The Red Stripe

Chapters

Prologue - Letters
Chapter 1 - The sound of the sand
Chapter 2 - Red
Chapter 3 - Free like Flying

Prologue - Letters

Hi Dad, hi Mom,

I would like to say that I hope this letter will find both of you well and serene, but I guess that's not really the case, and not only for everything that happened recently. If the five years I passed far away from home didn't completely jam my memory, Blooming Season will be there in a mere matter of days, right? That's gonna be heavy.

You know, whenever I said I was from Floaroma, almost everyone started blabbering about the "beauty of the flower fields as immense as the sea" or "the breathtaking sight of the thousands of Bug types roaming in the skies". There was even one guy that compared the bugs to dancers that "Compose their choreographies following not ethereal, fading music, but the flowery scent of life, as invisible but more persistent and real than any sound could ever be," or something like that.

While it did sound rather poetic, that guy clearly had no idea what kind of hell our town has to go through every year when the flowers bloom. About that, Mom, please please please take at least one of dad's machine Pokèmon with you this year, whenever you take the road from home to the Combee hives. I know you don't like having them float around you, and you are not as much at risk as the ones patrolling the fields to keep the Bug pests away from the honey-reserved patches, but you know that some of the wild Bugs tend to wander into the city. Even after all this time, I still have nightmares for what happened the last time a wild Pinsir got close to the houses. Please stay safe.

...I just noticed I am derailing here. I guess talking about home absorbed me, eh... damn, I'll miss it.

Because I'm not coming back.

I just can't. Not after what happened. And the fact that I could get arrested if I were to do it... well, it does have a part in my decision, but not as you are probably thinking. Even if I were to be locked somewhere and made pay for what I did in this very moment, I feel it would be... useless. I don't, no, I can't feel guilty for what I did, because doing so would defeat the very purpose of everything I have done.

A part of me recognizes that what we did was wrong. We stole from others, we mercilessly fought those who opposed us, and we destroyed everything we needed in order to reach our goal, but it was all for something greater! Even in our worst actions, in the long run we wanted to help people! Why can't anyone see it? We just wanted to do something meaningful for the world!

And you know the best part? If we had really succeeded, not only the world may have been better, but none of what we had done would have even mattered anymore!

Or at least that was what most of us believed. What we were told. The theory behind this whole "world rewriting" thing was too complex for me to understand completely, so I just trusted what our leader said.

Thinking about it in hindsight, it wasn’t really my smartest move.

It's probably the worst, most ironic part of all this. We wanted to help the world, while everyone else for some reason believed we wanted to destroy it or something, and what he truly wanted, what he used us for, was something even worse.

I need to sort this out. I need to understand where exactly I screwed up. And I need to learn more about the world so that I will never be fooled like that again.

I don't know where I will go now. Nor what will I do. I can't even begin to describe how confused, angry, or anything I am right now, but I don't have a choice; I just have to go forward and accept whatever the world throws at me. Ironically, that's exactly what my Journey should have been like to begin with, if I hadn't chickened out and abandoned it so soon.

Not everything is going so bad though. I believe I finally took a step in the right direction with my team. Or they took it for me, I'm not sure, but until now, I never truly realized how much they all cared for me. Well, not all, just most of them. Sorry dad, I know when you gave Satellite to me as my first Pokèmon, you hoped we would become best buddies as you are with your own, but even after it evolved into a Bronzong, it is still as affectionate as a paperweight. Seriously, it looks at me with the same interest a monitor has for its keyboard.

On the other hand, the other three have been really there for me when I felt down. Oh, right, you still don't know about the new member. It was a reward I received from my commander a couple of days before... you know, that happened and everything went down the drain. It is a little Spearow I named Beatrix. Despite being the most recent addition, and having been rather hostile towards me at the beginning, she warmed up to me incredibly fast in just two days or so. I think I may have triggered some kind of maternal instinct in her when she saw me so down after the ship I left Sinnoh with departed (oh, yeah, I left the region. I didn't mention that before). One moment, she was there, glaring at me from the other end of the room as she had done ever since I had first met her, and the next, she was nesting in my hairs, nuzzling me and chirping happily. I don't know what happened, but I won't complain about it.

Pudding has been trying to be helpful too, trying to crawl up my arm whenever he sees me depressed and tickling me with his little bulges. That Shellos is adorable when he wants to be. Add that to his pinkness and I might actually doubt it is a male at all. He might have ruined a shirt or two with all the slime he left in his wake, but I'm fine with that.

And then there is Garz... I'll be frank: he scared me a little at the beginning. Whenever I left him out of his ball, he just started make some strange munching noises while floating aimlessly, without even acknowledging me. Then, towards the end of the travel, he just evolved in a Gengar out of the blue. I think he actually managed to do it by absorbing the load of "bad" emotions I was letting out all at once, when usually it should take years for them to gather enough energy to trigger it, but I am no expert. However, I was there, curled on my bed and staring at him, worried that the sudden power up might put him against me, when he reaches out with his arms... and stretches his face while letting his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

After all I have put him through in these years, he was trying to make me laugh by making faces at me. It was... unexpected, to say the least. And while it got a laugh out of me, it made me feel even worse, after a while. For all this time I treated them unfairly, but now... I really need to make it up to them, somehow. So, don't worry about me, even if I'm far from home, I'll be in good hands.

I need to leave now; I have another boat to take. I don't know how much time will pass before I will be able to send you another letter, but I promise I will.

Until next time,

Your son, Nathan Wood

To Mr. Jonathan and Mrs. Lara Wood

23, Camelia Street

Floraroma Town

After some research, I managed to establish that your son's letter was sent about twenty days ago from Gateon Port, in the Orre region. As the only significant harbor of the region, it also is its most important commercial crossroads with the other regions, both of the legal and the illegal sort, and because of this the traffic of ships is extremely convoluted and hard to oversee for the international authorities. It's not so rare for people who wish to disappear to go there in order to acquire false documents and then board a random ship with their new credential, so to vanish without a trace.

Sadly, it seems it is exactly the path your son followed, and we are therefore unable to locate him. To make things worse, the International Court is still debating on the criteria to follow in order to prosecute the members of Team Galactic we actually managed to catch. On paper, most of them were simply employees of a company intent to study new sources of energy, and separating the ones of them who did commit criminal actions from the others will be a long and mazy procedure.

About that, we do have proof that, in the five years since he first joined the ranks of the organization, Nathan participated directly in some of their criminal actions, the most notable being the attack conducted on Lake Valor in order to catch the legendary pokémon Azelf which brought an important water deficiency in the nearby cities. Even so, because of the legislative mayhem I mentioned before, we cannot currently put him on any wanted list or print capture warrants.

I'm therefore sorry to inform you that the investigations directly regarding him have reached a dead end and will be put on hold until we can find other clues regarding his position, or his crimes will have to be re-evaluated and decided to be of extreme severity, as to make his capture a priority for international security.

If I am allowed to speak freely, the first case is unlikely in the actual situation. And the second, beyond alone too, would also be unfair to him. While the crimes he individually committed as a member of Team Galactic cannot be denied, personally, I believe that, like most of his colleagues, he is not a dangerous individual, but simply mislead.

I also wish to apologize for the stop inflicted upon the search, and I want to tell both of you to not despair. I promise to let you know as soon as something new comes up. Inside the envelope, you'll find the photo of Nathan we asked you as a reference to identify him.

We are not really supposed to give them back, as we need to keep papery documentation in case of a loss of data from the computers, but I got a photographer to make a copy, so there shouldn't be any problem.

Just don't let anyone know about it.

International Police AgentLooker

Chapter 1 - The sound of the sand

Nathan scratched his chin, indulging in the rough sensation of the short, ragged beard pricking his fingertips. Some years ago, when his facial hairs had finally started outgrowing the thin fluff of his puberty into a beard worth of being sported, the gesture had almost been an obsession to him. It was fueled by the silly satisfaction he had in touching the first, most visible physical manifestation of his adulthood, something he had been craving for years.

And he had grown completely sick of it in less than a month.

After the first week or so, the layer of hairs had just made him feel dirty, like he was neglecting himself. The feeling had only increased with time, especially when they said hairs had started to rub against his neck warmer at every minimal movement. Maybe the problem was simply that he wasn't used to it, but he really couldn't stay like that any longer. After three weeks, he had finally shaved with a fury that would have made a rampaging Scyther proud, leaving his face in such a state that one could have thought he had really met one of the dangerous Bugs - a very little one, at least.

Later, he learned that travellers tended to prefer hiring people with a more ragged look to escort them throught the wild lands, probably falling for the image of maturity and experience it gave. So, for the sake of his wallet and his stomach, he had to give up his chin to the annoying hairs once again, allowing himself to cut them only when he had enough money to be sure he didn't need another job in the close future. Sadly, given the erratical nature of his profession and the competition he faced, it didn't happen very often, despite the reputation he had gained since he had started more than five years before.

And to maintain said reputation it was needed the utmost attention during every single one of his travels, he reminded himself, as any kind of accidents happening to his clients, be it his fault or not, could put him and all his hard work in serious jeopardy. Especially when the job required them crossing a dangerous route like the Hoenn desert and one of his charges was an over excited little girl that, despite his doing his best to ignore for the last half hour and the sweltering heat sufficient to make even some fire-types stay clear from the place, just wouldn't stop talking!

