemon. Who your insane alter-ego tried his
best to destroy. But since we are Forbidden now, just like you, 'dear
father,' it managed to recover itself." He waited, as if listening,
then shouted, his deep voice vibrating in the wind, "ONIX."

First, it seemed as if a small earthquake had begun as the street
literally rolled from underneath them, shaking the buildings around them
like domino towers. Then there was a massive crack as the granite beneath
Brock's booted feet, groaned, then ruptured as the massive, thick, black
rocky snake head thrust out of the earth, sending dirt and rocks
everywhere, lifting up its master several stories high with its long,
immense, segmented body. 

When finally the onix stilled, balancing its long body up high, almost as
high as the nearby  three-story buildings around them, Brock looked down
at him from up, up above. "Ready for that rematch?"

There was still some random flying stones and debris from the explosion,
drifting and falling through the air. Around Ash's aura of black electric
death, the pieces just disintegrated to nothing as if being swallowed by
the night. With both hands, he reached behind his shoulders to his black
hood and slowly pulled it deeply over his head, casting everything but
his burning eyes invisible in shadow. Still clutching the folds of the
hood in both hands, his elbows bent, he shook his head. One arm lowered
while the other continued its movement to reach into the opening of the
backpack to grasp something. Finding it, he brought his arm down and in
the same motion, flicked it so hard at Onix' torso, that it roared
ear-deafeningly loud in pain as dozens of pieces of black rock shattered
from its skin.

"What?" Brock exclaimed in confusion, then looked down at Onix' curved
belly. In its centre stood out a small silver-coloured token in the
hexagonal shape of a boulder.

"Your Boulder Badge," Ash said quietly, his voice rising up with the
wind. "It no longer means anything to me." Then he crouched slightly,
looking upward at a low angle, his mind silently joining with Pikachu's.
"Let's begin."

For once, a sign of anger, and something else Ash couldn't identify,
flashed in Brock's eyes. Then he too reached back over his shoulder and
pulled his hood over his head, casting his stony face in darkness. "You
forget, Ash ... only the Gym Leader may announce the battle." He paused,
Onix rearing up higher. "And I announce that now!" he roared. "Onix, Body
Slam!"

Air whistling, Onix, with Brock on its head, bellowed as it came crashing
down up above him with the tremendous momentum of tons and tons of
rock and stone.

The whole street seemed to shake like a beaten carpet, and some buildings
actually half-collapsed, as the onix' belly met with the ground,
detonating the road in a crater thirty feet in diameter, to dust.

His Onix' head resting on the ground within the crater after the attack,
Brock turned all around looking for him. Not finding him, he looked up.

Ash looked down at his friend of a lifetime ago as he crouched upon the
top of one of the only lamp posts that had not collapsed in all that time
earlier. Pikachu was still clutching on to his shoulder. "You may be
strong, Brock, but you're still too slow," he commented. Before even
finishing his words, he flipped upside-down in a hand-stand, grasping the
top of the street light with both hands, and then continued the flip,
powerfully ripping the long steel pole out of the ground and swinging it
around like a massive hammer to drive it down upon Brock with lethal
force.

But the heavy steel light pole just bent like an oversized nail as it
crashed on Brock's head. Surprised, Ash used the force of the pole's
swing to propel him to the other side of the street. The destroyed steel
post fell to the ruined street in a clatter. After landing atop
the only other street light to remain standing, though it was slightly
crooked leaning at a slight angle, he turned to see what had become of
Brock.

Letting out a surprised breath, he blinked. At the very least, he had
expected Brock to be knocked off his Onix, but the Rock Master just stood
there as if nothing untoward had happened. In fact, his shoulders of his
brown cloak were shaking slightly as if he was laughing. A chuckle
escaped from the opening of his hood, confirming Ash's suspicions. "I may
not be as fast as you, Ash, but with a body like mine, do I need to be?"
Two small horizontal lines of brown light that were his eyes flared once.
"Onix ... Earthquake!"

Like a massive worm, Onix gyrated upon the ground once, heavily, but
rapidly.

With a huge crash, another small building collapsed behind Ash as the
ground seemed to jump from beneath him, crumpling the light post he was
balanced upon. He began flipping to the ground.

"Onix ... Tail Whip!"

A burst of air suddenly smashed him in the back as his body was rolling
in midair and he grunted in pain as it threw him into the brick wall of a
half-collapsed building to the side. Unfortunately he didn't explode
through, but instead bounced off it and fell the two stories to the hard
ground upon his back, Pikachu flying off his shoulder to land several
feet away, while a dust cloud flew into the air.

"Come, Ash ... I thought that when you finally fought me, you would give
a better reckoning of yourself," came Brock's taunt from his footing atop
Onix head, still in the same place he had been till now, though its head
had risen once again to its full height. "Was yours and Misty's pain
worth so little?"

Red-hazed blackness filtered into his vision, but he desperately fought
it off, afraid he would lose control. Finally, he shook out of it, though
the deadly anger at Brock's comment had not gone away. The ruined street
around him exploded as he forced himself violently to his feet. "Pikachu,
return," he called out tightly. When Pikachu resumed his place upon his
shoulder, he lowered himself into a stance, left gloved-palm forward, the
right trailing behind, elbow bent. His glowing golden gaze narrowed. "You
want me to be serious? Fine." The ground detonated in a dust cloud as he
burst forward with so much impossible speed, he disappeared.

The glowing brown slits within Brock's hood actually widened. "Onix, Rock
Spears, rapid fire!"

Like a fully-automatic weapon, sharp shafts of stone shot out of Onix'
mouth incredibly fast, one after another, all around the area in front of
them. What was left of the road, slowly disintegrated to the dirt and
rocks underneath, and even revealed the underground sewerage system in
places.

But unharmed, Ash reappeared on the tip of Onix long rocky tail, still
sliding forward to the attack, cloak flapping, his booted feet smoking as
they scraped along the rock snake's rough back.

Brock had barely enough time to even notice he was there before he
reached him at the Onix head and began furious strikes of fist and palm.
Bits and chips of rock flew up as Ash hammered upon him, first