The Surprising Adventures of a Glaceon in Unova

Chapter Twenty-Four: Hours of Fun

Black, Cheren, Bianca, and their pokémon entered Nimbasa central station for the fifth day in a row. The large, round station featured twenty-five different platforms with trains to the various cities of Unova. The station was this huge because it made sure any station in Unova was reachable from any other by at most two trains, as every train stopped in Nimbasa at some point. But the platforms that interested the trainers were the five that hosted the Battle Subway. The Battle Subway consisted of several trains were trainers battled while being driven to their destination, so to Black, Bianca, and Cheren, that meant a morning of battling, an afternoon spent picnicking in some new place, and an evening spent battling again, which was great training and fun. That day they decided to try the one platform they hadn't tried yet.

“Sorry,” the conductor stopped them, “this 'ere's a tag battle train. You can only board in groups of two or four.”

“Oh, that's a shame. I guess we-”

“That's no problem, there are four of us,” said a new voice.

They turned around in surprise to greet the new arrival. “Oh, hey White,” greeted Black, “what are you doing in Nimbasa?”

“Just visiting the city.”

Black introduced the others to one another and they boarded the train. They entered a large, mostly empty wagon and the train began riding.

“I guess we should get started with the battle,” said Black.

“Right!” exclaimed Bianca, “I'm with Cheren!”

“What?” Cheren said while Bianca pulled him to the opposite side of the wagon by his sleeve, “but I want to team up with Black!”

Bianca stuck her tongue out at him. “Too late, you're with me now!”

“Then I guess we are a team as well,” said White.

“Great. Let's use three pokémon each,” said Black, “Octa, you're up first.”

“In that case,” Cheren said with a grin, “I'll use Pignite!”

“Then I'll use Oshy to complete our starter trio!” Bianca exclaimed.

“Don't you know anything?” Cheren asked exasperated, “You don't use pokémon that are at a type disadvantage to your opponent's if you can help it!”

“It's just a training battle, and how better to train him for battling electric types than to use him against his other weakness?”

“Training or not, you battle to win.”

“Well, I battle to have fun!”

White cleared her throat. “Rufflet, go!”

The four pokémon looked at one another for a moment, then Octa summoned a Leaf Tornado at Oshy the Dewott, while Pignite encased itself in flames and bashed into Octa. To complicated matters further, Oshy slashed at Rufflet, who performed an aerial swoop over Pignite at the same time. As the battle turned into close combat, Octa switched to using Vine Whip attacks while Pignite used his fists and mass to do the talking.

Boreas was watching the battle intently, but slowly became aware that with each Vine Whip Octa used, Toxica's grin became a bit broader and her blush a bit deeper. Eventually she sighed deeply. “Oh, how I wish he would just sweep me off my feet, wrap me up with his gorgeous green body, and kiss my lips while he's at it...”

“Please excuse me while I go vomit into someone's eye,” said Boreas, quickly moving away from Toxica to go to Lucius and Capella who were sitting a few metres further, chatting with White's pokémon, including, Boreas nervously noted, Febby.

“Hello, non-creepy, non-obsessed people,” he greeted them.

“I take it Toxica was swooning over Octa once again, then?” Capella amusedly asked.

“More like obsessing over him.”

“Don't worry,” Lucius sneered, “I'm sure Octa has eyes for no-one but you.”

“Shut up.”

While Boreas hadn't been paying attention, the battle had continued and by now Octa was the only combatant left standing. “Octa,” Black commanded, “switch out for Boreas.”

“Good luck, my dear fellow,” said Octa as they passed each other.

“Then it's up to you, Liepard!” Cheren said.

“Pansy,” Bianca commanded, sending her Pansear out, “begin by lowering its defence with Tickle!”

White sent out her Vullaby to help Boreas. Pansear lurched at him, but he dodged with a quick roll that led his straight into Liepard's claws. The feline slashed him several times, opening long cuts on his body. As he recoiled in pain, Pansear used the opportunity to grab him and begin tickling his belly. Boreas recoiled and laughed as he tried to wrestle the Pansear off him.

–

Present

“So you're ticklish?” asked Aqua, interrupting Boreas.

“A bit, yeah,” said Boreas.

A diabolic grin slowly spread on Aqua's face. “Oh, you are?” she said in a tone that was as sweet as a caramel onion.

Suddenly she jumped on top of him, placed her paws on his stomach, and started tickling him. He tried not to laugh, but the feeling of her tickling was too much to handle and he burst with laughter while his limbs convulsed uncontrollably. “Hahaha- No, stop it- Heehee- Please- Nononono- hahaha- Okay, stopstopstop, please- hahaha- knock it off, pleahease!”

“Never!” Aqua said, tickling even faster, “I'm going to tickle you to death!”

“Hihihi- pleaheaheahease- haha- stohohop!”

“Maybe I'll be lenient to you if you beg me for mercy.”

“Hahaha, mehehehehercy, please!”

“Percy?” she said with a look of ignorance, “My name's not Percy!”

“Hahaha, mehercy!”

“Do I look like a Percy to you?”

“No, no, hahaha, merceeheehee!”

“I don't think this “Percy” of yours can hear you, so he won't come to save you. You're all mine!”

Realising she wasn't going to show him any mercy, instead he tried to get his convulsing limbs under as much control as possible, grabbed her wrists, flipped her over on her back, and sat on her hind legs. “Ha!” he exclaimed, “we'll see who tickles whom to death now!”

He began tickling her stomach, finding out that she was ticklish too as she began laughing. “You do know you really deserved this, don't you?”

“Hahaha- if I sayayayay yes, will- heehee- you stohohohop it?”

“Not a chance,” Boreas grinned, enjoying this position very much.

“Hahahaha- stop it- heeheeheehee- I gayayave you a fair way ouhout!”

“Okay, I'll stop if you can say 'antidisestablishmentarianism'.”

“Ahahantidisest- ahahaha- Antidihihihi- it's not faihaihair, knock it ohohoff!”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Hahaha- please- hahaha- pretty pleaheahease!”

“Not a chance. I'm tickling you to death!”

“Hahaha- no, mercy!”

“Percy? I don't know anyone named Percy.”

“Thahahahat's mean! Hahaha- knock it off, mehehercy!”

“My name's Boreas, not Percy.”

“Stohohop, Borayayas”

“That's not my name either.”

“Hahaha- I give uhuhuhup. You win.”

Boreas stopped tickling her, and immediately she grabbed him, rolled them over, and said “And now it's payback time!”

But Boreas was prepared for that: he used their rolling momentum to continue rolling and end up on top again. “You were saying?”

She laughed coquettely. “I guess I shouldn't have tried to trick you. Now you really win, you sly fox.”

As she lay there, still panting from the tickle fight, she looked absolutely stunning and Boreas was overcome by an overpowering sense of adoration. “To think that I only met you yesterday...” he whispered.

“Incredible, isn't it?” Aqua whispered blushing, “it seems as if I've known you for so much longer.”

“Yeah... It does.” Boreas slowly leant forward, approaching her face closer and closer as she held her breath in expectation. But when he was only twenty centimetres away from her, he suddenly lost all courage. His nerves made him freeze in place, he blushed so deeply it was a surprise his eyes didn't pop out of their sockets, and he got off Aqua.

Why didn't I kiss her?! He thought, angry at himself, if I hadn't chickened out, I would be feeling her soft lips on mine right now!

But what if she didn't want to kiss me? A voice of doubt inside him asked.

Obviously, she wanted to kiss me, she hasn't exactly made it a secret that she fancies me! And look at the disappointed look on her face right now.

A few seconds passed in a highly awkward silence, and Boreas was deeply jealous of another Boreas in a parallel universe, who was spending those few seconds snogging Aqua instead. But in this universe, the moment had passed and Boreas felt he had to break the silence somehow.

“So... um... when Bianca's Pansear tickled me, it wasn't remotely as much fun as that,” he said.

“Oh?” asked Aqua, somehow managing to put interest, indifference, disappointment, and curiosity into just two letters.

“Yes,” he continued, “because as soon as I began laughing, it gave me a Fire Punch instead and the Liepard scratched me with his claws.”

–

Past

Boreas cringed in pain from the several attacks he was being hit by and his vision was rapidly going black. He concentrated on staying awake and created Powder Snow out of thin air to cool and soothe his wounds. Feeling less dizzy, he took a look at the world around him. His ally had taken the pressure off him by engaging both opponents at once, and though her bone-armour protected her she was clearly about to faint. He formed Icy Wind to envelop both opponents and draw them to him, but once again he was finding the attack was just not direct or powerful enough for his purposes. He tried to concentrate all his cold in a beam, but again, all it did was make his mouth very cold, so he resorted to using Ice Fang on Liepard instead.

Vullaby immediately reacted by stabbing her beak into Liepard's flesh like a knife. Pansear tried to use Boreas' distractedness while he bit Liepard to give him another Fire Punch, but Boreas had expected that, jumped aside just in time, and laughed as Pansear punched his own ally. Using moves from when he was an Eevee, he Tackled the Pansear multiple times, pinned him down to the ground, and allowed his ally to Peck it again. Pansear and Liepard were soon defeated, and Black recalled Boreas as White switched the wounded Vullaby out for Febby. “Boreas, switch out for Toxica.”

Boreas was rather surprised by that, as he couldn't remember a single time when Black had used Toxica other than against Team Plasma. Apparently Cheren was surprised too. “An Oddish, really?”

“This is a training battle,” explained Black as Boreas sat down by Capella and Octa, “and I think it's about time she evolved, so I'm training her.”

“That is weird, now that he mentions it,” Capella mused, “Toxica should have evolved a while ago. I wonder why she hasn't yet?”

Boreas had a pretty good idea of why Toxica hadn't evolved yet, recalling her conversation with Octa where he called Glooms smelly and ugly. He didn't say anything, though, as though Toxica's fawning over Octa annoyed him highly, he still wasn't going to spill her secrets to others.

Cheren sent out his Tranquill and Bianca her Munna to battle Toxica and Febby. They began attacking Toxica, who unleashed a cloud of powder before jumping out of the way, so that her opponents both inhaled a big breath of the toxic powder.

“Excellent!” Octa exclaimed. For once, Boreas was not annoyed by this as he was too bust watching Febby. Toxica turned for a moment to smile and wave at him with one of her leaves, and was immediately punished for it as Tranquill swooped over her and slashes his talons across her face, while Munna was battling Febby.

“Just out of curiosity,” Capella's calm voice whispered, “have you told her how you feel about her?”

Boreas turned in surprise. “Whom? And what am I supposed to feel about her and tell her about?”

Capella sighed. “Look, don't bother trying to hide it, it's pretty obvious and I've seen it often enough.”

“Okay, fine,” Boreas submitted, “no, I haven't told her.”

“I've been in love more times than I can remember, and let me tell you that it's always better to tell her. Sure, she might not return the feelings, but in that case you get over it relatively quickly compared to how long it takes if you never know what she might have said.”

“I appreciate your concern, but just let me deal with it my way, okay?”

After relentless psychic attacks by Munna, Febby collapsed. However, the effects of the Poisonpowder were rapidly becoming apparent: one by one, every vein in the opponents' bodies became clearly visible as it turned black, and their eyes were turning a bloody red while their faces were screwed up in pain.

Before White could even switch Febby out for Vullaby, Tranquill swooped over Toxica, scratching her with his claws. Meanwhile Munna's bleeding eyes glowed and Toxica seemed to be in severe pain. Within moments, she fainted as well.

“Woohoo!” Bianca cheered, “we won!”

“I'm afraid we didn't,” said Cheren, “White still has a pokémon left, and Black only retreated his Servine and Glaceon, they never fainted, so he can use them again, while our last two pokémon are poisoned.”

“Oh,” said Bianca disappointed.

“We could call it a tie,” suggested Black.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Sunset at the Ferris Wheel

“Take a look behind us, my dear fellow,” said Octa.

Boreas did so. The Sun was setting, the lower half of it already disappeared behind the horizon while the upper half was very dim and red. Because they were on Main Boulevard, a broad street that crossed Nimbasa in a single straight line, they could see it even in the middle of the city. “Yes, it's a sunset,” observed Boreas.

“I think it looks really romantic...” Toxica swooned.

“Uh, yes, quite,” said Octa, “but 'tis no ordinary sunset, you see. Today is 23 September, meaning 'tis an equinox.”

“Equinox...” Boreas thought, knowing he'd heard the word before, “That's your ancestor's name, innit? The one your family names itself after, because he was pretty awesome?”

“Quite right, my dear fellow. I am pleased you remember some of my family's history. However, my illustrious ancestor is not the type of equinox I speak of. I mean the astronomical event. You see, twice a year, as the Earth moves around the Sun in its 360 day-long orbit, its rotational axis is pointed at an angle exactly perpendicular to the Sun's direction, meaning the Sun is exactly above the Equator the entire day. Thus these are the only two days of the year when day and night are exactly equal in length, meaning the Sun rises precisely in the East at 6:00, and it sets precisely in the West at exactly 18:00, which is...” he looked at a nearby clock and then at the Sun, “in one minute.”

The last bit of the Sun that was still above the horizon turned into a stripe of red, and then disappeared completely. “Naturally,” Octa spoke, “the equinox is also by definition the conclusion of summer and the commencement of autumn. 'Tis a shame, really, I shall miss the heat and light.”

Boreas grinned. “Well, I shan't. I didn't like the summer when I was an Eevee, and evolving to an ice type really hasn't improved my opinion of it. I have never seen an autumn, but I think I'll like it.”

Lucius uttered a sigh that might have been mistaken for an approaching hurricane. “How long's Black gonna stay inside? 'Till we all died of old age?”

“Have some patience,” lectured Octa, “You do not see Boreas complaining, despite his astounding lack of patience.”

Three people in long coats entered the shop where Black was. “What do I care what Boreas does,” snapped Lucius, “he's probably too mesmerised by your fancy-shmancy talk of the Sun and equinoxes to be bored.”

“Hey!” growled Boreas.

“Equinoctes,” bettered Octa.

“He's been in the stupid egg shop for hours,” Lucius exaggerated, “If he doesn't get out in a minute, I'm goin' in to get him, and to hell with possibly upsetting the newly hatched pokémon.”

“Please do,” grinned Octa. “Go in and have a callow Igglibuff or a beatific Cleffa imprint on you. I can already imagine how much you would like a cherubic little creature with the misapprehension you were its mother following you wherever you went.”

“Hmpf,” Lucius grunted, but he didn't get the chance to say anything else, as there was suddenly sound of commotion inside the shop, and they heard Black's voice calling for their help.

Inside, the people in the long coats had thrown their coats off to reveal themselves as Team Plasma. One of them was just finishing stating their demands.

“I have some better demands,” stated Black as his pokémon entered, “One: you leave here right now, without disturbing a single egg or baby pokémon. Two: you tell me and the police every little bit of information you have on Team Plasma, then you leave Plasma forever.”

The grunts laughed. “Ha, why should we listen to some brat?”

“Because this brat has three badges and will kick your arses if you don't listen to him,” said Black.

“Ha! I'll warn you, brat: Sage Zinzolin authorised us to use any means necessary to liberate these pokémon eggs. We won't hesitate stepping over your dead body if you force us to.”

“And what are you going to do with these eggs?” Black angrily asked, “when you “liberated” my pokémon, I found them back in cages, their injuries not even treated! You shan't steal these helpless eggs!”

“Then prepare to die, brat!”

–

A few minutes later, the grunts had returned their pokémon to their pokéballs after losing the battle. “Uh oh, this is bad for Team Plasma! Or PlasBad for short!”

“Now will you-” Black started, but the Plasma grunts had already thrown smoke bombs.

“Oh no,” Boreas said determined, “not this time!”

He created a fierce Icy Wind, blowing most of the smoke out of the shop. The Plasma grunts were already outside, running rapidly over the boulevard. They began pursuing them immediately, but it almost seemed as if people were intentionally getting in their way, and the Plasma grunts were very fast runners. Unbelievable though it may be, they were getting away. The last glimpse they saw of the grunts in the distance, they entered one of Nimbasa's amusement parks.

Boreas tried to pick up their scent in the amusement park, but between the thousands of human and pokémon scents in the busy park it was like seeking a piece of hay in a stack of needles. It seemed they had lost Team Plasma, but then they saw a human in white clothes with long, green hair. “N!”

N was surprised to see them. “Oh, hello, Octa. Is that you, Boreas? You evolved to a Glaceon, that's great!”

“N, there's no time to talk!” said Boreas, “we're looking for Team Plasma, they ran into the amusement park!”

“Team Plasma, eh?” N smiled, “yes, I saw them run by just now. Come with me.”

They followed N for a while, but it soon became apparent that he'd lost them too. “Are you sure you saw them?” asked Black.

“Yes,” said N, “Let's ride the Ferris wheel and see if we can spot them.”

A large Ferris wheel, at least thirty metres in diameter was supported by a huge steel scaffolding. Eight glass carriages that were attached to the big wheel by their metal frames hung from the wheel and they entered the one that was just at the bottom of the wheel. The doors closed automatically as it began to rise.

Inside the carriage, N spoke: “I love Ferris wheels.”

Black was busy looking out of the cart trying to spot Team Plasma. “Oh, do you?”

N nodded. “The circular motion... The mechanics... They're like collections of elegant formulas.”

Black seemed a bit weirded out. “I... guess they are.”

An awkward silence descended over the cart as it passed its highest point. After a while, N drew a deep breath. “I must tell you... I am the king of Team Plasma.”

Boreas was quite surprised by that remark. It was obviously not meant literally, but he wasn't sure what N really meant by it. A look at the faces of him companions showed the same puzzlement in them. Black smiled a disbelieving smile. “Are you?”

N nodded, seemingly oblivious of the sarcasm. “Ghetsis asked me to work with him to save pokémon.”

“Did he?” asked Black.

“I wonder how many pokémon exist in this world.”

They had reached the ground again and exited the carriage. “I didn't see them, unfortunately,” said Black, “I guess they must be somewhere inside.”

After walking for a minute, they passed and ice cream parlour just as the three Plasma grunts came out of it. They stood still when they saw N and Black. “My lord N!” one of them exclaimed.

“What?!” said Black, “Do you mean you were speaking the truth? The literal truth?”

N seemed insulted. “Of course! Why would I lie? Only dishonest humans lie.”

Boreas' opinion of N plummeted like Icarus with the Titanic tied to his feet. He was completely speechless. “You...” he stammered furiously, “You fancy-dress fascist! Your Team Plasma set me on fire! And that really hurt!”

Black furiously set a step forward as N tried to say something. “You're Team Plasma's leader?” he spat in disgust, “You're responsible for all the things they did?!”

“Team Plasma tried to drown me, and kidnapped baby pokémon and eggs from the daycare!” Boreas accused N.

“Okay,” said N, “I know you and Team Plasma don't always see eye to eye.”

“Eye to eye?!” spat Boreas, “you broke my legs and stuffed me in a cage for a week! You murdered my friend!”

“I know my subjects haven't treated you too kindly,” said N, “but surely you're exaggerating. They would never do anything like that.”

“Exaggerating?! I couldn't walk for weeks! And even after that, it hurt until I evolved! Half my fur was burnt off and I would've been Dragon Pulsed to death if I hadn't got really lucky! And they were directly responsible for murdering Thomas!”

“Enough!” N shouted, surprising everyone, “this is not the time or place to discuss whatever Team Plasma might have done to you. What's important now is my subjects. You are part of the people we brought in to save the pokémon. That means you're under my protection. Go now, report to sage Zinzolin, and I'll cover your retreat,” he tossed a pokéball and released a Tropius as the grunts began running away, “Perhaps I can't beat you here and now, but my battle will allow my subjects to escape.”

“No, it won't,” said Black, “Boreas, battle that Tropius while the others go after the grunts.”

As the others ran past N, he threw four pokéballs at once over his shoulder, somehow managing to have every one land directly in front of one of them. Lucius was blocked by a Krokorok, Capella by a Scraggy, Toxica by a Darumaka, and Octa by a Sigilyph.

They had no choice but to fight the quintuple battle. Fortunately Boreas' opponent was at a severe type disadvantage and he thought there was still a chance to catch Plasma if he finished the Tropius quickly. He created an Icy Wind and enveloped the Tropius in it, expecting to win the battle in a single hit, but the Tropius emerged from the icy cloud grinning, barely even hurt. Boreas was so surprised he didn't even think of dodging when it pounced him and began slashing at his face. He squirmed under the weight of the massively heavy sauropod pressing on his ribcage, but couldn't manage to escape from under it. He could barely even breathe, and was pretty sure his ribs were about to break.

Boreas tried to free himself by summoning Powder Snow to fall on the heavy sauropod, but it didn't seem to care much. It kept slashing at him, which puzzled him, as it didn't even have sharp claws.

“Diego?” he asked, “how in the name of Kyogre's closet organiser did you get so heavy?”

The disguised Zorua was so surprised by Boreas saying his name that he was momentarily very distracted, so Boreas used that moment to scratch at where he hoped the other fox's face was while he kicked him using his legs. To Boreas' fortune, his leg hit something soft with great force and the fake Tropius howled in pain, giving Boreas a chance to wriggle free and envelop his opponent with another icy cloud. When the cloud disappeared the Tropius was gone, and in its place was a small black fox with an agonised expression on his face.

“I thought as much,” said Boreas smugly, “but how did you get so crushingly heavy?”

“I... Have heavy bones,” the Zorua lied between teeth clenched in pain.

Boreas laughed. “That is a blatant lie, and we both know it. Either your bones are made of enriched uranium, or...” he smiled as what he realised was the truth popped into his head, connecting all the dots, “Or you've evolved to Zoroark and are still using an illusion. That's the truth, isn't it?”

The still pained expression on Diego's face made place for resentment, and then the Zorua was gone and a huge Zoroark standing on its hind legs was in its place. Yikes, thought Boreas, he's as large as a human, it's no wonder he was so heavy, “So, you show your true form.”

“You're pretty clever,” said Diego. “I've rarely battled someone whom figured out the fact that I'm a Zorua, much fewer whom manage to deduce that I'm actually a Zoroark now. But that won't help you defeat me.”

Boreas laughed, though he did realise the Zoroark had a point, there was little chance of him defeating his opponent if he didn't think of something. “I guess your master doesn't tell you much about Team Plasma's matters, then.”

“My master?” Diego scoffed, circling Boreas like a predator circling its prey, “I have no master. N is my best friend, and he tells me everything.”

“Apparently he didn't tell you that I defeated three of his Sages using nothing more than my wit,” bragged Boreas, though he mentally added: and an immense amount of luck and a lot of help from my friends. And I never really defeated Bronius. “You don't have the skills or the wit to defeat me.”

“Wit?” Diego scoffed, “I don't need wit to break your spine!”

“See? That wasn't witty at all.”

Suddenly Diego charged Boreas, and as he ran a wave of murk formed around him; it was shaped like a gigantic monstrous maw about to devour Boreas. Boreas froze with fear for just a second before realising it was just an illusion, but that second was all Diego needed to pounce him with all his massive weight, slash a bloody red striped across his chest with his claws, lift him up, and punch him away with a near bonebreaking impact. Boreas landed in a heap several metres away, groaning in severe pain. The battle was beginning to look and feel a lot like a fistfight with a train.

Diego didn't even bother attacking him again, instead waiting for him to rise with mock-gallantry. Boreas managed to get up, groaning in pain. “If he told you- Argh!- everything, that means you must've known he's the king of Team Plasma.” Boreas enveloped his opponent in a freezing cold cloud.

The Zoroark jumped out of the icy cloud, small bits of ice glistening in his fur, and pounced Boreas, whom managed to dodge this time. “Knew it? I was there at his coronation as his chamberlain! And even before that, I have been with N from the very beginning. Without my guidance and friendship, he would never have grown into the man he is now, the man that Team Plasma and all pokémon need.”

Boreas enveloped him in another freezing cloud, but this time the larger vulpine didn't jump out immediately. Instead the white cloud of coldness transformed, became pointier and dark, until it looked just like a gigantic Zoroark's head. As the Zoroark licked its lips looking at him and opened its mouth, Boreas had to remind himself very hard that it was just an illusion, and that Diego was still somewhere in the actual cloud, rapidly freezing. Determined not to panic or drop his cloud, he stood his ground watching for the real Diego even as the huge maw opened up and he could see all the way into the illusion's throat.

Boreas couldn't resist closing his eyes in fear for a moment as hundreds of huge teeth came down, and the real Zoroark used this single moment to pounce him, nearly crushing him as he landed on top of him. After a few more slashes, Diego jumped off. Boreas rolled away and jumped to his feet, and Diego immediately backhanded him across the face, making him do a flip in midair and land on his back with an impact that promised to hurt for weeks to come.

As he lay staring at the sky turning all colours of the rainbow and quite a few outside of it, the dark form of Diego entered his field of view, towering above him with a broad grin. He realised it was absolutely adamant that he kept his distance from the Zoroark, as he didn't stand a chance in physical combat against and opponent twice as large, thrice as heavy, and at least five times as strong as him. Though if he kept his distance it would be hard to deal with the illusions, especially now that his opponent seemed to have latched on to the primal fear of being eaten.

“Had enough yet?” Diego asked.

As the sky returned to dark blue, Boreas decided to keep Diego talking as long as possible to catch his breath back and so that he might have a chance to think of something. “Argh, you never seemed this tough when you battled Octa.”

Diego's smiled broadened. “Evolution can change a lot.”

As his eyes became focused, Boreas noticed some details that showed his opponent to be much less invulnerable than he seemed: thousands of tiny ice crystals glistened in his fur, and there were even ice crystals in his nose and the corners of his eyes. His long pony tail was wrapped around him for warmth and he was slightly shivering. “I guess you're right,” he spoke slowly to stall. “When I evolved, I was losing a battle with a Leavanny, but then-” he looked in open-mouthed surprise at the sky behind Diego, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!”

At the same moment that Diego looked up, Boreas rolled to his feet, exhaled a cloud of cold air, and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the Ferris wheel. He could hear the sounds of the other fox behind him pursuing. At the Ferris wheel one of the carriages was just closing and rising, so Boreas sprinted even faster to jump through the door before it closed. He was a little too slow, so instead of jumping into the carriage, he jumped on top of it instead as it was rapidly going up the wheel. The carriage rocked as Diego jumped too, didn't make the jump, and hung from the edge of the carriage by his front paws. Before the Zoroark could climb on, Boreas stepped on his paws and pushed them off the slippery glass surface. He hit the ground four metres lower and immediately ran to jump on the next carriage.

As Diego climbed on the other carriage, Boreas created all the cold he dared handle and sent it in a wintrous cloud to Diego's cart, surrounding it in a miniature hailstorm. What exactly was happening wasn't visible because the cloud obscured it, but it suddenly rained shards under the cart as the glass had shattered from the intense contrast in temperature between its inside and outside. Boreas knew what was going to happen next and was prepared for any manner of illusionary horror emerging from the cloud.

A phenomenal roar sounded behind him as a gigantic Steelix had popped up there. He startled, not expecting it to come from that side, and slipped on the smooth glass, over the edge of the cart, and barely managed to grab it again. His claws couldn't hold on to the glass very well, though, so he was rapidly slipping away. He took a look down, and saw, aside from the open maw of the illusionary Steelix, the ground already being shockingly distant. He was half up on the wheel, at a height of about twenty metres. He nearly slipped, pushed himself to the left, and managed to grab the metal frame of the cart with a single claw. He climbed back on the cart, this time making sure he kept at least one foot on the metal frame and ignored the Steelix that was doing its best to scare him.

He took a look at Diego's cart and saw the glass had been completely destroyed; it only existed of the seats hanging from the metal frame and all of it was covered in snow and ice. But no Diego. Boreas spotted him climbing from the destroyed cart to Boreas' cart by the rotating frame of the big wheel itself. He was already past the halfway point and rapidly approaching. Boreas created a hailstorm around Diego, hoping to make his paws so cold that he wouldn't be able to hold on any more, while he tried his very best to ignore the terrifying Steelix that appeared to be about to eat the cart and Boreas with it. His instincts were telling him to get away, run away, even jump down, anything to avoid being eaten, though he knew it was a fake. He forced himself to concentrate on nothing but his opponent even when the entire cart disappeared in the gigantic steel mouth. He could barely contain his panic, yet he kept the freezing cloud where he thought his real opponent was.

He was almost happy when the fake Steelix's mouth disappeared as the heavily besnowed Diego jumped on the cart with a great swing. He ducked one massive punch, bit his opponent, and nearly slipped off the cart's edge. He jumped aside from the Zoroark's claw, but now found himself on the cart's corner. He considered climbing down, but the metal frame didn't cover this part of the cart and he couldn't risk it on the glass. Diego's powerful, but icy cold claw grabbed him around the neck and lifted him, cutting off his breath. He struggled, but the Zoroark's grip was too powerful. He tried kicking his opponent again, but since he held him at arm's length he couldn't reach him. Zoroark watched him struggle for breath with a satisfied grin, and for a moment Boreas thought he was going to choke him to death.

The cart reached its highest point where it passed by the steel scaffolding that held the big wheel; Diego, still holding Boreas in his death grip, jumped over from the cart to the scaffolding and climbed up using his three spare paws. Boreas wasn't quite sure what happened next because oxygen deprivation was beginning to black him out, but he felt two lungsful of sweet air enter him at the same moment as something heavy grabbed his tail painfully hard and hung from it. He opened his eyes to tell whatever it was to sod off and go pester someone else, when he saw nothing hung from his tail, but instead it was firmly stuck between two pieces of the metal scaffolding. He wasn't sure he had completely recovered, because for some reason the twilight sky was down and gravity seemed to pull up.

He looked up and yelped when he saw the Earth there. “What in the name of Darkrai's saggy left-” he began, before realising that he was in fact hanging upside down by his tail, almost fifty metres high in the scaffolding. He was dangling over nothing but open air, not a single metal beam in reach to hold on to. When he looked what was up to him, he saw Diego climbing down the scaffolding, back to the wheel.

“Diego!” Boreas shouted, making the other vulpine look up, “you utter bastard, get me down right now!”

The Zoroark looked up to him and grinned. “Or what?”

“Or...” he began, realising there was nothing he wasn't in a position to demand anything, “Or I will fall to my death when my tail slips away from between these beams. You win, just help me down.”

“Not much chance of that, I made sure your tail was stuck so hard it won't let go by itself.” he continued climbing down.

“You can't just leave me here!”

“Can't I? Watch me. That kick you gave me still hurts, so I'm not going to help you myself. Don't worry, though, I'll tell your friends where they can find you.” He jumped on a passing carriage and began going down, then added: “Tomorrow morning.”

Boreas found he couldn't even reach Diego with an Icy Wind, because he was just too far away. Instead he furiously roared every curse and insult he could think of at the grinning Zoroark. Then he tried pulling himself up, but he just couldn't get high enough to reach his stuck tail, which was already beginning to hurt from being clenched between the two beams and from having his full weight hang from it.

He continued roaring insults at the Zoroark, but he had arrived at the ground, much too far away to hear the names Boreas called him, and was walking away from the big wheel with an arrogant swagger. All Boreas' rage and hate concentrated itself in a single ice-cold point in his throat, and when he opened his mouth to call Diego a two-timing troglodyte, a super thin beam of intense cold fired out at high speed instead, striking the distant figure of Diego in the small of the back barely a second later. To his enjoyment he saw Diego fall over, look up at him, and begin to run away like a frightened rabbit instead. Boreas tried to make another Ice Beam, but found he couldn't do it again, no matter how hard he tried.

Diego disappeared from his view when he turned a corner, and Boreas' thoughts turned to how he was going to get out of his current predicament. He saw a few humans get in a carriage down and he tried to get their attention and hoped they would see him. But he soon found that he was virtually impossible to see from the carriages: not only was it dark and would they have to look straight up, but at almost every point of the wheel he would be obscured by the metal frame on the roofs of the carriages.

He had some hope that the operators of the cart would wonder what had happened to the destroyed cart and go investigate the entire wheel, but they just didn't seem to care enough to investigate at night.

Contemplating the stars below him as his tail began aching more and more, he realised two things: he would kill Diego next time they met, and that it would be eleven very, very long hours until dawn.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Of Trapped Tails, Crazy Corvids, and Fencing Friends

Boreas clenched his teeth in pain, as he had for what felt like days by now. He could barely believe the Sun still hadn't risen. How long it was exactly that he had been hanging upside down by his tail, he would know once he finished some final calculations. The previous evening, after some time of just furiously hanging there cursing Diego, he had realised he would need something to occupy his mind and some way to tell the time. So he had tried to recall several things Octa had once told him about the movements of the Sun and stars. He had forgotten most of it, but had the time to work the bits he had forgotten out. In fact that had taken what Boreas was sure was most of the night. The first thing he'd done was to determine the location of the Sun, as he'd been sure he'd need that to tell the time. Since the Sun was obviously under the horizon, he picked a bright star in the constellation Espeon that was just rising in the east, and therefore should be approximately at the opposite side of the sky from the Sun. Thus if he followed the star, he also knew where the Sun was under the horizon. After a lot of time of thinking and calculating while the pain in his tail slowly increased from annoying to torturous, now finally knew the exact location of the Sun under the horizon. It was at an angle of 47 degrees west of the north, and since it moved a full circle every day, it had to move fifteen degrees each hour, meaning it was...

“Eight minutes to nine...” Boreas whispered in horror. He had barely been hanging for two hours and there were still at least nine hours to go before someone would come rescue him. Fury and hate washed over him again like a crimson wave of blood. “Diego, I hate you!” he yelled at the night, “I will cut your gut open and strangle you with your own intestines! I will cut off your toes and tracheotomise you with them! I will castrate you with a train and bury you alive!”

Because of the shouting he noticed his throat was getting dry and he was feeling very thirsty. That wasn't much of a concern now, but in nine hours, he imagined, he would be very dehydrated. He had a splitting headache from all the hanging upside down, and muscles he rarely used hurt, protesting against their sudden, prolonged use to maintain a position that was not entirely uncomfortable with gravity coming from the wrong side. For a moment, he caught himself wishing he had never been born, but he quickly amended that to wishing Diego had never been born. As the constant, throbbing waves of pain from his tail grew a tiny bit worse with each heartbeat, he continued imagining graphic ways to kill the Zoroark.

While he was enjoying the thought of shattering a glass window with Diego's head and then force-feeding him the shards, he suddenly noticed something he hadn't noticed before: as one of the moons passed behind the higher parts of the scaffolding, the silhouette of a Murkrow was clearly contrasted against the pale moon. Boreas couldn't believe his luck to have someone with wings nearby. “Help!” he shouted.

The Murkrow had to have heard him as it was pretty close, but it didn't react at all to him. “Hey! Help me! Hello, Murkrow, look at me, I'm right here!”

The Murkrow didn't even turn around to look at him. “Please, c'mon, you're my only hope! If you don't help me, I'll hang here until the morning, and I'm already in a lot of pain!”

Absolutely no reaction. “Look, helping me won't cause you any trouble at all, it'll be quite easy! You just have to warn someone on the ground that I'm up here, that's all I ask, you don't have to fly me down or anything. I'll be eternally grateful and I'll get you mountains of food! And shiny things, lots of shiny things, you must like those! And anything else you want, you only have to ask and I'll get it for you!”

The Murkrow didn't move a muscle. “Fine! You're just as bad as the guy who hung me here! I hope the same thing happens to you some day!”

Boreas went back to grinding his teeth in pain and fury while he imagined more ways to kill Diego, now occasionally guest-starring a certain Murkrow. After a while, he saw the Murkrow still hadn't moved, which annoyed him to no end. “Do you enjoy watching me hang here?”

“I'm not watching you,” a hoarse voice said.

“Well, well,” Boreas sneered, “it can talk!”

“What can?”

“You!”

“Yes, I can.”

“Why didn't you say anything earlier?”

“Because I wasn't sure if you were talking to me.”

“What? Whom else could I have been speaking to? I even called you Murkrow!”

“That's not my name, and you could've been talking to another Murkrow. After a while, I came to the conclusion that you were talking to me, but then I realised that since you hadn't asked any questions, you probably weren't waiting for answers.”

Boreas wasn't sure whether the Murkrow was being intentionally unhelpful or just insane. “I- What- Never mind. Can you please help me?”

“With what?”

“Oh, I've got this scratch on my back, could you get it for me?”

“Okay,” said the Murkrow, beginning to spread its ragged wings.

“No,” Boreas explained in exasperation, “I was obviously being sarcastic. What do you think I want help with?”

“I don't know,” said the Murkrow, with genuine sounding confusion in its voice.

“Okay, I'll give you a hint: I don't have wings. Yet, I'm here at a height of fifty metres. My tail is crushed between two metal beams and I'm hanging upside-down from it.”

The Murkrow's silhouette shrugged after a long period of deliberation.

“Well, help me down, obviously!” Boreas snapped.

“Don't you like it up here?”

“Let me repeat: I'm hanging upside-down by my bloody tail from a metal scaffolding over a huge depth and it hurts terribly. I have had better times. Will you please help me?”

“Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Great! Fly down and look for a Servine named Octa. He has a posh, upper-class accent, talks like an overacting Shakespearean ham, and walks as if he owns the planet. An annoying Oddish is usually following him around. He's probably looking for me so he'll be in or near the amusement park. Otherwise he'll be in the pokécenter. Tell him where I am and that I need his help. My name is Boreas.”

“Okay.” The Murkrow flew off, leaving Boreas alone yet again, though at least with some hope of salvation now. The pain in his tail was a lot more bearable now that he wasn't faced with the prospect of it continuing for nine more hours and only getting worse. But after a while, doubt began to gnaw at him. The Murkrow had seemed either intentionally obfuscating and unhelpful or a bit dotty. And he didn't even know its name, or even its gender, and its silhouette had looked ragged and shaggy. The more he thought about it, the more he realised what an idiot he had been to send his only hope away so soon. After some more time passed, all his hope for an early rescue had turned to bitter despair, and he tried to find the Sun's position under the horizon again to find out how long he still had to go.

“42 degrees west of the north,” he sighed as the pain in his tail slightly increased to a whole new form of horrible. Still almost nine hours to go.

It is, of course, a well-known fact that time seems to pass at different speeds depending on the situation you;'re in. When you're having a great time with friends, the river of time seems to be approaching a waterfall, rapidly churning at great speed; while if you are bored and have nothing to do, it flows like a river of syrup slowly crawling through a plain instead. When you're hanging by your tail from a metal scaffolding, the river of times has frozen to a glacier: it has not entirely stopped, which is of course impossible, but the movement is so slow that every second seems like an eternity.

Pain kept pulsating through Boreas' tail with every heartbeat. If there' a second between each heartbeat, Boreas thought, I still have more than thirty thousand to go before I'm rescued. At least.

He was beginning to notice another discomfort: he was getting very tired. The hanging was surprisingly exhausting. But, of course, there was little chance he would manage to nap between the pain, the thirst, the unusual position, the anger, and gravity pulling his eyelids up.

“By Jove, 'tis really him! My dear fellow, are you conscious?”

“Octa?” he mumbled, and saw his friend, with the Murkrow, on the scaffolding. “Octa, I've never been so happy to see you!”

“Hang on, my dear fellow,” Octa called, climbing up the scaffolding, “I am getting you out of there.”

“Brilliant choice of words, right there,” Boreas remarked, “why don't you ask me how it's hanging while you're at it?”

When Octa had reached the same height, he extended two vines, wrapped them around Boreas' shoulders and back, and lifted him slightly up, taking most of the weight off his tail. Boreas gasped with delight as the pain decreased by a lot immediately.

When Octa reached the beams were Boreas' tail was crushed between, he sucked air into his mouth with a sort of backwards flute that seemed to indicate it was going to be difficult to help Boreas. “How the devil did you end up in this position, my dear fellow?”

“Diego hung me up here.”

An angry cloud darkened Octa's brow. “How barbaric.”

“Yeah,” Boreas agreed, “now can you get me down from here?”

“'Tis not going to be easy, my dear fellow. First, I shall obviously have to pull you up onto this beam, or you'll fall. Then 'tis likely going to take the strength of both of us to release your tail. I should incidentally warn you: your tail is not a pleasant sight.”

“It doesn't feel too great either.”

Octa held on to the beam with his three other vines and pulled Boreas up with the two wrapped around him. When Octa deposited him on the beam it immediately went black in front of his eyes and he collapsed into his friend's arms as the blood flowed away from his head. It took about a minute before his heart had coped with gravity's new direction and he was as conscious as could reasonably be expected in the situation, so Octa let him go and he held on to the beam by himself. He took a look at his tail. What little of it he could see looked very bad; it was swollen and bloody. Boreas was sort of happy that he couldn't see the part of his tail that was crushed between the beams as, judging by the amount of blood that dyed the beams, it looked even worse.

“Are you ready?” Octa asked as they both got ready to pull the beam apart. They both pulled the top beam with all their strength, but it only moved for a tiny bit. Boreas tried to get his tail out, but it hurt a lot so he pulled the beam harder to make more room instead. Suddenly Octa grabbed his tail and gave it a strong yank, freeing it but causing terrible pain to Boreas as his wounds dragged against the beams. They let the beam go, Boreas cursing in pain. He took a look at his tail and nearly gagged. Most of the skin of the part that had been stuck was gone and it was very swollen. Boreas even thought he saw a glimpse of bone through a particularly deep wound. Now that his blood could flow freely into his tail, without being impeded by gravity and the crushing beams, the wounds began bleeding badly. Boreas suddenly felt very weak and wondered how he was ever going to get down. Octa answered that for him as he wrapped three vines around him, supporting most of Boreas' weight.

“So, where are the others?” Boreas asked.

“We are unsure of Black's location. Toxica and Capella both lack arms to climb with, and Lucius preferred to have me risk my life rather than he risk his.”

Boreas had almost forgotten the Murkrow, sitting on the scaffolding again. “Murkrow! Thank you!”

She (as Boreas was now pretty sure it was a female) looked at him with a quizzical expression. “What for?”

“For saving me.”

“But didn't your friend save you?”

“Yes, but you called him. I have to thank you for allowing me to escape early. What's your name?”

It seemed to be a very difficult question, as she had to think about it for a while. “What about Selene? Yes, Selene will do.”

“Well then, Selene, or whatever your real name might be, if there's ever anything I can do for you, you only have to ask.”

They climbed on in silence as Selene kept sitting on the scaffolding. After a while, Octa smirked. ““Talks like an overacting Shakespearean ham and walks like he owns the planet”, hmm?”

–

Present

“What a git,” said Aqua, “to leave you hanging up there.”

“Yeah,” Boreas agreed, “even if I did kick him in a very sensitive spot, that was just cruel. I'm very lucky to have managed to get out after less than three hours.”

“You were. But did your tail recover completely? Let me feel.” Her soft, strong tail wrapped around his and began rubbing and massaging it. Boreas felt dizzy, almost as if the blood was flowing away from his head again, though a fierce blush proved the opposite to be true.

“No, your tail feels fine. Great, even.”

“Actually,” said Boreas, thinking quickly, “Nurse Death couldn't heal all the damage, if you feel very carefully and take a long time for it, you may feel some damage yet.”

Aqua grinned and winked coquettishly. “Okay, then I'll look for it. While I try to find this damaged spot, why don't you tell me more about the pokémon musical? And I obviously want you to sing the songs for me while you're at it.”

“I'm not sure if- uh- I can concentrate enough to talk sensibly with you fondling my tail like that.”

“Oh, I'll stop it then, shan't I?”

“-No,” Boreas quickly added, “I was wrong, I could easily handle it.”

–

Past

“Aww, don't be such a party pooper,” Bianca whined.

“I will not waste my time on this,” Cheren resolutely stated.

“Since when is having fun a waste of time?”

“In case you forgot, we're on a pokémon journey, and are supposed to be training to beat Elesa. We won't defeat her by wasting our time with this rubbish, we can only win by training on the Battle Subway.”

“Or in your case, on other roller coasters.”

“I told you, I'm not-”

Black interrupted him. “Here's an idea, Cheren: why don't we go see a musical first to see what it's like, and if we like it we can follow Bianca's plan enter our own pokémon into one.”

“Hmpf,” Cheren sighed, “fine. Let's get it over with.”

Boreas felt a sharp pinch in his shoulder as Selene landed there. “Oh, hey Selene. What's up?”

The shabby-looking Murkrow looked at the sky. “Clouds. What are you going to do?”

“We're going to the pokémon musical.” Selene looked at him with a non-understanding expression, though it was pretty hard to distinguish as it was very close to her neutral expression. “It's a sort of theatre where pokémon perform a play and sing and dance.”

She thought about it. “Do you mean they pretend to be other people?”

“Yeah, I guess you could put it like that.”

“I like that idea. Can I come?”

“Sure. Don't pinch my shoulder so hard, though.”

As they entered the large hall of the theatre, Lucius said: “What, we're not taking this loony ol' chicken with us, are we?”

Though Boreas knew Selene was slightly dotty, he couldn't help defending her. She had saved him, after all, and he liked her better than Lucius anyway. “Shut up, Lucius. If you don't like it, stay outside.”

“I'm not a loony,” said Selene.

“You sure look like one to me,” Lucius retorted.

“The one difference between myself and a loony is that I'm not mad.”

Then Lucius did something that Boreas had never seen him do: he gave a friendly smile. It was very small and gone after a single moment, but it was unmistakably there. “Hmpf,” he snorted, “crazy bird.”

–

An hour later they all came back into the theatre's hall, enthusiastically talking about the musical. The story had been about a disfigured Weavile with a beautiful voice who falls in love with a Gardevoir singing in the pokémon musical. Some of the songs had been very good, and the last one was still stuck in Boreas' head. Though the humans couldn't even understand what the pokémon on the stage were saying, they all seemed to like it. Boreas had even seen Cheren enjoy himself. The black-haired human was now arguing with Bianca again, though.

“...And another thing, I thought it was very unrealistic that the pokémon constantly started singing.”

Though Cheren was obviously just kidding, Bianca responded seriously. “But, but, that's the whole point of a musical!”

“Nevertheless, it is completely unrealistic. You don't see our pokémon singing, do you?”

With a cheeky grin, Toxica began singing: “In sleep he sang to me,

in dreams he came...

that voice which calls to me,

and speaks my name.

And do I dream again?

For now I find,

the Phantom of the Opera is there...

inside my mind!”

Though the song sounded not half as good in her squeaky, cockney-accented voice as when the Gardevoir sang it in the musical, Boreas couldn't help joining in: “Sing once again with me,

our strange duet!

My power over you-”

“Yes, yes, I get it, thank you,” Cheren interrupted, “but Bianca, I still say it's unrealistic and silly.”

As they continued arguing, Boreas stopped listening to them. After a while Selene spoke for the first time since the show had begun. “I liked it. The pokémon would pretend to be people they weren't and say things they didn't really mean. Some of them even pretended to be humans! I wonder what that feels like.”

They were about to find out, as Black and Bianca signed their pokémon up for an upcoming musical about the musketeer trio. Boreas was immediately enthusiastic; his mother had told him stories about the musketeers when he was a cub, and he had loved them. So he found himself hoping to be cast in an important role in the casting room. All the pokémon who were going to be in the musical were lined up as a Smeargle who introduced himself as Grigor walked past them. Though most of the pokémon in the line-up would end up in the choir or with a minor role, all except Selene hoped for a major role.

When the Smeargle walked by Boreas he stopped and looked him in the face for a while, making him rather uncomfortable. “Hmm... Intelligent, piercing eyes; somewhat scruffy, Giratina-may-care look; mildly attractive... I think we may have found our Keldeo!”

“Scruffy?!” Boreas exclaimed, “What do- wait, Keldeo? I get to play Keldeo?”

“We'll have to see how good your acting and singing is, first. But if that's fine, then you probably can.”

The Smeargle moved on, but Octa, standing next to Boreas stopped him: “And I suppose you'll wish me to play Cobalion. With my impeccable, noble manners, general excellence, proper pronunciation, and bearing, I couldn't be better for the role.”

“Not really, but maybe I know a better role for you.”

“Ah, Virizion, then. Yes, between my wit, charm, and good looks I suppose I would make an excellent Virizion as well.”

–

A few weeks later, Boreas stood in the spotlight as he sneaked over the stage, a big, feathered hat on his head and his headtails drenched with water and then frozen to form the single horn/sword of Keldeo. A tense silence hung over the theatre, and though they had rehearsed this at least a hundred times and he knew what was coming, he knew he was going to startle.

Suddenly a second spotlight turned on as a single chord was played, showing Octa dressed in a long, black, Victorian coat, a top hat, and a monocle. “Keldeo!” he boomed, “I have been expecting you!”

Boreas looked up to the balcony where Octa was standing. “Count Rochefort, your reign ends here!”

Octa laughed a haughty, chilling laugh as the light spread, showing off the high, Gothic décor as Octa slowly and haughtily descended the stairs. “My dear boy, and who is going to end my reign? Your friends are currently battling my pokémon outside, as you are no doubt aware, and their skill vastly surpassed yours.”

“Your pokémon? You stole them all!”

“I took,” Octa carefully articulated, “what was rightfully mine. And no one, especially a” he sniffed haughtily as he paused dramatically, “commoner like you can stop me.”

“We'll see about that,” Boreas grinned as he saluted Octa.

Octa returned the combat salute and drew a Leaf Blade. “So we shall. En guarde!”

The friends crossed their swords as the choir began to sing a battle song. Since Octa was wielding the Leaf Blade with his hands while Boreas was using the frozen headtails that were attached to his head, Boreas was at quite the disadvantage. He had asked if he couldn't just make a strong icicle like a sword and wield it with one of his front paws, but the Smeargle had been adamant: everyone knew the musketeers fight using their horns as swords, so Boreas would just have to manage.

“Soon,” Octa threatened as he slashed with his blade, “you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab!”

That was not in the script, and the audience wouldn't be able to hear it anyway with the music drowning it out, but if Octa wanted to have some improvised fun with their fight, Boreas would happily join in. “First, you'd better stop waving it like a feather duster!” he responded, nearly hitting Octa with a lunge that forced Octa to jump back with a startled face. “Arceus preserve me, you look like something that's died!”

Octa jumped over Boreas with an impressive salto, swung around, and nearly stabbed him in the back. “The only way you shall be preserved is in formaldehyde!” Octa tried a more aggressive stance, forcing Boreas to take a step back or be hit. “My attacks have left entire islands depopulated!”

It really was a shame the audience couldn't hear their insults, Boreas mused. “With your breath, I'm sure they all suffocated!” he retorted, blocking Octa's attacks and making dangerous ripostes that forced Octa to take several steps onto the stairs. “Nobody has ever drawn blood from me, and nobody ever will!”

“Do you run that fast, boy?” Octa retorted. Now the song was reaching its climax, though, which meant that they had to stop improvising their duel and actually had to move on to the choreographed part.

Octa feinted, getting in a few hits that Boreas made look as if he could parry them only barely, and then it looked as if he was going to lose, as if Octa's next strike would finish him off, but he parried the hit and made a surprising riposte that looked as if it penetrated Octa's heart (though it was actually under his arm) just as the music reached its climax. He withdrew the sword from under Octa's arm, and the Servine clasped his hands to his heart with an agonised expression, actually making the packets of tamato ketchup hidden in his clothes tear open, making it look as if he'd actually been mortally wounded. With overly dramatic acting, Octa fell to the ground as Boreas began singing his part of the song.

