“So, we all finally meet.” A tall blue unmistakable stag walks forward slowly into the center of us, each step of his point-like feet creates a clearing in the middle of a forest. The majestic being was like none I had ever seen. Something in my body felt lighter at the sight of it.

            “Yes, I had a feeling this was what was happening!” Rachel says looking behind me as a shadow overcomes me and I realize what was behind me. I gulp and try not to back up or look over me as I stand up slowly and walk toward Rachel, Mary, and Cole, who had just moved, across from me. I walk beside them then turn around slowly trying not to be scared.

            The stag looks at me “don’t worry,” he states calmly, “he can’t hurt you here.” I look at the massive bird who was staring at me back. He was back. I start panicking a little inside. Rachel lays her tail on my back and tries to calm me.

            “So… who are you?” Cole asks tilting his head in confusion.

            The stag bows slightly, “I am Xerneas, and that is Yveltal.” The bird looks away as if ashamed. “I am happy to see you again Cole, last we met, you were very young. How is your brother?”

            “He’s good, but, why are you here?” Cole asks confused.

            Rachel intervenes, “You see, these two were sleeping inside of you two. As to why, I cannot explain.”

            Xerneas then replies, “I sealed myself inside this child because he was an empty shell. He was stuck in a state that was neither living, nor dead. I could have granted him eternal life, but he would have lived forever like that, so I sealed a part of me in him. I did not seal my entire self in him, but I sealed enough to be here with you now. However…” Yveltal looks over at Xerneas with a glare, “I planned on sealing him in the Absol, but when I tried that, he attacked the Absol and caused my spell to hit you,” he says nodding at me.

            “But… does that mean you helped Rune get here?” I ask looking at Yveltal with a glare as he then glares back which causes me to go back in fear.

            “Yes, I have been keeping him alive long enough to keep him from dying. He is not meant to die here,” he says.

            “But you did not save the humans, why?” Cole asks.

            Mary and Rachel look in shock, and Yveltal seemed angry and Xerneas confused. “Humans? They were still alive last I checked…”

            “But there were none in the village we were in last time,” I say quietly and kind of nervous.

            “That is strange…” He says.

            The bird begins growling at us, “well they did deserve what they had coming, but I did not take them! How dare you place a crime on my head!”

            Cole seemed shocked like the rest of us, not only that but his anger was enough to feel his dark aura radiating from him. He was so angry, a little patch of the dream world around him began withering. “Wait, he did not take them away?!” Cole seemed scared, and Rachel and Mary seemed concerned and began whispering to themselves.

            “I don’t ‘take them away,’ they die. When they die, there will be bodies. There were no bodies in the village you went to. Someone made it so that they just disappeared with no body traces. It was just a coincidence that I awoke the same day.” Yveltal continued to spout furiously afterward until I just started feeling like I wanted to yell at him, seeing Cole as scared as he was made me feel scared, sad, and angry at him.

            “You are lying!” I scream out in anger causing everyone to look at me as I cry.

            “Yveltal, could you not be so angry, they are just children,” he says and he turns back to me. “However, Yveltal can’t lie. Not in here, anyway. When you delve into someone’s mind, lying is impossible from both sides.”

            Mary runs up to me and comforts me as Xerneas walks up to Yveltal. “So why did you chose to go into the child?”

            “I could ask you the same thing. I mean, ‘The Pokemon of Life’ traveling in a small Riolu, what gave you that idea?” Yveltal spout sarcastically.

            Xerneas sighs and replies calmly, “He was suffering. He was in a suffering no Pokemon could heal, his brother ran into me and I offered to help them, I could not help them any way except to conceal myself within him.” Cole begins looking sad as if he knows the pain, a pain he cannot control. “If I leave him he will be in infinite pain.”

            Yveltal looks at Cole and in his eyes he looks sad and he whispers to himself, but just loud enough for us to hear, “I would have just ended his suffering…” He then raises his voice in an angry yet tear-filled one “Do you know how hard it is? Wandering around being accused for all death and watching as everything around you dies? Called names like ‘Grim Reaper,’ ‘Death Incarnate,’ or, worst of all, ‘Red Dawn’?”

            “I understand what that must be like,” Xerneas says calmly, “But you still have not answered my question.”

            Yveltal then does not respond at all, instead looking at the ground saddened. Rachel intercedes and comments, “What if the same person who made all the humans disappear somehow knew about this and forced Yveltal to go into Omega?”

            Both stare at her in confusion. “Why would they want that?” Xerneas asks.

            Rachel then shakes her head and shrugs, “Maybe he didn’t want anybody to stop him? I don’t know, it’s just a theory, it would explain why he doesn’t know why he is in Omega in the first place.”

            Yveltal looks at her with wonder, “how did you know that?”

