Advanced Search
Welcome to Omgili,
Omgili (Oh My God I Love It ;) is a search engine for discussions. With Omgili you can find answers and solutions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, opinions and more... To learn more about Omgili click here.

This is a complete preview of the discussion as it was indexed by Omgili crawlers. Use this preview if the original discussion is unavailable.
Click here to view the original discussion.

Communication (Chapter 11 now up!) - The PokeMasters Forums

Hello again, everyone.

What follows is my second Pokémon fanfic.

This is the story of Solonn Zgil-Al, a character from my previous fic, The Origin of Storms .

While reading that story isn’t crucial to understanding this one, I’ll go ahead and suggest that you read it, as well, because why wouldn’t I?

Heh heh heh… Anyway, you’ll find a link to The Origin of Storms in my sig if you’re interested.

(Of course, you’ll still find it even if you’re not interested, for that matter.

XP) I began writing Communication in late November of ’04.

After several months of work, I deemed what I had written thus far unworthy in quality (which was probably largely due to the unreasonable one-chapter-each-week schedule I had imposed on myself for whatever reason @.@), went back and put what I had of the story so far through a process of massive revision.

Presently, I have 14 chapters (in addition to this prologue) of the current version completed, with a 15th chapter in the works.

The projected length of this story is around the neighborhood of 21-25 chapters. One thing I should mention for those of you who have read The Origin of Storms is that the chapters in Communication are longer than those in my previous fic.

Another thing I should let you know is that while this story does contain more humor and lighthearted material than The Origin of Storms , it still has its share of darker elements.

This story is rated PG-13 for violence, adult situations, mild language, and other things that are just not very cheerful.

Discretion is advised. DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokémon.

Any resemblance or reference to any real persons, places, things, or ideas is purely coincidental and unintentional unless explicity stated otherwise by the author.

Opinions and statements expressed in this story do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

This story does not strictly or entirely adhere to any form of the established Pokémon canon. This story is the work of a non-professional author who is perfectly content to remain non-professional.

I'm not aiming for something big and fancy with this – I simply want to tell a little story.

^^ Contents Chapter 1 – Foreign Relations Chapter 2 – Carried Away Chapter 3 – The Deal Chapter 4 – Spell of the Spotlight Chapter 5 – Elements Embraced Chapter 6 – The Sought-For Matter Chapter 7 – Convergence Chapter 8 – Preclusion of Choice Chapter 9 – Anywhere but Here Chapter 10 – Deceiving Yesterday Chapter 11 – Heart of the City ~This story is dedicated to E the Grey Angel~ And now, let us begin! Chapter 1 – Foreign Relations Deep beneath the surface, away from the sky, from the sun and moon, and from the sight of nearly every other form of life, there lay a world of darkness, secrecy, and terrible, forbidding cold.

This was the place called Virc-Dho, the shoal nation of northeastern Hoenn, and it was a place that belonged strictly to the glalie. Here, in this frigid underworld that other races of pokémon almost never dared to enter and that humans didn’t even know existed, in a cavern whose ice-covered surfaces glittered eerily in the glow of her own large, luminous, blue eyes, a glalie by the name of Azvida Esian Zgil-Al sat waiting. Azvida was waiting for two things, in two separate ways.

She was watching, staring intently at a round, black, featureless egg that was now beginning to shake slightly a couple of times each minute.

She was also listening, waiting for the first sign of an approach that was none too quick in coming. Where was he? Invoking the power of her element, the glalie spontaneously generated a small heap of snow, which she arranged in a ring around the increasingly animated egg.

She knew that the baby would be ravenous upon hatching, which would be soon— very soon.

Already, the first, tiniest vocalizations were starting to emanate through the shell. A grinding sound in the distance caught Azvida’s attention then.

It was so loud … she had warned him against being noticed.

But, as she reminded herself, that was probably just not feasible given the very nature of just what the approaching creature was. Azvida only partly turned towards him as he came to a stop in the shadows nearby, keeping the egg at the edge of her vision.

“Hello, Grosh.” Grosh only grunted in response, his great visage appearing ghastly in what little of Azvida’s cyan light touched it. Azvida’s attention was quickly monopolized by the egg again as it gave an almighty lurch, rolling straight into the snow that had been piled in front of it.

The glalie inhaled with a long, rattling hiss and held her breath, anxiously watching the event that was unfolding before her eyes.

The baby enclosed within the egg was now squealing shrilly as it fought to free itself, a sound that mingled with the fierce pounding of Azvida’s heart in a sonic deluge of excitement that threatened to overwhelm the new mother. The egg gave one last rustle, accompanied by a series of particularly sharp squeaks from within its confines.

Then, with a tiny crack , something small and very pointed broke through the shell.

With something of a drilling motion, the tip of a cone-shaped head continued to emerge from the hole it had made, cracking it open wider and wider until finally the egg simply fell apart. Amidst the broken eggshells and the fluid they had once contained that was now quickly vanishing into wisps of pale silver vapor, there now sat a tiny male snorunt.

His skin was a dark shade of graphite-grey, with a shell of yellow and red.

His hands and feet were tiny, as were his beady, pale blue eyes, but his gleaming, white teeth were huge in proportion to the face that held them. The baby snorunt tried at once to stand, only to immediately fall right over.

His conical body rolled pitifully as he attempted in vain to right himself. Azvida could not suppress the gale of hissing laughter that came forth then out of sheer elation.

She rose from the ground and descended upon the snorunt, picking him up very gently and carefully and then setting him upright once more. Her son blinked up at her in curiosity, his very tiny blue eyes shining like distant stars in the field of his dark grey face.

Then he noticed the fresh, powdery snow that surrounded him, and he became oblivious to all else. Azvida grinned brightly at her new baby.

She then turned her gaze into the shadows at her side.

“Look, Grosh,” she said, her voice alight with pure wonder.

“Look at your son.

Isn’t he beautiful?

Why don’t you come closer?

Don’t you want to see him?” The shadowed form of Grosh stirred in the darkness.

Great eyes turned their sight upon the newborn—then turned away.

The rest of Grosh immediately followed. “Grosh, wait!” Azvida called to him.

But Grosh kept moving on, scattering many rocks and chunks of ice in his wake.

Within seconds, he was gone, back into the shadows from whence he’d come—never to return, Azvida was certain. The new mother sighed.

“It’ll just be us, then,” she said as she set herself back down before her son.

No surprise, she thought, yet nonetheless, she could not deny the pang of disappointment she felt at Grosh’s departure.

“We’ll have to be everything for each other.

But I know we can,” she said, hoping to sound reassuring. Not that it mattered to the snorunt.

He was too focused on the snow, which he was devouring voraciously.

Once he’d eaten his fill, he discovered that snow was also fun to play in, and he quickly became as engrossed in that activity as he’d been in the one before it. Azvida smiled again.

“Now, what to call you?” she wondered aloud.

After a moment’s consideration, she thought of her late grandfather, her mother’s father, of whom she had always been very fond, and thus her question was swiftly and soundly answered. “I know exactly the right name for you,” Azvida said triumphantly.

“You shall be called Solonn.” * * * Seven years into his life, Solonn was finally old enough to go up to the snowgrounds, where he could meet and play with other children.

But to get to the snowgrounds, one first had to make one’s way through a rather long series of tunnels, much to his displeasure. The young snorunt tottered alongside Azvida, consciously keeping her in his sights at all times for the sake of his own security.

This was quite easy, given that his mother was somewhat large, larger than himself, at least. Her size compared to his own was just one of the many ways in which she differed from him in appearance.

She was quasi-spherical rather than conical.

She had horns, which he did not, short, sharp ones that were the same shade of grey as her hide.

Her shell was made of pale, semi-translucent ice rather than yellow-and-red chitin.

Unlike him, his mother possessed no hands, no feet, no limbs of any kind.

Hence, rather than walking as he did, she instead floated, suspending and propelling herself through the air in a way that seemed impossible. As Solonn gazed at his mother, he found himself wondering, as he often did, about his father.

How might he have differed, both from Solonn and from Azvida, as well?

Solonn knew, though, that he would never see the answer to this question.

When he was very young, Azvida had told him that his father had died shortly after witnessing his son’s birth. Difference fascinated Solonn;

Conversely, he had little interest in or patience for sameness.

Hence, the fact that the tunnel through which he and his mother traveled looked exactly the same through foot after foot, yard after yard, was doing nothing to boost his enjoyment of the trip.

This was the furthest he had ever had to walk, and he was not liking the experience very much.

It was tiring, not to mention ridiculously slow compared to being carried in his mother’s jaws.

But since he was getting too big for that, moving himself by the power of his own two feet was the mode of transportation with which he was now stuck. “Are we there yet?” Solonn whined for the eleventh time since heading out. “Almost,” Azvida answered, gliding along a few inches off the ground at less than half of her usual pace so as to let the snorunt’s tiny feet keep up with her.

“I told you, you’ll know right away when we get there.

It’s very different from this place, and from every other place you’ve seen.” Better be, Solonn thought grumpily. Shortly thereafter, they arrived at last at the snowgrounds.

Solonn saw at once that his mother had been right about this place—it was different.

It was a huge, open space, nothing at all like the close confines of the winding tunnels and small caverns that made up the warren in which he lived. The most remarkable thing about this place was not its size, however.

Rather, it was the fact that the floor of this vast cavern was entirely blanketed in sparkling, white snow .

Soft, wonderful snow lay everywhere within the field of his sight, just begging a snorunt to dive right in—which is precisely what Solonn did. Azvida laughed.

“Have fun wth the other kids,” she said, her son poking his head out of the snow at her words.

“I’ll be back soon.” With that, she turned and exited, leaving Solonn behind in the field of snow. Solonn watched her leave, wishing that she would stay and wondering why she didn’t.

He wondered also where those “other kids” of which his mother had spoken were.

He didn’t see anyone else there… POP!

With absolutely no warning, something burst out of the snow, launching out right in front of his face. “Aaah!” Solonn was scared right off of his feet.

He tumbled over backwards and landed upside-down, his pointed head sticking in the snow, his short legs kicking uselessly. He then heard a sound— laughter .

Someone was laughing at him—and grabbing his feet.

He screamed again as whoever it was started pulling on his legs, which was rather painful.

His ambusher didn’t relent until Solonn was quite suddenly extracted from the snow and sent flying from his grasp, landing in the snow several feet away with a whumpf (and blessedly not landing on his head this time). Solonn managed to right himself fairly quickly, and as he was doing so, he heard footsteps approaching him.

He turned to face the sound, and what he found was another snorunt, one who came to a stop a short distance before him.

It seemed that he was the one who’d given Solonn that awful scare. Solonn’s eyes flashed in anger.

He lunged at the other snorunt, snapping his teeth and missing him by only a fraction of an inch. The other snorunt jumped backwards away from Solonn, and for a moment just stared back in surprise.

Then, bizarrely, he burst out into laughter again.

The moment he did, though, Solonn looked as though he might try to bite him again, making him fall silent in a hurry.

He held out his hands as if to keep Solonn at bay (he was fortunate not to lose one of those hands right there) and said, “Hey!

It’s okay! I didn’t mean to scare you… well, not that badly, anyway…” Solonn hesitated, giving a frown of uncertainty. “I’m sorry,” the other snorunt said earnestly.

“It was just a joke.” He approached Solonn, albeit a bit gingerly.

“I’m Zilag. Who are you?” Solonn hesitated a moment before answering.

“…Solonn,” he said finally.

“Are there any other kids here?” he then asked warily. “Yeah.

They’re hiding,” Zilag answered.

“Come on out,” he called out, then added, “DON’T SCARE HIM.” At Zilag’s call, twenty-seven other snorunt popped up out of their hiding places beneath the snow.

Solonn remained quite wary of them at first, but through the minutes that passed, they seemed to heed Zilag’s advice;

No one attempted to frighten him or to otherwise make a joke at his expense.

By the time his mother returned to take him home, Solonn had managed to shed his distrust and reluctance almost completely.

As he departed the snowgrounds, he found himself looking quite forward to returning there. * * * Solonn was brought to the snowgrounds almost daily from that point forward.

As the weeks went by, he and Zilag became very good friends.

Every time Solonn returned to the snowgrounds, Zilag was there waiting for him. Solonn liked Zilag for the same reason everyone else seemed to like him: Zilag was the one with all the ideas.

However, not all of them were necessarily good ideas… One day in the snowgrounds, Zilag gathered eight of his closest friends, including Solonn, to hear his announcement of how they were about to have the “best day ever”. “I’ve found something so awesome, you’ll go crazy when you see it,” he said. “And what’s that?” Solonn asked. Zilag smirked.

He rolled up a snowball, turned around, and chucked it with full force into the ground.

The snow it struck crumbled away on impact, falling into the very deep-looking tunnel that was now revealed.

The other eight snorunt all drew closer to the hole in order to try and peer down into it, but they were all wary of getting too close to it. “Right down there is a portal to another world,” Zilag said in a rather ridiculously grand voice. “Yeah, right,” Reizirr sneered skeptically. “It’s true!” Zilag insisted.

He grabbed her and pushed her face toward the hole, eliciting a very sharp little shriek out of her.

“All you have to do to see it is to just go through there.” “No, thanks!” Reizirr squeaked as she managed to wriggle away from Zilag. “You’re gonna miss out…” Zilag told her.

He cast a glance about at each of the others, seeing a lot of uncertain faces looking back at him.

Their clear trepidation did nothing to deter him from putting on a huge grin and going on to say, “Okay.

Who wants to go first?” The others all exchanged nervous glances.

Then, in unison, they took a sizeable step further back from the hole. “Oh, come on.

It’s so cool, I promise… Sical, how about you?” Zilag suggested. “No way,” she refused firmly. “Davron?” Zilag tried. Davron responded by shaking his head, insofar as a snorunt can do so. “Faroski?” Zilag attempted next. Faroski just turned and left the small crowd, having decided that he’d be better off just watching the others from the opposite side of the cavern. Zilag made a noise of frustration.

Then he turned to Solonn, who was standing at his immediate left, and said, “I know you’d love it.

So, go for it. Come on.” “Uh…” Solonn began doubtfully. “It’s just a little slide and then a little climb,” Zilag said with a slight air of impatience, then added, “You’re not a wuss, are you?” “What?

No!” Solonn said, sounding flustered.

He peered down into the hole, wondering just how deep it really was.

“I guess I could…” “That’s the spirit!” Zilag said cheerfully, and then shoved Solonn into the hole. “ h!” Solonn screamed as he found himself rushing down a very long and steep slide whose walls were coated with tightly-packed snow.

He met with a rather rough landing at the bottom, smacking right into a stone wall. Solonn stumbled backward, his face smarting badly.

After a few moments, he came to his senses and became fully aware of his surroundings.

He was in a very small chamber made of stone.

Before and slightly above him, he saw a hole in the wall, one that was more than wide enough for him to enter. Solonn stared doubtfully into the secret portal for a long moment, reluctant to enter it.

He turned back around and looked back up the length of the snow chute… how in the world was someone supposed to get back up there?

Zilag had neglected to explain that detail… Sighing, Solonn turned back towards the hole in the wall—there seemed to be no other way to go.

Resigned to the only course of action that presented itself to him, he hopped up, pulled himself into the hole, and started crawling upward. The climb through the secret tunnel was not an experience that he found particularly pleasant.

At times, it was incredibly steep;

Solonn feared that he could easily slip and go tumbling back down the tunnel.

Furthermore, the rocky surfaces of the tunnel’s floor and walls were not at all comfortable for him to crawl over—one wrong move, and those jagged edges could slice right into a hand or foot, he knew. Why, he wondered, had Zilag thought anyone would like this? Quite a while later, Solonn finally reached the end of the tunnel and gratefully hoisted himself out of there.

Fairly exhausted, he just lay still for a short time, glad to be on smooth, level ground again. Once he’d caught his breath, he stood and took a look around.

He was in a very large cavern which, just as Zilag had promised, was indeed like another world.

For one thing, it was much brighter up here than it had been below.

Solonn found the source of the illumination overhead: strange, pale light was seeping into the cavern from above, light that was quite strong despite how few of its pale rays managed to penetrate the cracks in the ceiling. The terrain of this cavern was also quite strange in his eyes.

As Solonn explored with growing curiosity, he found snow, ice and rocks—all of which he could find at home, of course.

What was unusual about the materials within this cavern was that they were just scattered wantonly about;

Rocky, uneven surfaces abruptly gave way to vast, shimmering expanses of perfectly smooth, ice-coated floors, and mounds of snow rose randomly over both types of surfaces.

This contrasted considerably with the way things looked back from whence Solonn had come;

There, in the warren, every aspect of the environment had been adapted and conformed by glalie to suit their tastes and purposes.

Solonn wondered to what sort of people and purpose, if any, a place like this could possibly belong. Right around the next hill of snow, he got his answer. He didn’t move.

He barely even breathed.

The same was true of the creature that stared back at him through her dark-colored, non-luminescent eyes. This creature was more bizarre than anything Solonn could have ever imagined.

She was almost perfectly round, colored blue and a creamy shade of beige with a few spots of white scattered here and there.

She only had two feet as far as Solonn could see, unless that wide, flat thing he saw sticking out from behind her was actually a third one.

She seemed to have only two teeth, pointed ones that were very small compared to the rest of her face. But the strangest thing by far about this creature was the glow that emanated from her entire body.

Solonn found himself strangely mesmerized by it.

He’d never seen anything like it;

He didn’t have that glow, and neither did any of his friends.

For that matter, neither did glalie.

What was this strange luminescence?

What could it possibly mean? “What… what are you?” Solonn finally worked up the courage to ask. “What are you ?” the creature countered. Solonn was almost too bewildered to answer.

This creature even sounded so different… “I’m a snorunt,” he said finally. “Oh.

Never heard of that… Anyway, I’m a spheal.” “I’ve never heard of what you are, either,” Solonn said.

As he stared at this creature—this spheal—his curiosity begat a compulsion.

“Can… can I touch you?” he asked tentatively. “…Sure, I guess,” the spheal responded slightly awkwardly. Solonn stepped forward, feeling quite nervous.

His hand shook as it reached out to the spheal.

When he touched her, he pulled his hand back at once.

She felt strange to him, and in a way that was rather startling. “What?

Is something wrong?” the spheal asked worriedly. “No… it’s just that you’re so… ” Solonn trailed off and stared with a hybrid of fear and wonder shining through his eyes as he realized that he knew no word for the way the spheal felt.

He had no way of knowing it, but he had just felt heat for the very first time.

Though it hadn’t hurt him, it had definitely made him uneasy. In spite of this, however, his curiosity led him to touch the spheal again, and he was not so startled by her warmth this time.

Rather, something else caught his fascination. “It’s… soft…” Solonn remarked, “and fluffy… What is this stuff you’re covered in?” he asked. “Er… that’s fur,” the spheal answered, giving him a funny look. “It’s neat,” Solonn said. “Uh, sure it is… Hey, could you stop petting me already?” the spheal finally demanded irritably. “Oh… sorry,” Solonn apologized, quite embarrassed, and he took his hands off of the spheal in a hurry. Just then, a voice sounded from not too far away—another strange, foreign voice.

“Sophine? Where are you?” Before Solonn could wonder about the voice’s owner, she came into view.

She was like the spheal, but somewhat larger, with long, white fur growing from just above her pointed teeth.

Like the spheal, she also possessed the glow of heat.

Solonn supposed that she must be an evolved spheal. “There you are!

You can’t keep wandering away from me like that!” the newcomer scolded lightly.

Then her gaze fell upon Solonn, and it froze there.

“Sophine, get away from that,” she said tensely.

“ Now . Those things are dangerous.” “What?

I’m not dangerous!” Solonn protested, stepping forward with his arms outstretched.

“Honest!” “You stay away from my daughter, you little monster!” the evolved spheal who was apparently Sophine’s mother cried, and then she lunged suddenly at Solonn. But just then, Sophine screamed, and the sound jarred her mother out of her charge.

The evolved spheal looked to see what had frightened her daughter, and then she cried out in fear, as well. Confused, Solonn followed the others’ gazes.

Now it was his turn to scream—hovering there with an absolutely livid expression was none other than his own mother. “Leave.

Him. Alone .” Azvida’s words were nearly unintelligible through her furious hissing.

With no further warning, she darted forward.

Her massive, terrible incisors snapped together with bone-shattering force bare inches away from the face of Sophine’s mother. The evolved spheal gave a yelping bark as she staggered backward, away from the striking glalie.

She then gathered up her daughter in a single flipper and waddled frantically away with her. Solonn watched them leave.

Then, very nervously, he turned and approached his mother.

She turned to face him in an instant, badly scaring him.

Azvida then opened her jaws and grabbed Solonn up in her teeth by the top of his head.

It caused him pain, and he cried out, but she did not put him down, carrying him in this fashion for the entire duration of the trip back home. * * * “For the love of all gods, what were you thinking ?!” Azvida demanded. It wasn’t my idea!

Solonn thought but didn’t dare say, feeling as though doing such amounted to betraying Zilag, which he most certainly did not want to do.

“…I don’t know!” he blurted finally. “Well, you’re not going up there again, that’s for sure,” Azvida said, her tone one of strong displeasure.

“In fact, you’re not going to be going anywhere for a long time, not even to the snowgrounds.” “But… Mom, no!

You can’t!” Solonn protested.

Surely, she had to be bluffing—she would never keep him from the snowgrounds for any real length of time… would she? “Oh, yes I can, and yes I will!

It’s for your own good, Solonn.

You have to learn that there are places where you don’t belong, places that are not safe !” “Not safe?” Solonn questioned.

The cavern above into which he had ventured hadn’t seemed dangerous, just rather strange… Azvida lowered her massive, skull-like face, her eyes seeming to burn right through Solonn’s.

“You think you’re the first who’s ever gone sneaking around up there?

There have been plenty of kids before you who’ve had that bright idea.

And you know what?

Many of them never came back.” “…What happened to them?” Solonn asked in a very small voice, though he wasn’t altogether certain that he really wanted to know. “They vanished,” Azvida replied simply.

“Taken away by the creatures from above, we suspect,” she elaborated. “You mean the spheal ?

Spheal took them?” Solonn asked incredulously. Azvida shook her great head.

“Other beings. Stranger beings.” What could be stranger than a spheal?

Solonn wondered, finding himself rather amazed by the notion.

He wondered about something else, as well.

“Mom?” “Yes?” “That spheal’s mom… she called me a monster,” Solonn said quietly.

“She said I’m dangerous, but I’m not dangerous at all… am I?” “What?

No, of course you’re not!” Azvida said.

“And you’re not a monster, either!” “But… then why would she say that?” Solonn asked. Azvida sighed.

“It’s all right, Solonn.

She meant nothing against you personally.

It’s just that… well, her kind fear ours.

They always have.” She sighed again.

“To be fair, they do have a perfectly good reason to.” “Well… what is it?” Solonn asked, a little afraid of the sort of answer he might receive. Azvida broke eye contact with Solonn.

This was not a discussion she’d been in any hurry to have with him—she’d dreaded it as much as the eventual discussion of where eggs came from. Reluctantly, she sat down beside him.

“There are certain things that every living creature must do to stay alive,” she began uneasily.

“We have to breathe.

We have to sleep.

We have to eat. When living creatures are different, the ways that they keep themselves alive are different, as well.

The spheal and their evolved forms, the sealeo and walrein, are different from us, and so they have their own ways that are right for them.

Likewise, glalie are different from snorunt.

And we have our own ways. “Now, one of the ways that living creatures can have different needs is that for some creatures, like snorunt, the things they need to eat in order to live are not alive themselves.

But for others… like glalie… well, the things that beings like us need to eat in order to live are alive.” Solonn absorbed that.

Then his heart froze.

“You… you eat the spheal?” he ventured in disbelief, his voice cracking. “Yes,” Azvida answered honestly, “sometimes.

But not usually. Usually, we take the winged creatures instead;

Zubat, they’re called.” “It doesn’t matter what they are.

You still kill them!” Solonn shouted accusingly. “Yes,” Azvida said, feeling and sounding very flustered.

“Yes, we do, but we do it quickly.

We do it gently. It doesn’t hurt them.

They just… they just stop.

It’s just like going to sleep, only permanently.” “ How can you know that ?!” Solonn shrieked.

Azvida did not answer.

Solonn said nothing more for several minutes, sitting and shaking silently.

Then, with barely any voice at all, he asked, “Why can’t you just eat the snow?

Why?” “It’s just not enough for us, Solonn,” Azvida said quietly.

“Someday, once you’ve evolved, you’ll understand.” “No, I don’t want to!” Solonn protested vehemently.

“I don’t want to grow up and eat people!” “Listen, I know how it sounds, but there really isn’t anything wrong with it!” Azvida tried to assure him.

“It’s just a part of how nature works.

And a lot of creatures live this way, too, not just glalie.

Even the spheal you met and her people, they feed on creatures called magikarp…” But Solonn was not listening anymore, and Azvida knew it.

She sighed and spoke no more, and neither of them said anything to one another for the remainder of that day. * * * After the long weeks separating Solonn from the snowgrounds were finally behind him, he returned there to find Zilag, and Zilag alone, who was just sitting there and doing nothing else. Solonn was immediately wary.

“Where is everyone hiding?” “There’s no one else here,” Zilag said gloomily. Solonn walked over to him, frowning.

“You got me into huge trouble, you know,” he admonished Zilag. “Hey, I didn’t get away with it, either!” Zilag shot back. “But I didn’t tell on you!” Solonn insisted.

“I swear!” “You didn’t have to,” Zilag said grimly.

“My big sister came in and saw me trying to get Dileras to go down that hole.

She went straight home and told Mom everything.” He sighed.

“And then, everyone else’s parents found out, too.

Now no one wants to hang out with me cause they’re all scared of getting into trouble again.” “Oh…” Solonn sat down beside Zilag.

“Well, I’m not so worried about that,” he said, although a small part of him really was.

“I’ll still hang out with you.” “Really?” Zilag’s eyes sparkled, and he broke out into a huge grin.

“Thanks!” Suddenly, there was a strange sound, a sort of fluttering noise coming from above.

Both snorunt looked up and saw a small, blue, batlike pokémon flying about overhead.

It was yet another creature that shone with that strange glow—the glow of heat, Solonn now knew. “A zubat,” Solonn guessed aloud in a hushed voice as he gazed up at the newcomer.

“What’s that doing here?” “I don’t know… I’ve never even seen one of those before,” Zilag said. “I bet your parents have,” Solonn said darkly.

“My mom told me that the glalie eat those things.” Zilag turned, and for a moment, he merely stared incredulously at Solonn.

Then he broke into laughter.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!

They do not!” “Oh, yes they do,” Solonn said as he continued to watch the bat flit around, seemingly without direction, near the ceiling of the cavern. “No way!” Zilag said, still laughing.

“I know! Let’s ask the zubat if it’s true!

HEY, ZUBAT!” he shouted at the bat. The zubat steadfastly ignored the snorunt below, just wanting to focus on getting out of that place.

It was bad enough that she’d gotten herself lost there—she didn’t want to add to her troubles by getting herself mixed up with the locals. “The zubat’s not listening, Zilag,” Solonn pointed out. “Well, maybe this’ll get that thing to listen.” Zilag made a snowball and chucked it into the air, but missed the bat entirely.

His second shot missed, too.

“Come on, hold still!” he urged irritably, throwing a third snowball.

That one very nearly didn’t miss, whizzing past the zubat’s face just a hair’s breadth away. The zubat shrieked, then turned on Zilag.

Chittering angrily, she fired a spiraling, sparkling discharge of strange energy at him—a confuse ray.

It struck him before he could do anything to avoid it and instantly and severely disoriented him, leaving him staggering around and screaming intermittently in a spontaneous panic. “What did you do to him?!” Solonn demanded of the zubat, both scared and angry.

The bat’s response was a wing attack, forcing Solonn to duck in a hurry to avoid her as she dove at him, her wings glowing. As the zubat arced back up towards the ceiling, Solonn got back up onto his feet, gathered a number of snowballs as fast as he could, and began throwing them at the zubat.

His aim proved to be somewhat better than Zilag’s—one of the snowballs that he pitched upwards struck the bat in the back.

She screeched in pain, then wheeled around for another wing attack. Solonn decided it was time to get serious.

He began to gather ice-type energy… then lost it as Zilag, who was still very confused, came stumbling right into him and nearly knocked him over. “Hey!” Solonn exclaimed as he got himself out of the way of his brain-addled friend.

He tapped into the power of his element once again, and this time he managed to summon a powder snow attack.

It scattered snowflakes all about as it whistled towards the zubat on a small gust—but before it could connect, a similar but much stronger attack, a blizzard, came howling in and blew the powder snow completely off course. The blizzard was the work of Azvida, who had apparently just arrived and was clearly most displeased.

“Solonn Ahshi Zgil-Al!” she shouted thunderously.

“You stop picking on that poor zubat right this instant;

She’s obviously lost here and needs help, not harrassment!” Azvida’s shouting brought Zilag back to his senses.

“ Ahshi ?” He exploded into giggles.

Both Azvida and Solonn glared potently at him—he shut up at once. “But Mom, she did something to Zilag!

She made him freak out—I couldn’t just let her get away with it!” Solonn said defensively.

“And what do you care what anybody does to her, anyway?

She’s just meat to you!” Azvida’s eyes doubled in width, and their light intensified dramatically.

“How dare you say such a thing!” she hissed, appalled.

"I would never think of such a creature as ‘ just meat ’.

They give us life, and so they’re to be honored and respected!” To the zubat, Azvida then said, “You’ll certainly die from the cold if you stay here much longer.

If you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you back to where you belong.” The zubat made no response, no sound at all other than the faint flapping of her wings as she hovered warily in place. “It’s all right,” Azvida said, trying to sound as pleasant and soothing as possible.

“I won’t even touch you.” The zubat hesitated at first, then flapped a short distance forward.

She hesitated again, for longer this time.

Finally, though still obviously very uncertain about the whole thing, she descended and began to follow Azvida out of the cavern, though not too closely. “Please stay put until I return,” Azvida instructed her son as she left.

“ Please .” She and the zubat then vanished into the tunnels of the warren. As Solonn watched them leave, he found that he could no longer be certain of whether he was more confused by other species or by his own.

I love the names and soundtrack =^_^= Music makes the world go round, so why not a fanfiction?

Hehe! Good job...*stumbles away into the brush*

Houndoom_Lover: Thanks.

^^ It was inevitable that a soundtrack would form for both my works.

Music is one of my main sources of inspiration (the others being obsession and general theorymongering on my part ), plus anything I take an interest in will remind me of songs, so yeah.

^^

Oh yes, it finally began! So, this fic will be focusing more on Solonn?

Interesting. And if my guess is correct, the human should still be alive at this time, right? Mm, there's a really wide range of song list there.

This should be fun.

I'll be seeing you in the next chapter.

Darktyranitar: Quote: : And if my guess is correct, the human should still be alive at this time, right?

(Spoiler:) Yes, indeed they are.

In fact... the title of the prologue provides some information about how long humanity has left.

; ) Speaking of which...

Right now seems like a good time to state for the record that this is not a story about what happened to humanity.

The issue will be touched upon, but as you said, this story does focus more on Solonn;

The matter of the Extinction is not examined beyond the specific relevance it might have to his storyline. And for any who want to see the Extinction addressed more thoroughly and directly...

So do I. ; ) Hence, my next fic does that precisely.

Chapter 2 – Carried Away There came a day at the age of nineteen when, much to his confusion, Solonn awoke to find himself surrounded by a crowd, all the members of which were behaving very strangely.

No sooner had his eyes opened than a great rush of murmurs rose up like a sudden gale swirling around him. “Oh, thank the gods, he’s awake!” came the voice of his mother, just managing to rise above the din.

“It’s all right now, Solonn,” she then told her son, responding to the growing bewilderment in his eyes.

“You’re home again.” “Huh?” Solonn sat up, trying to finish awakening his senses quickly.

Casting a glance around, he saw the familiar scenery of the snowgrounds through gaps in the crowd.

The picture his eyes constructed also revealed just how large this crowd was—Solonn was surrounded by more snorunt and glalie than he had ever seen gathered within a single place before, and he had no clue whatsoever as to why they were all here and why they were all focused on him. “What’s going on?” he asked. “We found you here this morning.

You’ve only just awakened after hours of unconsciousness,” answered an elderly male glalie whom Solonn didn’t know.

At the sound of his voice, the crowd ceased its murmuring. “Solonn, this is Sile Van-Kil,” Azvida said, introducing the old man.

“He’s with the Security Guild.

Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she added hastily, seeing the troubled look that flitted across her son’s face.

“He just wants to ask you some questions.” “That’s right,” Sile said.

“First, we’d like to know if you went where you did of your own accord, or if you were taken involuntarily.” “What?

I didn’t go anywhere,” Solonn said, growing even more confused.

At the very least, he couldn’t recall having gone anywhere… What in the world is going on here?

He wondered, very unnerved by the whole situation. “You did go somewhere, Mr.

Zgil-Al,” Sile said, his tone considerably sterner than before.

“You were gone for almost two weeks, then returned carrying a strange and unfamiliar scent.” Solonn was now becoming less confused and more afraid.

Nearly two whole weeks of his life were missing from his mind… “I… I don’t remember going anywhere, though, sir,” he insisted.

“Last thing I remember, I was right here, just sitting by myself…” And then what?

What had happened? “You’re certain that you have no memory of where you went or whom or what you might have encountered?” Sile queried. “Yes, sir, I’m certain,” Solonn answered, his worry ringing clearly through his voice.

“It’s… it’s like nothing happened at all.” “Well, I’m afraid something did happen,” Sile said, his tone softening with what sounded like pity.

“As for what… well, we can’t be certain, but one possibility is that your missing time is the result of a deliberate act of memory erasure.

That, in turn, could be evidence of abduction by unknown psychic pokémon.” At these words, murmurs rose in a fresh wave throughout the attendants. “But why?

What would any such creatures want with him?” Azvida asked. “Your guess is as good as mine,” Sile replied.

“Needless to say, this means that we shall all have to live with increased vigilance.

We must keep our eyes open for anything strange.

Mr. Zgil-Al is safely among us again, but the next victim may not be so fortunate…” “Well, whoever and whatever it was that took him, they’d better not show themselves around me.

Not if they want to avoid pain, anyway,” Azvida said with a flash of her eyes.

She smiled at Solonn.

“I’m just so glad you got back safely.

You had me worried half to death!” Solonn might have been glad to be back, too.

The only problem was that the hole in his mind that served as his only souvenir of the reason why he should be glad to be back was troubling him too much to allow him that kind of relief.

Guess it’s my turn to be worried half to death, he thought dismally as the crowd dissipated and he and his mother headed for home. * * * In the days that followed, it seemed there was not a single person whom Solonn could run into who didn’t try to ask him a battery of questions about his disappearance.

He had no answers for them regarding that topic, and at first he was able to explain that to them in a calm and patient manner.

However, it quickly became clear that they wouldn't accept that answer.

They continued to hound him about the matter, and it wasn’t long before he lost patience for their persistent interrogations. As a result, he took to spending as much time alone as he could.

He visited the snowgrounds only when he was absolutely sure that no one else was there (he had long ago learned how to detect snorunt trying to hide in the snow), and hence not very often.

Thus, for a time at least, he was able to successfully avoid others and the questions they bore both in the snowgrounds and everywhere else. It was not a snorunt or a glalie who ultimately broke his solitude.

Rather, it was a zubat, one who came fluttering unexpectedly into the snowgrounds one day.

It wasn’t the same one whom Solonn had seen all those years ago, however;

This one was smaller and furthermore male.

This zubat did seem to have something in common with the previous one, though: he looked lost— very lost, in fact, and very anxious about it. Solonn watched as the zubat flapped about in frantic figure-eights overhead.

The flying creature appeared not to notice the snorunt below at all and chittered continuously to himself about how scared he was, how he didn’t know where he was, how he didn’t know what to do—Solonn half expected the poor thing to pass out and drop out of the air from not pausing to take a breath. When Solonn thought he could get a word in edgewise between the zubat’s chitterings, he called up to him.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“Do you need help?” The zubat gave a startled squeak.

The next second, he plummeted from the air without any warning, diving right into the snorunt’s face—Solonn braced himself for a wing attack or something equally unpleasant, but the zubat thankfully didn’t attack him.

Instead, he merely asked, in a thoroughly neurotic-sounding voice, “Where am I?!” Solonn winced at the high volume and equally high pitch at which the zubat chose to speak.

“You’re where you don’t belong,” he then answered, which immediately earned a shriek of terror from the zubat.

“Relax! I can take you to someone who knows the way out of here.” “Really?” “Yes, really,” Solonn said semi-wearily, already fairly exasperated by the neurotic little zubat.

“Now, come on!” If the zubat had possessed eyes, they would have been sparkling.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you—” “Are you coming along or not?” Solonn interrupted suddenly in order to make the zubat shut up.

He turned and started walking away. “Oh, yes, yes, right,” the zubat said hastily and fluttered after Solonn in a hurry. As Solonn made his way through the warren, he tried very hard to ignore the person following him.

This zubat was nothing at all like the last one he’d encountered;

True, that one had been rather hostile, but at least she had also been relatively quiet.

This zubat’s mouth, on the other hand, was in perpetual motion. “Wow!

This place is so weird !” the bat chittered, rattling on… and on… and on , much to Solonn’s misfortune.

“But it’s still pretty cool, though!

Super cool! …And super cold.

Brrr ! I don’t like the cold.

No, I sure don’t like it.

Of course, for that matter, I don’t really like the sun, either… But that’s okay, cause I still like you !

And that’s cause you’re helping me get out of here!

What a pal!” he squealed. Solonn cringed.

Great, you’ve inflicted a “pal” on yourself, he thought.

He reminded himself that he was doing the right thing by aiding this creature… or he tried to, but the bat’s voice seemed to be trying its hardest to destroy his mind. The zubat then got right in his face— again .

“Name’s Zyrzir, by the way,” the zubat introduced himself. Solonn knew that already.

Zyrzir had already introduced himself six times since leaving the snowgrounds. “So, what’s your name?

Huh? Huh? Huh ?” Zyrzir asked as he resumed following behind the snorunt. “Mr.

Deadbat,” Solonn said, utterly deadpan. “Hey… that’s not what you said last time!” Zyrzir said with a frown.

“Last time, you said your name was Mr.

Bitey! The time before that, you said your name was Mr.

Snowball! And all the times before that , you didn’t say anything at all, as if you didn’t have a name, and that was your answer!

Why won’t you just please cooperate and tell me what your real name is, huh?” Zyrzir whined. Because you are annoying me to death, and I am trying to ignore you so my brain doesn’t explode !

Solonn thought, very deeply annoyed. But then Zyrzir laid down his ultimatum.

“I won’t stop asking until you tell me the truth.” The snorunt produced a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh.

“Ugh, fine. My name is Solonn.

Satisfied?” “Oh, yes, yes, yes!

Thanks a thousand, Mr.

Satisfied!” Zyrzir squeaked joyfully, at which Solonn groaned very loudly.

“Oh, by the way, are we almost where we’re supposed to be going?

Are we? Are we? Are we ?” the zubat then asked. “Yes, we are, luckily for you.” And even more luckily for me, Solonn added silently.

Sure enough, they soon reached the Zgil-Al residence, where they were greeted almost immediately by Azvida. “Oh, good,” she said.

“I was hoping you’d get back soon.

Zilag was here looking for you.

He just left not too long ago.

I told him he could come back here after a little while.” Solonn started to turn to leave at once. “No, you don’t,” Azvida said.

She shifted the ice on the walls to form a barrier in front of Solonn.

“Now, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I think it’s time you sorted it out.

And you’re not leaving until you do just that.” Solonn grudgingly started towards his room, but was obstructed once again, this time by his mother’s enormous face. “Might I ask why you’ve brought a zubat here?” she questioned. “He needs out,” Solonn said. “Fine, then.

I’ll deal with that, and you’ll stay here and wait for Zilag,” Azvida said.

“And I mean it, stay here .

I’ll know if you don’t.” With that, she left, leading Zyrzir away with her. And just how would she know if I left?

Solonn wondered, but nonetheless decided not to chance it.

He went to his room, and for several minutes, he just sat there, with nothing to do but dread Zilag’s visit.

He wished that he could devise some means of distracting himself from that inevitability, but when he tried to think of a way to occupy himself, he found that he couldn’t come up with anything at all. The reason for his inability to conceive an idea was that the voice of that verbally incontinent zubat was, for some reason, suddenly infesting his brain.

It was leaving no room whatsoever for any other thought processes to take place.

Solonn tried to displace the memory of that horrid voice, but it remained firmly stuck in his head.

He groaned in supreme aggravation, muttering a venomous string of curses on the name of the bat who was inexplicably continuing to torment him even after departing his company. “Why couldn’t he just shut up ?” he wondered aloud.

“Gods, it was nonstop: ‘Are we there yet?

Brrr, it’s cold! You’re my friend!’” Solonn abruptly shut his mouth in surprise.

That impression of Zyrzir’s voice had been eerily close to the real thing… Feeling a giddy little spark of wonder, he tried it out again.

“Hi, I’m Zyrzir! And I’m… so … ANNOYING!” Dead on!

He congratulated himself silently, bursting into laughter.

It was then that the iron grip of the Zyrzir-voice on his brain finally relented and an idea occurred to him: perhaps now he could provide something for people to talk about that might just be more interesting than his recent abduction… Grinning in anticipation, Solonn put on the Zyrzir-voice once more.

“Wait’ll Zilag hears this!” * * * In time, Azvida returned, checking at once to see if her son was still home.

Shortly thereafter, Zilag arrived.

Azvida showed him to Solonn’s room right away, then left the two snorunt alone. “Uh…” Zilag started somewhat warily as he stood several paces behind Solonn, who had the triple-diamond pattern on his back turned towards him. Solonn turned very slightly to acknowledge Zilag, wearing an unreadable expression. “Yeah, hi,” Zilag said awkwardly, sounding a bit troubled.

“I just… you know, wanted to make sure that you’re okay.” “Why wouldn’t I be?” Solonn asked nonchalantly. “Well… since that thing that happened—” “I really don’t want to talk about that, Zilag,” Solonn interrupted flatly.

“I can’t anyway—I said I don’t remember anything about that, and that’s the truth.” “I know!

I believe you!” Zilag said. “And what about the others?” Solonn questioned.

“Have they finally got it through their heads yet?” “I told them to quit bugging you about that.

I figured out that that was why you’ve been avoiding everybody.” “And you’re sure they’ll really listen to you, too?” Solonn asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow. “Well, even if they won’t listen to me, I bet they’d listen to you.

You’re taller than any of us,” Zilag pointed out. This was true.

Over the past few years, Solonn had undergone a significant growth spurt.

Solonn now stood at nearly three feet in height, and appeared to still be growing. “Not by that much,” Solonn said, rolling his eyes.

“And I am not going to start pushing people around just because I’m bigger than them,” he said firmly, sounding slightly offended. “That’s not exactly what I meant… ” Zilag said—although it was almost what he meant.

“Look, I just want you to be able to go out without having to worry about being harrassed,” he said earnestly, “and I promise I’ll do whatever I can to keep people off your back about—well, you know what.” Solonn turned around completely to face Zilag.

Smiling, he said, “Thanks.

I appreciate that.” “No problem,” Zilag said coolly.

“So… feel like hitting the snowgrounds and letting everybody know you’re still alive?” “Well…” Solonn began.

Then, he smiled craftily.

Time to bring out the secret weapon… “Sure, why not?” he replied perkily in his impression of Zyrzir’s voice. Zilag stood completely still and silent for a moment as if petrified, his mouth agape as he stared like an idiot.

“…What was that?” he finally asked, sounding almost as if he was a bit scared to find out. “That,” Solonn said slyly, “was the voice of a zubat.” Zilag continued staring stupidly for a moment.

Then he unleashed a massive, squealing laugh, the incredible volume of which brought a clearly alarmed and confused Azvida rushing onto the scene in very short order. “What in the gods’ names is going on in here?” she demanded in a bewildered-sounding voice. “I’m sorry,” Zilag gasped, laughing so hard that he could barely breathe.

He gestured towards Solonn.

“It’s just him; he’s doing something funny.

Do that zubat voice again!” he added to Solonn in request. “Zubat voice?” Azvida asked, casting a puzzled look at Solonn. Solonn hesitated, not sure of how his mother would react to his impression;

Perhaps this sort of thing fell under the category of disrepecting the “sacred prey”.

Finally, he reckoned that she probably wouldn’t take it that seriously—it was just a silly little impression, after all.

What harm could it possibly do? Proceeding with his performance, “Hi, I’m Zyrzir!

My voice causes brain damage!” he chittered cheerfully. Azvida’s eyes went huge.

Then, she cracked up even worse than Zilag had done.

“Oh, gods,” she managed to say between rasping giggles, “that sounds exactly like him !

I’d thought I’d never hear that horrid voice again!” “Isn’t it just awful ?” Solonn said in agreement, keeping the zubat voice. Azvida shrieked with laughter.

“Oh, no, I’d better leave before I die laughing!” Out she went, leaving Solonn to stare at Zilag, who was now literally rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles.

Solonn helped him back onto his feet.

“Uh… are you okay?” he asked, stowing the zubat voice. “Yeah,” Zilag replied, albeit voicelessly.

As soon as he managed to catch his breath again, he said, “You have got to go and do that at the snowgrounds.

I bet everyone’ll be there if we go now.” “Okay, then,” Solonn agreed, smiling.

“Let’s go.” The two of them passed by Azvida as they headed out.

“Guess you’re going to go show off to everyone you can, aren’t you?” Azvida said teasingly. “Guess so,” Solonn admitted, as he and Zilag exited the Zgil-Al residence. Azvida was glad to see that Solonn was up for social interaction again—and what a way he’d found to go about it!

She grinned and chuckled to herself as she thought about Solonn’s zubat impression again, feeling both amused by her son and proud of him.

In addition to finding the impression hilarious—Zyrzir’s was the single most ridiculous voice and manner of speaking that she had ever heard, after all—she also thought that it was uncannily, even disturbingly accurate. How does he do that?

She wondered. Solonn’s zubat impression was so accurate that it was as if he wasn’t just using the zubat’s voice, but also— Azvida stopped laughing, quite shocked and astounded, as she realized that no, her son wasn’t merely using the voice of a zubat.

He was using the language of one, as well. * * * Once Solonn and Zilag arrived at the snowgrounds, Solonn produced the zubat impression yet again.

It proved to be quite the hit with the crowd of snorunt who were gathered there. “That was so cool!” Reizirr squealed. “Yeah,” Davron agreed.

“Hey, let’s see if I can do it!” But Davron’s attempt at a zubat impression didn’t sound like anyone or anything other than Davron.

“Aw, crap…” “Just keep trying,” Solonn said, and using the zubat voice in demonstration, added, “Like this, see?” “Wow, that’s so impressive,” came a sarcastic, female voice, one not belonging to a snorunt.

Everyone in attendance turned towards its source.

There, at the entrance to the snowgrounds, lingered a smirking glalie. “Kashisha, go away!” Zilag urged.

Kashisha was his older sister—though he wished that she weren’t. Ignoring her brother entirely, Kashisha advanced into the room, shoving aside any snorunt unfortunate enough to be in her path.

“Seriously, I thought there was an actual zubat in here,” she went on, “but it turns out to be just a bunch of snow-twerps.

Shame, really… I was looking forward to biting its wings off…” She stopped in front of Solonn.

“You’re the one responsible for that little trick?” she asked. Solonn remained utterly silent and still, very wary of interacting with Kashisha in any way. “Better answer her,” Zilag said.

“She’s evil incarnate.” “Why, thank you for the compliment, dear brother,” Kashisha said in a sugary tone, getting in Zilag’s face very suddenly;

With a tiny squeak of fright, he dove right into hiding under the snow.

Then she got in Solonn’s face.

“ Well ?” “Yes,” Solonn confirmed in a small voice. “Oh, I’m sorry, what was that?

I didn’t hear you…” Kashisha said melodiously. “I said yes!

It was me!” Solonn shouted hastily. Kashisha backed off slightly— very slightly.

“Well, then. I guess that makes you pretty cool—for a stupid kid, anyway,” she said. Stupid kid?

Solonn thought indignantly.

You’re barely any older than I am!

Which was true; Kashisha was only twenty-one months his senior, and just a year older than her brother.

However, she, like all of her friends, had chosen to evolve early (six years ago, in her case), and like them, she treated those who waited until reaching a respectable age to evolve like dirt. “I have a request for you, zubat-boy,” Kashisha said then.

“Let’s hear… a spheal.

Can you do that? Or is that too hard for the little baby?” she sneered. The distinct feeling that Solonn got from Kashisha was that he’d better deliver.

He tried hard to remember the way that that spheal whom he’d encountered so long ago had sounded.

All of a sudden, the memory of that voice flooded his mind, in just the same way that the memory of Zyrzir’s voice had done right before he’d replicated it for the first time. “Is this what you mean?” Solonn asked then, using Sophine’s voice.

This earned a surge of various impressed noises from the crowd, and an approving nod of sorts from the glalie hovering before him. “Bravo,” Kashisha said, grinning wickedly.

“Say… why don’t you come with me and entertain some of my friends?” “I don’t know…” Solonn wanted to back away from her, but he felt rooted to the spot. “Oh, I think you’d better—unless you’d rather I snap you in half…” “Okay, fine, I’ll go!” “Good!

And while we’re at it…” Kashisha plunged her face into the snow, pulled Zilag out of hiding, and dropped her protesting brother at Solonn’s feet.

“He’ll be coming along with us, too.

He is your best friend, after all, right?

Surely he wouldn’t want to miss your big debut in front of a real audience?” “No, ma’am, I wouldn’t,” Zilag said weakly in defeat. “Off we go, then!” Kashisha said merrily.

She circled around Solonn and Zilag and began shoving them along before her.

The two snorunt got moving in a hurry as Kashisha set about herding them out of the snowgrounds. “What should we do?” Reizirr asked once Kashisha and her victims had left. “Start composing their eulogies,” Davron answered grimly. * * * Solonn and Zilag scrambled to stay both on their feet and ahead of the periodically snapping jaws of Kashisha, who had driven them into a part of the warren that Solonn had never seen before. With one last shove, she brought the unpleasant journey of the two snorunt to an end, forcing them into a wide, low-ceilinged room.

Solonn saw at once that he, Zilag, and the glalie who had brought them to this place were not the only ones present.

The room was also presently occupied by nine other glalie who were sitting in a row and glaring at the two snorunt like some sort of sinister council. “I see you brought your pathetic little brother again,” the male in the center of the row said.

“I’m getting bored of torturing him, though… but who’s this other brat?” “This is Solonn,” Kashisha told him.

“He’s our new court jester,” she added with an enormous grin.

She nudged Solonn towards the glalie in the center of the row.

“That, Solonn, is Sanaika, the Master of Ceremonies.

And I do mean ‘ master ’.

Bow before him!” “Yes, bow!” Sanaika snapped. Solonn inclined his pointed head slightly.

Sanaika responded by spitting a chunk of ice that struck him painfully in the forehead, eliciting a shout of pain from the snorunt. “The Master approves!

You are now initiated into the Fellowship of Slaves!” Kashisha said gleefully.

“ Now ! Perform for your master!” With a small sigh, Solonn ran through his impression of Zyrzir’s voice, followed by that of Sophine’s voice.

And then, after rummaging briefly through his memories, he produced a third impression: the voice of Sophine’s mother. “What an entertaining little weenie you are!” Sanaika remarked once Solonn had finished. “I knew you’d like him!” Kashisha exclaimed proudly.

“That sealeo voice trick at the end was a nice touch, by the way,” she told Solonn. “Yeah, but I can think of one impression that I guarantee you he doesn’t know,” Sanaika said.

The glalie at either side of him gazed expectantly at him with looks of toadying curiosity.

“ Human .” “Oh, brilliant !” Kashisha crowed, her eyes flashing diabolically.

The other glalie echoed her enthusiastic approval. “…Wait, human ?” Solonn queried.

He couldn’t have heard that right… “Yes, you little turd, human,” Sanaika spat disdainfully.

“You know, those weird, stupid-looking things with the long, gangly limbs and tiny little heads who sound like they’re retarded when they talk…” “And taste like crap,” the glalie to Sanaika’s left offered. “ You wouldn’t know,” Sanaika scoffed at him.

“But yes, they do taste like crap.” “Humans don’t exist,” Solonn dared to say.

“They’re just a myth…” All of the glalie stared incredulously at Solonn.

Zilag quickly looked away from him, terrified that something hideous was about to befall his friend. “Oh, they do exist,” Sanaika said in a low, dangerous voice.

“In fact, you’re going to find out for yourself just how real they are, and you might find yourself very, very grateful that they are, too.” Sanaika brought himself to hover right before Solonn, just inches away from his face.

“I am giving you a quest and an offer.

You’ll go up to where the humans are.

You’ll meet one, see it with your own eyes, and hopefully get to hear the idiotic sound of its voice.

And if you can return to us with a perfectly realistic impression of that voice, then I promise you’ll never have to come here again if you don’t want to.” “What do you say, little baby?

You want to go human-hunting?” Kashisha asked playfully. “Oh, it’s not his choice,” Sanaika told her.

“Now, you and the others can stay here and babysit your little brother while I deliver this twerp to his date with a human.” “Aw, we wanted to come and watch!” Kashisha complained.

The other glalie griped, as well, and one of them even snapped at Sanaika in her outrage.

Sanaika calmly turned towards the offender.

His eyes suddenly turned a blazing white, and with a resounding crack , he struck her with sheer cold.

His would-be attacker’s eyes rolled back, and she dropped heavily to the floor, unconscious. “You brain wrecks!

We can’t all gather at the exit like that!” Sanaika then exclaimed.

“Do you not realize how conspicuous we would be?

What if we were spotted by some ball-chucking human, huh?

Or worse, by the authorities ?

Now, all of you, stay put , or else you’ll all find icicles where you’d rather not.” With that, Sanaika seized Solonn very harshly in his jaws and set off into the warren with him.

He carried the snorunt through a series of tunnels that led, much to Solonn’s surprise, up to the very same cavern where, all those years ago, Solonn had met Sophine and her mother.

Then Sanaika left the cavern, and he sealed the exit behind him with a wall of ice. Solonn knew that there was no way for him to get through that ice wall.

Barriers like that one were commonplace in the warren, existing to control where snorunt could and could not go.

The ice of which they were made was too thick for even his teeth, the teeth of a glacivore, to break through.

It was reinforced with the raw power of the ice element, and could only be removed by a level of cryokinetic skill that no snorunt possessed. Thus Solonn was stuck wondering what to do about his current situation—that is, until he remembered the tunnel that led up into this place from the snowgrounds.

By his recollection, it ought to have been somewhere on the opposite end of the cavern.

However, once he made his way there, he found that the secret tunnel had been blocked by another of those ice barriers.

The glalie had most likely sealed it off after he had been found up in that cavern so as to prevent any other snorunt from following suit, he determined. So it seemed that there was no other option for Solonn other than to sit and wait for some glalie—a decent one rather than someone like Sanaika, he hoped—to discover that he was here.

He figured that he couldn’t rightly get into trouble as he had last time once he’d had a chance to tell of how, and because of whom, he had ended up here… or, at least, he hoped that he couldn’t get into trouble... Solonn found himself strongly wishing that he wouldn’t have to wait much longer to be discovered, regardless of any punishment that might or might not be awaiting him.

He was growing quite nervous about remaining in this place—but why?

Other than a bunch of snow, rocks, and ice, all that he had ever found in here before were spheal and sealeo, and nothing about them scared him. As for those humans that Sanaika had said Solonn would encounter here… Gods, that’s not what you’re afraid of, is it?

Solonn thought incredulously.

Don’t be stupid, he scolded himself silently.

You know there’s no such thing as humans! “Well, well, well.

I just knew that if we kept coming back here, we were sure to find one sooner or later.” Startled, Solonn jumped at the unexpected, somewhat gruff-sounding voice.

He turned towards its source.

Standing only a couple of feet away was a blue, somewhat canine beast, with yellow fur that stood on end in spikes about his haunches and front paws and formed a diamond-shaped mane about his head—a manectric, but Solonn had no way of knowing that.

The electric-type had managed to sneak right up behind Solonn, completely unnoticed until he had spoken. “Who… who are you?” Solonn asked nervously. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of time for introductions later, buddy,” the manectric said.

He then unleashed a chilling, wavering howl, the sound of which was magnified and echoed manyfold by the cavern. As the howl faded, another sound became audible.

Solonn recognized it as the sound of snow crunching underfoot, but these footfalls sounded much heavier than those made by his own feet or those of any other snorunt.

The footsteps were approaching swiftly, and soon their owner came into view. For a very long moment, Solonn’s mind went blank at the sight of the newcomer.

The creature that now stood a short distance before him possessed long limbs, a small head, and thick layers of some strange material covering almost every square inch of her skin. They do exist, Solonn realized, his eyes wide with wonder.

Impossible though it should have been, this strange being who had just arrived on the scene fit Sanaika’s description of a human perfectly. “Ah, Brett, you found one!

Good job!” the human said brightly.

The sound of her voice surprised Solonn;

Rather than finding it to be “retarded” or “idiotic” as Sanaika had described, Solonn found her voice to be actually kind of pleasant. The human then detached a red-and-white sphere from its resting place at her hip.

It expanded in her hand, more than tripling in size.

“Come out, Aaron!” she said. At the human’s words, the sphere burst open at its equator.

Energy exploded from within the sphere in a surge of white light, and then, incredibly, it coagulated into a living creature .

Solonn was now beholding the form of a sceptile, a green, bipedal reptile with a long, bristly tail. “Don’t be afraid, snorunt,” the human said gently.

“We don’t really want to hurt you.

We’re going to make this as easy on you as possible.

You won’t even feel a thing.” She looked towards Brett, and then towards Aaron.

“Thunder wave and false swipe, please,” she instructed them respectively.

The two pokémon gave quick nods of acknowledgment, then began moving towards Solonn.

Brett’s fur crackled with dancing sparks of electricity, while one of the bladelike structures at Aaron’s left wrist took on a white glow. Where others might have screamed, fled, or perhaps attacked out of fright, Solonn only stood and stared, transfixed and almost mesmerised by disbelief and fascination at the human and the two pokémon who accompanied her.

He seemed not to even realize that he was being attacked until it was too late. Brett released a small pulse of electric-type energy.

Solonn cried out at the initial pain as the attack struck him, but a second later, that pain was gone—along with all other sensation throughout his body.

The manectric had paralyzed him.

He could no longer move or feel.

His legs gave out from under him, and he toppled over onto his side. Aaron was now standing over him, peering down through eyes of a dull yellow shade as he raised his glowing wrist blade.