“That was fun,” Octa whispered behind him, still playing dead, “we should try fencing more often, my dear fellow.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Great Warrior

Storms raged across Unova throughout November. Every single day fierce winds would howl through Nimbasa, tearing off roofs, uprooting trees, causing blackouts, and generally making the streets a place people didn't want to be. Water as cold as ice, occasionally intermixed with hail, poured down from the sky and made unprotected hands and faces feel frozen after just a few minutes. Rumours that Tornadus and Thundurus had declared war on civilisation were soon abound. After the third week of storms and a couple of gruesome railroad disasters, the Unovan trains were closed down until further notice, meaning Black, Cheren, and Bianca couldn't even train on the Battle Subway any more. They would have challenged Elesa then, but she had no time for it between her job as model and her volunteer work to help combat the many blackouts the storms caused.

The stormy weather was affecting all of Black's pokémon: all except Boreas were completely miserable and depressed in the constant icy rains and were very grumpy and quiet. Boreas actually liked the cold and thought the constant howling winds that seemed to slice straight through the flesh of others and freeze their bones were, in a certain way, delightful and awe-inspiring, as were the constant rolling clouds and the lightning. He didn't like the rain, though, as it drenched him like everyone else. But what was even worse was that he was stuck in the pokécenter. He hated staying in one place for too long, and it was even worse with it being a single building. He often went outside, of course, but the rain would drench him and he had to watch out for things being blown around by the wind. That didn't get him out of Nimbasa, though, something which he was really longing for. Whenever groceries needed to be bought, Boreas would happily get them, as it was better than to be stuck in the pokécenter with his friends while tensions ran higher and higher.

They had also been taking care of Selene. The Murkrow didn't see any problem with flying through the storm for some reason, and had ended up with several broken bones after being blown into a wall. After that, she was still convinced flying through the storm was a good idea, and no amount of logic or injuries could convince her otherwise. So for the weeks after that they had made sure she stayed inside the pokécenter and kept a close eye on her, though she wanted to go outside.

One day, Boreas was fighting the storm with Bianca to get groceries. They had tried letting Boreas get them on his own earlier, but the human clerks' inability to understand him had proved too much of an obstacle, so the humans would now take turns going with him. Bianca was wearing a lengthy raincoat that made the most infernal noises as the storm rattled it. An umbrella might've helped, but every umbrellas in the city had long been destroyed by the mighty winds and they were now usually flying around town like a swarm of metal-and-plastic insects occupying the city, giving the impression that they had gone feral. Boreas found the wind's howling through his fur and ears sort of pleasant. The streaming rain was another matter, though, and he tried to stay in Bianca's wake to keep at least a bit dry. When they finally reached the store, the human and the fox were both exhausted from fighting the fierce winds, and Bianca's face was red from the ice-cold rain. They began picking up what they needed, when they overheard two men talking in another isle.

“...And apparently he defeated Louis before his pokémon even got a single hit in.”

“But that's incredible, how did he do that?”

“Beats me. Apparently the guy was just standing around by the stadium as if the world wasn't coming to an end all around him, and he challenged Louis and all kinds of other trainers to battles. Well, you know Louis, he wouldn't refuse a challenge if his life depended on it, but he was completely steamrolled.”

“Must've been a pokémon master.”

“That's what they say, yeah. He uses some incredibly powerful fighting types, apparently.”

“Y'know, if the weather wasn't this awful, I might seek him out. I'd love to test myself against a real pokémon master.”

“Heh, rather you than me. I don't want my precious Cleffa punched to bits.”

As the two men started chatting about other things, Bianca and Boreas looked each other in the eye, having the same thought. They rushed out of the store, nearly forgetting to pay, and ran back to the pokécenter, dodging a few umbrellas on the way back.

–

“You forgot half the groceries!” Cheren snapped.

“I know, just listen to what I have to say, okay?” Bianca said, taking off her coat. The coat had barely helped against the storm, as she was almost as soaked as Boreas was.

Apparently Cheren noticed this too, as Boreas saw his eyes dart down for a moment before replying. “What is it now?”

“There's a pokémon master in town, and he's a really great master of the fighting type, and he's challenging people at the stadium and he defeated a guy named Louis!”

That got Cheren and Black's attention, and they wanted to know everything from Bianca. Boreas wondered something, so he asked Octa. “Octa, I wonder what a fighting type can really do. Apart from kicking and punching, I mean. They just seem at a bit of a disadvantage to other types like us, who can do stuff like making ultra-cold beams of coldness, spit fire, enter the opponent's mind, be plated with steel, and other useful things like that.”

“You are quite right, my dear fellow. Their fighting style is entirely based on simple physical strength, meaning they are at quite a disadvantage. Especially considering they usually aren't too bright either. When a fighting type encounters a problem it can't solve with violence, it usually tries to solve it with even more violence.”

“Perhaps,” interjected Capella, “if you two are not too busy feeling superior, you'll consider that this is a fighting pokémon master. If he became a pokémon master with the fighting type, that on its own shows he is a force to be reckoned with.”

Octa looked embarrassed. “Mmmyes, quite. I was just about to say that. Besides, my dear fellow, you should be extra careful regardless.”

“Why?”

“Because your type is at a disadvantage to fighting types.”

“It is? Why?”

“Well, ice is a brittle substance, which can be fractured by a powerful punch.”

“Right, I suppose ice is, but I'm not made of ice. I'm made of carbon, just like you.”

“Quite, but you are still an ice type, my dear fellow.”

“Yeah, I am, but since I'm not a Glalie or a Cryogonal, why would ice's brittleness be a concern to me? I'm not made of ice, I just use it for attacks, like most other ice types.”

“Um... Yes, but... Quite, yet... Oh, look, the humans have put on raincoats, it seems we are going outside.”

They asked Nurse Death to keep Selene with her and left the pokécenter. They battled through the raging storm, dodging feral umbrellas flying around. While the piercing cold combination of temperatures just above freezing, streaming rain, and sharp winds didn't bother Boreas too much, he saw all his friends hated it. He had once tried making it less horrible for them by creating Icy Winds in the direction opposite to the storm's, but that had turned out counterproductive: not only was the storm far too powerful to be silenced by him, but the opposing air streams actually fed the winds and made them very erratic, and it cooled the air down even further, turning the rainstorm into a frigid hailstorm. So Boreas didn't try that again this time and just let the storm be.

When they finally reached the stadium, they saw a lone figure stand in front of it. He wore a long white cloak that covered his entire body, including his head, but even with the cloak it was obvious he was a very large, hefty man. He didn't seem to care about the storm, though he had to be drenched and freezing. As they approached the man, a pair of other humans, a male and a female, jumped out of an alley. One of them carried a microphone and the other a camera.

“Hi,” shouted the one with the microphone against the storm, “we're from Unova News Network! Are you going to challenge the mysterious pokémon master?!”

“Yeah!” Black shouted back.

“Which one of you goes first?!”

“I am!” said Black.

Bianca and Cheren didn't seem to mind. “Great! Do you mind if we film your battle?! It may end up on the news, people are longing for news that isn't about the storms and the damage they're causing!”

“If you can film in this weather, that's okay with me!”

“Okay, would you mind introducing yourself and your pokémon and how you caught them real quickly?!”

“Fine! I'm Black from Nuvema Town. This is Octa, I received him from Professor Juniper as a birthday present; this is Boreas, I rescued him as an Eevee when Zangeese attacked him; I caught Lucius here on Route 3; and Toxica and Capella just sort of joined my party out of their own choice. Now can I get to battling?!”

“Yes! Show the world an amazing battle!”

Black walked to the cloaked figure.

“Do you wish to challenge me?!” a voice so loud and deep it could easily have been mistaken for thunder boomed.

“Yes!”

The voiced roared an inarticulate battle cry as the figure entered a battle position and threw a pokéball. A vaguely humanoid form with a big red nose holding two massive stone pillars appeared. The Conkeldurr's muscles bulged like steel cables in its massive arms.

“Toxica,” Black commanded, “you go first!”

The Oddish ran at the Conkeldurr, giving the impression of an ant attacking a tank. As she neared him, she released a cloud of powder, but the rain immediately flushed the spores out of the air. Before Toxica could react, Conkeldurr swung one of its pillars with a move so fast it seemed impossible, hitting her like a golfer hitting the ball, and she was launched off her feet at incredible speed.

Fortunately, Octa managed to catch her, and they exchanged some words before she fainted in his arms. For a moment Boreas though Octa was blushing, but then he realised it was just because of the ice cold rain and wind. Black cursed. “Capella, try to paralyse it!”

Capella didn't listen to Black, however. Instead the gem on her forehead glowed and the storm, instead of raging at random, suddenly obeyed her will and directed all its might, rain, wind, feral umbrellas, and assorted debris, at Conkeldurr. The fighting type was enveloped by the raging storm's energy concentrated in a single point. However, it was obvious from Capella's face that this cost her immense amounts of energy and that she couldn't keep it up long.

The two huge pillars suddenly flew from the concentrated storm cloud, and one of them landed on Capella and shattered into a thousand pieces, instantly knocking her out and returning the storm to its own chaotic will. Black rescued the heavily bloodied and unconscious Dratini from the mass of rubble that had been created around her.

“How many pokémon are we using anyway?!” he asked his opponent.

“Use as many as you want,” the voice responded, “you won't defeat Conkeldurr.”

“We'll see about that,” said Black, “Octa, you're up next!”

Unlike Toxica, Capella seemed to have done some damage to Conkeldurr: several of the umbrellas had given it mean cuts and it looked a bit hypothermic. Perhaps more importantly, it had thrown and destroyed its pillars, so its main weapon was gone.

Capella's attack had forced the Conkeldurr to actually move. So far it hadn't even taken a step, but now it walked at Octa threateningly, seeming to tower over the Servine, even though it wasn't actually that much taller. It was far more massive and muscular, though, and now seemed to radiate with pure might. Octa drew the long, sharp, rapier-like leaf that he used for his Leaf Blade attacks.

Suddenly Conkeldurr showed off its deceptive speed as it jumped at Octa, with a pounce that would surely have crushed him if he hadn't ran at Conkeldurr at the same moment, jumped up, ran two steps over the flying Conkeldurr's back while dragging the point of his Leaf Blade across it, and jumped off behind it with a jump that seemed more flashy than was necessary.

Conkeldurr jumped to its feet immediately with a roar of pain as the metre-long cut across its back began bleeding. Octa was going to say something, but he had to swallow his words as he pressed himself against the ground to duck under a fist like a cannonball aimed for his head. The Conkeldurr tried to step on him, but Octa rolled under its foot, jumped to his feet, and stabbed his opponent in the back of the thigh.

Conkeldurr responded with a mighty roar as it turned around while swinging its arm and backhanding Octa in the face. Octa was launched by the hand's impact, made a big parabola through the air, and landed with an awfully hard impact on the pavement.

“Boreas, take over!” Black commanded as he rushed to help Octa.

Boreas had been thinking of some way to beat his opponent, and had come to the conclusion that Capella had had the right idea when she took control of the storm. It was the only thing around that was even close to the power level of the Conkeldurr, so it made sense to try to use it against it. Of course, Boreas couldn't take control of the storm like Capella, nor would he have even tried to control something so mighty. Instead, he just cooled it down a degree or twenty while still letting it rage to its own will. The storm was already near zero, and cooling it down further only increased its ferocity while the massive raindrops froze and became large hailstones. Between wind speeds now approaching a hurricane's, temperatures far below zero, and hailstones the size of golf balls being blown around at very dangerous speeds, the storm was getting to be very painful for all present, except Boreas to whom it was merely uncomfortable.

Conkeldurr, very red with hypothermia and bruises from the hailstones, pounced Boreas, whom could only barely dodge by increasing the wind speed even further with an Icy Wind to make it so powerful that when he jumped, the wind carried him for nearly ten metres. He immediately followed up with more Icy Winds around the Conkeldurr, catching the creature in a flesh-freezing hurricane of ice and air. Boreas found he was thoroughly enjoying himself. After weeks of putting up with the storms and having everyone go grumpy and depressed because of them, he was now actually getting to make the storm even more powerful. He almost felt as if he and the storm were allies, even friends, though he was quickly reminded of reality when the sharp, frosty skeleton of an umbrella nearly hit his face.

Conkeldurr, now red all over, ran at him. He once again used the winds to get away, but the furious creature kept following him, and soon the unpredictable winds turned against Boreas. Conkeldurr ran at him, fists ready to punch him into submission, and Boreas saw there was no escape from his speedy opponent. Suddenly he had an idea and to his great surprise it happened exactly as he pictured it: all the cold the storm had created in his fur and a lot of cold inside of him all moved instantly to a single point on his forehead and shot off in a hyper-cold beam, shooting between Conkeldurr's legs into the puddle he was about to step into. The puddle instantly froze so that when Conkeldurr stepped on it to punch Boreas, it slipped and fell onto its face (and nearly on Boreas).

“I-Ice Beam,” Boreas stammered in surprise. He immediately jumped on his enemy's back and tried to do the same thing again. This time he hadn't created the Ice Beam out of pure anger, but had actually done it more or less consciously, so he found he could actually do it again this time. The cold drew to a single point and fired another Ice Beam, this time at the top of the long, bleeding cut Octa had left on Conkeldurr's back, right between the shoulder blades. The creature howled in pain and rolled over, slapping Boreas off him with an impact that knocked all air and nearly all sense out of the Glaceon. He was launched into the air and his ribs felt so sore they might've been broken. Boreas flew through the icy cold sky and saw the ground rapidly approaching. Quickly, he increased the wind he was in right now to increase his horizontal speed as he Ice Beamed his landing spot. He landed on frozen puddles, so instead of coming to a painfully abrupt halt on the pavement underneath he kept all his speed as he graciously landed on ice. He managed to turn around and launched himself into the air again with the winds. It was almost as if he could fly now: he would soar over his opponent on the storm winds and graciously land on the ground he had covered with ice first, all the while Ice Beaming his opponent.

Between the wounds Capella and Octa had caused and the fierce cold Boreas was subjecting him to, it was a surprise Conkeldurr didn't give up earlier. After having more and more trouble running after Boreas, eventually his trainer returned him to his pokéball.

“Impressive,” said his trainer, “No-one in this city has managed to do that yet.” A Mienshao appeared from thin air. Boreas was going to use the same technique, but suddenly his body screamed in pain as his new opponent punched him at the speed of sound. The Conkeldurr had been amazingly fast, but this was a whole different kind of speed. He couldn't even see the Mienshao moving, just felt its incredibly rapid fists punch him dozens of times in a single second. His insides felt like they were punched into stew. After a few moments of severe pain, he blacked out.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Electrifying Battle at High Speed

Boreas felt strangely wistful as they passed a pile of destroyed umbrellas. In the week since the endless storms had, in fact, ended, the city had begun a large clean-up action to clear the mess the storms had left. To make recycling easier, the different kinds of rubbish were sorted into piles of their own kind. When the storms had first ended and the Sun had shown itself for the first time in weeks, everyone, including Boreas, had been delighted. However, the Sun had quickly shown itself to be a sorry excuse for a lava lamp in this time of year: it would rise very late in the south east, make a tiny hop along the sky, and disappeared under the horizon very early in the south west. During the short time it was in the sky, it would stick close to the southern horizon, looking pitiful compared to its majestic summer self and providing little light and barely any heat. In fact it was possible to look straight into it with little discomfort. Not that Boreas complained, he actually liked the Sun a long better like this.

Though the sky was completely clear in the days that followed, it was even colder than during the storm. But today, the sky was clouded again. These weren't the dark, rolling storm clouds that had vexed Unova for weeks, though, but thick white clouds that bathed the world in a strange, orange light unlike anything Boreas had ever seen.

Boreas shuddered as he saw the Ferris wheel in the distance and turned his mind to the upcoming Gym battle. Now that he had finally learnt Ice Beam during the battle with the anonymous pokémon master, he was fairly confident they would stand a good chance against Elesa. Octa's skills with the Leaf Blade would be of great use as well.

When they reached the Gym, Black stopped for a moment and looked as if he was going to address his pokémon, then shivered in the cold air and hurried inside instead.

Elesa was waiting for them. "Finally we get to battle again, I've been waiting for this rematch but I won't give that Bolt Badge easily, by the way you and your pokémon certainly look more powerful, I wonder if you can defeat me or if the fantastic speed will leave you dizzy again?"

Black and Elesa sat on the chairs as the roller coaster lurched into motion. "We'll each use three pokémon," said Elesa, "switching out counts as a forfeit, no items allowed, Volta, you go first!"

As Elesa sent out her Emolga Boreas stepped forward, already knowing what Black was going to order. Volta the Emolga launched herself into the air and flew through the Gym on her own. The electric pouches on her cheeks flared and she shot a big ball of electricity into the cart. As the ball approached, Boreas ran and jumped over the cart's edge, avoiding the Thunderbolt. In mid-air, he shot an Ice Beam, freezing the left rail before landing on it. When he landed with his feet on the ice-covered rail, he began sliding rapidly, continually firing more Ice Beams on the track in front of him to make sure it would be covered in ice to slide on as he skied over it. Behind him he could hear the crackling sound as the cart's wheels shattered the ice covering on the rail, but it fell farther behind as Boreas was going faster than the cart.

As he skied over the rail at amazing speed, he almost forgot his opponent. Volta had been utterly amazed at Boreas' action and unable to zap him at first, but now she was coming to her senses and pursuing him. She hit the tracks with several charges, but Boreas didn't feel anything as the ice between his feet and the metal track was a very poor conductor. He was getting the hang of this now, and also finding he could easily increase or decrease his speed by hitting the track with Ice Beams more or less often and so lowering or increasing the friction.

A moment after Ice Beaming the track again, he turned his head to the Emolga who was flying to his left, charging another attack, and shot an Ice Beam at her. He didn't have time to see the result, as he already felt friction on his feet increasing, but he heard a loud squeak of pain.

He took another look and saw the Emolga plummet down helplessly, unable to fly because the Ice Beam had hit her right in the chest and frozen her pectoral muscles. She disappeared as Elesa returned her to her pokéball; a flash of light in the cart showed another pokémon being switched in as Boreas reached an uphill part of the track. Fortunately, his speed was great enough that he slid up it, but he had to Ice Beam the tracks continually to do so. When he reached the top of the uphill part, he began regaining the speed he had lost.

Before he could take a look at his new opponent, he felt a sharp yank on one of his legs and a painful shock went through him at the same moment. A thin, sticky, sparking wire had caught around his leg and more of the same kind of wire were being shot at him by the Galvantula. He sped up further and hit it with a few Ice Beams, but unlike his squirrelly ally Galvantula didn't have such easily exploitable weak spots. Another electrifying wire ended up around his tail, and then one around his neck.

Suddenly Boreas' momentum became a horrid disadvantage as the wire around his neck nearly garrotted him. More wires stuck to him, making his muscles convulse with the shocks they received, and pulling him off the tracks. After a fall, he hung from the wires sticking to him and began to black out from the pain of the increasing shocks and the garrotting wire around his neck. He looked between the spots dancing in front of his eyes and saw he was hanging from Galvantula by Electroweb, whom was hanging from the coaster by a single wire. Trying his hardest to keep his shocked muscles under control, he fired two Ice Beams: one at the wire Galvantula was hanging from and one at its bum. The first Ice Beam severed the wire, sending them both into free-fall, and the second disabled his opponents spinnerets.

Without his weight making the wire around his neck strangle him, Boreas could breathe freely. He formed a fierce Icy Wind to blow both free-falling combatants to a lower piece of the track, and then created Powder Snow there to soften his impact. The impact on the snow still knocked the air out of him, but Galvantula, who hadn't had such a soft landing, looked much worse.

The spider jumped on top of him and sunk his mandibles into Boreas' flesh, sending massive shocks through his body while Boreas used the opportunity to fire a lengthy Ice Beam directly into his face. Shocking and freezing each other, both in severe pain, it was only a matter of who would give up first. It turned out to be Galvantula, as his shocks became weaker and weaker and then completely stopped. Boreas carefully pushed the spider off of him, cringing in pain as the two mandibles left the deep wounds they had created. Elesa was at the moment far too distant to see that her pokémon had fainted, so Boreas used the time to start skiing on the tracks again and built up some speed. He was wounded, tired, and still sparkling with electricity, but perhaps he could tire the final opponent so it would be easier for the next pokémon to beat.

Since he was very low in the Gym, it wasn't easy to start moving rapidly again, but eventually he managed to build up a lot of speed. As he skied over the roller coaster tracks again, he heard the sound of hoof beats behind him. A Zebstrika was rapidly catching up, running at incredible speed over the black platform the tracks were resting on. Boreas tried to hit it with Ice Beams, but when he tried it would form a lightning spark right in the way of the Ice Beam, parrying the attack. A moment later it was running next to him, sending the same sparks arcing through Boreas, who countered by enveloping both of them in an icy cloud of frostiness and Ice Beaming his opponent's legs, trying to make it trip.

But it was too nimble, its legs easily dodging Boreas' Ice Beams, so he used them on its body instead. Then it stopped sparking him, and both were engulfed in flames. Boreas howled in pain as the horrifyingly warm flames embraced him, circling around and searing. He jumped off the tracks, away from his opponent and the flames, and landed on a far-away piece of track thanks to his great speed. A moment later, he heard the heavy hoof beat of Zebstrika next to him as it completed the same jump. He saw something that gave him an idea, but he was going to have to endure the Flame Charge for a while.

Burning flames enveloped him once again. He didn't even try to hit his opponent now, instead resolving to use his powers to keep himself as cool as possible and to combat the flames. The track rapidly curved upwards, and the platform curved along with it. It went steeper and steeper, then vertical, and only centrifugal force kept the zebra and the fox from falling out of the loop. When they were upside-down there was a terrifying moment when Boreas's feet left the track, and for that single moment he was sure he'd fall and break his neck. Then his feet touched the loop again as it curved down, and moments later they moved horizontally again.

Boreas realised timing would be vital to his plan and glimpsed between the searing flames embracing him to time it right. He mentally counted down, then took a big jump. He heard Zebstrika follow him and smirked as he neared another part of the track. A moment before landing, he created a fierce Icy Wind that blew him just aside from the tracks. He fell into the black depths under it as the confused Zebstrika landed on the tracks. And was promptly hit by the cart coming the other way.

Boreas landed relatively softly on the cushioned Gym floor under the roller coaster. After a moment, Boreas realised he'd won the battle on his own and cheered.

-

A few minutes later, as they left the Gym, the entire team was cheering for him and praising him. Basking in their adulation, Boreas didn't even notice the world outside had changed completely until he'd taken a few steps outside. Everything was a bright white now, not just the clouds, as it was all covered in a thin layer of snow. The snow was rapidly getting thicker as more fell from the sky. Boreas was amazed and delighted. He had, of course, seen snow before, but only snow he had made himself.

-

Present

"...To see it snowing naturally was pretty amazing."

It was late evening by now, the sky had gone black and littered with hundreds of stars. Only the smallest moon was up, so it was very dark; but Boreas didn't mind, as he and Aqua were lying very close to each other and holding paws. Boreas felt incredibly happy and incredibly in love. Butterfrees flew around in his stomach next to the fish they'd caught earlier that evening. Or rather, Aqua had caught fish while Boreas splashed around clumsily in the water getting nowhere close to the figh. Fortunately she had shared the fish she had caught with him.

"D'you know what's even more amazing?" Aqua asked, "you, defeating a Gym Leader entirely on your own! That's awesome. Unless, of course, you were just bragging?"

"No, every words I said was the truth. I was amazed by it myself, actually, I had never expected that. The rest of the team was amazed too, I was their hero for days to come."

For a while they just sat there enjoying each other's company, but then Aqua stood up. "Well, it's getting late, so I guess it's time to go."

Boreas didn't want to go. So far, he'd had one of the greatest days of his life and he didn't want it to end. "But... What about the rest of my story? We're nearing the end, so it won't take that long any more."

"That's all the more reason not to tell it now, it'll give us an excuse to meet again tomorrow," Aqua said, making Boreas' heart jump with joy, "Unless you don't want to, of course."

"No, no, no," Boreas quickly assured her, "I do want to meet you tomorrow. I'd love to."

"Great, see you then!" He saw a flash of movement in the dark and heard splashing in the water. He dreamily thought about how great the day had been. Spending the whole day with Aqua, talking to her, flirting with her, tickling her... He sighed as he remembered it. After a few minutes a worrying thought surfaced, though: Now, how am I going to get back?

The rocks the beach was located between were far too steep to climb, and he certainly couldn't swim all the way home. "Aqua?!" he called, "Are you still here?! I need some help!"

No answer. In that case, Boreas figured he'd just have to swim and try to find a way up the banks as soon as possible. He walked into the frigid water, blacker than the night itself, and began swimming along with the current. After a few seconds in the water, he suddenly felt something brush by his feet, and wondered what kind of horrible water creature was going to eat him. Calm down, he told himself, it was probably nothing worse than a Magikarp or a Goldeen.

Suddenly something grabbed his leg and pulled it down. Blind panic grabbed a hold of Boreas as he began struggling like a madman to escape. Then he suddenly felt a pinch on his left buttock and calmed down. "Aqua? That's you, isn't it?"

A shapely silhouette surfaced next to him. "Aww, how'd you know it was me?"

"Because you also goosed me while we were catching fish."

"I told you, a fish bit you."

"Once maybe, but twice? You're as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo. Anyway, that wasn't funny, you scared me half to death!"

"I'm sorry, it was just too funny not to do that."

"Just help me swim back, okay?"

"Aww, can wittle Boweas not swim fow himself?" she said in a mocking kiddie voice.

"C'mon, you know I'm a worthless swimmer."

"What's the magic word?"

"Please, can you help me swim back?"

"Okay. Hold on tight."

She came close enough and Boreas put his arms around her. Feeling her so close to him, a wave of affection washed over him and he immediately forgave her mean prank. He let his head rest on her shoulder as he began stroking her ears. He felt dizzy with love and almost began kissing her neck, but she said: "Stop. At least, for now. That's all very distracting, and we'll end up swimming into a rock if you keep it up."

They swam on in silence as Boreas stopped distracting her, just enjoying the physical contact instead. They reached Driftveil far too soon for Boreas' taste. When they reached the shallow water by the pier they had met at that morning, Boreas' feet touched the ground and he let go of Aqua.