"... and then this weird guy comes near and gives daddy a weird paper with a weird Shelmet drawn on it, asking if we were interested in listening to the 'word of the great Lord Ellics' and daddy says we were not but the weird guy insisted, telling that the Lord Ellics was the greatest which is just silly because everyone knows that Shelmets are really weak and the greatest is Victini because he is the cutest and he's also the Victory Pokémon and that means he can win against everyone else and-"

Nathan kept trying to ignore her by concentrating on the landscape around, hoping to find something, anything to distract the girl from bursting his eardrums, but obviously the universe denied him that. There was absolutely nothing in sight beyond the immense lake of sand, limited only by the rock walls encircling the desert, barely visible beyond the undulating distortion created by the heat and the large rocks jutting from the ground like thorns. He couldn't even find one of the occasional Cacneas hopping around or a Baltoy floating aimlessly, both usually really common sights.

What in the name of the nightmares shepherd happened here? I swear, those responsible for this whole thing must be those two damn Space and Time Dragons pulling a grudge on me. They sure took their sweet time, though. Lazy bastards, they and the damned lake Gnomes... Wait... when did she stop talking?

"Aley, stop pestering Mr. Powell this instant! And not only him; even Gigalith looks like it’s about to cry! Apologize to them!" An older, feminine voice from behind, much to his relief, finally interrupted the barrage of words, earning what he supposed was a happy whine from the enormous rock-like creature the girl had been riding the whole time. Rock-type cries were always nearly impossible to understand properly if one was not really used to them, they all sounded like grinding stones.

"But mom..."

"No 'buts'! When we allowed you to come with me and your father on this trip you promised to behave! Apologize, now."

"Listen to your mother, Aley. Mr. Powell came with us to keep you safe, and that means you have to be nice with him. Isn't that right, Mr. Powell?" the father, a sleek man in his thirties, pressed on, earning an angry pout from the daughter.

Nathan had to bite down all the comments about the girl being a Whismur on sugar he had thought of during her tirade. She was just a child, after all, and they were paying clients. Furthermore, he was quickly growing tired of being called with the false surname he had bought all those years ago, and, given how hot it was becoming, it also was time for a little break. Before they could settle down, though, he needed to make sure there weren't dangers around.

Time to make his friends earn their meals.

"Oh, don't worry Mr. Checker, your daughter was not that bad. And please, call me Nathan. Mr. Powell was my father. On an unrelated note, the sun is too high to keep going right now; I believe it's time for a break." He reached for his belt, dislodging two red and white metallic orbs, while his shadow started to waver as he softly kicked the ground.

The older man gave him an over the glasses look, clearly unimpressed with the suggestion, "I don't mean to question your professionalism, but are you sure it's a good idea? I know for a fact that this place is infested with night-dwelling Cacturnes. Wouldn't it be a bad idea to stop and risk to be still here when the sun sets, or are you so confident in your ability to fight them away?"

Nathan rolled his eyes at the pompous display of knowledge from the tourist. It was quite common and even welcomed to find people who had somewhat researched the species of Pokémon they could meet during their travels so to know some of the dangers, but when they gloated on what little they knew it was just plain annoying.

"Don't worry Mr. Checker; Cacturnes are not vey 'direct' predators. They prefer stalking and attacking weakened prey rather than engaging them in a fight. If we keep going with this heat, we'll just get increasingly slower and more fatigued. And by the time we'll reach the end of the desert, we will just be easier prey for them. Resting a couple of hours will only be beneficial, it will raise our chances to not even been approached by them. This way we'll be sure to avoid fights that could result dangerous for you and your family. Now if you'll let me, I need to make sure our little camp site is safe."

The two orbs in Nathan's hands opened, releasing flashes of silver light as a large shape started emerging from his shadow, lowering the temperature of several degrees all of sudden. Nathan grinned as he called out loudly, "Garz, Bea, Satel, get up from your asses, its work time!"

The first flash condensed in a huge, feral looking bird with a dark pink beak, long enough to impale a person from side-to-side, and light brown plumage. The Fearow immediately spread out her huge wings and used one to shield her eyes from the blinding sunlight, letting out a shriek of displeasure while glaring at her trainer.

The second revealed a big, floating, bell-like artifact of blue metal with several drawings engraved all over its body. The closest thing it had for eyes, two red metallic spheres embedded in its lower section, a completely vacant look in them. The Bronzong appeared completely unfaltered by the sun and utterly disinterested in the group of both people and Pokémon in front of it, the landscape, or anything at all.

The black shape had in the meantime fully emerged from the young man’s shadow and was tiredly floating around him, bent forward with all his four short stubby limbs limping from his sides,his two pointy ears dangling in a similar fashion. Three lines slowly opened on the uniform dark purple that colored his whole body, revealing two eyes and a comically huge mouth filled with white teeth. They opened even further as the Gengar yawned loudly, before covering his eyes from the harsh light with one of his arms and hissing at Nathan.

"Sorry, guys, I know the light is too strong for your liking but I need your help. Standard procedure: Bea and Garz, I need both of you to fly around here a little and check if there are dangerous Pokèmon and drive them away if necessary. Bea, there shouldn't be any this close to the signed path, but if you see something dangerous as a Claydol or a Flygon, get away as fast as possible and warn us. Don't get too far, stay in sight range and be back here in half an hour, tops. Now go!" The young man pointed a finger at the horizon as he finished giving his orders, but the two Pokémon didn't move, earning a sigh from their trainer and a questioning look from the family of Unovans.

"Tu quoque, Beatrix? I expected some stunt like this from Garz, not you." The bird for all answer, shrieked softly while shielding her eyes with her other wing like the Gengar, as to stress the fact she was quite not happy of where she was. "Fine, fine, you both win," Nathan conceded, raising his hands in defeat. "Garz, tonight feel free to eat whatever dream I'll have while sleeping. And Bea, tomorrow I'll brush your wings for all the time you want. Now, for the love of Shaymin, go!"

The Ghost-type immediately perked up, ears upright and a maniacal grin printed on his face. He then took off disappearing in a dark blur, almost too fast for the human eye to see. The Fearow, on the other hand, flapped towards her trainer, rubbing her head against his while slightly pecking his neck warmer and cheerping cheerfully. Nathan rolled his eyes at her display of affection, but couldn't hide a little smirk creeping on his face. "Yes, yes, now act like the big girl you are and do your job, ok?" This time, the bird obeyed immediately and took to the air with a powerful flap of her wings, leaving a cloud of sand behind her.

"That was... interesting." Mr. Checker suddenly spoke from the side, his eyes still lingering on the now faraway brown shape of Beatrix. Nathan gave him a questioning look.

"What do you mean, Mr. Checker?"

"Oh, please, call me Joseph. You earned it. The behaviour you and your Pokémon showed... It's quite impressive. You trust your Ghost-type enough to let him feed on your dreams, and I'm no expert of big Flying-types but I know for a fact that, being natural predators, they usually are quite serious and prideful. It was nice to see one being so affectionate. Was she your first Pokémon?"

"Not really, sadly that honor goes to Satel here," Nathan answered, waving his hand to the Bronzong, still floating in the same, exact spot. "That reminds me... Satellite, ready to receive commands! Perform a scan of the ground in a radius of ten feet from your actual position with an Extrasensory - output power of only ten percent, non lethal. Give priority to forms of life."

Immediately, the huge metallic creature hummed to life, both eyes glowing an eerie blue that quickly covered the ground in a perfect circle around the Pokémon, making the sand rattle and raising a cloud of dust. Soon, little bulges poked through the sand and started to move around under the group of people, forcing them and the earth-bound Gigalith to take some steps back. After a few seconds, a little pack of Trapinch emerged from the ground and panickingly fled away from the psychic energy as fast as their little legs could carry them.

"Ooo, those are sooo cute! Can I keep one, daddy? Can I?" Aley squealed, almost bouncing on top of the huge Rock-type, the titanic Pokémon totally unfazed by her weight.

"No Aley." Her father answered with finality. "You are still too young to have a Pokémon of your own, especially one that evolves into a Dragon-type. And besides, even if we brought one home, we would have to check on it all the time, unless you want one of our Cacturnes to eat it. They are their natural predators, you know. Oh, don't make that face; you just have to wait another four years before you’re of age."

"But it's not fair!" The girl nearly shouted out, her little arms crossed and an angry pout on her face.

Nathan glanced quickly at the man, puzzled by his last lines. He was really knowledgeable for a tourist, even too much. Few people, even among trainers, knew or cared about wild Pokémon food chains, almost always only worried about which ones were the most dangerous to meet or fight against. Also, what was that story of them having Cacturnes, as more than one, of their own? He never heard of them being found in Unova, and if he really needed more than one than he must have been a breeder or something similar, and that would have presumed certain knowledge of the species he raised. If that was the case, what was the deal with that dumb question about them attacking he had done earlier?

He shook his head. It wasn't really something he should be concerned with at the moment. Maybe he could get some explanations from the man during the break. At least it would have been a good starting topic for conversation.

As father and daughter kept bickering, Nathan opened his bag and took out several trinkets and survival items; knives, a mess tin and several healing items for his team until he finally found what he was looking for: a thick, soft colored blanket, perfect to be used as a makeshift roof to protect himself and the family from the sunlight. Until a couple years before he would have had to bring with him or find some sticks long enough to be planted in the ground and support the blanket, so to build a very rudimental hut. Then he had one of those ideas that, in hindsight, seemed so stupid he almost wanted to slap himself.

"Satellite, perform standard hut procedure. Use Reflect, three percent of power. Runtime... ninety minutes will be enough." The Bronze Bell Pokèmon's eyes glowed once again, his whole body vibrating with a different sound from before as a thin, translucent wall of light materialized in the air above them, floating perfectly parallel to the ground. As Nathan rested the blanket on it, a shadow large enough for the whole group to take comfortable shelter under was projected on the ground.

Both Joseph and Sally looked up at the 'roof', eyebrows slightly raised in what Nathan hoped was some degree of admiration for the idea. Managing to impress clients with some gimmick like that was one good way to have them remember you and, hopefully, hire you again in the future. Or just suggest you to some friends, either was fine.