            Rachel stares at Yveltal with a slight glisten in her eye that I could not describe, it was one I had never seen anybody do, but it made Yveltal nervous and she spoke in such a smooth voice, “I am a lot smarter than you think, and I know how Pokemon act when they cannot come up with an answer or refuse to tell the truth.”

            I stared in surprise, Rachel is smart, I should have seen that, but she is smart and knows what she is doing. I think she may try to hide her intelligence on purpose, but something about the stride when we first met her got me thinking that maybe she wasn’t. My mind was reeling as to what was going on, I stopped thinking about it. Eventually Xerneas talks again, “Well, it is not out of the realm of reality, yet that does not seem correct. It feels wrong in some way...”

            “Can we change the topic please?” Cole says out of nowhere.

            “Actually, yes,” Rachel says with her normal calm collected smile, “How can you help us while inside them?”

            “I guess,” Yveltal says, “if I am going to help the child I will help him with power. I will awaken myself once we leave this dream to give him power when he needs it.”

            Xerneas shakes his head, “While Yveltal can help a lot, I am focusing on keeping him from feeling pain.”

            “Well then, I guess we will talk to you next we-“ Rachel’s  parting words were cut short by a scream and the environment turning black like ashes. The world quickly crumbled around me and Yveltal with everyone falling into a void. I tried to huddle up to Yveltal, as if he would protect me, but it was obvious that his wings were like lead to him in this realm, because the moment the world collapsed I was trapped under him, rendering me unable to move. I keep trying to move, but he kept getting heavier until suddenly he started dragging me down. I fell down into the black abyss just to be woken up with a jolt.

            “What happened?” Cole asks as he examines the room, “Is everyone okay?”

            Rachel looks around frantically, then I notice what she was looking around for. “R-Rachel?” I ask with a gulp, “Where’s Mary?”

            Cole then notices that and a hole where she was sleeping. “Somebody took her! I’ll follow their hole!” He says panicked diving into the hole not able to get anywhere, “They sealed it off!” He pops his head back out. “Rachel! Find her using your psychic powers!”

            “Cole, you know I can’t…”

            “Do it!” Cole yells when Rachel begins crying and then he realizes what he just did. “Oh yeah, I’m sorry…”

            I whisper to myself, “So that’s why that happened. They took Mary and the dream was interrupted.”

            Rachel sits there and cries and I come up to comfort her, trying hard to not cry myself, Cole doing the same. We sit there for a while before Rachel uses her tail to wipe the tears from her face, “thank you boys, I’m glad you were here. Don’t tell anybody about my powers, just make sure they know that Mary is gone and nothing else.”

            Right after that we are interrupted by a Pokemon in panic telling us about a Luxray yelling and shouting for a Pokemon with a scar. I roughly translated that as that Luxray that Scar told me about was looking for him. All three of us run out to see that it was in fact day and that the Luxray she spoke of was quite rampant. I sit in fear of him, the way he walked showed off his power, the way he spoke was low and brooding with anger in it, something that struck fear into our hearts, and he sparked electricity in a way that said he was ready to fight. Soon enough we see Scar emerging from the home. The Luxray focuses his attention on Scar, I try to not look nervous as to not attract his attention. “Scar, you can’t run from your crime!”

            “I have had no trial to even see if I am guilty!”

            “You are guilty! I had all the proof I needed for you killing her!”

            “I never had anything against you or her. I had no motive. You are only accusing me because you wanted someone to blame!”

            “Stop running from your punishment!” His sparks start arcing toward Scar, who stands resolute.

            “I refuse to fight you Leon.” Scar stands, watching the Luxray’s electric sparks get worse with the anger welling up inside him.

            “I will not rest until you get what you deserve!” He yells loud enough for Rachel to decide to intervene.

            “Enough!” She yells as she strides tall toward the Luxray.

            “What? You dare interrupt a guilty Pokemon’s punishment?” He shouts at her, with her not even flinching as she approaches the giant cat with her stride keeping.

            “He is not guilty of any crime,” she continues as he now redirects his gaze and everything at her.

            “What makes you so sure?” He says as he realizes that his threats were empty on the Espeon as she continues her stride. He slowly lessens his attacks and becomes nervous and backs away.

            “I am a psychic, what do you think makes me so sure?” She continues as she eventually stands with a paw on his chest from him trying to get away from her. “I mean, you are asking a Pokemon that clearly can see into your mind and know what you are thinking, yet you are willing to ask a stupid question like that.” She leans into his face which makes him seem uncomfortable, “Who do you think you are to make claims such as that someone of your own species without trial is guilty when he even tells you he is not, and in a way that any Pokemon would even know he is telling the truth.”

            He stares back with a whimper for an answer, “I am…” he gulps as if saying the next word would get him killed, “Leon?”