"Well, see you tomorrow," said Aqua as she began swimming off.

"Aqua, wait!" Boreas stopped her.

"Hmm?" she turned around to face him. With the city's dim ambient light illuminating her face and her eyes reflecting the stars, she looked more gorgeous than she ever had. Boreas knew he had to say it now or his head would explode.

"I'm..." he hesitated, then drew a breath and continued, "I'm in love with you, Aqua. You're the kindest, most lovely, charming, awesome girl I've ever met. You're the most pleasant company I've ever been in, and you make me feel warm and dizzy just by thinking of you. When you touch me, it's like..." he struggled to find the right word and gave up, "I'm sorry. I just can't express it in words, because words that describe what I feel for you just don't exist."

Aqua had slowly been approaching him closer and closer while he talked; her face was very close to his now. "Try..." she whispered, "expressing it without words."

Boreas decided to do so. He closed the last bit of distance between their faces, interlocking their lips in a passionate kiss. He closed his eyes in delight. It was as if all the happiness and joy he had ever felt was repeated five times within a single moment. The warm feeling of love filled his entire body as if he had his own private Sun burning within. After who knows how long, their lips slowly parted as they still sat in the shallow water embracing each other. They didn't say a word for minutes. Then Aqua whispered: "Yes, I feel the same way." She slipped away from Boreas' arms as she disappeared under water.

Like I said before a good story.

Part Five: Where the Past Meets the Present

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Chapter Without a Title

Boreas sat in the shallow water in a blissful daze. He had no idea how long he sat there and not a single thought went through his mind. He just stared at the stars' reflection in the water, still feeling the wonderful feeling of Aqua's soft lips caressing his. His heart pounded like a drum in his chest and he was happier than a mouse in a cheese factory. Happier, in fact, than he had ever been before.

After an unknown period of time, he finally reacted: he began laughing. A merry, happy, loud laugh at nothing in particular. Still laughing, he lay down and was surprised when water suddenly washed over his face. In fact, he noticed he was sitting in water.

"How'd this get here?!" he exclaimed in surprise. Then he suddenly felt really stupid. "Oh, yeah."

He felt like an idiot, but didn't care as he was a blissfully happy idiot. He stood up and walked up the shore. He couldn't contain his happiness and started skipping like a little girl instead of walking. As he skipped through the city, he saw how incredibly beautiful the world was. The stars gleamed, the houses and street tiles had beautiful geometric shapes, the street lights? light brightened his mood even further. Everything he saw, even a wad of chewing gum stuck to the street, seemed gorgeous to him, though none of it even came close to Aqua.

He was filled with joy at everything, and began singing out loud as he skipped on: "Don't stop me now,

Don't stop me,

'Cause I'm having a good time, having a good time!

I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky,

like a tiger defying the laws of gravity!"

He randomly hugged a street light as he skipped on, "I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva!

I'm gonna go, go, go, there's no stopping me!

I'm burning through the sky, yeah!"

He skipped into the pokécenter, still singing. "Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me mr. Fahrenheit!

I'm travelling at the speed of light, I wanna make a supersonic man out of you!"

He stopped in front of Octa, whose left eyebrow seemed to be trying to escape off his face. "Quite..." said Octa.

Boreas was overjoyed to see his friend again and immediately embraced him. "Octa! My dear friend, I'm so glad to see you again!"

"Um... Yes, quite..." Octa stammered, "I say, are you drunk, my dear fellow?"

"Only with love, Octa! I kissed her! She kissed me! We snogged, osculated, smooched, made out! Whatever you want to call it, the result is the same: we kissed." He sighed. "I love this planet."

"Quite, you can let go of me now."

He did so and sat down, sighing in love, "D'you know why I love this planet so much? Because I share it with her!"

"It sounds like you had quite the pleasant day then, my dear fellow?"

"Pleasant?" Boreas scoffed, "it was by far the happiest day of my life. Oh, Aqua, Aqua, Aqua, I love each one of your sixteen tiny toes!"

Octa smiled. "Truly, as the Bard wrote, "Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;

Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in a lover's eyes;

Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:

What is it else? a madness most discreet,

A choking gall and a preserving sweet," but alas, my dear fellow, I fear I must darken your bright day with a piece of bad news: Black is quite angry with you."

Boreas didn't even feel the least bit troubled by it, "Is he?"

"Yes, he is. You see, 'twas his intention to spend the day training for our approaching Gym battle, and he was quite displeased by your absence."

"Too bad, I guess. Where's he now?"

"Sleeping, as is the rest of the team. 'Tis quite late, you see. In fact, 'tis so late you might soon say 'tis quite early. I decided to stay awake and read in order to have a chance to welcome you back."

"Cheers, that was nice of you. Anyway, did I tell you we kissed yet?"

"I believe you might have mentioned it at some point."

"Well, it was delightful. And you know what's almost as great? I'm meeting her again tomorrow!"

"I'm afraid that may be a slight problem. Black's intention is to use tomorrow for training as well, and I really don't think you should disappoint him on two successive days."

Boreas' mind weighed the needs of his human friend against the chance to spend the whole day with his lovely Vaporeon girlfriend. He didn't need to hesitate about his choice for a second. "Well, I guess I'll have to disappoint him anyway."

"I had really rather you didn't. After all, you are still a member of our team, and our battle against Clay takes place a week from now. Besides, the day is long enough for both training and dalliance with your dearly cherished paramour. You could train with us in the morning and afternoon and spend the evening with your leman."

Boreas had a better idea himself. "Okay, I'll train with you until late afternoon. I'll just need to tell that to Aqua tomorrow morning and ask her to come back later." Actually, I'm just going to leave with her tomorrow and face your wrath in the evening.

"This morning, you mean. 'Tis already past midnight, my dear fellow. Speaking of, I am off to bed, and would suggest you do the same."

Boreas laughed. "You think I could sleep after today?"

"I wouldn't know. But I don't see what else you could do for the whole night, so pip pip!"

Boreas and Octa were walking through the corridor of the pokécenter's second floor, when Boreas' heart suddenly overran with joy and he just couldn't keep it inside any more: "I just kissed the most beautiful girl in the entire world!"

"Yes, you mentioned that. Now hush, my dear fellow, decent people are attempting to sleep."

-

Boreas awoke slowly from the latest in a series of delightful dreams. He had half a mind of going back to sleep and try to get back into the dream, but then he realised the real world was even better than dreams because he would get to spend an entire day with Aqua again.

As he had breakfast with his friends and received some minor talking to from Black, he felt a bit guilty about lying to them all. Not nearly guilty enough to change his plans, though. He now mainly found himself nervous about the prospect of meeting Aqua and barely ate a single bite. After a while he excused himself to go tell Aqua to meet him in the evening.

When he reached the pier, he saw she was already there waiting for him, lying on her side on the shore, stretched out and a paw on her wide hip. She smiled at him and arched an eyebrow as his mind just blanked completely and he stood in place, unable to move. He was aware he was staring at her with his mouth slightly hanging open. Any guilt he might have felt about lying to Octa and the others was melted away like snow in front of a burning-hot blue Sun.

Aqua's smile broadened when she saw the effect she had on Boreas, making him fall even further under her spell. He tried to walk and talk but found his body had forgotten how to do either of those things. He moved his midriff, contracting his lungs into unleashing a blast of air through his windpipe. He moved his vocal cords when the air reached them, and then used his tongue and mouth to further shape the words. "H-hi. You look..." Boreas tried to think of a word that described her right now, but eventually settled for the understatement "Gorgeous."

He clumsily walked in her direction. "Thanks," said Aqua, "I know I've already said this, but blushing like that makes you look very cute."

Boreas tried to say several things, but couldn't manage to spit any of it, except "..." out. Calm down, he thought, I should be more at ease with her now, not less!

"What's the matter?" asked Aqua as she got up and closed the distance between them, "lost your tongue?"

She kissed him, immediately melting Boreas' nervousness down into pure happiness. As their lips parted, she said: "No, it's still there."

"Sorry," Boreas giggled, "you just knocked the words right out of me. Let's go somewhere."

Aqua questioningly arched an eyebrow. "Where did you have in mind?"

"What about the forest north of the city?"

"Okay," she said in her most charming voice.

As they walked through the city, talking about nothing much at all, Boreas noticed the way they were going would pass by the pokécenter and stopped. "We should take an other way. You see, I told Octa I would train for the Gym battle with him and the rest of the team today, so I'd rather they don't see me sneaking away with you."

"Well, why don't we combine the two?" Aqua asked.

"What d'you mean?"

"I'll come with you and train with you. We can have a bite to eat first and then I can be your sparring partner."

"I don't know..." said Boreas, "I don't want to hurt you."

Aqua laughed a deliciously mirthful laugh. "What makes you think I'm the one you should be worried about? But don't worry, I'll go easy on you."

"Simple type advantage won't help you defeat me, love. What makes you think you can beat me?"

"For one, I'm much faster." She poked Boreas' side and sprinted off.

"Hey!" Boreas pursued her, "I'll get you!"

She was surprisingly fast for an aquatic creature on land, yet Boreas caught up to her as they passed in front of the pokécenter. He pounced her tail as soon as she was within reach, grabbing it and colliding with her as she came to an immediate halt. They rolled over a few times because of their momentum, and Aqua ended up in a sitting position with Boreas' head in her lap.

At that moment, the pokécenter's door opened. "Ah, my dear fellow, I see you're- Please, my dear fellow, do you think it wise to do this in public? Continue your amorous activities in a more private setting like a civilised person, I beg you."

They both stood up, blushing heavily. "It's not what it looks like," said Boreas.

"Yeah," Aqua reassured him, "I just joined Boreas to help with his training."

Octa arched an eyebrow. "I have never heard it call that before."

"Look," Boreas pointed out, "she just came here to be my sparring partner."

"Yes, I can see she wants to be your "sparring partner.""

"I invited her to come."

"Ah ha," Octa's grin broadened

"To come here to eat and train."

"Eating, you say?"

"Stop it!" Boreas snapped, "You're misunderstanding me on purpose."

"Misunderstanding you? I think you are making yourself transparently clear."

Boreas had had more than enough of Octa. "Blow me."

"Ask her."

-

A while later they were training on a field of grass. Black had tried to capture Aqua once again, but this time a simple threatening look from Boreas had put the idea out of his mind. As much as Boreas would like Aqua to join the team, he certainly didn't want to have her forced into it.

Now he stood opposite Aqua, feeling more ready to kiss her than to attack her. Aqua didn't seem any more ready to fight.

"Pip pip!" Octa, training against Capella, said, "let's see what attacks you can do. Besides the obvious Attract, I mean."

"And Lovely Kiss," Boreas added with a grin.

"Fine, you want to see what I can do?" Aqua asked. A concentrated wave washed over the grassy field to Boreas. He tried to get out of the way, but the wave flowed over him, doubled back, gripped him, and began gyring around him like a maelstrom standing up from the ground. He expected to sink at any moment, but though he was stuck in the middle of the vortex it held his head above the water. He tried to move, but the rapid current swirling around him forced his limbs close to his body. He struggled against the vortex's powerful grip, but couldn't move.

Aqua's head surfaced just in front of him, grinning and apparently unaffected by the raging currents. "Well?" she asked, talking with her mouth a bit further open than was necessary and her tongue seeming to beckon Boreas, "who's in danger of hurting whom now?"

Boreas moved in for the kiss, bringing his head closer to hers, but found she was just outside his reach. He could come to within five centimetres of her, but no matter how he struggled against the water, that was as far as he got. He suddenly understood what Tantalus felt like. Aqua grinned. "Cruel and unusual," Boreas complained.

The current stopped and the column of water that gripped Boreas immediately fell to the ground with him in it. The remnants of the wave passed through a bush of flowers, and Boreas immediately chilled it down, freezing the flowers and snapping them off with an Icy Wind. The beautiful ice flowers scattered around Aqua.

"Watch out," Boreas said with a grin, "they're sharp."

As Aqua was more or less stunned in amazement at the beautiful ice flowers lying around her, Boreas decided to lower her defences with Tail Whip. He turned around and wagged his tail at her as she began humming a song. Boreas stopped in embarrassment as he realised it was "shake your booty."

"Aww," Aqua whined as he stopped, "I liked that move."

She formed another wave and trapped Boreas like she had earlier. But when her pretty head popped up out of the water, Boreas was prepared for it: he froze part of the water behind him, thus shielding him from the current for a moment. He used that moment well: he put his arms around Aqua and held her tightly as their lips found each others'. In the tiny, distant corner of his mind that was not occupied with the supreme joy of kissing Aqua, he was vaguely aware that the column of water had disappeared and they were now lying on the ground.

"I say," Octa sighed, "you two really do have a one-track mind, don't you?"

Boreas paid him no attention even after they stopped kissing. "Jealous, Octa?" Lucius scoffed, "Don't worry, I'm sure it's just a phase he's going through, I know he loves you more."

"Be quiet," said Octa.

"Yeah, I'm sure of it. Just- Aargh!" he yelped as Selene knocked him over with a Wing Attack, "you crazy bird, can't you see I was talking?!"

As Lucius and Selene continued their training, Boreas had stood up off Aqua and helped her to her feet. Aqua stretched her back, and Boreas just couldn't keep his eyes off her as she arched her gorgeous body. For what was the fourth time that day already, Boreas felt as if he was melting.

He was snapped out of his mesmerised stare by a sharp poke in his ribs. "Avert your eyes, my dear fellow," mumbled Octa, "'tis impolite to stare. Besides, I would like to have a word with you in private."

After excusing themselves and walked a few streets away, Boreas asked what the matter was.

"I want to warn you," said Octa.

"About what?"

"About Aqua. No, hear me out. I want to implore you not to allow love to regulate your thinking. 'Tis never wise to let your emotions think for you, but love is especially dangerous, because 'tis such a powerful emotion. What's more, I'm not sure I like Aqua."

While Boreas figured Octa was at least partially right about the first thing, he didn't like where the conversation was going. "What d'you mean?" he growled.

"I mean she acts..." he paused to look for a word. "Improper. Unladylike."

Boreas laughed. "I know what you mean. You mean because she takes initiative and shows me she likes me as much as I like her. But that's one of the many things I really like about her, I'd rather have her than a girl who acts what you would consider "ladylike." But don't worry about the other thing. You know me, I'm not stupid."

"I know you aren't, but you are... Careless. Impulsive, chaotic, unwise. I merely implore you to be cautious, my dear fellow, because I know what you're like when you're not enamoured, and I know being smitten with another shall only increase those qualities."

"Fine, fine, I'll be careful, now let's go back."

Amazing simply amazing

Bow to the sig made by DarkNinja! Mwahaha!

^Thanks.

Chapter Thirty: The Road to Driftveil

Aqua hummed contently as Boreas gently rubbed her stomach. They were in a clearing in the forest where they had gone to watch the Sun set. "You really shouldn't have overeaten so much," said Boreas, "if you had eaten like a normal person, your stomach wouldn't hurt right now."

"I know, I know," said Aqua, "I just wasn't used to there being so much food and not even having to do anything for it., so I couldn't help myself. Normally I have to catch a fish when I'm hungry and am out . Though if I hadn't eaten so much, you wouldn't be rubbing my belly right now, so I'd say it was a pretty good idea, actually."

Boreas chuckled. "Heh, for you, perhaps."

Aqua gave him a sceptical look. "Don't kid yourself, we both know you're enjoying this about as much as I am."

"Yeah, you're right. I do enjoy rubbing your cute little tummy like this."

After a while, Aqua said: "My love, could you tell me the rest of your story while you continue? I'm curious to the last part."

"Sure. We wanted to leave Nimbasa quickly after winning the Bolt Badge to go to Driftveil, but because it was now snowing and cold we had to buy winter clothing for all of us first. Well, except for me, of course. I'd say the results were mixed: Octa looked quite good in his long Victorian coat and cloak, and Lucius' leather jacket looked okay, while Capella looked like she was fearing a giant, frilled sock and Toxica looked like an egg in its egg warmer.

When we finally left the city via Route 5, Selene came flying after us and landed on Lucius' shoulder, and though Black tried to tell her she should stay in Nimbasa because she wasn't a member of the team and it was dangerous, she just didn't seem to understand. Or she just played stupid, it's always very hard to tell how much of her strange behaviour is genuine and how much is an act. Anyway, the result was that Black yielded and we had to return to buy her clothes too, but because she chose them herself she ended up in a bizarre abomination that might've started its life a particularly hideous rainbow-coloured cake before it was thrown out of the cake shop for its tacky garishness, hollowed out, and found a new life as a sort of loose poncho-dress-toga-like thing. At least it kept her warm while still allowing her to fly.

Anyway, we soon battled through the icy, snow-covered forest of Route 5...

-

Past

"...And soon they battled through the eternal ice fields of Antarctica, a barren wasteland of ice and snow where temperatures are twenty degrees below zero even in summer. Yet the prospect of being the first people ever to reach the South Pole made both expeditions continue their journey through a climate in which exposed flesh can freeze within minutes, a climate where even fire types can't survive long. And the wind always blows at speeds approaching a storm's, for there is not a single tree or building on the entire continent to slow it down. 'Twas perhaps the greatest challenge in all exploration, to cross the harshest, most inhospitable of all continents to reach the southernmost point of the planet."

"I don't know," said Boreas, casually walking on top of the thick layer of snow the others where sinking into with each step, "it sounds like a lovely place to me."

"To you it does, perhaps," Octa spoke, walking on up to his waist in snow. If he hadn't been wearing his warm coat and cloak, he would probably have frozen to death days earlier. "But just imagine the strain on two teams of human and pokémon explorer, none of them ice types. The first part of the journey was the easiest for both teams, as they were not actually on mainland Antarctica yet, but on the Ross ice shelf, an entire sea so bitterly cold it has been completely frozen into a thick ice shelf for millennia. Yet, even though the ice shelf was visually indistinguishable from the main land, the climate is comparatively mild because of the vicinity of liquid water, which can store a lot of heat. There were no mountains on the ice shelf either, as opposed to the main land, where they would have to cross several frozen mountain ranges. In fact-"

"Octa," Capella interrupted, "could you please talk about something else? Something that doesn't involve the polar regions or an entire expedition freezing to death, I mean. It's cold enough on its own."

Boreas thought the frozen, snow-covered forest they travelled through was a paradise, but had stopped mentioning that to his companions as it tended to turn them very grumpy. He seemed to be the only one who liked the wintrous cold. The others all sank into the snow to various depths with each step, while Boreas walked on top of it by locally freezing the snow under his feet with each step into ice so cold it became hard as rock. He had tried helping his friends the same way, but the ice he created this way was so cold it severely hurt their feet.

"Of course," Octa conceded, "you're quite correct; tales of Antarctic exploration are hardly an appropriate subject in these temperatures."

"I wonder," croaked Selene, sitting on Lucius' shoulder, "what happens when you're on the South Pole and you go south."

"Well, one can't," Octa explained. "The South Pole is the southernmost point of the planet, one can only go north from there."

"I know," said Selene, "but what happens if you do go south?"

"'Tis an impossibility, one cannot go south from the South Pole."

"But where do you go if you do?"

"Look, that is an impossibility, for the South Pole is, by it's very definition, the very epitome of southness, the place that one going south always approaches closer by its very definition. Once one has achieved a distance of zero to the pole, i.e. one is on the South Pole itself, it is therefore impossible to approach it even closer, and therefore impossible to go further south. "South of the South Pole" is a meaningless phrase, like "more than a hundred percent chance", "colder than absolute zero", or "before the Big Bang.""

"What's wrong with any of those things?"

"They're-"

Capella interrupted once again. "Really, can we stop talking about the South Pole? Talk about the desert or the Sun, or something else that's warm, please, I'm freezing my scales off."

-

As they walked on, sounds of music and lots of people congregated sounded far away but came constantly closer. Eventually they found out it was a large festival to celebrate the end of the year, with lots of music and performers and fireworks. Black and his pokémon walked amongst the festival goers, enjoying themselves.

Suddenly, an attractive Umbreon said: "Hey, Boreas, long time no see!"

She looked strangely familiar, yet Boreas couldn't remember ever even meeting an Umbreon. "Oh. Hey. It's you... Uh... Great to see you again. It certainly has been a long time. Yes. Remind me, when was the last time we met?"

She laughed. "You don't recognise me, do you? It's me, February!"

Boreas immediately became nervous and felt his heart pound. "Oh, hey, Febby! You... evolved into an Umbreon." And a pretty one, too!

"Yeah," she said shyly, "I evolved a month ago, White was real happy about it." She squinted, "oh dear, I wonder who dressed that poor Murkrow up like that..."

A silence fell between them and then Boreas decided he should tell her how he felt about her. It was ridiculous that he was barely even be able to talk to her with nervousness and he decided he was going to take the risk of rejection. "Febby? I... um... I must tell you something."

"Yes?"

"Well, you see, it's like this..." he drew a deep breath. "I like-"

"Oh, hold on!" Febby interrupted him, suddenly wagging her tail in joy, "I want you to meet someone, a new member of White's team!"

An Espeon ran at them, stopped before Febby, and kissed her on the mouth. Boreas felt colder than an Antarctic grave.

"Boreas, this is my boyfriend, Esper. Esper, this is my friend Boreas, the one who was locked up along with me by Team Plasma."

Boreas forced himself to smile, though it looked more like his cheeks were being pulled aside by fishing hooks in them than like a smile. "Oh. Your... Boyfriend. I see. Well. Nice to meet you. Esper."

"Nice to meet you too, dude," Esper returned Boreas' fake smile with a genuine one, making Boreas want to freeze his head into a solid cube of ice, "Febby told me much about you, your friendship really helped her when you were locked up."

"Did. It." Boreas spat out each word like they were cockroaches that had crawled into his mouth.

"So, anyway," piped Febby happily, "what did you want to tell me, Boreas?"

"Oh. Yes. That. I just wanted to tell you... I like the winter. Don't you? I love all this snow and ice, it's delightful."

"Heh, I guess," said Febby, giggling as Esper began nuzzling her ear. Boreas saw her head turn to kiss him, and was pretty sure he would not be able to keep his anger contained this time and would end up trying to murder Esper.

"Boreas!" Capella's kind voice called him, "will you hurry up? We'll be late for that thing with that guy!"

Sighing in relief at the excuse, Boreas quickly said: "Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go right now, see you later!" and walked away with Capella.

"Thanks for the rescue," he said flatly.

"I'm so sorry," Capella said compassionately.

"I should have listened to you last time I saw her."

Capella nodded. "You probably should have." It was a credit to her that she managed to say this without sounding pedantic or wiseassy, merely friendly and compassionate.

"I was just... Too nervous and too afraid she would reject me. I was going to tell her just now but... Well, you saw it."

"I've been in your position myself. I never had the courage to ask my first love either, and for years I kept wondering what she might've said if I had. I'll tell you, simple rejection is far better than that. Not that that is a picnic either."

That made Boreas feel slightly better, strangely. "Do you still wonder about her? About what she might've said?"

Capella thought for a moment before responding. "By now? Only academically, really. At the age we were then, it's unlikely it would've lasted long time even if she liked me too. I also found the torch I carried for her extinguished itself with age and when I fell in love with others."

"Capella? With all the time you had for it, how come you never found a partner?"

"I found several, actually, but I take it you mean the more permanent, happily-ever-after kind. I'm not sure why I never found one. You just tend not to rush these things too much when you have centuries to take care of them, and contrary to what a hundred-and-seven-year-old may seem to you, I'm still young. I mean, for all we know I might meet the one during the lifetimes of your great-great-great-grandchildren."

Boreas smiled, genuinely this time, liking that idea. "I hope you do, and I hope I live to see it. Thanks for talking to me like this, it really makes me feel better. It still hurts, but it's not that bad. If this is lovesickness, I can handle it."

"Are you sure?" The Dratini looked at him with an arched eyebrow, "I always found lovesickness feels like it tears up your insides and makes the world a horrible place. I've been known to smash things in blind rage when I was lovesick."

Boreas found it impossible to imagine the kindly Dratini in a blind rage. "Really? You?"

She nodded. "Just imagine how powerful a broken heart is if it can do that to me. All I'm saying is, are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. I'm not angry any more; I mean, it's not as if she knew how I felt about her, so I can't really blame her and Esper for liking each other. Besides, there are plenty of fish in the sea. It's a shame I missed my chance, but I can handle it. It feels more like a pretty roughed up and damaged heart than a broken one, actually."

"I see," said Capella. Boreas could tell she didn't really believe him. "Well, if you want to talk about it again, feel free to. Now let's go see if they're doing any decent firework shows here."

-

Black decided to stay at the festival to celebrate the new year. In the two days afterwards, Boreas found he could indeed handle his lovesickness. He felt sullen and a bit sad, and made a point of avoiding Febby and Esper, especially when they were together, but overall it was not that bad.

On 30 December, New Year's Eve, Black and his pokémon were watching a big fireworks display being set up for midnight when they ran into Cheren.

"Cheren," Black greeted him, "I guess it's a small world after all."

"Ah, Black," said Cheren, "great to see you here. Guess what? I defeated Elesa too!"

"So you finally got your stomach- your pokémon strong enough to beat her, eh?"

Noticing the slip, Cheren blushed and frowned. "Yes, I did. And now that we both have a Bolt Badge... Let's test who's stronger, I have a feeling I'm going to win this time!"

-

It was a hard battle, but in the end Black was victorious and their battle had attracted quite a crowd.

"Well, you are strong as usual," said Cheren, "but why can't I win? I'm strong too, by all rights I should be able to defeat you."

Elesa walked out of the crowd, greeting Cheren and Black. "Oh, wow, guys, that was a rousing battle, of course I already knew you were both powerful trainers as you defeated me, by the way it's great to see you again, did you know they were holding the festival here or did you just happen to pass by on the way to Driftveil, which reminds me, I should probably warn you that Clay, Driftveil's Gym Leader, might take some getting used to, but he's really a good guy at heart, though he's a busy man so you'll probably have to make an appointment with him instead of just showing up at his Gym, because odds are he'll be too busy, also he usually dresses like a cowboy, quite funny, though who am I to talk, right, seeing as I regularly wear the weirdest designed clothes for my work, I suppose Clay just likes westerns, I never asked him, really, so this is a cool festival innit, a bit weird to hold an open air festival in December, but then it's not as if New Year's Eve ever falls in July, so anyway, you guys should follow me, there's someone I want you to meet," Elesa blurted out within half a minute.

She led them to a big, orange-haired man in a poncho who was listening to several guitarists playing. "Ah, Elesa," he greeted, "Isn't this festival great? Life should be enjoyed."

"Who's this guy?" asked Cheren.

"Cheren, Black, meet the Unova region's Champion, Alder."

Cheren burst into laughter. "Oh, that's very funny, Elesa. As if the Champion would be wasting his time clowning about in a place like this."

"Um..." said Elesa, "he is actually the Champion, and a master of the bug type."

"Yes, I am," said Alder, standing up, "except for the master of the bug type bit, I actually use whatever pokémon I like best, which just happen to mostly bug types. But you're quite the judgemental young person, aren't you? My name is Alder, and for your information, I'm not clowning about, I'm on a voyage. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Um," said Cheren, "I'm Cheren from Nuvema Town, and I'm on a voyage too. To become the Champion."

"Hm," said Alder, "What about you?"

"I'm his friend and rival," explained Black, "I'm on a journey to become the Champion too."

"Travelling with a goal in mind is a commendable thing. What do you intend to do after becoming the Champion?"

"Become even stringer, I suppose," said Cheren. "What else is there other than becoming even stronger? The strongest trainer, that's the Champion."

"I'm not sure," said Black, "I suppose becoming even stronger to defend my title would be necessary, but I wouldn't just want to do that. I would want to get a vacation or something first, and then I would seek something worthwhile to use my power for."

"Hmm," nodded Alder. "Cheren, is becoming stronger alone enough of a goal? Hmm, I'm not trying to say your way of thinking is wrong, but what will you use your power for? Your friend here seems to have an idea, albeit a vague one. But in my travels, I have learned many people to love their pokémon, because I think that is important too, the most important thing of all, even. If there are people like you who pursue strength, there are also those who are happy just to be with pokémon. There are many different people and many different answers. When it comes to what the Champion should be, you and I hold different views, but so be it. Give it some thought."

Cheren considered this. "The Champion is the strongest of the strong, and that's all there is to it. I am a trainer, and I'll prove it by getting stronger and winning battles, even against the Champion." He walked off, leaving Black and Elesa to talk to Alder.

"I say," said a highly pitched voice in a very poorly faked posh accent with an obvious Cockney accent hidden very poorly underneath it, "'tis quite the suhpwise to meet the Champion of all Unover heayah. Who would have evah expected it?"

Boreas looked in surprise at the source of the voice, which turned out to be Toxica. "Hmm?" she said in the same silly accent, "What ah you looking at me foh like that, chap?"

"Why are you talking in that ridiculous accent?" Boreas asked.

"What is youh meaning? Do you pehchance mean my impwoved elocution?"

Boreas sighed. "You're trying to imitate Octa's accent to impress him, aren't you?"

"Shh! Don't say that in front of 'im!" she whispered in her normal accent.

"He hasn't heard anything we said anyway, he's been to busy listening to the guitars and Alder talking to Black and Elesa."

"Oh," Toxica pouted, noticing now that Octa was indeed a few metres away and had his attention turned away from her, "Well, I'm not doing it to impwess him eitheh way, I just pwefeh to be moah eloquent. 'Tis a fohm of self-impwovement, you see."

"You are doing it to impress him, and it's not going to work."

"And why wouldn't it?"

"Because you sound like you're mocking him. Mocking him really, really poorly. I mean, I've met potatoes with more genuine-sounding accents than that. Just give it up, Toxica, he doesn't like you in that way, and he never will."

Wow,this is completely epic. One quick tip though. Reread each sentence before you put the next one. The errors are few and far between, but errors really, really bug me. But it's amazing. I gasped a bit when they kissed. Once more, You. Totally. Rock.

^Thanks greatly! I'm very glad you like it that much. I actually do proofread the entire chapter before submitting, and ironically I'm pretty sure most of the errors that are still in submitted chapters were actually introduced during the proofreading. Probably when I change a sentence, but accidentally forget a word and things like that.

Chapter Thirty-One: The Trouble With Team Plasma

Boreas walked through Driftveil City's smelly industrial parks, letting his thoughts run free. He was actually supposed to be listening for any news about Team Plasma the humans might be discussing, but he had become bored with that days earlier. When they had arrived in Driftveil City, Clay had proven to be as busy as Elesa had said he was, so it took a while before Black even had a chance to talk to him. And when he did, the Gym Leader had conscripted him into looking for Team Plasma by claiming he didn't have a single moment of time for a battle for months to come. But if Driftveil's branch of Team Plasma was caught he wouldn't have to search for them any more, so he would then have time to accept the challenge.

Unfortunately, though Clay claimed they had been very active in Driftveil, Team Plasma now seemed to have gone into hiding and were near-impossible to find. Black had tried asking people about them, but they didn't seem to like it much and he didn't get any information that way. So now his pokémon walked amongst them in the hopes of overhearing something that might help catch Team Plasma. So far without success.

Boreas still couldn't believe he was now a year old. In fact, his birthday had been the day of their arrival in Driftveil. He hadn't even realised it until the evening, when someone happened to mention the date and he remembered 25 January was his birthday. It wasn't until later, after the surprisingly well-done party his friends had thrown him despite having had only a few minutes' notice, that he realised it meant he was now an adult. Which was a bizarre idea, as he didn't feel like an adult at all. In many ways, he still felt like the cub Octa had rescued from the claws of his attackers last spring. He had gone through a lot since then of course, not the least of which was evolving to a Glaceon, and in some ways he realised he had grown up, but still he didn't really feel different.

"Be careful no to pay too much attention, my dear fellow," a voice said.

"Baah!" Boreas exclaimed, "oh, Octa, it's just you. I was paying attention, I've been listening to find clues for hours."

"Yes, and I'm sure you only pretended not to notice me walking next to you for the past minute."

"Um... Of course I noticed- Lucius?! What in the name of Ho-Oh's contact lenses happened to you?!"

The Houndoom was walking towards them a bit ahead, his fur stained with large amounts of blood, one of his horns broken and several large wounds covering him. Except he wasn't so much walking as dragging himself along, at least one leg broken. Boreas and Octa rushed to support and help him. "Get your hands off of me!" Lucius growled, "do I look like I need your help or something?" Boreas saw he was missing several teeth and bleeding from the mouth.

"No, not at all," sneered Octa, "I regularly walk around soaked with blood, my bones and teeth broken, for pleasure. Now what the devil happened to you?"

"While you two have been wasting time here, Black's been kidnapped!" Lucius snapped, "that's what happened!"

"Kidnapped?!" Boreas exclaimed.

"Kidnapped?!" Lucius imitated in a stupid, shrill voice, "Yeah, by Team Plasma, while you two were wasting your time prancin' around the industrial parks like two ballet dancers!"

It was only because Boreas' concern for Black drowned out his anger that he didn't throw a pawful of sand into Lucius' wounds. "Tell me what happened precisely, and stop with the insults."

"Please delay the interrogation, my dear fellow," Octa said, "Lucius, first we need to get you to the pokécenter."

"Shut up, Smugleaf, I'm fine!" gnarled Lucius.

"Smugleaf?!" Octa roared, "do you have any idea how insulting that term is to a member of my noble species?!"

"D'you think I would've used it if I didn't, Smugleaf?" Lucius grinned.

"Why, you degraded heap of smelliness-" Octa began.

"Look," Boreas interrupted them, "this is getting us nowhere, let's focus on Black being kidnapped and continue tearing each others' heads off later."

"Quite," Octa said between gritted teeth, "you are quite right of course, my dear fellow. We should all remain calm and rational."

"You're the one who's angry, Smugleaf," said Lucius.

Seeing the effect that insult had on Octa, Boreas quickly said: "Anyway, how did he get kidnapped? Where?"

"I heard some shouting from an alley while I was listening for clues, that's the stupidest plan ever, by the way, and looked to see what was happening, and a dozen Plasma grunts were dragging Black off!"

"Then why didn't you do anything about it?" Octa asked.

"Because I didn't feel like it. I watched them drag him off, then I went to get some ice cream, and to finish the morning off, I decided to see if trains are really as heavy as they say by jumping in front of one, you complete idiot!"

"Um," Octa seemed speechless for a moment, "quite, I should have realised this was the origin of your wounds. I apologise."

"So did you see where they took him?" asked Boreas.

"Yeah, after they ganged up on me and beat me half to death I followed them unconsciously. It's like sleepwalking, except you do it on broken legs and teeth fall out of your mouth. Of course I didn't see where they took him, you moron!"

Boreas tried very hard to remind himself that Lucius was probably acting even more obnoxious than usual because he was worried about Black, ashamed he lost, and in a lot of pain; and that attacking a badly wounded person was not very nice. He managed to get his anger under control, but only barely.

"So why did you fight them if there were so many?" Boreas asked, "if you had just followed them, we would know where Black was."

Lucius scowled. "At least I wasn't wasting my time like you and your boyfriend, pup. Where were you when Black needed you, anyway?"

Boreas had had enough. "Look Lucius, what's it going to be? Are you going to shut up, or am I going to freeze your balls off?"

"Boreas!" Capella's voice exclaimed, signalling her arrival, "don't talk like that, especially to someone wounded! Lucius, you need to get to the pokécenter immediately."

"Don't tell me what to do, you mouldy old earthworm," barked Lucius, making Boreas even more infuriated with him. Fortunately he managed to control himself thanks to the shame he felt after Capella's reaction to his earlier outburst, "the only thing I need right now is to find Selene, so that crazy old chicken can fly around to look for Black from the air."

"Of course, good thinking," said Octa.

"Of course it's good," snapped Lucius, "it's my thinking. Now make yourselves useful while I go to the pokécenter."

Wow, this is cool. Grrgh, but I will go insane waiting!! I wish I had a larger vocabulary to tell you how much this improved my life.

(03-05-2012 05:44 AM)Tigirl Wrote:  Wow, this is cool. Grrgh, but I will go insane waiting!! I wish I had a larger vocabulary to tell you how much this improved my life.

Thank you. There is no need to go insane waiting, as I'm already quite a bit further with this story than it is posted here; I started posting it on it board quite late and am trying to catch the story up to where it presently is (chapter 56), while catching some comments along the way. So I post a new chapter whenever a comment has been posted, but no sooner than a day after the last or later than a week after the last (so if someone comments within a day, I post the chapter once a day has passed, and if no-one commented after a week, I post the chapter anyway).

Chapter Thirty-Two: Venenum in Aura Bibitur

Boreas suddenly awoke in the dark room. For some reason, the word "Zinzolin" was stuck in his head like a particularly annoying song. He was pretty sure he'd heard it before somewhere, but couldn't quite remember where, so he tried to go back to sleep. Though it was 4 in the night and he had just awoken from deep sleep, he felt as awake as a caffeine addict at noon. And the word "Zinzolin" kept racing around his brain, trying desperately to find a bell to ring.

Boreas realised how nice it was of Nurse Hate to allow them to keep their room for now, despite Black's disappearance. So far they had had no luck in finding him or Team Plasma, and neither had the police or Clay. Boreas felt very lonely without Black. Because the human couldn't talk to him he often felt like a background object and Boreas often barely realised he was around, but now that he was gone he really felt how attached he had become to his trainer. He noticed the same feeling in all his companions; even Lucius seemed depressed and sad.

Hey, Zinzolin Enterprises, Inc. is a company that does business in Driftveil... They have a large cold storage facility in the docks...

Now he knew what "Zinzolin" was. The name must have stuck in his mind because it sounded so silly. At least now it would stop bothering him, he thought, but the word kept hanging around in his head like the extremely drunk patron whose desire to drink even more is in conflict with the bartender's desire to close the bar before morning and get some sleep. Boreas tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but like the bartender that simply wasn't an option for him. Both the name and the drunkard were far too annoying for that.

Besides, he found he was terribly worried about Black. He could easily guess why Team Plasma had kidnapped him, and Boreas felt at least partially responsible for it. If they hadn't defeated two of the Sages through his trickery, Team Plasma wouldn't have considered Black a threat and wouldn't have bothered him. Of course Boreas knew they would all be dead if it hadn't been for his trickery, but he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. Black had been gone for four days, anything could've happened to him. Boreas felt his heart burn with raging fury at the thought that he might even be dead. If he was, Boreas swore, he wouldn't stop until every last member of Team Plasma had discovered just how cold revenge could be.

"Derek, the piñata's got a gun..." Selene mumbled in her sleep, "...Stop licking the Marmite jar out and do the dishes, or it will shoot us both..."

He forced himself to breathe slowly and calm down. He wondered if Black had felt the same way when Team Plasma had kidnapped his pokémon in Castelia. Boreas guessed he did, as Black really cared a lot for each of them. They never really talked of course, given Black's spectacular talent for misunderstanding, but an occasional petting and the general good care he took of them showed a lot. Besides, how many trainers let their pokémon walk outside their pokéballs all the time? Black might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had a very kind heart and was brave. The human was quite a lot kinder and braver than Boreas himself, the Glaceon realised with shame.

Suddenly and without warning, a seemingly random memory echoed in Boreas' mind. N had just told them he was Team Plasma's king, and Boreas and Black were shouting accusations at him. Suddenly he stopped them and said to the two grunts: "Go now, report to sage Zinzolin, and I'll cover your retreat."

"I've got it!!!" Boreas roared.

"It wasn't me!" yelped Toxica, "I don't know who did it, but not me!"

"It's a wedding, not a funeral!" Selene croaked.

"What the crap?!" barked Lucius.

"Wah!" yelped Capella.

"Silence, you fool!" Octa shouted, "You'll kill us all! Oh dear, I seem to have been dreaming. What's going on here?"

Before they could get enough of their senses together to start shouting at him and ask why he woke them up in the middle of the night, Boreas scrambled to his feet and blurted out: "Guys, guys, guys, I've got it! I've just had an epiphany!"

Lucius responded: "Don't be so loud you wake us up with it, pup, just clean up your mess quietly and let us sleep."

"An epiphany," Octa explained tiredly, "is an illuminating realisation or discovery, you illiterate barbarian."

"Ooh, I like those," remarked Selene.

"Now, what is it, my dear fellow?" Octa asked, "I do hope 'tis very good, or I shall be forced to become quite cross with you."

"I know where Black is!" Boreas said, turning on the light. It blazed in his eyes as if he was directly looking into the Sun, but he ignored it, "I know where he is! Team Plasma took him to Zinzolin Enterprises, Inc.! It's the name of one of their Sages, N mentioned that, I'll bet the company is just a cover operation for Team Plasma!"

"Hmm," Octa said, "Quite, yes, I do remember N saying that, now that you mention it. It might just be a coincidence, but we should investigate regardless. Jolly good, my dear fellow, at least we have a clue now."

-

"Right," Boreas said as they reached the cold storage, "here's my plan: we run inside, fight our way past any guards, and rescue Black. Let's go!"

"What happens if it's not actually a cover operation for Team Plasma?" Octa asked.

"Then we go outside again and try to find a new clue, let's go!"

"What happens if we encounter resistance?" Octa asked.

"We defeat it."

"What happens if we encounter quite a lot of undefeatably powerful resistance and/or traps?"

Boreas swallowed a lump of fear in his throat. "Then we go out in a blaze of glory. Freeze of glory in my case."

"Good luck," said Lucius, sitting down. "Let me know how it went if I ever see you again."

"What?" seethed Boreas, "aren't you going to help us rescue Black?"

"No, I think I'd rather live another day, pup."

"Coward!" Lucius' behaviour just sickened Boreas, "don't you remember what Black did for us in Castelia? He saved your life!"

"Yeah, he did, so I'm not gonna throw it away."

"Traitor," sneered Boreas, "Black is counting on us."

"Your plan is crap," said Lucius, "we go in and get ourselves killed is more like. Who made you the boss anyway?"

"Gentlemen!" Octa interrupted, "calm down, please. My dear fellow, you have to concede that he has a point, it really isn't much of a plan. If you would just calm down, we could think of something better."

"Okay, okay," Boreas conceded, "what about this then: we sneak in carefully, try our best not to be seen and try to find Black, if he's here at all. If we see any sentry we fight-"

"Try to stay hidden and out of sight?" Octa suggested.

"Okay, that. Everyone agree?"

Everyone, even Lucius, did agree with that plan. But when they tried to get in, they found the large cargo doors locked. And so were the smaller doors for personnel.

"Well," said Capella, "that is a shame. Does anyone have another idea?"

"We could try to pick a lock," suggested Boreas.

"None of us have opposable thumbs, lock picks, nor the skill required," Octa responded.

"We could climb down the chimney," suggested Boreas.

"It's cold storage," sighed Octa, "a chimney would be as useful as an open window in a space station."

"We could break the door down."

"Yes, you truly are a master of stealth and subtlety. Besides, 'tis a storage facility, we can safely assume the doors are powerful enough to withstand any damage we could do to them."

"We could wait for the first worker to arrive and follow them inside."

"That would mean we'd attempt to rescue him at day, while the facility is operative. That significantly lowers our chances. Though it does give me an idea: while the facility is operative, we could sneak inside, hide ourselves, and wait for night to fall."

"Only that'd mean we'd have to wait another day to save him."

"It would, but it seems we don't have much of a choice, my dear fellow."

"Why don't we just use the door?" Selene asked.

"Because it's locked."

"No, it isn't, I unlocked it."

"Wh-" Boreas gasped, "how? What? When? Where? Who? Huh?"

"You really do have a way with words, my dear fellow," said Octa, "but allow me to rephrase that, if I may: did you really unlock it? And how?"

"I picked the lock," said Selene, "like Boreas suggested."

They were all left speechless as Selene flew to the closest personnel door and opened it. The first to recover was Lucius, who laughed jovially. "You crazy bird, you are good for something!"

"You know it!" Selene croaked happily as she landed on his shoulder.

As they entered the cold storage a blast of cold air enveloped them to Boreas' joy and the others' dislike. Inside, the cold storage was a hall that would've given most cathedrals an inferiority complex. There were loads of huge containers that probably contained food. They were stacked in massive towers of containers and left paths between them. Chills ran down Boreas' spine as he realised Black's corpse could be hidden in one of those containers.

Distant footsteps echoed through the huge hall and a flashlight's light could be seen far away. Without saying a word, they all agreed to be very, very quiet. It was immediately obvious that looking for Black would be like looking for a needle in a haystack in a mountain of needles if they had to check every container in cold storage. So they decided to try and find evidence that it was Team Plasma's hideout first.

They sneaked through the dark warehouse as quietly as possible while trying to avoid the guards. It was fortunate that the containers were so large, as it meant they could easily hide when a guard approached.

They crossed the great hall cautiously and slowly without seeing anything interesting. But when they were on the other side of the entrance, they saw there was a large cargo door guarded by two workers. They were wearing thick blue clothes that protected them from the cold and seemed to be half-asleep.

"There," whispered Boreas, "why would those guys be guarding this door in the middle of the night unless it was to prevent a certain someone from escaping?"

"Y-you may be r-right," Capella, shivering with cold, agreed, "w-we'll have t-t-to dispatch them quickly and quietly."

Boreas summoned a powerful gust of frosty air, blowing the two sleepy guards out of balance so they fell over and hit their heads on the door, knocking them out.

They entered the large cargo doors, which led to another cold storage hall. This one was smaller than the other one, but still quite large. They sneaked through it until they saw a lone container guarded by two Team Plasma members in their normal uniforms.

"W-w-w-we should've worn the warm clothing..." one of them muttered.

"S-s-shut up," the other one snapped, "we're Team Plasma! We'll show it by wearing our uniforms."

"B-but the other guys are all wearing warm clothes..."

"Yes, so just think how proud Sage Zinzolin will be that we wore our normal uniforms while guarding the prisoner!"

"I think he'll chew us out for being so stupid instead..."

Since they weren't close enough to any hard surface and too awake to knock them out as easily as the other guards, they would have to be battled.

-

As he took the key to the container from one of the knocked-out guards, Boreas paused for a moment, thinking how bad the security was compared to Bronius' hideout in Castelia. But that was not important, as Boreas opened the container and saw the unconscious, bound form of Black and immediately pounced him with joy. His skin was icy cold, but Black slowly awoke as his bonds were undone.

"I... is that you? Octa? 'Reas? You... came to... rescue... me?" Black mumbled as he hugged them all slowly.

Boreas was so happy to see Black again, but furious to see the wounds the bounds around his wrists and ankles had caused and how badly hypothermic he was. Black tried to stand up and immediately collapsed.

"We'll have to carry him," said Capella, "let's hurry up, I think he'll be fine if we can get him to the pokécenter."

To get the 80 kilo human to the pokécenter when none of them was even half that weight would be quite a chore, but if the six of them worked together they could do it. They began dragging him out of the container. But when they opened the container's door, thirty-two pairs of eyes looked back. They put Black down carefully and formed a protective half-circle around him.

"Leaving so soon, boy?" a French-accented old man with long, greying brown hair and a goatee asked, "I was 'oping you might stick around a bit longer." He was wearing long, purple clothes and seemed to be a sage of Team Plasma.

"Zinzolin..." Black muttered, "...Bastard... let us go."

"You know I can't do that. You 'ave become a thorn in Team Plasma's collective eye and we consider you too dangerous to be allowed to go free."

Boreas growled.

"You 'ave very loyal pokémon. Smart too, to find you 'ere, but not smart enough to realise we 'ave more security measures than meets the eye. It's good, because we can use pokémon like them at the Castle. Grab them!"

As soon as he gave the order, the fifteen Plasma grunts darted forth, and a few of them were immediately struck down by counter-attacks. Zinzolin ordered them to stop, and they did so. He threw six ultra balls, unleashing a Drapion, an Amoonguss, a Garbodor, a Seviper, a Crobat, and a Muk.

"I am a merciful man," said Zinzolin, "and will let all seven of you live if you don't resist. You will go to the castle and get to help work on our majestique future. But if you resist, I'll let my pokémon kill you all, including your master."

"We'll never betray Black!" Capella stated firmly. Four determined nods showed the others' agreement.

"Good luck with that." Lucius suddenly ran at the half-circle of grunts, firing a Dark Pulse at two of them. They fell the ground, screaming and clutching their heads.

"Merde!" cursed Zinzolin, "You and you, after 'im!"

"Dirty coward!" Boreas shouted after him. Though he felt a lot like routing himself, he couldn't leave Black behind.

"Lucius might have scarpered," Toxica said, "but the rest of us are loyal and will defend Black with our lives!"

"If you want to stand in my way," said Zinzolin, "you and your master alike will die. It's a pity, really, but we can't allow evil to prosper. Attaque!"

As the six powerful poison types attacked, the grunts all ran back to leave room for their leader's dangerous pokémon. They began guarding the exits to the cold storage, though, so that wasn't much of an advantage. A large X-shaped bullet raced at Boreas, and he only managed to dodge it by pressing himself to the ground immediately. As it turned in the air, it slowed down for a moment, so Boreas saw it was the Crobat, the razor-sharp edges of its wings covered in an unpleasant-looking liquid. He tried Ice Beaming it, but it was incredibly agile and easily dodged, immediately swooping at him again with wings in a slashing position.

Boreas raised a front paw in a reflex to hold his enemy off, then, in the quarter of a second he had left, first realised that was a stupid idea, and then thought of a way he might use it to his advantage anyway. He unleashed a mighty flare of cold from his palm in that single moment, liquidising a small pocket of air in an instant. The heat of the surrounding air meant the liquid air boiled away immediately with a poof, forming a small shock wave that hit the Crobat and made it lose its speed and aim. It hit the ground clumsily. Boreas immediately followed up with an Ice Beam to its back, but then a sharp pincer grabbed his own back and lifted him up.

It was the Drapion, and the pincers' points felt like sharp knives trying to dig through his skin and flesh. He tried Ice Beaming its face, but the only reaction was that it looked angrier.

"That's not very nice!" Selene landed on Drapion's head and dug her beak into its right eye. It screamed and let go of Boreas, but before he could thank Selene she had been knocked away by the Drapion's tail. His enemy was enraged and missing an eye now, so it followed her.

Boreas pursued the Drapion, but then did a double-take as his eyes drifted over the spot where Black had been and saw he had disappeared. The Seviper was slithering to one of the guarded exits, coiled around a struggling Black. He ran after them immediately, Ice Beaming the Seviper. It turned to face him with a hiss, then bit Black with its large poison teeth. Black stopped struggling immediately and went limp.

"No!" Boreas roared, "I'll kill you for that!"

The snake uncoiled itself from Black. "Relaxxx, It'sss jussst a paralytic, not a poissson," the gigantic snake hissed, "givesss me time to deal with you. It'sss not often prey offersss itssself ssso willingly."

Boreas Ice Beamed his opponent's face and rolled aside to dodge the creature's Poison Tail. He jumped over its lengthy body as it formed a circle around it and Ice Beamed its neck. It turned around rapidly and tried to bite him, but he jumped out of the way quickly.

But then disaster struck: as he tried to dodge a simultaneous attack by both of the Seviper's ends at once, it turned out it was just a feint as he was slammed down by a crushing impact of the snake's middle. He rolled away from the snake's attempt to bite him while he was helpless, but he was just too slow and the left poison tooth scraped him. He felt numbness spread through his body almost immediately. It was strong, but not powerful enough to fully paralyse him, as he'd received only a small scrape. He found that with some difficulty he could still move, but when he tried to create an Ice Beam, it just failed.

He tried easier ice attacks, but he just couldn't do it. It was as if he was an Eevee again, and he did the only thing he could: run for his life. But he ran slowly and clumsily, and was tripped by Seviper's thick tail. He heard the snake's hissing laughter as he tried to stumble back to his feet panicky. Seviper's thick body wrapped around him. Just a single coil was enough to press all four of his paws to his body in a deadlock.

He looked into the eyes of his captor, and to his horror it licked its lips with a forked tongue. He struggled for his life to get up and out of the Seviper's coil.

"No, don't!" he yelped as the Seviper opened its mouth and struck. Suddenly he struggled downwards instead of upwards, and through sheer surprise managed to sink lower into the coil. The Seviper's huge jaws snapped just above his head, where his neck had been a moment earlier.

The Seviper shifted its coils so that he was once again completely wrapped and lifted him up above its head. It opened its massive jaws once again, and this time put his entire rear half into its mouth, his midriff on the smaller teeth of the lower jaw. Boreas knew he had less than a second before he would be bitten in half and struggled desperately to jump out of his enemy's mouth, but his rear legs didn't have any grip on the wet tongue. Instead he used his front legs to push himself back off the teeth. When the mouth snapped closed a moment later, the roof of the mouth hitting his back felt like a bookshelf falling on top of him, but at least he wasn't bitten in half, as the sharp teeth had closed just in front of his nose. The mouth opened and the tongue pushed him back on the row of teeth and pinned him down like an executor forcing his victim's head onto the chopping block. Boreas bit the tongue and as it jerked away in reflex and took Boreas, who was still lying on top of it, with it, away from the teeth.

As the mouth snapped close again, the mouth's roof hit Boreas once again painfully hard. Suddenly a thunderous noise roared through the mouth and the tongue he was lying on moved around. It was a moment before he realised Seviper was speaking, and though its mouth being closed and Boreas lying on top of its tongue didn't exactly improve its articulation, Boreas could make out the words "If that's the way you want it."

To his horror the tongue he was lying on suddenly angled itself, and he began sliding down into the throat on its slippery, saliva-coated surface. "No!" he yelled, grabbing desperately for anything he could hold. He tried to grab one of the molars, but it was just outside his reach. He felt his hind legs enter a vertical tunnel as he slipped further down. "Please!" he begged his enemy as his upper body reached the rear of the tongue, "anything but that!"

The fleshy muscles of the Seviper's oesophagus pressed on him on all sides as he lost sight of the mouth and slid down. They were crushingly powerful, yet did not quite go to the point were they broke his bones. He could feel the dark moist tunnel opening under him and closing above him. He tried desperately to do something to save himself from the horrible fate that awaited him at the end of the tunnel; he clawed and bit at the walls but found them too powerful and too smooth to be penetrated, he tried to make cold and freeze Seviper's throat from the inside, but the poison still inhibited his powers. He tried to jam his paws into opposite sides of the oesophagus, in the desperate hope he could get himself temporarily stuck in the throat, though he was sure the muscles were powerful enough to just break his bones if he obstructed them and force him down further. The disgusting smell of vomit was getting stronger.

He felt his feet enter a liquid and submerge, giving him a curiously tingly sensation. His feet soon touched the bottom of the small, liquid-filled fleshy room and he tried to brace himself against the muscles that forced the rest of him in. But his knees and back were absolutely no match for the oesophagus' muscles and just bent. His lower half was forced in, completely filling the fleshy bag. But more of him kept entering and the room expanded to fit him. Finally his head entered the rancid-smelling stomach, and the oesophagus closed itself behind him despite his best efforts to keep it open.

Though it was as dark as a cave inside the Seviper's, Boreas could feel he was in a curled up, almost foetal position, all his body under the horrible tingling liquid's surface and only his head above it. He could barely move because of the walls pressing on him from all sides. It was very warm and the walls pulsated with the loud, thumping noise of the Seviper's heartbeat. He could barely move at all, fleshy walls pushing on him from all sides.

Though his knowledge of anatomy was sketchy at best, Boreas realised hanging by his tail from the Ferris wheel was paradise compared to what awaited him if he didn't think of something very clever really quickly.

I love it! More! *Starts chanting*

^Here you go:

Chapter Thirty-Three: Full Circle

Boreas struggled in panic against the stomach's tight embrace. He had already tried to open both exits with all his strength, but hadn't stood a chance against the powerful muscles. If he pressed hard on one side, he could feel the ground outside, which the Seviper seemed to be slithering over. His breathing was very fast and ragged as he struggled.

I'm going to die in here! He thought, I'M GOING TO DIE IN HERE!!!

He tried to get himself under control. Calm down.

No, I'm going to be digested alive!
Not if I stop panicking and think my way out of here! He tried to get his rapid shallow breath under control and stopped struggling. He noticed the parts of him that were submerged were getting very itchy, but tried not to scratch because that would probably only make things worse. He realised there was little chance he would manage to get out on his own, so he would have to try and appeal to his enemy's better side, if it had such a thing, for a chance of mercy.

"Hey!" he said loudly, hoping Seviper would be able to hear him, "Seviper, what is your name?!"

"None of your busssinesss," a hissing voice sounded far away.

"Uh... Well, hi anyway, my name is Boreas!" Boreas thought that if he could make her see him as a person, rather than prey, maybe she would spit him out, "meeting you is a... let's call it a unique experience."

"Could you be quiet and ssstart sssquirming around again? That ticklesss very nicccely."

"I just want to tell you a bit about myself, if that's okay with you."

"I don't care," hissed Seviper, "I'd rather you were quiet, becaussse I'm going to take a nap to digessst you."

"Are you sure? I mean, I'm not just any prey, I'm a sentient being like you! I have hopes and dreams like you, and have friends like you, and I really, really like to live, like you. So, um, could you please show how good a person you are and spit me out?"

"No."

"Please? Don't you realise how cruel this is? You're sentencing another sentient being to a very slow, painful death. Won't you please let me out? I surrender, so you might as well let me out."

"No! You are nothing but food, and I eat food!"

"But I'm not food! Can't we solve this like fellow civilised beings?"

"You tassste like food and you fill my belly, ssso you are food."

"Imagine the pain I'm going to go through!"

"Yesss, they alwaysss sssquirm delightfully for hoursss before finally sssettling down."

"They? You mean you've done this to someone before?"

"Oh yesss. Not often, but occasssionally. Live prey tassstesss very good and isss niccce and sssquirmy."

Boreas was horrified by the thought that others had been eaten alive by this Seviper before, in part because it meant his chances of negotiating his way out were very tiny. "Please let me out? I have a mate and sixteen cubs, what will they ever do without their father? I can already imagine poor... Stephen crying for his daddy, and how will little... Marina cope with her father's death? And what about young... uh... Flapdoodle? Can you live with the idea of him growing up without his father? Please don't don't do this, for my kids if not for me."

"That'sss what all prey sssaysss if they get the chanccce."

"Do you want sixteen grown-up Eevees coming after you to avenge their father?"

"If they come after me, if they exssissst at all, I will welcome them. They can go the sssame way as you."

"Spit me out right now! If you don't, my friends will cut you open to rescue me!"

His fleshy prison shook with the snake's laughter. "Your friendsss are either dead or dying. I didn't even bother continuing the battle, becaussse my friendsss were winning ssso overwhelmingly. I've gone outssside, where it'sss warmer."

"Let me out! Don't you see how unbelievably cruel this is?!"

"No. Ssshut up."

Desperation was setting in now as Boreas was beginning to see the snake would never let him out. "Please!" he begged, "I... I will turn to your side! I will help you kill my friends if you let me out!"

"Too late."

"Please!" he begged, "I- I don't want to die!"

"Ssshould have thought of that before fighting Team Plasssma."

The horror of the entire situation threatened to overwhelm Boreas as he realised he would never get out. "O-okay," he said glumly. "You win. I will be your prey. If you spit me out, I will let you kill me without resisting. And then you can eat me."

"Why ssshould I ssspit you out? I like you where you are now."

"Because it will be unbelievably painful for me! If you're going to kill and eat me, at least give me a quick death."

"Too late. You ssshould've thought of that before I ssswallowed you. Now let me sssleep."

A last bolt of desperate fury went through Boreas. "You complete evil monster! I will freeze you from the inside once the paralytic wears off!"

"It won't wear off for hoursss."

Boreas tried to make cold in a single, focused point, and found it was incredibly difficult, but with titanic effort managed to. He aimed right for where the heart was, and shot the Ice Beam from his forehead. The snake shook with laughter. "Hey, that ticklesss, do it again!"

But Boreas couldn't. He had managed to overcome the low dosage of paralytic coursing through his veins through sheer force of will, but it had taken him an effort as if he had run a marathon up mount Everest. He just lay in the stomach panting. His final hope had been blown to smithereens. His skin was horribly itchy, and was beginning to sting with pain in several spots already. He realised that soon he would be in similar pain all over, which would grow worse and worse until he would lay there screaming in agony while his skin dissolved slowly. He wondered if he would die once his skin had dissolved, but realised there was little chance of such a quick way out, as the veins in the skin were tiny and would almost immediately close themselves, so he would lose little blood. Once his skin had been digested, the gastric acid would continue its horrifying job as it began work on the tissue underneath. He was pretty sure the major organs were all deep within the body, so he wouldn't die of damage to them. He realised he would probably die of blood loss after many hours of torment when the acid finally began destroying his major arteries.

As the horrifying realisation filled his mind, he sat there hyperventilating in panic. Then he just burst out struggling and screaming. "NO! Please! Kill me quickly, anything but this! I don't want to die like this!"

He stopped the useless struggling and cried. The tears streamed through his fur as he thought of the terrible fate that was already happening to him. He let out a loud wail for himself.

Then a grim, cold determination set in. Enough self-pity, justified though it is, he thought. I have one final option to save myself from that: I'm in a room mostly filled with liquid; I could drown myself.

Drowning himself in the acid would be quite horrible, especially when he couldn't stop his breathing reflex any more and began breathing the acid, but it sure beat being digested alive.

So this is it, he thought with complete calmth. This is how I die. I drown myself inside a Seviper.

He couldn't help but chuckle with gallows humour at the irony of having escaped being eaten by Zangeese only to be eaten by their arch nemesis eleven months later. At least those eleven months had been fun; with the exception of a few days he wouldn't have wanted to miss them for anything. He took a deep breath and prepared to plunge his head under the horrid liquid, but then realised that was a bad idea, as he was trying to give himself a quick death. He breathed out, collected his courage, closed his eyes, and sunk his head under the surface. He felt himself rapidly running out of breath and shifted positions so it would be harder for him to get his head back above the surface if he lost courage.

Suddenly the entire stomach shook violently, he heard Seviper scream in agony, and a light shone past his eyelids. He almost opened his eyes to see what it was, before realising that would be an enormously bad idea. He resurfaced, wiped the acid away from his closed eyes, and opened them as his meaty and dangerous prison moved violently. He couldn't believe his eyes: light was streaming in through a minuscule hole in the wall.

The entire stomach jerked fiercely along with its owner. "That wasss the lassst missstake you ever made!" Seviper roared furiously. "I'll make you sssuffer for that!"

"No!" A furious voice came from outside, "eating Boreas was the last mistake you ever made, you fiendish creature!"

Boreas put his eye to the hole. Though tiny, it was bleeding massively and hard to see through, but his heart jumped with joy as he saw Octa on its other side, with his Leaf Blade drawn and covered in blood, dodging the Seviper's attacks like a master swordsman. He looked far more furious and impressive than Boreas had ever seen, his eyes ablaze with furious determination and a single-minded purpose in every move. "Octa!" Boreas called, "Octa! You're a sight for sore eyes!" he tried to widen the tiny hole that Octa had cut all the way to the Seviper's stomach, but found the flesh was far too strong to tear.

"Boreas, my dear fellow!" Octa said, his voice soaked with joy, "how joyful I am to hear you are still alive." Boreas was thrown away from the hole as the snakes battled each other.

"If you like your friend ssso muccch," Seviper seethed, "you can join him inssside my ssstomach and ssspend your final hoursss being digesssted together! After I bite your limbsss off for what you did!"

"You, milady, are a cruel monstrosity and a barbarian, and do not deserve to have your name capitalised. Your Mephistophelean maliciousness brings a black mark of shame to all those who have the misfortune of sharing a species with you."

"Do you think you ssstand a chanccce againssst me with that puny leaf?"

"I have already demonstrated it has the required attributes to stab into your stomach. That is all I shall need to deliver this planet from your vileness and rescue my dear friend."

Boreas tried to follow the battle by looking through the hole Octa had carved, but most of the time it wasn't facing Octa, and it was too small and too filled with blood to see much anyway.

"Ssstabbing sssomeone in the gut while they're asssleep... Zssinzssolin warned usss our enemiesss were evil, but thisss isss an unexsspected low."

"Do not speak to me about low actions. Your own actions are so low I'd imagine mining companies would be willing to pay you generously to have them mine metals from the Earth's co- ARGH!"

Octa yelped in pain. Boreas pressed his eye to the bloody hole, and saw his friend was backed against a stone wall, bleeding from a large cut and trapped.

"Hehehe," Seviper laughed, "time to join your friend inssside my tummy!"

As Seviper was about to strike, Boreas decided he had to do something. With another outpouring of titanic effort, he created another Ice Beam and fired it straight at the wound Octa had made. Seviper jerked back in pain, and Boreas pushed himself against the stomach's dorsal wall. Just in time, as a razor-sharp Leaf Blade sliced the stomach open lengthwise. As he was flushed out the opened stomach in a flood of gastric acid and blood, he heard Seviper scream. He landed on grass, panting heavily and exhausted, but happy to be out in the air again.

"To leave you to bleed to death would be a merciful thing to do," Octa said grimly, "compared to what you tried to do to Boreas. But I shall be even more merciful and give you the quick death you never had the decency to grant my friend."

Seviper, lying flat on the ground with a large part of its front side cut open, hissed at Octa and tried to bite him.

"We both know a wound of this extent is impossible to survive. You shall bleed out within minutes."

Seviper paused, then exposed its throat to Octa. "Make it quick."

Boreas looked away and heard a loud slash and gargle. He tried to stand up. "Octa... You saved me!"

He was about to hug the Servine when he got to his feet, but thought better of it because he was still drenched in acid and blood. Then Octa surprised him by hugged him instead. "My dear fellow, I almost lost hope when I came outside and saw the bulge at its stomach had stopped moving."

"Both of us," said Boreas, "I was trying to drown myself to avoid being digested alive."

"I apologise for not being here sooner, the guards gave me a bit of trouble."

They stood there embracing each other, when Boreas really began noticing the burning sensation on his skin again. "Octa? I think I'd like to wash myself right now."

Fortunately the cold storage was right next to the river, so they could jump straight in. Underneath Boreas' fur, his skin was red and sore, but it seemed he had escaped with nothing worse than that. The wound Octa had received didn't seem to be poisoned either.

"Now, my dear fellow," said Octa, "I'm afraid we shall have to go back inside to help the others."

Boreas had completely forgotten about the battle in his joy to be alive. "Of course! But, Octa, Seviper poisoned me with something that is inhibiting my powers. I can make Ice Beams, but it's extremely tiring."

"Then you shall just have to use that quick mind of yours instead," Octa said as they ran inside, "It seems the only way we are likely to defeat the remaining five pokémon in the first place."

"Well, I'm glad you don't put me under any pressure," mumbled Boreas.

In the inner part of the cold storage, Boreas found the guards were all knocked out. "Did you do this on your own?"

"Yes. They attempted to obstruct my way as I came to rescue you."

Their friends had clearly lost the battle. Capella was writhing on the ground in agony, every vein in her body clearly visible under her skin in an obvious and disturbing black. Selene was buried in a mound of sludge, heavily struggling against its pull to keep her beak in the air. Toxica, who was missing one of the leaves on her head, was clutched in Drapion's death grip. Black's still body lay were Seviper had left it, so at least he was out of direct danger for the moment.

"Octa, I've got an idea, but it'll probably result in broken bones and/or necks for both of us," said Boreas.

"Do tell. If it can help us save our comrades, we should execute it."

"Look at that high stack of containers there, it looks very unstable. If I climb to the top, I bet I could make it fall over just by shifting the goods in the top container. You would have to draw all five of them to the spot under it and keep them there for as long as possible. Only, there's a large chance either or both of us would get crushed along with them."

Octa nodded. "I shall give you a few minutes to climb to the top, my dear fellow. Be quick about it, for I shan't be able to hold all five of them off very long. And just in case we shan't see one another again, I want you to know it's been an honour to consider you my friend."

Boreas nodded. "It has."

He ran to the unstable stack of containers and saw just how hard it would be to climb them. Each container was three metres high and made of solid, smooth metal. The only grabbing point on the containers was the heavy handle on the doors, which was about halfway up. Each container's front side was in the same direction, so Boreas decided to climb that side of the stack.

He pulled himself up on the handle of the first container, carefully placed his rear legs on it, and stood up on two legs. He still had almost fifty centimetres to go before the top of the container. He jumped up, and just managed to grab the edge. He pulled himself up and managed to stand on the thin ledge the second container left because it wasn't stacked evenly. Six more to go. He was beginning to wonder if Octa might have the easy half of the plan when he saw that the third and fourth container were stacked evenly, without leaving ledges to stand on between them, and that the sixth container even overhung the fifth. But he would tackle those problems when he got to them, first he had to climb the second container.

When he pulled himself up to the door handle halfway on the third container, he took a look down and saw he was very high already. Falling from this height would probably mean breaking bones, even without the containers falling as well. But he also saw that his impression of the fourth container being evenly stacked on the third had been faulty: it left a tiny ledge of only a few centimetres on this side, actually. It would never be enough to stand on, but he could probably hold it and climb to the side of the container. Since the fourth container was placed too far to the right there was a wider ledge on the container's left side. He jumped to the edge, and held on to it. He tried not to look down at the depth of nine metres gaping under him.

Cautiously, he shifted his left paw further to the left, then followed with his right. Like this, he climbed to the left corner, where he could pull himself up to the ledge. He looked for a way to scale the fourth container, but the only place to grab between the top of the container and the ledge was the door handle, which was on the front side, while he was on the container's right side. He realised he would have to make an almost impossible jump to grab the handle. He prepared himself, then made a jump that just allowed him to clear the corner. For one sickening moment he thought he wouldn't make it and would break all his bones on the ground, but with a grunt of pain his left paw managed to grab the handle. He quickly joined with his right. He was getting exhausted after climbing eleven metres and was in desperate need of a rest. While pulling himself up on the handle, he heard Octa's voice echo through the vast hall:

"A good morning to you, brutal fiends. Take a good look at this blood on my Leaf Blade. I'm afraid I shall have to inform you it's your friend the Seviper's. I killed her myself, and I believe I could dispatch all five of you with similar ease."

Boreas wanted to shout at him that it was too early, that he was only halfway, but that would give away the plan, so he just climbed faster despite his exhaustion as he heard the five poison types run after Octa. By the time he scaled the fourth container, the sounds were beginning to approach him. But there was a big problem: since the sixth container overhung the fifth by a good forty centimetres, there would be absolutely no edge to grab once he scaled the fifth. He tried to see if there was any ledge on the sides, but the containers were evenly stacked there. Of course there would be a ledge on the backside of the fifth, but he had no way of getting there. The sounds of running stopped and he heard Octa fight with all five opponents down below him. He climbed on the fifth container's handle and pulled it as hard as he could. To his fortune he found the container wasn't locked and swung open in a wide arc with him still hanging from the handle.

Octa's voice sounded from far down: "I can handle you all, just you wait, though a little help from above would be very convenient if it hurried up!"

He climbed on top of the open door and then lost his balance as it moved under him. He fell down and for one horrifying moment it seemed he would die fifteen metres down, but he managed to grab the handle. Despite his sore muscles' protests he pulled himself up to the top of the door. This time he was more prepared for the door's shiftiness and managed to keep his balance. As he heard Octa yelp in pain, he jumped up to the sixth container's handle. Completely exhausted, he noticed the stack wobbled with each step he took, so poorly balanced was it. He opened the seventh and highest container's door and found it contained heavy crates. He began shoving them all to the door's side of the container and felt the stack heave more and more with each crate he moved. Finally, when he moved the third crate, the entire stack lost its balance. The effect was incredibly scary, as the entire container began falling with him in it.

In freefall, he opened one of the crates and dived into it, landing in a heap of fish. He wanted to close the crate, but then a massive impact made him lose consciousness.

-

A part of Boreas' consciousness returned to him and he opened his eyes. He saw a white roof.

"You okay, pup?"

"Lucius?" he mumbled, "you filthy traitor."

"Hey, no need to thank me or anything, I only got the help that saved your ass and your boyfriend's from the mess you made."

"Octa?!" Boreas exclaimed, "is he alright?!"

"You nearly killed him with that stunt, but he got lucky and was only lightly crushed."

"Capella? Selene? Toxica? Black?"

"Nurse Hate thinks they'll all recover. Of course, you'd all be dead from either being crushed or poisoned if it wasn't for me and the help I got."

"Lucius, I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you. And I'm sorry for calling you a coward and a traitor. So what happened to Zinzolin and his pokémon?"

"When we arrived, he was trying to rescue his pokémon from that pile of containers you buried them under. He agreed to come with us as long as his pokémon would get to go free once the pokécenter healed them."

"So he's been arrested?!"

"Yeah, he's kept in Clay's Gym because Clay thinks the police aren't strong enough to keep him locked up if Team Plasma comes to save him."

-

On an unseasonally sunny and warm day two weeks later they were on their way to the Gym to make an appointment for a battle with Clay. All of them were fully healed once again. Capella had been the closest to death, she almost hadn't survived the poisoning, and Boreas had broken a number of bones and suffered a bad concussion. But now they were all healthy again, and taking a walk through Driftveil's market on their way to the Gym. All sorts of goods from all over the world were on display.

"Oy, shir," the deep voice of a salesman cried out as they passed his stall, "wanna buy an evolushunary shtone? I've got all kindsh, and they're only 2000 pokémoney! Your pokémon will love them, I'm shure!"

"Sorry," said Black, "but none of my pokémon evolve with a stone."

"But what about your Oddish, shir? When it evolvesh to a Gloom, it can ushe one of my shtonesh to
become a Vileplume or a Bellosshom!"

"Shorry-" Black blushed at his inadvertent imitation of the man's speech impediment, "Sorry, but I don't think she wants to evolve at all."

Boreas suddenly became aware of an awful stench of rotting meat that hung in the air. A Gloom ran past him. "Yes I do!" she piped, "Come on, give me the Leaf Stone!"

"Your Oddish jusht evolved, shir."

"Huh? Oh, so she has!"

"Sho do you want a shtone?"

"Yeah, I do!" said Toxica.

"I guess she does. Toxica, do you want to be a Vileplume or a Bellossom?"

"I want to be a Vileplume!" she said, grabbing the Leaf Stone. A bright white light enveloped her, and her body transformed to a Vileplume's. When the light stopped, the flower on her head had become huge and shadowed her face rakishly.

"Hey, I like this," she said happily, "how do I smell?"

Boreas sniffed the air and noticed the rancid odour of rotting meat had disappeared, and instead there was now a quite lovely smell. "Fine."

"Really? How about now?"

Suddenly Boreas began to cough at the disgusting smell. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever smelt, and that's coming from someone who spent some time inside a Seviper!"

"Hee hee, I can control it now that I'm a Vileplume," Toxica laughed, "and Octa, don't I look lovely now?"

"I... um... can't deny you possess a certain amount of attractiveness."

Suddenly a light tremor shook the ground and flashes of light came from the Gym. Black and his pokémon ran there. When they arrived at the Gym, they saw Clay was standing in the door to his Gym, which was surrounded by Team Plasma, led by Ghetsis, the Sage they had first seen in Accumula.

"Clay," Ghetsis spoke. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Ghetsis of Team Plasma's Seven Sages. I've come to pick up my friend who is in your care."

"Ah don't need no thanks," Clay responded, "yer buddy here stole people's pokémon, kidnapped some young'un, an' then tried to kill him an' his pokémon."

"What's this? There seems to be a misunderstanding... We never steal pokémon, and we only free pokémon from wicked people. And if evil people fight against our noble cause, we will occasionally use extreme measures against them."

"Well, that sounds real nice if it's true. Ah may not talk purdy, but at least Ah'm an honest man. You talk real nice, but what yer sayin' kinda sounds like lyin'. So tell me plain, what are ya tryin' to say?"

"Team Plasma's goal is to liberate all pokémon from humans. This is a noble goal, and to achieve such a noble goal, occasionally it can be necessary to do quite unnoble things. All servants of our king are necessary to achieve our goal. Give your prisoner up, or I shall be forced to do quite unnoble things."

Scowling, Clay shouted some things inside, and then Zinzolin walked out the Gym. "Ghetsis... Merci beaucoup."

"Well, Ah reckon you've won this without a fight. Take 'im and git!" Clay said.

"Not so fast!" Black interrupted, "Clay, the odds aren't as bad as you think! Those grunts are pretty poor fighters and Zinzolin's pokémon aren't here. Ghetsis is the only real threat."

Ghetsis laughed, a very unpleasant laugh that sounded as if he'd learned it from a book. "Well, well, the trainer who's been giving us so much trouble. Get out of our way, boy, or I will do what my friends could not and teach you never to interfere with Team Plasma again."

"Ghetsis," said Zinzolin, "please don't. There 'as been enough death already. Three of my pokémon were killed while doing their duty."

"I see, my friend. Very well, in that case, I expect we will all meet again sometime."

"Hold on!" shouted Black, "I haven't agreed to just let you go!"

Ghetsis nodded, and the grunts threw their smoke bombs. Boreas blew away as much of the smoke as possible, but there was an awful lot of it and most kept hanging around. It seemed Plasma was spreading out: most of the grunts were staying here and throwing their pokéballs to fight, while Ghetsis, Zinzolin, and three of the grunts were running off. Boreas couldn't let them get away and ran after them. He heard Black shout behind him:

"The Sages are escaping! Octa, you and the others stay here and get these guys while Boreas and I go after the Sages!"