Solonn could not see this, however.

His view of Aaron was limited to the forest lizard’s tail and clawed feet.

He did not see the careful, precise strike that left him on the sheer edge of consciousness, and just as the human had said would be the case, he did not feel it either. “All right, that ought to do it,” the human said.

From a pouch strapped to her shoulder, she produced another of those spheres.

This ball was different from the previous one in that its upper half was teal and bore two red, raised stripes. Barely able to remain conscious, Solonn’s mind did not quite register the human’s next action: she threw the ball at him.

It opened in midair before him and released a beam of red energy, which struck him and filled his fading vision with crimson light. One second, Solonn was lying paralyzed and nearly unconscious on the cavern’s floor.

The next… he was nowhere.

Wow. It felt like watching live tv more than reading a fanfic!

How you describe that ice cave is superb, especially considering how little variation there is in the environment.

I like it how we crawl into the characters mind, too, that makes for even a better reading experience. I can't say I've read the previous story, but I might decide to if I feel lost at any time.

You have me hooked, anyway.

Crystalmaster Mike: Quote: : Mike Wow.

It felt like watching live tv more than reading a fanfic!

How you describe that ice cave is superb, especially considering how little variation there is in the environment.

I like it how we crawl into the characters mind, too, that makes for even a better reading experience. I can't say I've read the previous story, but I might decide to if I feel lost at any time.

You have me hooked, anyway.

Thanks. ^^ Yeah, the lack of variation in the surroundings is a particular challenge I find in wiriting about things that take place in those caves;

Since there's rarely anything worth noting in the surroundings, there's the risk of it seeming bland compared to some other settings.

I'm glad you liked the way I've depicted such a place.

^^ And yeah, getting into the minds of the characters is one of my favorite aspects of writing.

Glad you like how I've done that, too.

^^ Chapter 3 – The Deal The human’s name was Morgan Yorke.

She was seventeen years old and a resident of Lilycove, which was a very large human settlement that lay across the sea to the west of Virc-Dho. After capturing her new snorunt in the Shoal Cave, Morgan had returned to Lilycove at once by means of her claydol’s teleport technique.

Following a quick stop at the local pokémon center, where her new pokémon was restored to full health, she made her way directly to her house with her new acquisition in tow. Now, in her room once more, she immediately let Solonn out of his great ball to give him his first look at his new home. There were a number of things that Solonn felt upon his release from the capture ball.

First came sheer relief, both at no longer being drained and paralyzed (he distantly wondered how he had recovered so completely and suddenly), and, to a greater degree, at just being out of that ball—its particular style of confinement had just been too surreal.

He had been conscious all the while that he’d been contained within that sphere, but had seemed not to actually exist .

It was as though the great ball had reduced him to nothing more than a mind without a body, impossible though it seemed that such a thing should be.

Trying to make sense of it seemed to achieve nothing more than a sore head, and so Solonn pushed that particular matter aside for the time being. With the mysteries of the capture ball no longer first and foremost on his mind, Solonn’s focus shifted from where he had just been to where he now was.

As he began to take in his surroundings, he couldn’t help being fascinated by his new environment.

It was a place of bright light, and of surfaces that were clearly not made of stone, ice, or any other material with which Solonn was familiar.

He was presently sitting upon a soft-surfaced floor, gazing about at the furnishings that surrounded him.

He immediately began to wonder about their purpose.

The walls were particularly peculiar, for they were almost completely covered with images of humans.

Human faces, as unique and widely varied as snowflakes, gazed upon him from all sides in groups of three to six. Fascinating though they were, Solonn found himself less interested in the humans in those pictures than he was in the words that accompanied them—words that were seen rather than heard.

He had never seen such a thing in his life. Solonn was able to read those words, to understand them just as if they had been spoken aloud to him—though that ability did him little good in this situation.

The messages that those pictures bore made no sense to Solonn, for he did not know that those pictured groups of humans were bands, and the messages included in those pictures were the names of those bands. Of course, the human who was actually live and in person within that room, watching him all the while and continuing to do so as his gaze fell upon her and lingered there, was an even greater source of fascination to him.

Since his captor was no longer wearing the heavy clothing that had protected her from the cold of the Shoal Cave, Solonn could finally get a good look at her.

Sanaika had described humans as freakish, but looking at Morgan, Solonn only saw a creature that was different from himself and even more different from the glalie, not anything that he would consider ugly or weird. Morgan was almost twice his height, with arms and legs that were much longer compared to the rest of her body than Solonn’s limbs were to his own.

Her skin was a pale shade between pink and beige, and her eyes were green and lightless.

Her fur—her hair—was brown and extended from the top of her head down to her shoulders.

Her clothing presently consisted of a simple, grey shirt, baggy jeans, and black shoes.

She was also wearing a thin, black belt around her waist, and attached to that belt were four capture balls. The next thing Solonn noticed about his present situation was that the environment into which he had been brought was too warm for his liking, and he did not hesitate to tell Morgan as much. “Er… excuse me,” he began tentatively.

“It’s a little too warm in here… could you do anything about that?” The human merely stared at him in response. Solonn repeated his request.

This time, Morgan cocked her head a bit and smiled at him, but she still did not answer, nor did she make any move to change the temperature. It was then that Solonn realized that the human was not understanding a single word that he was saying.

This did not make sense to him;

Every time before that Solonn had encountered a member of another species, they had been as able to understand him as were those of his own kind.

Why was the human any different? Solonn wondered then if Morgan might understand him if he were to speak to her using a human voice.

As he considered it, his mind brought forth the memories of Morgan’s voice as he had heard it back in the Shoal Cave, and he felt quite sure that he could pull off an imitation of that voice. With that confidence, he was about to give the voice a try—but then he stopped himself.

He had just been struck by the realization that his “impressions” were what had gotten him swept up into this situation to begin with.

It was because of those impressions that he had gotten mixed up with Sanaika’s gang.

It was because of those impressions that now—it hit him all at once—he would likely never see home again. In sudden panic, Solonn began to tremble, and Morgan responded to this right away.

“Oh, poor little guy,” she said, looking upon him with a pitying expression as she knelt down upon the floor in front of him.

“It’s okay; you have nothing to be scared of.” At this point, Morgan opened her arms to Solonn, which only confused him.

She then wrapped her arms around him and tried to lift him up, but he was quite heavier than she had expected.

Solonn, meanwhile, did not like what Morgan was doing.

For a moment, his instincts took over, and he tried to wriggle free of her grasp.

He just barely managed to stop himself short of biting her. Finally, sensing both the futility of her efforts and the snorunt’s aversion to what she was trying to do, Morgan gave up and let go of Solonn.

Shaking the coldness of her contact with the ice-type from her hands, she stood and went to fetch a pillow from the bed.

She placed it on the floor as something on which Solonn could sit and perhaps be more comfortable.

The snorunt ignored it completely, his blue eyes fixing Morgan with a penetrating stare. The human sighed.

“Okay. I’ll tell you what: I’ll go and get you something nice, something that I promise you’ll like.

In the meantime, I’ll give you a chance to get acquainted with a couple of your new friends.

You’ve already met Aaron and Brett, but I have three other pokémon friends.

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to meet Sei until she gets out of the pokémon center;

She’s been pretty sick.

But you can go ahead and introduce yourself to these two.” She removed two capture balls from her belt and released their occupants in twin surges of white light.

The pokémon who materialized then were two of the strangest beings Solonn had ever seen. One of them was a steel-feathered, silver-hued avian.

The razorlike edges of her wings, talons, beak, and tail glinted dangerously in the brilliant lighting of Morgan’s room.

There was something strangely disconcerting on a very primal level about this metal vulture, but Solonn could not quite place what that something was. The other pokémon was a peculiar, hovering being who looked as though its many pale red eyes had gotten greedy and taken most of its body for themselves.

The head that held those eyes was quite large compared to its adjoined body, while the creature’s limbs were quite small.

Its black, rough-textured skin was accented with gold and silver patterns that adorned the pokémon’s chest and surrounded its eyes. “The skarmory here is Raze,” Morgan introduced, indicating the silver pokémon, “and the claydol is named Ominous.” She indicated the black pokémon.

“Oh… I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I?” she realized aloud with a small giggle.

“My name is Morgan.

Anyway, these pokémon are some of my best friends, and I just know that, ultimately, you and I are going to get to be really good friends, too.

See you in a few minutes!” she then said and left the room. For a moment, the skarmory and the claydol just stared at Solonn, and he seemed unable to do anything but stare back.

He quickly began to wish they would stop it, particularly with regards to Ominous—it was just more than a little unnerving to him to have that many eyes staring at him from the same face. All those great, red eyes left no room on Ominous’s face for it to possess a mouth;

Therefore, it was quite a surprise for Solonn to hear the claydol speak to him then—although it didn’t sound as though Ominous was actually saying anything.

Its “voice”, if it could truly be called that, consisted of a rapid-fire series of low-pitched, hollow-sounding noises.

Solonn got an immediate sense that he could never replicate that voice, no matter how he tried. “With your brain , nitwit!” Raze suddenly squawked, interrupting the claydol. Ominous winced, closing all of its eyes in unison and looking very embarrassed.

<I apologize,>

It said. <I should not still be forgetting about that…> A second after Ominous had spoken, Solonn realized, astounded, that he’d not actually heard its words.

Rather, even while Oth’s actual voice had rattled on incomprehensibly in Solonn’s ears, the words the claydol was conveying had sounded within his mind , just as one of his own thoughts would do.

Solonn wasn’t quite sure what to make of this phenomenon. <As I was attempting to say,>

Ominous proceeded then, <the name by which Morgan called me is not my actual name.

My true name is Oth.> “My name really is Raze, though,” the skarmory said slightly dismally.

“I was born in this house, and that’s when Morgan gave me that name.

I don’t think it’s such a great name, but…” She ruffled her magenta-feathered wings in the skarmory equivalent of a shrug.

“So, what name did she give you?” Raze asked then. “Er… I don’t know,” Solonn admitted.

“My real name is Solonn, though.” <She must not have given him his new name yet, then,>

Oth supposed. “Maybe she isn’t going to give me another name,” Solonn said. “Oh, she’ll give you one,” Raze said.

“Maybe you’ll like it, and maybe you won’t.

But you’ll be grateful for it, and also grateful that you got landed with Morgan and not some other coordinator, because with some coordinators, you would just get called ‘Snorunt’.” “…Coordinators?” Solonn had never heard of such a thing. Raze cocked her head at Solonn.

“You have a lot to learn,” she said. “Then you have a lot to explain,” Solonn countered.

“What’s a coordinator?” “Well, a coordinator is your human coach and partner for the contests,” Raze explained.

“And before you ask: in a contest, you just basically have to show off your powers.

You use them in ways that impress humans.

In your case, that means you can’t just blow a couple of snowflakes at them and expect to win.” Somehow, the idea of “showing off” for the humans was less than appealing—in fact, it rather reminded Solonn of being ushered off by Kashisha to show off for her friends.

“Wait, why would I want to do this, anyway?” he asked.

“What’s in it for me?” Raze’s yellow eyes suddenly glittered with zeal.

“I’ll show you!” she said eagerly, and speedily crossed the room.

“Come here!” she beckoned gleefully, standing before a semi-tall bookcase.

After a moment of skeptical hesitation, Solonn complied.

“Have a look at these!” Raze said cheerfully once the snorunt had joined her, inclining her head towards something sitting on the bookcase’s top shelf. “I can’t see up there, Raze,” Solonn said.

He stood at barely more than half the height of the bookcase. “Oh… oops,” Raze said with a small, embarrassed laugh.

Somewhat awkwardly, she used her beak to pick up the thing that she was trying to show to Solonn and placed it on the floor between herself and the snorunt. Solonn peered at the object that had just been placed before him.

It was a large, flat, plastic case.

Through its transparent lid, he could see a collection of small trinkets—colored ribbons, each adorned with a little metal medallion.

There were twelve of them;

Four were red, four were green, and four were yellow.

The case also contained slots for eight more of these ribbons. “The red ones are mine,” Raze said, positively radiating pride.

“The yellow ones are Oth’s, and the green ones are Sei’s.

Now, yours , if I’m not mistaken, are gonna be blue.” “Hm.” You sure are assuming a lot, Raze… Solonn thought.

It was going to take more than just a bunch of ribbons to convince Solonn that these “contests” were anything of which he should like to have any part.

“So,” he spoke up after a long moment’s silence, looking up from the ribbon case and right into Raze’s eyes, “this is what Morgan keeps us for?” “Well, yeah, pretty much,” Raze answered.

She then put the ribbon case back up on top of the bookcase, taking one last moment to admire her ribbons before turning her attention fully to the snorunt. “So… suppose I didn’t want to be a part of these contests… would she take me back home, then?” Solonn asked. There was a prolonged silence.

Raze and Oth exchanged awkward glances. “Well?” Solonn pressed. <Solonn…>

Oth began hesitantly.

<Morgan had been seeking a snorunt to train for entry into contests for quite some time.

She has spent many an hour composing routines and strategies for you… I do not imagine that she would want for her plans to go to waste, Solonn.> “Well, maybe she can just go find some other snorunt for the job,” Solonn suggested.

“Someone who actually wants it.” <I do not believe you would really want that,>

Oth said intuitively.

<You do not truly wish for another snorunt, possibly one of your friends, to be taken from his or her home just so that you can return to your own.> Solonn stared agape at Oth for a moment.

The claydol was completely right;

Solonn did not even try in the slightest to contradict it. “This… this is your home now, Solonn,” Raze said in a pale facsimile of consolation that she knew to be futile even as she offered it.

“You’ll get used to it eventually;

I know you will.” “Yeah, of course you can say that,” Solonn muttered, not really bothering to make himself inaudible.

“You were born here.” “I—” Raze began to counter, but she couldn’t quite find the right words with which to respond and thus abandoned her comeback with a sigh. It was then that the door opened as Morgan returned.

She was not alone.

Accompanying her was another human female, one who was slightly taller than Morgan.

This newcomer’s eyes were the same green hue as Morgan’s, but her hair was black and much shorter.

She was wearing a yellow sundress and white sandals, along with large earrings in the shape of sunflowers. “There he is,” Morgan said as she entered, indicating Solonn with her hand.

“What do you think of him?” “Oh, he’s adorable,” the other human remarked.

She stooped slightly to come a bit closer to the snorunt’s eye level.

“Hi,” she said in a friendly tone.

“Let me introduce myself.

I’m Eliza, Morgan’s mother.” She extended her arms to Solonn with an expecting gaze. “He doesn’t do hugs,” Morgan informed her. “Oh… Well, that’s all right,” Eliza said, withdrawing her arms and straightening her posture.

“What’s his name?” she then asked. “I’ve decided to call him Azrael,” Morgan replied. Solonn gave her a funny look.

That’s really the best you could come up with? “Oh, that’s lovely,” Eliza commented. Morgan smiled in response to her mother’s remark.

She then brought a small, styrofoam bowl forward, holding it out in front of Solonn. Distracted by the arrival of the new human, Solonn hadn’t even noticed that Morgan had been holding the bowl.

He now scrutinized it with uncertainty, edging somewhat closer to it in order to get a look inside.

He saw that the bowl contained something that looked more or less like snow but didn’t smell like snow and was furthermore bright blue in color. “This is for you,” Morgan told him.

“Try it, it’s really good.” Solonn stared into the bowl for another second or two, then turned a skeptical gaze towards Morgan. “Go on, it’s tasty.

I promise you’ll like it,” Morgan tried to assure him. Still wearing an expression of doubt, Solonn nonetheless took the bowl from Morgan’s hands.

He continued to hesitate for another long moment before unenthusiastically dipping his hand into the blue snow, scooping some of it up, and putting it in his mouth.

The blue snow had a flavor that he could never have imagined—he conceded to himself at once that it was good as Morgan had said it would be, if not moreso. However… the knowledge that his life had become one whose sole purpose was to perform tricks for people’s amusement like some kind of jester and that there seemed to be no way to return to the life that he’d previously known was now attending heavily upon him and leaving a rather unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He did not feel like eating.

With a despondent sigh, he set the bowl down and turned away from Morgan. “Hey… are you feeling okay?” Morgan asked worriedly. Solonn did not respond to her, neither then nor following her several subsequent attempts to get through to him.

More than once, she tried to tempt him with that blue snow, but he continued to refuse it.

He could not change this new life, but for a while, at least, he could try to ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t happening. * * * The remainder of that evening, as well as the night that followed, consisted of an awkward pattern of failed interactions between Solonn and his would-be coordinator.

Morgan attempted time and time again to converse and be friendly with him, but each time, she was met with resolute silence from the snorunt.

After each unsuccessful attempt to socialize with him, she would leave him alone for an hour or so before giving it another go, only to fail to get through to him yet again. To her credit, the human was, at least, considerate enough to leave Solonn out of the mind-boggling pseudo-existance of confinement in the great ball through the night.

Perhaps, Solonn considered, she had thought that this would offer her new pokémon some time to grow more accustomed to his surroundings.

However, the snorunt instead viewed it as a potential opportunity to flee from the human’s custody while she slept. Unfortunately, he found out very quickly that escape was not an option.

The door was rendered an impassible barrier by a sliding lock, one that was installed in the door at a height that was beyond Solonn’s reach.

If not for the fact that Morgan’s bookcase contained small, pewter pokémon statues rather than books, he might have been able to stack up a few volumes as a means by which to reach that lock. The room’s sole window was positioned within Solonn’s reach, but it did not offer an avenue of escape, either;

Morgan’s room was upstairs in a two-story house.

Though by no means enjoying his present situation, Solonn wasn’t inclined to escape it by falling to likely injury and possible death. Having given up on finding a way to slip out, he just sat there on the windowsill, staring out through the window at its view of a bizarre and alien environment.

Outside, Lilycove sparkled as streetlights and the headlights of cars shone in the night.

This was not his world, not his place—though he could not deny that he found it fascinating, even rather lovely to behold. Though tired in many ways, most of which were not physical, Solonn found that he could not sleep.

His eyes remained open and fixed on the city outside, watching as the rising sun brought a new day over the border of the horizon. A couple of hours later, Morgan stirred nearby in her bed, awakening.

Sighing, Solonn turned away from the window at last, wondering in which ways the human would try to reach him today. He received his answer quite shortly.

Morgan left the room for a few minutes, then returned with more of that blue snow and set it down in front of him.

He accepted it this time and ate nearly all of it, but only because he was earnestly very hungry.

The human smiled at him as she took away the empty bowl, then departed to take her own breakfast. It was when Morgan next returned that she attempted to step up the level of interaction between herself and her new pokémon a little more. “I’ll bet you’re wondering why you’re here, aren’t you?” she said, her tone clearly intended to sound as kindly and non-threatening as possible.

“Well, you don’t have to worry.

It’s not going to be anywhere near as scary as you might think.

In fact, I bet you’ll have more fun than you’ve ever had before.” Morgan then proceeded to illustrate her intention to enter Solonn in contests, not really telling him anything he hadn’t already heard from Raze and Oth the evening before.

He pretended not to pay any attention to her, though in reality he was, of course, absorbing her every word.

It seemed that he was simply unable to tune out a foreign voice. The day progressed, and Morgan continued to tell Solonn of the ideas she had conceived with regards to the routines that he could employ in contests.

As she spoke to him, he had to admit to himself that she didn’t sound as though she truly had any malevolent intentions for him.

She wasn’t really coming across as a human version of Kashisha;

She seemed only to possess a friendly desire to invite him into her strange little hobby, not a desire to prey on him in any sense. Whether Morgan’s intentions were benign or not, Solonn nonetheless was still not too keen on the idea of making a spectacle of himself, having learned all too well how doing such sometimes earned the wrong kind of attention.

There was also still the matter of his captor’s purported unwillingness to let Solonn leave if he so wished, which, of course, made it rather difficult for him to very readily accept any sort of friendship or partnership with the human.

Hence, as the evening found Morgan offering to initiate the first steps in Solonn’s training, he refused her efforts to bring him into the role that she had chosen for him in silent protest of his detainment. That night, Solonn sat once again in the moonlight, contemplating his situation as he perched upon the windowsill and gazed outside.

Lilycove, that city of sparkling lights and boundless otherness, bore no resemblance to the world that Solonn had known;

Nothing out there within the scope of his vision did.

This left him quite certain that he was very far from home, too far for him to feasibly make it back there by himself. His eyes fell upon the bed where the human was peacefully sleeping.

Solonn wanted to leave, to return home, but this creature would not allow him to do so. Wait, though… how do I really know she wouldn’t?

The thought occurred to him then.

Raze and Oth had implied that Morgan had no intention of letting him go, but the human herself had never said anything along the lines of, “You’re never leaving.

You’re mine forever.” No, Morgan had never specifically mentioned anything regarding whether or not Solonn could ever depart her custody.

Moreover, she didn’t even know that her new snorunt desired to be returned to his home. What if she actually knew that I want to go back home?

Solonn wondered. He could really only speculate as to what her response would be, though, for the problem remained that she was, for whatever reason, unable to understand his speech.

He could not communicate with her. …Although, maybe he could.

He had, after all, still not tried to see if Morgan could understand him if he were to speak like a human.

However, he was still hesitant to attempt it, for the memory of what the last use of his mimicry had earned for him was still fresh on his mind. The fact remained, though, that Solonn would likely never know how Morgan would really respond to his desire to be returned home unless he shared it with her.

As he thought about it, it began to seem to him that he was doing himself more of a disservice by not giving it a try than by taking the risk. Furthermore, Solonn questioned if there really was that much of a risk involved with exposing his talents in order to speak with this creature.

True, he had gotten into trouble the last time he had presented this skill of his.

However, as he considered once again, Morgan was no Kashisha, at least not as far as he could tell.

So perhaps it wouldn’t be like last time.

Perhaps Morgan would simply hear him out, without making him sorry that he’d reached out to her.

Perhaps… perhaps she would listen to his wishes… and fulfill them… But then, Solonn found himself considering what Oth had told him: <I do not imagine that she would want for her plans to go to waste, Solonn.>

Morgan had obviously had her heart set on entering contests with him.

She certainly would not so readily abandon those aspirations.

Solonn could tell her that he wanted to leave, but as long as she held these intentions for him, what chance was there, really, that she would let him go? That’s when the idea hit him. Maybe, just maybe… a deal could be struck. Solonn carefully gauged the distance between the windowsill and the bed, then sprung from his perch.

The mattress yielded springily to Solonn’s weight as he landed, yet Morgan slept on, snoring slightly.

Solonn gazed at her from the foot of the bed.

Her sleeping form glowed softly through the darkness with the heat of her body, giving her an almost spectrelike appearance. Moving towards the concentrated glow that surrounded the human’s head almost as if it were a beacon, Solonn made his way to the head of the bed.

Morgan’s face was half concealed by a few errant strands of her hair.

Solonn moved them aside, revealing the serene visage of his captor.

It was interesting, he thought, how a creature whose practice was to abduct people from their homes could look so incredibly benign.

The snorunt then reached down towards the human’s face again, this time drawing his hand slowly across her cheek. Morgan stirred, but only very slightly.

Solonn had assumed that the contrasting coldness of his hand against her warm skin would be sufficient to awaken her, but now realized that he should have recognized her as a heavy sleeper when his jumping on the bed had failed to make her wake up.

He proceeded to begin prodding her in the temple, hoping that that would end her slumber.

If it didn’t, he was prepared to do whatever it took to awaken her.

He was not averse to giving her a small bite if that was what it took. Luckily for Morgan (at least compared to the biting she would have otherwise received), Solonn’s current efforts succeeded in waking her up, if only because one of his prods missed its mark somewhat and found its way into her left eye. “Hey!” she responded at once, awakening instantly but not quite fully.

She lifted her head slightly from the pillow, grumbling incoherently as she rubbed her sore eye.

Once she had ceased this activity, she shook her head a bit in an effort to more fully awaken, yawning loudly as she did so.

She then shifted and turned, sitting up slightly more and craning her neck awkwardly in order to try and get a look at what could have possibly just poked her in the eye.

Her eyes, still blurry and adjusting to their resumed usage, just managed to make out the pointed silhouette of the snorunt standing beside her.

The light from the ice-type’s tiny eyes partially illuminated his face and reflected brightly off of the pristine, white surfaces of his large teeth, giving him a rather eerie appearance. “Hello, Morgan,” he said quietly, nearly whispering, in a slightly wavering, curiously feminine-sounding voice. Morgan blinked sleepily at the snorunt for a second.

“…Hi,” she said finally, the word almost lost in its emergence in the near-simultaneous release of another great yawn. Then she realized to whom and what she had just replied. In an instant, she was wide awake, sitting upright and staring at the pokémon beside her with greatly widened eyes.

For a very long moment, response of any sort to the situation failed her.

Finally, she managed a half-gasped, “ What ?” “I said hello,” Solonn repeated, his voice deceptively calm. Morgan remained silently agape for another substantial moment before she seemed able to get her next words out.

“…But… no, you can’t…” “Yes, I can.” “But… how?” Morgan asked, her voice sounding rather strained. “…I don’t know how I can,” Solonn admitted uneasily.

He honestly didn’t know how he was able to use the voices of others.

All he knew was that he had just started doing so one day. Morgan took a moment to digest that silently.

“This is a dream,” she then decided aloud, and began to turn away from Solonn and back towards her pillow. “No, it’s not,” Solonn said.

“And you know it’s not.” He leaned over her slightly, so that the light of his eyes shone almost directly into hers.

“But if you want to be sure, I can bite you.

It’d hurt, and I’m sorry it would, but you’d be sure you were really feeling it, I promise you.” Morgan sat up once again.

For a second, she was leveling a look at Solonn that suggested that she wanted to accuse him of lying, but that gaze faltered almost as soon as it had formed.

She turned slightly, seeming less than willing now to look him right in the eyes.

“It’s okay, Azrael.

You don’t have to bite me.

I… I believe you.” Solonn nodded slightly.

“Good. That’s good,” he said, his words followed by a small sigh of slight relief.

There went the first obstacle—Morgan seemed to have accepted that she could now understand his speech.

Hopefully, she could now be counted on to hear him out.

“…But Morgan? My name isn’t Azrael.

It’s Solonn,” he then said. Morgan’s expression momentarily turned to one of surprise, but quickly relaxed once more.

“It shouldn’t surprise me that you have your own name,” she said, sounding a bit apologetic.

“I bet a lot of pokémon do.

Like Sei; she told me hers the first time she evolved, and I’ve been calling her that ever since.

Before that, I’d been calling her Enchantress…” Morgan chuckled slightly.

“I liked that name, but she told me not to call her that anymore, so I don’t.

Now, Ominous… Sei told me what its real name was, and so I asked it if it wanted me to start calling it Oth from now on—that’s its name—but it said not to.

I think it might have been worried about hurting my feelings by turning down the name I gave it… it’s such a softie, really…” “So… you mean you can understand Sei, too?” Solonn asked, a bit surprised. “Yeah.

But that’s only because she’s a very powerful psychic-type.

She has really advanced telepathic skills, and that’s how she can make me understand her.” “Oth has telepathy, too.

Why can’t you understand it?” Solonn asked. “…I actually didn’t know that it had telepathy,” Morgan said, sounding surprised. Oth must be hiding it from her… Solonn realized.

He found himself beginning to wonder why it would do so, and also began to worry slightly that he perhaps shouldn’t have told Morgan of its telepathy since Oth apparently desired to keep that matter a secret. Morgan, meanwhile, had found herself able to make eye contact with Solonn again.

Her expression now was one that spoke of burgeoning amazement.

“…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be goggling at you like this,” she said as she seemed to realize the way that she was looking at Solonn.

“It’s just… God, this is so incredible.

I thought pokémon had to use telepathy to make themselves understood.” “Guess you were wrong,” Solonn said simply. “Guess so.” Morgan gave a soft laugh and smiled, her features exuding something that looked rather like pride (although why Morgan should feel proud, Solonn couldn’t figure out;

It wasn’t as though she were to credit for his ability to speak to humans, after all). The human’s features shifted suddenly, becoming strangely unreadable.

“Hey. Could you do me a favor, though?” she asked. “What?” “Do you… do you have to sound like a girl when you talk?” Morgan inquired.

A very odd look came over her face, widening her eyes, as she realized something.

“Do you have to sound like me ?

How can you sound like me?!” she demanded, sounding rather alarmed. “Shh!

Try to keep quiet;

I don’t want your mother to wake up,” Solonn urged.

“And I already told you, I don’t know how I do it.” “…Sorry,” Morgan said, lowering her voice significantly.

“But anyway, could you just… um, not sound like me?

No offense, but it’s… kind of weirding me out.

Why don’t you just use your normal voice from now on, okay?” Solonn was about to respond, to tell Morgan that if he stopped using this human voice, she would no longer understand him.

But then, something caught in his mind: Why should what voice I use make a difference in whether or not anyone understands me?

He could understand how the abilities of a psychic could make the understanding of speech possible by entering the mind and tricking it into hearing words it recognized.

He, however, was no psychic, and he knew it. How, then, was he achieving communication with this being who could not normally understand him?

A different voice should still only produce the same words, not have the power to transform those words into others.

If a creature, like this human, could not understand his words, he should have to use different words to be understood.

Their words. Their language. The gears of his mind momentarily stopped turning as epiphany struck him like a falling stone. The only way Morgan could be understanding him was if he was, in fact, speaking her language instead of his own. And that was precisely what he was doing. Solonn was stupefied.

For the life of him, he could not fathom how this could be at all possible.

How in the world could he spontaneously be able to fluently speak a language that he did not, could not know, a language of which he had only heard a couple of handfuls of words?

It was a staggering, almost paralyzing notion to him. He swallowed hard, and his mouth went immediately arid afterward.

He was fond of wondering, and loath to resist the urge to do so, but when the desire to understand was so savagely desperate… It was almost physically painful, knowing that there was something so strange, so wondrous in its seeming impossibility within him, and wanting dearly to know quite what it was and how it could be possible… but being unable to do so. If he had belonged to some other species, he might have begun crying in his astonishment.

As it happened, though, by some idiosyncrasy in the biology of his race, his tears were not in service to his emotions.

His internal struggle to fathom himself could only convey itself through the trembling of his body and the wavering of the light in his eyes. “Is… is something wrong?” Morgan asked, sounding genuinely concerned. Solonn met her gaze, the earnest care behind the human’s eyes managing to register within his mind despite his own present internal chaos.

He tried to respond, but couldn’t quite decide what to say, especially since he wasn’t quite sure of how he should say it.

He should be able to use his own voice—it had to be the language and not the voice—but he still just couldn’t quite believe it. “It’s okay,” Morgan said.

“If you’re not comfortable talking to me in your own voice, you don’t really have to.” Solonn closed his eyes.

“No,” he croaked softly, continuing to use Morgan’s voice, his throat feeling as though it were trying to seal itself shut.

“No, it’s… it’s not that.” To prove that that wasn’t the issue, he determined that he would have to try and speak to Morgan with his own voice, while still speaking her language.

He would just have to try and force himself not to let his mind be ensnared by the mental block created by the notion that he was doing something that should not be possible. Solonn took a deep breath and forced himself to return Morgan’s gaze once more.

“It’s nothing…” he finally managed.

Conscious as he now was of the seemingly impossible thing that he was doing, the release of his every word felt as though he were pushing a boulder out of his mouth.

Get a grip, he tried to command himself, you’re supposed to be talking to her for a reason, remember?

“Listen…” he began slowly, all too self-consciously.

“I’m sorry I woke you… but we need to talk.” Morgan nodded.

“Okay. What about?” “Well… it’s about those contests…” “You don’t want to do them, do you?” Morgan said.

“I’ve kind of gotten that impression.” “…What?” Solonn was taken aback—he had not expected that the human would have recognized his desires.

Why should she, after all, if she didn’t care?

“No… I mean, I’d rather not, but… I’ll do them.” “Azr—Solonn… you don’t have to.

Seriously, if you don’t want to…” “No, it’s okay,” Solonn insisted.

By the initial impression that he’d gotten from Raze’s and Oth’s words, he had imagined that Morgan would take great offense to his wishes to have nothing to do with the contests if she were to learn about them and would vehemently refuse to relinquish her plans for him.

Yet here she was, ready to give up her intentions for him without any sign of a conflict.

Solonn now found himself feeling quite guilty about his unfavorable preconceptions of her. He sighed.

“I know… I know you’ve been planning hard for a long time for this… and I know it means a lot to you.

It’s… it’s not a big deal.

Really. I’ll do it—but only on one condition.” “What?” Morgan asked, sending a troubled, doubtful look into Solonn’s eyes. Solonn took another deep breath.

“Okay. Raze and Oth… they showed me their ribbons.

Four each. That’s… that’s how many I have to get myself, isn’t it?

Four?” he asked. Morgan nodded.

“Okay. After I get the fourth one—you have to promise me, Morgan—after I get that fourth ribbon… you have to let me go.

You have to take me back home.

Promise me, Morgan.

Or I won’t do it.” “Oh, Solonn…” Morgan’s gaze turned from merely troubled to earnestly sad, earnestly sorry.

“If you want to go so bad, I’ll take you home.

Right now. I’ll get Ominous out of its ball and wake it up, and we’ll teleport there right now—” “No!” Solonn interrupted suddenly.

His guilt had increased a dozenfold—not only was Morgan fully accepting of his wishes regarding the contests, she was even completely ready and willing to take him straight back home… and he had imagined her as immovably, irreconcilably possessive of him, as a creature who would never release his life from the grip of her own… “No… I said it’s okay, and I meant it,” he insisted, trying his best to convey a firm conviction despite his shaking, unsteady voice.

“I’ll do this. I don’t mind, I really don’t, just as long as I know I’ll be going home when this is done.

That way… that way, we can both get what we want.” He swallowed.

“It’s only fair, don’t you think?” There was a long silence, one that seemed to tremor along with the two who shared it.

Morgan gazed with anguish at Solonn, silent until a strangled sound, the prelude to a sob, was cast from her throat.

Her eyes grew brighter;

Not glowing like Solonn’s own, but rather holding a clear, brilliant sparkle not unlike that of the ice that glazed the walls back in the warren.

With a single blink, those eyes released the source of their shine, as twin sparkling tears fell forth and formed streams down the human’s face that shimmered in the moonlight. Solonn had never seen such a phenomenon in his life and was immediately stricken by the beauty he saw in it and the almost mystical way that it conveyed the human’s emotions to him.

He could almost feel her anguish as if it was his own. Morgan nodded then, but that action was overshadowed by a sudden, forward motion that was halfway between lunging and collapsing.

Her arms encircled Solonn, and she pressed her forehead against his.

The snorunt stiffened, initially surprised by and resistant to the unexpected contact, but he managed to get himself to relax quickly enough. “Okay,” Morgan said, half-whispering, half-sobbing.

“If you’re really okay with this, then we’ll go ahead with it.

And then afterward, I’ll take you home.

I promise.” Solonn nodded, acknowledging Morgan’s seeming acceptance of his terms.

He had imagined that he would be greatly surprised should the deal go through.

Now, however, he couldn’t believe that he’d honestly expected that it wouldn’t.

Morgan cared as much about his wishes as her own;

That much was now certain to him.

She was perfectly willing to give him what he wanted.

In return and in appreciation of that—and in apology for harboring such harsh preconceptions, too, although he did quite a good job of convincing himself that his sense of guilt had very little to do with it—he would give her what she wanted.

In his mind, it seemed only fair, after all. The definite impression Solonn got from the human was that her word could be trusted.

One day, she would take him home.

But, until then… It was now, with the initial panic at the prospect of never again seeing home having gone and passed, that the opportunities of Solonn’s situation dared at last to come forward and present themselves to him.

Until the day arrived when he would return to Virc-Dho, perhaps he would get to encounter and experience more strange things, more wonders of which he could never have concieved.

This, he reckoned, could be interesting

I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who’s been reading this story so far.

^^ Now, let us proceed… Chapter 4 – Spell of the Spotlight The following morning brought a choice. “All right, Solonn.

The contest hall here in town will be holding two normal rank contests—those are the ones for newcomers—in the upcoming months,” Morgan said.

“There’ll be one in three weeks, on the twenty-fifth, and then there’ll be another one two months afterward, on August twenty-fifth.

Now, if you start your training now, you could enter into the earlier one, but you might want to wait until the August contest so that you can get more practice in and be more prepared.

But it’s your call, Solonn.” “I’ll go for the earlier one,” Solonn said at once.

In his mind, it was no question at all—the sooner he got started with these contests, the sooner, he reckoned, he could be done with them and return to his home. Morgan nodded.

“Okay, then.” She would have preferred for him to wait until the later contest, believing with certainty that the extra time to prepare would have done him quite a bit of good.

Nonetheless, she chose to respect Solonn’s choice and allowed his decision to stand. * * * That afternoon, Solonn’s contest training began in earnest.

It was initiated in a way which Solonn found quite odd: Morgan offered him a small, indigo-colored cube and told him to eat it, saying that it would help him to do well in the contests. Solonn looked at Morgan as if she were crazy.

“How is this thing supposed to make any difference in whether or not I win?” “Well… what it does is it refines your appearance.

These pokéblocks will help you look as healthy and as… er, handsome as you can look.

Making a good visual impression on the audience and judges is very important.” Solonn continued to gaze skeptically at the human.

Whatever, he decided finally, and took the pokéblock from Morgan, devouring it quickly.

The little candy was… okay ;

It was kind of good, except that it had this funny, sort of sour aftertaste.

That was really the only fault Solonn could find with the pokéblock, though, and it was really only mildly unpleasant—at first.

Then he found the little candy cube beginning to disagree with him… and then to strongly disagree with him… Morgan’s expression was one of disappointment (not to mention revulsion) as before her eyes, the snorunt’s body rejected the pokéblock.

However, that undesired reaction did not dissuade her from attempting to feed Solonn another of those indigo candies later that evening.

Naturally, Solonn resisted at first—he wasn’t exactly eager to throw up again, after all. “This one’s different,” Morgan tried to assure him.

“I made more than one formula since I didn’t know which you’d do best with.

Unfortunately, they just so happen to be the same color—but I promise you, they’re not the same.

I even got rid of all of the other kind, so there won’t be any mix-ups.” Solonn stared warily at her for a long while, his stomach threatening to go sour at just the mere memory of what the last pokéblock had done to him.

Then, with a sigh of resignation, he accepted this identical-looking yet supposedly different pokéblock.

Immediately, he discovered that Morgan had indeed been telling the truth—this little indigo cube was different from its predecessor.

The flavor was one that Solonn immediately and greatly liked, and it didn’t have the disagreeable, sour aftertaste of the other pokéblock.

Seconds passed, and it showed no threat of sickening him.

Solonn looked up at Morgan with an approving smile. Morgan smiled back.

“Ah, so this one’s a winner, huh?” Solonn nodded in response.

“Good! Okay, then.

You’ll be getting two of these a day until they’ve done as much for you as they can,” she told him. This was certainly an aspect of contest training that Solonn didn’t mind in the least.

However, he remained skeptical that merely eating candies was going to sufficiently prepare him for any sort of competition.

He wondered what else the human might have in store for him in order to get him ready for these contests, these things which were the sole obstacle impeding his return home. * * * Around noon the next day, Morgan departed and returned a short while later accompanied by a heretofore unfamiliar presence. “Solonn, this is Sei Salma, an alakazam,” Morgan introduced. The pokémon at her side bowed, her blonde mustache twitching slightly as she smiled warmly.

Sei’s appearance was a curious mix of vulpine, insect-like, and humanoid characteristics.

Her face was distinctly foxlike, with long, pointed ears and narrow, sly-looking eyes of a dark blue shade.

The rest of her body, however, bore a shimmering, chitinous exoskeleton;

Mahogany plates encased her torso, wrists, and knees, while everywhere else, her armor was brilliantly golden.

She stood on two large, clawed feet, and each of her hands clutched a shining metal spoon. <A pleasure to meet you, young sir,>

The alakazam said, her telepathic “voice” simulating a slightly gruff contralto that Solonn guessed was also the sound of Sei’s actual voice.

<I understand that you and Ms.

Yorke have a most unique relationship, yes?> “…What?” Somehow Sei’s statement had come across to Solonn in a way that she had certainly not intended. <You are able to speak to Ms.

Yorke in her own language, are you not?>

Sei elaborated. “Oh… Yeah, that’s right,” Solonn confirmed, albeit a bit hesitantly. <Ms.

Yorke and I were discussing this on the way here.

We’ve arrived at a conclusion regarding your abilities with which I know you’re already very much in agreement.

It’s best that other humans do not discover your abilities, do you not agree?>

Sei asked. “Yeah,” Solonn agreed.

“I’d really feel better if as few people knew about this as possible.” By “people”, he was referring not only to humans but to other pokémon, as well.

He was very mindful of not letting just anybody learn what he was able to do.

In fact, he would really have preferred for Morgan to ask him for permission before revealing his secret to Sei… <I understand your concern,>

Sei said then, <but I assure you, Ms.

Yorke had your best interests in mind when she informed me of your unique properties.

She would not have told me otherwise.

Furthermore, you have my word that I will not reveal your secret to anyone without your consent… And yes, I have just read your thoughts.

I do try to tune such things out for the sake of courtesy, but…>

She shrugged. <Sometimes, thoughts are simply too strong to block.> So, Sei was a mind-reader.

Solonn figured then that, courteous or not, Sei would have probably absorbed the knowledge of his abilities sooner or later, either from Morgan or from himself, without having to be told of them. <The privacy of those who have no form of mental defense is something my people take very seriously,>

Sei assured him earnestly.

<We would not be trusted at all by any other race if we didn’t stay out of their minds as much as possible.

Even with our measures to respect their privacy in place, many species still do not trust us.> Whether or not that was meant as a guilt-trip, it certainly worked as one.

“…Sorry,” Solonn said.

“I’m sure you don’t mean to pry into anybody’s business.” Sei gave a relieved, satisfied smile.

<Now. Since protecting the confidentiality of your skills is of such great importance, I’m offering you a means by which to converse more securely with Ms.

Yorke.> “And what would that be?” Solonn asked. <This.>

Sei’s eyes closed, and when they opened again, they contained a pale, peculiar glow. <Well?

What do you think?>

Morgan asked. <What do I think of what… Hey!

How are you using telepathy?>

Solonn asked—then, with a jolt, he realized that he, too, was speaking telepathically. <Sei.

She’s connected us via her own mind,>

Morgan explained.

<That way, we can talk with each other without anyone figuring out that… well, that we can talk with each other, get it?> <…I think so,>

Solonn said, still somewhat bewildered at the notion of being able to communicate in a psychic fashion.

There was something about it that made him feel oddly powerful yet at the same time rather vulnerable, as well.

He wondered if he would have agreed to this trial of this method of communication if he had known beforehand that it would involve his mind being opened and shared in such a way. <This method of conversing is undetectable to humans,>

Sei told Solonn then, <and it’s the humans from whom you should be most concerned with protecting your secret.

You see, pokémon who are able to speak to and be understood by humans are quite rare, and humans often look upon rarity as something from which they can gain some form of personal profit.

If certain humans learned of your abilities, they would seek to exploit you for their own ends.

I can guarantee you that you would not find such exploitation to your liking.> Solonn cast an alarmed gaze at Morgan.

<Is this true?>

He asked. Morgan had come across as trustworthy—but was she merely a rare exception in a species which generally could not be trusted? <Yes,>

Morgan said, sounding rather ashamed.

<Solonn, I would never want to see you exploited like that.> <Well, I wouldn’t want that, either,>

He said, shuddering slightly, quite appalled.

He turned towards Sei.

<Okay. I’ll accept your method,>

He agreed. <Thanks.> <Think nothing of it,>

The alakazam said, and with that she severed the psychic connection between herself and the other two. The method that Sei had just made available, by which Solonn could converse securely with Morgan, was a welcome convenience indeed.

As Solonn thought about it, something dawned on him.

Could the telepathic link be used to enable Morgan to communicate with her other pokémon?

After all, Sei’s telepathic abilities could trick the minds of those conversing into hearing words they understood, thus eliminating the language barrier between Morgan and her pokémon.

Why hasn’t Sei offered this to the other pokémon?

Solonn wondered silently. To Solonn’s surprise, Sei turned her gaze upon him, and then shrugged her plated shoulders.

“Because they never asked,” she said simply, curiously using her natural voice this time, speaking to Solonn in alakazam language.

The snorunt only stared at her in response, apparently not knowing quite how to reply to her statement. Sei then let out a long sigh.

<Whew… It seems I’ve still got a bit of recovering to do before I’m quite up to speed again…> “You want to return to your ball for a while?” Morgan asked her. <Mmm… yes, I think so,>

Sei answered. <I could do with a little time out of this poor, downtrodden flesh,>

She added with a laugh. Morgan chuckled.

“All right, then.” She removed an ultra ball from her belt and recalled Sei with a beam of red light.

The alakazam smiled wearily at Solonn before dissolving into energy and being drawn into her ball. “I just don’t understand how anybody could stand being inside one of those things,” Solonn said with a small shudder, eyeing the ultra ball as it was minimized and reattached to Morgan’s belt.

“It’s just so… ” He trailed off, unable to come up with a truly fitting description of what it was like in the great ball. “So, you really don’t like being in a ball, huh?” Morgan questioned.

Solonn made a small, negatory noise in response.

“Well, okay. You don’t have to go back in there if you don’t want to.” Solonn smiled at her.

He was sure that with no need to dread a return to the bizarre unbeing of the great ball, the time that remained to be spent here with Morgan would be much easier to endure—and perhaps even enjoy. * * * Several hours later, Solonn stood outside with Morgan and Sei Salma in the backyard.

Though evening was approaching, the sun was still hot enough and bright enough to bother Solonn.

Sunlight differed from the artificial light inside the house;

It possessed its own peculiar kind of harshness, even in lower quantities. There wasn’t much Solonn could really do about the heat, but he did at least have one option that might make him able to more easily to tolerate the lighting.

He made his way across the yard at once to stand in the shade of the large sitrus tree that stood tall in the backyard.

Much better, he thought with satisfaction. Morgan and Sei crossed the lawn to join Solonn.

Sei promptly took a seat, leaning back contentedly against the trunk of the tree and opening a magazine.

Meanwhile, Morgan came to stand before the snorunt, and then presented a small, cylindrical plastic case.

She opened the container and produced a cyan-colored disc from it. <I’ll bet you’re wondering what this is, huh?>

Morgan said, making use of Sei’s telepathy.

<Well, this is a technical machine, Solonn.

From it, you can gain a new technique.> An elemental technique, obtained from a little plastic disc.

It wasn’t the most ridiculous concept Solonn had ever heard of—although it did come very close. <Now, we may not even need to use this,>

Morgan continued.

<Let’s find out if we do… Solonn, could you show me the strongest ice-type technique you know?> <The strongest?

I guess that would be this.>

Solonn called on the power of his element.

The glow of his eyes intensified momentarily as he gathered the ice-type energy he would need for the technique.

A second later, the elemental charge coalesced between his hands, then fired forth as a jagged, electric blue beam that blasted a flurry of frozen leaves and twigs from the branches above as it streaked off towards the sky. <Ice beam, huh?

Okay, then it looks like we will need to use this.>

Morgan knelt before Solonn and brought the disc before his face.

<There’s another, stronger ice technique that you’ll need to pull off your routine.

You’ll get that technique from this.> Solonn eyed the disc with uncertainty.

<…That won’t hurt, will it?> <No, it doesn’t hurt,>

Sei said reassuringly.

<I’ve received one myself.

It’ll be a funny feeling, but one that won’t last long.

You have nothing to fear from it.> <Oh.

Go ahead, then,>

Solonn permitted Morgan. With a quick nod of acknowledgment, Morgan set about activating the technical machine, pressing the disc against the snorunt’s forehead.

At first, nothing appeared to be happening.

Then, with a rather strong shudder, Solonn found himself overwhelmed by a sudden surge of power.

The feeling was similar to that which accompanied the summoning of certain of his ice-type techniques, only stronger and seeming to all go straight to his head rather than disseminating throughout his entire body.

It escalated into a dizzying, giddying rush, and when it reached its abrupt end, he found himself feeling incredibly lightheaded. Solonn teetered comically for a moment, nearly falling onto his butt before managing to shake himself out of his dizzy spell.

<That was weird,>

He remarked. <So, that’s it?

That’s all it took?> <Mmm-hmm.

You’ve just learned the blizzard technique,>

Morgan confirmed as she tossed the now spent and colorless disc aside.

<Go on, try it out—but be careful where you aim it, though;

It can be pretty nasty.> <…Wait, blizzard ?!

Are you serious?>

Solonn questioned incredulously.

Morgan nodded, smiling brightly.

Solonn was momentarily stupefied.

It just seemed all too incredible that a silly little disc could bestow any sort of power upon him, but to think that it had just given him one of the highest powers of his element… Remaining slightly skeptical, Solonn nonetheless gave his new technique a try.

Once again, he gathered elemental energy.

He felt a sizeable thrill as, defying his expectations, the surge of power answered his summons, then manifested itself in a blast of icy wind and snow. As the blizzard howled forth, Solonn realized with a jolt of horror that he’d forgotten to aim the attack—its present course, he realized, might well result in a decent-sized hole being blown in the Yorkes’ back fence by the fierce ice technique.

Fortunately, however, the blizzard was rather underpowered due to its being Solonn’s very first use of the technique, and as a result the mini-snowstorm petered out before it could wreak havoc on the fence. Solonn stared briefly at the small pile of snow that now sat contrastingly upon the green grass, watching as it began to melt in the heat of the June afternoon.

That thing actually worked… He then laughed to himself, pleasantly bewildered. <Not bad,>

Morgan remarked. <That was just a little one, but with practice, you should be able to pull off a much more impressive blizzard.

And wait ‘til you see what you can do when you combine that with other techniques!> <You can actually do that?>

Solonn asked, intrigued.

He had never seen multiple techniques used in combination, not even by the glalie. <Oh, yes,>

Morgan replied. <In fact, artful combination of techniques is what contests are really all about.

A good, creative, graceful presentation is what gets the ribbon every time.

Now,> she went on, opening the case of discs once more, <there’s another one of these that you won’t necessarily need, but it could still do you some good.

Do you want to go ahead and take it now, or do you want to wait a little while before you take another one?> Solonn considered the matter for a moment.

He decided that there was really no reason to turn down this offer to gain a new technique.

He determined also that a delay in accepting it meant a delay in training.

The more training he could get in before the twenty-fifth, the better his chances of succeeding in getting that first ribbon, and thus taking the first step towards his return to Virc-Dho.

Hence, he decided that he would not wait. <I’ll take it,>

He told Morgan. <Let’s do this now.> The human nodded in acknowledgement and pulled another technical machine from the case, a fuchsia-colored disc this time.

Solonn watched the disc as it was lowered towards his head, wondering what sort of new power this technical machine would impart upon him as he anticipated once more the giddying rush of technical acquisition. The process of absorbing this technique felt quite different than the acquisition of blizzard had.

The sensation of connecting with the raw power of his element was absent—it was not an ice-type technique that was being bestowed upon him by the disc-shaped device this time.

Solonn could not even begin to guess the alien element of his new power, for the rush in his head that accompanied its acquisition was gone almost as swiftly as it had come. <So, what technique did that one give me?>

Solonn asked once the sensation of learning the new ability was gone completely. <Light screen,>

Morgan answered. <It’s mostly a defensive technique, but there are also some pretty cool things you can do with it that are just for show.

Try and call one up now,>

She suggested. <It’s not as difficult or powerful a move as blizzard, so you should be able to pull it off now pretty easily.> <Okay.>

Seeking the new, unfamiliar element within him, Solonn found the root of his new power, then called forth his new technique.

There was a peculiar but not unpleasant sensation that tingled very briefly in his head.

Then he saw a bright pink glow blossom forth from each of his hands.

He watched this luminescence with fascination as it spread out very swiftly from his hands in a growing force field that surrounded him completely. <Wow… this is pretty neat…>

Solonn said as he gazed upon the wall of psychic energy that now surrounded him.

<Wait, though… how do I get out of this thing?>

He wondered aloud. <Oh, you don’t have to get out of it.

You’re not trapped in one place by that thing.

It’ll follow you as you move,>

Morgan informed him. Solonn decided to test that claim for himself.

Sure enough, as he walked across the lawn, the shield that surrounded him maintained itself and remained with him through his every movement.

Then, unexpectedly, the light screen simply vanished. <What happened?>

Solonn asked. <A light screen can only stay up for a couple of minutes at a time,>

Morgan explained. <Oh.

So, are there any more of these I can use?>

Solonn asked then, casting an eye into the still-open disc case. <I’m afraid not.

Nearly all of the techniques you’ll be using come naturally to you—your routine will mostly be ice-based.

Anyway, it’s not really very good for you to learn so many of these moves in one sitting.

You could get a nasty headache,>

Morgan said. Solonn found himself rather disappointed to hear that he would not be gaining any new abilities.

<Well, okay, then,>

He said. <So, now what?> <Hmm.

Right now, I’d say, nothing.>

Morgan replied. <You’ve really had enough excitement for one day.

You may not feel like it right now, but physically, you’ve just had quite an experience.

You’ve instantly learned two moves that usually take pokémon several years and lots of hard work to learn.

Give it a little while, and you’ll probably start feeling pretty tired.

So let’s just take it easy for the rest of the day, all right?> Solonn nodded in assent.

In truth, he would have liked to go ahead and continue preparing for the upcoming contest, but almost psychosomatically, his energy seemed to have begun to wane from the moment that Morgan had said it would do so. <Your training will really start tomorrow,>

The human then told him.

<You see, there are three rounds to each contest.

Each one is different, so you’ll be training in different ways. <For the first round, we’ll just go out on stage along with all the other contestants, and the audience will basically just compare all the pokémon contestants based solely on their looks, and they’ll all vote on which one they think looks the best.

You don’t really have to train for that;

The pokéblocks pretty much take care of that aspect. <The second round will be your solo performance.

This is where you’ll be showing your techniques, combining them to make nice effects, et cetera.

Don’t worry too much about it—you’ll be rehearsing your routine plenty every day.

You’ll get it down just fine. <Now, the third round is a battle,>

Morgan told him. <Have you ever battled another pokémon before?

You know, just for fun.> <Yeah,>

Solonn answered, <but not very much, though.> Zilag and a few of his friends had often held matches against one another, just for sport.

They never really seriously hurt each other;

They mostly just wrestled, with only the occasional, half-hearted bite or headbutt thrown in here and there.

Ice-type techniques were also sometimes thrown around in those matches, to little effect, of course.

On several occasions, Zilag had invited Solonn to take part in this sport, but Solonn had only obliged a few times.

By and large, Solonn had been unenthusiastic about the sport, even though he did win about half of those matches.

As far as he’d been concerned, it had merely been something to do in the event that there’d been absolutely nothing else to do.

It was not exactly his idea of “fun”. <That’s okay,>

Morgan assured him.

<Some experience is better than none.

Besides which, contest battling is really not the same as battling anywhere else.

Your goal won’t be to hurt the opponent so much as to upstage them.

You don’t even necessarily have to ‘beat’ the other guy, as long as you manage to look better during the match.

I’ll let you practice battling against a couple of the others here.

Raze’d definitely be up for it—don’t worry, she won’t use any steel moves on you.

Her style’s a little different than the one you’ll be using, but you’ll still get the gist of how to handle yourself in one of these matches.

All you have to do is to keep your poise and battle with grace.> Solonn nodded in acknowledgement, mentally reviewing what Morgan had told him that he could expect.

It seemed that there was more involved with being a contest pokémon than he had initially imagined.

He hoped that the span of time separating him from that first contest would be sufficient for him to adequately prepare himself for this first task that lay before him.

The sooner he could get that first ribbon, that first step behind him, the better. * * * Each day that followed brought diligent training.

Solonn spent many an hour rehearsing his solo performance, and practiced battling techniques with Raze and even once with Sei Salma.

He also continued to receive two pokéblocks each day until Morgan told him that he had received the maximum benefit possible from those strange little candies, meaning that there was no point in giving him any more of them. Solonn had assumed that these measures were the only ones that would need to be taken in order to prepare him for his debut.

However, there came a night five days before the date of the next contest when one last suggestion was offered to him with the claim that it could improve his chances of winning. He was sitting on Morgan’s bed, waiting for her to return from an errand.

When the human returned to her room, the first thing she did was to take a capture ball from her belt, maximize it, and release its occupant.

Oth materialized in a burst of light, its many eyes appearing bright and inquisitive as it came to hover beside its coordinator. “All right,” Morgan said to the claydol.

“It’s time for you to check him out and see if he’s ready.” She gestured at Solonn. Ready for what?

Solonn wondered what in the world could possibly be going on as Oth brought itself before him.

Without any form of explanation or warning, the foremost of the claydol’s eyes dilated dramatically, and a pale red beam lanced forth from it and struck Solonn.

The snorunt almost cried out, but then realized a split-second later that there was no pain.

Very puzzled, he merely stared at Oth as it expanded the beam and swept it up and down over his body. Mere seconds later, Oth ceased its scan, terminating the beam of light.

It turned towards Morgan (which seemed strange to Solonn given the fact that surrounded by eyes as Oth was, that action was not really necessary) and nodded as best as a claydol could manage, inclining its entire body slightly in her direction. Morgan smiled.

“Good news, Solonn.

Ominous says you’re ready.” “That’s nice, but ready for what?” Solonn asked in a quiet voice.

He and Morgan had decided that it was safe enough to converse openly while within Morgan’s room, so long as they kept their voices down.

Solonn had also decided, though not at all hastily, that Morgan’s other pokémon could be trusted with his secret, and so he did not mind Oth’s presence as he spoke with the human. “Ready… for this!” Morgan reached into her pocket, extracted something from it, and held it out in her hand for Solonn to see.

Nestled in her palm was something small in a blue wrapper.

“I’d been looking around town for one, and I finally managed to scare one up.” Solonn gazed at the proffered object for a moment, then turned a questioning gaze up towards Morgan. “This,” Morgan explained, “is a rare candy.

These give pokémon something of a boost.

According to Ominous…” Morgan paused briefly as a thrill of excitement flitted visibly across her features, “…this’ll give you just enough of a boost to make a huge difference.

With this… you could evolve.” Solonn’s eyes widened incredulously.

“…That thing can’t possibly cause evolution!” he said, laughing. “Oh, yes it can.

So, what do you say?

Are you ready to do this?” Morgan asked. Solonn hesitated to answer.

Part of him still couldn’t believe that evolution could be induced by a piece of candy , but the part of him that did believe was possessed of a fair share of apprehension.

“Is there any particular reason why I need to evolve?” “Well, you don’t necessarily have to do it, but it might work out to your advantage to go through with it,” Morgan said.