            She just sighs and drops her head, “Figures.” She flicks a tail and waves an Onix over which restrains him and takes him to another building. “We will talk once you have had some time to calm down and realize that you ruined our lovely little peace.” She shakes herself off and then looks toward Scar while walking toward our home, “I need to talk to you.”

            We all follow her to our home and she sits us down bringing over some food for our breakfast. We all sit down around the food with Rachel distributes them, eventually sitting down herself to eat. “So what do you want to talk about Rachel?”

            Rachel swallows before speaking, “I need to know, are there any humans in any of the human settlements you visited.”

            He puts down his food. “While Omega and Cole have only visited one, while they were alone I traveled farther and went to other settlements, none of them had a sign of life.”

            She started thinking to herself, eventually leaving it as is, “Well, I’ll bring that up with the others. Did you see any Pokemon wandering this morning around our home?”

            Scar shakes his head, “I accidentally slept in and the sounds of Leon roaming the town woke me up, whatever you saw I saw.”

            Rachel nods, “It’s just that Mary was missing this morning, and I have no clue where she could be.” She pauses and takes another bite of her food before she continues, “Now I want to know, do you know why Cole was in pain when he was young?”

            Scar looked startled and stared at Cole, who nodded as if to say he knows. He sighs before taking a piece of food and swallowing it, “Lucario and Riolu have these things on the sides of our heads that allow us to see, manipulate, and sense aura. Unlike normal Riolu, Cole’s were broken. He could not stop them from detecting aura and the way they received them would hurt him in agonizing pain. All Pokemon I went to for help had no answers and said that medicine would only numb it a little bit for a small amount of time. I would wander daily trying to get something, then I eventually found a Pokemon-“

            “Xerneas,” Rachel interceded.

            Scar sighs and nods, continuing, “Xerneas. He promised that he could end Cole’s pain, but he would have to seal himself inside him. I finally got to see Cole’s eyes after his writhing in pain since he was born, but they were not the same eyes he was born with, they were the eyes of Xerneas.”

            We all were quiet for a while until the food was gone. It was Rachel who spoke first, “I wanted to know if I could stay here for the night. If somebody wants Mary they probably want me next, and, even if that wasn’t the case, I have been so used to sleeping with her that sleeping alone makes me nervous. I know we only met yesterday, but I feel as if I know you three well enough despite that.”

            Scar nods to her, “You are a kind person, and I don’t think we will have any problems.”

            After that, Rachel waves me over to be alone and we talk for a bit, before asking me to follow her when she leaves to talk to someone about the search parties and looking into investigating the human settlements. I agree and I go rest to get the sleep I lost from the sudden awakening, as do the other two. We go, as soon as we awake again, and left to a building near the center of Ring Rock. We follow her in to reveal a wondrous inside, compared to the human homes, this was even better. I instantly felt as though whoever owned this house was of importance to the town, and was I right! In walks what Rachel referred to as “The Mayor,” (he never introduced himself by any other name, so I shall call him that as if it is his name). The Mayor walks tall as he sees Rachel in the same house. By the looks of it, he seemed content with his life, and discontent with our presence. The tall Pokemon walks to sit in front of us tall, never looking any of us in the eyes, no matter how much I try, always holding his nose to the ceiling. The hulking Arcanine seems to have little interest as to why we are here, more interested into how to get us to leave the moment he opened his mouth with a sigh. “Rachel, I see you have some… citizens with you, what makes you think I want to have them in here when I am busy running a town?”

            Rachel flinched at the way he spat on the word “citizens” as if wanting to use a different word, but blatantly trying to make us feel uncomfortable. “Mr. Mayor, I came to inform you that these young children and their guardian have information as to human settlement activity as of recent, and I would like to share it with you.” She opens her mouth just to have him interrupt rudely before she can get her next sentence out.

            “You know I hate it when you bring other Pokemon in here, lest we forget why your sister ‘Mary’ is no longer allowed in here, so if you are going to waste your time on me with them, just have them tell me themselves.” The way he said Mary made Rachel look away as to not show her fear or sadness about the fact that she doesn’t know where she is. The way he said Mary made me sick to my stomach, and fear what he would do to me. He smelt that fear as a smile crept across his face as he looks down toward me, but above me, never at me. “You there, little pooch. Why don’t you tell me why I should even care about this news you bring and what activity is going on that is so important that I know.” His voice, constantly talking down to me and extending the vowels to make everything that we would have to talk about seem insignificant to his own wants and desires.

            I look around the room. I could try to get Rachel to use telepathy on me to tell me what I need to know, but she’s useless without Mary. I glance around, never moving my face to let him know that I am trying to piece something together. Rachel looks nervous, knowing that he chose the one showing the most fear. I then realize that the reason this house was built this way was not to show love to humans, nor was it to show that there was some way Pokemon were evolving themselves, and his holier-than-thou attitude, it was clear. “You will find this important because you hate humans and you want to show them that you are better than them.” Both Cole and Rachel jump back in surprise and The Mayor seemed both interested, and disappointed that his time was about to be wasted.

