Metal Coat;

"A Ditto," came the words vibrating from a pink blob of shapeless mass.

It was with an Arcanine, in a white box-shaped room. There was no windows, no doors, and no lighting except for a fire in a pit created by the Arcanine so that his interrogate could see anything. Usually, not being able to see their surroundings unnerves humans. It was fairly annoying, in the large dog Pokemon's opinion.

"Well, you can't take the form of a human anymore, can you? So, in order to give you some sort of form without a true Pokemon, you are now a Ditto. If you hated it, it won't last for long," A gruff voice retorted. The Arcanine glowered disapprovingly at the Ditto. He was making full use of his height advantage to try and make the creature nervous, even though it was completely obvious that intimidation would never work on this one.

A large dog Pokemon stood in front of the Ditto. It was mostly covered by a large, fluffy mass of cream fur, but orange fur striped with black was visible in some places. Broad paws supported this large mass of fluff and bone, and orange dog ears perked up from its snouted face. Said face had a snout covered by more cream fur, and a large tuft of cream-colored hair above its eyes. Its tail was composed of – surprise, surprise – cream-colored fur. The Arcanine was not amused.

"Point taken," The Ditto said emotionlessly.

"Right, then. My assistant briefed you on the process we will be going through, correct?" The Arcanine lowered his head slightly.

"If your 'assistant' was the Growlithe that was standing in your position before you were, then no. He acted completely mute." The Ditto said, keeping the emotionless tone.

"Really. Then I suppose I shall explain to you myself." The Arcanine sighed and recited something he had clearly memorized by heart.

"I am going to give you a personality quiz – yes, yes. A personality quiz. Even if you have barely any personality at all." The Arcanine frowned disapprovingly at this point, and sighed softly before continuing. "Even though the questions may seem outlandish and very random, they will play a part in choosing which Pokemon you will be serving your… visit… as. When it is time for you to return to your respective world, rest assured we will find a way. Any attempt to come back early will result in terrible punishment. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"Good. There will be eleven questions on this test… think especially hard about the last one."

"And why am I required to do that?" The Ditto asked, not dropping the blank tone.

The Arcanine's reply to this was a wry smile. "Forget it. First question…" The Arcanine coughed, and spoke again. "There is an alien invasion. What do you do?"

The Arcanine then proceeded to drill him with even more questions, which seemed to have no significance whatsoever. Just what was going on nagged slightly at the back of the Ditto's mind, but he didn't make it so vocal.

"Last question." The Arcanine smiled wryly again at this point.

The Ditto he was interrogating was clearly not amused. "What ridiculous question are you going to make me answer now?" He asked.

"A simple one." The Arcanine paused for dramatic effect, then…

"Which Basic Pokemon do you want to serve your punishment as?"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


It was not a dark and stormy night. That much was easy to understand. In fact, it was a rather nice day, around one in the afternoon. Wingulls were flying around in the thermals above the seashore, making a racket like you'd never believe (but was normal for the Wingulls around here). The Wingulls seemed to be having a ball – so much of a ball, in fact, that they failed to notice the unconscious Magnemite lying on the sand below them.

Slowly, the metallic Pokemon came to. The robotic eye in the center of his body began to flick about as the programs began to run themselves. Slowly the Magnemite brought himself into the air with that levitating ability that Magnemites are so lucky to have, and waggled the magnet on the left side of his body.

"Interesting..."

As he remained there examining himself, a couple of creatures padded on to the beach. One of them was a yellow rat-like specimen on all four short, stubby legs, and the (to most people) unmistakable lightning bolt tail bobbing behind it. It had large black eyes and red circles on each of its cheeks, as well as brown-tipped, long ears stuck on near the top of its head. It was, unmistakably, a Pikachu.

The other resembled more of a cream-furred cat. There was a shiny gold-colored coin in the middle of its forehead, wedged between two triangle-shaped brown ears. It had large green eyes on a round face, with pointed teeth and whiskers on either side. Its cream body was more ovular, with three sharp claws (sheath-able, how convenient) on the end of its arms and longer brown paws for its feet. A brown tail curled into a spiral stuck out behind.

"What the…" The Meowth looked up from her deep conversation with her Pikachu friend. "Caro, there's a Magnemite on the beach." She gestured at the Magnemite who looked like he had never seen himself before, as the Pikachu's brown-tipped ears twitched to catch her message.

"Looks like it, Kris," he nodded back, speaking as if he were a Solid Snake rip-off on a Super Secret Stealth Mission. Kris, the Meowth, rolled her eyes and padded up to the metal Pokemon.

"'Scuse me, sir," she said, to which the Magnemite turned around silently, "are you okay? I've never seen you around here before." Caro plodded beside her, and bowed slightly.

"No," the Magnemite replied emotionlessly, "I don't suppose you have. I've come from… a long way away."

"I see," Kris nodded, "so you're a foreigner. I'm Kris, and this is my friend Caro." She indicated the Pikachu with her tail.

"I am pleased to meet you both." He twitched a magnet in acknowledgment.

Kris nodded, which was soon replaced by a puzzled expression. "We've given you our names – so what's yours?"

No reply except a soft buzzing.

"Mister? Are you okay?" Caro frowned at him, holding up a paw and waving it in front of the Magnemite. He whirred loudly, as if just realizing he had zoned out in the middle of a conversation.

"I apologize," he said in the same blank tone, "I seemed to have blacked out for a while. You may call me Helio."

"He really is a foreigner," Caro muttered under his breath, followed by a hiss and a frown from Kris. After that, she ignored it as if he had never made a comment, and asked Helio another question: "Do you have a place to stay?"

"Alas, I don't." Helio said, as further low whirring came from his body. Caro began to get agitated by the noise and frowned, but Helio noted his expression and explained. "I'm a machine. Thus, I give off periodical whirring noises. It's a natural thing." Caro kept the frown on his face, even after Helio replied.

Kris nodded. "Well, then, you can just stay with us!" Caro turned from frowning to staring slack-jawed at the cheery Meowth.

"Thank you for the offer," the Magnemite said in his slightly unnerving monotone, "but I don't wish to be much of a burden to you."

Kris shook her head. "You won't be any burden. We'll find some place in the Team for you." She turned around and signaled with her tail for him and Caro, still annoyed, to follow her off the scene.

Team…? Helio thought as he followed after the other two.

PERSONALITY QUIZ; end.

Heh heh... sorry for such a long prologue. And yes, there was a reason why I plopped this 'important event' in the prologue! (And ohcrud, I'm on the second page already? New record!)
​

A low buzzing sound filled the labyrinthine passageways and echoed off of the brown rock walls. This slight annoyance seemed innocent enough, being that one of the travelers in such a cave happens to be a Magneton, but a Raichu traveling with him sees things quite a bit differently…

"Holy Arceus! Helio, shut off that buzzing! It's getting on my nerves!" the Raichu spat.

"I can't help it. I am a Magneton, in case you hadn't noticed. It is something that I just do." Came the reply from the mechanical Pokemon floating near him.

"Well, turn it off!"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"…" Nothing except a low whirring.

"Ha! No comment. I beat you!"

"But, still." Helio replied. "The natural buzzing I emit is nothing compared to you when a female Pokemon walks by. I don't know if you should be talking."

Caro crossed his arms. "Well… at least I-"

"Both of you, stop arguing! You'll wake up every Pokemon in this entire place." A female voice flung a wet towel over the argument.

Kris scolded her two friends, paws crossed across her cream-furred chest. Padding along on her four powerful, muscular paws, the streamlined cat Pokemon had an air of imposingness – usually cut short by Helio's even more imposing aura, but that doesn't matter. A red gem glinted in the middle of her forehead, where two dark eyes examined everything, missing nothing. Her rounded ears twitched and rotated with every sound, and whiskers twitched in much the same matter.

Caro, the Raichu, wasn't all too thrilled about the concept of his friend – friend, not girlfriend, that would be gross - ordering him around.

"Hey! Who are you to order us about?! You're hardly older than we are!" Caro argued. Helio, the Magneton Caro had mentioned earlier, lost his balance and stumbled for a second, but then regained control and moved on.

"Anyway…" Kris said with a little bit of a loud tone to get past the voices of the two Electric Pokemon; Caro, at least. Helio never seemed to raise his voice. Kris was doing her best to forget about how much her two friends squabbled. The Persian sighed and tried to change the subject to something a bit more interesting. "We need to keep going, you two. The Treasure is probably just ahe-"

"What is this treasure?" Caro cut in, a bit annoyed. "You've been talking about it the whole time we've been in this stupid mountain, but we have absolutely no idea what 'it' is! You're always like this, Kris... Dragging us into things without telling us the whole story. So please, for the sake of sanity, tell us what the heck you are talking about."

The Persian rolled her eyes and snorted loudly. Typical Caro dialogue. "Well if you want to know about it, fine. We're searching for Jirachi's Key, a-"

"An ancient artifact said to be able to grant any wish its wielder commands," Helio said calmly, stopping and turning to the cream-colored cat Pokemon who was standing in between himself and Caro. "However, if said wielder does something incredibly foolish with it, there is no way to reverse the Key's effects. It is very rare, and there are only rumors as to its location. One of the rumors says it is in this cave. Correct?"

The Persian and Raichu stood there for a second, dumbstruck, until someone broke the silence.

"Well, yeah, but I wanted to say it!" Kris glowered at her friend, ticked that he could steal her thunder so easily.

"What, were you trying to impress me or something?" Caro snorted.

"No! I just… wanted to." Kris argued back, raising her snout higher into the air, determined to ignore Caro. She opened her mouth slightly to scent the air, and her eyes widened.

"Ooh, stop arguing! You'll wake up every Pokemon in this entire place!" Caro taunted, complete with Kris' Persian ears imitation. The taller cat Pokemon stood briefly on her hind legs and whacked him on the side of the head with a clenched paw. She then sprang forward to catch up with Helio, who had moved ahead apparently not daunted by their constant fighting.

Quickly running past him, Kris squealed with delight.

"H-hey…there it is! Jirachi's Key!"

"You mean it really exists?" Caro gasped, quickly filling the gap Kris had made. Kris pointed to the center of the room, where a shiny black rock was sitting on a small pillar, about as tall as a couple of Pikachus standing on each others head. Sunlight came down from cracks in the cave's roof, but any light that got near the Key was promptly… sucked in?

"I'm gonna get it first!" Kris taunted at Caro, and then lunged for the Key.

"No, I am!" Caro fought back. Helio watched them argue from the entrance to the smaller cavern, having no desire to touch the Key for himself; however, when Kris pushed Caro to the side, he got a good look at it and began to get worried.

"No!" He shouted. "Don't touch that! That's not the Treasure, it's the Galaxy-"

Helio didn't have time to finish his sentence. As he moved forward, a bright light flowed out from where Kris and Caro had touched it, at the same time.

"Oh Arceus…" Helio muttered as the light became brighter, eventually forcing the three adventurers to close their eyes.

High above, a bright light blasted out of the huge mountain next to Treasure Town, shooting up straight into the heavens and probably outer space, too.

Meanwhile, down in the village, an old Alakazam exited his house to watch the light flare up into the sky. He smiled knowingly.

"It's been ten years already? Oh, my…"

This is a separation! Isn't it cool?

Bright light. It seemed like the three Pokemon were being sucked into a vacuum – they were black silhouettes on a bright white backdrop. Because of the brightness of said backdrop, the trio was forced to close their eyes. Maybe if they had kept them open they would have noticed their bodies changing shape?

This is a separation too!

"-Key." Helio finished, that sinking feeling in his stomach getting worse by the second.

"Ugh…I feel sick…" Caro moaned. He hadn't opened his eyes yet. "What happened? We touched Jirachi's Key and then…"

"That wasn't Jirachi's Key." Helio said in his characteristic blank tone. "It was the Galaxy Key, a different ancient artifact. Supposedly, it has the ability to teleport the wielder to whichever world he or she thinks about. Apparently, that's true."

"But I wasn't thinking about…here!" Caro and Kris objected at the same time. They glared intensely at each other for a moment, but then Caro looked away.

"Ha ha!" Kris taunted and smirked at Caro. "I got you! Score one for me! Now all you need is one point, He-" Kris stopped midsentence as she looked at her friend. She was about to open her mouth, when-

"BWAAAH!" Caro screamed. He looked down at himself – or, at least what he thought was himself. Instead of the sleek, streamlined, powerful body he had a couple of minutes ago, there was a body that very vaguely resembled a Lucario's and Machop's in terms of anatomy. The tan-pink flesh on it was not hidden by any pelt, except for some pieces of a soft material on his torso and down to his legs, which also had no pelt covering the bare skin. He tried as hard as he could to lash his tail, but couldn't. Turning around, he saw that the reason he couldn't do such a thing is because he had no tail to lash. Apparently, finding Jirachi's Key is more trouble than it's worth.

"H-h-human…? I'm a… human…" he whimpered. Looking over at Kris, he saw the same thing with some slight differences, but he didn't much care about those.

She was wearing a different pelt than he was. He had on an orange pelt on his chest, with a design that looked a bit like his Raichu torso – a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. His bottom pelt was a bunch of blues mashed together into little fragments. The only fur he had was some brownish fur on the top of his head, which cascaded down his back and stopped with what he thought was called a 'Ponyta-tail' collecting it all. She, on the other hand, had a cream pelt over her torso, and white pelts covering her legs.

"Uh…" Kris muttered, trying out her new human paws, "from what I know about Humans, we seem to be in the age range that Humans classify as 'teenagers'. But you, Helio, look like what a Human classifies within the 'Adult' or 'grown-up' age range. Why is that?" She cocked her head, and yellowish hair flowed down her back, stopping near the bottom of her shoulder blades.

"So… Helio. Can I ask you something?" Caro asked, having in essentials the same question as Kris did.

"Yes." He replied, keeping the monotone in his voice despite what had just happened.

"Why do we look like this…and you look like that?"

JIRACHI'S KEY; end.
​

Please note that the things about to happen in this chapter did not come out of left field... I just placed a lot of good hints. ;D​

Caro's confusion was not at all uncalled for. For, you see, Helio didn't look much like his companions at all.

He was taller than the two teenagers looking at him, about six feet, give or take; a full foot taller than his traveling companions. He was also paler than they were, and obviously at least ten years older, if not more.

In fact, just about every visible part of him was different than those of Caro and Kris; his hair was not nearly as long as theirs, but was shorter, spikier, and a somewhat unnatural shade of blue; steel blue or something along those lines. His eyes were also slightly narrower than theirs were, but Caro wasn't totally sure if he was doing this on purpose or if it was just a natural thing. His eyes were a rather odd gray color that seemed to look right through you sometimes, and other times were just there, not looking like they did anything.

The pelt on his torso was all white, though it was a bit hard to tell because there was a much more interesting gray one above it, with a medium-sized gap down the middle. This was all fine and good, but the thing that really made it set out was the unusual design. Two thick gray lines seemed to be going around the gray pelt near where it ended, and a rather oddly-shaped charcoal patch lay under the lines, in a pattern that is rather difficult to describe with words alone. It consumed half of the back part of the outer pelt, but bent inwards to be covered by the other gray lines. What a weird costume. The parts of the pelt that went down his arms were also black, as was the longer pelt going down his legs.

However, the most important thing of all was also the smallest and arguably the least noticeable; a stylized Unown rune (G) was in plain sight on the upper right side of his gray pelt, over near the sleeve.

By now, you have probably figured out from the description Helio's human counterpart was by now, if you haven't already.

"It's a long story." Cyrus muttered.

"Story? I want to hear it." Kris quickly got up from her sitting position. She quickly lost her balance and leaned against the nearest object – unfortunately, that nearest object was Caro.

"Watch where you're going!" He exclaimed as Kris grabbed his arm. "Geez, will I have to explain the basics of walking to you?"

She cut off his grumbling with a prompt "shut up, Caro."

Cyrus turned and looked down at the two children who used to be his only allies – he wouldn't call them friends, but allies seemed suitable - in the dimension where he had been imprisoned in for the last... ten years or so, was it? His human body didn't seem to age during the period he was a Magneton, so it wasn't so easy to tell.

"Well...I don't exactly know all the details just yet." Cyrus looked up at the sky for a moment, and then brought his gaze down again. "Maybe I did, and Uxie wiped my memory. I'm not sure." He paused for a second, before continuing on. "I...have done some things I can't say have been very helpful in my life." He folded his arms and leaned against a lamppost, looking up into the now darkening sky, Skorupius and Draconair shining brightly.

"Most people have. They had stolen something, or told a lie, or something along those lines. I did...something much more complicated." Caro and Kris listened, attention unwavering, as they learned the previous – and incredibly unexpected - human life of their best friend. They were fine with referring to him as a friend, even though they had only known him for a year. (You see, time flows differently in Caro and Kris' home universe. What was one year there could have been ten years here, and probably was.)

After he had finished, Kris was silent, but Caro had a question, as usual. "So...how did you know about the Galaxy Key?"

Cyrus hesitated for a moment, and then replied in his standard monotone.

"While doing research work on the Red Chain, the Dimension Key – as well as Jirachis's Key - was listed as a required item in quite a few of my... resources. I couldn't find them anywhere. So I think you can imagine my reaction when one of the two things that had doomed my plan to fail was sitting in front of me on a little stone pillar in some mountain in an alternate universe, with moonlight being sucked into it."

Cyrus was silent after that. He quite clearly wasn't planning on saying anything more.

"So...what do we do now?" Caro asked, looking around, and then cocked his head to one side. Kris seemed to have gotten over the fact that her best friend had once tried to destroy and recreate the human universe, but was still shaking a little bit. She tried to analyze the story in her head, really not wanting to believe it.

"I honestly don't know." Cyrus looked around, gaze sweeping over the marshy landscape, not noticing anything in particular except the expanse of mud.

"Y-you said you came from Sunyshore City, didn't you? So let's go there. You must be pretty eager to see your hometown after seeing nothing but talking Pokemon for a year?" Kris pointed out, still a bit shakily. She didn't completely understand the different places' timeflow yet. After all, they had only been here for one human-time day.

Nobody seemed to have had a better idea, so Cyrus removed a Pokeball from his pocket. He tossed it into the air, and it opened, spreading the red light into shape of a Honchkrow, much to Caro and Kris' surprise and slight horror. Not a very happy Honchkrow, but a Honchkrow still.

It squawked angrily at its owner, and then snatched the Pokeball from his hand and violently and angrily crushed it in two. Having broken the seal binding it to the person who hadn't done anything Pokemon care-related to it in nine or ten years, the Honchkrow flew off into the night, heading in the general direction of what Cyrus could only assume to be Eterna Forest.

"Well, so much for air transportation." Cyrus said blankly. "If we're planning to go anywhere, it looks like we'll be doing it on foot."

"Well, then, let's go!" Kris chirped, and immediately set off in a random direction. Caro sighed and put his hand on his forehead, but stopped to glance at his hand; he wasn't quite used to this 'Human' concept yet.

"Do you even know how to get to Sunyshore City?" He asked with a told-you-so tone, purposefully trying to provoke Kris.

"Well, do you?" Kris turned around and huffed back, and turned to Cyrus – but he was already walking in the direction opposite of where Honchkrow had flew off in a very Honchkrowlike rage, probably to find itself some minions. Minions, it probably felt, were long overdue.

"Woah – hey, wait up!" Caro and Kris dashed after their friend, who had longer legs and thus was going much faster than they were, even though he was moving at a slower pace and had to dodge around the expanse of marshy mud. Caro was used to this speed difference, since he used to have stubby Raichu legs and could only get around anywhere near quickly on all four paws, but Kris wasn't – her muscular Persian body could have outraced him in Magneton form in an instant.

As Caro chased along behind his friend, he took a better look up at Cyrus, who didn't seem to be using much effort but was still going faster than they were. Was this Human really the same slightly creepy but lovable Magneton he had known just a few days ago? It didn't make any sense at all. The fact he had an already-established reputation as a lunatic wasn't helping, either.

"Hey, where are you going?" Kris asked, panting slightly. "Sunyshore City?" Cyrus shook his head, but didn't turn around.

"No." he said. "I am heading in that general direction, but I have a few stops to make first. We will be circling around Sinnoh, and when we get back to our starting point, here, that is when we will set off for Sunyshore City." And with that, he kept walking, checking back every once in a while to make sure Caro and Kris were still alive. He, to be honest, wouldn't put dying on their first day past them.

"What's going on...?" Caro asked as he pushed a rather thin tree branch out of his path. He and Kris had finally made their way to the clearing where the (rather strange) rendezvous was in full swing.

"You..." Magnezone lunged back at Kris. "You... LIED! Lying liar! I understand why, yeah, but you LIED!" He pointed one magnet to the girl in an accusing fashion.

"Me?" Kris snorted, and pointed to herself. "Why, I never."

She shrugged. "I told you the truth. I gave you his name."

Magnezone glared at Cyrus.

"Did you…?" He asked. Magnezone was big on truthfulness, it seemed.

"Yes. I did." He got up, and walked over to Caro and Kris.

"I… lied to you." Caro and Kris stared at him, blinking as if they didn't believe what they were hearing. "My name isn't Helio. It's Cyrus." He honestly didn't want to know what Caro and Kris would say when they found out he had been lying to them from the get-go, but it was unavoidable thanks to the… new additions.

"You've been… what?" Kris furrowed her eyebrows. "What in the name of Arceus would convince you to give us a different name when you're in an alternate universe?" She crossed her arms, clearly not pleased with the man.