“Your routine is based almost exclusively on your ice-type powers, after all, and glalie have more finely-tuned abilities where their element is concerned.

They can handle ice-type techniques more easily than snorunt can.” This much was true;

Solonn knew it from experience.

Members of his race did not truly come into their ice-type abilities until they achieved evolution.

Among other purposes, the glalie of Virc-Dho used their greater elemental prowess to keep their unevolved counterparts in check. He had no doubts that he certainly could execute his routine with greater ease as a glalie, and he was certainly concerned with succeeding in the upcoming contest.

Still… this was a physical transformation that was being suggested.

This was not something to be taken lightly—particularly not where his kind were concerned.

Snorunt who evolved too early in life ran the risk of being corrupted by incomplete instincts, becoming feral or even wicked as had happened to glalie like Kashisha.

Furthermore, the changes involved with transformation into a glalie were such that it was almost like a change into a different species altogether.

Those of his kind were born as glacivorous bipeds who could metamorphose into limbless, floating predators. “The choice is yours, Solonn,” Morgan told him gently.

“I won’t make you evolve if you don’t want to.” So… am I really ready to evolve?

Solonn asked himself silently.

Well… technically, I probably am, he answered himself.

He was indeed at about the age that his people considered the safest and most appropriate time to start considering evolution.

In fact, once they got to be very much older than he was now, they found themselves actually having to make a conscious effort to stop the process from simply occurring on its own.

So, Solonn was old enough to evolve, and hence there was not likely to be a risk of corruption. But… do I really want to go through with this now ? That, Solonn could not answer, though he tried.

If only he had been given more time to consider this, rather than having such a major decision dropped on him out of nowhere at nearly the last minute… In the end, he could only lower his gaze and sigh in response. “You don’t want to do it, do you?” Morgan asked.

Solonn shook his head vaguely in response.

“That’s okay, Solonn.

That’s perfectly fine.” “Okay.” Solonn’s eyes followed the rare candy as it was returned to Morgan’s pocket.

“Hey. Hold on to that.

Just… you know, for whenever.” Morgan nodded in acknowledgement.

“Sure thing. If you ever decide that you want it, just let me know.

Do you want back in the ball?” Morgan then asked Oth.

The claydol nodded in its curious fashion and was subsequently recalled. “All right, then,” Morgan said.

“Now, don’t worry about your decision, okay?

Like I said, you don’t really have to evolve to do this.

You’ll do just fine.” Solonn sincerely hoped that Morgan was right. * * * In what felt to Solonn like no time at all, the twenty-fifth had arrived.

All at once, the task at hand was upon him, and he was swept up by it into a situation that, as it came to be, made him realize that nothing could have truly, completely prepared him for it. Next thing he knew, he found himself riding for the very first time in an automobile.

As he gazed out through the window, the view before him of the scenery rushing by mirrored his perceptions of this experience.

Hurtling irresistibly forward through these moments, he scarcely had a chance to take it all in. The vehicle came to a halt, and as he was unbuckled from his seat and brought out into the parking lot, the resplendent structure that was Lilycove’s contest hall seemed to blossom into being before him right out of thin air.

It was huge , and it loomed larger still with each step that brought him closer to its entrance. Ushered gently through the front doors by his coordinator, Solonn immediately found himself almost intoxicated by the sheer level of activity within the contest hall’s lobby.

All around him, humans of wildly varying appearance stood, accompanied by pokémon partners the likes of which Solonn could have never conceived. Morgan led him into a queue, and there they waited for their turn at the desk that sat at the front of the line.

After a fairly short wait, they made it to the desk, where the receptionist asked Morgan to present her contest pass.

Complying at once, Morgan produced a card and handed it to the human behind the desk.

The receptionist held on to the pass for a few seconds;

What she was doing with it, exactly, Solonn could not see, for the desk significantly exceeded his height. When the receptionist gave the pass back to Morgan, she took a moment to peer over the edge of the desk at the pokémon who accompanied Morgan.

“Oh, now isn’t that a cutie,” she remarked airily, flashing a very bright smile. Solonn returned her gaze with a slightly disgusted look.

Cute? I’m not cute … “You may now proceed,” the receptionist then said.

Morgan smiled at her, then led Solonn out of the lobby and towards the backstage area. Several minutes of doing nothing but waiting followed.

The other contestants were gathered along with Solonn and his coordinator, anticipating the impending events with varying degrees of patience.

A television mounted in the corner showed the scene that awaited the contestants.

With a terrific amount of noise and a level of enthusiasm that was almost tangible, even transmitted through that television screen, an audience was filing into the seemingly endless rows of seats and declaring their eagerness for the show to begin. The spectators’ wait was not prolonged much further.

The voice of the announcer came blaring forth, the audience quieting somewhat while he spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed his greatly magnified voice, “get ready to witness the hottest up-and-coming faces in the Hoenn contest circuit!

The normal rank beauty contest shall now begin!” “It’s time,” Morgan informed Solonn in an excited whisper, and began guiding him before her as they made their way to the stage in an orderly procession along with all the other contestants. As Solonn emerged onto the stage, he was greeted by an unbelievable level of light and noise.

The number of humans gathered just to look upon him and the other contestants was staggering—Solonn had never before seen so many people in any one place before.

In those numbers, the crowd of humans almost seemed like one single, massive organism, gazing upon him with innumerable eyes and calling out to him in a voice like a great, howling wind. He had not expected that the spectators would be quite that many in number… The coordinators and their pokémon partners formed an orderly line across the stage, facing the audience.

One by one, the announcer stopped before each team and introduced them, then moved on down the line to the next team.

Before long, he arrived at Solonn and Morgan. “Next up, hailing from right here in Lilycove, it’s Morgan Yorke and her snorunt, Solonn!” came the announcer’s incredible, magnified voice.

Just as had greeted the introduction of each team before, a peal of applause rose up for Solonn and Morgan.

Part of Solonn wondered what they were applauding, exactly;

Neither he nor any of the other contestants had actually done anything yet, after all. “Now it’s time for you to cast your votes,” the announcer told the audience after introducing the last few contestants.

“Who will make it to the next round?

You decide!” Solonn found himself unable to count the moments that passed as the audience cast their votes.

The feeling that he was being scrutinized by innumerable eyes only intensified, for this was, in fact, exactly what those countless humans in the crowd were now doing.

He did not see that on a colossal screen that had blazed to life behind him, a close-up view of each of the pokémon in turn was presented to the audience—he might have been surprised, to say the least, to see a gigantic image of his own face staring back at him. Finally, the votes were all tallied, and the results appeared on the screen behind the contestants, who all turned to see who among them would proceed to the next round. “Look!” Morgan exclaimed.

“There we are!” She pointed to the upper right corner of the screen;

Solonn saw that he and Morgan were indeed pictured there.

They had made it through the first round.

With that obstacle out of the way, Solonn followed Morgan with a funny little detached sort of thrill as they and the other contestants returned backstage to get ready for the second round. The small television backstage presented Solonn with a view of the performances of those contestants who had been slated to go on before him.

For a crop of newcomers, their performances were generally quite competent;

None of them thus far had made any mistakes in their routines, at least not as far as Solonn could tell.

He found a few of the performances to be not very exciting despite their technical integrity and correctness of form, but there were a couple of the others that really stood out. Those performances were almost dazzling, holding Solonn’s rapt attention—and also managing to provoke the germination of the seeds of doubt within him.

As the last of the performances preceding his own turn on stage came to a close, he found himself attended by an unbidden question of whether or not he had truly, sufficiently prepared himself for this.

Had he truly had long enough to train?

Had he and his coordinator truly made all the right decisions with regards to his training? Those questions followed Solonn out onto the stage as he was called forth.

It was much darker as he emerged this time than it had been during the first round, but as he came to stand in the center of the stage, a single, bright spotlight fell upon him, and the music that Morgan had chosen to accompany his routine rose up, seeming to emanate from the very walls of the contest hall itself. Solonn had been told what to expect since his training had begun… yet Morgan’s descriptions of what this experience would be like seemed weak and ill-fitting when held against this moment, these surroundings, these expectations of dazzling entertainment held by this congregation of strange beings… Under the ray of white light bearing down upon him, he felt overemphasized to dimensions far greater than his own, yet at the same time also all too aware of just how small an entity he was compared to the vast, scrutinizing crowd.

In the limited light, the individual members of the shadowed audience were much harder to discern—now the crowd truly seemed to have become a single, unfathomably large entity. A moment later, the spell of the spotlight abated enough to allow Solonn to realize that he had missed his cue.

With a jolt, he hurriedly cast the hail techinique up into the air above him.

The summoned hailstones began falling at once, but at twice the normal intensity and not at all in the pattern he had rehearsed—it was fortunate that this was a solo performance, for had Morgan accompanied Solonn on stage for this round, she would have had to take cover from his bungled first move. Solonn winced inwardly at the mistake and tried desperately to make some sort of recovery with his next move.

He called upon powder snow and felt the most infinitesimal relief as the winds of his spontaneously-generated, wintry gale bowed to his will according to plan, sweeping up the falling hail in a gently turning, seemingly tamed cyclone.

Solonn’s creation partly obscured his view of the shadowed audience-entity, for which he felt a wave of gratitude spread throughout his nerves.

However, he knew that with his next maneuver, he would have no choice but to forfeit that comforting, swirling veil of ice and snow. Sighing softly, Solonn kept the powder snow blowing as he slowly expanded the vortex of snowflakes and hailstones around himself, as the music began to swell in a slow crescendo.

The winds swept around him in a growing spiral, and as the cyclone widened and thinned out, the darkness before him and the multitude of human eyes he knew it to contain filled his view once more. Don’t pay attention to them, Solonn urged himself silently, just pretend they’re not there… He fought against the tremendous urge that had come over him to close his eyes as tightly as he could and shut out the sight of the audience-entity, for he knew that showing signs of his anxiety could count against him in the judges’ eyes.

He was also finding himself dealing with an impending impulse to simply cut his performance short and run. Trying with a growing desperation to keep a hold of the fraying ends of his nerves lest they unravel completely, he called upon the next element of his routine—the one which, even in the early stages of his training, had given him cause for doubt.

He still couldn’t believe that he had gained one of the highest powers of his element in a single moment’s rush that one afternoon, disbelief that had caused him to struggle all the more in his efforts to master the technique. Incredible though it still seemed to Solonn that he even possessed that ability, the fact remained that he did indeed possess it and was required by his routine to execute it adroitly.

Don’t think about what you’re doing, he tried to remind himself, just do it… At the music’s cue, Solonn executed his strongest technique, unleashing a blizzard to join his dancing cyclone. The blizzard howled forth, stirring the spiraling snowstorm into a frenzy as it was meant to do… but then, most disobligingly, its winds began to falter.

Solonn swore that he could feel his heart fall utterly still as the blizzard, along with the other elements of the cyclone that had woven themselves into its winds, petered out right before his eyes.

As if in slow motion, snowflakes, sleet, and hailstones alike all fell to the stage, their dancing life extinguished. No… Solonn lamented silently.

He was all too certain that his chance to obtain that ribbon, to surmount that first step towards his return to Virc-Dho, had died along with his enchanted snowstorm.

The elements of his musical accompaniment suddenly bled and merged into a formless din in his ears, while the spotlight seemed to swell into abnormal brightness for a moment before being swallowed up in a sudden, all-consuming darkness, taking the stage, the audience-entity, the surrounding noise, and Solonn’s consciousness along with it.

Chapter 5 – Elements Embraced Solonn awoke several hours later, but was unaware of how much time had passed since his failure within the contest hall.

His eyes opened to a view of Morgan’s room, which was more dimly illuminated than usual, the only source of light presently in use being the soft glow emanating from a lamp sitting on the bedside table. With a hazed delay, he noted that he had been placed on Morgan’s bed.

He was presently lying at the foot of the bed with a small, thin blanket draped over the lower half of his form.

The blanket was slightly itchy and created a bit more warmth than he liked, but he made no immediate move to displace it. His most recent memories gathered within his mind to bear down upon him in the present.

The haze of the aftermath of his unconsciousness gave way to focus, provoking him into consciously and actively musing on his failure.

Again and again, he mentally replayed the scene of his botched performance, earnestly wondering what had happened to him up on that stage.

What had gone wrong?

Why had it been that first his routine, and then he himself, had fallen apart before that great, teeming audience? Because you weren’t ready, he silently answered himself at last. I should have been… he countered internally.

But he knew better, really.

He had not been ready.

He had not allowed adequate time to prepare himself for his first performance.

He had been in such a rush to get that first step towards home behind him, and it was because of that haste that his goal now lay further away. You should have waited until the later contest to try and get that ribbon, he admonished himself.

Now you’re just going to have to wait anyway. In that sense, perhaps, no harm done.

He could indeed just try again in two months, which would give him the extra time to train that he probably should have taken the first time around before trying for a ribbon. However, as Solonn continued to muse on his spectacular failure, he couldn’t help but wonder if his next performance wouldn’t just end up suffering the same fate as had his first, even with another two months’ worth of preparation for it.

After all, would the audience not be every bit as large as it had been the time before?

Would he himself not be just as alone and exposed on that stage, with not only the spotlight but also the invisible yet very tangible rays of scrutiny from all those innumerable human eyes focused upon him? Solonn groaned, feeling something at a crossroads between annoyance and disappointment towards himself for the way he had so easily succumbed to the pressure of his performance.

You were supposed to be paying attention to what you were doing and not to the audience, he thought miserably.

Morgan had even told him something along those lines during his training, and yet he had managed to lose sight of that advice right when he had needed it most. As Solonn recalled, there had been a couple of moments during his performance, albeit woefully brief ones, in which he almost—just almost —felt as though he could just shut out all else around him and vanish into his routine.

It was, he noted in recollection, a weaker version of a feeling that he had attained on a couple of occasions during his training.

Through the harnessing of some of the higher powers among his ice-type abilities, he had sometimes achieved the slightest sensation of becoming one with these powers, losing himself within them—just a taste, really, something vestigial… something promising… Solonn sighed as he determined that that right there was the key.

To maintain command over his performance despite the vulnerability and scrutiny that awaited him on stage, he had to somehow achieve and maintain that oneness with those dancing manifestations of his element that brought his routine to life. But how?

He asked of anyone and no one, silently and earnestly. At that moment, words from only a few days prior rose from his memory.

“Glalie have more finely-tuned abilities where their element is concerned,” Morgan reminded him within his mind.

“They can handle ice-type techniques more easily.” Gods… she’s right about that… Glalie could indeed perform ice techniques with considerably more ease than snorunt could—and perhaps this was not the result of having more elemental power so much as that of being closer to the power of their element… As if rallying to the point, words from a more distant past came forth within his mind then, the words of his mother: “Our element is our very life, Solonn.

We could not survive without its power, and by practicing its ways, we achieve some of the most rewarding experiences in our lives.” So, that’s the answer, then, isn’t it?

Solonn reckoned. If I evolve, maybe then I won’t lose it in the middle of my routine next time… but gods … Whether or not it was a solution—or the only solution—the fact remained that it was still evolution —physical, permanent change.

It was an irrevocable choice;

If he came to regret it, there would be no way for it to be undone. Furthermore, he knew not what he could even expect from the process of metamorphosis itself.

Having never evolved before, he had no sure idea of what it would actually be like.

He had once asked his mother about it, but she had told him that she could not adequately describe it.

Azvida had also tried to assure him that the process usually did not hurt, which was no real comfort—especially not with the presence of that nasty little “usually”. Solonn could not deny that he still viewed the prospect of evolution with apprehension.

However… he considered also the notion of enduring a performance that was a repeat of the last one… and he realized that that was something that he actually feared more.

It seemed now to have come down to a decision between facing either evolution or the possibility of another failure in the contest halls.

Between the two, he found that it was actually the latter that he would rather not risk. Solonn sat up, finally bothering as he did so to cast off the uncomfortable blanket.

For minutes, he sat there, staring at his hands as he tried to let his decision settle within his mind.

Morgan would likely return soon, and he felt that he had to be ready to inform her of his decision as soon as he possibly could. Just as Solonn had managed to get himself to stop counting the passing seconds that delayed the moment of truth, the door to the bedroom opened slowly, with barely a creak.

As if possessed of a notion that she had to sneak into her own room, Morgan at first allowed only her face to cross the threshold, peering cautiously into the room.

Then, slowly and silently, she allowed the rest of her body to slip through the partially opened door, closing the door almost noiselessly behind her. The human stood at the edge of Solonn’s vision, her form appearing bright with the yellow hue of her favorite pajamas.

So, it was later than it had quite seemed, Solonn realized;

Morgan was ready to go to bed.

He hoped that Morgan wouldn’t mind being kept awake for this purpose, especially since he was not at all sure that he could maintain his resolve through the night. Inhaling very deeply, Solonn turned to face the human who still hovered cautiously just inside the doorway.

“Get it out,” he said with false calm. Morgan stared in bewilderment at Solonn, slightly startled by his sudden voice, not quite processing what he’d said.

“…Get what out?” “The candy, Morgan,” Solonn said, maintaining an even tone with an effort.

“It’s time.” Morgan blinked in utter surprise for a moment.

“Oh…” she said, an unmistakable look of worry forming on her face.

“…Now?” Solonn nodded slowly.

“I’m sure you would rather go to sleep, but…” “No, that’s okay,” Morgan assured him, though she did sound a bit shaken.

She made her way over to a small dresser, opened its topmost drawer, and rummaged through its contents a bit before she managed to secure what she was seeking. She began to lift the rare candy out from the drawer, but then hesitated.

“Solonn… are you sure you’re really ready for this?” “Yes.

I’m ready,” Solonn said without inflection, inwardly cursing the human’s choice of words—few phrases in existence bred as much doubt in him as “are you sure” could.

The snorunt’s eyes stayed fixed upon Morgan.

His stare was steady for the most part, his eyes nearly unblinking, but their light was beginning to pulsate and flicker unsteadily, betraying the presence of at least some trepidation within him. “You just seem awfully nervous,” Morgan said concernedly. Solonn gave a slight, dismissive shake of his head.

“It’s really nothing.

Everyone gets nervous right before they evolve,” he said, guessing rather than actually knowing this.

"It’s not exactly a minor thing, you know.” “No, it isn’t,” Morgan concurred.

“But if you’re sure you’re ready… well, here goes nothing, I guess…” She unwrapped the rare candy and brought it to Solonn, placing it in his hand.

“There. Just eat that, and the rest should follow.” Solonn gave a quick nod.

He looked down at the little pink candy that now sat in his hand… and kept on looking. “…Are you gonna go ahead, then?” Morgan asked. Solonn snapped out of his momentary mind-freeze.

“Huh? Oh, right.” He furrowed his brow at the rare candy, continuing to stare down at it but making no further move towards it other than to give it a small poke with his other hand. “I don’t blame you at all for being nervous, you know?

I’m pretty nervous right now, myself,” Morgan admitted. Solonn had already figured as much, aware of the hammering of both of their hearts.

He gave her a small, difficult smile in an effort to ease some of the tension that he and Morgan shared but knew that the corners of his mouth were shaking as he did so. Just get it over with!

Urged a voice in the back of his mind.

Fighting in vain to still the trembling of his hand, he raised the rare candy to his mouth.

His jaws were very reluctant to part, but he finally pried them open just enough to shove the candy in, barely bothering to chew it or to enjoy its somewhat sweet flavor before rushing it down his throat. There, he consoled himself silently, the “voice” of his mind seeming to tremble just as much as his body was doing.

Now, just try to relax and wait for it to happen… Nothing happened. Moment after moment passed, and still the candy just sat there in his stomach, doing nothing whatsoever to alter his state of being.

He felt absolutely no change from how he had felt prior to consuming the rare candy.

The “boost” of which Morgan had spoken was completely absent, as were any feelings that would even remotely suggest that he was going to turn into a glalie anytime soon. “Guess you and Oth weren’t right about me after all,” Solonn said finally. “Guess not,” Morgan said with a sigh.

“It’s just hard to believe, though.

Oth was so sure, and it knows from such things… Are you sure you don’t feel any different?” “No difference at all,” Solonn replied. “It should have given you a boost, though, even if not enough of one to make you evolve,” Morgan said. “And instead, it gave me nothing.” “Hmm… maybe you just need enough time to digest it first,” Morgan suggested. “…Hmph.” Solonn was done with having any expectations for the rare candy.

All that it had succeeded in making him become was annoyed —he had suffered all that agony of anticipation for this? And then there came the buzz. It was a distinct tingling that radiated from the pit of his stomach and spread throughout his entire body.

It felt like pure energy was flowing through his veins.

A sudden, incredible sense of exhilaration flooded his brain, making his breath catch in his throat and causing his eyes to grow huge. Morgan took notice, and her eyes widened likewise.

“Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

Her eyes grew even wider.

“ Is it happening ?” Before Solonn could even begin to form any sort of an answer, an enormous, powerful jolt from deep within him struck him with almost no warning, taking his breath away completely.

The tingling sensation that was still coursing throughout his body shifted in an instant into a strong vibration, one that intensified by the second and produced a dull ache in his bones. His mouth opened in a silent scream as the sensations he was experiencing made a turn towards earnest pain.

He stared wildly at Morgan, who now looked more terrified than excited.

She could clearly see the fear and pain in his eyes.

Then, her fearful visage was erased from Solonn’s sight, as from every surface of his body, a blazingly brilliant light began to shine forth, rendering his vision into blank, blindingly white emptiness. In an instant so swift that he could not possibly have marked its precise arrival or passing, Solonn went from feeling full to bursting with energy to feeling as though he were made of energy .

The sensation was, in a sense, similar to that of entering a capture ball.

The difference was that rather than feeling as though he had ceased to actually exist as confinement within the great ball made him feel, he instead felt as though he were transcending existence, becoming more real, more alive… There was no longer any pain.

Distantly, as he began to rematerialize into his new form, he could sense that he was growing larger, but it didn’t quite manage to register as a truly physical sensation;

He was presently not truly physical himself, after all. Though the physical aspects of his change were mere shadows of sensations, there was another feeling present that he found overwhelming.

This, he recognized with amazement and sheer elation, was the raw power of his element—and here he was, united with it in a way that made his prior achievements of elemental synergy appear as the pale, vestigial facsimiles of this strange, sweet union that they truly were. At last, he had truly become one with his element… it was such a wonderful sensation… No longer was the power of ice a mere accessory to his being, some half-dormant thing of scant potency that just sat quietly inside him until evoked.

Now, it was a very significant and tangible presence, one which seemed almost like an entity, even a sentience all its own.

It was a very real and very great power with which he felt he was now truly one. The bright, white nothingness drained at last from Solonn’s vision, allowing his surroundings to bloom back into focus.

The first thing he saw, through eyes whose vision was much sharper than that which he had previously known, was the visage of his coordinator.

Morgan’s face was as white as snow in her awe, her eyes tremendous and her mouth agape. Solonn couldn’t blame her.

Along with his sight, all of his other senses had returned, as well, giving him a full sense of what he had become.

His foremost awareness was of the sheer size of his new body—he was huge .

He felt vast, as well as incredibly dense and solid… and yet not at all heavy .

He realized then that he had taken to hovering without even consciously trying to do so, and was now impossibly suspended just above the surface of Morgan’s bed. Solonn became fascinated at once with his newly gained levitation.

He moved himself for the first time in this incredible new fashion, gliding a very short distance forward… it was effortless… it was fantastic … And it was the way he would be moving for the rest of his life—he no longer had legs.

They, along with his arms, were gone entirely.

The joints by which they had been attached to his body were gone, as well, fused completely and seamlessly into the lithous, cagelike continuum that his skeleton had become.

It was as though he had never even possessed the appendages. While his limbs had diminished into nothingness, his face, by contrast, had become dominatingly massive.

It took up so much of his form that the rest of his body seemed to him as though it existed solely as a means to carry the great face.

With that outsized face came greatly magnified senses;

His enormous eyes took in the world before them in a broader range and with much crisper focus than their predecessors ever could, and he could now hear sounds so minute and many that it made the house itself sound alive. His new face also brought jaws that put his old set to shame.

They were lined with gleaming, white teeth that made up in size for what they lacked in number.

They possessed power that was great, yet not uncontrollable;

They had strength enough to shatter ice (and bones), but could also be gentle enough to pick up an egg. Solonn was instantly at home within his new form.

He felt a wonderful blend of immense relief and sweet elation wash over him, and wondered how he could have ever feared to become this.

A contented sigh escaped through his massive jaws.

Smiling, he began to set himself down upon the bed—but got back up in a hurry when the bed creaked ominously beneath his now considerable weight.

In doing so, he knocked his horns against the ceiling, sending a nasty little shock through his skull.

Biting back a swear, Solonn looked up at the ceiling to see if his horns had damaged it and saw to his relief that they hadn’t. Morgan laughed.

“Oh, God, be careful!

You’re almost too big for this room, you know that?” She wasn’t kidding.

Solonn realized how fortunate it was that Morgan’s room was as large as it happened to be;

He took up a sizeable share of its space.

If the room had been any smaller… “Actually… you’re too big, period,” Morgan noted.

“No offense, but normally, glalie don’t get quite so large;

I’d expected you to be closer to my height, actually… Do you have any idea what could have made you turn out this way?” Solonn would have shrugged, except for the fact that he no longer possessed anything even remotely analogous to shoulders.

“Well, I’ve always been kind of tall,” he said in his new voice, a baritone with a slight hiss lining its edges, “but I have to admit, this is…” He trailed off, rather at a loss for words.

He was easily half again the size of even the largest glalie he had ever seen, and he had no explanation as to why. “You know,” Morgan said then, “this is actually a development that should work out in our favor.

The audience is likely to be impressed by your sheer size, and so are the judges.” “Mm.

Well, that’s good to know.” Morgan nodded.

A second later, her expression suggested that something had just occurred to her.

She cast a slightly uneasy glance at the doorway, then at Solonn, and then back to the doorway once more.

“Hey… um, how do you suppose we’re even going to get you out of here so we can take you to the contest hall?” Solonn gave her a puzzled look, then followed her gaze to the doorway and understood at once. “I will never fit through there,” he said with a small, hissing chuckle.

“Never again.” “No, you won’t,” Morgan concurred, laughing. “…The ball will, though,” Solonn noted. Morgan frowned slightly.

“Well… you are right about that, but…” She sighed.

“I don’t know. I mean, I know you don’t like it in there…” Solonn made a small, dismissive noise.

"It’s fine. You and I both know I can’t be trapped here in this room.

There’s barely any room for us both in here;

You’d hardly be able to get around in here with me in your way.

You can’t even get into your own bed with me in here.” Morgan cast a glance backwards at where her capture ball belt was hung, from whence Solonn’s great ball gave off a slight, teal glint in the soft lamplight.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, traces of guilt in her voice making her speech sound slightly awkward, “but…” “But nothing,” Solonn said gently.

“I don’t mind going in there from time to time as long as it’s only when I really have to.

For now, go ahead and get some sleep, all right?

I’ll go in the ball for the night, and in the morning you can just take me out to the backyard where there’s plenty of room, and I’ll just stay out there from now on.” Morgan gave him one last look of uncertainty.

“Well, as long as you’re sure you don’t mind…” she said, and went to fetch the great ball. “Hey,” Solonn called then.

Morgan turned an inquisitive gaze upon him.

“…I just wanted to thank you for making this happen… I never imagined this change would be so wonderful…” he said earnestly. “Oh…” Morgan turned her head and smiled broadly, blushing slightly.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re happy with your new form.” She raised the ball towards the giant glalie, preparing to activate its recall function.

“Goodnight, Solonn.” “Goodnight,” the glalie echoed.

As he allowed his body to be absorbed by the capture ball, he allowed his mind to be absorbed by thoughts of the wonders of what he had become and the possible ramifications of the change. * * * Four days after Solonn’s evolution, Morgan and Sei Salma stepped out into the backyard to join him.

The former brought along with her a small, portable stereo, just as she had done on Solonn’s request each day since he had evolved. Solonn sat serenely beneath the sitrus tree.

Morgan took a seat next to him, while Sei, bearing a large stack of magazines, levitated herself up into the branches above, picking a large sitrus berry for herself as she settled into a comfortable position.

Morgan then started the music with a smile. Solonn imagined that he would never cease to be amazed by human accomplishments such as the stereo that sat nearby, the fantastic device that somehow produced human voices and the widely varying, complexly arranged tones of their music.

The music that had been chosen that day impressed Solonn more than any other that he had heard to date.

One song in particular took a peculiar hold of him;

He found its instrumentation rich and its lyrics poetic. He closed his eyes, and he swore that he could actually see the music in his mind’s eye.

He visualized the music in the form of twisting, spiraling shapes that branched upward and outward, forming intricate patterns… A sharp gasp, easily audible and discernable over the music to Solonn’s keen hearing, interrupted his reverie.

A second later, the music was shut off.

Solonn’s eyes opened, and a hiss of surprise escaped him at what he saw.

Surrounding himself, Morgan, and Sei Salma were the intricate shapes he had envisioned within his mind.

As if of their own accord, they had been brought out of his head and into the backyard, formed out of spontaneously generated ice. <But… how?>

Solonn spluttered telepathically, dumbfounded. <You’re a cryokinetic,>

Sei supplied, gazing down with a fairly impressed expression as she munched on the sitrus berry.

<Among other things, this gives you the ability to generate ice.

You are also able to mentally manipulate it.

All glalie have these abilities.> <Well, yes, I knew that,>

Solonn said, <but—> <—You didn’t mean to use it,>

Sei finished. <The subconscious activities of a cryokinetic can sometimes manifest themselves in a visible display, especially when his, her, or its abilities first awaken.

And I did not mean to read your mind there,>

Sei added. Solonn continued to stare, stupefied by the formations of ice that had been born of his very mind.

He had created that display while being completely unaware of doing so.

He had managed to lose himself in that act, just as he had lost himself in the music that had inspired it. His gaze fell upon Morgan, who wore an awed expression as her eyes swept from one part of the ice formation to another.

<Do you… do you like it?>

He asked tentatively. The human turned towards him.

She was beaming brightly, her eyes reflecting the sparkle of the ice that surrounded her.

<It’s beautiful,>

She told Solonn, her mindvoice bright with wonder.

Her finger moved over the “PLAY” button.

<Keep it up. Please,>

She said, and pushed the button. The song resumed, and Solonn closed his eyes and tried to let the music absorb him once again, succeeding quite readily.

For a brief moment, he wondered if continuing his cryokinetic display would not be so easy now that he was conscious of his actions, but he found that awareness of the use of this power made it no less effortless and no less enjoyable.

He was still able to lose himself within his actions even though he now consciously chose them. Solonn allowed his eyes to open, and serenely, he beheld the manifestations of ice that changed, grew and danced in time with the music.

Through their intricate elegance, Solonn discovered the simple ecstasy of being quite literally in his element. * * * In the weeks that followed, Solonn underwent a far more stringent regimen of training and rehearsing than had preceded his prior contest appearance, at his request.

On occasion, he had spent an entire night rehearsing his routine alone in the backyard. “You don’t really have to work so hard,” Morgan told him more than once, but each time, Solonn insisted on continuing to rehearse to this extent. This was partly because he was, of course, intent on making it as likely as possible that he would perform better than he had last time, but there was another motive behind his desire to devote so much time to perfecting his routine.

Following the musically-inspired awakening of his cryokinesis, he and Morgan had decided to work his cryokinetic interpretive display into his routine, even opting to replace the song to which he had performed last time with the one that had evoked the dancing formations of ice.

Nothing else in his prior experience compared to the wonderful, transcendent sensation of oneness with his element—a sensation that he attained through each artistic application of his cryokinesis.

It became a high priority of his to achieve that synergy as often as he could. Soon, those two months of preparation were behind him, and he once again found himself onstage with his coordinator and all the other contestants in the Lilycove contest hall.

The vast audience before him was in the process of voting, deciding who would and who would not make it past this first round.

Solonn quickly found that could not help but wonder what they all thought of him.

Consideration of this subject had come unbidden, but he made a conscious effort to avoid being overly concerned with it. If you can just get past this part, he told himself within his mind, then in just a short while, you can get away from all of them… The announcement that came a minute or so later, declaring that Solonn had received a sufficiently high rating from the audience to advance to the second round, brought him a sense of relief, and something else, as well—it almost amounted to a mild but nonetheless present sort of eagerness.

Yes, he was soon to be alone on that stage, performing before that huge audience… but it would still be a chance to experience that incomparable unity with his element. And they won’t be a part of that , he reminded himself as he departed to the backstage area with Morgan. The television backstage showed each of the performances preceding his own, which was slated for last this time.

Solonn made a point of not watching any of them, remembering well how watching the other performers in action had only intimidated him the time before. They don’t matter, he thought resolutely.

This is about something far beyond them. Finally, the time had come.

Solonn emerged onto the stage, trying as he took his place there to view it as merely a stop en route to the far better place to which he was about to go. The lights went out completely.

Nothing was visible to the crowd gathered within the auditorium except for two large, blue eyes glowing brightly from the center of the stage through the darkness. Those very eyes had acuteness enough to discern the individual human faces in the crowd quite well despite the lack of light.

Gone, therefore, was the singular audience-entity Solonn had seen through the eyes of a snorunt… though the sheer number of the watching eyes before him remained the same… They will not be part of this… The music came alive.

Very slowly, pale blue rays bloomed from lights mounted in the stage.

Glistening within this glow, ice began to rise in thin, vinelike shapes from the stage like sprouting, crystalline plants.

They branched out and twisted as they grew slowly but steadily upward, swaying and flicking at the air in time with the music. The many branches of the seemingly living ice curled downward and inward towards their maker and joined together beneath his hovering body, forming a cradle of sorts underneath him.

The ice began to rise upward, lifting Solonn towards the ceiling. Meanwhile, more of the thin, branchlike structures extended outward from the main pillar of ice to dance around him.

Under his guidance, they began to form sharper shapes and execute more violent motions.

Hail started falling in choreographed patterns through the weaving spires and whipping vines of ice.

Solonn then summoned a glittering gust of icy wind to sweep the hailstones up into a twisting helix around himself. The hail and icy wind died down as the music slowed;

They soon ceased altogether.

The structures of ice that surrounded Solonn were transfigured into seven long, thin needles.

Atop each of them, ice was formed into the shape of a diamond. Solonn rose slowly along with the song’s building crescendo, ascending from the stage as high as he could manage.

He brought a protect aura around himself as he lifted himself ever higher, surrounding himself with a deep blue glow. At the apex of his ascent, his eyes suddenly blazed with a surge of white light—and so did the diamonds of ice, which then exploded one by one in time with the music in sparkling bursts of frozen mist. As the glow of the protect aura faded, Solonn descended once more.

He then began firing ice beams upwards in rhythm, the jagged, cyan rays arcing overhead in ways that resembled streaks of lightning tearing across the night sky. The music worked itself into a frenzy then, and accordingly Solonn summoned a raging storm.

Blizzard, icy wind and powder snow rushed in a maddened spiral around him;

He appeared only as an intermittently visible, luminous-eyed silhouette through the dancing chaos.

His ice formations weaved and intertwined in circles around the maelstrom in shapes that resembled writhing serpents as lights in harsh colors blazed into the miniature storm from both above and below. The performance ended just as abruptly as the song that had accompanied it.

The lights cut out;

When they came back on a second later, there was not a trace of ice or of snow to be found anywhere.

Nothing remained of the wintry spectacle save for the glalie who had made it happen. Solonn looked out upon a silent audience as he hovered at the center of the stage, his body trembling as he breathed hard in his exhaustion.

Closing his eyes, he bowed deeply, inclining his great face floorward. The rapt silence continued to hover over the auditorium for several moments in the wake of Solonn’s performance.

Then the audience erupted into a huge round of applause—Solonn was grateful for their enthusiasm, but this was one moment in which he rather wished that his evolution had not enhanced his hearing.

The judges, too, were highly approving of his routine—Solonn received a score of 26.7 out of a possible thirty points.

His score was in the top two, meaning that he would proceed to the third and final round along with just one other finalist. Solonn was taken backstage where he had to be recalled for a moment into his great ball so that he could have his energy restored by the rejuvenation machine that was kept backstage.

Second-round performances usually took a lot out of a pokémon, and Solonn’s performance was no exception.

Without rejuvenation, he would certainly not have the strength to perform well in the final round’s battle.

Once both he and his opponent had both been rejuvenated, the third round was ready to begin. “Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the voice of the announcer, “we’ve seen quite a parade of truly skilled performers tonight.

Now we’re down to the very best of the crop, the final two.

Let’s hear it for Alex Rhodes and Kelly from Mauville and Morgan Yorke and Solonn from right here in Lilycove!” The exuberant noise of the crowd filled the air as the finalists made their way onto the stage.

Solonn took his place a couple of yards in front of Morgan and gazed across the stage at the opposing team. Alex Rhodes was a somewhat tall, fair-skinned young woman dressed in a powder-blue, long-sleeved shirt, khaki pants, and white tennis shoes.

Her eyes were blue, and her platinum blonde hair hung to her waist in very thin braids. Kelly, a golduck, was a blue, bipedal, somewhat ducklike creature.

She possessed a long tail and large, webbed hands that bore gleaming, white claws.

A round, bright red stone that was nestled between eyes of the same color reflected the lights of the auditorium.

Peculiarly, the water-type was giggling to herself;

Solonn could not even begin to guess why. “The match will end when the clock runs out, when one pokémon’s points are entirely depleted, or when one pokémon is rendered unable to battle,” the announcer explained.

”Without any further ado, let the final round begin!” With that, a loud tone rang out over the PA system, signaling the commencement of the battle. “All right, Solonn.

Let’s show them our icy wind/ice beam combo,” Morgan said. “Then we’ll start with psybeam and water pulse!” Alex declared. Solonn summoned two of his ice-type abilities simultaneously.

The ice beam froze the small ice particles contained within the icy wind together into larger, razor-edged, spiky clusters and charged them with the pure elemental energy of the beam, resulting in a flurry of hazardous, ice-type shrapnel propelled on a frigid gust. Meanwhile, Kelly launched her own attack, continuing to giggle inexplicably as she did so.

Her combination of psybeam and water pulse created a rainbow-hued ray through which glowing blue rings of water-type energy rippled. Solonn’s attack was the stronger of the two due to the fact that both of the constituents of his combination were derived from his own element.

The ice-type combo overtook Kelly’s attack and scattered its energies, foiling it.

The shredding gale then assaulted Kelly herself.

Being a water-type, she suffered very little from its charge of elemental energy, but the sharp edges of its icy shrapnel nonetheless managed to tear shallow cuts all over the waterfowl’s body, making her squawk in pain. As a result of her taking the hit, Kelly’s points suffered.

The bar that represented them on the scoreboard decreased in length. “Now, let’s take some defensive measures, shall we?

Light screen, Solonn,” Morgan directed. “We’ll try our psybeam and water pulse combo again, then,” Alex said.

“He’s sure not to like it…” A shimmering, luminous, pink force field rose around Solonn, enveloping him completely.

Concurrently, Kelly once again fired her psychic/water-type combination attack, which lanced forth in a rush of psychedelic colors.

Solonn’s psychic shield negated the water-type aspect of Kelly’s attack, but the psybeam at the combo’s core managed to penetrate the barrier.

It struck Solonn squarely between the eyes, its psychic-type energy finding its way straight into his brain in an attempt to addle his mind.

Solonn snarled at the pain as he shook his head furiously to rid himself of the psychic assault.

Fortunately, the attack failed to throw him into confusion, but both he and his points still took a hit. “Okay, now give him a hydro pump!” Alex instructed her pokémon enthusiastically. “Uh-oh… you’d better protect, Solonn,” Morgan warned. Still giggling, incredibly, Kelly summoned one of the highest powers of her element.

An intense, blue glow filled her eyes, and in a massive, sudden burst, a thick, powerful jet of highly pressurized water surged forth from her open bill. However, just as the golduck launched her water-type assault, Solonn conjured the deep blue aura of the protect technique around himself.

The hydro pump dissipated spectacularly on contact with the indigo force field in a great burst of mist;

The protect shield fell an instant later.

Kelly’s point bar shortened further due to the utter failure of her attack. Alex sighed.

“Well, I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to this, but it looks like you guys have left us little choice.

Attract, Kelly!” The command elicited a particularly giddy fit of giggles from the golduck. “What?

Ah, no… protect, Solonn!

Hurry!” Morgan urged.

It was a gamble; she knew that a protect aura could not always be counted on to successfully form more than once in succession.

However, there was simply no other hope for Solonn to avoid Kelly’s technique. Solonn tried to bring back his protect aura, and for a very brief moment, he seemed to have succeeded.

But the deep blue shield was gone a split-second later, leaving Solonn with no form of defense between himself and Kelly, who was now smiling sweetly as a rose-colored glow surrounded her.

With a wave of her arms, the pink light was sent forth in an undulating wave that washed swiftly and inescapably over Solonn… …And all at once, he was rather appalled at himself.

Good gods, have I seriously been attacking that ?

How could I have even considered doing harm to such a beautiful creature?

How could anyone ?

A very cheesy smile crept across his face as he surveyed Kelly from across the stage.

Look at her, over there… so elegant… so exotic… those eyes… that tail!

He chuckled softly.

She totally wants me.

I can tell. Morgan cast an uneasy glance at the scoreboard as Solonn’s points suffered both from his failed protect technique and his succumbing to Kelly’s attract technique.

“Solonn!” Morgan shouted as if her pokémon partner had become incredibly distant (in a sense, of course, he had).

“Listen to me: you have got to keep your head!

She doesn’t love you, and you don’t really love her.

It’s just a trick, Solonn!

Now, quickly, hit her with a blizzard/icy wind combo before she can take advantage of you!” Solonn smirked.

Oh, she can take advantage of me any time she wants… He ignored Morgan’s instructions, simply refusing to attack the suddenly and inexplicably sexy golduck on the other side of the stage. Silly human… Kelly is totally into me, it’s so obvious… Solonn sighed.

I’ll have her. Soon.

Oh, yes… Kelly, meanwhile, was giggling her brains out louder than ever.

It was a wonder that she even heard her coordinator’s next command, which was to blast the poor glalie with hydro pump while he was still dopily goggling at her.

But she heard indeed, and did not hesitate for even a second to launch her attack upon her infatuated opponent. The massive, water-type blast came hurtling towards Solonn.

Oh, pretty… he remarked silently and vacantly as it approached… With a loud crash and a veritable explosion of water on impact, the hydro pump struck Solonn powerfully, blasting him with such force that he was nearly sent flying on a collision course with his coordinator.

Solonn’s points decreased greatly—they were now perilously low. Righting himself with some difficulty, Solonn gasped wildly for air in the wake of the hydro pump.

In the next instant, the light screen he had summoned finally faded away.

Had it not still been present when the hydro pump had struck, Solonn might not have been able to get back up following Kelly’s powerful attack. Hey… that wasn’t very nice… Solonn thought dazedly as he fought to catch his breath.

I thought she liked me!

He decided to go over to Kelly and ask her why she had done that. “No, Solonn, don’t get closer!” Morgan tried urgently to warn him.

“That’ll just make it easier for her to blast you!” No way!

She’d never blast me!

Solonn objected internally, seeming to have forgotten the fact that Kelly had done just that mere moments ago.

She loves me! And then something clicked in his brain. Wait… no, she doesn’t… “All right, Kelly, let’s finish him off now,” Alex called out, sounding very pleased with the current situation.

“Surf!” “Come on, Solonn!” Morgan urged.

“Cut through her tricks and stop her with a blizzard/ice beam combo!

Come on, I know you can snap out of it!” As it so happened, Solonn already had. Kelly’s giggles rose up into a sharp, triumphant quack of a laugh.

She closed her eyes, then clasped her hands together and lifted them towards the ceiling.

There was a brief, blue shimmer of water-type energy at her feet, followed by a pillar of water that began to rise from the stage beneath her.

She inhaled deeply just before the rising water engulfed her.

The pillar lifted her from the stage and up through itself as it rose, ready to surge forth at any instant.

Even as Kelly was still rising up through the wave towards the position where she would ride it over her opponent, the summoned wall of water suddenly lurched forward towards its target. Solonn’s eyes blazed with bluish-white light as his gaze fixed itself firmly on the burgeoning wave.

As the water surged towards him, he threw his jaws wide open, and a narrow, highly concentrated blast of wind, ice, and snow exploded forth, with raw, ice-type energy crackling through it like lightning. The combination attack roared as it rushed through the air, intercepting Kelly’s attack swiftly.

With a series of cracking sounds, the ice-type blast froze the summoned wave around the golduck.

Only the spiked crown of feathers atop the waterfowl’s head had crested the wave before the water had frozen;

Not desiring to smother Kelly to death, Solonn shifted the part of the frozen wave that surrounded her into the shape of a large, hollow sphere. “Oh, crap!

Kelly, you’ve got to get out of there!” Alex cried. Kelly was already trying frantically to escape her icy prison.

She clawed frenetically at the frozen walls with her fury swipes technique, but the ice that formed the walls of the sphere was just too thick to succumb easily to her claws.

She fired a psybeam at the ice, but much of the psychic-type energy dissipated against the frozen barrier, while the rest just passed inconsequentially through it—psybeam was, after all, a technique that was more mentally harmful than physically destructive. Panicking, the golduck desperately tried again to claw her way out of the icy sphere, tearing savagely with all her might.

The ice was finally starting to give way to her efforts, but not by much. Meanwhile… there was only so much fresh air in that frozen prison, and Kelly was spending her oxygen quite swiftly through her struggles to free herself.

Thus it was that in fairly short order, the golduck exhausted herself thoroughly and passed out.

Seeing that Kelly was out cold, Solonn evaporated the ice bubble that surrounded her, then slowly dissipated the pillar of frozen water on which it had stood, gently lowering the unconscious water-type down to the stage below. A loud buzzer sounded, and a great red “X” appeared over Kelly’s picture on the scoreboard, signifying that the golduck had been rendered unable to continue.

Solonn had won the final round—and just in time, too.

The clock had nearly run out for the match, and despite the loss of points that Kelly had suffered when her own attack had been turned against her, Solonn’s score had still been lower.

If Kelly had not fainted before the timer could hit zero, she would have won. “Ladies and gentlemen!” came the exuberant voice of the announcer.

“Please give a great, big, hearty round of applause for the winners of the Lilycove normal rank beauty contest, Morgan Yorke and Solonn!” The lights in the auditorium blazed into vibrant colors, and showers of confetti began falling from the ceiling like a flurry of multicolored snowflakes.

A great surge of incredible noise rose up from the audience, many of whom stood as they applauded and cheered. A shriek of delight sounded behind Solonn, audible over the din to none but him.

Its source tackled him then in a joyous semi-embrace;

Morgan seemed not to be fazed by the fact that her arms barely encircled him at all, such was her determination to heartily hug her pokémon partner. After recalling Kelly, Alex rushed across the stage to shake her opponent's hand, wearing a greatly impressed look on her face.

A moment later, a stout, mustached, little old man—the head judge—approached Solonn’s side of the stage. Solonn watched as the head judge handed the normal rank beauty ribbon to Morgan.

It was a simple, round, golden medallion affixed to a looped ribbon of blue velvet.

Good, Solonn thought as he gratefully allowed his weary body to settle down upon the floor, good.

One down, three to go

Chapter 6 – The Sought-For Matter Having earned the beauty ribbon in the normal rank, which was the lowest level of contest competition, Solonn’s next goal was to obtain a ribbon in the third-highest rank, the super rank.

The next super rank contest was slated for the fourteenth of November.

Solonn lamented the long span of time that separated him from the opportunity to gain his next ribbon, but also recognized its value.

He would have even more time to rehearse than he had had prior to his last contest, time which he would certainly need in order to sufficiently prepare him to compete to the higher standard now demanded by his higher rank. Though Solonn would have more time to prepare for the upcoming contest than he’d had for the previous one, he would have less time to train with his coordinator.

It was now early September, and a new school year had begun, leaving Morgan with less time to spend at home. Morgan wasn’t the only one who was being drawn away from home.

Her mother, Eliza, was a second-grade teacher at one of the local elementary schools.

With both of the Yorkes away during much of the daytime, Solonn now found himself left home alone for several hours on end nearly every day.

Even Morgan’s other pokémon were not around to keep him company;

Most of them preferred, for whatever unimaginable reason, to remain in their capture balls at nearly all times.

Sei was an exception, but she seemed to prefer to go out into the city (doing gods only knew what;

She never spoke of what her excursions entailed) while the humans were away. Not that Solonn exactly minded the solitude, though.

He readily made use of the good, quiet time afforded by the absence of the others in order to meditate upon his connection to the element of ice, conceiving and practicing new expressions of cryokinetic artistry.

Solonn quickly grew to treasure these hours alone, time which belonged strictly to himself and his element.

The only thing that could make these solitary sessions any better was if Solonn was able to operate Morgan’s stereo and thus invite the transcendent beauty of the music it could provide to enrich them. One Tuesday morning, Solonn was preparing to commence another of these sessions, initiating a ritual he had devised that now preceded each period of solitary rehearsal.

He was about to enter the meditative state that would allow him to more quickly achieve a very strong and deep connection with his element, when he heard a rather strange sound, a sort of scrabbling noise coming from just outside the backyard’s fence.

Solonn would normally have dismissed such a sound, but the noise that immediately followed it—distinctly a vocalization of some sort, and one that sounded rather puzzled—made it hard to ignore.

Solonn listened closely to the scrabbling noise, noting a change in its quality as its source transferred whatever action it was committing that was making such a racket onto another type of surface. There’s something on the fence… Solonn knew at once, but could not even begin to guess what that something could be.

A second later, however, the mystery solved itself, as six clawed, purple fingers appeared atop the fence, closely followed by the rest of their owner’s body. Solonn was now staring into the huge, bluish-white, crystalline eyes of a small, deep purple-skinned pokémon.

Short spikes lined the strange creature’s long arms and the sides of his large head, and a brilliant, magenta gemstone adorned his chest. The sableye sat atop the fence in a manner that made it resemble a frog sitting on a lily pad.

He cocked his head at Solonn, his somewhat lizard-like face holding a quizzical expression. “Who’re you?” the sableye queried in a perky, slightly rasping voice, with seemingly earnest curiosity. Solonn gave the sableye a bemused look.

“I could ask you the same.” The sableye chuckled weirdly, giving no other response to Solonn’s retort.

He then sprung from the fence and onto the trunk of the sitrus tree in the backyard, clinging to the bark with his limbs spread out in a very lizard-like fashion.

He scrabbled up the tree and sat down upon one of its branches, letting his short legs dangle off the side. Solonn could not even begin to figure out what in the world the weird little creature was doing, but decided that he had better things to do than to bother with him.

He closed his eyes and commenced his meditation, determined to ignore the dark/ghost-type perched above him.

He might have succeeded in this endeavor were it not for the overripe sitrus berry that burst against the top of his head a second later. Solonn turned a flat, annoyed glare upward.

The sableye above him was grinning, showing an incredible number of tiny, pointed teeth.

“What do you want, exactly?” Solonn demanded of him. The sableye stared down at Solonn for several moments with his brow furrowed above his crystalline eyes, feigning deep thought.

“I think I want to throw more fruit at you,” he replied finally.

With a faint whoosh , the sableye seemed to turn to smoke and shadows, then vanished in a faint attack.

There was a split-second’s worth of the sound of rustling amid the branches before the sableye reappeared on the branch above Solonn, both arms laden with more sitrus berries.

He proceeded at once to throw them at Solonn, but the yellow fruits collided in vain with the glalie’s deep blue protect aura. “You’re no fun,” the sableye pouted.

He clambered down the tree trunk and sat down next to Solonn, drumming his clawed fingers on the ground for a brief while.

Then, he began poking Solonn in the side, prodding at the gaps in the glalie’s armor. With an exasperated sigh, Solonn turned to face the bothersome creature.

“Could you leave me alone, please?” The sableye left Solonn alone—for about five seconds.

Then, he emitted a massive groan of boredom.

A second later, he climbed back up the tree.

He hung upside-down from a branch for a moment, and then dropped down right onto the glalie’s head. Growling deep in his throat, Solonn tried very hard to ignore the little oddball who was now dancing atop his head.

There is definitely something wrong with that creature’s mind, he determined with absolute certainty.

After all, sane, normal people typically did not just enter someone’s personal space and begin pestering him, her, or it with no reason or explanation. “Is there any reason why you need to be doing this to me?” Solonn asked, somehow managing to keep most of his impatience out of his tone. “Hm?

No, not really,” the sableye answered airily.

He continued to skitter around upon Solonn’s head for a few moments more, and then crawled headfirst down the glalie’s forehead like an overgrown, purple gecko and lowered his face between Solonn’s massive eyes, grinning creepily.

“Hi.” “Go away, please,” Solonn requested through gritted teeth. The sableye shook his head solemnly and maintained a stare into the glalie’s eyes.

Suddenly, he recoiled, pulling his head back as though something had just taken a swipe at it.

His faceted eyes flashed;

He’d have been blinking in surprise if he had possessed eyelids. “Hmmm…” the sableye uttered as he brought his face even closer to Solonn’s, staring very intently. “What in the name of all gods are you doing now ?” Solonn demanded. “I’m seeing you in a whole new way…” the sableye said in a phony mystic voice.

“ Hmmm… very interesting.

Very interesting, indeed…” “Are you quite finished bothering me?” Solonn snarled, at the very limit of his patience. The sableye seemed to take a moment to consider the question.

“Almost,” he responded.

Then, inexplicably, he planted a very juicy kiss right on the bare, diamond-shaped patch of hide in the middle of Solonn’s forehead.

The dark/ghost-type then sprang off of the glalie’s head and onto the lawn.

He turned and gave Solonn a Cheshire grin.

“Buh-bye!” he said cheerfully, and scampered off across the lawn, scaled the fence, and disappeared over the side. Supremely baffled by what had just transpired, Solonn breathed a sigh of relief now that the little purple weirdo had left the scene.

Don’t try to make sense of that, Solonn advised himself, you’ll only end up with a headache for it.

Giving the bizarre occurrence no further thought, Solonn gratefully sent himself into the sweet serenity of his meditation. * * * The sableye scampered through the alleyways of Lilycove, anxious to get home as quickly as possible.

He had made quite the discovery while pestering that oversized glalie… The sableye’s great, crystalline eyes held a very special sort of sight;

If he looked hard enough, it showed him things beyond a person’s appearance—including secrets.

Among the glalie’s secrets, there was one in particular that was quite remarkable, and the sableye knew that he wasn’t the only one who would take interest in it. In no time at all, he arrived at a modest brick house, a place that he had called home for only a few days.

He hurried up the walkway, pausing before the front door.

Summoning his faint attack technique, he felt a momentary tingling of dark-type energy throughout his body before it swept him into a quick transfiguration.

His solid form changed into shadowy wisps of black vapor before disappearing altogether.

He then reappeared inside the house, coalescing into solidity once more on the other side of the door. Once indoors, the sableye began screeching excitedly to inform another resident of the house of his arrival.

In short order, a male human picked his way swiftly but carefully through an adjacent hallway and into the living room, dodging scattered cardboard boxes that were filled with the things he still had yet to unpack.

He was a fairly tall young man, and one who had apparently just emerged from the shower;

His collarbone-length, wavy auburn hair was still sopping wet, and he had only bothered to throw on a pair of boxers before going to greet his pokémon. “Hey, Xi,” he addressed the sableye jovially.

“Back kind of early today, aren’t you?

Are you feeling all right?” <I’m okay, Daron!>

The sableye cheerfully assured the human, employing the telepathic skills he had inherited from his gastly father.

He chuckled effervescently, his multitude of pointed teeth flashing in another of his ten-mile-wide grins.

<I just found something really neat, and I just couldn’t wait to tell you about it!

Oh, you won’t believe it!> “Is that right,” Daron said with a small laugh as he crossed the living room to the front door and scooped his pokémon up into his arms.

He carried Xi over to the sofa and sat down.

“So, what’d you find, hmm?” Xi chuckled again.

<You might not believe me if I just told you… I have to show you instead…>

Xi told Daron, gesticulating dramatically and using his “mystic” voice once again. Daron sighed.

“Ah, that’s never pleasant… but, if you insist…” He lifted Xi up to eye-level.

The sableye beamed at him, then pressed his palms against Daron’s temples.

Daron braced himself for an experience that he knew would not be any less unpleasant than it had ever been before, forcing himself to stare unwaveringly right into the dark/ghost-type’s crystalline eyes.

Those great eyes lit up from within, and a sudden, painful jolt lanced through Daron’s temples as Xi’s most recent memories rushed into his brain. Almost as soon as the memory transfer had been initiated, the task was finished.

Xi let go of his trainer’s head, and Daron produced a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan as he set the sableye down on the sofa cushion beside him, grateful that the process was such a quick one. Xi looked up at his human companion with a grin.

Daron was returning the sableye’s gaze with a positively awestruck expression, his brown eyes wide and staring. “You did it…” Daron said.

“I don’t believe it… less than a week on the job, and you hit pay dirt!” He let out a short laugh of sheer amazement and pride.

“Great work, Xi!” he congratulated. Xi gave a squeal of delight.

<I knew you would like it!>

He exclaimed while cheerfully applauding himself for his discovery. “Oh, I’m not the only one who’ll like it,” Daron said.

“I’m gonna go call him right now,” he added.

He rose from the sofa and made his way into the kitchen, retrieving the cell phone he’d left on the counter and immediately placing the call he had thought he would never get to make. “Mr.

Saller?” came a kindly-sounding, elderly male voice through the receiver a second later.

“What a pleasant surprise to hear from you, my boy!

Have you quite settled in to your new home yet?” “Getting there,” Daron replied.

“I’ve still got a bit of unpacking to do, I’ll admit, but I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to this place already.

Xi and Cleo love it here,” he added. “Oh, good, good!” the voice on the phone responded.

“So, tell me, my boy.

What’s the occasion for this conversation, hmm?” Daron smiled.

“You might want to make sure you’re sitting down, sir.” He took a deep breath, then announced, “We’ve found it.” Not a word issued from the receiver for a very long moment.

“…You’re quite certain?” the old man queried finally. “One hundred percent,” Daron answered confidently.

“Xi’s eyes don’t lie, and he showed me exactly what they showed him.” “Well, he’ll need to show me, as well.

Can’t be certain any other way, after all, and we mustn’t move ahead until we are indeed certain,” the old man said.

“You can transfer him here from the pokémon center.” “Will do, sir,” Daron assured him. “Good, good…” A sigh of happiness issued from the receiver.

“It’s a wondrous thing, my boy, to see our goals coming to fruition so soon…” “It sure is,” Daron concurred, nodding. “Well, then,” the old man said crisply then, “once I have had my consultation with Mr.

