A loud crack that thankfully wasn't my neck preceded a rush of air into my lungs as I fell limply onto the ground. Mace cried out in pain, stumbling a bit and turning his back to me. A moment later he grunted, flew off his feet and slammed into the ground with apparently my only friend in the world right now standing on his chest.

"Touch him again and I'll leave you worse than paralyzed, bastard." Kana growled, before hopping off him and coming over to help me up. "I see your buddy there went with the trying to kill you option instead of the clearing things up one. What the hell is going on?"

"I really... wish... I knew." I wheezed, throat aching.

"You know damn well what you did!" Mace snapped, struggling against his paralysis to sit up. Once he did, I got a proper look at him since he wasn't trying to strangle me. All along his left arm and body were faint marks that seemed to be from recently healed cuts. The ones on his right were bleeding, since those were the few new ones I'd just put there.

"What happened to you?" I wondered, knowing he had to have been pretty beaten up for marks to be left after healing. They wouldn't scar, but traces like that would still remain for a day or so when the injuries were bad enough.

Mace glared at me. "You're what happened, you bloodthirsty psycho!"

I just stared blankly at him. "Me?"

"Our practice battle in class! You tried to rip my guts out!"

"I... tried to..." I thought back. There was no battling that I could recall. Usually when they did that sort of thing, it was at the end of the school day. I was out cold in a bucket at the time, which meant... some other Spearow was pretending to be me? What the hell? If it did this much damage to Mace in front of the other students, then... "You said something happened to Chris. What happened to him?"

"Like you don't know."

"Damn it, Mace! Now's not the time to be an idiotic pain in my tail!" I snapped, panic building. "Tell me what you think I did to him!"

His eyes narrowed. "After you mauled me and took off, Chris chased after you. Later, while I was in the Pokemon Center with Ashley, I heard her parents tell her that he was in the hospital. Apparently you turned on him along one of the sidewalks, forced him into the road and right in front of a car."

I felt sick after hearing that. Sweet Arceus... no wonder everyone was trying to kill me. I'd probably do the same in their position. There was also no doubt in my mind the feathers would fly if I got my talons on whatever Spearow bastard was impersonating me. Of course, there was time for vengeance once I knew Christopher's condition.

Kana was looking thoroughly confused about what was going on and Mace clearly wanted to renew his efforts to snap my neck, but at the moment I didn't care to try explaining things to either of them. All of my thoughts were on my trainer and neither of them could tell me what I wanted to know. Taking off, I ignored them as they both called out for me to wait, speeding off to Pewter hospital as fast as I could fly.

---

Even though I had no idea where to find him or if I even would, I went about searching the only way I could think to. I landed on every windowsill one by one and peered inside the hospital, hoping each time it was Christopher's room. I don't know how long it really took, but it felt like hours before I finally found it. The lights may have been off in the room, but the glow from the machines were enough to illuminate the Beedrill laying next to the person on the bed and Amos asleep in the chair next to it.

He was mostly covered by a blanket, so the only part of Chris I could see was his head, which had a bandage wrapped around it like a bandana. At that moment I didn't know if I was more sick or enraged at the thought of some Spearow impersonating me being the one that had done that to him. What made it worse was something I'd come to realize about humans during my time with them. They could barely tell Pokemon of the same species apart. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Chris, like everyone else, thought I was responsible for his condition.

My heart sank and the sick feeling dominated at thinking my own trainer would believe I'd turned on him. If he did think that, there was no way I could convince him otherwise. It's not like I could explain things. Even the ones I could communicate with have tried to kill me straight away. Except for Thrust, of course, but if I ran into him face-to-face... well, it'd probably be more face-to-stinger with him. Damn it all, I may not have been an ideal Pokemon, I did come to care about Chris and his family like they were my own. To lose them now... like this... the anger took over my thoughts. Even if I'd lost Christopher one way or another, I was going to figure out who did this and give them what they had coming.

A voice calling my name from below made me look down. Kana was by the building, and for some reason Mace was with her. With one last look at Chris, I flew down, landing on a dumpster so I'd be out of the Machop's easy reach if he decided to try and strangle me again. "What are you two doing here?"

"I was worried. Not sure about him, he just followed me after I hopped the fence." Kana said, swinging her tail in Mace's direction.

I glanced at Mace, skeptical. "You hopped a fence too? I find that hard to believe since you can't even walk down a hallway without tripping.

He glared at me. "I can get around fine."

Kana shook her head. "Oh please, you punched a hole in it. Anyway, how's your trainer doing?"

