"So, we'll just stride on into Cerulean, right? I'm tired." Fang asks. If his already red eyes could be bloodshot, I'm sure they would be.

Minerva, just as flamboyantly sassy as ever, smirks. "Again, this is the Umbreon saying this? First of all, you're a weenie, and second of all, Umbreons are supposed to be nocturnal. You're supposed to have college grad student sleep hours, not those of an eight year old."

"I am not a weenie!" whines Fang at the top of his lungs. "It's late!"

"Calm down, it's only two in the morning." 

At once, the whole team bursts out laughing. Surprisingly, this even includes Pisces- she chuckles heartily, and agrees, "We've seen worse."

I think of the oceans where we found her, the string of casualties that preceded it, and find I couldn't agree more. She lets Fang onto her back, and says, "No more pick up lines."
Fang nods sleepily.

"It's not going to be easy, guys," I say, pointing ahead. A guard of no less than a half dozen trainers stand just ahead, standing straight as soldiers in their positions down the lane.

"Can we just not... fight them?" asks Reginae, to which Hycanith nods.

"League mandates. Technically we could walk around them." I say, "Some of them. Let's be honest here- we're not getting out of this without a few fights."

Pisces's expression of mild amusement turns back to a grim battle face. "I've got this." Fang falls off Pisces's back unceremoniously, landing with a yelp on the ground.

The first trainer sees us and sends out an Oddish with a sleepy grin on his face. "I'm gonna train 'til I drop," he informs me. "That's how we do it in Kanto!"

Minerva aggresses the Oddish and with a burst of flame from her maws, it topples back over. She staggers back away from her latest victim with class, saying, "That's how we do it in Johto, fools!"

I don't know if I should be glad the battle's over or just concerned for her, as usual.

I don't know how I ended up as the poster child for Johto, either. I wasn't even nationalistic about my country until I left it- if anything, I was just disappointed to be living there instead of the way cooler regions like Hoenn or Unova, but now that I'm here, I can tell you with a straight face that there's nowhere I'd rather be than Johto. I love Johtonian architecture, I love our culture, I love the cozy sense of family you get from the smaller towns, and I love that I know each route like the back of my hand from the two journeys I've had the honor of taking.

This proves two things:
1) You will never appreciate things as much as when they are torn away from you.

2) I, Ashley Hart, am an utter mess.

Hycanith taps my side. She looks into my eyes, pleadingly, and I sigh, "You want to go to sleep?" She nods, enthusiastic, and I tuck her away in a Great Ball, headed straight for the PC.

"We will get her out, right?" Reginae insists.

"She can take turns with the rest of the team, if that'd work. It'd be nice to start training alternates, and having a ground-type on the team provides better type diversity. We don't know what Red will throw at us, but if it's an electric-type, we're screwed. We have three flying types, Reginae."

"I know." he looks up. "If worst comes to worst, I'm electric-resistant."

"Just do your best." I say. We've reached the point of the night where I go from deep to just slurring mildly motivating catchphrases, and I give him a thumbs up to accentuate the point.

Reginae gives me a slow nod, his eyes narrow, and then we move on. The next trainer sends out a Wigglytuff and a Granbull- at once- and Minerva and Reginae step in again, working in tandem to make the most of their abilities.

Reginae sends his flower petals spinning into a Petal Dance and Minerva blows a soft flame over all of them, setting fiery blooms upon the opponent just before they would have disappeared to nothingness. Ridiculous as it seems in concept, in practice it is a bloom of fiery destruction, a storm of embers, and there's nowhere and no way for our opponents to dodge. Both Pokemon are knocked out before they can so much as attack.

"How did you know she wouldn't just burn your petals to a crisp before they hit anything?" I ask as the pair returns back to me, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm.

"We didn't!" they announce at once.

"We just had a dumb idea. You're not the only one we communicate with over our common bonds, Ashley." Minerva says. "Pokemon can't flash to their teammates, but double battles are close as you can get."

Reginae nods, begrudgingly. "Even if I wish she'd knock it off, she makes good strategic points."

"Love you too, you large, whiny vegetable."

Reginae smiles.

Pisces is already down the lane, blasting a Vaporeon with Thunder and a Nidoking with her Waterfall attack. She turns back to the group, eyes like lightning, and bends low. "Keep up," she suggests.