Cyrus had a feeling that Kris would react like this. "You surely don't think that I am the only one who's been sent into that place as a Pokemon," he said. "I didn't think it was a very intelligent idea to give you my actual name."

"I've been wondering where that came from for a while now," Caro cut off Kris' assumed angry ranting. "So… how on Earth did you think up something like that?"

"It was the first thing that came to mind."

Caro furrowed his eyes together in an expression that very much resembled Kris' face. "Okay. So who are they?" He pointed to Magnezone and Skuntank somewhat accusingly, not taking his eyes off of Cyrus.

"Those two." Cyrus nodded at Magnezone. "First, Magnezone. Last time I saw him, he was a Magneton."

"Alright, so you've seen him before." Caro continued the interrogation. "Now why does he act like he knows you?"

"Because I do," Magnezone whirred. "In case you hadn't figured it out already, Cyrus and I are already quite familiar with each other. I was his Pokemon… a while ago."

"Exactly." Cyrus put his hands in his pockets and looked at Magnezone. "I gave his Pokeball to someone else, and this is the first time I've seen him since. Evidently, he went to Mt. Coronet since then."

Caro and Kris stared at Magnezone for a few seconds. "And Skuntank," he continued, "was Jupiter's. You recall me telling you about her, correct?" The two nodded. A few seconds passed, and…

"That's why you wanted to find him really bad!" Caro gasped, as if he had just realized this. He turned to Skuntank, a look of absolute confusion twisted on his face.

Kris glared at him. Her expression delivered the message quite clearly: 'And you've just recently figured that out?'

"What? Just because I'm not as good as you two at figuring things out…" Caro took a few steps away from her, and soon had his back to a tree.

Magnezone spoke. "She's looking for you, you know." He told Cyrus. "Even though she's acting like a real pessimist, she's still looking for you." Cyrus nodded, as if he understood the whole thing.

"And the Murkrows?" He asked.

"Um. Yeah. About them…"

"Please don't tell me she lost the Murkrows."

"Um…" Magnezone said weakly.

"I figured. Who else?"

"Uhh… let's see. Last time I checked, she had Moltres and Raikou. Along with the Murkrows and that Luxray you did a while back, but he's somewhere else. She lost the controller, and…"

"Of course she did." Cyrus said this with a rare undertone of sarcasm. "In any case, we would best be going now." Caro and Skuntank stared up at him, horrified.

"Like… without Skuntank?" Caro whined. He had started up a conversation with Skuntank, as Cyrus and Magnezone's conversation was far too boring for them to possibly care.

"Jupiter released me, officially. It's legal." Skuntank explained.

"All right, fine. Magnezone, do you have the Pokéball?" Magnezone dipped his front parts forward in a nodding motion. "You wanted it?"

"Of course I wanted it." Magnezone tossed him the scratched-up Ultra Ball. "Thank you. Now, we leave."

Caro nodded. He had already caught Skuntank, and was now safely in a Pokéball.

"Well, this was fun. How come I don't get a new Pokémon?" Kris whined, crossing her arms. She was getting fairly temperamental by this point.

"You're welcome to go and catch one."

Kris grumbled angrily, but gave no further comment.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Later that night, Kris woke up from a rather light sleep. After realizing the other two were still out, she slunk off to check out the scenery. As she walked, the gentle cooing and hooting of the night Pokémon echoed all around her. She could have sworn she saw a Hoothoot wave to her as it passed from tree branch to tree branch, switching talons as it went. Breathing deeply, Kris felt much better.

She sat down on the edge of a lake, looking out over the water. It sparkled and gleamed in the moonlight, not keeping the same shape for more than a few seconds. Shadows of various Water Pokemon could be seen under the glossy surface; sparkling Magikarp swam gracefully through the water, passing clumsy Psyducks. Kris sighed deeply.

She needed a break like this every once in a while – everything else was too complicated to deal with without a rest stop. Her serenity was disturbed by rustling bushes. Instinctively, Kris rolled around and crouched… but then she forgot that she sort of wasn't a Persian anymore and sat down on her knees. Whatever was in the bushes made a chuckling noise.

"You came here too, huh?" A Bibarel slunk out from behind the large, leafy mass. "It's real pretty this time of night… it calms me." Kris lowered her head slightly, trying to hide her relief. It was only a wild Bibarel…

"You're right." She said, looking at the scenery. The Bibarel was a little surprised when she responded in a way that made sense, but shrugged it off.

"Right now would be one of those times in a movie where we break out in some stupid duet about the calmness of the universe, wouldn't it?" Bibarel joked.

"It would… and then people would make up ridiculous theories about you and me doing stupid things and the guys who made it would be slamming their heads on a wall somewhere." They both snorted at that.

"I heard about you." He said, smiling at her. "You're that girl who talks to Pokémon, aren't you? People say you used to be a Raichu." Kris shook her head.

"Persian," she corrected. "A friend of mine was the Raichu. My name is Kris." The Bibarel's aloof grin turned to a slight grimace as he seemed to remember something rather unpleasant.

"Sorry to change the subject, but have you heard? Some friends of mine said that loony was back." He plodded beside her and sat down.

"Which one?" Kris asked, beginning to get worried.

"That's right; there are a lot of nutcases here. But the one I'm talking about… the one who tried to control Giratina." The Bibarel shuddered. "I thought he got what he deserved, but not so for those of us looking on from above." The Bibarel glanced up towards the stars.

Kris was beginning to feel sick. "My friends and I haven't been here in a while, so I don't know any of the history…" She was really trying to evade this conversation, but Bibarel nodded and continued.
"I see. What happened was, this weirdo just had a bunch of slave clone people stomping around trying to steal Pokémon. A Commander – someone pretty high up – had the brilliant idea of blowing up a lake. The Magikarp were restless and fuming mad for weeks. And then he went about trying to steal Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf… then you know what? These guys must have a fetish for exploding things, because he tried to blow up the universe from the Spear Pillar. You know the place – the one where Giratina and company come down every so often? It's disgusting. Sometimes I wonder if people like him have any compassion – okay, scratch that, any emotion - at all."

"But he hasn't been doing anything ridiculous, and he's still around. In fact, a friend of mine saw him just the other day. He's a Trainer's Pokémon, see. So am I. So, this pal of mine met the guy up in the sky, while he was letting our Trainer ride him. The guy was flying on that Honchkrow of his, and… that thing is strong." The Bibarel shuddered.

Kris was silent. Her face was roughly the color of a sheet of paper.

A couple of seconds later, Bibarel's ears perked up. "Oh, hey. My Trainer must have realized I'm gone. Nice talking to you." The Bibarel got up and chirped happily as a girl ran on to the scene.

"Bibarel! There you are…" Kris' stomachache got worse.

As soon as the girl saw Kris, her face hardened behind the veil of black hair. "You weren't talking to her, were you? I hope not." The girl walked up to Bibarel, still looking at Kris like she was an old Magikarp corpse that washed up on the shoreline. "People like her shouldn't get away from their scummy friends. I mean, you know, because they might infect us mere mortals with a disease or something."

Kris snorted angrily. "Excuse me?" She asked, standing up. "What do you have against my friends?" She, in reality, knew exactly what the girl had against her friends, but she wasn't thinking too hard right now.