"I believe this is a good moment to settle down, eat and drink some water, especially the little Aley. We all need to rest and rehydrate. Just don't exaggerate, we still have some hours of travel in front of us and our reserves will have to last until then."

The young guide sat down, making himself as comfortable as possible before taking some sips of water from his canteen. His example was soon followed by the rest of the group. Aley was leaning on her mother, sitting down between her legs with half her face resting between the folds of the woman clothes. The woman was similarly sitting with her back against one of the huge Gigalith's legs, a small look of bliss on her face as she looked down at the almost sleeping form of the daughter against her chest, gently stroking the girl's back with a hand. Meanwhile, Joseph was awake and vigilant, sitting with his legs crossed as he slowly scanned the desert around them.

Soon, the nothingness of the desert made itself known as an absolute, crystal clear silence settled on the group. Unlike other habitats like the woods and grasslands, there wasn't any background noise caused by soft winds rustling the leaves or the omnipresents small Bug and Flying-types in this immense plain of sand. For someone not used to it, it was just plain disconcerting, if not even scary to a degree. Only five minutes or so had passed since they had sat down, but to most people, it was nearly an eternity, without any kind of sound to scan the passage of time.

Which meant it was the perfect setting for Nathan to make the man loosen his tongue, gather some useful information and get an answer to his doubts.

"So," he began, "do you guys have any Pokémon from around here there in Unova?"

After almost half an hour, Nathan knew more of Unova than he had ever known. Not one to be willing to travel so far, as his job was one that required a nearly perfect knowledge of the routes of the regions he worked in, he had always preferred travelling the relatively close and familiar Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and, in really rare occasions, Orre coast. So he didn't even know of the invasion of non-indigenous species Unova had suffered in the last years.

In the meanwhile, both Garz and Beatrix had come back from their scouting trip, the first now swimming casually in the shadow of his friend's hut, cooling the temperature with his simple presence, something both Nathan and the others appreciated, without losing sight of the boy even for an instant, while the Fearow had decided to keep gliding above their heads, so to make completely sure no danger would have neared her precious trainer-hatchling, not without her pulling a fight first.

"Wait wait wait... wait. You were... testing me?" Nathan couldn't help but gape incredulously as the man, who not only had known perfectly about Cacturnes' hunting tactics from the beginning, but had even revealed to be a researcher specialized in all kinds of Grass-types, nodded as a confirmation.

"Yes, sorry about that, but I needed to make sure you really were a guide who knew his stuff. I think you know how many people try to do your job thinking it is just a matter of fighting wild Pokémon like trainer wannabes. I was not going to let any of them 'protect' my daughter," the Unovan replied, looking at the younger man right in the eyes. "But I was happy to be proven wrong. After we'll conclude our business in Fallabor Town, we'll need to get back to Unova, and I would like to have you escort us all the way back to Mauville City."

"Sure, it would be my pleasure," Nathan replied quickly, "but... I still have a doubt. Both you and your wife don't seem exactly the kinds of people to require help from someone like me, you both seem quite capable, both as travellers and trainers," the young man waved at the imposing form of Gigalith, who had kept tight surveillance on the two humans resting on him with unwavering concentration, "I am quite sure you could have managed even this trip throught the desert without my help, as you have one of your own as one of the main routes of your own region, so why hiring me?"

"Well, the point is, me and Sally always travelled alone with each other, even as students, but this was our first travel since we had Aley, and while we didn't want to leave her back home, we were also worried that, as rusty as we are, we couldn't have protected her, hence," he lifted one finger pointing it directly at Nathan, "you. I am making this clear right now, you are meant to guard my daughter during both this trip and the way back. If you'll ever have to choose between helping me and my wife or my daughter, you'll alway take Aley as your first priority. Is that okay with you?"

Nathan almost flinched away by the sheer seriousness the man had been talking with. Garz had probably perceived the discomfort his trainer was going throught as he glared at the Unovan through dangerously narrowed slits, the air around him suddenly way colder than it had been before. The Gigalith glared at the Ghost too as the sudden drop of temperature made the two sleeping women shiver, but even so, the old man's eyes, hard and cold as steel, never left Nathan's own ones nor faltered for an instant, the man either ignoring or uncaring of the look the Ghost-type was giving him.

That impressed Nathan more than anything else. Even he had the creeps whenever Garz gave someone that look.

Satellite, in the meanwhile, was still peacefully keeping the barrier on, completely uninterested in the potential slaughter that might have happened a few inches from him in a manner of seconds, as a quick glance from Nathan confirmed.

Dumb piece of metal.

After spending a few seconds to think of some great, heroic answer to give, the boy just sighed and settled on a simpler: "Of course, Mr. Checker, you can count on me."

The man's previously hard features seemed to almost melt like butter under the sun as he relaxed and gave Nathan a small smile of gratitude, as well as a simple "Thanks."

Garz and Gigalith relaxed too, easing their previously hostile or plain malicious glares in softer, distrusting ones. The Rock-type went back to guard the mother and daughter, while Garz just went back to float, half-immersed in the shadow as if it were a swimming pool, looking at the improptu ceiling. Both Nathan and Joseph looked at the slightly other-worldly display with mild amusement, trying to find another topic of conversation.

In the end, Nathan took the initiative. "So far we only talked about your region, it's only fair for me to answer back to some questions right now. Anything you want to kn-"

Before either could realize what was happening, the light barrier right above them broke with a loud static snap in a million glittering pieces that immediately faded in thin air, the sound sudden and strong enough to wake up the sleeping women with a startle.

Then the blanket, just a moment before sitting on the barrier, was shoved down on them, dragged by a huge, heavy shape that bulged through the middle of the length of cloth. Before being covered by the thick sheet, Nathan heard the scared scream of Aley calling her mother, her voice quickly becoming a mess of confused, histerical sobs.

As he fell to the ground, he immediatly threw the cloth off him, his hands on the other three spheres on his belt while screaming the names of his already released teammates. But even at his loudest, his voice was merely a whisper compared to Joseph's one, thick with fear as he freed himself from the cloth too and quickly answered to his daughter pleas. Nathan immediately turned to see what had fallen on them through the cloth, breaking through the frail barrier, not meant to sustain any other weight than the blanket itself. His mind was already running rampant thinking about all the kinds of flying Pokémon living in the route, but he froze when he saw the figure pummeled to the ground and now half wrapped in the blanket.

It was Beatrix.

There was not a drop of blood on her, the combination of soft tissue and sand had prevented any serious trauma, but she was not moving, like she had suddenly fallen asleep while flying.

Then, as he heard another scream, he turned to see the family of Unovans. Both Aley and her mother had fallen to the ground, equally unresponsive to Joseph’s growingly desperate pleas. The same eyes that a few minutes before had seemed so cold and determinate, beared now confusion and fear beyond anything Nathan had ever seen. Even Gigalith suddenly seemed to lose his balance, tilting dangerously to the side, struck by an immensely powerful drowsiness.

In that moment, his legs gave out under him too, and he found his mouth full of sand as he fell face first on the ground. As his eyelids quickly became unbearably heavy, he looked around, desperate for any kind of help, but it seemed he was not going to get it anytime soon. Joseph had fallen to the ground too while holding his wife, Garz was nowhere in sight and even Satellite seemed to have shut down, now just a big piece of metal lying on the ground.

The last thing he saw was Aley's face. Her eyes were closed but still wet and red with tears, and from her nose, a huge amount of clear snoot had dripped down reaching even her mouth, twisted in a grimace of fear. That was the same girl that just an hour before had been happily tormenting him, excited for her first adventure outside her home and surrounded by her parents' love.

Before his eyelids finally gave up to the unbearable weight upon them, he thought how many years had passed since he had last seen his own mom and dad.

...

"Rest now my children, for when you awake, a whole new world shall be your home."

Wooden Bit softly caressed one of his perfectly styled moustaches, enjoying the feeling of smoothness he had achieved with the lengthy, patient grooming daily applied to both of them with practiced hooves. Through the large window in front of him, he could look down on the main plaza of the Baltimare harbor, his harbor, where every day hundreds of ponies and griffons passionately hunted for the best bargains possible among the dozens upon dozens of stands presided by similarly combative vendors.

He then raised his look to the other end of the square, opposite to the building he was in. Many considered him as the uncrowned king of not only the port, but the whole town of Baltimare itself, as its existence depended almost solely on the harbour, from where the town had been born from in the first place. But he knew better than that. The true king was there, immense and moody as ever: the ocean, on which the hundreds of ships the city depended on travelled every single day, their charges of goods and lives at leisure of the unsettling monster of water beneath them.

A quick series of soft, but firm knocks on the door of his office yanked him away from his thoughts. "Wooden Bit sir, I have some cards for you. Can I enter?" a feminine voice he knew too well called through.

The stallion sighed. For how much he would have liked to spend further time simply basking in the glory of the little split of world visible throught his window, that was an honor he had yet to earn. He ruffled his wings lightly before turning around and sitting down behind his desk, the window now right behind him. He would have needed his feathery appendages very soon. "Yes, Silver Glass."

The doorknob was enveloped by a familiar light blue aura as the the polished wooden plank twisted on its hinges, allowing a young, slender unicorn mare inside the room. The pegasus couldn't help but cringe visibly at the huge stacks of paper floating at her sides. The young secretary shook her head at the antics of her employer before setting down the paper on the table. "Oh, sir, don't be like that, it's not that bad today, and you should have gotten used to it by now, don't you?"