Boreas ran faster than Team Plasma, but they had a head start and were quite a bit ahead as they ran through the docks. They reached a pier on the river and jumped into a boat that was waiting for them. Boreas cursed and jumped in the water to swim after them as they speeded off, but found out he could barely even stay afloat, let alone keep up with the boat.

Boreas splattered around in the water, feeling like a total failure, when suddenly he was lifted into a passing boat. Black was steering the motor boat. "It's not over yet, Boreas! I hired this boat to pursue them, we may still get them!"

The other boat was far away by now, but this boat was even faster. They pursued Plasma up the river for many kilometres, very slowly approaching the slightly slower boat. Boreas was full of hope that they might still catch them, when they reached the thinner, meandering parts of the river. Now Black's inexperience with steering a boat became very obvious, and they nearly crashed into the riverbanks or rocks several times. Black was forced to take it very slowly, and pretty soon no sign of Plasma remained. Though they kept going for a while, both eventually had to concede that they'd lost Team Plasma and Black turned the boat around.

-

Boreas yawned as he stared off at the passing riverbanks, bored out of his skull. There was absolutely nothing to do on the small motorboat except to be bored. Now that Team Plasma had escaped all exitement had worn off and Boreas really noticed how long and boring the way back to Driftveil was. He could not even play with Black, as he was too busy steering the boat. Maybe I should just ask him to return me to my pokéball, Boreas thought, at least I'll be out of the direct sunlight in there.

Boreas sighed and stared off at the riverbanks again, but this time something caught his eye. They were passing by a small rock in the river, and on the rock a very cute Vaporeon was sunning. Her shapely body was covered in blue fur that sparkled in the Sun, her finned tail was about as long as her body, and when she looked up as the boat passed her Boreas saw she had a lovely face. She smiled and winked at him, and Boreas felt as if his heart had stopped and his blood was boiling. He tried to greet her back in some way, but only managed an awkward nod and something that was supposed to be a charming smile but probably looked more like two fishermen had caught their hooks in each of the corners of his mouth and were now trying to haul him in. It had been a long time since he had last seen another Eevee, let alone one as pretty as this Vaporeon, so Boreas yearned to go talk to her, but the boat had already passed and they were moving away.

"Black, stop the boat, I want to talk to that Vaporeon," Boreas said to Black, who didn't understand a word of it as usual.

"Not now, Boreas," he said, "Let me just focus on steering, or we'll end up on a rock."

"C'mon, just look over there, and you'll get it!" Boreas said, pointing to the Vaporeon.

Unfortunately, Black's back was turned to him while he steered. "If you're hungry just get some berries from my backpack."

Boreas sighed, looked at the shapely Vaporeon again, and jumped off the boat. The water was cold, but that was quite a relief after sitting in the unseasonably warm Sun for a while. He managed to resurface and began swimming clumsily to the rock. Though his swimming was bad, he managed to keep himself afloat and slowly made progress against the river's calm current. After a few minutes of the clumsy swimming while the Vaporeon watched him amused, he finally arrived at he rock and held on to it with his front paws to keep afloat. He looked up into a pair of gorgeous black eyes looking at him expectantly, and realised he had no idea what to say.

"Uh... Hi," he said.

"Hi there," said the Vaporeon, "my name's Aqua."

"Hi, Aqua," Boreas said awkwardly.

"So... Do you have a name?" She asked.

"Uh... Y-yes, it's Bors. No, Boreas!" He kicked himself underwater for making a complete mess of this. He realised that though he had planned to be really charming and witty, he was currently displaying all the charm and wit of a spoilt carrot.

After a highly awkward pause of a few seconds, she said: "So um... Can I help you, Boreas?"

"Uh, well... Y'see... I just wanted to tell you that though my Blizzard is usually powerful enough to freeze a Heatran, with someone as hot as you nearby I couldn't even manage a cooling breeze."

nice
I'd use SO much more, but the letter limit woulndn't let me

Bow to the sig made by DarkNinja! Mwahaha!

^There's a letter limit here? Seems rather unlikely, considering I'm posting full chapters of three to fourthousand words here as my posts.

Chapter Thirty-Four: On the Narrow Isthmus Between Two Troubled Eternities

Present

"...And I believe you know the rest of the story already," finished Boreas.

"Yes, I think I might have the rest before," Aqua grinned, "That lovely Vaporeon laughed at our plucky Glaceon hero's cute pick-up line and invited him to join her on the rock, taking pity on his awful swimming and already finding him and his intelligent cyan eyes quite intriguing. They talked and talked, and ended up falling completely in love, and one evening eight days later they were walking through the glade together when our charming and witty Glaceon hero finished telling his tale to her as she listened in awe to the amazing tale being told in his sexy voice."

"Eight days?" asked Boreas, walking closer to her so their sides brushed together, "surely it can't have been only eight days."

"Incredible, isn't it?"

"I can hardly believe I didn't even know who you were nine days ago. Or that I wasn't in love; in hindsight it feels like I wasn't even really alive then."

"I know just what you mean." She approached his face for a kiss, but suddenly water began pouring down from the sky like they were walking under a waterfall.

"Kyogre's crotch," Boreas cursed, "I don't like getting wet... And it's an hour back to the pokécenter."

"I do like getting wet," said Aqua, "but not by rain. I think my burrow is somewhere close by here, though, follow me."

Boreas followed her as she ran. "What d'you mean you think it's here?"

"I never approached it by land before, I always come by the river."

They ran to the riverbanks, though by this point in the river they were five metre high cliffs rather than banks. They ran along the cliffs for a while, until Aqua announced: "This is it. My burrow is down there, by the water."

Boreas peered down. "How are we supposed to get there?"

"I don't know, I told you I've never come this way before. But I guess we could try to climb."

Boreas saw there were indeed footholds and small edges to climb down on. They grabbed each other's paw to help them climb. It was a scary climb, but easier than it looked. Once you were on it it seemed less like descending from a sheer rock face and more like a ladder. They arrived at the bottom of the cliff safely and entered a burrow in it.

Boreas had never really imagined what Aqua's burrow would look like, but he had expected something warm, soft, pleasant and lovely like her. But the only pleasant thing about it seemed to be that it smelt of her. For some reason, it felt like a sad, lonely place, though it looked like any other burrow.

"Well," said Aqua, laying herself down, "now that we're here, I can finally lie down. My feet hurt from all that walking."

Boreas grinned, "What, that short hike tired you out?"

"Short?!" Aqua exclaimed, "it was very far."

"It wasn't. Besides, we had breaks at several points, usually when we started kissing and just wouldn't stop." He blushed at the memories.

"It was far for me, I'm not used to walking."

"Aww, poor you..."

"Hey! Don't make fun of me, I don't make fun of your swimming either!"

Boreas arched an eyebrow.

"Okay, I guess I do. But only rarely."

Boreas arched it a bit further.

"Okay, okay, I do that quite a lot and have no real right to complain. But could you massage my feet for me? They're very tired."

Laying down next to her, Boreas did so with pleasure. "So... um... you live here all by yourself?"

"Of course I do!" Aqua said defensively, "you didn't think I was cheating on you, did you?"

"No, of course not, that came out wrong. What I meant to say was that it seems a bit... I dunno... Lonely."

Aqua's face suddenly seemed wistful and sad, but then it disappeared in favour of a smile. "Nah, not at all! I may be alone, but there's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. Besides, I'm only here at night, at day I'm usually outside."

"So what do you do outside?"

"Well, I go to see you."

"Aside from going to me, I mean before you knew me."

Aqua smiled another smile, but it seemed fake. "Oh, you know, I fish... I sun... I... uh... swim? And I... well, I visit my friends of course. Yes, I visit.... Marie? And um... Josephine?"

"Are you okay, my love?"

"Of course," she said far too jovially, "I-I'm fine."

"No, you aren't," Boreas pointed out, "I can clearly see the sadness you're hiding under that pretty smile. You know you can tell me everything, right?"

"Okay," Aqua said with fake joviality, "so maybe I don't really have that many friends here, and maybe on occasion this burrow can be a tiny bit lonely, but that's no problem."

She paused, and the fake smile on her face disappeared as she looked into Boreas' eyes with great sadness. "Actually, you're right, I feel lonely here quite often."

"It's strange, but I can feel it... I could the moment we entered here. You don't really like this burrow, do you?"

"I didn't say that," she said with more fake joviality, "It can just be a bit lonely, I didn't say I don't like it..." the fake smile disappeared, "but you're right. I don't like this place at all. I-I'm..." to Boreas' surprise, Aqua's voice began breaking up and tears glistened in her lovely eyes, "so-so lonely here. Y-you just can't imagine how lonely this place is."

Boreas wasn't sure what to say, but he stopped massaging her feet and took her in his arms instead to give her some emotional support. "Hey..." he said kindly.

"I-I've been here for six months," the tears were beginning to stream now as her shoulders shocked in his arms, "and I don't even have a s-single friend... Everything he-here is either prey, predator, or just doesn't se-seem to like me-he! I-I hadn't seen a friendly face in months before I met you."

Boreas embraced her tightly. "Oh, my love, I didn't know... I'm sorry. But now you have me, at least."

Aqua cried onto his shoulder. "Bu-but only for now. T-tomorrow, you'll defea-eat Clay and the-then you'll have to lea-eave with Black, and I'll s-still be here, all alone."

"No, dearest," Boreas gently rubbed her back, "it doesn't have to be that way... You could come with me when I leave!"

"N-no, Boreas," Aqua sniffed.

"We could still be together, my love, forever if we like! And you wouldn't be stuck in this lonely burrow any more."

"B-Boreas, I can't," cried Aqua.

"Of course you can, what binds you to this place?"

"W-well, nothing, but-"

"Then join me, love! You would never have to be lonely again. Not only will you be with me, but you'll have friends in the others. I'm sure you'll like them all very well once you get to know them... Well, except for Lucius, you probably won't like him, but that's pretty common."

"No, Boreas, listen to me, I can't join you."

Boreas felt his heart sink while it was pounding against hers. "Why?"

"B-Black," Aqua said sullenly.

"Oh, him? There's nothing to be afraid of, my love, he's-"

"No, I'm not afraid of him. I just- can't travel with a human. Not after what they did."

"Oh, but Black isn't like the humans that hunted you, he's kind and loves his pokémon and he'd never harm you, and will always take good care of you. Black is different."

"I know!" Aqua surprised Boreas by yelling this angrily, "I know. But tha-that doesn't matter. Even if he's a g-great guy, I hate him. Don't you see? I hate all humans. I have to hate them. I can never forgive them for what they did, Boreas, don't you see?"

"But-"

"Listen, my love, I lied to you. When-when I told you how I evolved, it was more or less a made-up story. I wasn't there to fish, I was there to meet someone. A very good friend. In-in fact, he was my lover. Lothario was his name... I loved him, Boreas, and the humans killed him! I-I saw his corpse... That's why I fled, not because the humans would come after me with harpoons, I mercilessly drowned both of them and their pokémon like the miserable insects they were, so who would ever know I was there at all? B-but I just couldn't return... I couldn't announce to his family that he had died, and that it was because he wa-was meeting me... And I couldn't face all the memories; everything would remind me of him. I-I fled down the river wi-without saying goodbye and never even t-t-told anyone what happened to him... My family and friends must think I've been dead for months... I feel like I've been dead for months..."

A pang of jealousy had clouded Boreas' mind for a moment, but he had stuffed it away carefully. Aqua needed his support now, above all. "Oh, my love, I can't imagine how hard that must've been for you," he said gently as he rubbed her back and held her tightly.

"N-no, you can't... At least you had Octa after your parents died... And all kinds of th-things to distract you... I-I've been here for s-six months, all by myself with only painful memories to keep me company. Y-you have no idea how that feels like, and I hope you never will. Do you see now, Boreas, do you see why I can't help but hate Black, even if I know he's not like them?"

Boreas thought of Thomas. "Yes. I do. But- but if you stay here alone, it'll only make things worse. You'll be alone and miserable again, and I couldn't stand the thought of travelling on while you're still here like that."

"It wouldn't be as bad as it was, my love, because now I have the happy memories of you to keep me company besides the sad ones... And I would have hope, hope that I would see you again one day."

"But you would still be miserable, even if you were less miserable than you used to be. There must be a solution... You could travel along with us, but not actually with us. You could travel on your own and just sort of follow the same path, and we could meet every evening, as far away from Black as you'd like."

"I-I don't know... I would have to follow you pretty closely to follow the same path, and it would still feel like travelling with Black. P-please understand, I want to like him, I honestly do, but seeing a human... It reminds me of that horrible day... I can never forget it, or forgive them. And I would have to come close to human-infested places... I know I never showed this, but going into Driftveil with you really hurt and scared me, it's just that at those moments I was able to drown that out with my love for you, but at night I felt horrible about it. But I have another idea: stay with me! Not here in this miserable place, of course, but we could travel together to wherever we'd like! Just you and me and the world."

"Ye-"

Aqua interrupted him, "No, I don't want you to answer this impulsively, because as much as I want to travel with you, I don't want you to become unhappy with a rash decision later on. Just... think about it carefully. I don't want an answer before tomorrow."

"I could never be unhappy if I was with you."

Aqua brought her face in front of Boreas' and smiled while tears still twinkled in her eyes. "Maybe. Maybe being together would be enough, but you'd miss your friends and your ambition, and that might make you very unhappy in the long run... I want you to be happy, I couldn't live with the idea that I made you unhappy, so think about it carefully, okay?"

She kissed him while salty tears continued to stream from her eyes. "But whatever you decide and whatever the future may bring, stay here with me tonight, o-okay? I've never told any of this to anyone, and I-I feel like it's opened all the old, barely healed wounds... I-I just can't face loneliness right now..."

Boreas thought about the Gym battle tomorrow morning, then decided he didn't care if he missed it. If Aqua needed him, he would stay with her for as long as she needed him. "I will," he whispered.

He felt her cry on his shoulder again. "Thank you. I-it must be strange, t-to suddenly see me become so... weak and-and sad and lonely when I must normally seem so strong and jo-jolly and flirtatious..."

"You're not weak. Crying after all that isn't weakness, in fact I'd say it shows how strong you are that you are even sane at all after half a year of being vexed in loneliness by your memories."

"Th-thank you. B-but I want you to know that when I'm jolly and flirty and all that, it's not just a mask or an act or anything, I act like that because of how happy you make me feel.

The way I felt when you jumped out of the boat and began talking to me... I can't describe how glad it made me... It was the first time I had really felt joy in half a year. I mean, when I saw you come by the first time, about an hour earlier, I had thought you were cute, and I had seriously considered swimming after you to talk to you, but I didn't because you were with a human and because I didn't know what to say anyway... So I just checked out your tail and bum as you boated past," (Boreas blushed deeply at this), "and then I went back to sunning, which was sort of my only pleasure in all that time alone... But I found I just couldn't put you out of my mind, that I was wondering what would've happened if I had gone to talk to you. It was very nice to have something non-depressing to think about for a change, really. And then I couldn't believe my luck as I heard a boat pass again and saw you were on it. So I smiled and winked, and tried to collect my courage to go talk to you, and to my surprise and joy you came to me! And, well... the eight days since have been the happiest of my entire life. You made me feel things I haven't felt since Lothario died, Boreas."

Boreas had a momentary urge to ask her whether she had loved Lothario more than him, but he resisted it, recognising that would be a very cruel question, and exactly what she didn't need from him right now. He didn't want her to be unhappy, and he decided to be a good, supportive boyfriend for her. "I didn't know I made you so happy... That alone makes me happy..."

They lay silently in each others' arms. Aqua's sniffing and whimpering on Boreas' shoulder soon stopped, and a while later her breathing became very slow as she went to sleep in his arms. Boreas was in a daze of love for the gorgeous creature in his embrace, as her sharing her anguish with him had only made him adore her more. He was only snapped away from his blissful adoration for her by a momentary pang of annoyance as he pictured the faces of his friends when he returned to them the next morning and they would draw the obvious conclusion. At least he figured Selene might be clueless enough that she wouldn't jump to that conclusion, and maybe some of the others would believe him if he told them there had been no horizontal dancing involved. Lucius would certainly make himself incredibly annoying, though.

But after that momentary pang of annoyance, he found he didn't really care as he cradled the soft, finned head resting on his shoulder. And then he knew it for certain: tomorrow he would tell his friends that he would leave the team. He would fight one final battle with them against Clay, and then he would leave with Aqua. He would miss them all, of course, but he wanted to stay with Aqua more then anything else in the world.

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Underground Boss

Future

The flying mountain suddenly began turning as they climbed it. Boreas' paws lost all grip and he nearly fell into the depths, but he managed to grab hold of a small ridge, trying not to let go and reach the plateau just above him. Below him the vast, forested vista the mountain was flying over was breathtaking, but kilometres down. If he fell, he would certainly be dead. But he just couldn't reach the plateau above him.

"Need some help?" Aqua's pretty finned head looked over the edge.

"Aqua!" Boreas said happily, "there you are, help me up!"

"Of course, my love!" she said as she extended a paw over the edge.

Boreas tried to grab her paw with his free paw, but something heavy was hanging on to it. He looked down and saw it was Octa, dangling above the depths. "Octa? Are you here too?"

"Obviously," spoke Octa.

"Look, it isn't that I'm not glad you're here too," Boreas explained, "but I can't grab Aqua's paw while you're hanging on to mine."

"Oh, I shall just let go and let myself fall into the depths then, shan't I?"

"Yes. Since this is obviously a dream, I could just let you fall without any problem."

"Very perceptive, my dear fellow. However, have you paid any attention as to what this dream is trying to tell you?"

"It's not trying to tell me anything, because dreams are a product of the brain, basically thoughts had while you're asleep. Since it's a product of my own brain, it isn't going to tell me anything. I was just having a fun, albeit far-fetched adventure with Aqua when you had to enter my dream and start having this silly discussion with me. So why don't you just let go, if I know my dreams lately, the real fun starts when I get up there on that edge." He giggled in anticipation.

"You are right, of course, this dream is merely your own brain thinking while asleep. But perhaps that means you are trying to tell something to yourself? Maybe your decision to leave the team to go adventuring with Aqua isn't the right choice?"

"If it's trying to say that, it's not being very convincing. Because if I don't let go of you and grab her paw, I fall to my death in this dream. While if I do let go of you and grab her paw, not only am I safe, but I'll have... fun with her right there if the pattern of my dreams the last days holds."

"Well, don't blame me, we've just established you're the one dreaming all this, including me, up. I can't help it if your metaphorical thinking is awful, I am not even real and even if I was you'd still be the one dreaming this, not me."

"Just go away, okay? Just let me have my fun in my dream and save the lessons for when I'm awake. Now since this is my dream, I'm just going to pretend you weren't here, climb up there, and have some fun."

"You might want to direct your eyes upwards once again before doing that, my dear fellow."

Boreas looked up and saw the grinning face of Diego instead of Aqua's. "AAH!" he yelped as he lost his grip on the mountain.

Boreas tumbled through darkness. "Octa, you bastard, this dream was going awesomely until you had to show up and poke your haughty nose into my business!"

Flames erupted in the darkness and coalesced into the shape of a gigantic Zoroark head. "Hehehe," laughed Diego's fiery face, "it's not his fault, you know, but yours!"

"And as for you!" Boreas yelled at the flaming Zoroark, "Get out of my dreams!, unless it's so I can practise killing you, which, by the way, I'm still going to do next time we meet!"

"But if you leave the team, you'll get to kill me, because you'll never meet me again!"

"Even better, I wish I had never met you in the first place! I still have occasional nightmares about the night you hung me from that Ferris wheel, or at least, I had them before I met Aqua and all my dreams, aside from this one, sort of started following a similar theme."

"But what I meant was: the team will have to continue fighting Team Plasma without you. What if they die?" suddenly a watery silhouette of Octa drifted past and evaporated as Diego slashed at it, "What if Team Plasma wins?" a mount of dirt shaped roughly like Black drifted by and was immediately melted by Diego, "Could you live with that?"

Boreas pointed angrily at Diego and saw his own paw was made of air, as was the rest of him. He was not invisible, though, he looked more like a Glaceon-shaped cloud. "You. Get. The. Hell. Out. Of. My. Dream. Everyone except Aqua, sod off! It's my dream and I don't want any of you to bother me!"

Diego began to talk, but was suddenly interrupted when starlight coalesced into a shapely Vaporeon who kissed him. The madness all around him disappeared as he felt her lips caress his.

-

Present

Boreas was aware of nothing but the kiss waking him up and Aqua's body pressed against his. His eyes opened when their lips parted and he was greeted by Aqua's gorgeous visage. "Good morning," she whispered.

"Good morning, gorgeous," said Boreas, "and thanks. I was having a really annoying dream."

"So I heard," she smiled.

"Oh. Was I talking in my sleep?"

"More like mumbling, I couldn't catch most of it. But you sounded very annoyed."

They kissed each other again. "Aqua," said Boreas, "I've decided my answer to your proposal."

"Don't tell me yet," said Aqua, "don't decide yet. I want you to spend the day with your friends first."

"But why? It's not going to change my mind."

"It may. It just seems unfair since I cuddled you all night. That's got to be very persuasive, but your friends haven't had any chance to convince you. I just don't want you to make a mistake you'll be unhappy with."

"Okay, fine." I will need to tell them anyway, thought Boreas, might as well do it today and get it over with. "You will hear my decision tonight. Oh, that reminds me, I need to get to the Gym for our battle!"

"No problem, love, I'll swim you there."

Boreas should really be enjoying holding on to Aqua while she swam, but his mind was preoccupied. The dream had been annoying, but it had alerted his mind to the downsides of leaving the team. Then again, what difference would he make in the fight against Team Plasma? In the end, he was just a single Glaceon, and he wouldn't really make that much difference. Besides, even if he did and Team Plasma succeeded because he left the team, that was no problem to him any more. Without a trainer, how much did he really care about pokémon and humans being separated? Sure, other pokémon might not always like it, but he could hardly be putting their happiness before his own. He was going to choose what made him happiest, and as his mind drifted back to Earth, he realised that was Aqua. He began covering her neck in kisses as she swam.

"Mmm," Aqua hummed in delight, "you know you'll make me lose concentration like that..."

"I know, but how could I resist it?"

When they arrived at the city, they kissed and said goodbye. Boreas would've asked her to come watch the battle, but he realised now that asking her to enter a human building would be out of the question.

He ran to the Gym, where he arrived just as Black and his other pokémon arrived too. Boreas was greeted by six grins that made him want to sink into the ground with shame. Though, when he took another look at Selene he saw her grin was more of an absent smile then a grin.

"Ah, Boreas," Black grinned, "glad to see you found some time in your uh... busy schedule to join us."

"'Ow'd it go?" beamed Toxica.

Boreas felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment as Octa, one eyebrow arched, started talking. "I suppose 'twas only a matter of time before you two engaged in carnal knowledge, given your respective personalities, but for you two to move so rapidly was quite rash. Regardless, you have my congratulations, my dear fellow, and I do hope you had fun."

"Just listen to the guy," Lucius sneered, "cropped up with jea-"

Octa interrupted him. "No, I am not jealous of Aqua. No, 'tis not just a phase he's going through. No, he does not love me more. There, I made the jokes so you can do us all a favour and keep your mouth shut. In fact, don't ever open it again if you want to do the entire planet a service."

Boreas spoke up. "Would any of you believe me if I told you that what you think happened didn't actually happen?"

"You mean you didn't sleep with 'er?" Toxica asked incredulously.

"Well, if you put it like that, yes I did, but not like that."

"You mean, without rumpy-pumpy?"

"Yes, that's pretty much what I mean."

A couple of sarcastic grins and looks showed how much they believed him. "Fine," he said, "then I'm not going to tell you what really happened either."

He wondered if he should tell them he was leaving the team, but he figured he'd rather tell them one-on-one then to just throw it into the group. Black looked on his watch and entered the Gym. Inside was a deep pit with a mining elevator. Since Clay wasn't there, Black stepped on the elevator and it sunk down into the shaft. They travelled down into the depths, through layers of earth and past the occasional fossil. Finally a light from downwards became brighter than the sunlight from upwards. They reached the end of the shaft, a large enlightened cave. In the middle of it was Clay in his cowboy costume.

"There ye are, boy!" he said, "Ah think it's about time Ah saw for myself what it is about yer skills that makes a Gym Leader like Elesa take such a shine to ya! We'll be usin' three pokémon each! Krokorok, yer first!"

"Toxica," said Black, "show him what you can do!"

As Toxica and the Krokorok began their combat, Boreas noticed with a twitch of annoyance that Octa was looking at the battle with a bit of an absent smile on his face. "Octa," said Boreas, "I have to tell you something."

"Oh?" Octa answered without even looking at him, "nothing unpleasant, I hope?"

"Well, that depends on how you look at it. I'm leaving the team."

That got Octa's attention. He immediately turned to Boreas, a startled expression on his face. "I beg your pardon? I believe I might be suffering from a slight aural impairment today."

"I'm leaving the team."

"You... are... what?" Octa enunciated.

"I'm leaving the team to stay with Aqua, Octa. We're going to travel the world together."

"Don't you think this is a bit rash, my dear fellow?"

"No, she suggested it last night, actually, and told me to think it over carefully because she didn't want me to make a rash decision. So I decided this morning."

"Even a decision that one took quite a while to make can be rash, my dear fellow. And this decision is rasher than a rash on you on a day you are both inebriated and enamoured. Surely you must realise the idea of leaving your friends, whom you've known for most your life, to go gallivanting with a lady whom you've known for barely nine days is a truly silly and frankly wrong decision. But fortunately I have a much better idea that shall allow you to stay together with her even as we leave Driftveil: Aqua can join our team. I know 'tis unorthodox for a trainer to have more than six pokémon with him, but that needn't necessarily be a barrier. Besides, Capella still insists she is not technically a member of Black's team, so if Aqua joined he would technically have six pokémon in his team."

"I already thought of that, Octa, but she didn't want to join us."