Xi, we’ll discuss our further course of action.

Be on standby, my boy.” “No problem, sir… And the authorities?” “A non-issue, as I stated during our first meeting,” the voice on the phone told Daron in an assuring manner.

“You need only concern yourself with the task at hand.

See to it that everything is carried out without a hitch, and both you and your partners will be handsomely rewarded.” “You can count on us,” Daron said coolly, as the old man on the phone terminated the connection. * * * Eight days had passed since the appearance of the bothersome sableye.

Much to Solonn’s appreciation, the little pest had not returned since.

Thus, Solonn had been free to practice his art without any disturbances. At his summons, twin spires of ice extended towards the heavens, catching the sun’s rays with a brilliant sparkle.

They began a sinuous dance, while their choreographer watched them through tremendous blue eyes, an expression of deep serenity playing over his features. “That’s very pretty,” came an unexpected monotone from above. Surprised, Solonn turned towards the source of the voice.

Overhead, a large, pale purple moth hovered, scattering a small quantity of a fine powder into the air with every flap of her great wings. Another unexpected guest, Solonn thought, his expression somewhat wary as he looked upon the giant insect.

He could only hope that this visitor would not give him the same, noisome sort of company that the previous one had.

“Er… thank you,” he said a bit awkwardly.

He moved out from beneath the venomoth;

The powder that was falling from her wings was beginning to irritate his eyes. “Sorry to interrupt your performance,” the venomoth buzzed, “but I was sent to give you something.” The venomoth gave no further explanation for her next actions.

Her wings suddenly made a dramatic shift from lavender to baby blue, and with a single, powerful flap, they tossed a huge cloud of pale blue sleep powder on a swift gust of wind at Solonn. Taken by surprise, Solonn failed to do anything to avoid the cloud of dust, and inhaled much of it before he could stop himself.

He tried to retaliate at once, but his ice beam missed its mark, for his eyelids had closed irresistibly before he could aim it.

He dropped to the ground, swallowed up in a profoundly deep sleep. There was a faint rushing sound, and a mass of black vapors formed out of thin air just outside the back door.

The vapors coalesced into the form of Xi, who clutched a great ball in his clawed hands.

His great, faceted eyes found the sleeping glalie, and he broke into his trademark grin.

“You did it, Cleo!” he congratulated, happily scampering across the lawn to join the venomoth. The great moth’s pale blue eyes traveled downward towards the capture ball that Xi held.

“Are you sure that’s the right one?” she asked in her buzzing voice. “Uh-huh.

I checked them all.

This is the one!” the sableye answered with confidence, having scanned each of the capture balls and thus found the signature which designated the great ball as belonging to the glalie. “And are you sure you know how to use that?” “Uh, yeah ,” Xi said a little crossly.

With a ridiculously exaggerated demonstrative air, he aimed the capture ball’s lens at the sleeping glalie and recalled him into the device.

“See? I told you I could do it,” the sableye said triumphantly.

Cleo merely rolled her eyes at him, eliciting a chuckle from her partner. “Okay!

We got what we came for,” Xi said then.

“Let’s go!” With the great ball clutched tightly in his hand, he quickly scampered up and over the fence and departed the scene in gleeful haste, with Cleo winging her way close behind him. * * * Roughly three hours later, Solonn at last awakened from the sleep that had ambushed him, his eyes opening with something of a delay.

At once, they registered the sight before them as unfamiliar.

He found himself in the middle of a semi-large, high-ceilinged, and presently rather dark room.

The place was quite bare;

There were no furnishings around him, and only a couple of scattered, human-made objects strewn about suggested that this place actually belonged to anyone.

As far as Solonn could tell, he was presently alone. He knew not what this place was, nor why he had been taken here, and he was quite sure that he didn’t want to stay to find out.

He promptly ascended from the ground, the drowsiness of his induced sleep gone entirely in the face of his urge to be gone from this place without delay.

His gaze swept the room in search of an exit and found one in the form of a door in the wall to his left, near the back of the room.

It was plainly too narrow to admit him, as portals in human-made structures tended to be, but Solonn wasn’t going to let that stop him.

He was prepared to smash right through that door. Without a second’s hesitation, he lowered his massive, horned head, ready to ram the door down and burst through its frame.

With a surge of speed, he charged towards the exit—but unexpectedly, violently, he was caught short by some unseen barrier, one that arrested his charging form smartly and sent him reeling harshly back.

Partly stunned and taken utterly by surprise by the recoil from his thwarted charge, he wildly overcompensated to regain control of himself.

He lost hold of his equilibrium entirely and ended up crashing face-first into the wooden floor, the boards beneath him splintering on his impact. Solonn hissed and snarled in pain as red and white flashes played across the inner surfaces of his eyes and a shrill whine rang within his ears.

He lay face down for a moment, wondering what in the world had just happened.

Ignoring the throbbing in his head and the dizziness that came along with it, he lifted himself back up from the floor.

He stared hard into the empty air before him, as if trying to will the unseen barrier that had caught him there moments ago into visibility.

But neither the force that had halted him nor anything that could have been its source would appear unto his probing eyes. Solonn was baffled by this phenomenon, but was determined to figure it out.

He knew that his escape from this place, from the ones who had brought him here, and from whatever their intentions might be required him to overcome this obstacle.

He approached the invisible barrier slowly and carefully, mindful of the recoil it had given him when he’d charged it at full speed.

He soon found it and felt it firmly resisting him as he pushed against it. Closing his eyes in determination, he began to slowly increase the pressure he placed on the repulsion field.

He gradually entrusted every ounce of his considerable weight to the barrier, exerting it upon the obstacle before him with all his strength.

But no matter how he pressed against it, the barrier would not yield to him.

Still, he tried, despite how the pressure of his forehead against the invisible wall aggravated the pain from his recent fall. Then, all of a sudden, the force that held Solonn at bay ceased resisting him altogether, causing him to pitch forward and fall onto his face for a second time.

He exclaimed a muffled oath into the floorboards as the intensity of the pain in his head spiked sharply. He heard a sound then, and recognized it as that of quickly-approaching, human-sounding footsteps moving towards him from behind.

He suspected that this signified the arrival of someone who was somehow involved with his abduction and detainment, probably coming to subdue him after hearing the commotion caused by his attempted escape.

Quite certain that he couldn’t get away from whomever was approaching, he prepared himself to fight his captor off.

Growling a warning deep in his throat, he rose and turned to face—and to strike—whomever had just arrived. But Solonn caught himself short of attacking as his eyes fell upon the newly-arrived human, and he surrendered the elemental energy he had gathered for his intended ice beam.

Standing there a couple of yards before him was none other than Morgan, breathing hard and casting furtive glances about her every few seconds.

Solonn noted at once how badly disheveled she looked;

Her skin was pale and drenched with sweat, her hair was mussed, and her eyes were swollen and bloodshot as if she had just spent an hour or two crying.

Her right hand gripped the handle of an oddly-shaped, heavy-looking object—a hammer—that wobbled as her shoulders heaved, looking ready to drop to the floor at any second. “Oh… thank God I found you…” Morgan said almost voicelessly.

“Now try to move towards me…” Still quite dumbfounded, Solonn did as Morgan requested.

He found as he moved forward that the repulsion field was indeed completely gone, allowing him to go unimpeded to her. “It’s gone,” he noted aloud as he came to hover before her.

“Some kind of invisible barrier was holding me here—you stopped it somehow, didn’t you?” Solonn asked.

Morgan nodded. “Do you know what it was, exactly?” he inquired. “It was the mean look technique,” Morgan said hoarsely.

“I found a sableye right out there.” She indicated the vast, maroon-hued expanse at the front of the room;

Solonn had assumed it to be another wall, but now saw that it was actually just a soft, hanging partition through which a person could pass by merely pushing it out of the way—a curtain.

“He was using that technique to keep you within a certain distance of him… until I hit him in the head with this.” She raised the hammer, then let it fall to the floor.

“He’s out cold now.” A sableye… Solonn had told Morgan of the strange little pokémon who had paid him a visit eight days ago, and she had told him the name of his visitor’s species.

The image of the dark/ghost-type flashed within Solonn’s mind… and was then closely followed by that of the venomoth who had come that very morning and drugged him with sleep powder—another unexpected guest within such a short frame of time.

It seemed to Solonn an awfully unlikely coincidence… “Did you find anyone else here?” he asked Morgan.

“A flying, purple pokémon, perhaps?” Morgan shook her head.

“No. I searched this whole place over.

No one else here except that sableye… I didn’t find the rest of you here, either,” she added, her voice quieting considerably on those last nine words. Solonn’s brow furrowed in sudden, troubled confusion.

“The rest of… what?

Morgan, what are you talking about?” he asked worriedly. Morgan’s eyes closed, and she turned away as abruptly as if she’d just been struck in the face.

She opened her mouth to speak, but a strangled gasp was all that could emerge, as whatever words she’d had prepared caught in her throat.

“I’ll explain soon,” she finally managed in a constrained voice, then turned again to face Solonn.

Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Let’s just get you out of here.” Solonn nodded, and made for the curtain. “No,” Morgan called, halting him.

“That way just leads into another part of the building.

We’ll go out that way.” She pointed towards the exit that Solonn had previously spotted.

“That’ll take us outside.” Solonn made his way over to the exit, and Morgan followed.

“You’re gonna have to smash the door down,” the human told him as they reached the exit.

Having already figured such, Solonn was already backing up for a charge as she spoke.

Once he’d put sufficient distance between himself and the door for a full-velocity charge, he lowered his head (resigning himself to the fact that this would reawaken the pain there), then hurtled forward in a headbutt attack.

The door exploded from its hinges as he crashed into it, its frame bursting apart as he emerged violently into the sunlight. Morgan quickly joined him outside.

“Sit down just for a second,” she instructed him at once.

“You’re much faster than I am—we can get out of here a lot quicker if you give me a ride.” Not quite comprehending what Morgan was asking of him, Solonn nonetheless complied.

As soon as he set himself down upon the grass, he found, to his surprise, that Morgan was clambering onto his back, using the gaps in his armor as handholds and footholds to climb up onto the top of his head. Morgan situated herself there upon the glalie, sitting with her legs extended forward and her hands clutching his horns.

She began at once to shiver quite severely in such close proximity to the chill of his body;

Noting this, Solonn took on a more conscious effort to focus his elemental power and keep his coldness to himself. “Okay,” Morgan said, “okay.

I’m going to tell you which way to go… you just concentrate on moving as fast as you can.

Now, go! Hurry!” Solonn set off in an instant, achieving his maximum velocity quickly.

He worried that the human he was carrying might fall from him at this speed of travel, but she seemed to hang onto him capably enough.

While he’d expected her to have him hurry towards her house, she instead steered him into unknown territory, guiding him through a maze of alleyways barely wide enough to admit him. Her directions eventually led Solonn out of these alleyways… and then, unbeknownst to him, out of the city itself.

He had been rushing along at top speed for minutes now and was tiring.

Had he been one of those creatures that moved by the power of their limbs and muscles, he would have been far wearier still.

Morgan urged him to keep going, and he figured that she probably had a good reason to urge him on so far from the scene they had fled.

Preferring to be safe rather than sorry, he reckoned that he’d do best to trust that notion, and so he continued on, ignoring the rising complaints of his body. Solonn and Morgan were now swiftly making their way westward along a scenic, grassy route.

Delicate-looking metal fences lined the path on either side.

Some distance beyond the fence on the right, a large, flat building stood.

The fence on the left provided the sole barrier between the road and a treacherous drop off of a sheer cliff towards a sparkling expanse of water.

Even though only able to see the scene to the south through his peripheral vision, Solonn found himself in awe of what he could glimpse of the calm, sapphire waters and the great, solemn mountain they embraced that stood tall against the backdrop of the southern horizon. At length, this route gave way to a lush, verdant place teeming with trees and vast patches of tall grass.

By this point, Solonn simply could not go any further.

It’s far enough… he figured, it has to be… Groaning, he allowed himself to sink to the ground, managing with something of an effort to keep from obeying his body’s desire to roll over onto his back so as to avoid casting Morgan off from him and possibly crushing her in the process. Morgan climbed off from him somewhat awkwardly.

She sat down in the grass in front of him and promptly buried her face in her hands. For a very long moment, Solonn sat silently, trying to catch his breath and to ignore the fact that he ached everywhere.

“What’s happened?” he asked finally, still practically wheezing. Several seconds passed before Morgan made any sort of response.

Her face remained buried in her palms, her fingers knitting themselves fretfully into the hair that framed it. “They’re gone,” she finally croaked in barely more than a whisper. “…What’s gone, Morgan?” Solonn asked softly, the edges of his voice frayed by the sense of dread building rapidly within him. “Not ‘what’, Solonn,” Morgan corrected him, her voice breaking.

“ Who .” Her shoulders started to shake uncontrollably;

Then, she gave a wrenching sob.

“My other pokémon are gone .

Stolen. All of them.” “ What ?!” Solonn could have sworn that his heart had just stopped at the news he had just received.

“Oh, good gods… When did you find out?” he demanded. “A couple of hours ago,” Morgan answered miserably, still hiding her face.

Tears were now streaming through her fingers.

“I wasn’t feeling so good at school… really, really nauseous… and they excused me early.

I came home, and you were gone, and all the others, too… they took the balls they were in and everything,” she sobbed. The news struck Solonn like a hammer.

Oth… Raze… Sei… Aaron… Brett… all those people who had come to be good friends of his… gone, taken gods only knew where… As he thought about the others, he became brutally aware of just how helpless they had been, contained within their capture balls—small, portable devices, easily carried away… But wait… Not all of them had been in that vulnerable position… ”What about Sei?” Solonn inquired.

“She was out of the house, wasn’t she?” The possibility of Sei still being free offered a ray of hope for the others—her psychic abilities could certainly aid in locating them… Morgan shook her head.

“No, she wasn’t. Before I left, she said she was staying home… some marathon on TV…” Solonn uttered a low, sorrowful hiss.

He hadn’t even noticed that Sei had been home the whole morning… he supposed that he must have been too engrossed in his practice to be aware of her.

“My gods…” he muttered.

He almost feared to imagine what sort of abductors could have successfully subdued such a powerful psychic as Sei… he realized that he had been beyond fortunate to have safely escaped from what were certainly very dangerous captors… the others, however, had not been so lucky.

A sickening feeling ran through his veins as an unbidden parade of the grim scenarios that might have befallen his friends played within his mind. “How did you manage to find me?” Solonn asked then. Morgan took a very deep, shuddering breath, her body trying in vain to calm itself.

She finally took her hands from her face, revealing her bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.

“When I found you all gone,” she started, having to pause to catch her breath in between sobs, “I called the police… they came and talked with me for a while… “After that… I don’t know.

I just started wandering—when I’m sad, I’ll just do that, just go for a walk—and then I saw this place, with this sign in front…” Her face contorted into what was unmistakably a grimace of disgust.

“‘See the Amazing Talking Glalie!’, it said.” Solonn’s eyes widened dramatically.

The light within them blazed with outrage.

He hissed again; not a low lamentation this time, but a vehement, explosive outburst.

“ That’s what they took me for?

Some kind of freak to show off?” Morgan nodded regretfully.

“How… how could they have possibly found out?” he demanded fiercely. “I don’t know!” Morgan blurted.

“ I sure didn’t tell anyone!” Solonn winced.

“Sorry… I wasn’t trying to accuse you…” “Oh…” Morgan’s tears began to fall even harder in a fresh surge.

“God… no, I’m sure you weren’t… God, I just feel awful!” She broke into sobs so violent that they barely allowed her to breathe. Solonn gave a long sigh.

“It’s all right…” he muttered.

With no small measure of difficulty, he lifted himself from the ground, setting himself back down closer to Morgan.

Burying her face in her hands once more, she leaned into him at once, her side against his—he wished she wouldn’t.

He barely had any strength to keep his element at bay, and the poor human was shaking enough without his frigid chill right up against her.

But Solonn just didn’t have the heart to try and persuade her to move. For innumerable seconds, they just sat there beside one another, neither saying a word.

Nothing disturbed the silence save for the faint calls of distant seabirds.

Even Morgan’s sobs had grown quiet, though they remained just as violent. “Did you say that you called for help… for people who could possibly help find the others?” Solonn finally asked in the softest, most soothing tone he could manage at the moment, trying despite his own terrible worry to provide a calming, consoling presence for his distraught friend. “Mmm-hmm,” Morgan responded weakly. “They might still set things right,” Solonn said, in as much an attempt to reassure himself as to reassure Morgan.

“They might still find out who did this… they might still find the others…” “God, I hope so… Do you know anything about the ones who took you?” Morgan asked then.

“Anything that might help the police find them?” “Not really,” Solonn answered with a sigh.

“Some sort of winged pokémon came and threw some kind of strange dust on me, and I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was where you found me.

I have no idea what happened in between… I know that creature couldn’t have worked alone, though.

We know that that sableye was involved, but there had to be others… I’m so sorry;

I wish I knew more…” “It’s okay,” Morgan muttered, “it’s not your fault.

If anything… it’s probably mine.” “What?

Gods, no, you know better than that!” Solonn responded incredulously at once. “Solonn, think about it.

They probably came for you .

Somehow, they found out about you, and took you so they could make money showing you off… and all the others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time…” Morgan turned her gaze briefly to the east, then closed her eyes.

“I should have let you go when you first asked.

Then none of this would be happening.” Solonn closed his eyes.

“Please, Morgan… don’t blame yourself.

Please .” He opened his eyes again and turned them upon her, their light low and their color deep with sorrow and weariness.

“Besides,” he added, “I’m the one who told you not to take me back right away, remember?

It was my idea.” But Solonn’s words seemed useless.

The look in Morgan’s eyes told all too clearly that she was not consoled, and not convinced.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, almost whispering.

She tried once again to steady herself with a deep breath, but to no avail.

“I shouldn’t have kept you here.

I guess there’s just no safe place for someone like you among humans.

Solonn… I’m letting you go now.” Solonn stared at her, dumbfounded.

A part of his mind returned to the last time Morgan had offered to release him from her custody, that night that he had revealed his talents to her.

Though he had come to know her quite well, and knew that she was not nor certainly was she ever the sort to treat him as a possession, somehow he was still amazed by the notion that she, the very creature who had taken him from his home, would so willingly relinquish him.

Twice, he thought to respond, but neither time did he have any clue what to say. “Listen.” Morgan rose shakily to her feet, casting another glance eastward, then turning to face Solonn once more.

With an obvious effort, she kept her gaze locked firmly into his eyes.

“Since… since the others are gone…” she said with difficulty, “…well, I can’t have you teleported home, and there’s an ocean between here and there, so…” She swallowed hard, running a hand fretfully through her hair.

“What you’re gonna have to do is just lay low for a while.

I’m… I’m kind of scared for you to go back to Lilycove right now;

The people who took you are still out there for now, and when they find out you got away… if they find you again, God knows what they’ll do.

Just stay away from Lilycove for a week or two, just to be safe, and in the meantime, I’ll try to get a hold of someone who can get you home.

I promise. Maybe… maybe the others will be found by then… then Sei or Ominous could take you.

But if you find some way to get home on your own… go ahead and take it.

Please. Don’t wait for me if you don’t have to.” Still in disbelief, Solonn remained silent for several moments more before responding.

“If you’re sure this is what you really want…” he began uncertainly.

Morgan nodded almost imperceptibly.

“All right,” Solonn said quietly, “all right.

I’ll return to Lilycove after a few days.

Until then,” he gave her a solemn look, “I want you to take care of yourself.

You’re a good person, Morgan.

You really are. I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to you.” Morgan nodded again.

“Okay,” she whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes as best she could.

She wrapped her arms around the giant glalie as far as they would go and gave him a long embrace, then let go and took several steps back from him.

“Guess I’ll see you again soon, but if I don’t…” She shrugged feebly.

“Goodbye, Solonn.” “Goodbye,” Solonn echoed.

He rose from the ground, ignoring his body’s protests, and bowed deeply, inclining his great face towards the ground. “Stay safe,” Morgan said.

With that, she turned and set off for the city in the east. “You, too,” Solonn called after her, allowing himself to sink back into the grass as he watched her go.

He worried for her, she who had been parted from so many dear friends in the blink of an eye.

He feared even more for the other pokémon, they whose fates remained unknown.

There was no way of telling if things would be set right again for them.

He could only hope that they would be. * * * Morgan Yorke returned to her home, listlessly casting the light jacket she was wearing onto a nearby chair as she passed through the living room.

Her mind was somewhat distant after such a long, difficult day.

Out of habit, she made her way straight to the back door, to the backyard where she had shared so many hours with the glalie who had become one of her best friends.

A sickening pang struck her at once as the door opened upon the empty space near the sitrus tree where he should have been. “Oh… my God… Where is he ?!”

Well, I finished reading the other 4 chapters, and I have to say, that Solonn sure is some Pokémon!

I wonder if he'll come to exhibit any other strange powers? Hmm, when Morgan appeared in that basement, I was momentarily conspicious, but I wouldn't have thought an imposter could have posed like her that well.

Talking about her Pokémon, crying...

Either Solonn's mind had been tapped into by a Psychic Pokémon, or he was made to see what someone wants him to see... And how will the real Morgan go about to find him?

I mean, where do you go looking for an oversized spiked head? Looking forward for more!

So, it was an imposter?

Wow, that was really surprising.

I wonder how could they pulled it off? Hm...

My guess is that it's a Ditto.

And I suppose it's not too hard to figure out why this imposter asked Solonn to leave, mm?

This way, he'll be sure to stay away from real Morgan.

Mm. One thing I liked so far is your description of the contest appeal - quite detailed, I'd say.

A little out of topic, but have you been in any Pokemon ASB at any forum?

I am reminded of the ASB contest reffing when I read your contest scene there. Oh, interesting detail on Attract, btw.

I don't think I have ever seen any Attract written in the fics that I have read so far, so that was quite interesting.

I wonder how a Glalie would look like with a cheesy smile on its face.

The 'w-like cat' smile, perhaps? No idea on the title, I'm afraid ^^ See you next chapter then

Well, I've caught up to all six of your chapters (in my defense they're pretty massive).

I really like this fic, especially how you've developed Solonn.

I love his innocence and how he makes friends in the snowgrounds in the beginning, but his loss of innocence is also well portrayed.

It feels like I'm right inside Solonn's head when he's making the important decisions such as whether to talk to Morgan.

Actually, I like your characters in general;

They all have distinctive traits.

I reckon some of the major characters like Morgan have room for much more development in the future though;

At the moment she's quite one-dimensional, and all we know of her is that she reates her Pokemon well (and is good at contests).

I can see other personality traits like persistence coming through more in the future. So, with the newest chapter, Solonn is abducted.

I really wasn't expecting that twist (although in hindsight, since the normal contest was over, something new had to happen).

What with Solonn apparently being 'the one' and all, I figure it has something to do with his earlier abductance, when he was given his ability.

Morgan being an imposter was a nice twist as well.

I was suspicious from the beginning, especially when she talked about the giant 'come see the Glalie' sign (why would anyone advertise a stolen Glalie?).

But as Faiz said, the way she acted really fit in with her normal character.

So this imposter must know Morgan incredibly well.

I wonder what their plans for Solonn are... See you next chapter.

Crystalmaster Mike: Quote: : Mike Well, I finished reading the other 4 chapters, and I have to say, that Solonn sure is some Pokémon!

I wonder if he'll come to exhibit any other strange powers?

Only time will tell.

However, I will say that anyone who might be expecting him to have a huge amount of powers is going to be sorely disappointed.

XP Quote: : Mike And how will the real Morgan go about to find him?

I mean, where do you go looking for an oversized spiked head?

At Oversized Spiked Head Mart, of course!

XP darktyranitar: Quote: : One thing I liked so far is your description of the contest appeal - quite detailed, I'd say.

A little out of topic, but have you been in any Pokemon ASB at any forum?

I am reminded of the ASB contest reffing when I read your contest scene there.

Thanks. ^^ And I’ve never participated in ASB on any forum, actually. Quote: : Oh, interesting detail on Attract, btw.

I don't think I have ever seen any Attract written in the fics that I have read so far, so that was quite interesting.

Glad you liked that.

^^ I liked it, too;

It was my favorite part of Chapter 5, in fact.

I just had to include the use of attract;

The idea of having that move come into play amused me far too much to not do so.

XD Quote: : I wonder how a Glalie would look like with a cheesy smile on its face.

The 'w-like cat' smile, perhaps?

XD Perhaps indeed.

Or maybe something like that, only scarier.

XD Quote: : No idea on the title, I'm afraid ^^ Well, I'll be nice and go ahead and provide an answer (and hide it for any who don’t) ) (Spoiler:) The title comes from the lyrics of “Blood Red Summer” by Coheed And Cambria. mistysakura: Quote: : Well, I've caught up to all six of your chapters (in my defense they're pretty massive).

I really like this fic, especially how you've developed Solonn.

I love his innocence and how he makes friends in the snowgrounds in the beginning, but his loss of innocence is also well portrayed.

It feels like I'm right inside Solonn's head when he's making the important decisions such as whether to talk to Morgan.

Thanks. ^^ Getting into Solonn’s head is one of the things I’ve enjoyed most in writing this story;

It’s neat to see that others are enjoying it, too.

^^ Quote: : Actually, I like your characters in general;

They all have distinctive traits.

I reckon some of the major characters like Morgan have room for much more development in the future though;

At the moment she's quite one-dimensional, and all we know of her is that she reates her Pokemon well (and is good at contests).

I can see other personality traits like persistence coming through more in the future.

Thanks for that, too;

I’m glad you like the characters.

^^ And I agree about Morgan.

XD; As for what the future may hold both from and for her… again, only time will tell… …I enjoy saying that entirely too much.

XP Quote: : Morgan being an imposter was a nice twist as well.

Thanks once again.

^^ I had a lot of fun coming up with that particular element of the story and with writing it.

^^ Thanks to all of you for reading and reviewing, and thanks again to everyone who’s been reading this so far.

^^ I also want to once again thank all of those who nominated and/or voted for me, either or both of my stories, and/or elements thereof in the most recent Silver Pencils.

^^ Chapter 7 – Convergence Tall, thick grass surrounded Solonn, swaying slowly in a light breeze, save for in the circular patch about nine feet wide that had been flattened in the grassy field the night before where Solonn had tried unsuccessfully to sleep. There, he now sat under the pale pink morning sky, gazing out over the grass into the east.

Though it was too far away for him to actually see, he knew that the city he’d fled stood there beneath the rising sun.

He wondered if the ones who had tried to abduct him were prowling Lilycove in search of him at that very moment, or if perhaps they were extending their search outside the city limits. Would his enemies find him here?

Or would his allies return to him first?

Might Morgan appear through the grass at any moment, calling to him with the news that their friends were safe once more, and that she was ready to take him back to Virc-Dho? These were precisely the sorts of thoughts that had denied Solonn sleep through the previous night.

Countless times, his eyes had begun to close, only to immediately fly open once more and dart about in fretful search of anyone who might have been approaching him, be they friend or foe. Solonn could not recall having ever been so on edge in his life, and wondered how he would ever allow himself to sleep again.

He also wondered how he was going to go about feeding himself over the next few days.

While he had lived with Morgan, she had always provided him with sustenance.

Before Solonn had evolved, Morgan had given him that flavored snow to eat;

After his evolution, he had been provided a diet of specially-formulated pokémon food designed to meet the nutritional needs of a large carnivore—without requiring the predator to do his, her, or its own hunting. Now, however, without Morgan to provide for him, he seemed to have no choice but to take on his natural role as an active predator.

Solonn was anything but eager to go through with this.

His hunger was steadily growing, but through minute after minute, hour after hour, he had ignored its pleas, and he still remained determined to continue doing so for as long as he could. He began to wonder just how long he could go without food.

Morgan had always fed him twice a day.

He knew not how frequently the glalie back in Virc-Dho hunted, for they still generally kept those matters from the snorunt. Solonn suspected that their reason for not telling snorunt of the hunters that they would grow up to become was so that the unevolved would be able to accept the predatory instincts that came with evolution without any prior misgivings about predation to get in the way.

Solonn had possessed precisely those kinds of reservations ever since learning this secret of the glalie.

Still, the instincts that came with his evolved form were nonetheless also present within his mind.

He tried not to pay them any heed, but they remained steadfastly in place, waiting for his inevitable surrender to their demands. He winced slightly as yet another pang of hunger closed its steely claws around his stomach.

It had been nearly an entire day since he’d eaten last;

Morgan had fed him prior to leaving for school the day before, and he’d not had anything since.

Though Solonn had looked towards the day when he would regain his independence ever since coming into Morgan’s custody, the simple fact was that he had fallen into the habits of a human’s pokémon.

He had been rendered unused to fending for himself, and was certainly not prepared for anything along the lines of “roughing it”.

Though he was quite hesitant to admit to himself that he’d grown accustomed to being tended to, he could not deny that he was left in no position to defy his body’s expectations for much longer. A brief rustling in the grass and a scent belonging to some unfamiliar, warm-bodied creature alerted Solonn to a newly arrived presence not too far from where he sat.

He turned towards it and saw the glow of the newcomer’s body heat, which seemed to flicker as it shone between the swaying blades of grass.

Something stirred within the back of his mind, trying to persuade him to see the solution that lay in this discovery. Take it, it seemed to say coaxingly.

Take it and know relief… Solonn paid no mind to the notion, closing his eyes and beginning to turn away from the creature nearby.

He silently told the faction of his mind that had suggested using the newcomer as a means by which he could alleviate his hunger that whatever the creature was, it was not prey.

Still, his instinct continued to relentlessly plead its case, but still, Solonn managed to tune out its suggestions, even as it seemed to emphasize its point by sending another tendril of aching hunger down into his belly. I’m not doing it, he argued internally, gritting his teeth in desperate determination.

Good gods, I’m not starving to death yet! His physical demands would not stand to be silenced, however, and so, they presented yet another unbidden argument through his mind: You had better get used to this—it’s going to be the way you’ll be feeding yourself for the rest of your life.

There aren’t going to be any humans around to feed you when you get back to Virc-Dho. Solonn sighed resignedly as he ceased his internal argument.

There was the undeniable truth of the matter: his independent survival required him to embrace his predatory nature.

There would be no processed pokémon food outside the human realm.

There would only be prey—lives which he would have to end in order to sustain his own. He knew that he would ultimately have to accept it.

But he could not imagine himself ever liking it. It was with an immense reluctance that he turned back towards the heat signature of his would-be prey, rose from the ground, and began to glide in its direction.

The creature had drawn closer to him since he’d last allowed himself to look towards it, apparently oblivious to his presence;

Even moving at minimal speed, Solonn would be upon it swiftly. As Solonn approached, he called upon his element, summoning ice to hold the prey in place and prevent its escape.

The hapless creature began screaming at once in response to Solonn’s actions, its voice shrill and surprisingly loud to be issuing from what had to be a tiny throat and tiny lungs. Solonn tried in vain to shut out the cries, but his keen hearing allowed him no refuge from the terrible sound.

Struggling to steel himself for the task that lay ahead of him, he pushed his way through the last blades of grass separating him from his prey and looked down upon it directly for the first time. There, with ice encasing her legs and bushy tail, a female zigzagoon screamed ceaselessly, the terror in her cries magnified triplefold upon seeing the huge, ghastly visage of her captor looming before her.

Her head thrashed and her spine arched as she fought to free herself, but her struggles were of no use;

In truth, she knew this just as well as did the great and terrible creature who had frozen her to the spot.

Closing her eyes, she fearfully awaited her imminent demise. Solonn could almost literally taste the fear of his prey on the air as he prepared to deliver the killing strike.

He knew that he could freeze the flesh and blood of the zigzagoon in an instant, and perhaps, then, just as his mother had told him years ago, his prey would not have time to suffer.

He needed only to tap into that power, and the deed would be done… He hissed as hesitation pulled him sharply back from finishing off the zigzagoon.

You should have just done it in when you first noticed it, chided the faction of his mind that still remained in favor of the insane act that he had so very nearly committed.

You shouldn’t have looked at it first… Solonn’s gaze fell upon the face of the zigzagoon, whose features were contorted almost grotesquely in mortal terror.

His throat constricted painfully, and his stomach went sour, extinguishing his appetite.

With a hiss of disgust, he instantly vaporized the ice that had held the zigzagoon in place. After a second’s delay, the striped, brown-and-grey pokémon dared to open her eyes.

She stared up at Solonn with a wild gaze, seemingly paralyzed with fear and confusion. “Go,” Solonn said abruptly.

“Just go.” The zigzagoon remained rooted to the spot, fixed in place by disbelief.

Her jaw worked almost imperceptibly, as if she was trying to speak. Solonn did not wait for her to pull her words together.

“ Go !” he commanded sonorously, darting at the zigzagoon to emphasize his point.

With a squeak of fright, the normal-type scrambled away as fast as she could, with not a single glance behind. Solonn sank wearily to the ground, thoroughly disgusted with himself.

Gods’ mercies… you almost killed that poor creature… He shuddered as he thought of what would have happened had his reluctance not gotten the better of him in time… “Well, that certainly was magnanimous of you,” came a jovial and utterly unexpected voice. Quite startled in his rather compromised state, Solonn spun around instantly to face the source of the utterance.

He found a semi-large, avian pokémon, with blue, red, and white plumage and a long, scissored tail, hovering in midair before him.

The grass below the bird was swept around by the steady beats of his wide wings.

Solonn wondered how this creature had managed to sneak up on him so thoroughly unnoticed. The bird descended to the ground, pushing the tall grass out of his face with his wings once he’d landed.

“You know, ordinarily I might hesitate to stop and chat with an ice-type such as yourself, but given what I’ve just witnessed here, I’d dare assume yours to be safe company,” he said.

He bowed regally.

“Do allow me to introduce myself.

I am the swellow Jal’tai.

And you are…?” Still slightly bewildered by the spontaneously appearing bird, Solonn responded with a bit of a delay.

“Solonn Zgil-Al,” he introduced himself, then, after a short pause, “the—” “Oh, I know, I know,” Jal’tai interrupted with a chuckle.

“You don’t need to tell me what you are, Mr.

Zgil-Al. There’s no mistaking a glalie for anything else once you’ve seen one… So, then.

I haven’t seen you around these parts before.

Have you only recently relocated here?” “I guess you could say that,” Solonn replied.

“I mean, I haven’t exactly moved here permanently…” The swellow cocked his head inquisitively.

Solonn hesitated momentarily to elaborate on what he was doing in the area, but then reckoned it was safe to tell of such as long as he was careful not to give too many details of the situation.

“I’ve just escaped from human kidnappers in Lilycove,” he told the swellow.

“I’m just laying low in this area until I can find some way to get back where I came from, across the sea.” “Oh, my… that must have been harrowing,” Jal’tai remarked, sounding both astounded and pitying.

“Thank goodness you escaped, then.

Say… if you need a place to stay, I know an excellent candidate.” He took on a rather grand pose, puffing out his feathered chest.

“I don’t reside in this area, either;

I just like to come here every now and again for a break from all the hustle and bustle back home.

I come from a city in the west, and it’s the greatest city in the world, in my opinion.

And I’d bet anything you’d agree with me, given the chance to see it with your own eyes!

You could stay safe from your pursuers there, and in far more comfortable conditions than you’ll find out here.

Plus, I’m certain you’d find a means to cross the sea there—that is, if you’ll want to leave!” the swellow added with a chuckle.

“So, what do you say, hmm?

Can I tempt you with a stay in my beloved city?” Solonn eyed him somewhat skeptically.

“That’s a very nice offer, but… well, I would really rather not enter another human city if I can avoid it… that is what you’re talking about, isn’t it?” Jal’tai blinked in surprise, then burst out into crowing laughter.

“Oh, no! It’s not a human city, I assure you.

You’d realize that quite swiftly if you saw it for yourself.” The bird chuckled giddily.

“Oh, you’d be amazed at the things my town has to show you!” Solonn considered the swellow’s offer.

Moving further into the west, and thus further from Lilycove, would keep him further from the reach of those who sought him.

It also occurred to him that the natives probably wouldn’t mind sharing their food with him as well as their shelter… already, he could feel the relief of possibly being spared the need to hunt, even if only for a while.

Plus, the swellow certainly made this city out to be a nice place, although Solonn did find the level of Jal’tai’s enthusiasm vaguely disturbing. Of course, he could not help but think of Morgan, who had said she would return to where she’d left him if she came up with a means to take him back to Virc-Dho.

He didn’t want to entirely discard faith in her;

Furthermore, he did, in all honesty, still hope to once again see her and the pokémon whom he’d met and befriended through her, and hopefully in a happier light next time.

That, at least, would seem like a more proper farewell, and an easier one… the one she and they deserved, in his opinion, for treating him so well. He had not forgotten what Morgan had said the evening before, however, not one word of it.

She had expressly told him that if he found another means to return home before she could, then he was to take it.

Solonn did question whether or not this truly was what the human wanted;

Surely, she would not want to lose a chance to see her pokémon one more time, would she?

But in the end, he decided that he had to give her the benefit of the doubt where that was concerned.

This was what she’d said she wanted, and he reckoned that he should take her word for it. “All right,” Solonn agreed finally. “Ah, excellent!” Jal’tai said, sounding supremely delighted.

“Come, then, follow me!” With a mighty flap of his wings, Jal’tai took to the air, sending the grass below him into a frenzied dance as he set off very swiftly towards the west. Solonn sighed wearily;

The evening before had been quite taxing and his body was still not quite ready to endure being made to hurry anyplace.

“Jal’tai? Excuse me, could you slow down a bit?” he called after the swellow as he hastened with difficulty to follow. “Oh, of course!” the swellow responded, and slowed down significantly.

“Terribly sorry about that… I just simply can’t wait to show you my city…” As Solonn followed Jal’tai, he found the tall grass that had surrounded him thinning, eventually disappearing from his surroundings altogether.

Conversely, the trees were becoming more plentiful as he continued westward, increasing in number and density until Solonn found himself led into a true forest, and a bit of inconvenience. “Jal’tai!

Wait!” Solonn shouted.

Jal’tai’s rate of travel had decreased even further, since the surrounding trees left him little room to fly, forcing him to walk.

Solonn would have had no problem keeping up with him were it not for the fact that the trees provided an even greater impediment to him than they did to the swellow.

Solonn was forced to pick his way between those trees that grew far enough apart to admit his considerable girth. Jal’tai halted and turned.

There was a smile playing about his eyes and beak that suggested that he was holding back an urge to laugh.

“I apologize on the trees’ behalf,” he said, the tiniest of chuckles managing to break through. Solonn gave Jal’tai a dull glare, the light and color in his eyes briefly muting into a somewhat unpleasant, murky shade of blue, then resumed making his rather difficult way amidst the trees.

“I do hope that this ‘city’ of yours isn’t so—” he broke into a loud snarl as a branch on one of the trees between which he was squeezing swatted him just below his left eye “— infested with trees…” “Oh, heavens, no.

The forest had to be cleared in that area before the city could be built—a necessary evil, I’m afraid, but I daresay that’s it’s come to give more to the area than it’s taken.

Anyway, you’ll not have to suffer the vegetation much longer.

We’re nearly there.” This came as a surprise to Solonn;

From what he could see, the only thing they were drawing closer to was another several acres of dense forest.

Managing at last to follow closely behind Jal’tai once more after coming across a fair number of trees in his path that had all considerately grown no fewer than three yards apart, Solonn began casting glances about for signs that they were, indeed, nearing Jal’tai’s city, but still saw nothing but trees, trees, and more trees. “HALT!” two voices suddenly shouted in unison.

In nearly the same instant, the owners of those voices leapt out before Solonn and Jal’tai from behind two of the trees, landing gracefully on dainty hooves.

The two staglike pokémon glared at Solonn and Jal’tai for a moment, lowering their golden antlers menacingly—then, abruptly, the stantler both raised their heads and took a step back, wearing alarmed expressions. “Oh!

We… we didn’t realize it was you!” one of the stantler babbled hurriedly. “We’re so sorry… really, we are… very sorry…” the other one said neurotically. “Well, that is why it’s wise to always look before you leap, now isn’t it?” Jal’tai said pleasantly. The two stantler nodded vigorously.

“Can… can you forgive us?” one of them asked tentatively. Jal’tai gave a chuckle and a dismissive wave of his wing.

“Oh, of course, of course,” he said.

“No harm done at all.

Now, why don’t you fellows let us in, and then see about having someone else finish your shifts, all right?

It doesn’t do to work too long;

It’s absolutely murder on the nerves, as we’ve seen displayed here quite clearly.” “Yes, yes, of course…” one of the stantler muttered, nodding a bit too hard once again.

His eyes then traveled from Jal’tai to Solonn, and the other stantler’s gaze followed.

It was as though, incredibly, they had not noticed the giant glalie hovering there up to this point. “Yes, he’s with me.

You know I wouldn’t let just any of them in,” Jal’tai said. Both stantler seemed to have one last moment’s hesitation;

Then, they both gave a quick nod and stepped aside. “Thank you kindly,” Jal’tai said warmly, bowing as he passed between the two guards.

“Right this way,” he said to Solonn, beckoning with his wing, “it’s right through here.” “Where?” Solonn questioned as he moved forward alongside Jal’tai.

“I don’t see—” The glalie was instantly stricken silent by the sight that appeared then with the utmost spontaneity.

All at once, the endless forest before him was replaced by a view of a bustling, thoroughly modern city.

There was no canopy of leaves to obstruct the sky above, for the trees’ presence was relegated to neat rows lining the streets and the occasional solitary specimen growing in front of certain of the houses.

A few of the inhabitants of the city, varying in species, could be seen strolling the sidewalks or milling about in the lawns or on street corners.

An occasional vehicle cruised up or down one of the visible streets at a casual, citygoing pace. Still rather mesmerized by the city that had just appeared before him out of thin air, Solonn was a bit startled by the wing that clapped him heartily on the back then.

His gaze shifted to the swellow beside him, who was smiling warmly (insofar as his beak would allow), his eyes twinkling with obvious pride. “Welcome, my friend,” Jal’tai said with much grandeur, spreading his wings wide, “to Convergence, the city of a better future!

Isn’t it magnificent?” “Well…” Solonn began semi-awkwardly, furrowing his brow in an expression of uncertainty.

The city of Convergence had certainly made an impressive entrance;

Of that, he was certain.

However, beyond that… the city might have come closer to being “magnificent” in his eyes if it hadn’t seemed so familiar .

Solonn had gazed out the window upon a view of busy Lilycove on enough occasions to know a human-style city when he saw one.

“It’s certainly… er, doing well for itself, and I guess that’s nice, but… Jal’tai, I thought you said this wasn’t a human city…” The swellow chuckled.

“Yes, I most certainly did.

And on closer inspection, you might realize that, indeed, just as I stated, this is not a human city.

Or do you not see the abundance of pokémon about?” “What about it?

Pokémon live in human cities, too,” Solonn pointed out. “True, true… but there remains a very significant difference between those cities and this one.

Why, look over there,” Jal’tai said, gesturing with his wing towards a truck that had stopped at a traffic light some distance before them.

Its driver was large and hairy—and a bear, more precisely an ursaring.

The light turned green, and the truck went on the move again, heading their way.

Solonn could hear country music issuing from the vehicle’s soundsystem;

The bear was nodding her head and growling faintly along with the song. “Now, there’s something you won’t see in a mere human city,” Jal’tai said. The ursaring driver rounded a corner, pulled into a driveway, and exited her vehicle.

As she did so, she turned and spotted Jal’tai and Solonn.

Her eyes widened and brightened, and she waved vigorously.

“Hi!” she half-roared from across the street in a cheerful greeting. “Good day to you, madam!” Jal’tai returned, waving back at her.

“I might also add that Ms.

Olcarion actually owns that lovely house,” he then informed Solonn.

“As a matter of fact—” he indicated the three houses to the right of the ursaring’s home “—all of those homes are owned by pokémon.

Independent pokémon, Solonn.

Do you realize the significance of that?” Without waiting for Solonn to answer, he continued.

“In human cities, pokémon are second-class citizens—if even that.” His features gave a brief flash of disgust.

“But here, pokémon are afforded the same rights and opportunities as humans.

They may own properties like those the humans own.

They may learn to operate the vehicles invented by humans if they so wish.

Our schools offer them the same education that humans receive, and training for those who wish to enter occupations that elsewhere may only be held by humans. “This is a community with no parallel in the world today, in which pokémon and humans are truly able to live and work as equals.

Do you see, now, what makes Convergence great?” Solonn nodded vaguely, still absorbing the information Jal’tai had just imparted upon him.

He had not realized that pokémon were such non-entities in human society.

True, pokémon were taken from their homes and forced to live in human custody, but judging by his experience with Morgan, he had not found himself treated poorly… Solonn realized that if what Jal’tai said was true, then he had been quite fortunate indeed to have been taken in by Morgan and not one of the apparent, inconsiderate majority of humans. “Now, then,” Jal’tai said crisply.

“I’m feeling rather in the mood for lunch of a sudden… How about you?” Solonn made to answer Jal’tai, but his stomach beat him to it. Jal’tai grinned warmly.

“Ah, right then. We’ll go to Whitley’s;

It’s to die for…” (CONTINUED)

The swellow led Solonn deeper into Convergence, heading towards the center of town.

Along the way, Solonn spotted more of the city’s residents out and about.

They were mostly pokémon, some of which were in the possession of and process of using strange, probably human-built devices, such as the horrendously noisy leaf blower being operated by an electabuzz at the curb in front of one of the houses.

(Solonn’s hearing denied his escape from the ungodly noise, even once he’d gotten quite a few blocks away, much to his dismay.) Solonn also spotted a couple of humans as he continued through the city after Jal’tai—literally a “couple”;

He saw only two of them and they were together.

It seemed that the pokémon outnumbered the humans here.

From what he could glean at a glance, though, Solonn thought that the two humans both looked quite happy to be living here.

They were neither goggling nor blatantly avoiding looking at the pokémon citizens;

It seemed that they, as perhaps a rare exception to their species, found nothing strange about the notion of pokémon living right alongside them.

Solonn found the notion that there were reasonable humans out there other than Morgan quite refreshing. At last, Solonn and Jal’tai arrived at Whitley’s (even here, Solonn could still hear the noise of that leaf blower…).

The restaurant was a large, country-styled building situated at the end of a fairly sizeable parking lot, one which presently had most of its spaces unoccupied.

Above its entrance, a sign bore the image of an elderly, goateed man’s smiling face, along with the words “WHITLEY’S FAMILY RESTAURANT” spelled out beside the portrait—twice.

It was written once in what Solonn recognized to be human writing, and once in a curious, unfamiliar script that, oddly enough, seemed to be made up of eyes … Each character was formed by one of these large, round “eyes”, with the letters differentiated by bars that radiated from them in varying shapes and at varying angles. Solonn had found himself able at once to read the other form of writing, so it didn’t surprise him much to find the second script instantly understandable, as well.

However, there was more to his comprehension of the eyed letters than mere literacy, and he recognized this immediately.

Puzzled, he queried Jal’tai about it. “That second kind of writing, there on that sign… there’s something about it… I don’t know how to explain it except that it just feels different to read… more natural , somehow…” “Ah.

I suppose you’ve never seen unown-script before.” Jal’tai smiled.

“Well, Mr. Zgil-Al, there is reason why it feels natural to read.

It is our written language, the script of pokémon.

Allow me to explain.

The unown are a race of pokémon who are credited as the ones responsible for eradicating many of the communication barriers between the peoples of the world.

Many pokémon, myself included, believe that it was they who blessed the differing races of pokémon with the ability to understand one another’s languages, as well as the languages of humans.

But for some reason, their blessing failed to touch humans, leaving them unable to understand pokémon speech. “The unown tried to solve the problem through the creation of a universal written language, a process so demanding that it apparently forced them to evolve to that specific end.

They developed special written characters that they infused with a mystic quality meant to render them instantly comprehensible to pokémon and humans alike.

And it worked, too: pokémon can use it to convey messages to humans that they could otherwise never receive.

Sadly, the script failed to catch on—perhaps the cultures that used it were conquered or decimated by humans who trained pokémon to fight for them rather than communicating and living in harmony with them,” the swellow added, bitterness subtly bending his tone. “Anyhow,” he finished, “in honor of the unown’s tremendous efforts towards interspecies understanding, we use unown-script as an official language of our city.

All citizens are required to memorize all of its symbols, humans and pokémon alike.” Solonn took another look at the sign and its message in unown-script, intrigued and quite impressed.

It was an incredible notion: an entire species literally transforming itself in the name of promoting universal communication.

He wondered what it might be like to actually encounter one of them—the things that could be learned from such creatures, especially by one such as himself, who had his own relationship with the concept of universal communication… The wheels of his mind ground to a sudden halt. Wait… “Tell me, Mr.

Zgil-Al,” Jal’tai spoke up crisply then, interrupting Solonn’s reverie almost as soon as it had begun, “when you mentioned that unown-script felt ‘different to read’… did you mean as compared to human writing?

I have always hoped to meet another who is human-literate, as I am.” Solonn’s thought processes were arrested once again, more harshly this time.

Stupid! He fumbled internally for a means to repair any possible damage done.

“Oh… no, I can’t read that,” he finally said, his words tumbling out a bit more quickly than he’d intended.

“I just guessed that it said the same thing that it said below in the unown-script.” “Hmm…” the swellow uttered, sounding perhaps not quite as crestfallen as he felt.

“Well, perhaps if you’re interested, I could teach you to read human-script sometime, hmm?

In the meantime… I daresay we’ve tarried here outside for quite long enough,” he then said briskly.

“Why wait a moment longer when food’s right inside, right?

Come on, then!” Solonn followed Jal’tai to a set of doors, which opened automatically for them a couple of seconds after the two had stopped before them.

They entered the restaurant, which was warmly lit by a large number of hanging, stained-glass lamps, and were immediately greeted by a hitmonchan in a tuxedo. “Ah!

You grace our presence in person yet again!” the semi-humanoid fighting-type exclaimed.

“And this gentleman is your guest?” he asked, at which Jal’tai nodded in response.

“Very well, then!

Please, let me show you to your usual table!” The hitmonchan beckoned the two of them towards the back of the restaurant.

They passed a table where a human female sat feeding small morsels of meat to a baby makuhita in a high chair that barely accommodated his rotund form.

Solonn spotted an area in one corner of the restaurant that was enclosed by slightly tinted, soft plastic walls with a zippered door flap, in which an assembly of koffing and grimer laughed around a pile of something slimy and rotten-looking beneath a large (and hopefully very powerful) exhaust fan.

In another corner, two magnemite contently orbited a peculiar, seven-foot-tall, towerlike structure that hummed faintly with electricity.

It appeared to be feeding energy into the mechanical-looking electric/steel-types through wires connected to the magnet-like appendages at their sides. Jal’tai’s “usual table” was located in a private room in the very back of the restaurant.

The room was handsomely decorated with paintings of landscapes on every wall and an elegant potted shrub in every corner.

A modest, but not unattractive chandelier hung above the table in the center of the room, bearing the light of a number of small light bulbs rather than actual, burning candles. Jal’tai seated himself at the table;

Or rather, perched atop his seat, his ruby-red talons gripping the back of his chair while his tail feathers draped over it towards the floor.

Solonn, being quite large, quite heavy, and generally just not equipped for perching or for sitting on most things without breaking them, merely pushed the chair at the opposite end of the table aside and sat down in its place, grateful to be out of the air once more after all the traveling he’d done of late. “Your orders, then, sirs?” the hitmonchan waiter prompted. “Oh, it’ll be the Cerulean fish platter for me.

Yes, again,” Jal’tai said with his trademark chuckle.

“And for him… oh, just give him the Specialty of the House to start with—don’t bother to cook it, of course.

And you know where to send the bill, of course.” “Yes, sir!” the hitmonchan confirmed enthusiastically, and departed their table and the room. “Isn’t it refreshing to see pokémon holding occupations other than ‘gladiator’?” Jal’tai said wistfully.

He sighed. “Alas, the indignities we children of the elements suffer at the hands of humans… Which reminds me, Mr.

Zgil-Al… what of those humans from whom you escaped?

Have you any idea what their motives might have been?” Solonn was taken a bit by surprise by that question, even though he hadn’t exactly expected that the subject of his pursuers wouldn’t come up again;

However, he had rather strongly hoped that it wouldn’t, of course.

Recovering with commendable speed, he untruthfully replied, “No idea whatsoever.

Frankly, I’m glad I never got the chance to find out.” “Indeed,” Jal’tai concurred.

“You’ve certainly been spared a most degrading fate.” You don’t know the half of it… Solonn held Jal’tai’s gaze for a moment more, then let his eyes flit about from one painting on the wall to another in the awkward silence that hung in the air until Jal’tai spoke again. “You mentioned fleeing from Lilycove… I’ve not heard of an ice-type colony anywhere in that vicinity—believe me, as an avian I would make sure to know of such!” Jal’tai said with a laugh.

“No offense, of course,” he added quickly, but coolly. “Meh,” Solonn responded unconcernedly. “Anyhow, you were brought into Lilycove by these humans from someplace else, then, correct?” the swellow inquired. “Well…” Solonn supposed there was no real harm in speaking of Morgan, though he opted against mentioning her by name, “…not by those humans, but yes, I was brought to Lilycove by a human.” He mindfully chose the word “brought” rather than “taken”;

He had deduced that Jal’tai did not have the most favorable of attitudes towards humans, especially those who kept pokémon, and so Solonn thought that it might be prudent to select his words carefully so as to give the avian as little provocation to speak ill of Morgan as possible.

“I lived with her for several months.

She was really a very decent person.

I won’t lie about it—I do miss her…” He sighed, feeling a strange sensation that he couldn’t quite discern suffusing through his nerves in the wake of this admission.

“She must be horribly worried about me…” “Do you think you’ll ever return to her?” Jal’tai asked quietly. “I don’t know,” Solonn answered truthfully.

“I mean… I’d like to, sure.

I just don’t know if Lilycove will ever be safe for me again… those people are still out there, and I don’t know if they’ll ever be caught.” “Let us hope they will be, at any rate,” Jal’tai said soberly.

Solonn nodded in agreement. Their ordered food arrived then, carried in on a wide tray that was balanced deftly upon the large hands of the hitmonchan waiter as he pushed the door to the private room open with his hip.

Several smoked fish fillets on a ceramic platter were placed before Jal’tai.

Before Solonn, the waiter placed an odd, wooden pedestal on which there sat a rather large slab of uncooked red meat.

The hitmonchan then provided each of them with a saucer of water (as a credit to his skill in balancing things, he had managed to avoid spilling a single drop of the water in the process of carrying it to the customers). “I’ll be back shortly,” the waiter said merrily.

“When I return, you just let me know if you need anything else, okay?” With that, he departed Jal’tai and Solonn’s company. Solonn eyed the pedestal on which his meal sat, puzzled.

“What is this thing?” “Hmm?” came Jal’tai’s muffled response;

He already had a large chunk of fish in his beak.

He swallowed it, then answered, “Oh, yes, that.

It’s just something to make it a little easier for those without limbs to enjoy their meal.

Particularly someone like yourself;

I can see where you would experience some difficulty in attempting to pluck meat off a plate as I am doing.” Solonn’s eyes shifted the tiny distance upward from the pedestal to the steak itself.

“So… this is meat, then?” “Mmm-hmm,” the swellow confirmed through another bite of fish.

“I imagine you’re unused to it being cut and processed in such a manner, but I assure you, it is meat.” Solonn made a small, wordless noise of acknowledgement.

So… this thing before him, this moist, red slab… had once been a part of a living creature … He felt a sense of trepidation fluttering about the vicinity of his heart as he continued to stare at the steak. Once again, his internal advocate for predation chose to speak up.

It’s what’s right for you, you know. Solonn continued to eye the steak uneasily.

There was a part of his mind that couldn’t help but try and picture what the former owner of this muscle tissue had once looked like before it was slaughtered… Come on—it’s not like you killed it, came the internal argument. That angle fell just short of mollifying Solonn.

Accepting that he could feed off of another’s demise seemed a nigh insurmountable task… He cast a quick glance at Jal’tai, and found that the bird was temporarily neglecting his fish fillets to gaze back at him concernedly. “Are you quite all right?” he inquired.

“You haven’t touched your Specialty there.” “Er…” Solonn began, pausing as he swallowed nervously.

“…I was just trying to figure out what’s so ‘special’ about it…” he half-muttered, inwardly cursing himself a bit for not coming up with a better response.

Still, he found it rather preferable to telling the truth.

It shamed him somewhat to admit it to himself, but the fact was that he was disinclined to confess, and perhaps have to justify, his reservations about carnivorousness. “Well, taste it and you’ll find out!” Jal’tai said, giving the avian equivalent of a beaming grin. Solonn shut his eyes briefly as he battled an urge to grimace.

It seemed that until he partook of the food that Jal’tai had ordered for him, the swellow would continue to press the issue.

He was not enthusiastic about accepting the steak, but he was all too aware of the swellow’s eyes upon him. At least it hasn’t got eyes, the voice of predation told him.

At least it can’t look back at you… Solonn sighed heavily.

It seemed there were two in his company who would not relent until he accepted the meat, a fact made more difficult to abide by due to the fact that one of those persistent voices was actually a part of him. Gods forgive me, he said silently, then rose from the floor, and looked down upon the slab of meat.

With a flash of light in his eyes, the steak was instantly frozen.

Closing his eyes involuntarily, he lowered his opened jaws towards the steak and took it into his mouth. The taste of it was… not as he had anticipated.

He had expected it to have the sharpest, most foul flavor imaginable, but found it instead to be rather bland.

Vaguely, he wondered if his brain had done him a merciful favor and had temporarily weakened his sense of taste.

As he began to chew the steak, he tried very hard not to think about what it was that he was grinding between his teeth.

It’s just ice, he tried to convince himself, that’s all… He wanted to rush it down his throat as quickly as he could, but his gullet seemed possessed of contrary urges.

It took nine attempts just to force some of the meat down, and three more to swallow the rest. Solonn opened his eyes again, only then realizing that he’d kept them closed all the while he’d consumed the steak.

He rapidly and repeatedly flicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to scrape off the weak, yet nonetheless offensive flavor of the meat. Jal’tai smiled at him, looking satisfied.

“Was it to your liking?” he asked. Solonn hastily gave a brisk nod, wondering if anything in his expression was contradicting the gesture even as it was made.

His eyes traveled downward to where the saucer of water lay.

He rather fancied the thought of some good, fresh ice right about then;

Perhaps crunching on it for a while might help to loosen and remove any stray bits of the frozen meat that might be caught between his teeth, still haunting him with that weak but nonetheless strange taste.

And it was convenient that water had been provided for him to freeze, too;

It would mean a bit less effort than spontaneously generating ice would require.