The stallion didn't even look at her before extending his wings, grasping sheets of paper one by one between the first primaries of his wings with blinding speed, scanning them quickly with his eyes and then dividing them in different piles depending on the attention they needed before being signed. "We'll discuss this manner again when you'll be forced to do it nearly every single day of your life for more than ten years. And, by the way, it’s not something I'll ever want to get used to." He grumbled in answer, both the original stacks already cut in half as his wings kept repeating the fast motions ingrained in them by time. "Now, if you don't have anything more to say, please bring m-" his wings froze in place as one of them kept one sheet of paper in front of of his face, a unreadable mix of emotions in his eyes.

This time it was Silver Glass' turn to cringe. She recognized that sheet.

"What am I reading exactly, Silver?" the stallion asked, his even voice barely betraying calm fury.

"...an approved request from Canterlot to allow the Changelings to open their first Equestrian embassy here in Baltimare, sir."

"And who approved it, Silver?"

"Mayor Bronze Sonata, sir, with the approval of the rest of the city council."

"Those... damn... flankholes!" Wooden Bit almost roared as he stood up. "Who gave them permission to decide something like this without conferring with me first?"

"The Equestrian law, sir," the secretary replied as she calmly levitated up the few pages floating around for the sudden outburst, "no matter how influential you are in this city, to the eyes of the law, you are only responsible for the workings of the port. They don't need to ask you for this kind of political matters."

The older pegasus paced around the room with his wings flared, occasionally opening his mouth as if to answer back, but every time the words died in his throat. After the fourth or fifth time, he just sighed and sit down at his desk. "I'm so much going to get back at that damn stallion, one of these days... like Tartarus he's going to sit on that chair ever again," he muttered, defeated.

"The Mayor is going to retire by the end of the next month, sir. I doubt anything you could do would really damage him at this point." the mare observed, earning an angry groan from her employer, "Besides, if I might ask... why are you so distraught by this? I mean, you usually are the first to offload anything vaguely political to others, sir, it's not the first time they take this kind of decision without you knowing."

The stallion looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Do you really think that's what had me so offset?"

The mare sighed. She did know the real reason of the pegasus anger, but she had hoped to be wrong.

"The Canterlot wedding." she stated with a small voice.

"Of course it's the damn 'wedding'!" Wooden all but shouted, both his hooves slamming on the desk with a loud bang. "Those blasted bugs almost took over the capital! They nearly killed even

the Princess! Before I'll let even one of those sly, metamorphic bastards in my city, you'll see me dancing a Luna-damned polka with a Chimera! Ah, no, wait, the 'city council' already did let them in! All the better, I'll make sure to make their lives so hard they will roam back home and never come here again!"

"But, sir, they were forgiven by the Princesses! It was fault of a group of terrorists, mislead by a lesser member of their Crown! You can't judge them all just like that! It's... it's even stupid, coming from you, sir!"

As the last words left her mouth, Silver clamped it shut, her whole body frozen in front of the desk. Wooden was a fairly tolerant employer, but she feared to have overstepped her boundaries with that line. As the stallion turned his muzzle to her, the look of pure, unadulterated rage in his eyes confirmed it.

"Given how long you have worked for me and how helpful you were, I will pretend to have not heard that last line, miss Silver Glass" he hissed, "but exactly as I will not tolerate another slip like that, I will not allow any bloody monster into my city, be it Chimeras, Dragons or those cursed Change-"

Before he could finish his sentence, a huge boom interrupted him; it was far, but strong enough to make even the building windows rattle slightly in their frame. Before any of them could wonder what had just happened, another thump could be heard far closer, as something seemed to fall from inside the wooden closet in the corner.

Both of them looked at the piece of furniture, before turning to each other from opposite sides of the desk. Wooden Bit was the first to talk. "What... exactly is going on?" he asked, unsure if to expect an answer from the unicorn mare.

"I... have no idea, sir. My best guess is that was a- Sweet mother of Celestia!" she shrieked the last part, her eyes widening to the size of plates as they stared down at the plaza through the large window.

Wooden turned immediately to see what had scared his secretary so much. Right in the middle of the square, surrounded by suddenly mute vendors and buyers in shock, a pony was lying on the ground. Wooden Bit could not determine what tribe itbelonged to, nor if it was a stallion or mare, and he barely registered even the colour of its coat, a soft yellow-ish cream.

What really caught his attention was that both the mane and tail of the pony were lit ablaze, a uniform mass of roaring fire that menaced to spread on the whole equine in a manner of seconds killing it horribly.

And no one was helping him.

That wouldn't do.

Wooden Bit spun on himself, reared on his front legs, wings spread to give him more balance, and bucked as hard as he could on the frame of the window, slamming it open. The sudden bang and shattering of glasses broke Silver out of her shock induced paralysis, and her eyes immediatly went to the older pegasus, ready to fly out of the window and to the square below. Before he took off in the air, he just screamed her two words.

"Medic, now!"

She turned to the exit and galloped frantically out of the room, slamming behind her the door with her magic by sheer routine, still too scared to really think about what she was doing. All she knew and moved for was that she needed a doctor, and needed it fast.

As she ran away, a couple of smaller shapes started to wake up in the closet.

"Nnn...? Noi? Noiba-ba?"

"Urrrgh... What is it, Wubby? What happene..."

"Nob! Noibat!"

"What... what do you mean? Sorry, but I'm not sure what you are... wait a minute! Wubby? Did you just talk? And since when you were this big and... and… ah… aaah..."

"Nii?"

"W-w-wubby?"

"Noi?”

"Wh-wh-where are m-m-my hands?"

Chapter 2 - Red

When Nathan woke up, it was to the soft sound of crying.

The first thing that hit him, even before he could open his eyes, was how weird the ground felt under his back. Wet blades of grass, the irregularities of the ground, and a pebble or two pressing against him–it all felt impossibly dulled or distorted as though there were some thick layers of clothes, unnaturally adherent to his bare skin, between him and the earth.

However, what really forced him back to his senses was a maddening pressure at the base of his back. It was like like someone, somehow, had managed to grasp his tailbone and was slightly flexing it, almost as to see how much it could bend without snapping from the rest of the spine. While not really painful, it was an extremely uncomfortable sensation. In his half-asleep state he reasoned it must have been just a tree root or a stone poking through the sand of the desert directly on the extremely sensitive bone through the thin layer of flesh that covered it.

Wait a minute... a tree root? Grass? In the desert? What the...

Memories of his last few hours flooded his mind with force; the travel, his clients, the sharp crack of the barrier breaking, Beatrix and everyone else passing out, and finally the taste of sand in his mouth as he fell to the ground.

After that, only a faraway, deep voice, and everything went dark.

What happened?

Nathan blinked a few times before succeeding in opening his eyes, and found himself looking up at the green foliage of a large tree.

Oookay, not in the desert anymore, that's for sure. Where am I?

Fighting back a light headache, he started pushing himself in a sitting position, but while doing so he noticed several odd things.

First, he couldn't feel anything clearly under his fingers, or even his fingers themselves. Not unlike his back, most of the sensitivity of his forearms was muffled. The only truly sensitive part left were the centres of his palms, that somehow felt bigger than they had been previously.

Second, slightly above where his ears were supposed to be, muscles that were everything but familiar were twitching like mad, reacting to every single little sound around, be it the chirping of a flying type or the creaking of a branch moved by the wind.

The last thing he noticed was that the more he straightened himself to take a sitting position, the more that annoying 'pulling' sensation at the base of his spine increased, until it became nothing short of unbearable. He absolutely needed to find out what was causing it and make it to stop.

As he looked down, his breathing came to a sudden halt.

He was sitting on a large, white, and bushy tail, poking from two equally as hairy and white legs, way shorter than they had been before, that ended in stubby paws with three little claws coming from each of them, always covered in white fur. As he shifted his weight a little, the tail joint was finally freed from his whole weight and the pressure he had felt disappeared, almost as if that tail was his own.

But there was no way that was possible.

Above said legs, in place of his clothes and familiar Pokéball belt, was a wide belly that shared the same hairiness and, mostly, color scheme. His eyes, that had become gradually wider with every passing second, followed a red stripe that criss-crossed over the body in a vaguely 'S' shaped pattern, from the right flank all the way to the left shoulder.

Attached to it was a long, hairy limb with the same color scheme: white for the most part while the forearm was red, the shade of the color the same of the stripe he had seen on the stomach. What really caught his eye, however, were the two great, jet-black claws, gleaming under the sunlight, poking from a stubby paw where his hand had been before.

When he tried to raise his hand, the paw answered.

When he flexed his fingers, the claws were the ones to move.

When he raised said paw to his eyes, he saw a pink, soft pad where his palm was supposed to be. Bringing it to his face, he felt no nose jutting out from his usually flat face, but a solid, short muzzle.

His whole body froze.

It couldn't be happening. He refused to believe it. It was a dream for sure. It had to be.

Suddenly, his lungs felt like they were about to burst and he released the breath he had forgotten he had been holding since he had first seen that tail. As he gulped down more and more air, he instinctively brought a hand to his neck.

As the familiar texture of his old neck warmer greeted him, and with it a cold, tiny shape, his breath got caught in his lungs once again.

He didn't even need to look at it to know what it was, as he had bared it on him everyday since he had left home. It was a little, metallic pin, shaped as his home town emblem, a five-petals flower with three little hexagons at its center. Together with the neckwarmer it was attached to, it had been his mother's last present for him before he had left home, almost ten years before. 'The pin is to remember you always have a home here', she had said, proud and worried at the same time, when he had left for his adventure.

'And the neckwarmer to avoid catching a cold' she had joked as the tears finally swelled in her eyes.

It had been the last time he had seen her.

This is real. Nathan realized as he caressed the warm cloth and the pin. During his travels, he had not got through every obstacle completely unscathed, nor had that pin that had almost become a part of him with time.

A nick on the first petal reminded him of that time he had fell in a quite deep ditch, during his second mission as a Galactic grunt. Back then, he still believed they were going to change the world, and he would have been a part of it. A familiar cold rage swelled in his stomach.