Fang snorts softly in his half-sleep. He hasn't done a thing except give Ten someone to look after, which might not be a bad thing given that lately the Noctowl has been fidgety on the sidelines.

"You, uh, don't think you'll be able to come back in soon, do you?" I ask Ten.

Ten looks back up at me with sad, tired eyes, and says, "Bloody hell, Ashley, can I?"

"You can try." I shrug.

"I... we still haven't talked this through," he says. "Not really."

"Yeah?"

"I don't know what's wrong with me. It's been a few days, it's still coming back-"

"How many times?" I ask.

"I'm the tenth," he says, "And we've never made it this far."

Ten.

"Of course you are," I say aloud. I want to follow it up, I want him to tell me that this is the one he cares for most, the one where things have been the best, something, anything, to prove I'm not just one of almost a dozen. It's a desperate need that seizes me, one that doesn't even feel like my own.

"No matter where you are or what world we're on, it's still you, Ashley." he says. "It's always you, and I'd protect you in a hundred more lives."

It's not the answer I wanted to hear out of him, but in some ways, it's the answer I needed to hear.

Reginae's watching us from a distance. I can still feel a bit of his presence in my thoughts, observing us: Wouldn't it be terrible to know he loved another version of you better?

My old team.

Old habits die hard on both sides.

"We're fine," Reginae says. "Just late night melancholy. We're all fine."

"Yeah, sounds about right. We really, really need to get to bed." I press my head against my hand, slapping myself a little harder than intended.

"You don't say?" Minerva inquires.

"I'll be your last opponent for the night, madam." A smooth ace trainer taps my side, and I swivel around like a drunken sailor, half aware of what's going on.

"It's three thirty in the goddamn morning. I'd advise you get out of my way." I say, holding up a Poke Ball, but I think the point is better driven home by Pisces, who appears over me like an avenging angel. She circles on a Rhydon, an easy foe, and ascends into a spiral of water and fury.

I remember why we don't use her in civilian battles again. A fine mist of rain sprays us all from above. In my half-conscious mind, Pisces looks more like a rain goddess or a thundercloud than just a Gyarados.

From below, the trainer shouts, "Rhydon, Stone Edge!"

A blisteringly fast array of stones cut the air like knives, and there's a shriek that shakes the heavens as they pierce the water and cut right into her scales. I once thought that they were invincible, but even they are no protection for the blow.

One of them rips straight through the front of Pisces's neck, and I can feel the pain where they would have hit my own body pierce my spine in twenty different places. I fall to the floor, gasping, and my Pokedex clatters open in front of me, making a high, whining beeping noise.

Critical hit.

I have to be dreaming.

"Pisces." I gasp, overwhelmed by pain.

Blood gushes from the skies as Pisces falls towards the earth, the water from her Waterfall mixed with her own divine ichor. Her massive body blocks the enemy and washes the battlefield, spreading water that comes all the way up to my ankles and soaks my shoes in an incredible, awful mess.

Something grabs out to me from far away, something bright and desperate, searingly hot even as it cools on the inside of my mind. It's like reaching out to touch a hot iron, but I grip on tight to the last of Pisces, feeling her emotion and rage. I'm not alone, however, because all around me are my teammates, holding Pisces at the center of our collective web. The pain, agony, and fury she holds back as a Gyarados come forth in torrential waves as her body is no longer able to thrash, as her broken spine and wrecked windpipe bring forth pain unlike anything we've ever felt.

As her grip subsides, I see a faint image form in the back of her mind. It's all of us, sitting in the tower again, and I can see the last of the dead sitting on her sides. D'spinas leans against her, needles sharp in death as they were in life, and Pisces is just staring ahead, thinking.

Life... life is a battle. Strength, though...

Sunny crawls up onto her side, beaming with light and joy. Nina joins in, tellings some joke I can't hear, and Basil, with a long wound up the cobra hood where I struck him, comes to rest at her side. Clay crosses his hands over each other, smiling in his usual gruff manner.

Strength is not the only way to win.

The image begins to fade from her mind, and Fang tugs at her fading consciousness, harder and harder, but Pisces is still going. In the real world, unaware of our desperate pleas, a massive water snake who once killed legends and toppled empires takes one last heaving breath and falls asleep late into the morning.

(A/N: Hey, is it 4:20? Because Pisces just got STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONED)