"Jakost," Bellesa asked a few days later. "that Houndoom from the other day seemed to know you. Why?"
The Lucario sighed and turned away. "He's gone now. It doesn't matter."
Bellesa frowned. "It matters to me. He mentioned our trainer."
He looked at her and was startled, almost frightened, by the amount of concern and fear in her beautiful crimson eyes. "You remember how our trainer hatched you from an egg and raised you?"
"Yes..."
"He never told you that he didn't raise me the same way, did he?"
Bellesa was surprised at this. "No, he didn't. Why?"
Jakost gazed into the fire, the shadows dancing across his face. "Our trainer found me injured somewhere near Mount Coronet. I...I had been attacked by a very pissed off Houndour, and our trainer rushed me to a Pokecenter before..." He let the sentence drop.
"Oh. Why was the Houndour angry?"
"It's...hard for me to explain. If you want to know, just read my mind."
"I understand," Bellesa told him. She did what he'd suggested, and was startled by how vivid the memories were.

-------

"Wake up, lazy!" the Poochyena barked in my ear, waking me with a start. I jumped so high that he probably could have walked beneath me before I landed.
"Can't you just poke me or something?" I grumbled.
"Nope," Fang replied. "This is more fun."
"You have to admit," Scorch told me. "that was pretty funny."
"See how you like it when I wake you with a force palm tomorrow," I retorted. Both of them immediately stopped laughing, since they both knew I had a type advantage over both Poochyena and Houndour.
"You wouldn't really," Fang said, sounding rather nervous. "You don't even know how."
"That's what you think." I held up one glowing paw. Fang yelped in fear and jumped back a few inches.
"Can't you three stop arguing for ten minutes?" Spark asked, rolling her eyes.
"Probably not," I muttered.
"If you can keep track of time for us," Fang grinned. Scorch chuckled. There was a distant rumble and the sky darkened slightly. "Cool, a thunderstorm!"
"Oh well," the yellow Shinx sighed. "Worth a try."
"Not with these two around." I pointed at the two canines.
"Not true!" Scorch protested.
"Yeah! We're worth FIVE tries!" Fang agreed, then paused. "Wait..."
"Idiot," Scorch told him, cuffing him on the ear.
She giggled as we watched Fang pounce on Scorch. The two wrestled on the grass for a little while. A massive shadow darkened the area, which wasn't unusual, since it was cloudy that particular morning. A patch of light and then two more shadows ensued. Then the sound of an explosion; loud enough to shake the nearby trees and frighten some Starly into flight. Even a Skarmory lifted off, shrieking its metallic cry. Spark and I instantly turned our gaze to the sky, and my friends halted their mock scuffle and looked up as well. What we'd took to be clouds were actually three massive pokemon, all engaged in an equally massive battle. None of us could see them distinctly, so I used my aura vision and my friends relied on me to give them a play-by-play (I hate narrating for others). One of the shapes had a dark grey aura, another a bright pink, and the third a navy blue. All three auras were tinged with red around the edges, which meant they were all royally pissed off. The grey pokemon was a winged serpent with spikes down its sides. The blue pokemon looked sort of like a Tropius with a massive bump on its head, and the pink pokemon was bipedal, with wings sprouting from its shoulders. All three were hurling blasts of energy at each other.
"What are those things?" Scorch wondered out loud.
"A sign of bad things to come," came an eerie voice from behind us. We turned to see a Xatu staring directly at the three pokemon, despite the brightness of the sun. "Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina have only ever fought like this once before, thousands of years ago."
"Who, who, and who?" I asked.
"Dialga, the one with the blue aura, is the Pokemon with mastery over time. Palkia, the pink Pokemon, controls space. Giratina, the dark one, is the master of death," Xatu answered. "They have appeared but once in this world, and that was to fight one another."
"What happened?" Spark asked.
"Put simply, there has not been a sighting of a true Aerodactyl in the sky since then. Nor have Kabutops or Omastar been seen in the ocean, and the Armaldo and Cradily vanished from the shores."
"What are you talking about?" Fang asked skeptically. "I saw an Aerodactyl the other day."
"I told you, it was a Charizard!" Scorch muttered.
"Charizard have arms, stupid."
"The Aerodactyl of the now are mere fossils resurrected by the machines of humans," Xatu told us, never taking his gaze from the aerial battle.
"They can do that?"
Xatu did not answer. Instead, he took three steps to the side. An instant later, the ground he had been standing on was vaporized by a blast of pink energy. The four of us leaped backward in fear.
"Leave now, little ones, and tell your village leader that the three will return," Xatu told us, still not looking at us. We ran as fast as we could back toward our village. As we ran, the sounds of the battle suddenly stopped. I looked up to see why, but all I saw was a pitch-black cloud of mist between the three pokemon. All three hovered in midair, watching the mist. Then they all vanished, including the mist. Xatu remained standing there motionless.
"They're gone," I told my friends. They glanced up momentarily, looking as concerned as I was. The sky was suddenly bright and cloudless, as if all the clouds had vanished with the three giants.
"That was weird," Scorch said, his usual solemn expression returning.
"Let's go home," Spark whimpered. She drew slightly closer to me, and though neither Spark, Fang, or I noticed, Scorch was watching us with a look of intense jealousy in his eyes.

-------

"Scorch was the Houndoom who attacked us, wasn't he?" Bellesa asked Jakost.
Her mate silently nodded.
"Why does he hate you so much?"
Jakost didn't answer, so Bellesa returned to his memories.

-------

A few days after the appearance of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, the four of us were playing on a hill just west of our village. Fang and Scorch had gotten into another mock fight, and rolled down the hill into the forest on the other side.
Spark sighed. "I guess we'll have to go after them," she told me.
I nodded. We headed into the trees, following the path of crushed plants, until we found our friends, as well as Xatu.
"Oh, hi, Xatu," Spark greeted him. "What brings you here?"
Xatu looked straight at me as he opened his beak to speak, and I could tell from looking at him that it wasn't good news. "You must return home. Now."
"Why?" Scorch asked.
"They have returned, but now they are corrupted by darkness. They seek only destruction."
A cold feeling suddenly filled me; foreboding and fear racing down my spine. I immediately turned and raced back up the hill, stopping in my tracks at the top. My friends approached and gazed in horror with me at the sight to the east.Chapter End Notes:Chapter End Notes:
So now that this chapter's up, Strength and Beauty is going on a pause for a while. I'm working on another story at the moment, a LONG one that isn't up yet, so SAB is going to wait until I run out of ideas for my other story.
Also, a few of my friends and I recently spent the time to come up with a whole bunch of new pokemon, and I was debating whether or not to include them in my story. Example, Banette needs an evolution--he's better and cooler than Dusclops, but Dusclops is the one who got the evolution...WTF? (rants for about five minutes) What do you think about the inclusion of new pokemon? Please answer in a review