A scrape on the center made him shudder, as it was the proof of a battle he couldn't ever forget, when he and his fellows had battled, and eventually defeated, the powerful Willpower Pokémon at Lake Valor. When the enraged Legendary had flung him against the walls of the cave, he had thought he was going to die, but he had been saved by Satellite and Commander Saturn at the last second. He felt a little smile tug at his lips; not many people could claim to have battled a Legendary, and that was one of the few memories of his time with the Team he was still somehow proud of.

As he lingered on the crinkle on the fourth petal, he felt a spike of phantom pain on the right side of his chest, memento of when he had personally learned how brutal his Azure could be. It was from the time she had broken four of his ribs as he tried to restrain her from killing a Pokémon, several times her size, belonging to a young, enthusiast kid that had challenged him. Even if in the end her unlucky opponent had survived, she had crippled it so badly that at the time Nathan had doubted it could have ever battle again.

And so on, every nick or scrape on the little piece of metal was a mark left by one of his adventures, and as his hand, or paw, found them, the body remembered too every single one of them as it had always done.

By then, he couldn't deny it anymore. That alien body really was his own.

He had become a Zangoose.

"Sweet Shaymin..." he muttered looking vacantly at himself.

What exactly happened? How is this possible? Who... no! the now Normal-type Pokémon shook his head trying to suppress the endless series of doubts flooding his mind. He had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment.

Turning his head he looked all around himself to check his surroundings, but he saw only trees and plants, not even a single sign of the rest of his group. "Beatrix! Garz! Satellite! Can you hear me?" he shouted looking around if any of the released members of his team answered, but with no avail, the only result being every single little Flying-type in a radius of a half mile flying away for the sudden sound. "Mister Checker! Miss Sally! Aley! Is anyone here at all?"

When he received no answer once more, he growled in frustration and slowly pulled himself upright. Even without considering the absurdity of his actual state, the situation was still really bad. He was alone, had no idea where he or any member of his team was, his backpack with all his provisions had disappeared and even the family he was supposed to protect was missing.

His best shot, he reasoned, would have been finding some place set apart from the uniformity of the forest, the top of a hill, a particularly big tree or maybe even a settlement, and hope that the rest of the group would have been drawn to it too.

As he started walking away the bushes behind him rustled violently, as something hidden inside them started moving. Out of instinct he never had before, he tensed the muscles in his paws, forcing his claws to stretch out, and turned to face the moving undergrowth.

That, if he hadn't tripped on his own, new paws. Cursing under his breath he instinctively reached out to slow down the fall, but his now oversized arm reached all the way to the ground, allowing him to stop himself.

Some part of his mind remembered him that Zangoose were indeed quadrupedal Pokémon and walked on two only in rare occasion or when human-trained to do so, but his attention was soon drawn back to the rustling leaves. If hiding in there was some kind of territorial, enraged wild Pokémon, he was going to be in trouble, even if it was smaller than him, enough to hide in the relatively little bush.

The leaves directly in front of him started to shake, and all he could do was to brace himself and hope that the Pokémon about to emerge was not hostile.

The creature that shily poked its head from behind the branches, however, gave him pause.

Nathan actually had to squint his eyes a little to get a good look at it, so well its body covered in leaves blended with the vegetation. The only things that stood out were the two little auburn eyes staring at him, wet with tears, encased in a large head resembling a bulb with some long leaves sprouting from the tip. He quickly recognized it as a Petilil, a small Grass-type found almost solely in Unova, the only region where the prairies hadn't been overrun by the way too common mixed Grass and Poison types, more resistant than pure Grass-types like the Pokémon in front of him and with a critical typing advantage over them.

The specimen in front of him was rather small compared to the few he had seen, usually in possession of traveling trainers from the faraway region, meaning it was either really young or born weaker than the standard. From its behaviour, looking scaredly at him with its onion-like head hidden behind the faint repair of some leaves, Nathan decided it probably was the first case, as the curiosity it showed was a clear sign of young age.

By the way, Nathan reasoned that it also meant the little Pokémon probably didn't have ill intentions, and so allowed himself to relax.

That, before the little Pokémon spoke to him.

"W-who are you?"

Nathan looked at the little creature like it had just grown a second head, and not only for the fact that a Pokémon had just spoken to him and he had understood it. It was the voice. He knew that voice. Only a few hours before, he had been sure that it would have been an integral part of his future nightmares, so much it had grated on his nerves.

"M-miss Aley? Is that you?" he said with a voice only slightly above a whisper, completely stunned by the implications of what he was witnessing.

"H-how do you know my name? Do you know w-where is m-m-mommy?" the little Petilil asked trying, and failing, to suppress the tears swelling in her eyes and the sobs wracking her voice. "I-I-I want mommy! Where is mommy? I-I-I-Uh... uuuuh."

As the Pokémon that Aley had, seemingly, become started weeping, alternating heart-breaking wails and choking sobs, Nathan recognized those soft cries as the ones that had woken him up, and found himself unsure about what to do.

On one hand, Aley's presence as a Pokémon not only forced him to think about his own transformation again, but it also entailed a whole new realm of implications and questions that needed further reasoning and thought. On the other, the little girl was clearly in dire help of some comfort, especially considered that she had been crying since even before he had woken up, but because of the fact that nor her parents nor Beatrix were there at the moment, that task fell on his shoulders, even if he had always been quite bad with kids.

No, scratch that, I have always been downright horrible with dealing with them... Maybe if I wait a moment she will calm down and stop... Yes, that sounds like a plan! Just let her blow off! Wait for it... wait... for...

"A-a-aaaah! I wanna mommyyyy! Mommyyy!"

Oh, damn you Beatrix, where are you? Dealing with children has always been your thing! Seeing that she was not going to stop anytime soon, he resigned himself to his fate and took an hesitant step towards the weeping Pokémon-kid. That stopped her wailing immediately, but in its place a look of utter fear took over the Petilil face as she retreated back in the brush, causing Nathan to stop once again.

Oh, right, she doesn't know who I am... And even if I told her she would probably be just too scared to listen to me... Okay, think, scared, distraught little girl, probably no really coherent thought in her head... Oh, c'mon, it's almost like having to deal with Monaghan just after I caught him all over again! Wait... I could act the same way... after all now she's a Pokémon too now, even of his same type...

Slowly, Nathan started to bend his knees and lower himself on the ground so to reduce the size gap between them without breaking eye contact, until he found himself on all fours, a position he even found strangely comfortable, and his head was held barely higher than Aley's one. Then, he just stood still, waiting for her to make her move.

After a few, interminable minutes, Aley started to inch away from the safety of the brush and approached him.

"Hi, Aley." he greeted her with the most calming tone he could muster despite the fact his patience was already starting to run thin, as attested by his tail lashing around.

"How... how do you know my name? W-who are you? W-where is my m-m-mommy?" If the girl still had lips, they would have been trembling by the end of her sentence.

"I am Nathan, do you remember me? Even if I'm a bit different, it's still me! Me and my Pokémon were accompanying you and your family through the desert, and we also talked a lot!" Technically, you were the only one to talk... for hours... non stop... Ugh, focus! "Look, I still have my neckwarmer, see?" Nathan said in the hope to get her to believe him quickly, so that he could start dealing with the more pressing matters, like finding out where they were. "I don't know where your mommy or your daddy are, but I want to find them too, so if you come with me we can do it a lot faster!" he finished with a smile, hoping that the mention of her parents would quickly persuade the small Grass-type.

"R-really? You will find my mommy and daddy?" Aley asked, her brown eyes filled with relief.

"Yes, really!" he nodded widening his smile to the point his mouth started to hurt, making Nathan doubt Zangooses even had the muscles necessary to smile like that and aggravating him further.

In that moment the little auburn eyes of the Grass-type started leaking with tears again, much to Nathan's chagrin. Oh, no! Why is she crying again? Did I say something wrong? What do

I- his thoughts came to an halt as the little Grass-type practically launched herself on his muzzle, clutching as hard as the little, cold stumps she had as limbs allowed, mumbling a confused mess of relieved thanks throught his fur.

"Whoa! Get off, get off!" he tried to shook her off while walking back, but he tripped on his own tail and fell to the side, finally managing to dislodge the Petilil. That seemed to calm her down and started looking up at the Zangoose, her eyes sparkling with relief. Nathan cheered internally as he slowly stood upright once again and allowed himself to relax. It really worked! I did it even without Bea helping me! In the end it really was as simple as dealing with a Pokémon! What was so hard about it?

Now that he was finally done there, Nathan could finally start thinking about the really important things. "Very well, Aley, shall we go?" he told her before starting walking away, his mind already running at full speed as he decided the best course of action to survive. Okay, first I need to find some water, and then hope someone of my team will find us... food is not really going to be a problem as forests like this are always full of berries and fruits in general and-

"Where are you going?" the Petilil voice from behind him stopped his train of thoughts and he turned his head just to see the girl still standing in the same spot he had left her.

"Uuuh, to find your parents, remember? Why aren't you coming?" Nathan asked perplexed. Why wasn't she following him?

"When are you going to give me a piggy ride?" Aley replied with a confused look.

"What? Why should I..." Nathan was getting really confused by the girl's request. Why should he do it? She could very well walk on her own legs, despite how stubby and short they were.

"Mom and dad always tell one of their Pokémon to give me one when we travel around." She replied as if it was the most obvious thing of the whole world, earning a little eye twitch from the Zangoose.

"I'm not one of your parents, and much less a Pokémon of theirs, Aley, and you could walk on your own, don't you think?" Nathan said more angrily than intended, unable to stop some of his pent-up irritation seep in his voice. As he realized it, he cringed and looked down at the girl again, finding her eyes already wet and, judging from how she trembled, just about to start crying all over again.

Oh no, not again! "Sorry Aley! I didn't mean it!" he tried to calm her down, not wanting to lose other precious time trying to get her stop screaming. "I will give you a ride, okay? Just don't cry, please!"

This seemed to calm the girl once again, and her mood made a total turnabout as she smiled without mouth, her eyes sparkling. "Really?" she asked.

"Just... just come here." Nathan replied as he tiredly slumped his shoulders and lowered himself to let the girl climb on him. Calming down that little, hysteric Petilil while trying to not freak out himself because of the situation was starting to tire him out, and he hadn't really done nothing useful yet.

The things I have to do... I just hope there will not be any further delaying problem, now... Nathan thought as the Petilil crawled all the way to his head, clinging to his ears for support. "Ready to go, Aley?" even if he couldn't see her, he felt her nod on the back of his head, and started walking once again.

I just hope that Garz, Bea and Satel are doing well... or are still together. At least I don't have to worry about Azure and the other two staying too long in their Pokéballs, it won't be long before she gets bored enough to break out, and brings the other with her. h thought. Even if he knew he couldn't do much about it and it was useless to get so worked up, he couldn't help to be worried about his team, or in Azure's case, about anyone so unlucky to cross her path. The Zangoose shook his head, no time for that, he needed to clear his mind, look forward and be completely focused on his task.

And so he managed to be, for whole five, long seconds.

"Mister Nathan..." Just by hearing Aley childish, pleading tone, Nathan sighed. He already knew he was not going to like this.

"...what is it now, Aley?" he asked.

"I'm thirsty... can I have some water?"

"We don't have any... I'm searching for it right now, just resist a little more, okay?"

"But I want it noooow!" she whined with a annoyingly high-pitched voice, so close to his ears they actually hurt.

Nathan sighed again, and slowly brought a paw on his face for good measure.

...I miss Beatrix.

Beatrix had known that this was not going to be a good day. At all.

She had felt it, the very moment her little master had released her from her Pokéball. As soon as she had found herself under the blinding light of that Arceus-damned sand pool, a familiar feeling gnawing in her guts, like having a newborn Caterpie crawling in her stomach, had told her there was something wrong. That was why, back there, she had kept flying even after her little master had called her and Garz back.

Whatever the problem was, wherever the danger was coming from, she would have spotted it from far away, earning precious time for Nathan and the rest of the team to prepare and deal with it.

It was the only thing she could do for him, after all. Her eyesight was the only one of her attributes that was not overshadowed by one of her friends. Mainly by Garz.

Sure, she loved the Gengar dearly, having the two of them been together in the actual party for the longest time, and he deeply cared for her too, even if he showed it in the rather... peculiar way typical of the Ghost-kin, but she couldn't deny that she also deeply envied him.

Not only he had been the first, true companion of Nathan, and thus his closest friend and Pokémon of choice, a bond she was jealous of, but he also outclassed her in battle prowess, speed and, thanks to his Levitate Ability, even in the one pride of her kin: flight itself. Hard to compete with someone that didn't even need to beat wings to stay afloat.

Well, truth to be told, Satellite had been with Nathan from even before the Gengar, and it had his same ability too, but it was way slower than both of them and never bonded with anyone, not even Nathan himself. She had been doubting for years the Steel-type could even really feel emotions to begin with. The Bronzong had always just been... there, obeying. Even her little master didn't really like it, but for some reason she didn't understand he kept it around.

And so she had watched. She had kept protecting the one she considered the closest thing to an hatchling of her own in the only way she really could, fighting back the light, bearing with the heat and ignoring the painful sand slipping through her feathers.

And she had still failed him.

She didn't even see what got her. A moment she was there, flying and watching, and the following she had woken up with a start on that roof, surprised to find herself asleep. The realization struck almost immediately. She had failed to protect him, and now she was alone, on the roof of some building, in an unfamiliar city in front of the ocean, far from the desert.

She didn't even know if Nathan and the others were still alive.

She looked down at the streets with little interest, as dozens of multicolored, weird Ponyta or Rapidash-like creatures, some even with wings, and several strange beings that looked like a mix of a Bird Pokémon and a Persian walked around in a busy fashion that reminded her of the human beings, but she couldn't bring herself to care about what they were, or where this place was.

All she could think about was that her little one could have been in danger, maybe already dead, it would have been her fault and, lost in an unknown place, she didn't even know how to help him.

A sudden sound of crashing glass, coming from some houses behind her and the roof she was sitting upon, gained her attention for a moment, before she shrugged it off. She just didn't feel like bothering about anything at the moment, so she also ignored the panicked, scared mess of voices that soon followed.

She couldn't however ignore the two bloody screams that came from that same direction.

The first thing she thought was that it was young. Whoever had screamed first, he must have been still in its early youth, barely older than an hatchling, and the pained shock that the voice carried felt incredibly wrong on such a young voice, to the point of making her feel sick. Before she could even realize it, she had lifted herself in air and had started fluttering in the direction the cries had come from, until she found herself on another roof, bordering a large plaza with dozens of those strange Ponyta and full of wooden stands.

What she saw made her blood freeze in her veins. A young Ponyta, a legit one, white with flaming hooves and all, was cowering against a wall at the edge of the square, but he was missing something. A part of his flaming mane had lit off. From his forehead halfway to his neck sickly tendrils of steam were lazily flowing upwards in place of the proud, roaring fire his kin was known for. Some feets in front of him one of the odd creatures, a brown, fireless Ponyta with wings and even some facial hairs, had dropped to the ground and was screaming through gritted teeth, one of his shoulders covered by a mess of burnt flesh and fur.

At his side, a bucket had fallen on the ground, still dripping water in a large puddle in front of it.

It didn't took much for her to understand what had transpired.

Whoever or whatever those creatures were, they had thrown a bucket full of water on the Ponyta, blowing out the fire on his head, and he had fought back with an attack of his own. Sure, during her life she had seen several Fire-types weathering way more powerful blast of water while fighting, she knew they could stand way worse than that. On a 'free' flame like that it would have been really painful, while not quite dangerous.

But that was true for weathered, full grown ones. They had done it to a defenseless, little child, unable to stand it.

She had no words to describe the look of utter horror, pain and confusion in the eyes of the Ponyta. Before that very moment, he had probably never been in a fight, and he had never known that kind of fear and pain. Beatrix could almost see shards of broken innocence in the boiling tears flowing from his eyes, and it killed her to see something like that.

Then she noticed that other of these odd beings, these ones wearing a metallic armor, had started slowly inching towards the Fire-type hatchling pointing at him long, sharp spears, held under a wing, in their mouth or floating around them in a strange shimmer. The Ponyta whimpered and uselessly tried to press himself further in the wall to get away from them as he coughed some smoke, the missing flames rendering him unable to breath fire properly.

Beatrix was not going to stand for this. She might have failed to protect her little master, but she was not going to fail this Ponyta hatchling too.

The spred her massive wings, and a loud shriek of vengeance later she took the air and dived on the armored monsters.

She was not going to fail again.

Chapter 3 - Free like Flying

Somewhere, deep down in her throat, something was itching.

Usually, this simple fact would have already put Denise out of her mind. She was a singer. Well, an aspiring singer. It had always been her childhood dream, ever since she could remember. Unlike most childhood dreams, however, by a mix of chance and talent, she really had the chance to realize hers. But she knew well that those weren't even nearly enough. Endless practice and hard discipline were a given to reach results in any discipline, and she had never shied away from them. So, she had always searched for a balance between taking an extreme, even obsessive care of her ”singing organs”, from her mouth, to her vocal chords, lungs, and diaphragm, and focused, almost mindless practice. There was the stomach too, despite most people not knowing of its use in the noble vocal art, but that was a whole different thing.

The last thing she remembered was sitting in her room in Lumiose, a warm mug of chamomile between her hands as she inhaled the flowery scent rising from it, soothing her lungs as she tried and failed to calm her nerves and shake off an incredibly wide and silly grin printed on her face and the soft giggles escaping her lips. The task was made even harder by her little fuzzball Wubby, the most adorable Noibat of the world, comfortably sitting on her lap and looking up at her with absolute adoration with his big, sparkling, yellow eyes while he rubbed his poofy chest against her trying to get her attention and some cuddles, small and innocent like a child.

Then she had fallen asleep, and when she had woken up, her whole body felt weird, she was missing her hands and Wubby didn't look so small anymore.

The itching grew worse, now almost a pressure at the top of her lungs as she struggled for breath.

"Momma? You hurt? Momma?"

Oh, and she could understand what he was saying too.

"W-Wubby... please... just... just be quiet, ok?" she whispered in reply, having the feeling that if she had talked any louder, of she had dared to take breath any deeper, the lump in her throat would have exploded. It didn't, but she could still feel her eyes burning and watering up.

At the very dim light filtering through the borders of what ought to be some oversized door, as big as the wall itself of the dark room they were currently inside, she could barely make out the now humongous figure of Wubby's looking down at her worriedly, before the little bat-like Pokèmon sat down, not letting her out of his sight, but obediently silent.

Then it hit her. He had called her 'momma', and judging from how naturally he had said it, the pure innocence of his tone... sweet Xerneas, he truly believed she was his mother. For a second, the implications, both utterly terrifying and heart warming, overcame her.

But in that moment she couldn't bring herself to care at all, and didn't give these thoughts chance to shape in her mind. Closing her eyes, she basked in the silence.

Silence was good. She needed silence. There was something wrong going on there with her whole body, and she needed to be calm and think clearly.

She didn't have her hands anymore.

She just... couldn't feel them. When she had touched the ground, as soon as she had woken up, there hadn't been any true feeling from them, but she had still felt something flexing in their place, and her arms bended funny, and her legs too and- and...