He was about to freeze it, but then hesitated as he realized something. “Er, Jal’tai?

If I freeze this water, I won’t be able to get it out of that dish, there.

And… well, I don’t exactly want to eat the dish…” Jal’tai gave him a blank, unblinking stare for a moment.

Then, he slapped his wing against his forehead and burst into laughter.

“Oh, dear!” he cried, still laughing uproariously, tears beginning to gather at the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, heavens, I don’t know why we didn’t think of that… Is there any particular reason you must freeze it first?” Solonn gave Jal’tai a momentary, mild glare.

Then, he lowered his face towards the saucer of water and, in an exaggeratedly delicate manner, dipped his tongue into the water.

A second later, he lifted his face to look back up at Jal’tai, wearing a deadpan expression.

The saucer of water was dangling from his tongue, to which it had frozen. Jal’tai stared at Solonn, his beak agape, as the glalie, still glaring dully, set the saucer back down onto the table, unfreezing the water within the saucer and thereby freeing his tongue.

The swellow was able to hold in his laughter for—at most—five seconds more before it came exploding out. “Oh…” Jal’tai sniffed, fighting to catch his breath.

“I’m sorry, but…” He was stricken by another fit of chuckles;

It took him easily half a minute to calm down again.

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

“I do believe I’ve just thought of a solution.

Freeze that again, would you?

Without encasing a part of yourself in it this time,” he added, then cracked up laughing yet again. Solonn grumbled infrasonically to himself, wondering why he had thought it was a good idea to demonstrate his dilemma in such a way.

He complied with Jal’tai’s request quickly, once again solidifying the water in the saucer. “All right, then, if you’ll just excuse me…” The swellow suddenly sprung from his perch atop the chair, opened his wings, and fluttered to the opposite side of the table.

His beak took on a curious glow as he positioned himself before the saucer of ice.

With a flurry of sudden motion, he took his glowing beak to the ice.

Barely more than a second later, he relented, and it was revealed that he had chipped the ice into frozen grit, while not even putting a dent in the saucer that held it. Jal’tai then picked up the saucer in his beak and carefully tipped its contents onto the pedestal where the steak had sat minutes before.

“There you go,” he said, and fluttered back to his seat. Slightly stupefied by Jal’tai’s frenzied feat, Solonn seemed not to notice the ice piled before him for several moments.

Once he finally did notice it, he descended upon it quickly.

He ground it in his teeth for quite a bit longer than was necessary;

It was virtually reduced to a powder by the time he finally swallowed it.

“Thanks,” he said to the swellow, then sank back down to the floor, feeling suddenly quite weary. Jal’tai smiled.

“You’re most welcome,” he responded, bowing his head slightly, before finishing off the rest of his fish. The hitmonchan waiter returned then, and immediately set about removing the used plate and pedestal as well as Solonn’s saucer, leaving Jal’tai’s saucer where it sat (the swellow had not yet finished his water).

“Is there anything else I can get for you gentlemen?” he asked. “Nothing more for me,” Jal’tai said, shaking his head gently.

“What about you, Mr.

Zgil-Al? Care for another Specialty?” There were very few things in the world that Solonn would have cared for less.

“No thanks,” he said—or tried to say, at least.

His words were almost completely engulfed in a massive yawn. “‘No’, did you say?” the hitmonchan asked. “Hm?

Yeah, that’s right,” Solonn confirmed. “Very well then, sirs.

I hope you have enjoyed your day here!” the hitmonchan said cheerfully, then left. Jal’tai took a moment to stretch his wings, then fluttered down from the chair.

“So, Mr. Zgil-Al.

Would you like for me to give you a nice tour of the city?” “Ugh… that’d be nice, but…” He unleashed another massive yawn.

“I don’t know… I’m just really tired all of a sudden…” Solonn had found himself quite suddenly stricken by a powerful lethargy.

“I feel like I need to get to sleep…” Jal’tai frowned concernedly at him.

“Hmm. Well, in that case, I think we’d better seek out a place where you can rest.

I think your recent tribulations must have finally taken their toll on you.” Solonn nodded listlessly, suspecting that the swellow was right.

It seemed his body had taken all that it could, and was demanding a temporary exemption from any possible excitement. “Come, Mr.

Zgil-Al. The Serenity Inn is not terribly far from here at all.

I should be able to get a room for you there without any trouble.” The swellow made for the door leading out of the private room and beckoned Solonn to follow. * * * Solonn barely registered the trip from Whitley’s to the Serenity Inn, barely even aware of any conscious effort on his part to keep his body afloat as he drifted lethargically behind the swellow.

He did not seem to absorb Jal’tai’s words when the avian told him that they had arrived at their destination until several seconds after those words had been spoken. The Serenity Inn was an elegant, seven-story structure whose face glittered with a multitude of windows, all of which reflected the bright midday sun to give the building a warm, saffron-hued aura.

However, through eyes clouded by drowse and yearning to close, Solonn only saw it as a towering, wavering mass of luminosity.

The glaring brilliance of it did nothing to aid him in keeping his eyes open. Vaguely, Solonn noted that he was following Jal’tai into the hotel.

Distantly, through a somnolent haze that made it difficult for his mind to grasp that the input from his eyes was genuine, he saw the swellow stray from his immediate vicinity and cross the lobby to go and speak with a swampert receptionist. The bird returned shortly, and gestured with his wing towards an elevator to Solonn’s right.

“This way,” he directed.

“Your room is on the top floor.” Making the most vague noise of acknowledgement, Solonn allowed himself to be guided towards the elevator.

Jal’tai pressed a button to the side of the elevator’s steel doors, and a few moments later, the doors opened.

Solonn drifted quite slowly and somewhat unsteadily into the elevator;

Jal’tai just managed to dash in after him before the doors closed and the elevator began to rise. Once the ascent was complete, the two of them emerged onto the uppermost floor.

Jal’tai moved ahead of Solonn and began making his way through the corridor, looking for what was to be Solonn’s room. “Here it is!” he called back to the glalie after only a brief search. Solonn glided over to join him, so hampered by drowsiness at this point that he very nearly collided with the wall before coming to a stop beside the swellow. “This shall be your room for the night,” Jal’tai said, “right in there.” He gestured towards the very same wall with which Solonn had just nearly collided.

There was no door, no apparent means of gaining entry into the “room” Jal’tai was indicating.

The wall was nearly featureless, save for the words “Grand Suite” in blue human- and unown-script and a pair of strange devices fitted to the wall next to the words.

One of these fixtures was some kind of keypad, while the other resembled nothing so much as a round, blank, grey eye. Even in his great lethargy, Solonn managed to give the swellow quite a skeptical look. Jal’tai smiled.

“Observe.” Fluttering up into the air before the keypad, he punched a code into it using a single claw on his right foot, then hurriedly flapped aside from it. “Ready,” came a feminine voice out of nowhere, and a large, glowing, green square lit up dramatically on the floor in front of the lens and keypad.

“Please enter the transport field.” “Go to that square and sit down,” Jal’tai instructed. Solonn did as he was told.

“Initializing scan,” came the disembodied voice again.

The lens on the wall awakened, glowing with a brilliant, ochre light.

It projected a golden beam, which touched Solonn, broadened to his width, and swept up and down over him.

“Scan complete,” the voice then said, and the beam vanished. The glowing, green tile on which Solonn was sitting flashed.

A peculiar, tingling sensation prickled over the glalie’s skin, followed by a strange, sort of transcendent sensation not unlike that which accompanied entrance into a capture ball.

However, he was drawn not into a disembodied netherscape, but instead into a large, luxurious suite, one that was richly furnished and bore paintings on its wheat-colored walls that put those hanging up at Whitley’s to shame.

Fine marble figures of various draconic pokémon accented every room, seeming to lounge about the suite without a care in the world in the serene poses their sculptor had chosen for them.

Not that Solonn could truly appreciate the splendor of his surroundings—to his weary eyes, everything around him seemed to want to bleed together into a blur of color and light. “Hey in there!” Jal’tai shouted, his voice coming in through the wall.

“Do you like it?” Solonn turned towards the wall and uttered a wordless noise that was as affirmative-sounding as his lack of energy would allow. “Good, good!” Jal’tai responded merrily.

“Now, listen, I doubt you’ll need anything overnight;

Your suite comes very well equipped, I assure you.

But, if you do… have a look at the little table by that green armchair in the den.” He gave the glalie ample time to find it;

Solonn, in his present state, needed every second of it. “I see it,” Solonn finally responded, his words slurred. “Good,” Jal’tai said, speaking more loudly now to ensure that his next instructions would be heard.

“Now, you’ll notice the little black box with a large, round speaker on top—you can use that to call me if you need anything.

It’s voice-activated.

You need only speak into it—say ‘Page’, then my name, followed by ‘Room 44-B’, which is where I’m going to be staying.

Call, and I’ll come up here as quickly as I can manage.

Got it?” “Got it,” Solonn confirmed, although he was only minimally aware of what he was saying. “All right, then.

Rest well, Mr. Zgil-Al!” Jal’tai said brightly.

His words were followed by a continuing silence that announced that he’d left. Unleashing yet another massive yawn, Solonn lowered himself onto the floor.

He rolled onto his back and gratefully let his eyelids meet, sighing in repose.

His fading mind drifted back to information that it had absorbed earlier that day, regarding the unown.

Solonn remembered, in a detached sort of way, something having been piqued within his mind at learning of them, but he had fallen too far towards the enveloping darkness of sleep to truly reach any of those notions now.

Already half-dreaming, his brain conjured images of the fantastic, surreal beings that it could only guess the unown to be, whimsically bizarre creatures that danced drunkenly in circles around his consciousness as it spiraled into a sweet oblivion.

Thanks once again to everyone who has been reading this so far!

^^ Chapter 8 – Preclusion of Choice The space surrounding Solonn was utterly silent and utterly dark, but far from still, anything but empty.

Rushing through this lightless, ethereal plane, a stream of pure power surged like a mighty river.

It carried the most wonderful feeling along its current, an almost inebriatingly sweet familiarity that embraced the very core essence of his being, comforting and revitalizing him as it flowed freely all around him. This was the raw, elemental power of ice, and he reveled in its direct presence and contact.

He could not see it, but he recognized it for what it was in the most sure and ingrained way, perceiving it with higher senses.

His mind floated in the utmost contentment as he hovered effortlessly there, motionless, feeling the very essence of his mother element rushing over him. Subtly, imperceptibly at first, the elemental stream began to pick up speed as it flowed.

The glalie in the midst of it noticed the acceleration with a delay, initially regarding it with only a mild curiosity, still very deeply engrossed in his unity with the power of ice.

His concern for the change in the energy stream’s behavior grew at an increasing rate as he found the current continuing to flow faster and faster—soon, it was rushing by so swiftly that he could barely register its life-giving caress over his bare hide as it flowed past. Concern made a shift towards fear, and then panic, as Solonn found the elemental stream now flowing with such speed that he could no longer feel it whatsoever.

No longer was it merely flowing alongside his stationary form—it seemed to be rushing away from him, leaving him behind. No!

No, come back! he tried to call out, as the last of the flowing energy passed him by, giving him barely the time to note its departure as it hurried to some distant, invisible point far beyond him.

But his cry was completely in vain;

In this place, it seemed that he had no voice.

All at once, he found himself suspended helplessly in empty space, the life-sustaining flow of elemental power having drained out and dried up completely from this place. In the utmost vulnerability, he howled and cried out in terror, an endless song of futile screams heard by no one and nothing other than his own fearful mind.

How could this be happening?

Why would his mother element abandon him?

He could not even begin to render these questions into any answers that made the slightest ghost of sense, so besieged was his mind by panic.

The only notion that seemed able to remain intact within his mind, and with a brutal vividness, was the knowledge that separation from his element meant certain death.

A glalie who fell from the arms of ice simply could no longer be.

His element had left him behind in sheer oblivion.

Without it, he knew, he himself would soon become a part of that oblivion. His mind was beginning to splinter in earnest as he made his final, seemingly hopeless appeals for salvation, pleading voicelessly to the multitude of nameless gods, calling out to the very heart of the universe, begging for his survival and safe return to the embrace of his element unto anyone, anything, that could possibly hear his desperate prayer.

His final, terrified notions acknowledged with lonely sorrow that his severance from his element, his life, would not be mended.

Oblivion would consume him;

It had already begun to do so. He almost did not feel it when something disturbed the emptiness around him, something foreign, indiscernible.

Just as soon as he had noticed it, before he could even begin to perceive its true nature clearly, a strange, pacifying wave emanated from whatever-it-was and engulfed his mind completely.

All will be fine, it seemed to tell him.

Be not concerned.

The suggestion came as gently as could be, but also as insistently and irresistibly as was possible, if not moreso.

Perhaps it was death;

Perhaps it was salvation;

Perhaps it was something entirely beyond reckoning.

Whatever it was, its consoling command was obeyed without resistance.

The glalie slipped away from all further thought and sensation without a care. * * * The most vague notions of awakening crept into Solonn’s mind, just out of grasp of his full consciousness.

Unhurriedly, he began to reconnect to his senses, and before fully awakening, with his eyes still closed and his consciousness liable to slip right back into sleep at any moment, he decided and attempted to rise up. But failed. Still only minimally awake, and emerging very slowly from what had been an almost fathomlessly deep sleep, Solonn felt something only marginally resembling concern.

He thought he had just commanded himself to rise up from the floor and into the air;

Perhaps, he considered in a detached way, he had not sent the order to his body after all.

So, he tried once more to lift off… …And failed again. As his mind unmuddled and awakened even further, Solonn began to develop a burgeoning panic, one that spiked when the notion finally hit him: I can’t get up! With a delay, his eyes opened to a view of the ceiling, where a plant hung in a basket directly above him, a number of leafy tendrils spilling over the basket’s rim to dangle floorward.

The picture his eyes presented seemed weirdly dull, lacking in definition and color.

He began blinking rapidly, trying to clear out whatever was hazing his vision.

At the same time, he set about continuing to try and ascend, but his body did not respond, as if it did not even understand the instructions he was giving it. His ears filled with the sound of pounding blood as his heart began racing.

Why can’t I get up?!

He tried, to very little avail, to calm himself enough to make sense of things.

It seemed that while his mind had almost fully awakened, his body was having an unusually difficult time following suit.

He conceived of the notion that maybe it would have an easier time responding to an order to execute a simpler, less demanding action.

He decided to forego trying to ascend into the air for the time being and instead just concentrate on getting off of his back and sitting upright and face-forward. This demand, it seemed, was not too extravagant for his body to carry out in its strangely compromised state.

However, as it did so, Solonn found himself stricken by a very unusual sensation;

As his face pitched forward, he felt something seeming to cinch together in the vicinity of his abdomen—almost a bending sensation, as if at a waist, which was something that he did not have. And yet, he did . He cried out in disbelief at the sight that met his eyes once he had succeeded in sitting up and facing forward, a brutally unreal picture that told him in the most blunt manner possible how it was that his body had bent in a fashion that should not be possible.

There before him, he saw a pair of long, pale-skinned legs ending in five-toed feet.

And unless his mind was playing a very cruel trick on him—it had to be, he told himself silently in a repeating loop—those limbs were his . No… no, this can’t be real… I’m still dreaming, I’ve got to be… Solonn was almost able to believe that conclusion.

But still… Swallowing against a hard knot of dread that had built up in his throat, he stared intently at one of the impossible feet and, hoping and expecting in equal measures that the effort would fail, he willed it to move. It moved.

Right on command. “A !” In a violent flurry of motion, he half-jumped, half-scuttled backwards in horrified surprise, flailing madly.

In his futile attempt to escape from his own feet, the back of his head connected very sharply with a corner of the small table near which he had fallen asleep.

He exclaimed wordlessly at the pain as it exploded across the inner surface of his skull.

There was no doubt about it—the pain was real.

Though Solonn agonizingly wished it weren’t so, it seemed that reality was determined to literally beat the unbelievable truth into his head.

This was not a dream.

This was really happening.

Somehow, impossibly… he had become human . He swooned in a sudden wave of weakness and slumped backwards against the side of the nearby armchair.

A growing ache awakened in his chest as his heart hammered ever faster, ever harder in sheer, animalistic terror.

He panted, drawing in air that seemed horribly flat and tasteless.

Disarrayed thoughts and frenzied, tangled emotions raced through his mind, frenetically circling and tearing at his brain like a tornadic wind, leaving him severely lightheaded.

He felt as though he might pass out from the bewildering shock at any moment, and would have been all too grateful to do so, but in an almost sadomasochistic way, his brain stayed conscious and forced him to suffer along with it as it continued to torture itself with this brutally bizarre reality. Though he desired very strongly not to do anything of the sort, a cruel compulsion forced him to look upon himself, to force-feed the unreal image of what he had become into his brain.

Unwilling eyes swept over the form of his new, human body.

It was long and lean, the skin alabaster-pale and shimmering with beads of sweat, with no part of it covered by clothing of any kind.

This was the first time he had ever seen a human body unclothed.

In the same stark, tactless fashion that everything else about the situation had shown itself to him thus far, Solonn was made to recognize that he was, at least, still male, and the way by which he’d determined this left him mortified both for his own sake and that of an entire species.

Good gods, they keep that out ? This body was more than just very strange—it was wrong .

He should not have this;

He should not be this.

He moaned softly, a tortured sound, but not at the throbbing, shooting pain in his head so much as at the savage surrealism of the situation. Several moments after the fact, he felt something oozing across his skin at the site of the painful impact on the back of his head, and he uttered a small, mournful sound at the new, unpleasant sensation;

It was just one more thing to further deny him the option of pretending this whole situation away and dismissing it as some dream or hallucination or other lie of the mind.

Shaking, he glanced down at his impossible hands as they lay limply at his sides;

Then, only half-aware of what he was doing, he lifted one of them to the back of his head.

He recoiled at the warm stickiness he found there amidst the forest of soft hair that was now his own.

He then brought that hand before his face, and he felt his throat go dry at what he saw.

There, smeared across the tips of his long, spidery fingers, blood glistened wetly in the room’s soft, artificial lighting—blood that was red and not at all evanescent.

Human blood, for a human body. Which he should not have . Solonn closed his eyes and tried to retreat into the corners of his consciousness, thoroughly overwhelmed.

This was all too much for his mind to bear.

He could not even remotely fathom how such an incredible thing could have possibly happened, nor could he even begin to think of what he should do under these circumstances. Sighing, he allowed his eyes to open once more, conceding to the fact that he would not be given the mercy of release from his awareness of this situation.

He turned his head and let it sink listlessly to his left shoulder, faintly regarding a number of long, jet-black strands of hair that fell across his face.

Through them, he saw the little table at his side, on which sat a small, flat, black box. A course of action occurred to him as he recalled the little device’s function: he knew not what to do about the situation that had befallen him, but perhaps Jal’tai would.

Solonn could think of no one else available from whom to seek any possible solutions.

He reached up towards the device and pulled it down towards himself.

He turned it over briefly in his hands for a moment as he retrieved the memory of how to operate it.

Voice-activated, he remembered, you tell it what to do.

With another second’s perusing of his mind, he recalled the instructions that he was to give it. He looked upon the large speaker that dominated one surface of the strange paging device;

Seeing no other prominent feature upon the device, he figured that this was the part of it to which he was to direct his command.

He took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of himself long enough to do what he intended to do here in spite of the toll this occurrence had taken on his mental state;

Then, he spoke his intentions to the little black machine. “Page,” he said almost breathlessly, and felt his throat constrict as soon as the word had escaped it.

His new voice, peculiarly, sounded remarkably similar to the one he had possessed as a glalie.

True, it was not nearly as sonorous, nor did it possess the hissing aspiration that lined the edges of a glalie’s voice, but its tone and accent seemed to remain as they were.

It was an oddity that confounded and anguished him.

He still sounded like himself—why couldn’t he still look like himself, as well? There was a small beep , and a tiny, green light awakened beside the speaker.

“Please state the name and room number of the one you are paging,” the device uttered in the same feminine, mechanized voice that the transport device outside the suite had used. “Jal’tai,” Solonn answered hoarsely, “room 44-B.” He dearly hoped that he had remembered that number correctly. “One moment please…” the device said.

Solonn held his breath as he waited for a response. It seemed that, blessedly, his mind had successfully retained the correct number for Jal’tai’s room, for after several seconds: “Yes?

Is there something you need?” Jal’tai’s familiar, kindly voice came through the speaker. “Oh, yes,” Solonn responded shakily, his voice charged with urgency, “yes, there is.” “Oh, dear…” Jal’tai clearly had no trouble detecting the distress in Solonn’s voice.

There was a brief pause, then, “What’s the matter?” Solonn strongly doubted that Jal’tai would believe the answer to that question.

“Can’t explain,” he replied hurriedly.

“Just need you here now.

Please hurry.” Another pause.

“Yes… yes, of course.

I’ll be right up,” Jal’tai said finally. “Connection terminated,” came the mechanized voice of the device then.

The beep sounded again, and the green light turned off. Solonn set the paging device down on the floor beside him and released a long, weary sigh.

All he could do now was wait for Jal’tai to show up—even if he only had seconds to wait, he was not sure that he could endure it.

He was fully aware of how nearly every muscle in his body trembled in anxiety, his hands shaking like leaves, with minute yet powerful twitches tugging and pricking at the skin around his eyes and mouth.

Vaguely, he wondered if he might not lose this impossible body just as soon as he’d come by it, for it seemed to be threatening to shake itself to pieces. As the seconds crept slowly by, he stared forward blankly, barely blinking, at one of the suite’s draconic statues that sat a couple of yards away.

The creature depicted had a sleek, highly aerodynamic-looking shape, with long, tapered wings standing out diagonally from its back, a long neck, and an almost avian face.

It lay on its marble pedestal with its taloned forearms crossed in front of it, and gazed sightlessly back at Solonn through its stone eyes with a look of serene calm.

Solonn could only futilely wish that he were in a position to return a matching expression to the smiling stone figure. A voice sounded then, startling Solonn in his compromised state, pulling his attention at once from the statue of the dragon pokémon.

“Solonn? Are you all right in there?” It was Jal’tai.

“May I come in now?” the swellow asked him through the wall. “Please do,” Solonn called back shakily. “Of course, of course… just give me a moment here…” Jal’tai responded. A tone sounded within the suite shortly thereafter.

“Prepare to receive a visitor,” the familiar, mechanized voice said calmly.

Solonn turned towards the wall separating the suite from the hall outside.

A second later, a shimmering, pale green field of light formed within the suite, above a tile that matched the one outside, and it coalesced into the form of Jal’tai, who stood there in front of the wall with a concerned look leveled at Solonn.

If he was at all shocked or surprised to behold a human where there should have been a glalie, he did not show it. The bird walked over to where Solonn half-sat, half-lay, approaching him without a word.

He stopped before the former glalie, ruffled his wings and folded them tightly against his back, and gave him a long, unflinching look, his brow and beak setting into an expression that was difficult to quite interpret. Already greatly unsettled by what had befallen him, Solonn found himself unnerved further by the way the swellow stared, those steely, raptor’s eyes bearing hard upon his form… his naked form… Solonn inhaled sharply in sudden mortification.

This was one detail which he had overlooked… and now this creature was getting an unobstructed view of something which Solonn would not show to just anyone under normal circumstances, not even to those of his own kind.

Feeling the blood rush to his face in a hot wave of embarrassment, Solonn repositioned himself hastily to cover his shame. “Relax, relax,” Jal’tai said coolly.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.

After all,” he paused briefly to take a breath, his gaze into Solonn’s eyes sharpening further, “it was I who designed that very body for you.” That took a very long moment to fully register in Solonn’s brain.

For a moment, he forgot to breathe.

He fixed the bird with a protracted, stupefied stare. Jal’tai nodded.

“It’s true, Solonn.” The former glalie’s stare went flat.

For countless seconds on end, he made no response whatsoever, frozen in the moment.

Then, he inhaled very slowly, very deeply. “Why?” he asked, his voice constrained so badly that it was distorted almost beyond recognition.

“Why… and how … in the fires of a thousand hells… did you turn me into a human ?” Jal’tai closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“Yes,” he said soberly, “you are owed an explanation for all this.

It is imperative that you be made to fully understand the situation.

I will address your question of ‘how’ first, since that comes with the shorter answer… To begin to answer that question, I must start by being more honest with you with regards to the matter of who—and what—I truly am.” The swellow suddenly took to the air without warning, hovering in place to Solonn’s right, just inches below the ceiling.

“Don’t be frightened by what I am about to show you,” Jal’tai said, his words accompanied by the sound of his steadily beating wings, “for it is my true form.

I am and shall still be the same person in spirit that I have shown myself to be whilst in your presence up to this point.” Solonn could only stare mutely at Jal’tai, watching speechlessly as from every inch of the avian’s feathered body, a shimmering like heat waves roiling over hot asphalt began to blur his form.

For a split-second, Jal’tai completely lost definition, becoming nothing more than a wavering mass of faint, rippling light.

The light then intensified, and the shimmering mass in the air began to take shape once more.

When the light faded away a second later, the swellow was gone.

In his place was something very different, something in cobalt blue and pale grey that, though still feathered, was no longer a bird. Jal’tai was now a dragon. (CONTINUED)

“There,” Jal’tai said in a tone that was clearly meant to be soothing, though it failed in that endeavor.

His voice was exactly the same as it had been before he had revealed his true form. Solonn stared agape at him for seconds on end.

Wide with astonishment, his eyes then began casting flitting, neurotic glances back and forth between the hovering form of Jal’tai and the draconic statue nearby. Jal’tai followed one of the former glalie’s darting glances, and then let out one of his trademark chuckles.

“No, no, dear boy,” he said effervescently.

“That’s the female of my species you see depicted there.

That is a latias.

We menfolk are latios.” The latios might as well have said anything there for all Solonn cared;

There were very specific things he wanted to hear about from Jal’tai, and the difference between the males and the females of the dragon’s species was not one of them. “What does that have to do with… with this ?” Solonn demanded in a pained-sounding hiss, sweeping his gaze quickly over his now-human body before returning his wild, bewildered stare to the dragon. “Well, my dear boy, the matter of my species is actually quite relevant to what has been done to you, for it was by the transfigure technique, an ancient art which survives in practice today by none outside the lati race, that you were given this new form.

A swellow could not have used the transfigure technique;

On the chance that you might have known that, I deemed it necessary to reveal my true form, lest you fall short of believing me when I told you how it was possible for me to transform you.” Solonn had not known what swellow were and were not capable of, and knew not why it should be any easier to believe that a dragon could possess the power to transform him than to believe that a bird could.

Nor did he care to know these things.

Jal’tai’s explanation as to how the change was made held little meaning for Solonn and fell quite short of a satisfying answer. Hoping that the other question would yield an answer that he could use, “ Why , Jal’tai?” Solonn pressed in a brittle voice, the words more exhaled than spoken. Lowering his head, Jal’tai drew back slightly from Solonn.

“Forgive me, Mr. Zgil-Al,” he said soberly.

“I sincerely regret not being more straightforward with you from the start.

But there was only one way this could be done feasibly, and unfortunately, it did require me to keep you largely in the dark up to this point.” The latios clasped his talons and met Solonn’s gaze steadily despite the way the human’s eyes pierced into his own, the anguish and confusion held in those deep brown irises making the former glalie’s eyes seem to burn brightly despite no longer being luminous.

“The first thing you need to know in order to understand the situation is this: I am not merely a proud citizen of this great city.

I am also the mayor and director of the Convergence Project, its guide and guardian.” “Well, good for you,” Solonn croaked acidly.

“And what is it about that, exactly, that required you to turn me into this ?” “Patience, my boy,” Jal’tai said evenly, unfazed by Solonn’s venom-laced response, earning a severely indignant look from the former glalie.

“You must allow me to explain;

It is crucial that you understand the circumstances which have come to include you, and understand them completely, and not just for your own sake, either.” The latios paused for a breath, then released it on a sigh before proceeding.

“I love my city, Solonn,” he said wistfully.

“I love it more than anything else in this world.

The fact remains, however, that I will not be around to guide it forever.

Therefore, it will become necessary for someone to one day take my place. “This is where you come in, Solonn.

Now, it may not be obvious to the eye of the beholder, but I am getting on in years… Soon, I will be retiring from my position as mayor of Convergence, and the city will need someone to take my office when I depart.

That someone is required to have a very particular and very rare skill in common with me—it is rendered a vital necessity by the very nature of this place.

My successor must be able, just as I am, to freely and fluently communicate with pokémon and humans alike.

My successor must possess the Speech.” To that, Solonn reacted immediately, and strongly.

In a flurry of severely awkward motion, he scrambled away from the chair against which he had been reclining and began crawling backwards in a crab-like fashion away from Jal’tai, compelled to put a healthy distance between himself and the latios as swiftly as he could manage.

How did he find out?!

He wondered fearfully.

His mind was now racing much too fast to light on many explanations, but the solitary one that managed to come through seemed the only one that could be plausible anyway. And just as soon as it had appeared in Solonn’s mind, it was confirmed.

“Yes, Solonn. I am a psychic,” Jal’tai said, nodding.

“But, no, that’s not how I learned of your gift.

Not initially, anyway,” he clarified. Lowering his talons and turning them palms-outward in a curiously human-like gesture, trying to appear as non-threatening as he could, Jal’tai began to glide slowly towards Solonn, his wings remaining rigid and stationary, suggesting that some less mundane force powered his flight.

Solonn continued backing away from Jal’tai as the ;atios continued to persistently advance, but soon found himself backed into a corner, trapped by a wall to his left, a large, oak dresser to his right, and the dragon before him, who had clearly accelerated his approach somewhat as he was now only a foot or so in front of Solonn. Jal’tai settled himself onto the carpet before Solonn, folding his forearms in front of his chest, and continued.

“I saw you, you see,” the latios explained.

“The day before last, I saw what happened to you in Lilycove,” he elaborated, with a note of earnest sorrow coloring his voice on that statement.

“I was out for a nice flight;

As I mentioned before, I do make occasional excursions outside Convergence, just for a change of pace.

I decided to alter my usual course a bit that day, and chose to go eastward instead of the southward direction I usually take.

My course found me flying over Lilycove, and there, I caught sight of a most deplorable scene…” A definite tinge of disgust entered Jal’tai’s words here, a disgust so strong that it held him from continuing for a few seconds.

“I saw a sign out in front of an old, rather miserable looking theatre, promising a real, live… ‘talking’ pokémon inside…” The word “talking” was ejected from the dragon’s beaklike mouth with as much force and clear distaste as if it was something on which he had been gagging.

“I saw a small group of humans rush you into the theatre through the back way,” he went on.

“I slipped in after them, cloaked by my psychic abilities.

I found you sleeping backstage, and I tapped your mind while you slept, just deep enough to learn if what the sign outside that wretched scene claimed was accurate, and thereby learned that, indeed, it was. “Even if it hadn’t been, though, I would have broken you out of there.

The way you were being treated there… as a spectacle … it was sickening …” he hissed, his scarlet eyes narrowed in vehemence.

“I was about to make a move towards your liberation, too, but just then, a new human presence came onto the scene, one in whom I immediately sensed benevolent intentions regarding you.

A quick tap of her mind told me that she was your friend, and had come to rescue you from your would-be exploiters. “You had awakened at this point, but your attempts to escape were foiled by a restraining technique, one cast by a creature whose presence I had not even detected.

I went and searched about the vicinity for the caster, and thereby found a sableye—a dark-type, able to evade detection by my psychic senses.

I dispatched him at once by means of a dragon claw.” Solonn’s eyes contracted to dark slits in sudden suspicion.

“Morgan told me that she had taken him out,” he said. Jal’tai sighed.

“I am afraid that both you and she were misled where that is concerned,” he told Solonn.

“You see, your human companion happened to walk in onto the scene where the sableye had been hiding just as I was dealing with him—the summoning of the technique I used to take him down required me to shift my focus from my psychic element to my dragon element, thus forcing me to forego my invisibility, and so it was that Morgan saw me there.

I should explain that my kind are… valued by humans—” there was another charge of the dragon’s particular brand of revolted emphasis on the word “valued” “—due to our potent psychic and draconic abilities.

Though I sensed virtue in this particular human, I was in no position to say the same about the other humans in her life, and I confess that I was unwilling to take a chance on whether or not her integrity was so strong that she would keep my appearance a secret. “Hence, I found it necessary to modify her memory of that event.

I quickly rendered myself invisible once more.

Then, I placed a hammer that I found lying nearby into her hand and implanted a memory of her using it to knock out the sableye, and I made her forget having seen me.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head briefly, as if in shame.

“I regret that action now.

I should have given her the benefit of the doubt.

I should have recognized just how honorable her nature truly was.

I did come to recognize it, after watching her help to liberate you, and following her as she guided you to safety outside the city…” The latios’s semi-avian face took on a faint, wistful smile.

“She, a human , actually chose to let you part from her company rather than allow you to remain and risk exploitation again… very noble… very rare .

Anyhow… following the events of that evening, I knew you could go nowhere but east, and so I waited in the grass for you, and then brought you here.” “You could have told me all of this at the start,” Solonn said stonily.

“And none of that explains why you needed to mutate me.” “Actually,” Jal’tai said, “within what I have just told you lies the precise reason why your transformation was necessary.

You were taken to be made into a spectacle by those humans in Lilycove because you were a glalie who could speak their language.

For that most rare and wondrous quality, you were regarded as a freak —a valuable freak, yes, but a freak nonetheless—and you were treated as one. “Now, you are a human who can speak pokémon languages—you have been speaking glalie language this entire time, as a matter of fact,” Jal’tai added.

“My point is, humans sought to exploit and degrade you as a freak when you were a pokémon.

They will not, however, do that to you as a fellow human.

The unfortunate truth is that generally speaking, humans only hold true respect for their own kind.

That is why I transformed you.” “Without my consent!” Solonn shouted, throwing a feral look at Jal’tai. “Yes, and I apologize!” Jal’tai responded swiftly, actually sounding quite hurt.

“But that was only to spare you the experience of what would have been a very painful and disturbing process.

The nature of my method is such that if the subject knows the change is coming, their brains cannot be made to ignore that it is occurring.

With that in mind, I had a sleep-inducing drug added to your meal at Whitley’s, designed to swiftly send you into a very deep sleep.

Once I was certain you had fallen asleep in here, I entered the suite.

Then, using certain of my psychic abilities, I put a sort of… for lack of a better term, a lock upon your brain to separate it from your tactile senses so that you would not awaken while I changed you.” “You did it that way,” Solonn said accusingly, “because you knew I would say ‘ no ’.” Jal’tai winced.

He then turned the most wounded expression that Solonn had ever seen upon the former glalie.

It did nothing whatsoever to bring down the fearful, outraged fire that was burning brighter by the second in the human’s eyes.

“Please, my dear boy… please … You must believe me when I say that I never wanted to cause you suffering.

My course of action was for the sake of mercy, and, yes, it precluded your choice.

For that, I am sorry , Solonn, sorrier than I could ever adequately express.

But it had to be done.

I need you, Solonn.” For a moment, Solonn had nothing to say to the dragon.

He merely maintained an unforgiving gaze straight into the scarlet eyes of the creature who had done this strange and terrible thing to him, remaining silent save for the rasping of his long, hard breaths as they were forced harshly through him, his shoulders trembling from the violence of his respiration.

At length, he closed those feral eyes and allowed his head to sink to his chest, his long, black hair almost completely veiling his face, and he remained this way for a very long moment. Finally, he lifted his head and opened his eyes, and he turned an incredibly cold, penetrating stare upon the dragon, his brows drawn together in a hard chevron over his eyes, the already severe lines of his angular face sharpening further.

It was a remarkably glalie-like stare, Jal’tai noted;

It lacked only the smoldering, deep blue luminosity those eyes would have shown in simmering anger prior to their transformation. “You’re no different,” the former glalie said, his voice uninflected save for the places during that statement where it threatened to break.

“You want to use my abilities to serve your purposes.

You seek to exploit me, Jal’tai, just like the humans did in Lilycove.

You are no different from them.” The latios pulled his head back sharply, as if the human before him had just taken a swing at him.

His eyes widened dramatically, then narrowed sharply.

“How dare you!” he hissed in outrage.

“There is a tremendous difference between myself and those—” In lieu of a word, Jal’tai chose to describe the abductors of Lilycove with a short blast of acrid-smelling, sickly-yellow dragonbreath over his shoulder.

“ I ,” he went on, his voice dripping with indignation, “ respect you.” “You respect me?!” Solonn echoed sharply, incredulously.

“Is that why you’ve lied to me and subjected me to a physical transformation without my consent?

Is that why you insult my intelligence by expecting me to just sit here and swallow everything you say after that?” “Solonn, please …” The former glalie shook his head, his dark hair swishing.

“No, Jal’tai. There is no reason why I should listen to you, not when you’ve been dishonest from the moment we met.” The birth of a sudden suspicion flashed across his features.

“Answer this, Jal’tai: If running the city required me to be made human, why didn’t the same job require that of you ?” “Because you can’t do this,” the latios said simply, and with another rippling shimmer, the dragon was gone.

Sitting there instead was an elderly, goateed human man—one whom Solonn recognized immediately as the man pictured on the sign at Whitley’s. “This is what the citizens of Convergence, as well as those with whom I do business outside of town, see when they look at me,” Jal’tai said.

“And this—” he suddenly sounded the part of the old man, too, with the human language to match “—is what they hear.

To them, I am a human by the name of Rolf Whitley.

Under this guise, I became a very important, if not widely publicly recognized figure in human society.

In addition to being the mastermind behind the Convergence Project, Rolf is also a very important senior member of the International Pokémon League.

I could not have attained that kind of power and the resources that come along with it in my true identity as a pokémon.” Jal’tai reassumed the form of the psychic dragon.

“Now, under less demanding circumstances, I could simply apply a mirage to you, too.

In fact, when we entered Convergence, and when I brought you into this hotel, I presented you just as you now appear.

However, the method does have its limits, limits that make it impractical as a full-time, twenty-four-seven solution.

For one thing, I cannot maintain a mirage over you from a distance, and not much of a distance, either.

You would have to remain within the sphere of my psychic perception, which, in my old age is, I’m afraid, quite small.

I think we can both agree that it would be quite impractical for me to follow you like a shadow everywhere you go, right?” Solonn gave him a look that suggested that he was not even inclined to agree with Jal’tai on the sun being bright and the night being dark. “Furthermore,” Jal’tai continued, “it is not enough to merely look like a human.

You must support the image you present accurately in the physical sense, as well.

You must feel like a human.

What if another human wanted to shake your hand?

You would have to be able to offer one that he or she could clasp, one that he or she could feel.

Now, while I am able to produce ‘solid’ mirages, as I use for my own needs in portraying a human, I am afraid it is outside the scope of my abilities to project a ‘solid’ mirage over you and keep some kind of mirage or cloak over myself at all times.

And it would be necessary for me to conceal my true identity somehow if I were to remain near enough to you at all times to maintain your disguise;

Again, being what I am, I must not let just anyone see me about.

Furthermore… I will remind you of the fact that I will not be around to conceal your identity forever.

Hence, the only feasible way for you to meet those particular demands of this position was for me to subject you to the transfigure technique.” Jal’tai sighed very heavily, lowering his head slightly and passing a talon backwards over it as if raking it through hair in another curiously human gesture.

“Solonn… do you not recognize how very important it is to the future of the world that the Convergence Project is kept alive and running?

This community must be maintained, for it is a shining example of the fact that pokémon and humans can and should live and work as equals;

That anything they can do, we can do, too.

It’s an example sorely needed by the world.

The state of relationships between humans and pokémon desperately needs to be changed.

Solonn… did you know that most humans do not realize, or else deny , that pokémon are sentient beings?” Solonn only stared back with wild eyes.

His throat worked, but he did not answer. “I didn’t think you were aware of that,” Jal’tai said softly, reading Solonn’s blank silence correctly.

“It’s true, though.

The majority of humans regard pokémon not as people, but as mere animals .” Potent, fiery vehemence rose up through his voice at those words, and it danced within his scarlet eyes, seeming to set them alight.

“That is why they will only respect one of their own kind,” the latios went on.

“Hence the unfortunate need for our façades.” Solonn was silent for a moment after Jal’tai finished speaking.

He appeared to be deep in thought.

Then, with a look in his eyes that spoke both of dawning epiphany and the prelude to a fierce volley of fresh accusatory barbs, he said, “You said you needed me— me , specifically, because I have ‘the Speech’, as you called it…” A hint of disgust played about his features, telling of how he clearly found the moniker the dragon had pinned on his abilities to be utterly ridiculous.

“You said that the person in charge of this city has to have this ability—it’s necessary because the person running this city has to be able to communicate just as well with both humans and pokémon, because the job requires you to deal with both, do I understand right?” Jal’tai blinked in surprise;

Then, his features relaxed into an expression that looked equally relieved and impressed.

“Yes, that’s correct,” he confirmed. But to the dragon’s surprise, Solonn shook his head.

“No, Jal’tai. There was another way.

Telepaths , Jal’tai,” he said.

“Telepaths can make anyone understand them, including humans .

How can you have not even considered this?

You’re probably a telepath yourself!” Jal’tai lowered his head slightly and sighed.

“That would certainly be very convenient if it were a truly viable option, but unfortunately there are reasons why it cannot be one.

There is no shortage of people in this world who are mistrusting, even fearful of psychics and the abilities commonly associated with psychics, including telepathy.

Their insecurities and superstitions make those of any species who would have to rely on telepathy to communicate far less than ideal candidates.

Convergence and its mission will not be accepted by as many as is needed by this world if its leader is one to whom so many would not listen.” <Even with our measures to respect their privacy in place, many species still do not trust us.>

Sei Salma’s words echoed in Solonn’s memory, and a twinge of guilt for forgetting the plight of her kind struck him.

At the same time, however, he found that he couldn’t help but also find sympathy for those who were wary of psychics—the notion of another being able to reach and affect his mind was harder for him to abide by when he thought of that latios having trespassed there so recently. After a moment of desperate scrambling, his mental faculties managed to scrape together another possible argument.

“The unown-script, what about that?” he questioned.

“Both humans and pokémon understand it—and everyone here is made to learn it…” Jal’tai tried to speak then, but Solonn pressed on, something fierce burning in his eyes.

The former glalie was now all too certain that he’d found proof that Jal’tai had not had to do this to him, and that certainty stoked his fury to new heights.

“ Anyone who knows the unown-script, any of the people of this city, could have been your replacement.

And before you go and remind me that it has to be a human, I’ll remind you that there are humans in this city , and they know unown-script because it’s mandatory here .” Solonn’s face was a twisted mask of anguish and outrage at this point;

He looked positively deranged.

“You didn’t need me,” he seethed.

“It could have been anyone !

You didn’t need me !” he cried, sounding almost hysterical. “Solonn… you must get a hold of yourself,” Jal’tai said, sounding genuinely concerned for the former glalie;

However, there was also the slightest hint of a warning along the edges of his voice.

“Calm down, please…” Solonn, however, was inconsolable.

“You didn’t have to do this to me!

You didn’t need me !” he shrieked, spit flying from his mouth, his face lividly red with fury. Jal’tai let out a long, slow exhalation, and met Solonn’s feral stare with an expression like that of a parent who has finally lost the last shred of patience for a child’s behavior.

“I said, calm down ,” he said, rising into the air to look down upon Solonn with displeasure.

There was a terrible, almost ominous gravity to his voice that hadn’t been there before, a far cry from the jovial tone he had once used with Solonn.

He raised his talons, then brought them swiftly together and pointed them at Solonn, as his scarlet, reptilian eyes suddenly blazed with a livid, fuchsia light.

At once, the human’s eyes grew massively wide with shock, and he began gasping madly at the air as if suddenly unable to breathe. “I cannot have you losing your mind, Solonn,” Jal’tai said gravely.

“Not when you have such a demanding future ahead of you.” Solonn could only stare back in mortal terror at Jal’tai as the dragon’s telekinetic onslaught continued, crushing him into the corner, exerting excruciating pressure upon him that kept his lungs from filling and threatened to shatter every bone in his body.

His vision was failing, growing dark around the edges and hazing out of focus, and he could feel a smothering oblivion beginning to consume him.

He was going to die any moment now, he knew.

And there was nothing he could do about it. But before he could succumb to the terrible pressure and the lack of air, his tormentor relented, ceasing the telekinetic torture at once.

Solonn immediately took a massive, involuntary gulp of air, pain exploding within his chest as his lungs refilled themselves violently.

His body immediately slackened, slumping over against the dresser, his head hanging low.

After several more brutal, gasping breaths racked his aching ribs, he weakly raised his head to look up at the latios, his face a pale, sweat-drenched mask of pure, primal terror. Jal’tai regarded the former glalie with a stony, displeased glower.

“I’m very disappointed in you, my boy,” he said heavily.

“I had thought you would understand the crucial importance of this project.

This is about something far greater than you, Solonn.

This is about the future of our world, a better future.

An equal future. Without our efforts, pokémon will never get the respect and dignity in the eyes of humans that we deserve.” He set himself back down on the floor before the traumatized human, who immediately shrank further into the corner from him.

The latios sighed, the sound carrying equal measures of exasperation and seemingly earnest sorrow.

“You must accept your destiny, Solonn,” he said quietly.

“You must realize that you were blessed with the Speech for a higher purpose.” He consolingly laid a talon on Solonn’s arm;

Solonn immediately flinched at the contact, but had not the strength to resist further.

“ Please , Solonn.

This is a most wonderful and important calling that has chosen you… you should be honored , Solonn.

At the very least, you should recognize that losing your head over this is not going to make things any different for you, and it’s not going to make things as they were.

You must find the serenity to accept the things you cannot change.

Please …” he implored, squeezing the human’s arm gently, “do not make me have to pacify you again.

I told you that I never wanted to cause you suffering, and I meant it…” The latios sighed sorrowfully again, and rose back into the air.

“Now, to answer your earlier questions regarding unown-script—as I was attempting to do then, but you wouldn’t allow me to get a word in edgewise—it is true that unown-script is mandatory for all citizens of this city to learn.

However, it is not required learning in the rest of the world.

As mayor and as part of the Convergence Project, you will frequently have to deal with outsiders, both human and pokémon, with whom you will have to be able to speak on their terms.

A human who possesses the Speech is the only one who can speak freely to all peoples, to whom all peoples would listen .

Hence, you are as you are.

It is as simple as that.

So, you see, I do need you, Solonn.” The dragon cast a glance off to his right, towards the bedroom.

“In time, I hope you will be able to see things more clearly.

Until such time, I’m afraid you will have to remain in this suite.

I will give you the code to exit the room using the transport tile when I feel you are ready to re-enter society as a human, and I will gladly speak more with you in order to help you prepare for your future duties, but only once I can be sure that you have regained your composure enough to listen to me.

For now, though, I think you could do with some quiet time alone to relax and contemplate your destiny.” Jal’tai’s eyes once again took on the fuchsia glow that accompanied his telekinesis, and once again, he applied the psychic force to Solonn.

However, instead of torturing the human, he used his powers to gently lift Solonn from the floor this time.

Panic showed plainly on the former glalie’s face;

He desperately desired to be released from Jal’tai’s telekinetic hold, but it prohibited his motion completely.

He could not put up any sort of a struggle against Jal’tai’s power. The latios guided the helpless human through the air, bringing him into the suite’s bedroom, then set Solonn down upon the bed.

“Be at peace, my dear boy,” Jal’tai said in a warm, paternal tone.

He relinquished the light in his eyes, and his hold over Solonn along with it.

Then, a golden light blossomed around him.

A second later, it faded, and Jal’tai was gone. Solonn lay there where he’d been placed, alone now, but finding no comfort in his solitude.

Jal’tai was gone for now, but in making his exit through teleportation, he had revealed that he could return at any time, without any warning—knowledge which only added to the miseries that Jal’tai had already inflicted upon him.

That latios… that liar, that creature who had usurped the former glalie’s life for his own ends, warping and changing it into… Solonn felt a pang of the most powerful anguish as he thought upon what he had become, and what he could no longer be. He was not what he used to be.

His identity was gone, stolen from him and replaced with that of something he was not.

He knew that there was now no returning to the life he had once known.

Even if he could escape from this suite, this prison , this city and the life-stealing madman to whom it belonged… what then?

He could not go back to anyone he once knew;

Not Morgan, and not his own kind—or what had once been his kind—back in Virc-Dho.

None of them would recognize him now, and would certainly not believe that he was not as he appeared, that he was the pokémon they had once known, trapped in a human body… The former glalie moaned softly, as if in defeat.

Trembling, he drew his arms and legs up against his chest in a fetal position, almost as if trying to collapse into himself and disappear.

He felt his anguish turn to a painful, physical surge that swelled in his chest and then welled up behind his eyes until finally, they could hold it in no longer.

Lying there, in this body that was not his own, Solonn cried for the very first time in his life as he fully realized the impact of this strange, terrible new reality.

His life, as he had known it, was over.

(Spoiler:) If TOoS is in anyway in continuity with this story, I think he might become a former-Transfigured-human once. Well, I grew suspicious when Solonn became so massively tired, but that's it. I hadn't realized it was Transfiguration the Lati*s were doing, I thought more in the line some Psychic holograms. But Jal'tai's explanation doesn't add up to Morgan's reaction at the end of the last chapter we saw her, so he might still be lying. Solonn for Mayor!

I want a cookie! I admit I didn't see the Jal'tai wanting Solonn to lead Convergence thing;

I thought he was just putting Solonn to sleep for any old evil purpose.

I agree with Mike that Jal'tai's still lying.

I think Jal'tai abducted Solonn and orchestrated the whole escape as Morgan, persuading Solonn to stay away from civilisation.

Then he could present himself as a saviour, gaining Solonn's trust.

The truth is probably far more complicated though.

Great description of Solonn's emotions once again;

Both he and Jal'tai are shaping up as great characters.

Personally, I found the description of Solonn losing his Ice connections a bit longer than necessary though. See you next chapter!

Whoops… I apologize for taking this long to post another chapter here.

^^; I had meant to post it much sooner—it was already written, after all (and has been since early ‘06, in fact)—or to at least post a reply to the reviews of the previous chapter, but I just kept getting sidetracked.

@_@ Enough of my excuses, though.

XD; First, some overdue review replies: Crystalmaster Mike: Well, generally speaking, latias and latios in the context of this story usually do use that sort of psychic holograms to make things (and people) appear as they aren’t.

It’s only in cases where the mirage method would be impractical, such as in Solonn’s case, as Jal’tai explained, that one would resort to the transfigure technique if he or she had it at his or her disposal. mistysakura: Interesting theories there regarding Jal’tai.

I always enjoy seeing speculation in reviews.

^^ Glad you liked the description of Solonn’s emotions, as well as the characterization.

^^ Those are things to which I was very intent on doing justice, and I enjoyed coming up with them. Whoops, looks like my trouble with writing concisely has struck again.

^^; That’s a beast with which I’ve wrestled for a long time—I’m reminded of an occasion where I had to file a police report and ended up having to ask for another sheet because I ran out of space on the first one.

XD; One more thing before proceeding to the actual chapter itself: I want to once again give massive thanks to everyone who nominated and/or voted for me in this year’s Silver Pencils (there’s yet another thing that I had meant to do in this thread much sooner… XD;

). I remain greatly honored by the support you showed, and I will likely always be honored by it.

^^ Now on to the next chapter!

^^ Chapter 9 – Anywhere but Here The blades spun ceaselessly, droning and whirring softly as they cleaved the air.

They chased one another in an endless circuit around a cluster of light bulbs, whose stark rays burned into the dark, bleary eyes of the figure below. Solonn lay listlessly there on the bed, spread-eagled, staring up at the ceiling fan above him as if mesmerized by its perpetual whirling.

Through vision blurred by sheer exhaustion and an almost continuous stream of tears shed in silence, the sight before Solonn’s eyes was that of a shimmering vortex of light and motion, and part of him felt like it might just draw him right into it. Hours had passed since the loss of his identity and his freedom, but he had not regarded the time as it had crept by, nor did he mark the passing moments now.

Physically, he was utterly drained, but his mind was host to too many troubles to allow him any rest.

He still ached all over from the telekinetic punishment he had suffered at Jal’tai’s hands.

His body complained of hunger, of a need to relieve itself, of lying in the same position for a considerable while, and of many other things.

But lost as he was in half-willing contemplation of his situation, Solonn somehow couldn’t really care about his physical discomfort or even truly notice it, for the troubles from within just seemed so petty in comparison to what—and who—now tormented him from the outside. A voice from outside the suite broke the near silence then, cutting into the unbidden, semi-formless miseries surrounding Solonn’s consciousness.

It was the familiar voice of Jal’tai.

“Are you awake? I’d like to come in and have a moment with you, if you don’t mind,” the latios called to Solonn from the hall outside. Solonn did not respond, not even so much as to turn towards the voice that had just addressed him, but regarded what the dragon had just said with a weak but nonetheless present derision.

Since when do you care what I do or don’t mind? “Prepare to receive a visitor,” announced the voice of the suite.

So, the latios was using the transport tile.

It seemed strange to Solonn that Jal’tai would bother with such considering that the dragon could simply teleport in whenever he pleased, with no need to warn his prisoner before entering.

Solonn didn’t cast even the slightest glance back towards the place in the adjacent den where his visitor would materialize, remaining motionless, barely regarding anything that was going on around him. Once inside, Jal’tai drifted silently into the bedroom.

He appeared at the edge of Solonn’s vision, and the form he presented was his true form, that of the psychic dragon;

He no longer bothered with any disguises, any pretense.

The former glalie shut his eyes, curling up and turning away from the latios.

A second later, the dragon set himself down on the bed beside him. “Good morning, Solonn,” he said amiably.

“How are you feeling today, my boy?” No response. The latios frowned;

Already, this was not going well.

“I wanted to have a few more words with you about what lies ahead for you,” Jal’tai proceeded, his tone considerably more reserved than it had been moments ago.

He drew closer to Solonn, looming over him for a moment before craning his neck downward to look right into the human’s face. “Listen,” he said, something slightly authoritative in a paternal sort of way creeping into his voice.

“I know this has been quite an overwhelming experience for you, but you are going to have to adjust to things as they now are, and preferably before terribly much longer.

There is much that you will have to get used to, but I know you can do it.” He lowered a talon and gently took hold of the human’s face, lifting and turning it towards his own.

Solonn did not bother to resist the contact, his face expressionless as he finally looked at Jal’tai again through glazed eyes.

Somewhere deep within his being, a bitter, smoldering hatred was stoked at the sight of those crimson eyes, that deceptively kindly face, but Solonn didn’t dare to give audience to that feeling and allow it to take over, despite being sure that it would be wonderfully cathartic to unleash his loathing upon the dragon who, in his mind, royally deserved it.

He knew how terrible Jal’tai’s displeasure could be, and was very mindful of the fact that any voiced dissent on his part would likely just invite that wrath, that pain, that very real, mortal threat upon him once again. “You know,” Jal’tai said then as he continued to hold his would-be replacement’s gaze in a very literal sense, “there are certain positive aspects of your current situation that I don’t think you’ve taken the time to consider.

Perhaps they have simply failed to cross your mind in the midst of all the activity that must surely be buzzing about in there, or perhaps you did not even know such benefits existed.” Jal’tai paused momentarily to allow a possible query of what he was referring to, but no such question came.

Managing to at least appear unfazed by Solonn’s continuing silent treatment, he resumed.

“I happen to know that you have a particular aversion to consuming meat,” he said;

This revelation of Jal’tai’s knowledge surprised the former glalie, but not even the shadow of that surprise rose to visibility through his expression.

“I inadvertently learned this about you at the same time that I confirmed your possession of the Speech.

Knowing this about you, I did lament then and do apologize now for having to make you partake of the Specialty of the House the night before last, but the fact was that you needed it in order to have the strength to endure your transformation. “However, you need never consume meat again if you don’t want to.

Humans are omnivores, Solonn.

They don’t have to feed on the flesh of others;

They can obtain their protein from other sources.

Good news for you, wouldn’t you say?” The notion of never having to eat meat again might have been quite appealing to Solonn under different circumstances, but he could not see such a luxury as being worth the cost of his identity.

Through silence, he rejected Jal’tai’s appeal. Jal’tai let go of the bright, hopeful look in his eyes at this point, his brow and mouth setting into hard lines.

“Well, Solonn,” he began, his tone quite stern now, “if you can’t see the merit in this for yourself, I certainly hope you can at least be glad for what your cooperation will help to make possible for others.

After all, when it all comes down to it, this isn’t about you, or me, or this city, but rather the world , the future .” Here, he let go of Solonn’s face and rose from the bed, hovering in place above the human.

Solonn immediately turned away once more, trying to ignore the draconic shadow that hung over him. “The fact of the matter is that whether or not you think you’re ready to begin your new life, you must begin it nonetheless,” Jal’tai told him firmly.

“I told you that I must soon be replaced as the mayor of this city, and I wasn’t fooling around about that.

You have a lot to learn, Solonn, and you must begin doing so as soon as possible.” Jal’tai left the room then, leaving Solonn alone with the swarm of thoughts infesting his mind, including the newly raised questions he had regarding what else the latios might have “inadvertently” absorbed from his mind.

He figured that Jal’tai had probably gone ahead and just opened his helpless psyche wide while he’d slept in that theatre, leaving no corner of his brain unscathed by the touch of his prying psychic powers.

Why wouldn’t the dragon have done so, after all, when his subject was powerless to stop him? That was the way Jal’tai liked things to be, Solonn determined without a doubt.

Jal’tai liked to be in total control of any given situation, with those with whom he dealt in no position to contest his will.

That was certainly the real reason why he had rendered Solonn into a powerless, elementless human, the former glalie reckoned: so that he couldn’t fight back. It was not long before Jal’tai returned;

Solonn, determined once more not to look upon the dragon if he could at all help it, did not know that Jal’tai was once more in the room with him until the latios spoke. “It’s time you started growing accustomed to your humanity, Solonn, but for your sake we’ll begin with small steps.

Here,” Jal’tai said gently, and lowered something before Solonn’s face. Only part of the item hung into Solonn’s field of vision since his face was half-buried in the green, paisley-patterned comforter.

All that he could see was a length of black, folded fabric;

He could not discern what the item actually was. Jal’tai seemed to recognize that Solonn didn’t really have the best view of what he was trying to show him.

He unfolded the item and laid it down directly in front of Solonn’s face.

Solonn was now able to clearly see that he had just been given a pair of boxer shorts. “You do know how these go on, do you not?” Jal’tai questioned. Solonn stared at the shorts.

Yes, he did have a fair understanding of how garments of this type were supposed to be worn;

The pants that Morgan had worn were fundamentally similar, albeit longer.

Solonn was almost too weary in both body and spirit to bother with the undergarment… however, the events of the night prior were still fresh in his mind, and the memories of the more painful of those events shone especially vibrantly, even through the thick haze of semi-conscious thoughts, sorrows, and fears attending his psyche.

He feared that if he did not do as the latios expected of him, he would risk being subjected once more to Jal’tai’s particular, excruciating brand of psychic punishment. Besides which, the boxers did offer the restoration of a small aspect of his dignity, at least.

Solonn tried with only scant success to focus on that point in an effort to convince himself that his next actions were motivated by more than just terror as, without a word, he stirred, shifted, and took hold of the undergarment.

Rather awkwardly, he sat halfway up, staring studiously at the pants for a moment as he turned them over in his hands, trying to ascertain which end was which.

Once he was sure he had it right, he put on the boxers, slipping them over both ankles at once and wriggling clumsily the rest of the way into them. “Hmm… I’m afraid you’ve got those on backwards, my boy,” Jal’tai said, wearing an odd expression that only partly succeeded in concealing a hint of amusement. With a faint sigh, Solonn removed the garment and put it back on, correctly this time. “That’s more like it,” Jal’tai said with a smile and a nod.

“Now, wearing clothing, even as little of it as you’re presently wearing, might seem strange at first, but I promise you’ll get used to it quickly enough.” Solonn found that statement to be a little odd coming from someone who could just pretend his clothes onto himself.

Besides which, the notion of covering one’s self was not one that Solonn found strange at all;

As a glalie, he had kept most of his body covered in ice at nearly all times. “All right, then,” Jal’tai said briskly with a clap of his talons, seeming to have regained the former brightness of his voice.

“Why don’t we take a little tour of this lovely little place, hmm?

You will be living in this suite until you are ready to take my office, and so you might as well start making yourself at home here.

Also, you’ll need to get an idea of how everything works around here;

This suite has everything you need in your day-to-day life, but that does you no good if you don’t know where and how to get what you need. “Up you get, then,” the latios said.

He did not bother waiting for Solonn to get up of his own volition, certain that the former glalie had no intention of doing any such thing anyway.

For the second time that day, he employed his telekinesis to move the listless human, lifting him off of the bed and onto his feet.

He then relaxed his telekinetic hold on Solonn considerably, keeping him standing upright, but not prohibiting his independent movement otherwise. “No need to worry, my boy;

I’ll not let you fall,” Jal’tai assured him.

“Now, I know that this ambulatory method is about as different as is possible from the levitation you’d used to get around prior to your transfiguration, but still, walking on two legs shouldn’t be entirely alien to you.

After all, you were born as a biped, were you not?” That much was true;

In fact, it had been less than three months since Solonn had last possessed legs.

He had gotten around by walking for nearly two decades prior to his evolution. You’ve done it before, Solonn reminded himself in a continuous loop as he stood there, but that mantra fell just short of successfully building and maintaining his confidence in his newly gained human legs.

They were, after all, quite different from those he had possessed as a snorunt, seeming ridiculously long and gangly in comparison, looking incapable of supporting or moving him.

He was so mistrustful of those spindly limbs that were it not for Jal’tai’s telekinesis keeping him upright, his lack of faith in them would have certainly caused them to give right out from under him. Again, though, Solonn was very mindful of the threat that lay at the end of Jal’tai’s patience.

The dragon expected him to stand, to walk, to follow wherever he was led, and Solonn knew that he had better comply if he valued his safety.

Inhaling deeply, while trying but not quite succeeding to not overanalyze what he was doing, he took one short, unsteady step forward, and then another.

He stopped then, standing still as he finally remembered to exhale the breath he had taken, trying to will himself to at least appear to relax and seem sure even if he couldn’t actually do these things in earnest.

With an effort, he lifted his gaze from the carpet to the dragon hovering nearby in an attempt to signal that he was good to go. Jal’tai seemed to accept this, nodding slightly with a small smile.

“Good, good. Come, then, let me show you around…” The latios turned to his left and drifted out of the bedroom, then cast a look over his shoulder and made a beckoning motion with a single talon.

Unenthusiastically, but mindfully compliant all the same, Solonn followed.

He tried to move a little quicker and surer than he had done in the first couple of steps he had taken on human legs, but his faith in those limbs was still somewhat lacking, and it showed.

Though he was successfully moving forward, keeping fairly close to Jal’tai (though the dragon’s purposefully slow drift was mostly to credit for Solonn’s ability to keep up with him), his legs were doing nearly as much wobbling as walking.

But Jal’tai kept him steady, sustaining his telekinetic hold on the human to support him through his every step, no matter how unstable those steps might be. He was led by the latios into the den, where there were especially many of those draconic statues, like a small assembly of watchful minions in service to the psychic dragon to whom this place and its unwilling inhabitant belonged.

Solonn quickly found himself rather disliking their stone eyes upon him and their blithe expressions, the statues smiling as if oblivious to or even approving of what had been done to him.

He was shown over to the green armchair next to which he had awakened on his first morning as a human and had witnessed the revelation of Jal’tai’s true identity. Smiling, Jal’tai motioned for the former glalie to come and stand beside him, while gesturing with his other talon towards one arm of the chair.

Apparently, this was something that Jal’tai regarded as noteworthy, though Solonn couldn’t fathom why.

He came to stand at Jal’tai’s side, trying once he did so not to shift about too conspicuously despite his unease around the dragon. “Have a look at this,” Jal’tai said as he laid a talon upon the arm of the chair, its plushy surface yielding slightly to his claws as he clutched it.

He then pulled upward on it, doing so slowly to ensure that the human at his side could clearly see what he was doing.

The arm of the chair opened on an unseen hinge, revealing a previously hidden compartment, from which the latios pulled out a small, flat, matte-silver object that was covered with dozens of tiny buttons. “This is the remote control for your entertainment system,” Jal’tai told him.

“In case you’ve not seen one of these in use, observe.” He pointed the device towards a large oak armoire against the wall, in which a television, a DVD player, and a CD player were nestled, all surrounded by a sizable array of speakers.

“Pay close attention, now,” he instructed, and indicated first one of the remote’s buttons, and then another.

He repeated this action a couple of times, seeming intent on making sure that Solonn memorized the sequence, then pushed the two buttons in succession.

The CD player came awake with golden LED numbers, and a split-second later, a light, jazzy tune began issuing from the speakers. Jal’tai allowed the music to play for a few moments, seeming to enjoy it as he listened, smiling slightly, his eyes closed.

He then shut the music off, making certain to let Solonn see how he did so. “If you’re not in the mood for music, you could always enjoy what the television has to offer,” the latios said then, and demonstrated how to turn the television on.

The screen lit up with an image of a human in a rather garish suit and tie who was standing in front of a brown car while shouting about being crazy and offering the lowest prices in Hoenn. “You’ve got three hundred and fifty-one channels to choose from.

These arrows here—” he indicated two more of the remote’s buttons “—will let you cycle up and down through them one at a time, or you can go straight to a channel by inputting its number with the numeral buttons.

I’m sure you’ll memorize the numbers of the good ones quickly enough…” He cast a brief glance back at the television, where a different human was pictured offering the secret to shed excess weight around the hips, thighs, and buttocks;

Jal’tai regarded the commercial with an odd look before turning back to Solonn. “I’ll admit, most of those channels are pure rubbish around the clock,” he said almost apologetically, “but there are also a couple of real quality stations—they’re broadcast from right here in Convergence,” he informed Solonn, his tone colored on the lattest statement with unmistakable pride.

He changed the channel again, and this time images of pokémon rather than humans appeared on the screen.

A ledian was seated behind a desk.

Beside him, a small image of three smeargle being led out of a building by a medicham in a police uniform and two houndoom with badges affixed to collars around their necks appeared. “Police have finally apprehended the vandals responsible for defacing storefronts downtown on multiple occasions,” the ledian anchorman reported, while at the bottom of the screen, his words were displayed in subtitles for the benefit of human viewers, rendered in their script.

“Whether these individuals were actively trying to claim territory or were merely acting towards their own amusement is unclear, but the CPD has issued a statement saying that whatever their motives might have—” Here, Jal’tai turned off the television, then replaced the remote control in its storage compartment within the arm of the chair.

“There’s something else I have to show you with regards to the television, but let’s finish having our look around first, shall we?” The dragon departed the den, and Solonn shuffled out after him with a final glance back at the now dark and lifeless television screen.

He wasn’t particularly impressed with it;

He was already somewhat familiar with television, having watched it with Morgan a couple of times back when he was still small enough to be kept indoors.

Even then, though the ability of that device to reproduce images and sounds even more faithfully than one’s own memory could do was certainly an incredible achievement in his eyes, the manner of programming it offered had fallen short of appealing to Solonn’s tastes.

Under normal circumstances, the idea of the stations this city boasted, run by pokémon for pokémon, might have been fairly intriguing.

But, again, these were far from normal circumstances. Solonn was guided next into a decently sized, walk-in closet.

It was fairly long, and wide enough to admit Jal’tai’s generous, rigid wingspan, albeit only just. “Now, it was never my intent to have you running around in your underwear all the time,” the dragon said, with yet another of his chuckles.

“Here, I have provided you with an exquisite collection of some of the finest menswear money can buy.

I’ve spared no expense for you, my boy—why, just look at this here.” He gestured to his right, where a deep navy blue jacket hung, and brought one of its sleeves forth.

“Just feel this material!” he said almost dreamily, proffering the sleeve to Solonn. Far less interested in it than Jal’tai clearly was, Solonn reached out and gave the fabric the slightest brush of his fingers.

“Hm,” he uttered with the ghost of a nod, just for the sake of giving some response to appease the dragon.

In truth, he found nothing at all special in the way it felt.

He was equally unmoved by the other specimens Jal’tai showed him from what was now his wardrobe, but he gave the latios, who was obviously quite proud of these purchases, an occasional, noncommittal noise or vague nod, feigning at least some interest in and attention to what was being presented to him.

In spirit, however, he could not be further from the closet and the expensive fashions therein, let alone any care for these things. As there wasn’t room enough in the closet for Jal’tai to turn around, the dragon had to teleport in order to make his exit.

He then resumed his tour, ushering Solonn into a spacious bathroom, one that had been designed with multiple, varying species in mind.

It contained sinks at three different heights and four different kinds of toilets.

The shower was oversized, and it possessed multiple spigots of varying shapes and sizes;

In addition to the standard one that dispensed water, the extra spigots offered bathing options such as “mud”, “sand”, and “acid”, according to a large, yellow label affixed just outside the shower compartment.

There were labels of this sort next to each of the fixtures, bearing instructions for their use in human- and unown-script.

Solonn noted that there were also small, white labels, apparently handwritten, that designated certain of the fixtures for human use. There were also mirrors in this room: one over each sink and a tall one that stood alone against the opposite wall.

It was in that solitary mirror that Solonn saw his new, human face for the first time.

The dark eyes that had become his own stared back at him from within the glass, bloodshot and glazed over with a listless despair.

The expression on that face seemed to plead to be looked upon no more, as if considering itself a sight that could not be endured.

As it was, the man who beheld it could indeed not stand the sight.

Their features seized by anguish, both his face and its mirror image turned harshly away from one another. Solonn did not notice at first when Jal’tai spoke next, the dragon’s words reaching him with a delay through the fog enveloping his mind. “This, Solonn, is where you’ll attend to your hygienic needs… among other needs,” the latios said.

“Be sure to read those labels;

They’ll show you exactly how to use these things, as well as which among them you should use and which you should not.

Generally speaking, most of this equipment is for the purposes of cleaning and grooming yourself, whereas this—” Jal’tai craned his neck towards the toilets, pointing at the one that was labeled as suitable for use by humans “—well, its purpose is…” Short moments later, they both left the bathroom and the topic of its purposes.

Jal’tai then brought Solonn to the other end of the suite, where the kitchen was located.

The room itself was quite small, as were the appliances within it: the refrigerator, sink, counter, and electric range were much shorter than their counterparts in kitchens designed solely for human use (though the refrigerator was also rather wider than the typical human-style model, so as not to forsake any of its capacity).

Cabinets, drawers, a toaster, a blender, and a microwave oven were also set up at heights that were convenient for smaller species.

Yellow instruction labels like those found in the bathroom were present here, too, detailing the use of each of the appliances.

There was also a modest dining area adjoined to the kitchen, containing a small, low table and a trio of cushioned, wooden stools. “Here is where you can get yourself something to eat whenever the need or desire arises, as I would imagine it surely must have by now,” Jal’tai said.

“You must be famished, hmm?” Indeed Solonn was hungry, and considerably so;

He had not eaten since the evening before last, after all.

However, he had been so preoccupied through much of the time since that that sensation, as well as a host of other physical complaints, had gone very largely ignored.

Still, for the dragon’s sake, “Hm,” he responded, yet another minimal utterance, with yet another minimal nod as the sole factor indicating his reply as affirmative. “Mmm-hmm, figured as much,” Jal’tai said with a warm smile (that the latios had just smiled at the confirmation of his hunger was not lost on Solonn, nor did it fail to bother him).

He pulled first a bowl, then a box of frosted corn flakes from the cabinets, setting both items down on top of the kitchen counter.

He then fetched a quart-sized carton of milk from the refrigerator and a nanab berry from a bowl of fruit that sat on the dining room table and set them down on the counter, as well.

Faintly humming the jazzy tune from earlier, the dragon dispensed a small amount of cereal and milk into the bowl, then diced up the nanab with his claws and put the fruit into the bowl, too. Jal’tai took a spoon out from the drawer, then brought it along with the bowl of cereal to the table and beckoned Solonn to come over.

The human complied, stopping a couple of feet away from Jal’tai as the latios pulled out a chair for him, indicating with a talon that he expected Solonn to take his seat here. Having seen Morgan sit down before, Solonn had a sense of how it was done in human-fashion;

Or, at least, he knew what the action looked like.

At any rate, it was enough for him to just try it without much preamble.

He moved over to the chair, trying to allow his frame to fold up and conform to it in resemblance of the image of a seated human in his memory.

He did a fairly commendable job of it, too, although he did drop himself onto the stool a little too hard, resulting in a bit of an unpleasant shock to his tailbone despite the chair’s cushioning. “I certainly hope you like this,” Jal’tai said pleasantly as he hovered beside Solonn.

“It’s something for which I confess to have developed something of an addiction,” he said with chuckle.

“Plus, it’s something that’s very easy to whip up;

I’m sure that you can do it yourself anytime, now that you’ve seen me do it.

Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is the sort of thing you should ought to be living on, but as far as more advanced meal preparation goes… well, no one becomes a master chef in a day, now do they?” He laughed again, then turned an expectant gaze straight into Solonn’s eyes.

“Well, have at it, then!” he pressed cheerfully. Solonn turned his gaze downward and merely stared into his cereal for a moment.

He was not particularly moved to eat despite his body’s need for him to do so… but with that dragon hanging around like a second shadow, he reckoned that he’d better just get it over and done.

Almost robotically, he began to lower his hand towards the bowl—but it was caught short of descending into the cereal by the swift action of a blue, three-clawed talon. “Whoops!” Jal’tai exclaimed, laughing.

“I can’t believe I could be so forgetful… here…” He lifted the spoon from where it sat beside the bowl.

“Use this; it’s proper human etiquette, not to mention less messy.

You just scoop it up like this,” he said, miming the action a couple of times in demonstration before handing the spoon to Solonn. Solonn did fairly well with the spoon, especially given that it was his first time using one;

He only spilled a couple of spoonfuls.

The sweet flavor of the cereal and berries was not unpleasant, but failed to pique Solonn’s interest.

His apathy towards eating made it somewhat difficult to finish his breakfast, but he managed to finish it nonetheless, earning a pleased smile from the draconic face that had been hovering beside him in order to ensure that the human accepted the food he was given. “There, now wasn’t that nice?” Jal’tai asked, earning himself another of the former glalie’s vague responses.

He took a small roll of paper towels from the cabinets, tearing one off to clean up the spilled cereal, then disposed of the used tissue and put the used bowl into the sink.

Once he was finished tidying up, he motioned for Solonn to rise and follow him once more, and the human did so without a word, allowing himself to be led back into the den. Once there, Jal’tai immediately took the remote from its compartment in the arm of the green chair and turned on the television, bringing the image of a rather tone-deaf, singing meowth to life on the screen.

“You’ll recall that I mentioned having something else to show you over here, correct?” the latios said as he made his way over to the armoire, opening the cabinet under the television and producing a DVD jewel case from it.

Solonn gave even less of a response than he had been giving, but Jal’tai didn’t seem to mind. The dragon looked over his shoulder and saw Solonn just standing there beside the armchair.

“Go ahead and have a seat in that chair,” he instructed the human, while carefully prying the DVD out of its case with his claws.

“Watch me carefully, now,” he said once he saw that Solonn had taken his seat in the green chair.

He turned on the DVD player, inserted the disc into it, and then drifted over to hover right beside Solonn. “This is just one of a series of videos I made specially for the benefit of my successor in the event that said successor would come to me in the form of a pokémon,” Jal’tai said as the video started, bringing up a simple menu in unown-script onto the screen.

The menu bore only two options: “Setup”, and “Play”.

“Now, to begin the video, you simply press these.” He highlighted the “Play” option and pressed the “ENTER” button, making certain that his actions were performed in clear view of his pupil and not too quickly to be followed.

“This will pause it if you need to take a break while viewing;

This one will go back and replay certain parts if you feel you need to review them or if you miss something;

And this one will stop it when you’ve finished watching it,” he explained, indicating the “PAUSE”, “REVERSE”, and “STOP” buttons, respectively.

“Then, just take the disc out and put it back where it belongs—the ‘OPEN’ button is right there on the device;

You’ll also find ‘POWER’ buttons on all the devices there to turn them off when you’re done using them.” Meanwhile, the video began to play.

Rather loud, synthesizer-based music blared forth, and the title “Humanity and You” appeared on the screen in bright, gaudy letters. Jal’tai grinned and chuckled excitedly.

“I think you’ll enjoy these, Solonn;

They really turned out quite nicely, in my opinion.

These videos will help you learn the basic habits and skills of living as a human.

Once you’ve watched this volume, you can just pop in another one and watch it.

Mind you, they are numbered, and you’d do well to watch them in numerical order—some of the later ones might be a bit confusing if you don’t,” he advised Solonn, chuckling yet again. Jal’tai placed the remote in Solonn’s hand, then drifted over to the wall that separated the suite from the hall outside.

“I’ll check in on you again sometime soon,” he said.

“Oops… I fear you might have missed some of the beginning of that video due to my talking,” he added, sounding mildly embarrassed and apologetic.

“You might want to back that up, then.

Well, anyway, I’ll be seeing you!” With that, the dragon departed, once again foregoing the keypad and transport tile and teleporting out instead. Solonn stared dully at the television screen, not really absorbing anything occurring there and not bothering to restart the video from the beginning as per Jal’tai’s advice, either.

His mind was still on the latios even though the dragon had left.

He had stashed much of his loathing for Jal’tai deep within his psyche while in his presence, silently detached from it through a sort of numb, temporary resignation born of self-preservation.

But now, with the latios no longer shadowing him, all the offense, hatred, and bitter indignation that Jal’tai had inspired within him came to the forefront once again. As if Jal’tai hadn’t done enough to him, the latios had chosen to add insult to injury by coming in on this day with the old, merry façade he’d worn when they’d first met, smiling and acting cheerful as though nothing strange had happened here, as though there weren’t anything wrong done when in fact there was , committed by his own hand.

The dragon had actually had the audacity to talk to him as though he were looking after him with care and affection, as though he were a friend . Solonn very briefly allowed his attention to light upon the video.

Almost immediately, he shut the doors of his mind to it once more.

He had quickly developed a rather strong dislike for the program, for it was, after all, the handiwork of that lying latios, just another element of his scheme.

Solonn paid the video no further mind, even as it concluded, returned to the menu screen, and began playing its loud theme music on a continuous loop. * * * (CONTINUED)

Solonn continued to feign compliance during Jal’tai’s next visit two days later, looking at whatever he was shown, doing whatever he was told to do, and managing to show no outward sign of resentment or indignation.

As soon as the dragon left, however, that veneer fell away, leaving behind a bitter, despondent man who, for the most part, just languished through the hours, lacking the spirit to look after himself beyond the bare minimum needed to keep himself alive.

He barely slept, his mind too besieged by thoughts of what lay behind, what might lie in the future, and what could now never come to be to allow him any peace.

He did not bathe or groom himself in any way, nor did he bother to further his assimilation into his forced humanity by watching any of the latios’s training videos.

He ate only when Jal’tai was actually present to monitor him and make sure that he did. The self-neglect was beginning to take its toll on the former glalie—developments that did not go unnoticed by the latios, as Solonn learned the very next evening on Jal’tai’s third visit. Jal’tai materialized in the room, and Solonn met his eye at once from where he sat in that green armchair.

From the moment the dragon appeared, Solonn knew that this visit would not be like the others.

Gone was the friendly, jovial countenance that the latios had worn during his previous visits—his face was a hard-lined mask, the expression not quite readable but certainly not a sign of a pleased dragon. Lowering his head slightly and folding his arms in front of his chest, Jal’tai brought himself to hover right in front of Solonn.

His feathered brows drew together as if wincing in pain, allowing some evidence of concern to show through his features.

He held the human’s dark, flat stare for a long moment, then shook his head pityingly. “Look at you…” the dragon said quietly.

He moved even closer to Solonn, his pointed, crimson-irised gaze burning upon the former glalie’s unshaven face from only a few inches away now.

“Solonn,” he said, his tone heavy, “I know that you’ve been neglecting yourself and your lessons.

This won’t do, my boy.

This won’t do at all.” Though the human’s slackened, expressionless features showed no sign of it, a spark of fear awakened and began swiftly growing deep within Solonn’s psyche, something not quite conscious, something primal.

The dragon knew that he wasn’t getting what he wanted from his would-be successor, and such disappointment might beget suffering on Solonn’s part.

And perhaps it would not be like the time before—perhaps, this time, the latios would simply give up on ever getting what he wanted from Solonn and decide to cut his losses.

In silent terror, Solonn awaited the fuchsia blaze in the dragon’s eyes and the agony that would follow, but no such things came. “I told you, emphatically, that you must find it in yourself to make peace with this life,” Jal’tai said soberly, “for it is something you cannot change.

I told you this for a very good reason, Solonn: you cannot live a life that you do not accept.

If you keep on like this, you’ll waste away… I cannot allow that, Solonn.

There is too much at stake.

I will not see the future of my city, my mission , simply fade out like this.” He ascended higher into the air, stopping just short of scraping the ceiling with his wingtips.

From this height, his scarlet eyes bore down imperiously upon Solonn, the intensity of their gaze stoking the former glalie’s certainty that he was about to meet a terrible demise even further.

But still, the latios made no move to harm him. “For the sake of your destiny, as well as that of Convergence and the most noble cause for which it stands, serenity will be instilled in you,” he told Solonn firmly.

“Fortunately, I have come across someone who should be of a tremendous benefit to that end.

Her name is Neleng, and you will be having your first session with her tonight.

She ought to be arriving in less than an hour. “I dearly hope to see improvement in you, Solonn.

There’s no need for you to make things harder for yourself than you already have.” With those words, Jal’tai made his exit in his usual fashion, vanishing in a burst of golden light. Solonn’s eyes lingered for a while upon the empty space where Jal’tai had just been, resenting the dragon’s ability to simply be gone from this place in a flash—he wished that he could do the same.

The ease with which Jal’tai could come and go as he pleased only seemed to rub Solonn’s nose into the fact that he was stuck in here, unable to leave.

Solonn wondered if perhaps that was part of the reason why Jal’tai always chose to depart in such a fashion. As the minutes passed, Solonn merely sat there, doing nothing.

He wasn’t really anticipating Neleng’s arrival;

He had been too preoccupied with the notion that he was possibly going to be punished and maybe even killed to pay much attention to what Jal’tai had been saying during his visit.

The matter of the impending arrival of another visitor had been shunted to the back of his mind. At length, the computerized voice of the suite announced an incoming arrival;

Solonn, expecting it to be Jal’tai again, was faintly surprised to find someone and something very different appearing within the suite, a small, round, pearly white creature with splashes and stripes of red standing out vividly on her face and at the end of her long, ribbonlike tail.

He was a bit confused by the newly arrived guest at first, until the memory of Jal’tai’s mention of a visitor surfaced within his mind.

It was someone with an “N”-name, as far as he recalled;

He couldn’t remember the exact name. The visitor made her way into the den at once, her tail trailing from beneath her as she drifted through the air by some indiscernible means of levitation.

She stopped before Solonn and smiled, her iridescent, pale yellow eyes twinkling. “Good evening,” she greeted him, her voice airy and melodic.

“My name is Neleng,” she introduced, “and I’m here to help clear you mind.

Are you ready to begin?” Solonn didn’t respond, gazing upon the chimecho with uncertainty.

He had no idea of what this creature was planning to do and therefore could not be ready for it in any way. Neleng, however, seemed to have been prepared to proceed regardless of any answer or lack thereof that she might have received.

She beamed at him as brightly as if he had just agreed with the utmost enthusiasm to whatever she was about to do.

“Very well, then,” she said.

She rose upward until the golden suction disc on the top of her head met the ceiling and took hold of it, clinging tightly yet effortlessly. The chimecho gave a few languid ripples of her tail as she hung there, smiling serenely down upon Solonn.

“Just relax… Float away on a breeze of music…” she said dreamily.

She began swaying there where she hung, very slowly, very gracefully.

And then, she began to sing. From sheer silence, the song took flight.

A single voice, a single current of delicate, chiming tones traced fine, intricate lines through the air.

Like an unraveling thread, it unfolded into a chorus of many, one voice at a time.

Harmonies and countermelodies gracefully intertwined, weaving in and out amongst one another, merging, diverging, and reuniting in cycles as they all soared on a swirling breeze of ethereal, incomparable music. And there was Solonn, right in the very heart of it.

The music surrounded him, absorbing his mind as it swirled around him.

While he had always possessed a strong affinity towards music, one that allowed him to easily lose himself within its complex and wondrous structures, the song of the chimecho affected him in this way on a far grander scale than any other music, for it was indeed like no other music in the world.

Neleng sang not only with her true voice, but with the multitude of psychic voices with which all those of her kind were blessed. Under the mindsong’s spell, everything within the scope of Solonn’s consciousness was washed away.

Soon, all of the world around him was comprised solely of the swirling currents of melody.

Nothing else existed.

Nothing else mattered.

In his mind, there was only him and the music that loved him. He didn’t notice at first when the song finally ended, some twenty minutes later.

Once he did, he began looking about somewhat dazedly for the source of the music, seeming for the moment not to remember what had happened.

Then, the last of the swirling psychic residue that the chimecho’s song had left within his mind cleared… and with it, he realized slowly, the swarming miseries that had plagued his mind these past few days had faded out, as well. Not that he had been truly and entirely purged of his ills;

Undeniable anguish and bitterness remained within him, and would continue to do so as long as did their source: the unwanted body and the suite that both imprisoned him.

But by the preternatural qualities of Neleng’s song, all of those thoughts and feelings, though no more pleasant than they had previously been, were now tamed to a degree.

They were now organized in a sense, not perfectly but well enough that they no longer smothered him with their weight.

His spirit was freed to begin to rise up out of his fog of despondency, awakening as if from a long and muddling trance. Solonn’s memory realigned with his awareness;

He recalled the sequence of the most recent events as they had occurred.

Jal’tai had shown up, saying that Solonn would have a visitor, then Neleng had arrived and had begun to sing.

After that point, his memory was still very hazy;

He couldn’t remember what had happened between the start of the chimecho’s song and its end, if indeed he had ever actually known what had happened at all. He turned his sights up to where Neleng was still hanging, still swaying slightly.

She appeared to be slowly emerging from a meditative state.

She did something to me, Solonn strongly suspected, something psychic… Exactly what she had done, he couldn’t be sure.

He hoped it hadn’t been anything harmful, but he was inclined to have a dark feeling about it.

This creature was sent here by Jal’tai, after all;

Her motives were likely tied right into his. The chimecho finally fell still, sighing softly as her eyes slowly opened.

She detached from the ceiling, smiling gently as she descended once more. “I will see you again tomorrow,” she said in her melodious voice.

“Drift free until then…” Neleng floated away then, and Solonn’s gaze followed her as she made her way back to the wall between the suite and the hall outside.

She stopped before the lens that was set into the wall and brought the end of her tail up to reach the keypad beside it, folding its prehensile tip and using it to input a sequence of eight numbers.

The transport tile below her levitating form awakened with green light, and she lowered herself down onto it.

The lens awakened and scanned her, and a second later, she was gone in a green flash. Solonn’s eyes lingered for a long moment in that direction, looking upon the lens and keypad with a twinge of envy towards the chimecho who had just used them to leave the suite.

If only he could do the same… but that same system that had offered an open gateway to Neleng also created the barrier that held him there, for it would only admit those who possessed the codes, the key to open the way in or out. Jal’tai had shared the codes with Neleng.

He had not shared them with Solonn, and likely had no intention of doing so anytime soon or possibly ever.

Jal’tai was clearly intent on keeping him trapped there, while the latios and those whom he employed to aid him could just come and go as they pleased with those codes.

And of course, Jal’tai himself didn’t even need them;

He had the option of teleporting, and he made use of it, too.

In fact, he never even bothered with the keypad and tile to get out… Something clicked into place in Solonn’s brain, and clicked hard. Jal’tai never used the transport tile to get out, but he always used it to get in… why ?

Solonn found himself locked into puzzling over the matter at once;

This habit of Jal’tai’s was peculiar in a distinctly nagging way, one that clearly marked itself as significant.

He at first chiefly wondered, as he had done on more than one occasion before, why the latios bothered with the tile at all;

Couldn’t he just instantly, conveniently enter in the same way as he exited?

Why the dragon did not teleport into the suite was a matter that Solonn couldn’t seem to figure out… but when his mind inverted the question, wondering why Jal’tai did teleport to get out … The first answer that came to Solonn’s mind at that question was that Jal’tai did it that way simply because he could .

But another possible angle occurred to Solonn a beat later: perhaps Jal’tai did not use the keypad code to leave the suite on the chance that his captive might pick up the code from seeing him use it.

To Solonn’s mind, it made sense.

Jal’tai was just being cautious. A second later, a powerful realization struck him like a stone as his mind was thrown back to what he had just witnessed mere moments earlier. Jal’tai was being cautious. Neleng, however, was not… There was a feeling like a sudden, sharp blow to his chest, seizing his heart in an almost painful thrill.

Incredible though it seemed, after all the work and planning that he had clearly put into his endeavor to prepare his replacement, Jal’tai had made a mistake in giving the codes to that chimecho, one whose implications had the potential to severely undermine his plans. All of a sudden, the way from here seemed almost absurdly clear.

Neleng held the means for him to escape—he needed only to observe her closely on her departure from now on.

He could possibly obtain the code that would allow him to leave the suite by watching her use it. Of course, getting out was one thing… but then what?

No longer being the glalie he once was, and with no real way to prove that he ever was such, he could no longer return to the places that he had once called home and the people whom he had called friends and family… so where could he go? Anywhere but here will do… Solonn decided resolutely then, anywhere where he isn’t.

Solonn could not reclaim the life he had once known… but at least he could make his life his own again, taking it out of that dragon’s taloned hands.

He didn’t know what sort of future could possibly lie ahead of him now, but at least now there was a chance that it could be his future, his choice. With a deep breath, Solonn rose from the chair, shakily but determinedly.

He leveled a hard, resolute stare at that wall, that barrier separating him from the way to freedom.

Soon, he would surpass that barrier.

Soon, he would take back his life. * * * From the moment that he’d discovered the way by which he would escape, Solonn carried on in a very different manner than he had done in the days prior.

He knew and accepted that he would have to prepare himself for the life he would have to forge once he was free—a human life. So it was that not long after Neleng had left him, he had sat down and watched one of Jal’tai’s training videos.

Though not fond of the notion of partaking of something that Jal’tai had made, he’d determined that he would just have to bite back his resentment of the dragon in this matter.

The videos were a source of valuable information and demonstration, offering knowledge that he would need in his new life, and so he had decided that he would watch as many of them as he could before the time came when he would finally succeed in obtaining the code that would get him out of there. He had also regained the strength of spirit to really take care of himself again, fueled by the hope of impending freedom.

He tried to get at least a couple of hours of sleep each night and bothered to feed himself whenever he hungered, for he knew that he would need his strength for his upcoming escape.

From the videos, as well as from the next couple of visits by Jal’tai, he learned how to prepare a small variety of meals, but was still not quite courageous enough to try and make anything that required actual cooking, for it just seemed too easy to ruin such dishes—it wouldn’t do for him to burn more food than he ate, after all. The videos also illustrated the importance of good hygiene and dressing well in human society, lessons which motivated Solonn to begin practicing human hygienic rituals.

Though his first attempt at a bath resulted in minor scalding, and his first attempt at shaving left his face bleeding in no fewer than six places, he generally did a fairly competent job in keeping himself tidy and assured himself that he would improve in these skills with time and practice.

He also began fully dressing himself rather than just lounging about in his underwear, for he knew from both those videos and his time with the Yorkes that humans generally kept most of their bodies covered at all times. During his visits over the course of those days, Jal’tai noticed the improvements in Solonn’s well-being, and as a result the latios’s demeanor around him was even more lively and jovial than ever with no signs of stern displeasure, for it seemed that his would-be successor was finally accepting and growing into the role that had been chosen for him. Though Solonn’s temperament was definitely improving, Jal’tai still sent Neleng over each night to perform her mindsong therapy;

Solonn reckoned that the dragon had decided that those sessions might as well continue since they seemed to be doing his would-be replacement some good.

Indeed they were, but not just in the way that the latios had intended—Neleng’s sessions helped to keep Solonn’s mind clear, which in turn allowed him to stay focused and determined to achieve his goal of escape. The chimecho was fulfilling her role in Solonn’s endeavor most obligingly;

At the end of each of her visits, she let herself out by means of the transport tile.

From that green armchair, he had watched her out of the corner of his eye on the evening of her second visit, trying not to be overtly conspicuous about it, but had found that this did not provide the best angle from which to get a good look at precisely what she was doing. But shortly thereafter, he had thought to shift that chair just ever so slightly towards the wall that bore the lens and keypad, just enough to hopefully give him a somewhat better view of that area without it being too obvious that he had moved the chair.

Sure enough, as he had learned the following evening when Neleng returned once more, this new angle did make it rather easier to see what the chimecho was doing.

Hence, from that point forward, he had been able to watch Neleng without being too conspicuous about it, trying each time as he did so to discern and memorize the code she used to exit the room. It was following the eighth session with Neleng, eleven days after the morning when he had first awakened as a human, that Solonn was ready at last to make his move.

After carefully watching the chimecho input that code on multiple occasions, he was now quite now that he had successfully picked it up and memorized it. Jal’tai had visited earlier that day, and Neleng had just left an hour or so ago, so Solonn wasn’t expecting either of them anywhere near his suite again anytime soon.

If ever there was an optimal time to make a break for it, he reckoned that this was it. He stood there before the keypad, his breath shallow as his chest tightened with anxiety.

Soon, he could be free from here, assuming he had discerned the code correctly.

He raised a trembling, sweating hand to the keys, and one by one, his shaking index finger found each of the code’s eight digits as his mind recalled them in sequence: Seven… three… four… nine… zero… four… six… two… The next second felt eternal, a seemingly endless moment of wondering if he had succeeded and fearing that he had not.

Then that second passed, and to Solonn’s immeasurable relief, the tile below his feet took on that familiar, green glow.

The lens before him opened its glowing, golden eye to him, sweeping its scanning gaze over him. The tile gave a bright flash.

The tingling sensation over the surface of his skin that he’d experienced the last time he had used the transport tile came, seeming curiously stronger this time.

Then he was rushed swiftly through a state of physical nonexistence, emerging from it to rematerialize on the other side of the wall. His eyes met the scene of the corridor around him, and a giddy sort of disbelief spread through him in a shiver.

A beat later, he dared to believe what the sight surrounding him signified.

He had done it. He was out and could now make his bid for freedom. His mind reviewed the events that had taken place in this corridor the last time he had been there, replaying them in reverse to recall how he had gotten from the part of this building where the exit lay to where he now stood.

It was difficult to extract much detail from his memory regarding those events, for at the time when they had occurred, he had been under the influence of the drugs Jal’tai had slipped into his food, which had greatly hampered his perception.

He managed to remember the elevator, however, and seemed to recall that it was closeby.

Sure enough, he soon spotted it. The steel elevator doors before Solonn were shut tightly.

There was a button beside the doors, set somewhat low in the wall;

As Solonn’s eyes fell upon it, he remembered that Jal’tai had pushed a button to enter the elevator.

He stooped down slightly and pushed the button, but for a few moments, nothing seemed to happen, giving Solonn another surge of fear that his escape would fail.

But then, thankfully, the doors opened, and Solonn passed through them without a second’s hesitation. The doors closed then.

Solonn tried to ignore the rather bland music that was playing in the elevator as he waited for those doors to open again and release him into the lobby.

Moments on end passed, but no such thing happened.

Solonn was first confused by this, then worried… and then, he noticed the line of buttons next to the doors, above which was a label reading “Please Select Your Desired Floor”.

The elevator was not moving because he had not yet told it where he wanted it to go. You idiot… he reprimanded himself silently as he looked over the buttons.

They were numbered from one to seven;

Each one apparently corresponded to a different level of the building.

Solonn reckoned at once that the button marked “1”, bearing the lowermost number, represented the lowermost floor, where the doors that led out of the building were.

That was the floor he wanted. He pressed the “1” button, and a breath later, a funny little plummeting sensation in his stomach signified the elevator’s descent.

Soon after, the elevator came to a stop and its steel doors slid open, revealing a view of the spacious lobby… and the exit beyond. The lobby was currently relatively quiet, with no one present except for the swampert receptionist and a solitary primeape off in the corner, who was staring with a rather dull expression at a television on which a cartoon was playing.

Solonn was very conscious of their presence and quite nervous around them, but knew that he should try to act nonchalant so as not to draw too much attention to himself.

As far as these people needed to be concerned, he was just a human being like any other, no one particularly worthy of notice, with no reason why he should not be in this lobby or heading out those doors.

He intended to leave them in that mindset. Without a word, he crossed the room to the exit.

Those last doors, that last barrier separating him from the way out of this city, slid silently out of his way, and he stepped out into a starless, overcast night. He cast one last look behind him at the towering structure of the Serenity Inn, the place where his identity had been lost, the place that had been his prison for nearly two weeks.

He averted his gaze from it almost immediately and began moving away from it at a brisk pace, with the desire to never have to behold that place again. Solonn was forced to stop at the next corner, where cars sped up and down the street in his way.

He shivered as he stood there;

The grey silk shirt and simple black slacks he had chosen to wear that day offered little protection against the chilly, late-September wind that whipped at him.

Not terribly far away, he could make out the dark line of trees that represented the border between Convergence and its surrounding woods—that was his goal.

The vehicles rushing by were currently barring his path… but seconds later, the flow of traffic in his way ceased.

He took advantage of this at once, hurriedly crossing the street while the way was clear. His eyes fixed upon the boundary beyond which the world did not belong to that latios… the sooner he reached it, the better, he knew.

He wanted to make a dash for the trees, but having only recently become fully accustomed to walking on his new legs, he was somewhat wary of the notion of running. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of doubt.

If you can walk, you can run, he told himself silently.

Don’t think about it;

Just do it! Hesitating no longer, he broke into a run with a somewhat awkward start, stumbling over the first step and nearly overcorrecting afterward. Once Solonn managed to stabilize himself, he did not intend to stop running, not until he reached that forest.

He was unused to running for any great distance, however, and exhaustion came on quite swiftly.

Nonetheless, he ignored his body’s demands for him to stop and take a rest, his sights and his determination fixed on his goal.

But he was forced to stop two blocks away from the Serenity Inn by another red light, another wave of rushing cars in his path. Solonn gritted his teeth in pain as he waited anxiously for a break in the traffic, the cold, sharp wind tearing through his throat with each harsh, gasping breath that his lungs tore from the air in their need.

The forest was now not much further before him than the Serenity Inn was behind him;

The closer he got to his goal, the more impatient to reach it he became. Finally, the path before him was clear and safe again.

His body was quite averse to taking off and running again since he had not even caught his breath completely from the last dash, but with such a short way left to go before he could put this city and the dragon to whom it belonged behind him for good, he just couldn’t wait to close that final distance. Amber sparkles of light streaked by, rays from the streetlights that were distorted by the tears that the stinging wind brought to his eyes as he ran.

His lungs seared viciously, their want for oxygen seemingly inconsolable.

Tiny, shooting agonies stabbed into his ribs like driven nails, while his stomach and legs burned with acidic pain.

Still, he ran, desperate to escape Convergence no matter how it hurt.

As far as he was concerned at this point, living free was worth any suffering. At nearly the verge of collapsing, with his heart hammering so violently that it seemed ready to explode at any second, he reached Convergence’s limit at last.

He was seconds from crossing the boundary— FWOOOSSSSH!

Out of nowhere, blazing jets of fire surged forth from either side and leapt up before him.

With a hoarse shout of alarm and surprise, he backpedaled at once from the burning line of flames in his path, nearly stumbling and falling backwards in the haste of his reaction.

As he turned away from the fire, he saw its source: two houndoom stood there, sleek, dark-furred dogs whose curved horns glinted wickedly in the light from the flames, as did the golden badges affixed to the collars they wore.

Their jaws dripped with glowing embers as they stared him down, growling ominously. “Hold it right there,” one of them snarled menacingly.

“You’re not going anywhere.” As if to emphasize the point, the blazing line suddenly advanced at either side, sweeping into a burning circle around Solonn.

The flames roared as they danced madly on all sides, but they did not touch him, as if something was holding them at bay. That something—or someone , rather—literally dropped out of the air behind Solonn, landing without a sound.

Solonn had had no idea that this creature had been perched in the trees, awaiting him, and he remained unaware of her presence until he felt his arms suddenly and powerfully seized and pinned behind him. At once, he began to struggle in her grasp, but could not break free.

His head whipped around to see who had taken a hold of him, and there, at a height considerably less than his own, he saw the pale grey face of a medicham leveling a cold, hard stare up at him.

Her eyes held a fuchsia glow, a sign of the psychic powers she was using to manipulate the two houndoom’s flames and keep them in check. The light in the medicham’s eyes gave a sudden, brilliant flare, and the circle of flames surrounding her and Solonn simply and abruptly vanished.

Her hold on Solonn tightened, twisting his arms painfully.

He cried out and tried again to escape her grasp, kicking wildly behind him.

With a single, powerful sweep of her leg, the medicham kicked his legs out from under him even as she maintained her seemingly inescapable hold.

A wordless exclamation exploded from Solonn’s throat as his knees met the ground with a sharp jolt. The two houndoom stepped forward, bringing their muzzles close to Solonn’s face.

Their hot, foul-smelling breath seared his face for a few seconds before he found himself pulled violently back to his feet by the medicham policewoman. “Start walking,” she commanded him coldly, her voice soft but her tone unmistakably deadly.

She gave him a shove for additional motivation.

Still, he struggled, but the medicham’s grasp remained as strong and unyielding as ever, and soon he exhausted what little strength his dash from the Serenity Inn had left him.

Too weakened to resist any longer, Solonn could not help but allow the medicham to drive him onward. The cops brought him back into town, the medicham keeping her captive from collapsing in his exhaustion, the houndoom directing nips at his feet whenever he faltered in his steps.

At length, they arrived at a very tall, brick building downtown.

A brass sign hung over its entrance, lit from below by bright lights and bearing the words “CONVERGENCE TOWER”. The houndoom pushed the doors open, and the medicham shoved Solonn into the building, still holding on to him tightly.

He was steered into an elevator, which made a long ascent before letting the cops and their captive out into a short hallway with massive doors at its end. The polished, auburn expanse of the wooden doors filled Solonn’s vision as his captors came to a stop before them.

A speaker mounted in the wall to his left suddenly awakened with a brief crackle of static, and then the last voice in the world that Solonn wanted to hear issued forth from it. “Bring him in,” Jal’tai instructed through the speaker.

The cops responded to the order at once.

The two houndoom pushed their way through the doors and held them open as the medicham brought Solonn through them. Solonn now stood in an enormous, richly furnished office.

Seated before him at a very large and impeccably tidy desk, Jal’tai, in the guise of Rolf Whitley, leveled a stare at Solonn that was forbiddingly stern, but at the same time held an unmistakable sadness. “That’ll do, madam, gentlemen,” Jal’tai said without inflection to the medicham and houndoom, dismissing them.

The three cops nodded in acknowledgment, and the medicham released her hold on Solonn before walking out of the office.

The two houndoom followed her away, and the great doors swung shut behind them. Solonn, still drained of his strength and no longer supported by that of the fighting/psychic-type, immediately dropped to his hands and knees, his head sinking towards the hardwood floor.

A winged shadow fell over him, and a second later, a talon descended upon his head, lifting his face up to look upon its owner. No longer wearing his human mirage, Jal’tai glared right into Solonn’s eyes, his feathered brow heavy and his beaklike mouth downturned in distinct sorrow.

“I’m very disappointed in you, my boy,” he said gravely.

“I told you not to make things harder for yourself than they had to be, but you just wouldn’t listen…” The latios sighed heavily.

His scarlet eyes shimmered with fresh tears.

“I never wanted it to come to this,” he said, his voice quavering as if threatening to break, “but you’ve left me no choice.

I’m afraid that I am now forced to take drastic measures to ensure your cooperation and the preservation of this city’s noble mission…”

Wow, that was one LONG chapter.

I really liked how you described Solonn's emotions, from being stuck in a desolate rut, shown by his emotions painfully going around in circles, to hope, to despair at finally being caught.

You went into so much detail, and it was amazing at times -- like the way you described how Solonn was affected by the music.

At times the details felt painfully slow, which was probably intentional (when Neleng first used the transport tile, I was screaming "watch the code!

Watch the code!" and it was just so painful watching Solonn work it out step by step!) It's interesting how Solonn had to adapt to being a human.

I thought that Jal'tai's embarrassment about the bathroom was a bit overdone, though.

I mean, people talk about going to the toilet all the time, and he doesn't seem like the prissy type.

But the suspense when Solonn typed in the code was well done, especially the way you dragged out the actual code.

I was really gunning for the tile to work. See you next chapter!

I'm really impressed by the way you describe everything.

I find it your biggest writing talent.

I'm kinda speechless to what to say right now, since I read it in one go, but I like it very much, although the latest direction wasn't really my thing with the human transformation and such.

I do still like the story and I'm especially interested into which direction it's going.

Mistysakura: I’m very glad to hear (or read, rather) that you liked how the emotions were handled there—again, I was very insistent on doing that particular aspect of the story justice.

^^ The first version of this part of the story had Solonn accepting what Jal’tai had done to him and was asking of him much too readily, while the first revision of that part overcorrected and had him overreacting—it took quite a few tries to get it where it is today. Glad to “hear” that you liked how the code scene was done, too.

^^ Good catch with regards to the very slow pace of the details in places—that was indeed intentional.

^^ Good catch with regards to the bathroom bit, too—it was not only overdone but furthermore quite out-of-character for Jal’tai (I see him as being much closer to the “relative who’d tell embarrassing stories about how you used to eat your boogers and wet the bed when you were a little kid to people whom you’d really rather not have knowing about such things” type, in fact X3).

XD; This is the same guy who didn’t bother to provide Solonn with clothing right away, after all.

XP So yeah, thanks for bringing that slip-up to my attention.

^^ It’s now been fixed. MeLoVeGhOsTs: I’m glad that you’re liking the description so far, and I’m impressed and flattered by the fact that you read it all in one sitting.

^^ P.I.E. ADVISORY In reading this chapter, you will experience P rolonged I talics E xposure in the form of large sections of italicized text.

P.I.E. has been clinically proven to cause eye irritation in some individuals.

Visine will be handed out at the end of this chapter for any who have need of it. Also, you’ll notice that I’m no longer capitalizing the word “human” in this story, and the same goes for the names of pokémon species, pokémon types, and a few other things. Chapter 10 – Deceiving Yesterday Taloned arms lowered, embracing Solonn as his gaze was held by those grave, reptilian eyes.

The former glalie immediately wanted to be released, to be able to move away from the dragon rather than being drawn closer to him.

But Solonn simply lacked the strength to resist the hold of that grip or that stare, too drained to do much more than shudder in the latios’s arms as he was lifted from the floor, his fear displayed clearly through his pallor and a continuous stream of voicelessly exhaled protests, mutterings that were wordless save for an occasionally discernible “no”. Jal’tai held him there against his chest for a long moment, drawing a deep breath as his somber stare continued to weigh down upon the human’s face.

He could barely stand the way Solonn was looking back at him.

Hopelessness and terror were etched into every line of the former glalie’s face, an expression befitting cornered prey. It didn’t have to be like this, the latios lamented silently.

It all could have been so much easier, but you just wouldn’t let yourself see the way… and now… Jal’tai sighed, resigning himself with no small measure of regret to the course of action that he now had to take.

He envisioned himself, along with the human in his arms, in another location, a place that lay hidden below that very tower, and he focused his mind sharply on that image.

Then, he cast a tendril of his psychic power out and projected it into that destination.

A fraction of a second later, the psychic force reeled both him and Solonn in towards it, and with a burst of golden-hued psychic energy, the two of them teleported out of the office. An instant later, the citrine light drained from Solonn’s vision, revealing the scene that had replaced his prior surroundings.

The room that he and Jal’tai now occupied was longer than it was wide, and just large enough to allow the rigid-winged dragon to move about comfortably.

It was somewhat dimly lit by a single light mounted overhead, which cast a soft, rose-colored glow over the space. Solonn saw little more of this place than what could be surveyed over Jal’tai’s shoulder, but what lay there before his eyes, fully encompassing one end of the room, was a fairly incredible sight.

On a vast, marble panel mounted into the far wall, an image of a latias stood out in relief.

She was depicted hovering in place, her arms outstretched, with a benevolent smile curving across her semi-avian face.

Her feathers were accented with inlaid gold, making her image shine in the warm, gentle lighting.

At her feet, a multitude of delicate-looking, fluffy white flowers sat in elaborately carved, earthen pots.

They surrounded a tiny, shallow pool, at whose center a small fountain continually flowed, gently churning the water with a soft murmuring. In a very detached way, Solonn wondered about the enshrined latias and what sort of a place this could be to contain such a thing.

His inability to discern the purpose of this place did nothing to assuage his fear, for it made it even harder to guess just what Jal’tai could have in store for him here.

However, he remained sure on the deepest level that whatever awaited him, it would not be good. He allowed his head to loll backwards over Jal’tai’s arm in order to cast his sights behind him and see what lay at the other end of the room.

The inverted picture that reached his eyes was very different from his previous view: no shrines, no flowers, no resplendent portraits.

There was only a drab, metal table, unremarkable and featureless save for a series of slots of varying widths that were arranged in symmetrical patterns all the way down the length of its surface. In contrast to the beautiful and benevolent image of the latias on the other side of the room, the table looked especially uninviting, enhancing the inauspicious feeling Solonn got from it.

He strongly suspected that the table would have something to do with whatever punishment Jal’tai intended for him;

Just looking at it, he could already begin to feel the suffering that he expected he would soon be facing. Jal’tai let go of him then, but to Solonn’s brief surprise, he did not fall.

At the moment when he should have hit the floor, Solonn saw that the dragon’s eyes were alight, telling him that Jal’tai’s telekinesis was being employed to keep him up off the ground.

The latios lifted Solonn slightly higher into the air, and then began guiding him backwards—towards that table, Solonn recognized at once.

It seemed his suspicion and dread towards the table had been right on the mark. Solonn felt cold, hard metal against his back as he was laid down on the table, its chill seeping most uncomfortably into his already aching bones at once.

His entire body was then locked into rigidity by the latios’s psychic force, and his limbs were straightened and positioned between pairs of the slots in the table’s surface.

The next second, metal bands suddenly erupted from the slots and shackled his arms, legs, and waist to the table. Slowly, the dragon moved forward towards Solonn.

The fuchsia light of telekinesis drained from his eyes as he came to levitate directly above his captive—and curiously, a blaze of another kind seemed to awaken in its place, the exact nature of which Solonn feared to guess.

However, the phenomenon was gone just as soon as Solonn had noticed it, leaving the human to wonder if his fear hadn’t caused him to imagine the strange fire that had danced so briefly within those scarlet eyes. The latios closed his eyes, taking a long, steadying breath while clasping his talons as if in prayer.

“I had dearly hoped that it would not come to this,” he said, his voice somehow very heavy despite being barely more than whispered.

“I had hoped you would see things clearly, and understand what must be… I wanted to believe that you would…” His eyes opened and locked into Solonn’s gaze, exuding weariness and disappointment.

“But I knew better, really,” he said, almost inflectionlessly, “even from the very start—hence the need for our little experiment tonight.” Before Solonn could even begin to guess what Jal’tai was referring to in the mentioning of an “experiment”, the dragon continued.

“The events of this night were the final culmination of this experiment, which was designed to test your willingness to serve our cause.

On the night you were transfigured, I injected a small transmitter under your skin.

I instructed Neleng to obliquely allow you to learn the exit code from her, and the police were told to keep an eye on your transmitter’s signal, and to apprehend you and bring you to me if you attempted to leave Convergence.” An immediate sinking feeling struck deep into Solonn’s chest, while his extremities went numb with shock.

“…You set this up?” he questioned hoarsely and with difficulty, still quite breathless, his mouth and throat arid and not quite able to coordinate properly of a sudden.

“You…” he paused momentarily, attempting in vain to swallow to relieve his parched throat, “…you let me run away?” Jal’tai nodded slowly, sorrowfully.

“I had to know if you would.” Pained outrage seized the human’s features.

“ Of course I would !” he croaked, his voice badly constrained and cracking painfully.

“Of course I would, after what you did to me!” Solonn looked right into the face of his captor, his bloodshot eyes projecting his anguish very clearly and potently through their steady stream of tears and their unflinching, accusatory stare.

That the one ray of hope he’d found since being captured by that dragon turned out to be nothing more than a cruel illusion was almost too much for him to bear, and it elevated his hatred of Jal’tai further than even Solonn himself thought he could harbor. Yet somehow, learning that his “escape” had been staged failed to completely surprise him;

In Solonn’s mind, it seemed to fit the dragon’s methods of total domination perfectly.

Solonn was sure that the real main point of Jal’tai’s “experiment” was to demonstrate very clearly that any resistance on Solonn’s part was utterly futile.

He would never escape. Jal’tai uttered a soft, troubled sound as he turned away from Solonn, seeming to have lost the will to look upon his captive’s tormented face any longer.

He hovered there in place for several moments on end, seemingly staring at the shining image of the latias who smiled back at him from across the room.

Then, the dragon lowered his head, and a beat later, he turned back towards Solonn with abnormal haste, as if trying to execute the action before he had a chance to be aware of what he was doing. Though, in truth, he knew it was useless to even try, Solonn nonetheless struggled in his restraints as Jal’tai drew close once more, the anticipation of imminent suffering having awakened a desperate, primal urge within him to flee from the oncoming threat.

Within a breath, Jal’tai was hovering over him once more, and burning brightly within the dragon’s eyes… Solonn learned in an instant that he had not imagined the strange light that he had seen within the latios’s eyes minutes earlier.

There it was again, just as before, but now that it remained burning within the dragon’s eyes rather than extinguishing itself just as soon as it had come, Solonn was able to witness more of its peculiar qualities.

As if bewitched, his gaze fixed upon the way that the light in Jal’tai’s eyes pulsed and swirled arrhythmically, constantly shifting its color and intensity in its chaotic dance. The maelstrom of light and color expanded outward from the dragon’s eyes in a sudden, fitful burst, first spreading over his downy coat entirely, then proceeding to wash over the entire room.

Jal’tai was now only discernible as a vague outline, camouflaged in the psychedelic colors that had consumed everything in sight;

Were it not for his slight motion in midair as he breathed, Solonn might have easily lost sight of him. Solonn was stricken with a sudden, sharp pain as the chaotic blaze that surrounded him intensified severely, lancing into his eyes like burning needles.

He tried to close them, but something was holding his eyelids open against his will and their own, forcing him to suffer the harsh luminosity that Jal’tai had set upon him. The dance of the violent colors abruptly and greatly increased in tempo, rushing in every direction around Solonn.

In their frenzy, a great and powerful noise arose, a formless, discordant chorus of screeches and roars.

The sound of the phenomenon matched the sight of it perfectly: chaotic, and painfully intense to endure.

Bizarrely, Solonn found himself seemingly able the next second to taste and smell the chaos as well as to see and hear it;

Its scent and flavor were extremely sharp and sour, burning his throat as he inhaled it on the air, making him gag and choke. The phenomenon then assaulted the last of Solonn’s senses, and the instant he began to feel it, he unleashed a cry of an incredibly piercing tone and volume, its forcefulness belying how weak he truly was.

Jal’tai’s strange and terrible power seared against Solonn’s skin and struck deep through his nerves in powerful bolts that stabbed intermittently into different parts of him, a dance of psychic knives diving in and out of his flesh. With every passing second, the punishment of his every sense grew stronger.

He had never known such absolute suffering in his life.

Through a mind throttled by the grip of a full sensory overload, Solonn’s sole conscious desire was for an end to this torture.

It seemed impossible that he could still be conscious in the face of such overwhelming pain, and yet he was denied the mercy of oblivion. The outline of the dragon above suddenly became much more distinct then, and the change took an immediate and absolute hold of Solonn’s attention despite the ever-escalating chaos that had consumed him. <Be at peace,>

Came a telepathic voice that mirrored the latios’s spoken voice, reaching Solonn as clear as a bell despite the din.

Then, all at once, the light, the noise, and all the pain simply ceased. * * * There was a delay before Solonn dared to recognize that the bizarre torture to which Jal’tai had been subjecting him had finally ended.

Once he did, he became aware, with a shock, of his surroundings—or rather, the lack thereof.

He could see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing… there was simply nothing surrounding him to be perceived.

He could not even perceive anything of himself other than his own awareness. This surreal unbeing considerably resembled that which lay within the confinement of a capture ball, and Solonn began to wonder if he hadn’t been sent into a device of that nature.

Perhaps this was part of his punishment… maybe Jal’tai intended to keep him imprisoned within this netherscape, perhaps only letting him out to inflict more of that multisensory torture upon him, until his mind and sense of reality were so severely traumatized and disarrayed that he would accept anything… In a literal flash, the solitude of his unbeing was broken.

A shapeless, luminous body shone like a star within the darkness of the netherscape, impossible light in a world without vision.

With the same suddenness with which it had appeared, it condensed into a form, one that Solonn recognized at once. Jal’tai now hovered there in the emptiness before Solonn, glowing radiantly, a dragon made of pure, white light.

Only his eyes did not emit this brilliant glow, appearing as two fathomless, coal-black holes in the otherwise featureless surface of his luminous form. The dragon then spoke to him telepathically, but in a mindvoice that was different than before, one as vast and all-consuming as the void that surrounded him.

<No, Solonn. That is not what I have done to you, nor is it what I intend to do.> Solonn was immediately stricken by fear at the sheer immensity of the preternatural voice that had just spoken to him.

He acknowledged Jal’tai’s words, but was too overwhelmed by them to respond. <I will not let any further harm come to you,>

Jal’tai said somberly.

<I know you’d never be able to forgive me for all that you’ve suffered to this point… nor would I expect you to,>

He added. <I doubt I’ll ever be able to forgive myself… and if She won’t, either, I would understand.> The glowing form of the psychic dragon extended his arms.

Solonn felt the latios’s embrace despite having nothing of himself with which to actually, physically feel anything, just as he had seen and heard Jal’tai amidst the emptiness despite being without eyes and ears. <Your suffering ends here,>

Jal’tai told him consolingly.

<I will now ensure that you will struggle no more.> What are you going to do to me?

Solonn asked fearfully.

He had no voice in this place, but he also had no doubt at this point that Jal’tai could hear his thoughts. <I could tell you,>

The dragon replied, <but you would not learn.> With that, the black holes that were the latios’s eyes suddenly filled with light, even brighter than that which comprised the rest of his preternatural form.

They gave a single, massive flash, as bright as the void was dark, and Solonn knew no more. * * * A gasp rent the air as lungs in a body that had been suspended in stasis for nearly five minutes suddenly reawakened and resumed their duties.

Their owner’s head sank and remained low as he took several moments to catch his breath.

His spine arched and his talons flexed, reviving his muscles somewhat painfully. With something of an effort, Jal’tai made himself look upon the face of the human before him.

Solonn stared expressionlessly back at him through blank, dilated eyes that held a faint, silvery glow.

The former glalie was still alive, but suspended in a peculiar state between consciousness and unconsciousness.

His psyche was subdued and encapsulated within a psychic prison, barred from access to his own brain.

The lati race had a name for this state: liasa andielenne .

The waking death. Entering this state was a regrettably unpleasant experience for the subject, but it was crucially necessary for what was to be done next.

There was work to be done within this human’s brain, and said human could not be present there to witness or interfere with the task at hand. Still, even with the necessary preparations made, Jal’tai worried for the outcome of this procedure.

Major, intrusive psychic methods, such as the one he was about to employ, bore a significant risk of unwanted, detrimental side effects, especially in non-psychic brains.

Of particular concern to Jal’tai was the fact that they could corrupt or even destroy psychic anomalies in the brain—anomalies such as the Speech. Hence, Jal’tai had been severely reluctant to resort to this course of action—it had every bit as much potential to ruin his candidate as it had to secure him, if not more.

Nevertheless, the latios committed himself to this act, feeling that there truly was no better option.

It had been by an extraordinary stroke of luck that he had come by Solonn Zgil-Al, this man who possessed the rare and crucial quality needed to take the reins of this city.

The odds were overwhelmingly against finding another Speaker anytime soon;

Jal’tai knew not how long he had in this world to wait, and furthermore knew that he would rest much more easily at night once he could be sure that Convergence’s future was secured. And so, he was determined to do whatever could be done to keep Solonn as a viable successor.

Though this last resort might bring failure to that endeavor, Jal’tai was certain that any chance for success with this candidate would be lost for sure if he didn’t go through with this, for Solonn would almost certainly refuse to cooperate otherwise.

Jal’tai needed to be sure that his replacement was loyal to the mission of this city and could be counted on to serve that mission once given his office, and he was thereby willing to take this risk. It would be all or nothing.

Either he would have his successor, dedicated and willing to take the role that destiny had assigned him, or else he would have something which was useless to his cause, casting the future of his beloved project back into an indefinite uncertainty. Jal’tai cast an imploring glance back over his shoulder towards the gilded image of the latias on the wall behind.

Please watch over him, Rei’eli, he prayed silently to the goddess who smiled at him from the far end of the room.

Keep his gift whole. He turned back towards Solonn, his heart heavy with concern.

He placed his taloned hands upon the human’s head, staring intently into his subject’s empty eyes.

His breathing slowed dramatically as his focus deepened, stoking his psychic element and manifesting it into a vehicle for his consciousness.

As it carried him out of his own mind and into that of the human who lay before him, he dearly hoped that his goddess had heard his prayer. * * * Haze enveloped the intruder, hanging still and calm over the surrounding mindscape.

It was a thick and very murky medium, one that offered no distinction among its constituent elements and threatened to erase the lines of distinction between itself and any foreignness that entered into its midst, as well—troubles that would be faced by a less skilled and sophisticated invader, anyway. For Jal’tai, the oppressive haze held no danger of absorbing his consciousness, nor did it obscure his mind’s eye.

He could discern the nearly innumerable, individual mental signatures that formed the medium, as well as the intricate ways by which certain among them were connected and associated—a task made all the easier by liasa andielenne ;

The haze would have been roiling turbulently in an active mind, making it harder to see what lay within it.

It also helped matters that this particular mindscape was not unexplored territory. Jal’tai knew not only how to distinguish these mental signatures, but also what they truly were: memories .

This was the history of Solonn Zgil-Al, far more complete and detailed to Jal’tai's perception than it could ever be to Solonn’s, recorded through the former Glalie’s own eyes. Among the archives of Solonn’s mind were records of particular importance to Jal’tai, records that held the key to this man’s cooperation—answers to the questions of both why it was not yet achieved, and how it could be.

These were the records of the past twelve days, beginning with Solonn’s earliest recollection of Jal’tai, that morning they had met west of Lilycove. Jal’tai focused on his own memories of that morning as he began to sift through the haze, searching for images of that overgrown field and the guise of the swellow that he had worn there.

He was fully aware that these images would certainly appear somewhat different in Solonn’s memory than they did in his own, for there were notable differences between the perception of a glalie and that of a latios.

Still, Jal’tai reckoned that he’d recognize those memories once he found them, and sure enough, he did. He had now successfully located Solonn’s memory of departing the field with him and heading off into the forest towards Convergence.

Keeping it within his focus, he traced along its connections to other memories, following a backwards route to the moment when Solonn had first encountered him as a swellow. Having found the starting point for the chain of memories that were of importance to this operation, he proceeded to anchor a part of his own mind to it.

He then began to copy this memory, and all those that followed it, as he allowed them to unfold in chronological order at an incredible speed.

Almost as soon as it had begun, the process was finished.

In barely more than an instant, Jal’tai had obtained twelve days’ worth of memories, memories that were not his own. Now the task at hand was to deal with the original copy of this chain of memories, upon which Jal’tai remained tightly focused.

There were two options he could apply here: one was to simply erase these memories;

The other was to keep them intact but heavily suppressed, locking them away deep within the former glalie’s subconscious mind. Erasure was, of course, the more alluring option;

An erased memory was completely irretrievable, after all.

However, it was also a much more intrusive method than merely sealing the memories.

In even conducting this procedure, Jal’tai knew that he was pushing it, endangering the delicate nuances of this unique and unusual mind.

Comforting though it would certainly be to know that these memories were gone for good, Jal’tai accepted that for safety’s sake, it would be better not to destroy any of them unless he truly felt it necessary. In order to judge whether these memories could be trusted to be preserved in the shadows of the former glalie’s mind or if he should try to remove them without a trace despite the added risk that that method brought, he accessed the copy of the chain of memories that he had absorbed and let the sequence of events play out in his mind, more slowly than when he’d last let them unfold, allowing him to vicariously experience the past twelve days as Solonn had experienced them. He saw himself, disguised as a bird, leading Solonn through the woods and into Convergence.

Through Solonn’s perspective, he bore witness to the former glalie’s awakening into his first morning as a human, experiencing Solonn’s fearful disbelief at his new form in a secondhand way.

Jal’tai beheld his own revelation of his true form, listened to his own attempts to make Solonn listen to reason, and watched—and felt—the excruciating, telekinetic punishment that he had inflicted upon the human when his failure to convince Solonn through words had caused him to lose his patience… …And here, he paused, bringing the playback of Solonn’s memories to a grinding halt.

Suddenly confronted with the suffering that his frustration had caused, and made to actually experience the pain and terror he had inflicted… all at once, he found himself overwhelmed by immense horror, guilt, and shame. What in heaven’s name came over me?

He wondered, aghast.

By the Goddess… I nearly killed him… Long moments passed before he regained himself enough to continue his psychic work.

Even then, he remained somewhat shaken by the reminder of what he had done as he resumed studying the former glalie’s memories of the recent past, watching as Solonn dragged himself listlessly through his first few days as a human and then began planning an escape in more recent days, with the chain of memories ending with Solonn’s foiled egress and his subjection to liasa andielenne . Having reviewed the memories that were to be censored, Jal’tai made the decision to seal them rather than erase them.

Realizing just how severely close he had come to losing Solonn as a candidate, he was now especially disinclined to tempt fate any more than he could help.

And yet… thoughts of that day when he had lost control and of the pain that that had caused remained close at hand, attending his mind doggedly.

Not only was it shameful… but if the human were to somehow recall it against the odds… it was certain that that would destroy any trust instilled in the former glalie. Jal’tai proceeded to isolate the memory of the past twelve days from the rest of Solonn’s memories.

He then set a psychic lock upon them, and relocated them to the deepest, most obscure and inaccessible layer of the human’s mind… but not before extracting one particular memory from the chain and annihilating it. The offending history was now subdued, but Jal’tai’s work was not yet finished.

As he departed Solonn’s mindscape to proceed with the next step of the process, he tried to draw some relief and satisfaction from the fact that at least now, Solonn would never recall his brutal punishment at Jal’tai’s hands again… but his efforts were hampered by the knowledge that he could not purge the shameful memory from his own mind likewise. * * * With his consciousness having returned to the physical plane, Jal’tai once again beheld the motionless form of the human before him, who still wore the same blank, emotionless, lifeless expression that he had been wearing ever since entering liasa andielenne . At least he’s not suffering anymore, the latios thought wearily as he set himself down on the floor for a short break following the work he had accomplished thus far;

The act of sustaining his presence within a foreign mind for extended periods of time was rather taxing, especially at his age.

He rested his head in his talons as he prepared to initiate the next task, which was to create a different version of events to replace the twelve days that he had just sealed away from Solonn’s recollection. Jal’tai still saw promise in Solonn, despite the obstacles that had arisen in trying to get the former glalie to recognize his potential.

Solonn was capable of appreciating the mission of the Convergence Project, and might have thereby accepted his new role under different circumstances;

Of this, Jal’tai was quite certain.

Jal’tai still believed that no other course of action but the one he had taken could have securely yielded success, however;

It was the only way to be absolutely sure that Solonn would take the form that becoming the new mayor demanded.

What was done was done, and because Solonn had reacted so adversely to the way things were done, he simply needed to be made to believe that things had been done differently. From what he had gathered by reviewing Solonn’s memories of the days since the two had met, Jal’tai had determined that the main reason why Solonn was refusing to accept his new form and the purpose for which it had been bestowed upon him was that the change had not been his choice.

He had also determined a number of other elements which, if removed or added to the circumstances, would help to ensure Solonn’s cooperation, as well as to enable Jal’tai to earn the former glalie’s trust and escape his resentment. With all these things in mind, Jal’tai entered a trance, in which he began to fabricate an alternate version of the circumstances surrounding Solonn’s reception of his new identity.

If all went well, this rewrite of history would turn the former glalie into the ready and willing successor that Jal’tai so dearly hoped he would be… * * * (CONTINUED)

“ Go !” Solonn shouted at the terrified creature who cowered before him, immobilized by her fear—the creature who had almost become his prey.

He watched as the zigzagoon sprinted fearfully away through the tall grass, sickened by himself as he thought of what he had nearly done. “Well, that certainly was magnanimous of you,” came a bright, jovial voice. Surprised by the sudden utterance, Solonn turned at once to see whom and what had just spoken.

He was met with the sight of a blue-and-grey, feathered dragon, hovering in midair a short distance in front of him. The dragon introduced himself as Jal’tai, a latios.

After Solonn had introduced himself in turn, Jal’tai inquired as to what had brought him to this area, having never seen Solonn around before.

Solonn told him of how he had fled from human abductors in Lilycove, and was just trying to lay low until he could find some means to return to his home across the sea. Jal’tai offered him a place to stay in a city in the west, where he could be safe and comfortable.

Solonn hesitated to take him up on the offer, reluctant to go into another human city.

Jal’tai assured him that the place he had in mind was nothing of the sort.

After a few more moments’ consideration, Solonn accepted Jal’tai’s offer and followed him westward through the forest. Upon arriving at their destination, a place which Jal’tai identified as “Convergence”, Solonn could not help but notice certain familiarities about the city—familiarities which contradicted the latios’s assurances about it. “Jal’tai, I thought you said this wasn’t a human city…” “Yes, I most certainly did,” the dragon responded.

“And on closer inspection, you might realize that, indeed, just as I stated, this is not a human city.

Here in Convergence, pokémon and humans live and work as equals.” He smiled proudly.

“I’m the man in charge of this city, you see, and I would not have it any other way around here.” The lattest of the dragon’s statements took a moment to fully register in Solonn’s brain.

“…Wait, did you say you were in charge here?” he asked incredulously once it clicked. Jal’tai nodded, still beaming.

“Yes, that’s correct,” he confirmed.

“I am the mayor of this fine city.

Convergence is my pride and joy—a testament to the equality of all races.

You see… in the cities owned and ruled exclusively by humans, pokémon are second-class citizens—if even that.” His features gave a brief flash of disgust.

“But here, pokémon are afforded the same rights and opportunities as humans.

They may own properties like those the humans own.

They may learn to operate the vehicles invented by humans if they so wish.

Our schools offer them the same education that humans receive, and training for those who wish to enter occupations that elsewhere may only be held by humans. “My hope is that the rest of the human world will learn from Convergence’s example, that they will see that they can and should live alongside pokémon in harmony and equality.

This community may very well be the starting point for the greatly-needed change in human-pokémon relations—perhaps then, pokémon will be respected by humans, rather than disregarded, exploited, and abused as we have all too often been in the past.

Now, do you see what makes Convergence great?” Solonn could only nod in response, still quite absorbed in thoughts of what Jal’tai had just told him about the state of relations between humans and the other peoples of the world.

He had not realized that pokémon were seen as such non-entities in the eyes of humans. Jal’tai offered to take him to lunch at a local restaurant then, and he accepted.

Along the way, he was shown how the pokémon citizens of Convergence were able to utilize the technological conveniences invented by humans to go about their everyday lives, a privilege they would be denied in the human world, according to Jal’tai. Once they had reached the restaurant, and had been served their respective meals, Jal’tai spoke further about the schism between humans and other races. “As I was saying,” the latios said as he paused momentarily in his enjoyment of his fish platter, “the way pokémon are perceived by humans desperately needs to be changed.

Did you know that most humans do not realize, or else deny , that pokémon are sentient beings?” Solonn looked up from the slab of meat that had been served to him, which lay untouched due to the glalie’s internal conflict with his own sensibilities.

“...No,” he responded, sounding quite troubled at this information.

“No, I didn’t know that.” Jal’tai nodded sadly.

“It’s true. The majority of humans regard pokémon not as people, but as mere animals ,” he told Solonn, a distinct touch of vehemence coloring his words and shining in his scarlet eyes. “Gods… How could they see us that way?” Solonn wondered aloud. The dragon sighed sorrowfully.

“I have been trying to figure that out myself for many years now, to no avail, I’m afraid.

All I know for certain is that they must be made to see the truth if pokémon are to receive the treatment we deserve from their kind.” Jal’tai resumed his meal then, leaving Solonn to muse on all that he had just learned.

It troubled him to think of how poorly humans regarded pokémon.

At the same time, however, he thought of Morgan—she hadn’t fit the portrayal Jal’tai had given of humans as uncaring and disregarding of pokémon.

She had always treated Solonn and the other pokémon who lived with her with respect instead of as inferiors.

If she could respect pokémon, then perhaps other humans could learn to do so, as well… maybe, Solonn considered, there was hope for the relations between humanity and the rest of the world’s peoples. At length, Solonn finally managed to force himself to take the meat he had been given.

Shortly after, he found himself becoming quite tired with an unusual and alarming suddenness, and suspected that the trials of the prior evening were finally taking their toll on him.

When he mentioned this to Jal’tai, the latios told him of a nearby hotel where he could rest, and he brought him there straightaway. Solonn fell into a profoundly deep sleep just as soon as he was given a suite in which to stay, and he remained asleep until late in the following morning, when he was awakened by a series of loud, shrill beeps, followed by the sound of a mechanized, feminine voice. “Receiving message,” the voice said coolly. Solonn only distantly noted those words, not quite absorbing them, as he was still emerging with an effort from his sleep.

He was slightly more awake and aware when another voice arose;

He recognized it at once as that of Jal’tai. “Solonn?

Are you awake?” the latios asked. Stifling a yawn, Solonn rose from the floor and turned towards the source of Jal’tai’s voice, but saw no dragon.

A second later, as his brain finally awakened fully, he spotted the paging device that sat on the nearby table, and remembered being told that he could use it to call Jal’tai—and vice-versa, apparently. “Yeah, I’m awake,” he answered finally. “Good, good,” Jal’tai said brightly.

“Is it all right if I come and pay you a visit?” “Hm?

Sure, go ahead,” Solonn replied nonchalantly. “Ah, very well, then,” the latios responded jovially.

“I’ll be right up in a moment.” “Connection terminated,” came the mechanized voice again, and with another beep , the device shut itself off. Very shortly thereafter, that same, feminine voice spoke up again, this time to announce the arrival of a visitor.

Bright green light blossomed from a tile on the floor near the wall, then faded as Jal’tai materialized within the suite. “Good morning,” the latios said amiably.

“How are you feeling today?” “Meh, just fine, I suppose,” Solonn answered.

“Still a little tired, but other than that…” “Hm,” Jal’tai responded, nodding.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that you seem to be on the mend.

I was quite concerned about you yesterday, you know,” he said, his tone serious.

“I feared you wouldn’t even remain conscious through the trip to this hotel.

Never in my life have I seen someone drained of energy so suddenly and completely… those humans in Lilycove must have put you through a most dreadful ordeal, indeed…” Solonn only made a small, wordless, affirmative noise in response. “Well, at least you did manage to escape from those scoundrels,” Jal’tai said.

“You’ve certainly been spared a most unpleasant fate… Do you have any idea what their motives might have been in taking you, what they might have had in store?” Solonn hesitated to answer.

Yes, he did know why he had been taken—and in the wake of learning such, he was particularly wary of speaking of the very thing that had gotten him into such a situation in the first place. However, he did wonder how much danger there could actually be in confiding in Jal’tai.

It wouldn’t be the first time he had trusted his secret with another—he had deemed Morgan to be safe to confide in, and as he thought about it, he still felt that it had been a sound judgment, even after what had happened the day before.

After all, his talents had only gotten him into trouble in Lilycove due to completely external forces stumbling upon his secret, something that might not necessarily have happened under different circumstances. Morgan had not come across as being untrustworthy, and Solonn was finding himself of the mindset that Jal’tai did not, either.

Ever since he had met him, the latios had been speaking of his disapproval of the unjust treatment and exploitation of pokémon—he seemed like one of the last people who would ever make Solonn sorry to reveal his abilities to him. Solonn got the feeling that if he told Jal’tai to keep the secret, he would do so.

And since Jal’tai was this city’s leader, perhaps he had authority enough in this place to help ensure that no unscrupulous persons happened upon the secret themselves. So, feeling fairly secure in doing so, Solonn went ahead and told Jal’tai of the reason why he was targeted for abduction. “They wanted me…” he began, “because I can do something that, apparently, very few pokémon can do… I can speak to humans.

In their own language.” He sighed bitterly.

“The humans who tried to take me wanted to show me off because of it, as a freak ,” he told Jal’tai, that last word more hissed than spoken. Jal’tai’s features darkened dramatically as he stared back at Solonn in the wake of the glalie’s admission.

“ Sickening, ” he hissed, his voice low and ominous.

“Absolutely deplorable… what you possess is a gift ;

You should be honored for it, not exploited…” Fury radiated almost tangibly from the dragon as he hovered in place for a moment, his features contorted with clear disgust.

At length, he drew a long breath, seemingly trying to calm himself, and released it on a sorrowful sigh.

“I’m afraid such troubles come with the territory of the talents you possess,” he said soberly, closing his eyes and folding his hands.

“I know it all too well myself…” He met Solonn’s gaze directly, his scarlet eyes staring pointedly into those of the glalie.

“It is true that exceedingly few possess the Speech—the ability to communicate universally.

As such, I thought I would likely never find another who shared this ability in common with me.” Solonn stared speechlessly back at Jal’tai for seconds on end, dumbfounded.

Like Jal’tai, he had not been expecting to come across another person who shared his talents.

As Jal’tai’s revelation sank fully into his mind, he realized that his assessment of the dragon’s trustworthiness had been right on the mark.

Jal’tai was a kindred spirit—if anyone could be trusted, it was him. “So, this thing… this ‘Speech’, as you called it… it’s gotten you into trouble, too?” Solonn inquired.

The dragon nodded.

“Was the trouble with humans?” Solonn then asked. “Not exclusively,” Jal’tai answered, “but mostly, yes.

Hence the need for a bit of deceptiveness unto the outside world on my part, I’m afraid… observe…” Solonn gave the latios his attention, having no idea what to expect from him.

As he watched, a strange, shimmering light surrounded the dragon, blurring and consuming his form until it was completely indistinguishable.

The mass of light brightened momentarily, then began to coagulate into shape once more as its brilliance faded. Once the light was gone completely, Solonn saw that the dragon that had been in that very spot had apparently gone with it.

In the latios’s place, there now stood an elderly, goateed human in a brown suit—one whom Solonn recognized at once as being the man pictured on the sign at Whitley’s. “This is how I appear to the citizens of Convergence, as well as those with whom I do business outside of town,” he said.

“To them, I am known as the human Rolf Whitley—I virtually never work under my true identity.

I lament that I must appear to the people as something and someone I am not—it should not have to be this way, but the unfortunate fact is that it is a necessity of my work. “You see, as a pokémon who can speak human languages, humans may look upon me as a curiosity—a freak, as you so aptly put it,” Jal’tai explained, his tone infused with clear distaste.

“They will not listen to or respect something which they regard in such a demeaning way.

However, as a human who can speak pokémon language, I am not seen as a freak, but merely gifted.

It’s a shameful double-standard, but one which is the reality, I’m afraid.” With another brief shimmering of light all around him, Jal’tai resumed his draconic form.

“So, you see, that guise is the means by which I am able not only to live with my gift in peace, but to also utilize it to do good in this world.” He turned towards Solonn.

“You know, this place, this embodiment of all that I believe in… it could not have been made possible were it not for my possession of the Speech,” he then said.

“Because this is a community for both pokémon and humans, its leader must be able to deal with both equally.

Hence, this office demands the Speech, meaning that there are very few who could take care of this city’s needs.” An unreadable expression suddenly over took the dragon’s features, but Solonn was given little time to look upon it or to wonder about it before Jal’tai turned away from him.

A very long and rather awkward silence followed. Eventually, Jal’tai turned back, his expression distinctly uneasy.

“Solonn…” he began, “I would like to know if…” He faltered, seemingly unable to complete the sentence.

“No,” he said in a subdued tone a moment later, “no, I just couldn’t ask such a thing of you…” Solonn’s brows drew together, the light in his eyes flickering slightly in concern.

“…What is it?” he asked tentatively.

“What are you talking about?” Jal’tai only gazed back at him for a time, looking almost guilty.

He hesitated momentarily before answering;

Even once he did respond, his every word emerged with clear reluctance. “I’m not a young dragon anymore,” he said quietly.

“I won’t be around to take care of this city forever… I love Convergence, Solonn,” he all but whispered.

“I worry for its future… I know not what will become of this place without me.

Who will watch over this city when I’m gone?” Solonn did not know how to respond to that at first.

Then, he realized just what the latios was saying.

“Are… are you saying you want me to take your place?” he stammered, his eyes wide. “Well…” the latios responded with something of a delay, quietly and awkwardly, “as I said, only those who are blessed with the Speech, as you and I are, are qualified to guide and maintain this community.

And as I also mentioned, I had not expected I would ever find another such person… I have been fretting over the matter of who could possibly take my office after me… and what might become of Convergence and its mission if no one suitable could be found…” Quite overwhelmed, Solonn suddenly felt the need to sit down.

“…I don’t know what to say…” “I don’t imagine I would, either, were I in your position,” Jal’tai responded quietly. “I mean… I understand what you’re worried about, but… are you sure there’s no one else you could ask?” Solonn asked, finding it strangely difficult to get the words out. “I honestly can’t say for certain,” the latios answered, “but the odds are very much against it.” With every passing second, Solonn found himself feeling more cornered by the matter.

How the guilt had overtaken him so swiftly, so strongly, and so overwhelmingly, and precisely where it had actually come from, Solonn could not guess, but there it was, very present and undeniable.

He understood Jal’tai’s dilemma and was certainly commiserating… but still… “…I don’t know…” he said guiltily, “…This is not a minor matter—I mean, you’re thinking of putting me in charge of an entire city?” He shook his head in stark bewilderment.

“Jal’tai… I don’t know if I have it in me…” “There’s no need to worry where that is concerned,” Jal’tai said softly.

“I assure you that you would be adequately educated and prepared to take up these responsibilities.” The latios’s already troubled expression suddenly became even moreso.

“Solonn… there is one more thing I need to tell you before you commit yourself one way or another to my offer,” he told the glalie, his tone grave.

“I demonstrated the way that I disguise myself as a human in order to live and work with the Speech safely.

You would have to take on a human identity, as well, if you were to take my office.

But since you are not endowed with the power to project a mirage over yourself, such as the one that makes my disguise possible… well, you would have to come by your disguise by a different means.

The only other method by which you could pass for a human… is to actually become one.” “… What ?” Solonn thought he must surely have misheard the latios.

“You can’t be serious!” “I am serious, Solonn,” Jal’tai said.

“In order to replace me as the mayor of this city, you will have to be physically transformed into a human.” “But… how is that even possible ?!” Solonn questioned wildly. “There is an elemental technique that has been practiced by my people for millennia,” Jal’tai explained, “the transfigure technique, an ancient psychic art which enables the user to change the form of another thing or person.

Allow me to demonstrate…” Jal’tai departed the room momentarily.

When he returned, he was carrying a small, decorative pillow in his talons.

“Watch carefully,” he instructed Solonn, then set the pillow down upon the floor.

He extended his arms, his taloned hands held rigidly over the pillow.

Slowly, spheres of cool, mint-green light swelled around his hands;

Soon after, an aura of the same color surrounded the pillow. The light began flickering and strobing then;

Solonn winced, his eyes narrowing to slits to fend off the flashing light.

He kept them open with an effort despite the discomfort, however, determined to see if Jal’tai could actually do what he was claiming to be able to do.

With astonishment, he realized that he could see the pillow warping, shifting somewhat jerkily and unevenly into another shape. With one final flash of green light and one last metamorphic spasm, the pillow was no more.

Right before Solonn’s eyes, it had been transfigured into a plant sitting in an earthen pot, its many leafy tendrils spilling out over the rim. “And that is how it’s done,” Jal’tai said, sounding somewhat winded, as he picked up the potted plant and examined it briefly.

He cast a quick look upward at a particular spot on the ceiling.

“This would look rather nice right about there, I think…” he remarked, then set the plant back down and turned back towards Solonn once more. Solonn, meanwhile, stared dumbstruck at the plant, completely stunned.

“Oh, gods…” he breathed.

He had risen from the floor without realizing it, and was starting to back away from the plant. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Jal’tai assured him.

“If you choose to accept the change, I will do everything in my power to make it as non-traumatic an experience as I can.

If you wish, I can render you unconscious during the actual transfiguration, so that you can be sure not to experience any discomfort.

Afterward, I promise that I will help you to become accustomed to your new form.

Furthermore…” he inclined his head slightly further towards Solonn, “the change is not permanent.

It will wear off after about eight to ten years… perhaps, by that time, such masquerades will no longer be needed in this world.” Somehow, those reassurances fell short of quite comforting Solonn, and Jal’tai seemed to recognize this.

“I know that physical transformation is not something to be taken lightly, but it’s also something with which you have had some prior experience, have you not?

I happen to know that yours is an evolved form—perhaps you might try looking at this as just another stage of evolution.” Jal’tai was right in one sense: This was not the first time that Solonn had been faced with the prospect of transformation.

However, he had not accepted his last change with haste;

He had only agreed to go through with it once it had truly seemed necessary.

And comparing his memory of evolving into a glalie with the process of transfiguration that he had just beheld, he was quite certain that they would be two very different experiences. “This is just… all too much,” Solonn said finally, wearily, as he set himself back down. “I understand,” Jal’tai said softly.

“I would not expect anyone to make such a major decision in any hurry.” He began to glide past Solonn then, towards the wall that bore the keypad and transport tile, but turned back before exiting.

“You can stay here as long as you like,” he told Solonn.

“And when you come to a decision regarding my proposition… please, do call me and let me know.

I won’t force you to decide one way or another… but I do ask that you consider what is at the heart of this matter.

This community was born in the name of a better future, one in which the schism between humanity and all the other peoples of the world is bridged at last.

Ask yourself: is this not a future that you desire to see made into a reality?” Solonn winced inwardly, feeling as though a large weight had just dropped into his stomach.

Of course… of course, he wanted to see unity between humans and pokémon… but still… what a choice to have to make… He pried his eyes away from the impossible plant and turned quickly to face Jal’tai and ask him how he was supposed to deal with these conflicting, tumultuous notions—but saw only a flash of green light.

The latios had already gone, leaving him alone with the weight of this decision. For the rest of the day, Solonn’s mind was set upon by the matter of Jal’tai’s proposal, and it denied him sleep throughout the night.

He did agree with the dragon’s mission, and he could not deny that he truly did want to help.

But to become a human … how could he readily accept something that he could barely believe? As hour after hour was claimed by thoughts of this conundrum, bringing the morning and then midday, Solonn found himself reckoning this situation by a previous one: that which had surrounded his evolution.

He had initially dismissed the comparison, certain of there being a major difference between the two methods of change.

As he considered the comparison further, however, he began to see similarities between the two scenarios. The last time he had been faced with the prospect of taking on a new form, he had ultimately determined that it was the right course of action;

It had offered the elemental skill he needed to succeed in his contest performance.

Now, with the question of transformation having been raised again, he would once more have to determine if it was the right thing to do under these circumstances. If he did agree to the change, it would be for the purpose of joining in Jal’tai’s cause.

Again, he could not deny that this was a cause with which he agreed.

The notion of being made human was quite daunting… but if he went through with it… then he could aid Jal’tai in his efforts towards fair and equal treatment for pokémon… Solonn thought about what he had learned about the way humans often viewed and treated pokémon—both from what Jal’tai had told him and from his own experience.

He thought about his own abduction by humans who wanted to profit from his abilities… and they had not been content to merely take him, but the rest of Morgan’s pokémon, as well, so great was their thoughtless avarice.

He thought of his friends, whose condition and whereabouts were still unknown… he thought about Morgan, bereaved of some of her closest friends, shaken and crying on the last evening he had seen her… If humans could be made to respect pokémon… then perhaps scenarios like that one would never happen again. The glalie’s eyes drifted towards that paging device, a short distance across the room from where he currently sat.

There it was: the answer, it seemed.

He had been given an opportunity to do significant good in this world—he had to take it.

Even if the knowledge of what it would require did still terrify him. He felt abnormally heavy as he ascended, as though his body were less than willing to rise from the ground.

His heart hammered as he glided across the room, until he found himself looking down upon the simplistic, black device.

Once he had recalled how to operate it, he used it to call Jal’tai. “Yes?

What is it, my boy?” came the dragon’s voice once the connection went through. “…I’ll do it,” Solonn spat out, before his trepidation could foil him. Jal’tai did not respond right away, making Solonn worry that he had perhaps been too vague in declaring his acceptance.

But then, “All right, then,” the latios said simply, and the connection was terminated. In virtually no time, Jal’tai arrived at the suite, entering by way of the transport tile and immediately coming to hover before Solonn. “I know this was no easy decision for you,” the dragon said, “but in the end, you have made the right choice.” His beaklike mouth curved into a warm, proud smile.

“We and our efforts will go down in history, Solonn.

And someday, pokémon throughout the world will thank you for your selfless actions here.” They were nice words, but somehow Solonn wasn’t feeling quite so long-sighted at the moment as Jal’tai was.

He couldn’t quite look to the future and any praise and appreciation that lay there—he saw only the present and what it was about to bring, and just wanted it to be over and done. “Do you wish for me to put you under for the transformation?” Jal’tai asked him. An image of the pillow’s rather spasmodic metamorphosis entered Solonn’s mind, along with an unbidden sense of what that sort of a process might actually feel like, and he shuddered.

“Please do,” he responded quickly. Jal’tai nodded in acknowledgment, then moved forward and placed his talons on top of the glalie’s head, giving a shuddering jolt at the contact with the ice-type’s frigid hide.

“There will only be a brief discomfort,” he said calmingly.

Solonn gazed nervously into the dragon’s eyes—until his vision, as well as his consciousness, were extinguished in an instant by a sharp shock through his skull and a burst of red light in the back of his eyes. When Solonn awakened, the scene surrounding him had changed.

He knew at once that he was seeing through different eyes, eyes that were much weaker and more limited in their range than those he’d had previously.

He shifted slightly, feeling soft surfaces all around him as his limbs stretched languidly—yes, his limbs.

It had actually happened;

Jal’tai’s technique had worked.

Solonn was now a human. He lifted his head and saw that he was presently lying in a bed.

The sheets that covered him prevented him from seeing most of his new form;

He pushed them aside with one of his newly-formed arms in order to have a look at what he had become.

He beheld the form of a tall, pale-skinned human male, dressed only in a simple pair of boxer shorts—the form that was now his own. A shadow fell over him then;

He looked up and to his left and saw Jal’tai there, smiling gently as he hovered in place. “The transfiguration was a complete success,” the dragon said.

“Here—have a look at your new face with this,” he suggested, and proffered a small hand mirror. Solonn took the mirror, and after a moment’s fumbling with it, managed to catch his own reflection in the glass.

Looking back at him with something of a stupefied expression was a thin, angular face framed by long, black hair, leveling a bewildered stare at him through deep brown eyes. “Do you like it?” Jal’tai asked. Solonn wasn’t quite sure what to make of his new form;

He could still scarcely believe that he actually possessed it.

He responded to Jal’tai’s question with a noncommittal noise. “Well, given time, I’m sure you’ll get used to it,” the latios said as he took the mirror from Solonn.

“Come, now,” he beckoned, offering the new human a talon to help him up.

“Allow me to show you around your new home, and to help you begin to grow accustomed to your new form.” Not knowing what else to do, Solonn took Jal’tai’s hand and allowed himself to be made acquainted with his surroundings, hoping all the while that Jal’tai was right—that he would, in time, become used to this new way of life. On each of the days that followed, Jal’tai paid Solonn a visit, during which he helped Solonn to learn human habits.

He brought a series of instructional videos that demonstrated the ways of human life quite well, and gave Solonn extra tutelage on certain points of these lessons.

While Solonn definitely found some of the practices of human beings to be quite strange (particularly where hygiene was concerned), he nonetheless allowed himself to be taught of these habits, and picked them up fairly quickly. Things carried on fairly smoothly in this manner until the eighth day following Solonn’s transfiguration.

Jal’tai had just departed after giving a brief lecture to supplement a segment on one of the DVDs, explaining the concept of money.

Solonn was sitting in the den, reviewing the segment and trying out of semi-boredom to memorize whose portrait was on each denomination of the paper notes, when a sudden, incredibly strong pain awakened in his head, completely without warning. Solonn shouted in pain and alarm, wondering what in the world could possibly be causing this spontaneous agony.

It worsened with each passing second, making flashing spots explode within his eyes and shooting a bolt of nausea down his throat. Certain that something was terribly wrong, he tried to call Jal’tai, hoping that the latios could get help for him.

He reached for the paging device—but as he did so, a paroxysm tore through his body with a violent jolt.

His outstretched arm flailed wildly, knocking the device to the floor. He tried to make a move to pick it back up, but had still not quite regained control of his muscles.

No sooner had he risen from his chair than he collapsed to the floor—and he did not get back up.

The last thing Solonn was aware of was a blurred, sideways view of the paging device lying just inches away, before he blacked out completely. * * * Jal’tai emerged from his trance, having constructed and packaged a chain of memories to replace the ones he had quarantined from the rest of Solonn’s mental archives.

The latios allowed himself one more moment’s rest before rising and returning to the table where his subject lay. Once again, he entered the human’s mind and immediately sought out the chronological telltales that identified the memory that directly preceded those which he had locked away, showing him where the new memories were to be placed.

Very carefully, Jal’tai implanted the chain, made certain its connection to the preceding memories was secure, and then exited the human’s mind once more. The procedure was now completed.

Anxious anticipation suffused through the dragon’s nerves as he looked upon Solonn, wondering if the work that had just been done to the former glalie had secured him as a successor, or if it had sealed his fate as an unviable failure. This was the moment of truth, Jal’tai knew—he would need to see if his interference with Solonn’s mind had robbed the human of the Speech.

Focusing his psychic abilities, he stirred Solonn’s consciousness within the confines of liasa andielenne —but did not truly awaken it.

The human shifted slightly in his shackles, turning his still-blank eyes attentively towards Jal’tai.

Solonn was now in a hypnotic state, one in which he would respond to stimuli and commands, while being utterly unaware of doing so. “Solonn,” Jal’tai addressed him.

He held up one hand, and pointed two claws towards his own eyes.

“What am I pointing at?” The human maintained his empty stare at the latios for a brief moment, then responded inflectionlessly.

“ Vhekahr’syin sierahs hivhassen .” Glalie language, Jal’tai noted, unsurprised.

Solonn had spoken his own language almost exclusively in all the time that Jal’tai had known him;

He was not one to “show off” his linguistic abilities.

However, this situation was one that required the former glalie to do just that. “Solonn, this time you will answer in my language,” Jal’tai instructed, and indicated his eyes once again.

He had never heard Solonn speak the lati language;

The former glalie had almost certainly never done so.

If Solonn could respond in this language, it would be a good indication that his abilities had survived the psychic procedure.

“What am I pointing at?” he repeated. Like the last time the question was posed, there was a delay in Solonn’s response, but longer than before, making Jal’tai fear that perhaps the human would not be able to respond as instructed.

But then, much to Jal’tai’s immense relief: “ Catelisi adiele setali assiria ,” Solonn answered. “Oh… oh, thank the Goddess!” Jal’tai exclaimed almost breathlessly, so overjoyed with relief that he broke into tears.

The mnemonic modification was a complete success—Solonn now possessed memories that would allow him to accept his new purpose, and had kept the skills that would allow him to serve it. Jal’tai released Solonn from the hypnotic state and from liasa andielenne then, allowing the human to lapse fully into unconsciousness.

“Rest well, my boy,” Jal’tai said softly.

“You’ve certainly earned it.” Smiling, Jal’tai then turned towards his shrine to Rei’eli and drifted over to it.

Once there, he reached down towards the potted autillia flowers and closed his talons around a pair of them, allowing them to fall apart in his hands.

He looked up at the serene visage of his goddess as he held the handfuls of petals that he now clutched over the fountain, an almost rapturous gratitude shining through his features. Thank you, Jal’tai prayed silently and sincerely.

With all my heart, I thank you.

With that, he let the soft, almost down-like petals fall from his hands, drifting gently down into the water in a symbolic return of the power that his goddess had so graciously lent him. * * * “…which came back negative, thankfully… Oh, look, he’s awake!” Solonn awoke to the sound of the bright, feminine voice that had just spoken, along with a somewhat blurry view of its owner: standing nearby was a strange, ovoid, pink creature, who was looking at him and smiling with interest sparkling in her tiny black eyes.

He also awoke to a splitting headache. “Oh, good, good!” came another voice, a much more familiar one.

“Could you give the two of us a moment, Miss Teresa?” “Of course,” the pink pokémon replied amiably, and departed the room, her tail waving behind her as she walked out the door. Groaning softly, Solonn rubbed his eyes to clear them of their haze, then cast a glance about himself, confused.

He found that he was lying in a simple bed in a sterile, white room.

He also found that he was not alone;

Seated at his bedside was an elderly man—Jal’tai in his human guise, Solonn recognized with a slight delay. “Good morning,” Jal’tai said warmly.

“Or, to be more accurate, good late morning,” he amended with a chuckle.

“Feeling all right?” “Ugh… not really,” Solonn answered groggily.

“Gods, my head hurts…” “Hmm,” Jal’tai responded, sounding concerned.

“Well, that’s nothing a little aspirin won’t cure, I’d reckon.” Solonn cradled his aching head in his hands for a moment, hoping that he would be given some of this “aspirin” as soon as possible.

“Where am I?” he then asked. “You’re in the Haven, Solonn,” Jal’tai told him, “our city’s medical center.

I brought you here after I found you unconscious on the floor in your suite.

I’ve been so worried about you, my boy,” he said earnestly, concern etched into the deep lines of his aged, presently-human face.

“You were out cold for over two days.” With some difficulty amidst the pain that wracked his head, Solonn managed to recall the last he’d remembered of being in that suite, that evening when he had been suddenly stricken with a headache that was even worse than the one he was suffering now before passing out.

“What in the world happened to me back there?” he asked.

“Gods, it scared me half to death…” “I’m afraid that what you experienced was a side effect of your transfiguration,” Jal’tai replied.

“That sort of a change can put quite a lot of duress on a body, and sometimes that stress can sneak up on you and hit you all at once—sometimes immediately, sometimes with a bit of a delay, but usually never.” He sighed.

“What you experienced is a rare occurrence, indeed;

I had truthfully not expected it would happen.

It usually only occurs in the wake of transfigurations performed by less-than-skilled users… I assure you that I am well-practiced in the art, but I fear that age may have deteriorated my skills somewhat… I sincerely apologize for the suffering this has caused you,” he said somberly, lowering his head. “Mmm,” Solonn uttered dismissively.

“Don’t worry about it.

You said you hadn’t expected this to happen.” Jal’tai gave a small, reserved smile in acknowledgement of the human’s forgiveness.

“You’re too kind,” he said gratefully.

“Anyhow… as I mentioned, this is a very rare occurrence, and as such, I don’t expect it will happen again.

However, just to be safe, I have enlisted the services of someone who possesses abilities that should help to keep you relaxed and well in both body and mind.

Her name is Neleng, and I have made an appointment for her to come and visit you tonight.

She can also offer a session any and every night after if you so wish.” “Okay,” Solonn acknowledged, glad of anything that might prevent him from going through this unpleasant experience again. Jal’tai stood then—or, more accurately, his human mirage appeared to stand.

“So, then. Do you think you’re up to resuming your education as a human?” “Yeah… yeah, I think so,” Solonn answered.

“Although I think I’d like to get some of that ‘aspirin’ you were talking about first,” he added. Jal’tai laughed brightly.

“Ah, good,” he said, smiling.

“Yes, I think we can safely say that all the unpleasantness is behind you now.” * * * Shortly after awakening, Solonn was released from the Haven.

He stepped out into the early afternoon under an overcast sky.

A light rain was falling, making pattering noises against the wide, burgundy umbrella that Jal’tai had given him.

There was an identical umbrella in Jal’tai’s human mirage-hand, but whether the dragon was actually holding one or simply projecting an image of one and letting the rain fall on him without a care, Solonn could not tell. A long, sleek, black car waited in the parking lot in front of the hospital;

As Jal’tai and Solonn reached it, a uniformed human stepped out of the vehicle and opened a door on either side in the back of the car for the two of them.

Solonn took a seat within the car, while Jal’tai went around the back of the car and entered from the opposite side (though in actuality, he was only projecting his human mirage into the vehicle while he hovered above the car outside).

The chauffeur closed the doors, then took his seat behind the wheel.

Jal’tai’s mirage smiled at Solonn from its place beside him, as the vehicle left the parking lot and set off towards the Serenity Inn. Solonn stared idly out the window during the ride, watching the urban scenery race past through a veil of autumn rain.

As he did so, a most peculiar notion came over his mind: a sense of wondering how he had gotten there, how things had come to be just as they presently were.

He was briefly puzzled by it, but then dismissed the momentary confusion as some temporary malfunction of his mental faculties that was probably related to his recent neurological episode and the pain in his head that was only just now beginning to fade.

He gave it no further thought, just glad and grateful that his unpleasant ordeal was over, and he serenely allowed the wheels to carry him home.

Chapter 11 – Heart of the City “Ahh… Sure is good to be back home, isn’t it?” Jal’tai asked. Home… it seemed a peculiar notion to Solonn as his eyes took in the scene of the Grand Suite once again.

He had only resided there for just under two weeks, after all;

There were plenty of aspects of living in this place—not to mention this body—that he was still getting used to.

And yet… he could not deny that the suite was taking on a sense of familiarity… at times, even comfort.

Home it had become indeed, it seemed. “Suppose so,” he responded, semi-absently raking the fingers of his left hand through hair slightly dampened with the rain that the wind had cast upon him in spite of his umbrella. Jal’tai smiled at him.

“Here, let me take your coat,” he offered.

Solonn allowed the latios to do just that;

Then, still quite taxed fr om his recent hospitalization, the former glalie made his way straight to the armchair in the den and dropped himself onto it, letting his weary body sink deep into the upholstery. After putting Solonn’s coat in its right place, Jal’tai disappeared into the kitchen;

A moment later, there came the loud, unpleasant whirring of the blender in use.

It fell silent shortly thereafter, and then Jal’tai drifted back into the den, a glass of something opaque and pale purple clutched in one of his talons. “Here,” the dragon offered, handing the glass to Solonn.

“It’s one of my specialties.

It has something of an energizing property to it—the effect isn’t quite as strong for humans as it is for pokémon, but it still ought to put a little of the vigor back into you.

Plus, it’s quite tasty,” he added with a grin. Experimentally, Solonn sniffed at the drink.

The beverage smelled rather pleasantly of berries, the blue and violet varieties of which he had long been quite fond.

Perhaps Jal’tai had somehow learned that he fancied such flavors… though more likely, Solonn reckoned, the latios had simply made a good guess.

After all, since he had never explicitly told the dragon that he liked it, the only way that Jal’tai could have figured this out was if he had read Solonn’s mind.

And Solonn had not seen any evidence that Jal’tai was a mind reader in the time that he had known him. Curious to try it now, Solonn sampled the beverage.

It had a pleasant, creamy texture to it, and just as the scent of it had suggested, it had a strong berry flavor that Solonn immediately and greatly liked.

He looked up fr om the drink to voice his approval of it to Jal’tai—but where his eyes should have met the scarlet gaze of the dragon, they were instead greeted by empty air.

“Jal’tai?” he called out, throwing a perplexed gaze about.

His searching eyes landed on the wall bearing the lens and keypad for the transport tile, just in time to see a green flash there. Puzzled, Solonn stared at the space where Jal’tai had just been, then set about wondering what the cause for Jal’tai’s abrupt and unexplained departure could possibly have been, nursing the berry smoothie as he did so.

Before he could come up with any real possible explanations, however, the dragon came back, as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had left. “Sorry to have just popped out and back without warning,” Jal’tai said, clearly noticing the somewhat bewildered look on the face of the human before him.

“I’d meant to swing by my house and pick this up on the way here, but it slipped my mind.” Before Solonn could ask what it was that the latios had just procured, the thing in question was placed under his nose for him to see.

It was a paperback book;

Its title instantly caught Solonn’s attention and bemused him slightly, and he took it at once to perhaps confirm the impression he’d immediately gotten fr om it and try to make sense of it. “ Parent’s Choice: The Very Best Names for Your Baby ?” Solonn read the title of the book aloud, a funny expression overtaking his face. The latios gave a confirming nod.

“You’re going to be selecting a name fr om this book to use as your own fr om now on.” “Is that really necessary?” Solonn questioned.

“What’s wrong with the name I already have?” “Nothing, of course,” Jal’tai answered.

“However, it’s still a good idea for you to take on a human name.

It will help to reinforce your human identity.” Solonn’s brow furrowed skeptically as he set what remained of his smoothie on the table beside him and opened the book, rifling through its pages without really pausing to look at its contents.

“I still don’t quite see the need for it… I don’t think anyone outside my—” He nearly said “my own species”, but caught himself short as he remembered that such a statement was technically no longer true.

Managing with an effort not to get too ensnared by that matter, he rectified, “No one other than snorunt and glalie would be likely to recognize it as something other than a human name, and what are the odds of one of them showing up here?” “Considerable enough,” Jal’tai replied seriously.

“Your position here will present the possibility of encounters with any number of races.

It’s best to be prepared for anything, Solonn.

And furthermore, any effort that can be made towards the integrity of your new identity is a step worth taking.

Your new occupation and your new life will be much easier to conduct if those with whom you work, especially outside the city, are given as few reasons to ask questions as possible.

A name that strikes humans as unusual is one that might lead them to inquire about its origins—about your origins, Solonn.

Do you wish to be faced with those kinds of questions?” “No,” Solonn answered promptly.

“No, I wouldn’t.” Considering that he still had a fair deal of work to do in getting used to the idea of being human, he suspected that he might be less than able to construct a history for himself as though he had been human all his life, and so hoped to never be put in a position of having to do so. Not that he was exactly thrilled or eager about the prospect of changing his name, of course.

Though he understood the necessity of doing so in this situation, he still didn’t quite agree with it.

He hadn’t been especially keen on the notion of being renamed back when Morgan had tried to do so, either, and his lack of enthusiasm towards the matter was about more than just how ridiculous he’d found the name she had tried to give him.

His name was a pure aspect of who he was;

He disliked the notion of having to conceal it, for it was one truth which, in an ideal world, he should be not only allowed but also entitled to never have to betray. But then, this was not an ideal world.

And after what he had experienced in Lilycove and all that he had learned in Convergence, he knew that denying this fact was a dangerous luxury, indulgence in which his newfound duty to society forbade him. Resigned to what must be, he opened the book again, this time bothering to read through it fr om its beginning.

The names were arranged alphabetically, and as he perused one “A”-name after another, none of them seemed to be striking his interest—but then… “Angela?” he read aloud, somewhat liking the way it rolled off of his tongue.

“That one’s kind of interesting…” He looked up at Jal’tai to solicit his opinion and saw the dragon wearing an odd, bemused expression.

Then, somewhat alarmingly, the latios exploded into laughter.

“Oh, what ?” Solonn asked, baffled by Jal’tai’s reaction. With a slight difficulty, Jal’tai managed to stem the flow of chuckles enough to let words out, though he still sounded slightly breathless.

“My dear boy… you’re looking at the names for girls .” Stupefied, Solonn stared at the dragon for a moment, then let out an embarrassed groan.

He immediately began flipping through the pages in search of the male human names, trying with only mild success to tune out Jal’tai’s resumed laughter as he did so.

The names for men were not really any better than the names for women;

He saw nothing among them that he particularly liked , per se, only a couple with which he figured he might be willing to make do if nothing better was found. Minutes wore on as he continued perusing the names, then hours, his pace slowed by the waning of enthusiasm that was virtually non-existent in the first place.

All the while, Jal’tai hovered silently nearby, clearly making an effort to do nothing that might disturb the human’s decision-making.

Solonn couldn’t help but wonder about the limits of the dragon’s patience, however, and was mindful of Jal’tai’s presence, all the while imagining that crimson gaze bearing down upon him regardless of whether or not it actually was.

The feeling of being watched expectantly did nothing to make the experience any more enjoyable. Finally, Solonn grew so weary of the whole matter that not even midway through the “M”-names, he decided to simply settle on the next one he came across that was at all acceptable, and announced his selection to Jal’tai the moment it was made. “Michael,” he declared, meeting Jal’tai’s gaze steadily enough, his voice succeeding in projecting more confidence and like of his final choice than was truly present.

“I’ll take that one.” Jal’tai gave him an inquisitive look, cocking his head slightly.

“Are you sure?” he questioned brightly. Solonn only just managed to stifle a wince.

Those damned words… “Absolutely,” he replied at once, wanting to get the matter sealed and behind him as soon as he could. The latios smiled, nodding approvingly.

“A fine choice, I say.

Common enough, yet also very stately, in my opinion.” Solonn rolled his eyes in mild embarrassment at Jal’tai’s choice of words.

“Well, then. For our next matter of business, it would be a good idea to choose at least one middle name for yourself.” Inwardly, Solonn groaned in exasperation.

Fr om his time spent with Morgan and her pokémon, he had learned (mostly fr om Sei) that unlike his own kind, many races did not find it necessary to give their children more than a single personal name and some sort of family designation, if even that much.

Sei possessed only two names, while Oth had just one.

Morgan, however, had a middle name just as he did, one that he had only heard once and had managed to forget.

It seemed that her kind and his own were similarly cursed. Solonn had never seen any real point in having a middle name, and still did not.

His belief as a child had been that the middle name existed solely as a typically revolting name that parents could use as a weapon with which to embarrass their child severely whenever they were particularly displeased with him, her, or it;

To this day, he had not found a theory regarding such that he believed or liked more.

He would have rather liked to be able to do away with having one, but Jal’tai was not really offering such as an option… although, he hadn’t explicitly said no to such… Figuring that it was at least worth a try, “Do I actually have to have a middle name, exactly?” Solonn inquired tentatively.

“I mean, do humans have to have one?” Another of those inquisitive looks crossed the dragon’s face (Solonn dearly hoped that Jal’tai wasn’t about to break out those words again).

“Well, no,” Jal’tai answered.

“Plenty of human cultures don’t use them, as a matter of fact.

You don’t have to yourself;

I just thought I’d offer it as an option.” “Thanks, but no thanks,” Solonn said promptly.

“I’d prefer to do without.” “Very well,” Jal’tai concurred.

Something of a relief suffused through Solonn at this—being allowed to forego adding something to his new name that he neither needed nor wanted made it a little easier to accept.

At least it wasn’t quite as reflective of something he disliked as it could be.

At least he’d been given a considerable say on what it would be. All that was left now was to take on a human surname—a name to represent a human family that he did not have.

The notion of it bothered Solonn, and he could not quite pretend that it didn’t.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t convinced of the necessity of such deceptions in what was becoming his position—it was just a matter about which he didn’t feel very comfortable lying.

It was, after all, essentially a matter of denying his family, his mother… denying someone whom he loved… Denying doesn’t have to mean forgetting, something inside him seemed to say then.

This much was true, and he did recognize that as soon as the notion had come.

The need to take on a new name was required for where he was going, but he could still keep something of where he had been—his memories.

Though he did not really like having to do this and imagined that he never entirely would, he nonetheless understood and accepted it, recognizing this as just part of the change of what he was, but not whom he was. With that settled, he listened as Jal’tai began to suggest various human surnames to him, and stopped the latios when one was mentioned of which he actually rather liked the sound.

Jal’tai voiced his approval, commenting on how nicely he thought the names sounded together.

By comparison, Solonn didn’t think that the combination was really great , exactly, but thought it wasn’t half bad, either.

And so it was that on that day, Solonn Zgil-Al became Michael Layne. “Whew,” Jal’tai exhaled, casting an eye towards the clock.

“Well, that certainly took a fair amount of time.

Expected it would, though.” “Yeah, well…” Solonn uttered, not really knowing how else to respond.

Of course it should take a while for someone to choose a name for himself, herself, or itself—who would want a name they disliked or regretted following them around wherever he, she, or it went?

Thoughts of that matter made something occur to him, something that interested him enough to provoke him to ask about it at once.

“So, did you have a hard time choosing your human name?” So fleetingly that it could have easily been imagined, a peculiar, inscrutable look pervaded the dragon’s features.

“Actually, not really,” he answered with only the slightest delay.

“I came by the decision quite readily.” “Hm.” Not really sure of what he thought of that, if anything, Solonn dismissed the matter. “Well, what matters is that we have gotten this taken care of now,” Jal’tai said pleasantly.

“Now, you’ve got a human name to match your human appearance—a name under which I can enroll you for your further education at Convergence Academy,” he added. The look Solonn gave him in response was in an odd phase between puzzlement and amusement.

“You’re going to do what?” he inquired, a little additional amusement showing through his voice. “You’ll be going to school, Solonn.

A place for education, fashioned very much like the sort that humans use.

Are you at all familiar with such places?” “In a way, I suppose,” Solonn answered.

“I mean, I’ve never been to one, no, but I know what you’re talking about.

Morgan used to tell me of some of the things she did at her school.” A strange little smile curved across his lips.

“She described it as… kind of boring at times…” Jal’tai laughed.

“A common perception of school,” he said.

“I do hope you’ll find your experience at the Academy interesting and engaging, though, at least during most of your time there.

I’ve enlisted the services of a very capable instructor, one who’ll impart upon you the knowledge and skills you’ll need when you go into office.

Systan Exeter, your future educator, knows you have a lot to learn, and is sure to keep you very busy… I don’t mean this to intimidate you, of course,” he added with a sort of self-conscious little chuckle. Solonn gave a dismissive shake of his head, unsurprised by the notion of having a heady education lying before him.

He’d known fr om the outset that this was an undertaking that would require a lot fr om him, and that therefore he could expect to have a significant amount to learn.

He was a little surprised to learn that much of his training would not be given by Jal’tai himself, but supposed that he shouldn’t be;

Jal’tai did have a city to run, after all.

He couldn’t be expected to tend to all of his successor’s needs.

Solonn only hoped that this “Exeter” would be likeable enough, and hopefully not too strict. “Now, I won’t be shipping you off to school just yet,” Jal’tai told him then.

“You’ve been through a great deal these past few days, and I think you’re very entitled to have some time to rest and recuperate before taking on something so major.” The latios cast a look at the now-empty glass that sat on the table beside Solonn.

“Would you like for me to make you another smoothie before I go?” “Hmm?

No, that’s okay,” Solonn answered.

“Thanks anyway, though.” Jal’tai nodded in acknowledgement of the human’s reply, but took the glass in his talon anyway.

“It ought to at least be washed,” he said, indicating the pale purple film beginning to dry on the inner surface of the glass, then took the glass into the kitchen.

Very shortly thereafter, the sound of the blender was heard again, puzzling Solonn.