            “Go on,” he said impatiently.

            “Well, all humans in every settlement that my friends and I have visited have no humans there, I think we may have the ability to take stuff from them and maybe even thrive off of what they had.” I say, trying not to sound nervous.

            He does a long drawn out sigh, “Rachel, I am assuming you want the power to form raid parties correct?”

            “Yes Mr. Mayor.”

            “Well then, I know the first thing I would do if I were you, find their cruel red and white devices and destroy them so that no Pokemon could ever be tortured by them again.”

            She seemed shocked as she realizes that those would just be lying around everywhere in those settlements and Pokemon might be inside them. I seemed shocked that I had completely forgotten about those when we were searching them back then. Cole, however, was shocked about something else. “But there could be Pokemon in them! Who knows what that will do!”

            The Mayor growls at Cole, lifting his haunches, and looking Cole dead in the eyes. Cole was petrified with fear, a fear I had no understanding of how bad it was. “Are you questioning me? Those Pokemon are probably brainwashed into thinking that humans are the best, that humans are there masters, and those Pokemon are just pets that will trick us into being captured ourselves!” He continues growling as he gets closer, close enough to touch noses with Cole, who’s fear just increased into a colour-draining, soul sucking, fear that nobody who had not been in that situation could explain. “I want the best for this town, and I don’t care how many little pets it takes to protect us, but even if I have to kill every single one to keep us safe, by Arceus, I will do it.” He then calms down, I was about ready to burst into another yelling fit like in the dream because his fear was bothering me. He returns to his pose from before, and thinks for a second before a big, menacing grin went across his face. “Rachel, if you want to help this child with his dream of being the hero and save all the Pokemon, then why don’t you do the simple task of reading my mind and telling me what I am thinking.”

            If anybody did not know that her powers did not work without Mary, his offer would have been more of a kind of easy yes. But somehow, we were all shocked when he said that because Rachel could not do that, and he must have known by the look on his face. She looks like she is trying, but nothing is happening, she starts raising her tail and almost like she is trying to get reception from his mind, “Oh, I thought for sure you would get this!”

            She says, “You’re thinking about… yourself?” a nervous smile across her face shrinking as his smile widens to show teeth.

            “Nope.” He says contently, “I was thinking about something else. So now I will be the ones to arrange a raid party and it will consist of the Pokemon I choose!”

            She looks concerned, “I just hope you take these two and their guardian.”

            “How about, no,” he says smiling as if taunting us.

            “But they know how to raid them!”

            “Well, if children can figure it out, I am fairly certain our adults can figure it out very quickly.”

            “But-“

            “Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. Just admit you have no control and that I won. Now if you don’t mind leaving, I have work to do. And don’t make me get the guards, you know how I don’t like using them.”

            She sighs, waving her tail to us to get us going outside, “goodbye, have a nice day!” he says tauntingly still.

            The moment we leave the area that he can hear us, Cole states, “He is mean! I thought such a lovely town like Ring Rock would have someone kind, like you.”

            “I know, he is the reason most Pokemon don’t stay is him.” Rachel replies.

            “But wait, Rachel, I thought we were the only ones that knew that Mary was missing, and that we were the only ones that knew about your abilities not working without Mary.” I intercede politely.

            “I know, but I don’t know how he did. I have a bad feeling about what is going on.” Rachel sighs before her ears perk up with a sudden idea. “What if we went raiding the settlements before he gets a party together to save those Pokemon?”

            Cole suddenly Perks up and adds in, “I know exactly what you mean!” Cole runs ahead to get scar before quickly turning back and telling us, “Go to the nearest Settlement, he will find you and catch up.” He runs back and we Rachel starts running with me behind because it took me a while when she started running randomly. I continued to follow her until we reached the settlement. Both of us look around without knowing what to do. We quickly look around to see two small blue figures appear on the horizon. The figures grow as our friend come to meet us.

            “So, you want to save the Pokemon that the humans have saved, huh?” Scar asks Rachel, as she looks towards a house and points us that way. “Well, I know what we can do. You can help me.”

            He opened one of those walls and we walk in. It takes us little time to find six of those balls. I walk up to them and tap the little white thing on the front of it to make it bigger and again to open it. It was empty. I look back to see that all of them were sighing, relieved by me not getting captured. “Omega, never do that again,” Rachel says as I back away from that ball.

            “Wait, if it were empty, it would have taken Omega in. Why didn’t it?” Scar asks before interrupted by a voice coming from behind us.

            “I can anzer zat.”