"Oh, and quite obviously if 'tis an inconvenience to Aqua, you should just leave your friends. My dear fellow, I had rather hoped our friendship was strong enough that you wouldn't break it because 'tis a minor inconvenience to some strumpet you barely know."

"Look," Boreas was getting pretty angry at Octa's attitude, "it's not like that. She really has a very good reason why she can't join us, and there is absolutely no way she could without feeling horrible. And I know her very well!"

"Yes," said Octa with a mirthless grin, "you "knew" her all night long, didn't you?"

"Shut up, I told you nothing happened between us last night!"

"Don't lie to me, my dear fellow. And what might this compelling reason she has to ask you to abandon me be then, hmm?"

Boreas realised there was no way he was spilling Aqua's secrets to Octa. "I can't tell you, that's between me and her."

Octa gave him a cold stare. "Fine. Evidently our friendship is not as close as I thought it was. I would've thought you would feel by now you could confide any secret in me, but perhaps I was mistaken. I would've thought our friendship would be worth more to you than the whims of a lady you met a week ago, simply because she has brought you sexual pleasure, but evidently I was mistaken."

"I told you!" Boreas yelled, "We did not have sex!"

All pokémon eyes in the room turned to Boreas, who felt embarrassed as well as angry now. After a momentary pause, the battle continued. Boreas saw Krokorok was on its last legs, and Toxica finished it with a single Energy Ball. "Woohoo!" she cheered, "being evolved is awesome!"

"Well, Ah'll be, young'un," said Clay as he returned the Krokorok and sent out a Palpitoad, "Sure didn't see that coming!"

A Palpitoad appeared from the pokéball. "Ha, that's both a water and a ground type!" scoffed Black, "Toxica, you'll easily handle this!"

But as a bright green Energy Ball formed in Toxica's hands, one of the big blue bumps on Palpitoad's forehead burst open and a disgusting blob of purple sludge fired out at great speed and exploded all over Toxica before she could react. Toxica screamed in pain as her skin rapidly dried out and yellowed wherever the sludge touched her. It seemed for a moment she was going to continue the battle, but she was covered in a great amount of the horrid sludge and her flower was hanging limp and turning a sickly orange. Black forfeited and immediately rushed over with an antidote to help her.

"Ya don't become a Gym Leader without coverin' for weaknesses, boy," said Clay.

"Octa," commanded Black as he cleaned the horrid sludge off Toxica, "you take over."

Instead of making a remark or saluting his opponent as usual, Octa grimly nodded, drew his Leaf Blade, and stepped forward. He and Palpitoad carefully circled each other, both realising that whoever made an aggressive move would probably get hit first: if Octa attacked, he would be too close to his opponent to dodge a Sludge Bomb, while if Palpitoad fired a Sludge Bomb, the lithe Octa could dodge it and attack him, and both combatants could probably be defeated by a single attack from the other. They eyed each other cautiously, not daring to break the stalemate. Boreas hoped Octa would get one of the Sludge Bombs right in the face.

"Boreas," whispered a kind voice next to him.

"Capella," Boreas nodded, "I take it you want to talk to me about the little disagreement I just had with Octa?"

"Not really," said Capella, "it's hardly the first time you argued and you'll work it out in a few days as usual. I just wanted to ask you if it's true that you didn't have sex with Aqua last night."

"Yes, it's true," Boreas said frustrated.

"Okay," Capella nodded, "then I believe you."

"You do?" Boreas asked in surprise, "That's so unlike... Well, everyone else."

Capella nodded.

"Thanks, you've got no idea how frustrating it is that no-one believes me, even if it doesn't really matter."

Suddenly the stalemate was broken. Boreas hadn't seen who broke it, but Octa was dodging Sludge Bombs left and right, but didn't run at Palpitoad, instead dropping his sword and extending his vines. The vines slammed Palpitoad and left nasty red stripes, then they wrapped Palpitoad and seemed to dehydrate him within moments. Octa had to duck under one last Sludge Bomb before it was over.

"Givin' up's the easy way out!" said Clay, "If Ah wanted, Ah coulda given up any ol' time!"

He threw a pokéball, unleashing an Excadrill. Octa picked up his Leaf Blade once again and began battling the badger, but his every strike was parried by the massive metal claws.

Boreas was feeling a bit disappointed. "So... Aren't you going to ask me what happened last night if it wasn't what everyone thought it was?"

"No. Unless you really want to tell me, of course. But otherwise, I figure whatever may have happened was between you and Aqua."

"Well... I think I'd like to tell you. I asked her to join the team, but she can't. You see, human hunters killed her previous boyfriend and she's still very shook up about it. She can't help but hate humans and so there's no way she could join the team. And she can't just stay where she is either, because she is incredibly lonely and has absolutely no-one in the world, except for me. And so she wants me to leave the team and travel with her. And so do I."

"I see," said Capella, "that explains the argument. Well, I will miss you and so will the others, but I hope you'll be happy with her."

Boreas sighed in relief. "I'm glad you take it so well. Octa... He was furious! Why can't he just react the same way? Why does he have to start meddling and try to hold me back?!"

"Because he's very fond of you," Capella said earnestly. "He likes you a lot, Boreas, and doesn't want you to leave."

"Why?" Boreas seethed, "why can't he just be happy for me?"

"You do the same thing, you know. When you try to stop Toxica's attempts to win his heart, it's essentially the same behaviour. You are scared of the thought that Octa might like Toxica more than you at some point, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not! That's ridiculous!"

"You are, aren't you?"

"Well, not as such. I mean, I just don't think Toxica is right for Octa and I want to protect him from her."

"Maybe, but the main reason is that you're afraid he might like Toxica more than you if he ever falls in love with her."

Boreas sighed. "I guess. What does it matter anyway?"

"Well, put yourself in Octa's position. He is not just having to face the fact that you like Aqua more than him, but now you are leaving with her too, meaning he would see you only very rarely any more. You've got to agree, having your best friend suddenly disappear from your life like that is pretty horrid, and you would likely react even more possessive of him if the roles were switched."

Octa ducked under a powerful metal claw as Boreas grudgingly had to agree. "Maybe. So you're saying I should try to make things up to him before I leave?"

"That might be a good idea, yes."

They watched the battle in silence as Boreas grew more and more annoyed. "Well?" he snapped, "when are you going to talk about Team Plasma?"

"Team Plasma?" Capella asked quizzically.

"Yes, Team Plasma. I know you're going to mention them next to convince me to stay, but I can already tell you it's not going to work."

"I'm not trying to convince you of anything, Boreas. And what does Team Plasma have to do with it anyway?"

"You are trying to convince me, you're just being subtle about it. And what if I was just the one person who might make the difference between Team Plasma winning and Team Plasma losing?"

"The chances of that are minimal," replied Capella, "it's very unlikely you're that special person who might make all the difference, or that such a person even exists."

"Yes, but what if I'm just the drop of water that makes the bucket flood over? It doesn't necessarily have to be because I'm special, but I could just be the one extra person good needs to defeat evil."

"Again, what are the chances things are so close that a single person would make the difference? Is it worth that tiny chance to give up your own happiness?"

"Okay, but what... What if one of you dies while fighting Team Plasma and I've left? What if you died, Capella? Or Octa? If I hadn't left, you might still be alive because in a single battle there is a good chance I would've made the difference! I could never forgive myself if that happened."

"But what about yourself? Isn't your own happiness worth more than all that? Why should you care what might happen to us if you're happy? We are old enough to take care of ourselves, and even if one of us died you would eventually get over it."

"But I-" suddenly Boreas' thoughts caught up to him and realised something very strange was going on. "Hold on, this is really weird. You tricked me into arguing your side while you argued mine!"

While Boreas hadn't been paying attention, Octa had been defeated. Black looked unsure of whom to choose. "Uh... Bore- no, wait, steel weakness... Luc- no, ground weakness... Uh, Capella, finish it!"

Capella threw Boreas a friendly smile as she slithered forward. "Believe it or not, but I'm not arguing either side. I just want you to make the best choice, so I voiced the arguments you already thought of. You've essentially been arguing with yourself."

She began using water and fire to battle her opponent while Boreas rushed over to help the unconscious and wounded Octa regain consciousness. But his thoughts weren't there, they were raging through his mind in a storm of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

-

Future

Alder stood in silent awe as his last pokémon was defeated. Finally he spoke the words: "...It's over. But it's an odd feeling. I'm not angry that I lost, in fact I feel happy. Happy that I witnessed the rise of a great new Champion!"

Boreas couldn't believe it. He looked at his friends and they all had the same dumbfounded expressions on their faces. Then he began laughing in victory, and before he knew it they were all hugging each other happily. Their journey was finally at an end, Team Plasma defeated and now the Elite Four and the Champion too, but... Yet, Boreas felt empty inside. He was glad they'd won, but he realised he had had to give Aqua up for it. He remembered her lovely smile, the soft touch of her lips, how he had stayed with her for a whole night to help her deal with her loneliness and just felt dead inside despite his superficial joy. He had achieved all he had ever hoped for, but at what cost?

-

Present

"Never," mumbled Boreas.

"Whuh?" mumbled Octa, slowly waking up, "Oh, 'tis you." He looked at Boreas as if the Glaceon was a very foul insect that had somehow found its way into his sandwich.

"Yes, it's me!" Boreas snapped. "But I'll go stand over there if I'm in your way, my lord."

Boreas bowed sarcastically and stood a bit away. He was convinced now that leaving the team was the right choice. And yet...

-

Future

Boreas thought the kiss would never end, and would've been quite happy if it never did. But eventually they broke apart and looked into each other's eyes. But Boreas saw the reflection of something unsettling in Aqua's gorgeous black eyes: six gravestones. He tore his gaze away from her and saw all six. He was filled with horror at the thought that he'd let this happen. He hardly dared read the names on the graves, even if he knew what they said.

LUCIUS

???, KNOWN BY HER FRIENDS AS SELENE

TOXICA

CAPELLA OF THE HOUSE OF DRACO

BLACK H. TOUYA

OCTAVIANUS OF THE HOUSE OF EQUINOX

How could he have let it happen? How could he have left them? Even if they hadn't met their premature ends he would never have seen them again. He looked back into Aqua's eyes with nothing but sorrow and hate.

-

Present

"Never," Boreas mumbled even more vehemently. This time, his mind was made up. As much as it pained him, he couldn't leave with Aqua. He realised he had to go tell her and sneaked onto the elevator while the others were too busy watching the battle to notice. When he reached the top of the shaft he pressed the button that sent the elevator down again and ran out of the Gym.

He had to search by the river for a while, but eventually found Aqua fishing and called for her. She surfaced with a radiant smile on her face that evaporated when she saw Boreas' grim face. "I see you've decided."

"Yes, I have," said Boreas glumly. He had no idea how he was going to tell her his decision, he couldn't bear the thought of telling her.

"You... Didn't choose for me, did you?" Aqua said flatly.

"N... No. I'm sorry, Aqua, I'm so sorry, but I just can't leave now... When this is all done and Team Plasma has been defeated, I will happily join you, but I just can't now.... Please forgive me."

Aqua's pretty eyes found his and she kissed his forehead sorrowfully. "You don't need to be sorry, my love. I think I already knew this would be your decision if you really thought about it. It's why I gave you a day to think about it..."

Tears shot into Boreas' eyes as he hugged Aqua. "I really wish I could stay with you."

"I know. So do I. In a perfect world, I would join you and your friends on your surprising adventures in Unova, but we don't live in a perfect world. But that doesn't mean we'll see the last of each other tomorrow, my love. Your next stop will be Mistralton, won't it? I can get there by myself and meet you there."

"B-but..." Boreas stammered, "it'll be ages before we reach Mistralton... We won't see each other for weeks, if not months..."

Aqua kissed him. "But we will see each other again, my love, and that's what's important. We'll spend as much time together as we can in Mistralton. And I won't even have to stay here, because like you, I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll probably reach Mistralton before you, so maybe I'll make some new friends there." She said it all in a cheerful voice, but Boreas could hear the sadness under it.

"Well," he said, "at least we've got one last day together."

-

Late that evening, Boreas arrived at the pokécenter.

"Well, well," Lucius laughed, "look who decided to spend the night here."

"Shut up," said Boreas, "Uh... Capella, Octa, can I speak to you two?"

Capella looked at him with an encouraging smile while Octa coldly stared at something a bit above his head.

"I... Well, I've changed my mind." A happy smile flashed over Octa's face for a single moment before his scowl returned. "I've decided to stay with you. I've already talked it over with Aqua, and we decided to meet in Mistralton. And I'm sorry for upsetting you, Octa. I didn't mean it that way."

"It's great to hear you're staying," Capella smiled.

"Hmpf," Octa sniffed haughtily.

"Come on," said Capella, "we all know you're incredibly happy about this and he's already apologised. So just make it up and be friends again. You know you want to."

Octa stared haughtily for a bit longer, and the a smile spread across his face. "Excellent, my dear fellow, 'tis most agreeable that you decided this way. I knew you'd come to the right decision eventually."

I'm jawdropped (if thats a word : P)

Bow to the sig made by DarkNinja! Mwahaha!

Part Six: Blood, Magnets, and Tears

Chapter Thirty-Six: In the Broad Daylight

Heavy raindrops poured down from the sky. They were at the riverbanks at Driftveil's northern edge, about to leave, and Boreas could feel his friends wishing he'd hurry up as they waited for him to say goodbye to Aqua.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye," Boreas said awkwardly, not quite sure how to handle it.

He was about to turn away and walk off with them when Aqua's lips suddenly interlocked with his. Boreas could feel his legs give away as his mind was enveloped by the highly sensual kiss. He rubbed Aqua's back lovingly and felt her rub his back too. They lay on the ground firmly entangled as they kissed for what seemed like ages. Boreas felt Aqua wrap her legs around him as they kissed passionately.

"Hum-hum," Octa scraped his throat.

With a stab of disappointment, Boreas slowly ended the kiss, reminded of the world. They kept hugging each other very closely, though, relishing in the physical contact. "Well, my love," said Boreas, "I'll see you in Mistralton, then." He jocularly added: "if you still want to, that is."

"I want you right now, Boreas," Aqua whispered in his ear, "but I'll settle for waiting until Mistralton."

Boreas began kissing her again, but this time they let go of each other after a while. After winking one last time, Aqua jumped into the water and swam away. Boreas followed Black in a happy daze as they left the city while he chilled the rain above him to give himself a very cold shower.

-

Boreas usually enjoyed travelling and seeing new, unpredictable places. In fact he loved it and had a tendency to get annoyed and bored whenever they stayed in the same place for a long time. The horizon would seem to beckon for him, to invite him to come see what was behind it.

But not this time. Boreas pined for only one thing, and it was Aqua. The only part of the horizon that seemed to call for him was the part behind him, where he had left her. He could barely appreciate the forest they travelled through as they journeyed over Route 6. Instead he would spend most of the time thinking of Aqua, thoroughly lovesick. If he wasn't thinking about Aqua for a moment, he would soon be reminded of her by basically anything. Any amount of water would spark happy memories, and though he knew she wouldn't be passing through these rivers on her way to Mistralton, his heart jumped at every shadow in the water and every wave. In fact, anything blue would make him very joyful for a single moment, only to feel disappointed next. It seemed even the clouds conspired to remind him of the forked shape of her tail, or the finned shape of her head, or the pointed shape of her ears, or the curved shape or her hip, or the round shape of her eyes...

He was beginning to have a lot of second thoughts about choosing not to leave the team. He couldn't help but think he would've been much happier if he had chosen for Aqua, at least for now. Of course he might be unhappy eventually in some distant future, but he wondered if it had been worth sacrificing his current happiness for.

"Did you ever wonder how Capella can move without legs?"

"Wah!" Boreas startled, "Oh, Selene, it's you. Uh... Can't say I did."

"It's just weird," Selene croaked, "she doesn't have any legs or wings, yet she moves... I wonder how she does it."

"It's not really that strange, you know," Boreas explained. "Just look at her, she sort of keeps the front of her body on the ground and then slightly lifts her rear and-"

"Are you talking about my rear?" Capella suddenly asked.

"No, no, no," Boreas blushed, "of course I wasn't. I mean, I was, but only because I was explaining how you can walk without legs to Selene, who didn't understand that."

"Why don't you ask Lucius?" Capella suggested, "I'm sure he'll be glad to enlighten you."

"Okay, I'll go ask him," Selene flew off.

"So... How are you holding up?" Capella asked.

"Oh, fine," Boreas said with as happy a smile as he could muster, "A bit lovesick, I guess."

"That's very understandable. You two really seem to have something great going on between you."

"I can't wait until I see her again... She's so lovely."

"She certainly is," Capella agreed. "I hope the thought of her waiting for you in Mistralton cheers you up a bit."

"It does, it does. Also the fact that you're with me helps a lot too. All of you, I mean, but you in particular. You always seem ready to support me with kind words or wise advice, and I want you to know I really appreciate it."

"Thank you," she smiled.

Boreas sighed. "I can't wait for Mistralton... How long d'you think this route will take us?"

"Well, the route won't take very long, but we'll have to cross Chargestone Cave afterwards. You weren't there, but Clay gave Black all kinds of advice and information about it after our battle. Apparently it's a cave full of powerful electromagnetism, with many electric and steel types calling it home. Clay talked about floating stones, held afloat by sheer magnetism and gigantic electric arcs like lightning. It'll be quite a spectacular place if even half of it is true."

Boreas would normally love the idea of exploring such a bizarre place. "I guess," he sighed, "but to me it'll just make the journey to Mistralton a few days longer."

"More like a few weeks, if Clay is to be believed, actually."

"Weeks?!" Boreas exclaimed, "Aww, I wish we could just skip it."

It is a well-known fact, of course, that most prophecies and expectations turn out to be mistaken. It is probably a good thing too, as it means our universe is an unpredictable, interesting one. But on occasion, someone says something so uniquely and thoroughly mistaken that it becomes a deliciously piece of hilarious irony in hindsight. When Bill Gates said "There's nobody getting rich writing software," or when Napoleon told the inventor of the steamship "you would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense," they were these kinds of situations.

Capella said: "Cheer up, Boreas, I'm sure we'll all have a great time in the cave."

-

It was clear that winter was coming to an end. The snow had already disappeared before they reached Driftveil and temperatures were pretty warm now as well. But only at day; it was still frigidly cold at night so Black and all his pokémon would sleep in the tent, underneath all of Black's spare clothes and coats to keep them warm.

On one of these nights, most of them had gone to bed already. Only Toxica was still outside. Boreas was nearing sleep, his brain a soft, empty pillow of sleepiness inside his head, when he was suddenly snapped awake by a voice whispering: "Psst, Octa? You awake?"

"Yes," Octa whispered back, "I believe I am quite awake."

"Well, come on out 'ere!" Toxica whispered, "The stars are gorgeous tonight, you really 'ave to see them!"

There was a bit of a pause. Then Octa said "Yes, I believe I shall go outside," and Boreas could hear him sneaking out of the tent.

Boreas considered just going to sleep for a moment, but then rejected it and sneaked out of the tent himself. It was indeed an unusually beautiful night. Hundreds of stars glittered in the sky, and all five moons were up. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky. Octa and Toxica were sitting on a small slope, uncomfortably close to each other for Boreas' tastes. He walked up behind them and suddenly sat himself down between them, though there wasn't really enough room left between them. "Hey guys," he said cheerfully, "nice night we're having, isn't it?"

They made a bit of room for him. "Yes," Toxica spoke with a withering glare.

"Quite," said Octa. "My dear fellow, could I have a word with you in private?"

"Uh, sure." They excused themselves and walked some distance away, until Octa stopped, apparently satisfied Toxica couldn't hear them any more.

"My dear fellow," Octa asked, "Why do you exhibit this behaviour?"

"Uh... What do you mean?"

"Do not obfuscate stupidity, my dear fellow. I know you're doing it on purpose, and I ask you what the reasoning behind it is, for your interference makes me feel quite glim-flashy."

"What do you mean?"

"Fine, if you want me to spell it out for you: you have systematically been attempting to interfere in the friendship between Toxica and myself for a long time now. Why do you do this? Do you honestly believe I would ever consider her more of a friend than you? And even if you do, what makes you think you have the right to interfere?"

Boreas felt very embarrassed. "Well... I don't know how to put this, but... Um... I think she might be interested in being more than just a friend to you."

"Well, obviously."

"What?" Boreas asked flatly, "You mean you knew that?"

"Do you think me blind and stupid, my dear fellow? Evidently I knew it, it has been quite obvious for a long time now. But that is completely irrelevant."

"Well... I... Huh? But..."

"You have such a way with words, my dear fellow. I anticipate your next syllable with great eagerness."

"But you always seem not to notice... I just thought you were oblivious to it or something."

"Quite, yes, because obviously a disinterest in obvious romantic advances showcases obliviousness towards them, rather than simple disinterest. Isn't it quite obvious that I am in no way romantically interested in Toxica? Honestly, for one so smart you can be quite stupid, my dear fellow. Yet all this is entirely irrelevant to the discussion we're having. Whether I consider Toxica a friend or a romantic interest is not the issue, the issue is your apparent belief you have the right to interfere in my relationships to others."

Boreas felt very embarrassed and rather silly about it now. "Uh... Yeah, sorry. I shouldn't have, you're right. But-"

"No, you shouldn't have. And I would appreciate it if you ceased this behaviour at once."

"Okay, I will. I suppose it was rather childish of me. But, you know, on occasion it really seems as if you like her too in that way."

"Total codswallop. Poppycock. Nonsense. Utter balderdash and cobblers. Rubbish, tosh, tripe. An utterly mistaken impression, my dear fellow. I am not in the least romantically interested in her, and even if I were 'twould not matter, for she is neither of my species nor of noble birth."

"So?"

"Therefore, even if I was romantically interested in her in some bizarre kind of alternate universe, I could never allow myself to mingle with her in such a way. After all, thirty-five generations of my ancestors were properly bred to give me the great gift of a noble birth, so I could hardly deny that gift to my own descendants, could I?"

While Boreas had liked to hear Octa wasn't interested in Toxica, he didn't like the sound of this at all. "I thought you said that whole idea of not mingling with non-properly bred pokémon was outdated and only your great-aunt Galaxia still believes in it?"

"Oh, evidently I consider that rubbish, otherwise we would not even be friends. But this is just being friends and socialising, 'tis hardly the same as squandering the noble Equinox blood running through my veins willy-nilly by procreating with non-pure-blooded, non-well-bred pokémon."

"You've got your priorities in a very weird order, you know? First of all, just because you're in love with a girl or romance with her doesn't mean you're automatically going to have cubs with her." He shuddered at the thought of suddenly having cubs to care for due to his relationship with Aqua. "Also, it seems to me you're kind of limiting yourself to a very small group of girls there. I mean, how many female Snivies, Servines, and Serperiors of pure blood can there be who aren't related to you? What if you don't like any of them?"

"'Like' doesn't enter into it, my dear fellow. When my breeders and my family decide 'tis time for me to procreate, I shall do so, regardless of whom they choose."

Boreas was shocked by this. "But that's disgusting! They're just gonna choose some girl they want you to breed with and you have to sleep with her to make little Snivies without even knowing her?"

"Now, do not denigrate that which you do not understand, my dear fellow. I would know her, as we shall of course be properly introduced and given time to woo one another before the matrimonial ceremony would be conducted. After that, yes obviously 'twould be our duty to produce progeny to make sure the noble blood of Equinox flows into the next generation, but our union would be a loving one, my dear fellow."

Boreas still thought it was completely ridiculous. "But what if you don't love her?!"

"Love shall grow eventually even if it may not be present at first. Our respective personalities shall be taken into account when my mate is chosen, my dear fellow, don't worry."

"But what if you love someone else? You can't even choose for yourself, that's so horrible!"

"I suppose 'tis the downside of being of noble blood, my dear fellow. I have a duty to both my ancestors and my descendants, therefore 'tis irrelevant whether I love another than my chosen mate. You see, my blood is quite a lot more precious than yours, or that of most pokémon, for 'tis not just mine, but that of my entire family. 'Tis my duty to ensure my descendants shall be able to claim the same birth that I can."

"To hell with your 'duty'!" Boreas shouted angrily, "You can't let them do this to you, it's totally unfair!"

"To. Hell. With. My. Duty." Octa slowly and coldly articulated. "I know you do not view duty and honour as very important matters, but I do. I would consider both of them more important than my life, and frankly I find the suggestion that I should just ignore my duty deeply insulting."

Boreas was about to argue with Octa, but recognised his friend was adamant about this and if he argued it would turn into a very nasty argument. "I still disagree, but I'm not going to argue about it. Anyway, back to Toxica, if you don't like her in that way, why don't you just tell her so? It seems kind of mean to let her think she has a chance for so long instead of just breaking her heart quickly and getting it over with."

"Well, she has never admitted her feelings towards me. The day she does I shall be forced to tell her the truth, but until that day I see no reason to unnecessarily complicate our relationship with a sudden declaration that I see her as no more than a friend, and couldn't consider her more than a friend even if I did. And now, my dear fellow, I'm going to return to Toxica to gaze at the celestial panorama. I would appreciate it if you didn't interfere."

Boreas returned to the tent, but he just couldn't get to sleep. What Octa had told him seemed horrible, and he didn't wish it to anyone, let alone his best friend. He reminisced about how he had fallen in love with Aqua, spent so much wonderful time with her, kissed her; and felt horrible when he realised Octa could never allow himself something as wonderful as that. Octa would never be in love, when he kissed someone it would be because he had no choice, and he would only ever be with a girl for the rest of his life because he had to. Boreas trembled with the unfairness and with annoyance that Octa himself, who could easily just ignore all that nonsense and love whomever he liked, would proudly continue that idiocy.

He also felt sympathy for Toxica. He might have found her obsessing over Octa annoying, but now he really felt sorry for her. When she finally collected enough courage to admit her feelings to Octa, all she would get would be a refusal and the same cold-hearted story Octa had told Boreas. It would feel far worse than when Febby had shown up with a boyfriend, Boreas realised.