"Hard to tell through a window." I muttered, looking up at Christopher's room window. For a second I thought I saw movement up there, but I wrote it off as just being my imagination or a mistake. My thoughts weren't very clear at the moment thanks to my emotions and earlier blow to the head, so I doubted my eyes were any clearer than my mind.

"You should have some idea, since you're the one that-" The end of Mace's remark that may have resulted in him getting a few more scratches was cut short, by the resounding crack of Kana's tail lashing across his face. Most tail whips were cute... Kana was stronger than she looked and had perfected hers to nothing less than a firm slap. They stung too, I know from having been on the receiving end of a couple.

"Keep that attitude and I'll give you a charge you won't be waking up anytime soon from. Got it?" She snapped at him, making him move a couple wary paces back as he rubbed his face. Once the Pikachu was sure he'd stay quiet, she turned back to me. "Look, Harry, I'm sure you're not the type to do something like that, even if calm Spearows seem to be few and far between. Can you think of anyone that would, though?"

"Don't call me that." I told her more out of habit than anything, since it never did any good. "Yes I can. The problem is, I can think of too many people and Pokemon that have a problem with either Chris, Thrust or myself. Although... Mace, the Spearow with Chris that attacked you, was it wearing a ribbon like mine?"

"Of course you were wearing that dumb thing." He replied coldly, still unconvinced of my innocence. Kana gave him a dirty look, but I knew he was just dense anyway. Probably from the klutz landing on his face one too many times.

Even so, the piece of info got me thinking. Two Spearows meant to fool everyone else, one dead for scares, one alive to attack everyone around and ruin my reputation. I was the only one of those three around both times. Whoever was doing this was after me. They had to be. What the hell could I have done to warrant this kind of revenge though?

Kana leapt onto the dumpster by me. "Harold, what is it? Did you think of something?"

"No. I mean, not really. I'm pretty sure they're out to get me, but I... I can't think of anything I've done that was really bad." I said, sifting through my memories. Chris and I had caused some trouble together, sure, but I continued to draw a blank as to who would to this or why.

"Harold." Mace spoke up, interrupting my thoughts.

"What?" I snapped, expecting another irritating comment from him.

He stepped back, looking nervous all of a sudden, though I think that was more because of an ill-tempered Pikachu giving him the evil eye than my reaction. "Look, I just wondered what you- I mean the other you-" He corrected himself quickly when a crackle of electricity arced between Kana's ears. "-meant by what you- he- what was said right before trying to actually rip my face off."

I tilted my head at him. "You'll have to be more specific, since I wasn't there."

"Right." Mace sighed. "Near the end, after you thrashed me up pretty badly, I asked how anyone that acted so idle most of the time could turn that vicious in a practice fight. You answered, and I quote; 'Simple, Aces are wild!' then proceeded to dive and tear into me like a psychopath."

"We keep telling you, it wasn't him." Kana reminded him firmly.

I honestly didn't care what he thought anymore. My blood had run cold after hearing that phrase. Aces are wild... I knew it all too well. I'd said it more times than I can count, but every one of those times was before I'd even met Chris. Back when I was free, younger and actually thought it sounded cool. Not to mention going by the name Ace, which had been discarded after my capture. It was all I needed to hear to drop almost everyone off the suspect list. Almost.

"That's it." I murmured subconsciously. "I know who's doing this."

"What? Who?" Kana asked, but I'd already taken off. "Wait! Where are you going?!"

"To find the one that did this and then tear his fucking throat out!" I called back, heading for the Viridian Forest. I knew who had to have been the one behind it. I wasn't positive about the why, but that didn't matter to me at the moment. If I really wanted to know, I could find out while tearing bits off him.

Halfway between the hospital and forest, as I tried to think of where I could find him, I caught an odd sound over the combined pounding of my heart, head and wings. Like a neon sign's hum, though I wasn't passing anywhere near one. Wait, not really a hum, more of a... a buzz. I glanced back. My first thoughts were far from eloquent, but fit the situation. Oh, shit.

A Beedrill was pursuing me. Before he'd even shouted for me to stop, I knew it was Thrust. He must have seen me when I looked in the window, thanks to his freaky eyes that seemed to look everywhere at once and never close. Though it was impossible to tell when he was asleep or not, I thought the fact that he didn't move at all when I'd been looking in meant he'd been dozing. Figures I'd make a mistake about something like that.

Flying as hard as I could toward the forest, some part of me knew it was useless. I might have been able to lose him in the trees since I was better at maneuvering, but his sheer speed put me at a disadvantage when it came to straight shots like he had at me now. Even if it didn't stop me from trying. The sound of buzzing grew louder until I was over the field between Pewter and Viridian, then ended the second Rusty got me within stinger's reach.