It seemed that his polite refusal had slipped fr om the dragon’s mind. Sure enough, there was a fresh glass of the purple berry beverage in the latios’s talon when he came back into the den.

He set it down beside Solonn with a funny sort of apologetic smile.

“Sorry—I just couldn’t resist,” Jal’tai said.

“I could tell you really liked the last one, so…” He shrugged. “Uh… thanks,” the human replied politely, albeit a bit awkwardly. “Anyway,” Jal’tai began, stretching his arms out and flexing his neck in the manner of someone ready to hit the trail, “I’ll be bringing you to the Academy on, oh, the Monday after next, I think.

I’ll let you have a tour of the facilities and meet Exeter, and you can probably start your classes the next day. “Now, I won’t lie to you—the workload will seem a bit heavy at times during the course of your education.

But I truly do feel that you’ll be able to handle it.

And I do have a lot of faith in Exeter—you will be under the tutelage of one of the greatest and most important minds in all of Convergence, someone who’ll make sure that you stay on course and are fully prepared for the responsibilities that lie in your future.

You have absolutely nothing to worry about—you’re going to be in excellent hands… well, in a manner of speaking, that is,” he amended, and laughed about it for some peculiar reason. “In the meantime, though, I just want you to relax,” Jal’tai told Solonn earnestly, warmly.

“Yes, you’ve got quite a road ahead of you, but it’s nothing to fear, nothing to be stressed about.

I think you’ll find that your life will become richer and better as you begin to truly apply yourself to your purpose.

Coming into your role is something to look forward to, my boy.

Keep that in mind and be at ease in it in your days to come.

Of course, Neleng can help you keep your nerves about you—she’ll be here in just over an hour, and again, she can come to visit any evening you wish.

Until we meet again, take care.” And with those sentiments, Jal’tai went to the transport tile and exited the suite, leaving Solonn alone with a berry smoothie and plenty on his mind. * * * A week passed, and then another.

The final Sunday night preceding Solonn’s first visit to the Academy arrived, and he went to bed at its close thinking exclusively of what would await him the next day. What he most certainly did not expect to be awaiting him the next morning was a feathered dragon holding a tray of hot, buttered pancakes, hovering almost directly over him. “Rise and shine!” Jal’tai greeted him cheerfully, as if the recipient of that greeting wasn’t peacefully, obliviously asleep.

As it happened, Solonn was exactly that—until the dragon’s sudden, exuberant utterance startled him awake, and startled him badly. “BWAAA!” the human exclaimed, flailing momentarily in the confusion of his shattered sleep.

He very nearly knocked the pancakes right out of Jal’tai’s hands;

Admirably concealing his amusement, the latios backed up and watched patiently as the human untangled himself fr om his sheets.

Sweeping a handful of matted black hair out of his face and trying to will his hammering heart to calm down, Solonn shot a bewildered, incredulous look at Jal’tai.

“Good gods… why in the world did you think that was a good idea?!” he gasped. The dragon shrugged.

“I figured that if you were anything like me, an ordinary alarm clock wouldn’t do the trick, so…” He held out the tray in front of Solonn with a lopsided, hopeful smile. Still frazzled by the unexpected wake-up call, Solonn took the tray fr om Jal’tai without a word and started in on the pancakes.

They were still quite warm, quite fresh;

He vaguely wondered how Jal’tai had managed to slip in and cook breakfast without the smell awakening him.

When he had nearly finished his breakfast, he asked, “What time is it?” “It’s 5:00 a.m.,” Jal’tai replied. “…Oh, you have got to be joking,” Solonn half-groaned, suddenly feeling quite drowsy again at the mention of the hour.

The clock had read around 10:00, 9:00 at the earliest, when he’d awoke on the past several mornings.

“I don’t think I got even seven hours of sleep last night…” “Well, I did advise you to get to bed early on the night before I’d take you to the Academy, you know,” the latios pointed out. “Which I did,” Solonn informed him.

“A whole hour and a half earlier, in fact.

I knew I’d be getting up early, but not this early… I’ll bet the sun isn’t even out yet, is it?” “It’s about to be,” Jal’tai said.

“Anyway, you will need to get used to early mornings.

You’ll need plenty of time each day for the lessons you are to learn and the work you’ll be given, and so, the school day cannot start late.

You should be glad you’re going to be given so many hours each day with which to learn.

You’ll be able to get through your courses much more quickly than you would if you were taught at a more leisurely pace.” “Lucky me,” Solonn muttered, still somewhat irritable fr om having been jolted awake.

He stirred the remaining maple syrup on his plate about with his fork for a brief while, tracing vague little patterns in it, not quite energized enough to think of anything better or more involving to do.

“So, how long until we leave?” he asked eventually. “In about three hours,” Jal’tai answered. “…What?

You woke me up before the sun, and we’re not even leaving for another three hours ?” Despite Solonn’s agitation, Jal’tai kept a remarkably even temperament.

“This is the time at which you’ll be waking nearly every day fr om now on,” he told Solonn.

“When you begin attending classes tomorrow, you’ll be leaving an hour earlier than we’ll leave today.

I felt it was a good idea for you to start getting used to being up and around at this hour. “Now, the idea of waking up hours before you have to leave might seem silly to you, but it’s important to have ample time to get yourself ready for where you’re going.

You should be able to shower, get dressed, have a nice breakfast, and even have a little time to just sit back and relax before you leave each day.

Rushing to an appointment is never a good idea;

It can have very sloppy results.

Why, you wouldn’t want to arrive there only to find you’d forgotten your trousers, now would you?” A crooked smile crept across Jal’tai’s semi-avian face, and he burst into uncontrollable laughter, unable to help himself.

Solonn only stared bemused at him for a moment, failing (or perhaps refusing) to see the humor in the little hypothetical, pantsless situation that the latios had just illustrated.

Slightly weirded-out, he pushed his tray to the foot of the bed, then climbed off and departed the room to go take a shower, leaving the dragon still laughing at his own joke. Solonn emerged fr om the shower minutes later, trying in vain to calm the static in his newly dried hair ( Thank the gods for hairspray, he thought to himself, eager to finish taming his hair soon) as he stepped out of the bathroom.

There was Jal’tai in the den, perched oddly in the armchair, listening to his favorite jazz station, with Solonn in his line of sight—he presently seemed not to be paying the human any mind, but still, Solonn was feeling quite grateful at that moment for the bathrobe that he kept on a hook inside the bathroom door. A sudden, brief fanfare sounded seemingly out of nowhere, clashing with the music issuing fr om the radio.

In a swift series of motions, Jal’tai silenced the radio and snatched something fr om the table nearby—a tiny, silver cell phone, which he answered just as it rang again.

“Hello? …Ah, good morning, Ms.

Kal!” he brightly greeted the person on the other end of the line.

Semi-idly, Solonn stopped on his way to the closet, wondering about the occasion for the call and who this “Ms.

Kal” might be. “Is that right… So, the idea just struck you out of the blue, did it?” Jal’tai asked of Ms.

Kal. There was a pause as she responded;

Then, the dragon gave a short laugh.

“I’m sure they’ll do just fine, and I know he’s going to appreciate this.

This was a very nice thing to decide to do, you know, especially on such short notice.” Another pause.

“Well, we’ll be seeing you shortly.

Goodbye.” The latios terminated the conversation and put down the phone.

His eyes then shifted directly to Solonn, and he raised a questioning eyebrow.

Solonn could tell fr om the way that Jal’tai was looking at him that he dragon had probably not just noticed him then, and the notion that he was known to have been eavesdropping—in his bathrobe, no less—was one that swiftly made him quite uneasy.

Embarrassed, he hastened to get out of the dragon’s sight and dress himself. He put on a simple white dress shirt and grey slacks, along with dark brown leather shoes and a matching belt.

Once dressed, he walked into the den to get Jal’tai’s opinion of the outfit;

The latios noticed him with a slight delay, and then looked him over for perhaps a second and a half at most. “You forgot your tie,” he then informed Solonn. The former glalie made a face at Jal’tai.

Ties were easily his least favorite aspect of human-style attire;

He found them utterly ridiculous-looking.

He sometimes wondered just what kind of a lunatic could have decided that wearing a purposeless strip of fabric hanging fr om one’s throat looked even remotely good, and how equally mad other humans at the time must have been to agree with that person. “Come on, now.

It’s important to make a good first impression whenever introducing yourself somewhere new—hence the importance of dressing like a gentleman.

My videos illustrated that point;

Do you not remember?” Jal’tai reminded him. “Right, right…” Solonn acquiesced blandly, turning back towards the closet. “Hey, at least it’s only a tie you need to bother with,” Jal’tai called after him.

Solonn turned to face him with a slightly dull expression.

“Be grateful that you aren’t a lady ,” the latios said with a wink. Having absolutely nothing to say to that, Solonn shot Jal’tai a sanity-questioning look before departing the dragon’s company to finish getting himself ready to leave. * * * Convergence Academy was one of those buildings that had a boldness and distinction of presence more befitting a living entity than a mere structure of masonry and steel—it seemed almost as if it could be breathing, and watching those who drew near it with awareness and, one hoped, hospitality.

Solonn had only ever laid eyes on one building that had been more impressive: the extravagant Contest Hall back in Lilycove. The grounds before the building itself were sprawling.

Through them, a fairly new-looking, barely-worn, cobblestone path wound, lined on either side by small saplings.

Older, majestic trees grew here and there in the expansive field, their leaves ablaze in the scarlets and golds of autumn. Solonn walked along the path, accompanied by a presently human Jal’tai.

As the two approached the Academy itself, its size and magnificence impressed themselves upon Solonn more and more with each step closer to those great front doors.

It was a very broad, six-story building of rich red brick, at each landing of which there were marble panels stretching across each wall.

They depicted both human and pokémon personages who were historically associated with wisdom, invention, and the arts, carved in exquisitely detailed relief.

Atop the roof, a multitude of flags waved in the wind, lined up in a neat row and representing many different regions, and also the International Pokémon League.

In the very center of them all, on a pole longer than those on which the other flags waved, the flag of Convergence itself was flown proudly over the school, bearing the unown character “C” in black over a background of silver and gold colors that intertwined into a spiraling shape. At last, they arrived at the entrance, on either side of which a large marble statue stood.

One of them depicted an elderly human man with flowing robes and a long, curly beard, while the other was carved in the form of a wingless, five-horned dragon pokémon with diamond-shaped scales.

The two figures each had an arm outstretched towards the other. “Aphilicus, a great human philosopher, and Meron, an emyril known to numerous pokémon cultures as the Father of Wisdom,” Jal’tai identified the two statues after noticing the intrigued expression with which Solonn was regarding them.

“Two of the greatest minds in history, and therefore fitting icons to represent one of the most important educational facilities in the world.

Now,” he said then, drawing Solonn’s attention fr om the statues, “I’ll remind you that you should make a conscious effort to speak human language most of the time.

Almost exclusively, in fact.

It seems much more fitting, much more natural for a human to speak in the fashion of his kind as a habit, Speech or no Speech, you understand?” “Right,” Solonn acknowledged, nodding. Looking pleased with Solonn’s understanding, Jal’tai then motioned him to enter the school alongside him.

The two passed through the doors and into a vast foyer.

A handsome and nearly full trophy case stood against the far wall adjacent to the doors, while the other walls were covered in plaques with the names and achievements of star pupils engraved in gold, and banners that sported mottos like “Knowledge Is Power!”.

There was a round symbol emblazoned in the center of the foyer on the linoleum floor, bearing the intertwining spiral of gold and silver fr om the Convergence flag. Footsteps sounded fr om the hall to the right, heavy-sounding with a faint clicking that suggested claws on the hard floor.

Turning towards the sound, Solonn saw a stocky, plated, blue-and-beige creature making an approach.

The pokémon soon reached Solonn and Jal’tai and stopped before them, smiling eagerly with sparkling, hazel eyes. “Ah, hello, Ms.

Kal,” Jal’tai greeted in a friendly tone. “Hello to you too, sir!” the nidoqueen returned enthusiastically.

Her gaze shifted to the unfamiliar human at Jal’tai’s side.

“And this must be Mr.

Layne, right?” “Correct,” Jal’tai confirmed. Ms.

Kal’s eyes brightened further.

“Hello, Mr. Layne.

It’s so nice to meet you,” she greeted merrily. “Nice to meet you, too,” Solonn responded.

Remembering some of the etiquette lessons fr om Jal’tai’s instructional videos, he extended his hand to the nidoqueen.

He knew that this custom was mostly just practiced by humans, but knew also that it was widely expected for humans to automatically do this as a habit when greeting someone new, regardless of the species of the one to whom they were offering the gesture.

Ms. Kal seemed indeed to have expected him to do this;

She took his hand readily in one of her own and shook it with a surprisingly strong grip. “So, have they got it all set, then?” Jal’tai inquired then of the nidoqueen. “Oh, yes,” Ms.

Kal confirmed, beaming.

“They’re all ready to go.” Jal’tai nodded and smiled.

He turned to Solonn and said, “Ms.

Kal is in charge of educating some the Academy’s younger students.

She will not be teaching you.

However… she and her class would certainly like to meet you.

Come, let’s go and say hello to the children.

Lead the way, madam!” Eagerly, Ms.

Kal turned back towards the hall fr om whence she’d come and began plodding forward.

Jal’tai and Solonn followed her, the latter being especially careful to not follow too closely behind to avoid stepping on the nidoqueen’s long, thick, spiked tail.

They soon reached a door with a placard that read “GRADE 1 (P) – MS.

KAL”… but curiously, they were led right past it.

Though perplexed as to why the nidoqueen might have passed by her own classroom, Solonn guessed that she probably knew what she was doing, and so, he kept silent. Ms.

Kal rounded a corner and continued onward, leading Jal’tai and Solonn behind her until she arrived at the entrance to a gymnasium.

Seeming almost giddy with an unexplained excitement, she opened the doors… “ Welcome, Mr.

Layne !” shouted a chorus of voices in less-than-perfect unison.

The source of the greeting was a small horde of children representing numerous species—all pokémon, Solonn noted—perched upon rows of bleachers.

The children in front held signs that mirrored the spoken welcome—or were supposed to, anyway.

The “l” and the first “e” in “Welcome” were in the reverse order;

The “y” in “Layne” was upside-down;

And the student holding the “M” in “Mr.” forgot to turn up his sign until after all the other students had put theirs down. Ms.

Kal’s eyes shifted swiftly towards Solonn and Jal’tai, holding an alarmed and very apologetic look.

“Mr. Layne is very pleased by your excellent welcome,” she said merrily, albeit rather hurriedly to the children.

She cast a quick look at Solonn, a hopeful yet urgent look that seemed to say, “Right?

Right ?” Solonn took the cue and nodded in concurrence, smiling warmly and managing not to look as vicariously embarrassed as he felt. An aipom in the third row of the bleachers lifted a hand to gain the teacher’s attention—the hand on her tail, specifically. “Yes, Ms.

Chibbles?” Ms. Kal acknowledged her. “Is he gonna be our new teacher?

Did you get fired?” asked Chibbles. Ms.

Kal made an incredibly flustered face, her cheeks turning fr om denim blue to a shade befitting a bruised oran berry.

“No, no, of course not, Ms.

Chibbles,” she said hastily.

“Mr. Layne is going to be a new student here.” Wondering gazes and whispers flittered about amid the students.

“A grown-up’s coming to our class?

He must not be very smart…” a totodile in the back row said very loudly, without raising his hand. Ms.

Kal winced and blushed even further, giving Solonn and Jal’tai another repentant look.

“Please don’t speak out of turn, Mr.

Cuomo,” she reprimanded the totodile, her tone falling quite short of assertive.

“And no, Mr. Layne will be taught by Systan Exeter.” The whispering among the students suddenly fell silent.

Ms. Kal smiled in relief, seeming to believe that she’d recaptured the respect and orderliness of the students, but it appeared to Solonn that it was actually the mention of Exeter’s name that had brought the hush over the crowd.

He wondered just what sort of a person Exeter could be for the mere mention of his, her, or its name to command silence. “Well, then,” Jal’tai spoke up suddenly, clapping a hand onto Solonn’s shoulder and startling him so badly that the human nearly jumped at the utterance and contact, “I’m certain that Mr.

Layne enjoyed your surprise greeting and had a lovely time meeting you all.” Again, Solonn recognized the cue and nodded very consciously.

“Have a nice day students!

You too, Ms. Kal!” Jal’tai said in farewell. “Bye!” she responded cheerfully, waving heartily.

As Solonn departed the gymnasium with Jal’tai, he turned briefly and saw Cuomo standing up in the bleachers, mocking the nidoqueen’s voice and the way she waggled her rear end when she waved.

Ms. Kal was utterly oblivious to the totodile’s actions. “Wasn’t that a lovely little thing that she decided to do there?” Jal’tai remarked.

“Just a spur-of-the-moment, random act of kindness;

She said the idea just hit her last Friday, and she simply had to try and pull it off for you.

She’s a good person, that Ms.

Kal. She’s only recently begun teaching here, but I think that given time, she’ll really come into her own here.

The children certainly do seem to like her, that’s for certain.” They seemed to like her, all right—in that she unintentionally amused them.

Solonn’s thoughts did not linger long upon the nidoqueen and her class, however, instead turning to the matter of the one who would be his own educator.

“What do you know about Exeter?” he inquired of Jal’tai. “That’s Systan Exeter to you,” Jal’tai corrected him, but not harshly.

“You should keep due etiquette in mind for the one who’ll be preparing you for the important tasks that lie ahead of you in life.

Anyway, I know quite a lot about Exeter, actually,” the latios said, the white mustache of his human guise turning up in a smile.

“Exeter is an old friend of mine, and one of the primary forefathers of the Convergence Project.

It provided a great deal of research into human industry and technology, as well as a number of other key fields, research that was vital to the conception and creation of this city and that remains invaluable to Convergence and its citizens to this day.

Exeter’s is a brilliant mind, and the unique abilities and properties of its kind give it unparalleled access to some very rich resources and broad spectrums of information.” Learning of Exeter’s intelligence and importance had rather the effect of stoking unease in Solonn regarding his new teacher.

If Exeter was really as smart as Jal’tai claimed it to be, surely its classes would be at a particularly challenging level.

“Just how difficult are Systan Exeter’s classes going to be?” he asked. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Solonn: What you are about to undertake is a very intensive and demanding education.

Exeter usually only tutors psychic students, particularly those of especially sophisticated mental development.

It took very little convincing to get it to agree to tutor you exclusively for as long as is necessary.

Knowing your reason for being here, it seemed glad enough to put aside its classes for a while in order to take you on;

It cherishes the welfare and future of this city as much as I do. “Exeter’s are tough courses, yes, the most rigorous ones provided by this school.

But Exeter itself is not harsh at all—it’s one of the most patient and pleasant people you will ever meet.

It wants you to learn all that you need to know and is willing to invest as much time and effort in your education as it must.

All that it will ask is that you are willing to invest the same in yourself.

Will you give it—and yourself—that much?” Solonn nodded silently.

He was still somewhat nervous, but now not about his teacher so much as the magnitude of his undertaking, which seemed to be looming larger as he prepared to confront it directly.

“You know… I still can’t completely believe I’m doing this,” he said quietly.

“I still can’t quite picture myself in charge of an entire city …” “You needn’t try so hard to grasp these things all at once,” Jal’tai reassured him warmly.

“Everything you’re meant to be will come about in time.” Solonn turned to look at Jal’tai, to regard the kindly, presently human face that smiled comfortingly back at him.

He almost spoke, only to realize just as quickly that he didn’t really have anything to say.

He gave a smile that was less than earnest, feeling that Jal’tai’s smile somehow demanded reciprocation, and then turned away, swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat. The two walked through the halls of the Academy in silence broken only when a stream of young adolescent human students emerged fr om a classroom they passed, the students chatting animatedly as they diverged and made for their next classes.

Noise filled the air as the same event occurred in several locations throughout the building simultaneously.

Several of the passing students shot looks at Jal’tai, clearly recognizing him—or recognizing Mayor Whitley, rather.

Most of them kept going, continuing to look back at him over their shoulders but nonetheless intent on getting to their classes in time.

A small handful of them did not, however, and they stopped before him and Solonn. “Is it really you?” one of them, a short blonde boy, asked incredulously. “Well, I’ve always been me, as far back as I remember,” Jal’tai responded, and laughed.

Solonn nearly laughed, as well, but not at the joke itself so much as the irony of it.

Jal’tai was being recognized for not being himself;

The students would never know who the “me” to whom Jal’tai referred actually was. The blonde boy’s eyes widened, and he exchanged significant looks with the other students.

“What are you doing here?” he then asked, apparently the unofficial spokesman of the group. “Well, young man, Mr.

Layne here and I have a very important appointment with the staff to get to.

I’m afraid we really must be moving along, as a matter of fact… Good day to you all, students!” he said, bidding them farewell as he began to lead Solonn away. “Bye!” the blonde boy called after Jal’tai.

A couple of the other students echoed the farewell.

Solonn looked over his shoulder and saw a few of them waving at him and Jal’tai, and he waved back. As the halls began to empty once more, Solonn found himself brought before the doors of an elevator. “ Systan Exeter’s class is on the top floor,” Jal’tai informed him.

“Many of his old psychic students would simply teleport up there, but we’ll just have to make do with the elevator.” The doors opened after the press of a button and the passage of a few moments, and the two stepped inside.

“Just be glad you’re not being made to take the stairs,” Jal’tai said with a small laugh. (CONTINUED)

They arrived at the sixth floor, and Solonn found his anxiety peaking as they approached Exeter’s classroom.

He could not bring himself to say anything, his mind having gone almost totally blank and his throat having gone almost totally dry.

Blessedly, Jal’tai did not try to spark a conversation at this point;

Solonn couldn’t imagine being able to join in on one anyway.

He tried to distract himself with his surroundings, his eyes darting over the framed photographs that lined the walls, depicting noteworthy people, from past and present educators at the Academy to important figures in Convergence to people who had worldwide fame or accolade.

His mind failed to truly take in anything he saw, and instead directed his eyes forward and locked them there, upon the fastly approaching door that stood between himself and the place where he would soon undergo the most stringent training he had ever known. “SYSTAN EXETER – INTENSIVE EDUCATION,” read the placard on the door.

Jal’tai gave Solonn one last reassuring smile (which only slightly succeeded in its aim), and then pressed a button beside the doorknob.

A faint tone sounded within the classroom. “Come in,” a voice called from behind the door a moment later.

The quality of the voice surprised Solonn a bit;

It bore striking similarity to the soft chime of the doorbell that Jal’tai had just pressed. Taking the cue, Jal’tai opened the door and stepped inside.

He stood just within the room for a moment, beckoning Solonn into the classroom ahead of him.

With no small measure of apprehension, Solonn did as he was directed, passing through the door gingerly.

Once he was completely inside the classroom, he saw Jal’tai close the door behind him;

Involuntarily, he imagined it sealing itself shut and melting into the wall, trapping him inside. Shaking such thoughts from his mind with only scant success, Solonn swept his gaze over the classroom.

It was much smaller than he had expected, with walls of a soft, powdery blue and a deep carpet of a dark navy shade.

There were no windows, nothing at all on the walls.

The classroom was almost entirely bare, in fact;

It contained only a single desk and chair near the center, a longer desk up near the front on which sat a broad array of computer equipment, and a vast screen mounted on the wall above that desk. There, hovering before that screen, was Systan Exeter itself.

Solonn hadn’t really had any idea of quite what to expect his new teacher would actually be, but he was certain that what he now beheld would have never crossed his mind.

Exeter was small and brightly colored, the surface of its body so perfectly smooth and glossy that it almost appeared as though Exeter were made of some kind of gel or even liquid, impossibly suspended and contained in shape.

Its bright pink form was vaguely avian in form— very vaguely—with equally bright blue projections at its sides that might have been limbs, one on the back that might have been a tail, and one on its face that might have been a beak. With no preamble, Exeter glided effortlessly towards Solonn, who went stock still as the porygon2 approached him.

“Welcome, Mr. Layne,” it said in its chiming, androgynous voice as it stopped before him.

Neither its “beak” nor any other part of its face moved when it spoke;

It appeared to have nothing at all in the way of a mouth.

Solonn found himself rather reminded of Oth, who had not spoken with a mouth, either—Exeter was even genderless like Oth.

At least, unlike Oth, this creature’s audible speech was comprehensible;

It did not need to resort to telepathy to be understood. Solonn knew he could not shake hands with Exeter, seeing as how it did not possess any.

At a loss for any other way to greet the teacher, “…Hi,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. The porygon2 cocked its head slightly at Solonn, staring appraisingly at him through large, bright eyes.

Finally, it lowered its head respectfully;

When it looked up once more, there was something peculiar playing about its eyes, almost suggesting a smile, only without the involvement of a mouth.

“I’m most glad to meet you, Mr.

Layne, and I’m even more pleased to be able to teach you.” “…Thanks,” Solonn said, still gathering his wits. Exeter made an odd, jingling sound that might have been laughter.

It then turned its attention towards Jal’tai.

“You’re looking well today, Mr.

Jal’tai,” it commented. “Why, thank you.

You’re looking quite well, yourself,” Jal’tai returned. It was then that Solonn realized something very significant in what the porygon2 had said—it had referred to Jal’tai by his true name, his lati name, not the human name that Jal’tai normally used in public.

Solonn turned towards Jal’tai… and saw that the latios had done away with his human mirage and was now hovering there in his true, draconic form.

He stared speechlessly at the dragon in surprise—Jal’tai revealed himself as he truly was to virtually no one, humans and pokémon alike, such was his strict maintenance of his human disguise and identity. The dragon noticed the way Solonn was staring at him and clearly interpreted it correctly.

“No need to worry, Michael,” he assured him.

“As I said, Systan Exeter and I go back quite a long way.

It knows me for whom and what I truly am;

It’s one of the very few here who do.” Solonn’s eyes shifted between Jal’tai and Exeter, and he found himself feeling strangely singled-out of a sudden.

Those two knew each other by name, as he knew them.

The only identity that was not known by everyone present was his own.

Jal’tai had only referred to him by his human name in the porygon2’s presence.

Exeter did not and would likely never know the true identity of its new student. “Say… why don’t you give him a little preview of what you have to offer him?” Jal’tai suggested then. The porygon2 gave another of its odd, mouthless smiles.

“Certainly!” it agreed brightly.

It glided over to its desk and set itself down on a flat, grey, circular pad in the very midst of the devices arranged there, resembling nothing so much as a whimsical bird sitting in a nest of jet-black components.

Its eyes closed, and then, much to Solonn’s surprise, its form sparkled, grew transparent, and then disappeared completely. “What?

… Where did it go ?” Solonn hissed at Jal’tai. The screen over the desk suddenly came awake with an image of Exeter in front of a flowing, liquid-looking, emerald green background.

“I’m right here!” the porygon2 exclaimed cheerfully, its melodious voice magnified greatly. Solonn could only stare at the screen that impossibly contained the teacher.

He might have asked Exeter how it had done such a thing, but found his brain and his mouth refusing to cooperate for some reason. Exeter gave another of its peculiar little laughs at Solonn’s plain bewilderment.

“Give me a subject,” it then said suddenly. Solonn supposed that the teacher was addressing him, and tried to think of something, but was still a bit discombobulated, and no suggestions came to him with any speed. “How about… dragons?” Jal’tai suggested once it seemed clear to him that Solonn was drawing a blank. Apparently, Jal’tai’s suggestion of a subject was something that Exeter found particularly amusing;

Its musical laughter tinkled on for several seconds before subsiding.

Once it managed to fall silent once more, the porygon2 nodded in acknowledgement.

Exeter’s form then darkened to the deep green shade that surrounded it, its outline fading until the porygon2 blended into the background completely and vanished.

A second later, the flowing green field was re pla ced by an image of a majestic mountain range.

Sweeping classical music began to play as a large, powerful-looking, blue-and-red dragon pokémon suddenly surged upward from behind the mountains and began soaring over their peaks.

The dragon rushed across the screen, filling its view completely;

When it cleared, a desert scene was revealed, through which green, somewhat insectoid dragons sped in a pack, their wings buzzing. A few more cinematic scenes depicting different varieties of dragon pokémon in their natural environments played, then gave way to a screen on which small, fully dimensional representatives of numerous draconic species perched along the sides.

Exeter returned to this screen at its center;

Some of the tiny dragons turned their heads towards it, while others among them hissed at it in disdain. “Please se lect a species of dragon for further discussion,” the porygon2 prompted in its pleasant voice. “Let’s have a look at the dragonite,” Jal’tai suggested. Exeter acknowledged this, and then turned towards the tiny dragonite at the upper right corner of the screen.

The teacher, along with all the other dragons, vanished from the screen as the dragonite increased in size until it took up most of the screen.

It came to stand at the center, where it remained as Exeter began to describe the species’ various qualities from offscreen.

As the porygon2 continued narrating, the camera focused on the dragonite from several angles, and then re pla ced the model of the dragon with a series of video clips of its species in action. Exeter was also asked to provide brief packages of information on the salamence and drathlon species before Jal’tai decided that that was enough for the day.

The porygon2 terminated the dragon program, and then rematerialized within the classroom as the screen went blank once more. “That was only a small example of the sort of lessons Systan Exeter has in store for you,” Jal’tai told Solonn then.

“Now, this is not the only method that it will employ;

It will provide a variety of different types of lessons.

Also, I’m afraid that dragons will not be a focal point of your education.

I just… really happen to like that program,” he admitted, and chuckled.

“Figured you might like it, too.” Solonn did think that it was fairly interesting, even if he wasn’t overly interested in dragons.

It seemed that learning under Systan Exeter might not be quite so unpleasant as he had anticipated.

At the very least, it looked as though it wouldn’t be as boring as he might have expected.

Given the porygon2’s pleasant, even cheerful demeanor and its interesting and unusual methods of teaching, the experience ahead of him might actually even be kind of enjoyable. “Well, I suppose we’ll be taking our leave now,” Jal’tai said.

“I’ll let Michael here have a look around the Academy for a while longer, and then it’s off to enjoy a nice, relaxing evening.” Exeter turned towards Solonn and smiled with its eyes once again.

“I hope you’ll enjoy your time here, Mr.

Layne,” it said. “Farewell, and I’ll see you tomorrow!” “Goodbye,” Solonn returned, and then followed Jal’tai out the door. * * * Solonn had never quite managed to really guess what he could expect from his education with any certainty.

As it turned out, neither the example he’d learned of secondhand from Morgan nor the demonstrations shown him when he first visited the Academy were altogether representative of the experience into which he entered when he began attending Systan Exeter’s classes. The main difference that he came to recognize between his own experience at school and what he’d seen of others’ experience was the schedule that was demanded of him.

A day’s work at school for him was nearly twice as long as those Morgan had to endure, and unlike her, he had to attend classes seven days a week.

He learned also that most of the students were offered vacations during the late winter and the spring, as well as a long one spanning nearly three months over the summer, but he would not be given such long breaks.

He would only be given the option of taking up to four days off each month;

Beyond that, he would only be excused by illness. Solonn had learned of his demanding new schedule on the very first day he began attending classes at the Academy, and had initially disliked it.

He knew that he was being prepared for a very major responsibility, and it did make sense to him that such an undertaking would require a lot of time and effort spent to adequately prepare him.

Yet still, he felt it was a bit unfair for him to be made to work so hard with so little reprieve in the midst of that work.

At the very least, he thought he should have a nice, long break every so often, something more than just the equivalent of a long weekend.

He found the sheer volume of time that he was to devote to his education rather daunting, and knew not how he was going to endure it mentally.

He was concerned that his mind might fry and turn to mush from being made to do almost nothing but study and work. Indeed, he did find his new schedule overwhelming at first.

This was the most time and energy he had ever had to put into anything, even more than he’d given back in the days when he’d rehearsed for contest performances for hours on end.

At least when he’d been practicing his cryokinetic routines, the work had brought that most gratifying sense of synergy with his element as an added incentive to apply himself to the training.

With the schoolwork, however, there was little to gain from it beyond what it was meant to teach—it was less an experience than a series of tasks. However, there were factors that, in time, combined to make the new daily routine more tolerable.

Systan Exeter was someone who clearly enjoyed its job, and as such, it seemed infinitely patient and determined in its endeavor to see to it that its student would come to enjoy the classes at least somewhat as much as it did.

Its teaching methods were, to its credit, not boring.

Exeter’s lessons were delivered in a number of engaging and even occasionally entertaining manners, sometimes using its ability to manifest itself through interactive educational programs, other times involving Solonn in more practical forms of learning.

While the time spent in class was undeniably long, the variety in the lessons, as well as the enthusiasm, patience, and understanding of the teacher, made the hours less monotonous than they could have been, at least. Another thing which helped make the long sessions at school more endurable, and helped greatly, was the hour or so each evening spent in the presence of Neleng and her therapeutic mindsongs.

Following an appointment with her, the stress and exhaustion that came from being forced to adjust to longer, busier hours was greatly alleviated, leaving Solonn in a revitalized and much clearer state of mind and body, allowing him to enjoy the rest of the evening in peace and calm and to awaken the next morning far more ready to face the day’s work than he would have been otherwise.

Solonn suspected that his new schedule would erode his sanity if it weren’t for the mental oasis that Neleng provided every night, and for her aid, he was very grateful.

He didn’t want to go a single day without her services, and she was all too happy to oblige. To Solonn’s surprise, it was not Exeter alone who educated him;

There were lessons of certain natures that the porygon2 could not teach, typically requiring a type of hands-on teaching that it simply could not provide, wherein other tutors were brought in to momentarily take the helm.

On rare occasions, usually during Solonn’s short breaks from schoolwork, Jal’tai himself would instruct him, most often with regards to etiquette, culture, and the arts.

The latios liked to take Solonn on “field trips” throughout Convergence in order to get his successor as acquainted with the city as possible, and always had stories and anecdotes to tell about the sites visited, having witnessed the birth of many of these places firsthand. Solonn’s education consisted of training in a wide variety of skills and subjects, ranging from very basic to very advanced.

He was taught far more than he had ever expected to need to know, much of which he came to find quite fascinating, and he found a number of the skills he learned to be quite enjoyable.

He was exposed to a number of human languages, which his possession of the Speech allowed him to acquire swiftly and adroitly.

He was instructed with a particular emphasis on the history and inner workings of the International Pokémon League, the powerful organization that funded and managed the Convergence Project, and to which he would one day be in direct service. For nearly four years, Solonn was trained in this way.

Finally, the day came when he was declared ready by both the staff at the Academy and by Jal’tai.

According to them, he was now sufficiently prepared to take on this office… this new life… even if he himself could barely believe it. One late morning the following week found him in what was presently Jal’tai’s office and what was soon to be his own, pacing back and forth across the round room in a navy blue suit that he disliked, awaiting the arrival of those who were to witness the event that was about to transpire here. “You needn’t be working yourself into a frenzy, now,” Jal’tai told him evenly, perched oddly over his chair behind his desk.

When the witnesses arrived, he would need to don his human disguise, but he seemed utterly unconcerned about the matter for the time being.

He had no reason to worry, and he knew it—he would be given fair warning when his guests showed up;

No one was allowed to simply barge into the mayor’s office unannounced, after all.

He only wished that the human in his company could be at the same ease as he was.

“I’ve already explained to you what’s going to happen;

It’s not going to be any big deal, really, I assure you.” Solonn only grunted distractedly in response.

There was a mantra of sorts that he was determinedly maintaining in a continuous loop through his mind, trying to keep himself focused and his nerves in check, to only moderate success.

He hoped that he would be able to stave off any possibility of fainting or otherwise embarrassing himself in the presence of the very important persons who would soon be here.

Jal’tai had indeed outlined what he could expect from what was about to happen here today, and it was, as the latios had said, really a very simple and quiet affair.

Its lack of extravagance did not diminish the significance of the turn his life was about to take, however, and the magnitude of this day seemingly would not be coaxed off of his shoulders, no matter how he tried. It was a small mercy when the witnesses finally arrived—though the significance of what he was about to do still attended Solonn’s thoughts diligently, he no longer had to endure the anticipation of the deed any longer, at least.

Four humans were admitted into the office;

Solonn recognized them immediately as senior members of the IPL, very powerful and important people.

There were two men and two women, all of them older, expensively dressed persons.

To his surprise, they were accompanied by none other than Exeter, who smiled brightly and proudly in its mouthless fashion as it hovered alongside the League representatives. Jal’tai, now disguised as Rolf Whitley, appeared to rise from his chair and greeted his colleagues heartily.

The representatives took a couple of minutes to exchange a few friendly words with him, and to greet Solonn as well.

Then, one of them produced a portfolio, within which there were a number of documents.

Solonn looked with a mild amazement at the humble sheets of paper as they were taken out of the portfolio.

It still seemed incredible to him that within these pages lay the power to transfer the leadership of an entire city. The documents were handed to Solonn for him to read.

They outlined a contract of sorts, binding him to the authority of the League and to service to their Convergence Project, while bestowing upon him the right and authority to govern Convergence as a community that was independent from the rest of Hoenn.

The documents also contained an oath of service unto the city, and Solonn was made to read this as well as all of the terms illustrated within those documents aloud in order to prove that he acknowledged and understood it all. Once Solonn had finished reciting the contents of the documents, he was told to set them down upon the desk.

Jal’tai rearranged them so that the last page sat on top of the stack.

One by one, the League members each signed their name on the topmost sheet.

Even Systan Exeter came forward and signed the document, dipping the end of its “beak” in a small pot of ink and quickly rendering its name in unown-script. Solonn was rather intrigued by the fact that Exeter was acting alongside powerful League members as an apparent equal.

He had learned much about the IPL, including the identities of those who comprised it and the varying degrees of authority that they all held.

Nowhere among their number was Exeter mentioned, and no indication had been given to suggest that it was a part of the League.

The closest involvement Exeter had had with League business was its part in the development of and continuing research for the Convergence Project, but that did not truly constitute League membership. Before Solonn could give that matter any more thought, his turn to sign the document had come.

Jal’tai handed him the pen, and Solonn stepped forward, allowing his gaze to fall upon the empty line beneath the sweeping signature that spelled out Jal’tai’s human name.

He could feel the first, slightest slick of sweat forming between his fingers and the pen, and the space around him seemed to have gone preternaturally silent save for the strong, persistent rhythm of his pulse pounding in his ears.

He hoped that the others in attendance weren’t too aware of his anxiety. Convergence, and the future of relations among the world’s peoples, would present a considerable duty unto him in the years to come.

For now, though, all that was being asked of him was a name written on piece of paper.

Bearing this in mind in an effort to keep things in perspective, he drew a breath and set the pen to the paper.

He did not exhale until his signature was rendered there by his hand, shining back up at him in fresh, still-glistening ink.

He frowned minutely at it;

It was not particularly tidy, especially not compared to Jal’tai’s.

Solonn didn’t even think it actually resembled the way his name looked in writing.

Jal’tai had told him before that it was all right, that many people’s signatures only marginally resembled their written names.

Still, the semi-legibility of his own signature bothered Solonn, if only as much as he allowed in order to distract him from other, more pressing feelings. “There you have it,” Jal’tai said softly then from Solonn’s side.

He took a rubber stamp that sat on his desk into his human mirage-hand, pressed it into an inkpad, and stamped a blank space on the document with the stylized pokéball emblem of the IPL in red ink.

To the room at large, the latios said, “Let the records show that on this day, August the 26th, 2022, authority was hereby transferred from myself, Rolf Alan Whitley, to Michael Layne.” The words reached Solonn through a hazy delay, as did the smattering of polite, reserved applause that arose around him.

With one simple act on his part, he had literally signed his life away to this city and the cause for which it stood.

In a rather unceremonious ceremony that had not even lasted the span of half an hour, he had been given the reins of an entire community—a duty to a mission that could, conceivably, bring about reform in societies across the globe and secure an everlasting place for himself in history. Was that really it?

He couldn’t help but wonder. After a round of congratulations and farewells from the League representatives, as well as from Exeter, the guests departed.

Jal’tai resumed his true form, his birdlike face smiling as broadly as it could manage. “I’m more proud of you than I quite know how to express, my boy,” the dragon said, almost breathless with joy. “You’re proud of the fact that I read a few sheets of paper and then scribbled a name on it?” Solonn questioned jokingly. “Oh, you know better than that,” Jal’tai scolded lightheartedly, cuffing the human about the shoulder.

“You’ve come a considerable way to get to this point, given years of your life to prepare yourself for this day.

Your dedication to our cause is nothing short of beautiful,” he said rather dreamily. Solonn gave the gushing latios a funny look.

“Whatever you say,” he responded, leaning backwards against the desk and staring at his shoes. “Here,” Jal’tai offered pleasantly, “why don’t you take a seat?” He gestured towards the large, comfortable-looking chair behind the desk.

“It is yours now, after all.” “Yes,” Solonn acknowledged, feeling oddly weary and giddy at the same time, “it is, isn’t it?” Semi-absently, he strode around the desk and sat down in the chair.

It wasn’t quite as comfortable as it had looked, but it felt better than just standing.

His eyes swept over the desk;

It was very tidy, and much of what was there showed at least some sign of belonging to Jal’tai.

Solonn distantly wondered what the desk might look like after a few months in his possession. “So, then.

Have you memorized what you’re going to say?” Jal’tai asked then. “Yes, I have,” Solonn responded promptly, managing to resist the urge to bite his tongue.

He was truthfully fairly good at memorizing things, and that which he had had to memorize for the occasion that would be upon him very soon was really quite short and simple.

Nonetheless, nothing quite struck at his certainty like another person questioning it.

He knew it was only meant as a friendly reminder, but it still bred in him at least some doubt about his sureness.

To avoid letting his mind stick on the matter, “How soon ‘til they arrive?” he asked then. “Probably well within the next hour.

They’ll want to get this done fairly soon so that it can be given the post-production treatment it’ll need,” Jal’tai answered. “And this’ll air tonight?” “Yes, they’ll be showing it on the evening news, as well as the nightly news.

It will also air during commercial breaks in other programming over the next few days,” Jal’tai told him. “Hm.

Terrific,” the former glalie said dryly.

He noticed that his ponytail had fallen over his shoulder, and he idly fiddled with the hair for a moment before tossing it back behind himself.

He had allowed it to grow quite a bit longer in recent months than he had once worn it;

It now hung a fair distance between his shoulder blades.

He didn’t particularly like having it pulled back as it now was, but wearing it this way was just one of those things that, for whatever silly, arbitrary reason, was considered more befitting of an authority figure.

Much like the crisp, ridiculous suit he was presently wearing.

Solonn had come to reckon that the occasional submission to absurdity and things one couldn’t care less about was simply one of the costs of being in a position of authority. He mused on this and other scattered, silly thoughts as he waited for his next task to be upon him, trying not to overanalyze what he was about to have to do.

He was left alone for part of this time after Jal’tai excused himself for a few minutes;

The latios had only just returned when the next guests to the office arrived. Entering the large, round room was a small camera crew, consisting of a couple of humans and one pokémon, a blaziken cameraman who wore a rather ratty blue baseball cap backwards and chewed gum.

Lights were set up around the desk, where Solonn remained sitting while Jal’tai positioned himself near the door, out of the shot.

There was a brief moment of annoyance as one of the humans came around the desk and, without warning, attacked Solonn’s face with a bit of makeup, then stared at him scrutinizingly for a second before she scampered away.

Solonn tried hard not to look at the makeup artist as if she was mad, but failed. It was a strange notion, that an entire city would see what he was about to do, perhaps even seeing it more than once.

The thought of it threatened to unnerve him, but he reminded himself that the eyes of the city were not present here in this office.

They’re not here, he reminded himself silently.

Don’t think about them. He was grateful for the brevity of the statement he was about to give;

As one of the humans nearby began a countdown, he quickly reviewed it in his head.

He was also grateful that Jal’tai had offered to compose these words for him;

It definitely helped to take some of the pressure off of the former glalie. The countdown ended, and the camera that was trained on Solonn began filming.

Steeling himself imperceptibly, the human looked directly into the lens and spoke his very first words to the city as its leader. “Hello, Convergence,” he said evenly, congenially.

“My name is Michael Layne.

On August 26th, I was appointed as your new mayor.

In taking on this office, I have pledged myself to the continuing efforts not only to keep this city alive and prospering, but also towards the ultimate goal of bettering the entire world by our example here. “I swear that I will ensure the maintenance of our city’s unparalleled harmony among all peoples, and I will lead us in our endeavor to promote equality in civilizations beyond Convergence.

I am fully dedicated to our local well-being, as well as to our city’s purpose on a greater scale. “Though young and a newcomer to public office, I am ready, willing, and able to serve you.

Rest assured that I will do all in my ability to meet your needs and expectations.

We now enter a new era in the history of Convergence, and we enter it together.

Best wishes to you all, and to our future.” Oh, thank the gods… Solonn breathed a sigh of relief as the crew ceased filming, grateful that he’d managed to avoid tripping on his words.

Now, he could only hope that he hadn’t unwittingly pulled an odd face, or that the makeup lady didn’t decide that he didn’t look right, or that anything else could happen that would force him to do that again today.

Blessedly, everyone seemed pleased with his performance, and left without demanding another take from him. “See?

Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jal’tai said. “Meh,” Solonn responded.

“Of course, that isn’t the last time I’ll have to make an appearance on TV, now is it?” “No, it certainly isn’t.

I’m afraid many occasions of public speaking lie in your future, televised or otherwise,” Jal’tai replied.

“But then, you’ve known what came along with the job description for some time now, have you not?” “I know…” Solonn responded airily.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to do any more such things today…” He sighed and reclined as best as the design of his chair would allow.

“I cannot wait for Neleng tonight, let me tell you…” he exhaled. “Oh… Well… I’m afraid that your appointment with Neleng will have to be cancelled for tonight,” Jal’tai informed him regretfully. Solonn frowned worriedly.

“What? Why?” “Something has come up,” Jal’tai answered noncommittally. The former glalie gave Jal’tai a concerned and rather suspicious look.

“Why don’t I like the sound of this?” “I haven’t a clue, but I suspect that like everything else you’ve been through today, it won’t be quite the tribulation you might imagine.” The latios turned and made for the door, resuming his human appearance as he stopped before it.

“Don’t worry about it for now, all right?

Why don’t we go get some nice lunch, hmm?” Still a bit wary of what was going on, whatever it was that the dragon was conspicuously omitting from discussion, Solonn didn’t respond to Jal’tai’s offer right away.

Finally, “Sure,” he acquiesced, and rose from his seat.

As he accompanied Jal’tai out of the office, Solonn wondered if he might somehow manage to extract information from the latios over lunch about what had usurped his schedule for the evening. * * * It was late afternoon, and Solonn was sitting alone back at his suite with the television on, though not really paying any attention to it.

He had had no luck in finding out what had changed his plans for the night;

Jal’tai had simply perched there during lunch, smiling in a rather annoyingly knowing manner at Solonn over first his sandwiches and then his parfait, somehow managing to redirect the conversation whenever it tried to turn towards the coming evening. Jal’tai’s evasiveness had persisted throughout the rest of the day, all the way up to the point when he had brought Solonn back to the Serenity Inn;

Then, vaguely mentioning that he had very important things to attend to, the latios had departed his company. Now, Solonn found nothing else to do but sit there with an abysmally boring, human-made sitcom blaring at him (nothing presently on any of the 350 other stations was really any better, though, dismally enough), with the same host of questions endlessly circling his mind like gnats.

He wondered what in the world could be happening this night.

It was apparently so important that he’d had to cancel anything else he’d wanted to do, yet no one had felt it necessary to let him in on exactly what it was for which he’d had to put everything on hold.

He wondered how much longer he would continue living in this hotel suite now that he was the mayor.

He wondered why whoever it was that made sitcoms like the one presently playing had thought that adding blatantly fake laughter to the program would make it seem any funnier. Finally unable to endure any more of it, Solonn turned the television off.

Just as soon as he’d done so, he received a peculiar message from the mechanized voice of the suite. “Please stand on the transport tile and wait,” it instructed him. Perplexed, Solonn was initially unsure about following the instructions, vaguely wondering why he was being asked to do such a thing.

He decided fairly quickly that he might as well go along with it, however, and soon came to stand directly on top of the tile just as he was told. The tile activated, and he found himself in the corridor outside… and not alone.

Standing there was a uniformed man with salt-and-pepper hair—one whom Solonn recognized as the chauffeur who was employed to transport him and Jal’tai around town. “Follow me, sir,” the chauffeur said simply, and turned and made for the nearby elevator with no further instruction or explanation.

Though growing more baffled by the second by what was going on, Solonn nonetheless quickly followed the man onto the elevator, and then out of the hotel to the waiting vehicle. Solonn found himself driven across town, eventually arriving at a relatively modest but nonetheless stately mansion.

Having been brought here several times over the past couple of years, Solonn recognized this place at once.

This was where Jal’tai lived. The chauffeur exited the vehicle, and then let Solonn out, as well.

He escorted Solonn up the walkway, stepping aside only when they reached the front doors.

Almost as soon as they’d stopped there, the doors opened unexpectedly—and Solonn was immediately blasted by an explosion of confetti and the shouted word, “SURPRISE!” For a very long moment, Solonn only stared wildly at the mirage-human standing right inside the door.

Then, he shook off the black and gold flecks of paper covering him (most of them, anyway), spat out a few more of them, and demanded, “What in the world was that for?!” Very slowly, a smile crept across Jal’tai’s presently human face, spreading into a full Cheshire grin.

He then burst into uproarious laughter.

“You silly boy, it’s for you !

Come on in,” he beckoned then, stepping back a bit from the door.

Still eyeing Jal’tai warily, Solonn stepped into the mansion. Thankfully, there were no more startling surprises once he entered Jal’tai’s home.

There were surprises of a more pleasant nature about, however.

Jal’tai always kept a nice, elegant household, but on this night, it was even more impressive than usual.

Everything in sight had been splendidly yet tastefully decorated in black, silver, and gold.

As he was brought further into the house, he saw that there were many other people about, some of whom he knew and recognized either as people he knew locally or as League representatives, while others among the crowd were totally unfamiliar.

Solonn guessed that these must be friends of Jal’tai whom he hadn’t met before. He heard music that grew louder as he continued to follow Jal’tai, and he found its source as they entered a spacious living room.

At one end of the room, a seven-piece, multispecies band was playing light, easygoing jazz of the sort that Jal’tai liked.

The moment Solonn entered the room, however, they stopped playing;

The chattering of the guests ceased a split-second after, and soon all eyes were on Jal’tai and Solonn, who had made their way to the center of the room. “Our guest of honor has arrived!” Jal’tai announced unnecessarily, beaming at the crowd of surrounding guests.

The moment the words left his mouth, the guests all erupted into applause.

Solonn winced involuntarily, expecting another confetti attack or some other, equally bizarre surprise from the guests, but luckily they seemed content to merely applaud him—until Jal’tai decided to lead them in a cheer, which Solonn endured with a somewhat forced smile. At Jal’tai’s cue, the band resumed playing, striking up a somewhat livelier tune than they’d been playing previously, and the guests seemed to go back to milling amongst themselves.

Jal’tai took a few moments to systematically hunt down every person to whom Solonn had not yet been introduced and rectify that unfamiliarity, then shepherded the former glalie over to a presently unoccupied sofa, asking the nearest person to them to go fetch a couple of drinks as he sat down beside Solonn. “So.

What do you think of this little surprise I put together for you, hmm?” Jal’tai asked Solonn the moment the two were both seated. It was kind of an odd surprise, was what Solonn thought.

But, it was the thought that counted, after all, so, “It’s nice,” he replied, nodding approvingly.

“How long were you planning this?” “Well, I always knew I wanted to do something special for you when this day finally arrived,” Jal’tai answered, smiling.

“As for the elements of the party itself, the invitations were sent out just over a week ago, around the time the decorations were purchased, and I booked the band over the weekend.

Saved them from having to play another wedding, the lucky souls,” he added with a laugh. Solonn responded wordlessly in acknowledgement, and the two were silent for a little while after that, watching the band, watching the crowd.

The man who’d been sent after drinks returned;

Jal’tai and Solonn received them from him and thanked him as he left their side.

Jal’tai stared into his drink for a moment, seemingly deep in thought.

He took a small sip of it, and then turned to Solonn with an unreadable expression. “I’ll be leaving town tomorrow morning,” Jal’tai told him, his voice strangely hoarse. It took a moment for those words to sink into Solonn’s mind.

When they did, he was somewhat at a loss for how to react.

He’d known for quite a while that Jal’tai had planned to leave Convergence once he was no longer its leader… but Solonn hadn’t expected that he would leave quite so soon after stepping down from office. “After I leave, this will be your home, of course,” Jal’tai went on.

“I’ll help you move in tomorrow.

It won’t be any real trouble for me—I’ve decided to leave much of what’s here to you, so it’s not as though I’ll really have much in the way of moving myself out to bother with.” Somewhat overwhelmed, Solonn merely sat silently, seemingly unable to respond to what Jal’tai was saying.

The way things were unfolding was strangely difficult for him to quite get his head around… after years spent in preparation for the life he was only just entering, everything suddenly seemed to be happening so fast… “Are you all right, my boy?” Jal’tai asked concernedly. “…I’m fine,” Solonn responded after a pause.

He hesitated again, then said, “Part of me does kind of wish I’d known when you were leaving a little further in advance, though…” Jal’tai smiled sadly.

“I would certainly have told you, had I been sure of it myself.” He sighed.

“I’ll admit that I’d been procrastinating over the matter for longer than I really should have.

I’ve been… quite reluctant to leave my city,” he all but whispered.

“In the end, I knew that if I didn’t simply go , then I might not be able to bring myself to do it… hence the last minute decision.

I’m terribly sorry if this inconveniences you in any way…” “No… no, it’s not a problem at all,” Solonn assured him quickly.

It was very plain to see that the decision to leave Convergence behind had been a supremely difficult one for Jal’tai;

Though the human mirage the former mayor wore revealed only moderate sadness, Solonn strongly suspected that the dragon behind that façade was on the verge of tears.

He did not want to let the latios feel even remotely guilty for springing this news on him on such short notice;

Solonn was rather sorry for even mentioning that the lack of advance warning had bothered him.

He also did not have the heart to question why the latios found it necessary to leave, though he certainly did wonder.

Knowing as he did how having a resolution questioned can shake it apart, Solonn mindfully kept that question to himself. Jal’tai held Solonn’s gaze with a look of faint relief, then gave an earnest, albeit weary smile, grateful for the former glalie’s understanding.

The human at his side would never realize just how much of his unspoken compassion was recognized by the latios, having been kept ignorant of the dragon’s psychic qualities ever since having his memory rewritten.

But, it was recognized indeed, and greatly appreciated. “Oh, look at me,” Jal’tai said then, still sounding a bit constrained, “glooming up your nice party like that, shame on me!

Come on,” he suggested in a slightly brighter tone as he stood, “why don’t we go mingle a bit more?” Though still somewhat concerned for Jal’tai, knowing that the matter of his departure surely must still be weighing upon him, Solonn nonetheless humored the latios’s pretense of revivified mirth.

Throughout the remainder of that evening and well into the night, he chatted with the guests, took in the music, and accepted the gifts that the attendees had brought for him, and he allowed himself to enjoy it all, or at least to appear to do so.

All the while, however, the better part of his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of what was soon to befall both himself and the latios who had preceded him… what one would gain, and what the other would lose. * * * The August sun shone brightly, bearing down on Convergence from high in the sky.

It was just before noon, but to Solonn it felt like it could have been almost any daylight hour;

He had not slept the night before. He stood there in front of the mansion that was soon to be his own, distantly staring at the lone moving truck that was parked at the end of the driveway, and the plain, nondescript black car parked behind it.

A pair of movers made trips back and forth between the truck and the house, taking a few of Solonn’s things from the truck, then returning to it with a few of Jal’tai’s things.

It was not long at all before the job was done completely;

Solonn did not own terribly many possessions, and there were very few of Jal’tai’s that the dragon had not opted to leave behind. Shortly after the last of Solonn’s possessions were brought into the mansion, Jal’tai emerged wordlessly alongside the movers.

He stopped beside Solonn, remaining silent for moments on end, staring pensively into the sky. “My Goddess… how I’m going to miss this place,” he finally whispered. Solonn said nothing in response, casting a somber gaze downward.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a very faint shimmering;

When he looked toward its source, he saw that Jal’tai had resumed his true form. “I’ve taken the veil off of your eyes only,” Jal’tai assured Solonn before any concerns could be raised about his decision to drop the mirage.

“This is most likely the last we will ever see of one another… I want your final memories of me to be as I truly am.” He laid his taloned hands upon Solonn’s shoulders and sighed heavily.

His scarlet eyes shone with unshed tears as he held the human’s gaze, and slowly, a warm, broad smile curved across his face.

“You’ve come such a long way from the day when I first met you,” he said wistfully.

“You have made me so very proud, my dear boy, prouder than I’ve ever been of anyone in my entire life.

I know in my heart that you’ll take good care of my city… that you’ll serve and guide it with as much love and devotion as I always did…” At these words, the latios could hold back his tears no longer.

In a sudden motion, he wrapped his arms around Solonn in a long embrace.

Solonn closed his eyes, feeling his own tears escape from them as he held on to the silently weeping dragon. “I will miss my city,” Jal’tai breathed, “but I will miss you even more.” “I’ll miss you, too,” Solonn responded truthfully, realizing now more than ever just how much he would miss the latios once he was gone. At length, Jal’tai finally let go of Solonn, drifting slowly back from him.

There was sorrow shining plainly through his features… but there was also pride, and it shone brighter still.

“Take care, my boy,” he said softly.

“You are the heart of this city now.” Solonn nodded in acknowledgement.

“You take care, too,” he said, his voice brittle. Jal’tai smiled at him.

“Farewell,” he said. “Farewell,” Solonn returned. Slowly, reluctantly, the latios turned away.

He glided silently over the driveway, stopping to hover above the black car, invisible to all but Solonn, as a human mirage was seen to enter the vehicle by all others present at the scene.

The engines of the two vehicles hummed to life, and they began to move out.

Jal’tai gave one last, wistful look behind, and then followed them away. Through tears, Solonn watched Jal’tai vanish into the horizon.

His predecessor, his mentor… his closest friend had just left his life, most likely never to return.

With Jal’tai gone, Convergence had truly fallen into Solonn’s hands, and he felt the weight of that burden more than ever now that he carried it alone.

As he turned away and entered his new home, he could not help but disagree with some of Jal’tai’s parting words.

Solonn was now the leader of this city.

But he knew that, in truth, Jal’tai would always be its heart.

Discussion Title: Communication (Chapter 11 now up!)
Title Keywords: Communication  (Chapter  up!)  PokeMasters  Forums 



Omgili Home About FAQ Plugins Usenet