"Yeah, you heard me." The girl growled. "That scumbag buddy of yours, on the Honchkrow. Don't you know what he did?" She turned around. "Come on, Bibarel." She said. "You don't need to socialize with such messed-up people as this specimen." Bibarel shot Kris a shocked glance before following his Trainer. He felt pretty terrible for rambling on at this point, and even worse for seeing the expression on her face.

He had just recently pieced together what his Trainer and her Swellow had said. "Yikes." He grumbled. "I didn't mean to hurt you like that… you seemed like a nice person…" Better than her, he added in his head.

Bibarel gave a glance back at Kris, before his Trainer's harsh voice reached his ears. "Don't look back, Bibarel. Just keep walking and you'll get out of her pollution zone."

That was the last straw. "You know what?" Bibarel spat, even though he knew his Trainer didn't know what in the name of Arceus he was saying. "I'll pass." He shot a Water Gun at her back. As she shrieked and whipped back around, Bibarel leaped up and snatched his Great Ball from her belt. This accomplished, he sidestepped the fuming black-haired girl and walked calmly back to Kris.

"Here." He said. Handing the Pokéball to Kris, he smiled warmly. "You're much better than she is, even if I need to travel with that… guy. And, I'm sorry about what I said earlier…" He looked away.

"It's all right," Kris smiled back at him, "you didn't know. Do you have a name you like to call yourself?"

"No, I just stick with Bibarel." She took the Ball from his paw and examined it. It was dirty and slightly rusty – she had a bad feeling about this girl.

"You can't just take my Pokemon!" The kid screamed angrily.

"Give her another Pokemon in return," Bibarel explained. "Something better than me. She'll shut up after that." Kris smiled at him, and took out another Great Ball she had conveniently found lying on the ground a while back. An Azumarill hopped out of the water to eat, and Kris took the opportunity.

She put the Great Ball back into her pocket and, with another swish of a metal sphere, sent out Medicham. The graceful pink Pokemon shot the Azumarill a smirk, which the rabbit-eared blue Pokemon quickly returned.

"What are you doing?" The girl spat.

"I'm catching you a new Water-type." Kris turned and smiled at the flabbergasted Trainer for a second before returning to the battle. Medicham and Azumarill were now squaring off in an attempt to scare each other. Medicham grinned; it felt the Pure Power filling its body. The Azumarill gave a determined glare in response, and was taken off guard when Kris swiftly directed her Medicham to deliver the first attack.

"Force Palm!" Medicham quickly sprung into motion, making strange twirling movements as it built momentum for the attack. The Azumarill made the foolish mistake of trying to follow it, and the only thing that the blue Pokemon got out of it was a Force Palm to the gut. The Azumarill squeaked in pain, but survived the attack with plenty of energy to spare. It sprung back up and began to attack.

Medicham leaped back to its original position; however, it didn't take the time to notice its surroundings and got nailed with a particularly powerful Bubblebeam. The Azumarill closed its previously wide-open mouth, which quickly turned into a smirk as it watched Medicham stagger.

"Bullseye," Azumarill grunted.

Medicham got knocked off balance, and took a crouching position to prevent from falling over. From this position it stole a glance at Kris' face, and smiled when she demanded it deliver a Thunderpunch on the blue-and white, rabbit-eared, floaty mass of fur.

Medicham sprang from the ground, curled fist sparking and cracking with electricity. It practically flew over the sandy area, sending buckets of the stuff up in its wake as the Azumarill got nearer and nearer. With a final burst of speed, Medicham lurched its fist forward. The Azumarill barely had time to react - it tried to escape the attack, but got skimmed by the super-effective Electric attack as Medicham's fist passed it by.

While Azumarill staggered for a few seconds and finally fell to the ground, Medicham preformed a front flip and landed on its feet. It swiveled around, ready for more. The Azumarill shook its head, and regained the fighting position; but both of them knew that Azumarill was painting heavily and had scratches all over its body. Medicham wasn't in much better shape.

Azumarill leaped high into the air, and spun around. Its giant tail was pulled along like a blue wrecking ball (with water now surrounding it, to boot). Medicham barely had time to react when the spinning blue Pokemon brought its tail down right on Medicham's head with a very unpleasant-sounding crack!

Kris grimaced and watched as Medicham returned to fighting position, shaking and wobbling. Realizing that her Pokemon wouldn't be able to continue, Kris decided to end it early. She was further urged to this decision by Medicham's brief gaze in her direction. It delivered the desired ideas perfectly: End this.

Kris nodded. "Alright, fine." She tossed the Pokeball at Azumarill, watching it quiver and shake three times. It once again was sent on a path directly aimed at Kris' forehead, but this time she put up her hand in time and was able to spare herself from any head injury caused by flying Pokeballs.

That accomplished, she calmly tossed the Pokeball to the utterly shocked Trainer and waved farewell. The girl backed up a few steps and ran, charcoal-gray coat flying out behind her. Kris returned Medicham after a quick "Thank you!" and returned to her conversation with Bibarel, which wasn't quite the same.

"Bibarel," she said, "this adventure you're volunteering for is going to be completely and utterly insane. You know that, right?"

Bibarel nodded. "I noticed. With your point being…?"​

Frowning deeply, Sneasel braced himself for the impact. "It's been good, buddy." He said softly, under his breath so that the Charizard about to roast him for lunch wouldn't have another excuse to mock him without mercy.

Charizard, he knew, would be specifically looking for that.

"Go ahead," he said out loud, "do what you like with me. Make me faint, kill me, anything. I will take it like a male either way." He stood up to his full height (which wasn't all that much taller than he was previously anyway) and stared Charizard straight in the face. Sneasel had no reason to do something so foolish as to present himself to be barbecued like a cowering wimp; if he was going to be barbecued for a dirt-talking Charizard's lunch, he would take it like no Sneasel worth his salt would - with honor.

The Charizard was not fazed, but was rather even more amused.

"This keeps getting better and better!" the dragon pronounced. He stood on his haunches, pondering the best and most pleasurable way to sauté the little thing. He didn't expect Sneasel to go anywhere, and Sneasel wasn't too likely to back down.

"Oh, yes," Charizard muttered. "This shall be fun." As he spread his wings for dramatic effect, the beginnings of a Dragon Pulse were already rushing about in Charizard's gaping mouth.

Unfortunately, this spectacular display of spontaneous combustion was cut short by a Thunderbolt that emitted a loud and unpleasant sizzling sound as it hit Charizard in the skull.

The Charizard coughed and wheezed, still twitching from the mini- explosion that followed the attack. It took a final breath, and thumped to the ground, out cold. Of course, this last breath sounded like something that only the noblest and most respectable Charizards would say when defeated in battle:

"YOU ICICLE-TOTING WIIIIIMP!!!"

Sneasel made a 'tsk, tsk' noise.

Everyone gasped in unison and began to search frantically for the creature that had summoned such a powerful attack; but the thing responsible was lurking in the trees just outside of their line of sight.



"Good, Magnezone." Cyrus turned to his Pokémon, who whirred contentedly.

"Of course," Magnezone bleeped back.

Something stirred in the trees behind Magnezone. He turned around to see what had made the disturbance, as Cyrus didn't seem to hear it.

"Who's there…?" He whispered.

"Oh, nobody important." An innocent female voice with just the slightest hint of malevolence echoed out from the trees. A crimson-colored gem glowed from the leafy gloom, illuminating bright yellow eyes and a pink-and-blue face halfway between a wry grin and an evil smirk. It was attacked to a blue body, covered by the bushes. Not a pretty picture, I tell you.

"Come closer," Mesprit cooed. "I have something to ask you." She slipped further into the forest.

"I need to check on something. I think I heard a disturbance." The metal Pokemon turned to his owner for a second.

Cyrus nodded. "Go ahead." He leaned further into the shadow of the huge building, listening to the uproar a few feet away and deciding he didn't need to see anything more.



"What is it?" Magnezone asked. He had arrived in a clearing not far from the space where he had fried Charizard from. He glanced slightly upwards to find the origin of the noise.

Mesprit was floating in the air, looking down at him. Four thick, pink, tube-shaped appendages with rounded edges stuck out of the sides and back of her head. The same pink color circled around her eyes and baby-blue face like a mask. Two long tails flowed down from the blue body, each one ending in spikes and another gem.

She smirked at him. Magnezone was about to ask again what she wanted, but was cut off by a chant that made her objective quite clear.

"I call upon the higher powers bestowed upon me by the Unknown One," she muttered. "I call upon my powers to mold the emotion of this metal creature to my will, and to keep it until I may dislodge it or its consciousness is lost, should that be the case." Mesprit wanted to say 'no matter what' but Arceus forbade her; so she did the best she could.

Magnezone blinked.

"Y-yes, Mistress? What do you require of me?" He asked, making another odd bowing motion.

Her malevolent grin widened as she explained to Magnezone what she wanted him to do…

"Of course, my Mistress. I will follow your instructions to the syllable." He bowed again and turned to leave, heading back for Sandgem Town. He didn't consider for a second the effects this would have on his Trainer.



Cyrus watched as Magnezone flew over him and into the town, where the uproar from the battle had died down and Kris, Caro, and Rin were back to their flame war. Caro looked away for a second and noticed Magnezone skid to a halt. All eyes were on Magnezone as Caro nudged and pointed to Kris. She turned, and fell slack-jawed before running the other way very, very fast (along with everyone else).

For, you see, Magnezone didn't seem to know what in the name of Arceus he was doing. He was electrocuting everything.

There were electric sparks flying as he sent various attacks in every direction he could reach. People began to scream and retreat to their homes, but Sandgem town wasn't big enough for everyone to find a way away; he was blocking the north exit, and the other land route was blocked off by a fallen tree, now on fire; not many people had Surfing Pokémon on them, either. Darn the starter Trainers who hadn't found the Hidden Machine Surf yet.

Mesprit watched in great amusement from the underbrush as Cyrus analyzed the situation silently. If he just stood here out of sight, Magnezone would overheat and quite possibly explode. If he didn't, well… if he didn't, he would have to run out into the town square, shut Magnezone down, and get himself, Caro, and Kris out of there before anybody saw him.

Mesprit had it all planned out.

It was genius.

Magnezone was beginning to overheat, and sooner or later Cyrus would have to run out, leaving himself open for Mesprit to attack and to be seen by passerby. Or, alternatively, lead him to explode and make her mission much easier.

She began to giggle as Cyrus made his decision.

He bounded out into the town square, shoving screaming citizens out of his way. Most of them were running for their lives, and the rest had only a split second to se him before he kept moving and was swallowed up by the crowd (they all probably thought they were hallucinating). He soon got to Magnezone, who was reaching the danger zone by now. Mesprit's smile slowly began to sink into a frown as she suddenly recalled his talents with machines.

He leaped onto Magnezone's top half, positioning both feet on the magnets on either side. He held on to Magnezone's antenna with one hand, and with the other began to frantically remove a panel on the metal Pokémon's back. He knew this thing inside and out. However, trying to deactivate a bucking Magnezone who is quite capable of exploding at the slightest screw-up made the operation a bit more difficult.

Most people had gotten into their homes by now, and were shoving their heads up against the window panels trying to catch a glimpse of their almost-savior. They were pretty happy with the guy; at least they were, until a particularly bright Zap Cannon lit up the previously-silhouetted form of the person on Magnezone's back as it dropped to the ground with a thud.

A woman watched the scene from the window of a Pokémon Center from behind dark sunglasses. There were so many emotions swirling around in her head, she couldn't quite decide on one to put on her face.

Everyone else jumped in surprise when the Magnezone fired the Zap Cannon, lighting up the lunatic trying to shut it down – wait, that wasn't right... She just began to shake violently. Dizzily, she made her way back to her room.

She ignored the murmuring people saying such pleasant things as, "He's supposed to be dead!" "What in the…" "This isn't possible!" "Hey, have you healed my Bidoof yet?"





Cyrus returned Magnezone as he ran, grabbing Caro and Kris by the arm as he tore off into the forest moving towards Twinleaf Town. Their mad sprint for the exit was fairly undisturbed, as the only other moving creature in the immediate area was taking a much more direct (and much higher) route.



Mesprit left for her cave, grumbling angrily.

"That little pest!" She hissed. "I made a perfect plan, and that scummy Link-spamming dingbat screwed it all up!"

Messing with Legendaries, as you should realize by now, is a very messy and serious affair (ignoring, of course, the fact that humans taste like chicken). Thus, it was not recommended by anybody. Ever. But people still did it, for whatever deluded reasons they have in their heads. Most of the Legendaries give the punishment, and once they've done their share of the work shrug it off and continue with life as planned. But not Mesprit.

No, not Mesprit at all.

She usually goes along with it just as all of the other Legendaries did, and all of the other Legendaries (at least those of them smart enough to realize Mesprit wasn't entirely a bubbly ball of fluff) accepted that gratefully. But this was the first time for quite a while that she'd lost her calm like this, and all of the other members of the celestial Cool Kids table knew something was going to go very, very wrong with Mesprit's desire for twisted justice.

And the worst part was, nothing in their extensive power could be done to stop her.

Most Legendaries can't control most other legendaries (the exception being Rayquaza and the Sootopolis incident, and a few other instances). This was pretty much because nobody thought Mesprit was going to go off the deep end except Uxie and probably Suicune (who's wary of everyone anyway), but really - who would bother to listen to the being of knowledge?

Pfft. Nobody, of course!

Mesprit teleported back to her cave, frowning deeply. It would be rather difficult to describe what she was saying and keep any sign of respect for the younger crowd (without her speech bubble consisting of a very, very long line of dashes and/or asterisks), so it shall just be said that she was very, very angry and was speaking as such.



"That was fun," Kris said coldly as they caught their breath in a separate area of the forest, hopefully far away enough from Sandgem Town.

"Caro nearly got himself beaten to a pulp, Magnezone went on rampage, you went out in public, I've got an annoying pest who likes to whine about people to look out for, and someone is trying very hard to screw up our lives. Something is going very, very wrong here!"

She growled as a large raindrop fell with a plop on to her head. Kris' short temper was beginning to shine through.​

A tall woman watched from the dark corners of what was left of the Eterna Galactic Building, on the top floor. She stood among an empty room, half blasted into smithereens and the night air pushing itself against her pale face. As she stood there, watching silently and (she hoped) unnoticed, the past of the room she was in began to creep up to her.

This place gave her goose bumps – she loathed it, she loathed it all, for more reasons than it was merely a building owned by bad guys. It was a bit more personal than that… scratch that. It was far more personal than that.

The figure watched from the shadows as three humans moved around below her. Frowning deeply, she tried to work out what was happening right now… three people, one of whom had caused major head bashing in the past, were kicking around in old ruins. Knowing him, he had probably been stupid enough to think this place was intact. Sure, she was amazed that he was alive (not to mention in Sinnoh) but when one of the tagalongs found something she couldn't help but snarl.

The girl had found something round. And red. And shiny. And painfully familiar.

Yami could feel her stomach lurch. She shook her head, whisking straight, ink-colored hair (cascading in spiky clumps near the bottom) that went down to her elbows from her face. She was slightly pale, and sported a mostly black ensemble; black shirt and pants, both seriously worn-out by the edges. These were covered by a long trenchcoat, which has also faced its share of tough love.

She removed the large black sunglasses from her face, shifting her weight uneasily. You couldn't see her eyes, even without the sunglasses, though; a ridiculous black hat resembling that of the crest of a Murkrow provided a handy hat-shadow covered them. She had a black bag – the strap went around her chest and the actual bag hung down on her right side, right near her arm. The frown on her face deepened.

"What in the name of Arceus is he doing?... Scratch that – why is he alive?" She stared at the man now observing the piece of the Red Chain once again, and shook her head. She slowly reached into the bag and removed a heavily scratched Ultra Ball.

She stared at it, temporarily lost in nostalgic thought as a reflecting expression took over her face. Snapping out of it a few seconds later, she shook her head and sent out the Pokémon inside. Aforementioned Pokémon inside flew out of the ruins and streaked over the trio's head, squawking.

Yami groaned – her cover was blown. She needed to fix Nightwitch's squawking problem sometime soon.

"What was that?" Kris jumped and looked up.

"It was a Honchkrow. See it up there?" Caro pointed it out.

Cyrus watched the Honchkrow circle around for a few minutes, wings beating, and finally reached for his pocket to retrieve a Pokéball of his own. He was about to toss it into the air and send out the Pokémon inside, when Caro stopped him by sticking out an arm. "What are you doing? It's a wild Honchkrow flying near a dark forest. Honchkrows like dark forests, don't they? It's probably wild."

"It's not wild. It had a rider, and that rider was following us." His Crobat emerged from the red beam of light. As the Honchkrow suddenly and miraculously remembered that it had a mistress to ferry, the Big Boss Pokémon briefly returned to the ruined building to pick up its Trainer.

"Now that we know where the owner is," Cyrus said calmly to the large, purple bat, "Air Slash."

As Crobat sent out the attack, firing at the giant black bird-and-rider like a bullet, Nightwitch tried to swerve out of the way. He failed miserably. The Air Slash collided with him, sending bird and rider down to the ground in a rather miserable-looking, crumpled heap – hurt, but alive. Meanwhile, Crobat made a loop in the air and returned to loom above Cyrus' spiked hair ominously.

"Hey! You were right!" Kris' eyes widened as she ran over to the crashing site. She crouched down, putting her hands around the woman's shoulders and shaking them wildly. "Hey! Are you okay, ma'am?"

"Get of'fa me," she growled in return, clenching her fist and frowning. Kris raised an eyebrow.

"Well, if you're going to be that way, fine with me." And she backed off. The woman got up, and glanced around. After making a disapproving noise that sounded something like 'pfffh', she reached into her bag and pulled out a Max Potion. She was about to get down to heal Honchkrow's injuries when Cyrus' stare turned on her.

She put her current mission temporarily on hold to send him a chilling glare.

Returning to the problem at hand, she got down on one knee and sprayed the Max Potion on her Honchkrow. It twinged as the burning spray touched its injury, but the jagged breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Shh," she whispered, "Its' fine. Everything's okay." The Big Boss Pokémon chirped softly. "Can you fly?" She asked. It looked up at her and nodded its beaked head. She stroked its wing, smiling at it. "Good." She took another glance at Caro, Kris, and Cyrus, and mounted his back. Shooting a frown in their general direction, she flew off silently.

"Who was that?" Caro mused, putting a finger on his chin momentarily.

Cyrus' eyes followed the Honchkrow trainer, but he didn't reply.

They watched the silent night air for a few minutes, when Kris broke the awkward silence.

"So, Helio. Any other tourist locations around here?"

Cyrus hesitated for a second. "No."

"Well, if that's all today, I'm beat. If we actually are going to go to Mt. Coronet, can we wait until morning?" Caro swiveled around and began to walk back towards the forest. Kris and Cyrus followed suit, the former gazing around at the dark city. They all stomped past a bush, rusting slightly. From the wind, apparently…

"Hm." A figure sat in the undergrowth, crouched low. It was a very odd catlike Pokémon, ears twitching constantly. "I'm sleepy…" it yawned. "No! I have to keep awake this time!"

The brown creature shook its head, and kept watching through its sightless eyes. A vaguely human-shaped body covered in tan and brown armor shifted to keep a center of balance, and a similarly covered tail stuck out behind.

It scampered into a large thorn bush near the humans strolling along. Well, okay, they looked like humans but they all had the aura of Pokémon (although that tall one had less Pokémon Aura than the other two). The Abra positioned itself, tensing the muscles in its legs as the small Psychic-type prepared to spring.

Long story short, it sprung – and did so do well that it landed on the tall one's head. Apparently startled, the human swiped at his hairspikes. What happened next was a blur to anyone who was (hypothetically) passing. The Abra snatched the man's hand as he reached upwards, leaped onto the shorter girl's head while still clutching it, and grabbed a lock of the boy's hair in his free paw.

"TELEPORT!" He pulled both paws down and sprung again off the girl's forehead.

As the Pokémon landed, the mental spell that someone – something – had laid on it lifted, and the drowsy creature flicked back to its home to sleep. He didn't care in the least what these guys were doing, or what problems he had caused. He was too tired to give a Ratatta's tail about it.

If you recall as the Abra slipped away into nowheresland, it let go of the man's arm and thrust him forward. As such, when the trio arrived at the Abra-for-hire's destination, Cyrus got a faceful of mud.

As he got up, he wiped the wet mess of dirt and water out of his eyes. "Disgusting," he muttered. "What creature did that?"


"I felt a really hard tug on my hair…" Caro rubbed his head as he emerged from a lake. Apparently, he had fallen in. "…and a flash of brown, too."


"I saw that too, yeah. And something sprang off of my forehead really hard…" Kris nodded. She was apparently the only one who hadn't been covered by a wet substance, but had instead landed on dry grass. The blond girl was regaining her balance against a tree. "I think that it had armor."

"Armor?" Caro and Cyrus said together.

"I saw a brown chestplate thing." She shrugged.

"An armored Pokémon, tan apparently, with a brown chestplate. Small enough to keep its balance on my head and yet large enough to pull us off balance… there is only one Pokémon I can think of that fits our criteria, but what that Pokémon did was not in its nature in the least..." Cyrus was back to rambling incoherently. Again.

Caro and Kris stared at him while they tried to calculate his mini-analyzing speech.

"Which would be…?" Caro gestured in a way for Kris or Cyrus to finish the sentence for him.

"An Abra, right?" Kris suddenly found its name.

"That's the only possible solution. Even though there is no other possible solution, exclusing the small chance that it is a new Pokémon nobody has ever seen before, it still acted very different than a normal Abra would have done in a situation like this one. It also clearly had a motive; there is no Abra who ever would have done that for pleasure. Or at all, for that matter."

Cyrus suddenly became aware that he had been rambling… again. With that, he added another mental note not to go on so much. (This one probably wouldn't go down well either, judging by the success of the 'never talk to Honchkrow' concept.)

"Basically," Caro said slowly, "what you're saying is that Abra – if that was what it was – is working for something that's making it doing something it wouldn't usually do."

"Exactly. Ironically enough, the same thing happened to Magnezone earlier." Cyrus turned to the now-risen sun, which was currently in the process of sending barely audible sparks of light across the black skies.

As it did, the rising ball of fire illuminated a floating figure perched on the top of a cave far out on the lake.


Aforementioned perching figure smild widely. "Alright, s'cool," it mumbled. "Finally! It tkes you guys too long to visit your old buddy Azelf, huh?"

​

From its perch on the lake, a creature watched the three humans, drumming tis tiny figures on the rocky roof of the cave upon which it was seated.

It chuckled softly when they first appeared, watching in great amusement as two of them slipped almost instantaneously upon arrival. After zoning out the junk in the middle, it then tried to listen a few minutes later as they slowly – very slowly – managed to figure out that it was, indeed, an Abra who had so unkindly forced them into that position.
"It's about time." The creature sat down to watch, directing its two long, stringy, baby-blue tails to wrap around it. A red gem glinted on the left tail, while the other one didn't have a gem for some reason. "No love for the willpower, honestly."

He watched with bright eyes setting out from a triangle-shaped face, swapping between two shades of blue. It had a body similar to that of Mesprit and Uxie. A red gem glinted in the early-morning light. The small Pokemon – about a foot high – repositioned himself to lie on his stomach. A combined expression of irritation and excitement was fighting for rights over his face; Mesprit would be proud.

Had she not gone out of her mind, of course, but that's another story.

"Finally," said Azelf, "You bother to turn up. I've been watching…"

It abruptly sprang up off the cave top, crouching its stubby legs to get as high as possible upon takeoff, and took a floating position in the air. Stopping briefly to check the winds, he sent himself ricocheting forward to zigzag in between the three humans conversing nearby, catching them all by surprise (but not all of them showing it – Azelf expected this).

"Heya!" He skidded to a halt on the left of the three people, who quickly swiveled around to find out what had made the pointlessly giddy noise (and worse, who had witnessed them covered in mud). "Been a while, yeah?" He smirked. He did not smirk in this manner on purpose; simply put, Caro had tumbled back into the mud again, startled, and Kris was gracelessly hauling him onto his feet.

"Get up, Caro." Kris sighed and tugged on his arm once more. Caro stumbled to his feet, grumbling angrily about something involving something being pulled from its socket.

Despite their squabbling, Cyrus merely glanced at them before returning his ever-deadpan gray eyes towards Azelf.

"You three are quite fond of that term, aren't you?" He said.

Azelf grimaced slightly at his remark, but soon brushed it away. "Nice to see you too," he said tartly. By now, Azelf had got word that these guys could talk now (well, alright, they could talk before, but not understand what Pokemon were trying to say). It didn't honestly care how.

"So, anyways. I heard about the whole Sandgem thing. Nice quick thinking, there. Especially since Mesprit sorta-kinda led you into a trap." The rim of its deep blue headpiece-thing raised over its left eye, which probably suggested a cocked eyebrow.

"She did what?" Kris had stood up, and along with Caro was now staring at Azelf in shock.

"She led you idiots into a trap," Azelf said matter-of-factly. "She manipulated your Magnezone to make it run rampant and do stupid things. Probably did the same with that Abra."

"It was an Abra, then?" Caro noted.

"Mhm," Azelf nodded back.

"Assuming you're telling the truth…" Cyrus said slowly, causing everyone else in the vicinity to go suddenly wide eyed (they knew an oncoming ramble when they saw one), "The… unfortunate actions of the Abra and Magnezone were all Mesprit's doing."

Kris nearly sighed in relief. Crisis averted.

"Yeah, pretty much. Any bets on why?" Azelf tilted his head to the left, smiling wryly.

Silence descended over the group. After a few seconds, Caro made a motion with his head to designate that they clearly didn't have any bets on why, and that Azelf should elaborate (just in smaller words).

"What? You want a play-by-play?" He looked at Caro skeptically.

"A reason why Mesprit is doing what it's doing would suffice," Cyrus said.

"Right. Well. First thing's first – Mesprit is a girl. And don't give me that 'Legendaries don't have genders' garbage, either, because we do." Azelf frowned at the entirety of the human race before continuing.

"You see," Azelf explained. "You're sort of an odd case way Up There." It pointed upwards, at sky that was now turning a dark shade of pink. "Up There being where the Legendaries go on their offtime, like when they're not out saving the world from… stuff. You know why you got turned into… what you got turned into, right?"

"I assume it's for what happened at the Spear Pillar. Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Yeah. Sort of obvious. Anyways, you're sort of an odd case. There are two opinions of you that the community Up There has: Mesprit versus everyone else. All of us believe that you're off the hook 'cuz you got turned into a Magneton and thus paid your punishment for doing that stuff you did."

"But then, you know, there's Mesprit. She's convinced it was a sea-breezy little vacation for you, and that you need more punishment than that – which, judging from your selfless act of sacrifice…" Azelf giggled at this point, "…you probably don't. I'll leave it up to your twisted little mind to figure out what she believes you need to deal with; the similarities in thought patterns these days are startling."

Azelf paused, and sighed softly. "So now, you know, she's out to cause turmoil of every breed, and despite our best efforts Legendaries can't do everything." This earned Azelf three glares from his audience. Realizing his mistake, Azelf giggled nervously.

"Well… you know… like dealing with Mesprit and the rest of the universe at the same time… it's real stressful. So we can't monitor her at all times. Or control her. At all. Well, Arceus can, but I guess He figures that she's not all that much of a threat… then again, He hasn't really noticed. You know, with all His intergalactic mishmash and other more important stuff." Azelf shrugged.

"So on the most basic level, Mesprit wants me dead and you can do practically nothing."

"Yep."

"Anyway…" Azelf said. "Be on your guard, 'kay? She might try to do something absurdly stupid and dangerous and maybe life-threatening… or something." He hastily added the last two words at the end. It was evident by these recent actions that Azelf probably knew more than he was letting on.

"Yeah. Right. Well, um… I guess you should be going now, because there's really not much left to do except hang around staring blankly at each other," Azelfsaid as he pointed with one paw towards the forest.

"Uh, yeah! Exactly!" Kris had fallen into a daydream, and had missed Azelf's last words.

"Oh... um, uh... I forgot one thing." Azelf piped up as they turned to leave. Kris and Cyrus turned around, and Caro glanced over his shoulder.

"What?" the boy asked slightly irritated. "We've got a Legendary to grovel to, you know."

Azelf smiled grimly and ducked his head down slightly, so that his head gem and eyes glowed ominously. It certainly sent a message. "Don't kill yourselves. Mesprit has no mercy when she's mad – and you'd better believe she's mad. Any living thing could be under her influence, and there's really no way to tell – they just have loads of respect for her, and loads of hate for yo- hey, where are you going? Are you listening to me?"

The threesome left without another word, leaving Azelf to wave his arms and yell angrily in their wake.
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