Denise gulped, hoping for the burning lump in the top of her lungs to go away. She was panicking. On a purely rational level, she knew that was wrong. And she couldn't breathe, or maybe she was breathing too fast and she didn't even know it. She needed to calm down, and the best way to calm down she knew was to breath deeply, savoring the soothing touch of fresh air, and so she did. As the cool air passed through her mouth, caressing the insides of her throat and lungs, however, she choked on it and slammed her eyes open again.

This is wrong.

She was a singer, and singing, on a pure technical level, was nothing else than a carefully crafted flow of air. True singers were masters of breathing techniques, so she had practiced that too, spending countless hours to breath in and out the right amounts of air at any given time, feeling it caress her lips, passing over her sensitive teeth and on the insides of her mouth and then travelling inside her through her trachea all the way to her lungs, following a immutable path inside her body that she had become familiar with through thousands of repetitions.

When she took that breath, despite the impossibility if it, she had clearly felt the flow of air shaping itself in a completely alien way inside of her.

In the first place, she hadn't felt any air it on her usually sensitive lips. When she shut them close, she didn't even feel the two small, soft flesh cushions touching each other, but, strangely enough, she heard a clear, loud clack, vaguely similar to the one one would hear from hard teeth shutting.

Teeth. Oh, sweet Arceus, her teeth. She hadn't felt them at all when the air passed through her mouth. Hesitantly, she slowly moved her tongue around, searching for them.

She utterly freezed, and the itching suddenly became a lot worse, and creeped in her lungs.

It was wrong. Whatever that thing was... that just wasn't her mouth.

The lack of light of the room became suffocating, unbearable. Denise suddenly couldn't think, couldn't talk; she didn't even dare to breath. She felt like she was drowning in that darkness, every coherent thought gone and her mind numb. She needed light, she craved it more than the air she breathed.

So she ignored the utter wrongness of how her body jerked in motion towards the dim blades of light, of how the muscles and bones in her legs and everything else bended in ways they were not supposed to, and she charged towards the light, unaware of the startled squeak Wubby let out as she slammed her head against the wall from which borders the light filtered, promising much more just beyond it. Shrugging off the pain as she just kept pushing and clawing her way through the oppressive wall, her arms merely shifted against the wall, unable to get any grip, their tips ending in some kind of flat stump without strength. And it wasn't working!

The itching ceased, and in its place the lump in her throat began to burn.

In an act of desperation, she gave up using her hands, arms, whatever was in their place, and just started to throw herself against the wall, time and time again, ignoring the pain hammering her muscles and rattling her bones with each hit. Then, the door finally yielded under her shoves, flying wide open with little to no forewarning, and she found herself stumbling on the ground, shoved by the force of her own desperate dashes, until she rolled on her side and stopped.

On a soft, warm moquette-covered floor. An incredibly tall, unpractical, brown moquette, enough to allow all her to partially disappear under all that huge fluffyness.

Denise blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. Sure, it was a welcome change to the hard, rough surface of the room she had been before, but still... moquette. That was a total surprise.

Then she looked up.

Suddenly, she felt very, very small.

She was in an office, that much was clear. What wasn't clear at all was why the single room was probably the size of a whole house, and everything inside it was accordingly proportioned, from the ten-feet-tall chair she was looking at, to the humongous desk behind it, probably as big as her old living room had been, that could have probably been used by an Aggron.

Just what on Earth was going on?

As she looked around, however, she noticed that something had, at some point, entered her field of vision. Pink, and lumpy, about where her nose was supposed to be. She crossed her eyes to get a bet look at it, and tilted her head a little, trying to shrug it off, to no avail. Instinctively, she tried to bring up her hand to touch it, and finally under the light, she could see it.

She suddenly felt like all the air in her body had frozen. No warm wind in her lungs, but frigid snow creeping in her veins.

It was blue.

It was flat.

It was feathery.

It wasn't even an arm.

"Momma?"

Slowly, almost afraid she was going to shatter like ice if she dared move too fast, she turned to see Wubby. Her little, now enormous Wubby. Peeking timidly from behind the doors she had bursted through, the doors of a closet, she barely noticed, his endless, yellow childish eyes were gazing directly in hers, almost gleaming by pure wonder and curiosity, like only a child could feel.

"Momma, why are you a Chatot birdie?" he asked blinking, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The ice melted. The lump exploded, flooding her lungs with power.

She screamed.

A blur of green and white. The hiss of air being cut.

Beatrix pushed her wings stronger, and the blade barely missed her again. The weird winged Ponyta didn't miss a beat, however, and let the momentum of the slash carry the pole of its weapon, making it revolve around its Steel-type clothing before grasping it again with the leg and moving it forward with the blinding speed of a Ninjask running for its life.

Beatrix was about to push herself back again, when she noticed that the green Ponyta had managed to push her against a building. Right behind her, however, was no stone or concrete, but a broken window, sharp shards of glass still jutting from the frame. Seeing herself out of alternatives, the Fearow cursed for the umpteenth time, let energy and wind flow in her beak, before she thrusted her own head forward to meet the weapon's blade, steeling herself for what she knew was coming.

Peck!

As she parried the blade to the side, interrupting the flow of lethal swings, slashes and thrusts of her enemy, and avoiding death by getting skewered, her beak met cold, hard metal, and white blinding pain filled her whole body, almost worse than electricity running on her nerves, forcing her to close her eyes. For a moment, she couldn't help but think that letting it hit her would have hurt a lot less.

Stupidstupidstupid how could I be so... damn... stupid!

As the Fearow mentally punctuated each word in her mind, she spread her wings as far as she could, straining her muscles until they started to pull back under her feathers, and clinged to the almost crazy hope that the green flying Ponyta... thingy was still trying to get back in a balance after their clash and couldn't exploit her opening. Thankfully, it didn't.

Her muscles snapped as a spring, and she flapped hard.

Gust!

The gust of wind fully hit her opponent, launching him backwards and spiraling out of control towards the ground. Before it could slam against the stone, however, Greenie was engulfed by a bright orange shimmering, his fall slowed down, and with a simple flap of his wings, he gently landed on the ground near another of his kin, a small, flameless Rapidash, wearing the same Steel-type clothing of her friend. A quick look confirmed that her horn was still shimmering with the same hue that had previously enveloped Greenie, who muttered a few words to his companion along witha “thanks” or something like that. She was too far to hear, and honestly she didn't even care. They had merrily ignored all the pleas of help from the Ponyta or her own requests to stop, so she had decided to ignore them too.

Then the shimmer disappeared, releasing Greenie, and she noticed that, unlike her, he was still completely unharmed.

Beatrix's eye began to twitch.

That day just couldn't get any worse.

She had no idea where her, Nathan, and the rest of their mixed flock he called "team" was or what had happened to them. Could have all been dead and she, the one supposed to watch over them all, didn't even know. Another spike of frustration dug in her heart.

She was also absolutely lost, woken up in a city she had never seen filled with weird creatures she didn't know about that acted vaguely human-like, despite the fact she hadn't seen the shadow of one since waking up.

She shot a quick glance at the street the small Ponyta hatchling she had rescued -or tried to- had ran towards, followed by several of those creatures, and started clicking her beak, but immediately winced in pain and stopped. How could have she been so stupid? She had just seen the poor Ponyta trembling and wounded, the creatures creeping towards him, and thought it would have been simple. Attack the creatures, defend the hatchling, and everything would have turned out fine.

Too bad everything went wrong.

She had launched herself using a Drill Peak on the closest of the creatures, without even considering that it was wearing a thick, hard, Steel hide. A mistake she regretted the moment her attack landed, when she heard a loud crack and she had been literally blinded with pain.

She had barely managed to fell her target, as attested from the blood of the creature still staining the tip of her beak, but at a too high price. Her main weapon, her beak, had now a thin crack running all the way from the tip to where it connected to her head. Not that she could see it, but for sure she felt it, throbbing with each of her heartbeats. And with every breath. She just prayed Ho-oh the parry of a minute ago didn't damage it too much further.

With the same foolish attack that had almost shattered her beak, by the way, she had also scared the little Ponyta she had meant to protect, causing him to run away from the city-clearing, away from the sea and towards the maze of streets of the town, and she had immediately lost it in the mob of panicking creatures running away. She had been about to try and follow him when very, very little Hyper Beam thingies started to rain towards her from the ground, launched by the horns of the small Rapidash, and kept her in place until Greenie had flown right in front of her and had very nearly beheaded her with that... long... bladed... weapon... thing.

She needed Nathan.

He would have known what that weapon was. She was stupid, and he was smart, very smart. She was so proud of him, to be one of his Pokèmon. He would have known what to do. If there had been him there to give her orders and instructions, her beak would not have been wounded, the little Ponyta would have already been safe and everything would have gone well. She just knew it.

But he wasn't there, she reminded herself, and she needed to move.

It hadn't been too long since the small Ponyta had ran away. If she was fast, she could still find him from the air and take him away from the creatures. And now that she had finally the chance to do it. Greenie was still on the ground, about to fly in the air again, but she could just speed away from him with an Agility, and the small Rapidash couldn't do much alone as long she stood up in the air, out of its Psychic-like powers. Honestly, she felt mildly offended that only two of the Ponyta... or Rapidash-lookalike had stood behind to face her while all the others followed the Ponyta hatchling. The true one, she meant. The one without Psychic-like powers that didn't felt like Psychic type at all and-

Ugh, this is way too confusing.

Not important. Thinking wasn't her strong to begin with. She had more important things to do. She turned, and relaxed her muscles, letting the warm shimmer of her Agility move envelop her, the sky-blue light reflecting on the shards of glass of the broken window she was in front of.

Of course it was in that moment that it decided to explode.

"Nnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Before Beatrix even knew what happened, the shimmer around her body had been dispelled and she was falling together dozens of small shards of glass. Instinctively, she tried to turn and catch some updraft wind under her wings keep herself flying, but the dull pain all over her body and the loud ringing in her head made difficult to concentrate on the feeling of air on her feathers. Some rational part of her mind, honed by years of fighting, recognized the attack that had struck her as an Hyper Voice. A clumsy, badly aimed one, but still powerful. For a moment, amidst all the pain, she felt a spark of pride for having been smart enough to recognize it.

Too bad pride couldn't shield her crash against the unforgiving cobblestone.

The only reasons she didn't lose consciousness as she impacted against the ground, the shock rattling across her hollow bones, to her skull and into her beak, causing a flood of excruciating pain in her whole body, were the small shards of glass that had managed to insert between her thick plumage and dig in her flesh, forcing her to stay awake.

Not that she noticed, or could do anything about it.

In that moment, her whole world was pain and hurt and fear. She, a creature belonging to the sky and to the air, writhed on the ground and whimpered in pain as she forced down every single, uneven breath. She didn't want the pain. Another breath, a strangled sound tried to escape her beak. She needed it to stop. She breathed out, and her ribs grinded, something warm and wet sprouted up her throat. She couldn't take it anymore, it had to stop nownownowNOW!

Roost!

Her body glowed, and after mere seconds she could already welcome warmth and relief as the pain receded, and Beatrix finally breathed. Now she could once more think rationally.

And then she realized she was dead anyway.

She had been incredibly lucky that none of the glass shards she had fallen with had been big enough to cut all the way to one of her organs, or had missed her throat, but maybe that would have been better. Using her healing move while she had alien, sharp objects inside her body meant she had pretty much sealed them inside her, and any movement on her part would have just made them to dig her flesh from the inside. That, without counting the living flesh rotting–infection, Nathan called it–that they were bound to cause even if she didn't bleed to death. Before she had been human-caught, she had seen several of her flock mates die from it because of a thorn or a Poison Sting getting stuck in them, even if it didn't cause poisoning. She had known the luxuries of medical treatment only thanks to Nathan. In the wild, once a wound started to smell, you knew you were doomed to a feverish, painful, delirious death.

The swiftness offered by the Ponyta-thing’s weapon, for a moment, became alluring.

Grinding her beak, Beatrix raised slightly her head, and from that simple, minimal movement she could already feel the glass shards raking her muscles and starting to burn. Hissing for the pain, she cracked open one of her eyes, and looked at the creatures, finally able to observe them closely now that she couldn't even bother fighting.

Beatrix had never noticed how big and expressive their eyes were. She found Greenie and the miniature Rapidash were staring directly at her, and it was way too easy to read all the emotions in their faces, despite being partly hidden by the Iron clothing they were wearing. Surprise, confusion, anger, a little bit of fear and, surprisingly... pity. The Hyper Voice attack that had suddenly struck her down had been a surprise for them, too.

Then the miniature Rapidash spoke.

"Sergeant, have we... won?"

"...I guess so." and just like that the awkward stillness was swept away in a whiffle of frigid wind. In a swift move, the creature's weapon leaped from its forelimb to under its tucked wing, the blade pointing directly at the Fearow, and the atmosphere became tense once again.

"Whatever that scream was, it came from inside the harbourmaster building." Greenie continued, before turning to the grayish Rapidash, "Check if there are ponies left to be evacuated, and then run out immediately. If that was another monster... animal like the flaming pony or this bird, we'll need reinforcements."

"We are not animals! How dare you!" Beatrix snapped at the Ponyta, or at least tried. The sudden, jerking movement had made the glass shards move again and as she briefly convulsed in pain she could swear some of them had already broken her skin, the pain a reminder of the fact that she couldn't move at all and was at the mercy of the creature.

Helpless. Useless. Again.

When she raised her head again, Beatrix saw the small Rapidash looking at her with surprise and a little fear, probably caused by her sudden outburst.

Good, even if she was going to die, she would have at least made an impression on the ones claiming her life.

She turned slightly to look at Greenie, and then she fixated on the blade. "Well, what are you waiting for? Just do it." she hissed through her beak, nodding at the weapon.

At this, the small Rapidash took a hesitant step back. "Did it just... try to communicate?" it said turning at its companion, "Sergeant Dandelion, maybe we should wait... I mean, look at it... it won't go anywhere, and well... it tried to tell us something! If it is so domesticated to do that, maybe it belongs to someone..."

"And so what, Zenith?" Greenie -or Sergeant Dandelion, whatever its name was- interrupted and glared at the miniature Rapidash, wings bristling with barely contained rage. "You have seen what it is capable of. Stone Snap was wearing a heavy armor, designed to protect from Chimera claws, and this bird managed to pierce through it all the same! Chimera armor, cadet! If it had attacked anyone wearing lighter armor, it would have killed one of us on the spot!" Greenie turned back to Beatrix, the wing holding the spear shifting slightly, and the other snapping open. As its eyes bore into the Fearow own ones, they looked as cold and hard as the metal it was wielding. "It's too dangerous to let it go!"

As it finished talking, Greenie blurred in motion, and Beatrix knew her moment had finally come.

Eyes closed, she breathed out. She couldn't escape, the sharp glass inside her flesh ready to tear her apart if she just tried to unfold her wings, and her beak couldn't resist another parry without breaking completely, much less blocking the blade. So she tried to relax, ignoring the hammering in her chest, and held her head high, ready to accept death as the proud, ferocious predator she was. As she held her breath, her wings quivered slightly, and the memory of the last words Nathan told her resurfaced.

'...Bea, tomorrow I'll brush your wings for all the time you want. Now, for the love of Shaymin...'

She just regretted never receiving that brushing.

Or the scratch on the head that was bound to come with it, right in the spot where she liked them.

And the taunting Azure would have thrown her for being so affectionate right after. Oh, and Monaghan stuttering in her defense, trying to be brave for her. And the adorably clueless but fiercely concentrated face little Amiat would have made trying to understand what was going on. Then Garz would have just popped out of nowhere and started his endless obscene flirt with Azure just to annoy her and then wink out of existence as she raged after him. And then...

The blade cut air where, a moment before, her neck was.

No! I won't die like this!

As she finished rolling out of the way, ignoring the pain of the shards burning and cutting like bits of molten lava, she tried to stand again and unfurled one wing, droplets of her own blood running all over her feathers.

I need to know what happened to them! To Nathan! To my flock!

She focused on the flow of air inside her, but this time she tried to force it to still and harden, before letting it permeate one of her wings. She had never really managed it in years, despite her best effort, as the element she was trying to harness was almost a perfect opposite of Flying. Her element was like air, free and boundless, but this one? It's nature was to be not simply immobile, but utterly unmovable. Defined. It wasn't even that hard of a technique, any bird Pokémon could learn it. Nathan had told her she just needed to find the right motivation.

In that moment, she had five very good ones.

Take this! "Steel Wing!"

She leaped at the creature with a shriek, her wing outstretched. Metallic, shining feathers and the sharp blade clashed, the latter pushed back violently with a small cut where the wing had managed to overwhelm and penetrate it. Greenie stumbled back, surprise written all over his features, and Beatrix let out a victorious whistle.

Then the shining feathers suddenly faded back to their usual light brown, letting the steel bite in the now unprotected flesh of the wing, and horror overcame the Fearow. She tried to dislodge her wing from the weapon, but in a wave of dizziness she lost her footing and slumped on the ground, her wing sliding from the blade and losing even more blood while the sharp intruders in her body sent ripples over ripples of fresh pain in her system

She tried to look up at her opponent again, but her sight had become too fogged to recognize it as anything else than a green blur, and her wounded wing started to feel numb.

She could, however, hear his scream of rage, and the blade cutting air once again as it flew right at her to finish her off. This time, however, she couldn't even hope to dodge it, the Fearow realized in her haze.

Thankfully, she didn't need to.

"Stop!"

The voice sounded like a weird mix between a Luxray roar and a Staraptor screech, rumbling so loud she felt it in her bones and at the same time high pitched enough to hurt her ears. She tried to open her eyes again and raise her head, but her whole body screamed in protest and before she could see anything the strength in her neck disappeared like a leaf pushed away by the wind and dropped her head. She could, however, hear the familiar sound of two absurdly huge, strong wings beating in the air, and for a moment, she felt like a little Spearow chick again with her mother Fearow descending from the sky.

"Captain Ierd!" the cursed voice she had finally come to recognize as belonging to Greenie spoke up. "Finally you are here, sir! The situation-"

"I know the situation, Sergeant Dandelion!" the newcomer voice snapped, less loud than before but still low and powerful, before the rhythmic beating of wings stopped and something huge enough to make the ground shake under her for the briefest of moments landed with almost no noise. "Damn it looks bad... get away from the bird this moment, Sergeant! Do not harm it any further!" the huge one spoke again with a tone that reeked of anger and finality. For a moment, Beatrix thought to have misheard, and considered that she was feeling increasingly lightheaded it wouldn't have been surprising.

"W-what? Sir, you don't understand! Stone Snap has-" Greenie answered back.

"I probably understand the situation better than you, Sergeant! I know what happened to Private Stone, he's already being treated one block from here." Beatrix heard a low sigh , and the distinct sound of claws scraping on stone. "Whatever is happening... is not something we can fully deal with. I was lucky enough to manage to communicate with one of those creatures, he said that his name... at least I hope it was a 'he', was Edward Surge. He is some kind of Diamond Dog... gorilla... with antennae. And shoots lightings. Don't look at me like that, it's true! He's coming here...

Beatrix never heard the rest of the sentence. Another spike of agonizing pain crossed her whole body, and when she attempted to scream, even the sound of the world disappeared.