The fall air makes me feel slightly melancholy, reminding me faintly of warm nights around a bonfire with the old team. In truth, thought it feels like it's just beginning to get cold, autumn is probably almost over. Another look at my Pokegear confirms we're already thick into November, which makes sense, seeing as the climate in Johto is generally quite warm even well into winter, especially around the Whirl Islands. I don't think I've ever seen it snow more than an inch in New Bark, either, but Mahogany Town is a different story altogether.

The team plods along beside me, all of us weary from the distance we've travelled thus far. It's just past noon and we've turned the corner towards the second half of Route 38. Wild grasses meet our approach and Ten swoops down to my shoulder. "Do we have to grind again?"

"No, we'll be late going into Ecruteak as it is. We are going to have to head into the grass at some points, but the Pokemon here aren't that tough. You guys can take it, right?" I say, trying to sound enthusiastic instead of incredibly tired.

"You're talking to Fang and Pisces, the best tag team in all of Johto. We can take anything!" Fang exclaims. Pisces is moving along the air currents like a Rayquaza, the only Pokemon that probably rivals her in size. Fang is rushing around by her side, trying to keep up with her swift movements and mainly just tripping over himself.

"We could have flied to Ecruteak if you really wanted to be there that badly. We would have been there already and we'd be to Mohagany by lunchtime. Now we're probably not going to make it until midnight." Rose points out. "Speaking of Ecruteak, did you ever get a response from Morty? We could meet up with him and-"

"In the interest of time, we're not meeting up with anyone. As for the walking, you guys,need the levels, so technically its not a waste. As for a response..." I pull out my Pokegear and glance at the messaging app.

You have twenty three unread messages.

I shake my head. "Nothing yet."

Rose glances at me suspiciously but shakes her head. "Men."

"I know, right?" I try to laugh it off, folding the Pokegear back in on itself and then sliding it into my backpack.

Ten flies over the grass and Pisces flies in behind him. Fang is bouncing off the ground, making his brown fur fly up everywhere. Reginae follows, his leaf bobbing up and down as well as he Iron Tails a good chunk of grass. Basil holds back by my side, looking intensely boed.

I smile smugly. I'm making immensely better time than I did for the last go around.

"So." I say quietly.

Basil looks up at me, frill wide, and hisses, "Is there something you need?"

"Um..." I blink. "No, not exactly. I just don't think we talk very much."

"Well. I am very busy." He dives into the grass. I hear crunching and notice another Raticate thrown aside. It gets up, spits something in a thick accent, and runs away. Basil grins smugly and moves off towards the others.

Sighing slightly, I open up my Pokegear and check the messages.

Ashley?

Ashley are you there?

Looks like I missed you by a minute... what are the odds.

I just wanted to say that I read all of this and

It's going to be okay this time.

I promise.

I won't lie, reading these scared me. It scared me a lot.

You know too much about me to be lying. I knew that from the beginning but I just didn't want to believe we failed.

I still have nightmares about Mt. Silver. Of the end. I guess we do have a bit in common, right?

You've just actually seen it happen.

What you've done so far is still incredible. I can only imagine how scared I was and at the time you were probably a lot younger and you still knew far more than I did about raising Pokemon.

I know you're probably scared this time.

I know you probably hate me.

I know you probably don't want to think of me as the Morty you knew in the past world.

Which is okay.

So for now, let's just... let's just say that I'm not him.

I don't think I could be if I tried.

I'll still be there if you need anything.

Especially going into this last stretch.

I will say I don't know a Team Rocket.

Luckily, it sounds like they're not that big of a threat.
Good luck?

Talk to me again when you need me.

That's all. It sounds so much like him that it hurts. I'm just seconds away from everything in my dreams and yet he might as well be miles and miles away. I press my fingers to the screen and begin to formulate a response, something cool, and professional, only to find myself flat on my face. The Pokegear skids away out onto the open trail, closing itself, and I look down to see Basil's tail. "What the-" I get back to my feet and stare at the Arbok beneath me, spread out across the path like some kind of barricade for ants.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Sunbathing. I got here first." he says, his eyes narrowed to slits. He's barely looking at me. "Feelssss nice."

I try to lift him up and fail miserably, and then settle for walking over him. "Well, if you want to stay here and potentially get killed, that's on you. The rest of us are going to go get lunch." I inform him, looking for 'the rest of us'.

They all seem to be within the area, so I manage to herd them into a more cohesive group and then we get to wander Ectruteak (oh boy). The place is full of pricey restaurants that are fortunately Pokemon-friendly, and the air in the commercial district smells of spices and homemade cooking. Against the will of my angrily growling stomach, I wander into a fast food joint, but it even smells good in there.

I had no idea that you could make fast food of all things taste pleasant but hey, in Ecruteak, I guess anything is possible. If two legendaries could roost alongside humans for millennia and eventually create the legendary dogs from three kitsune, I can order a quick meal that doesn't make me want to gag.

"Alright, let's order fast." I say, looking at the Pokemon menu. Pisces is waiting outside, curled up on a side street (she takes up almost the entire path) but the others are all surveying the menu with interest. We end up ordering six Sitrus Berry mixers, all of which combined are probably far too small for Pisces.

"It's the thought that counts." insists Fang, so we buy it.
"Will that be all?" asks the lovely woman behind the register.

"Make it seven. Wait! Can you do Haban berry?"

She purses her lips. "If you want, but it will be 300P extra."

I slide over the money and she hands us all seven mixers, all of them in cute little cups with straws on the top. I eagerly take them back to the table and open my Pokegear while my Pokemon all attempt to wrangle with the straws. Morty's messages are still sitting untouched and though my screen is a bit dirty from the fall, everything looks fine.

I sip the spicy Haban berry and feel my taste buds quiver with joy.

Thanks. I'll text you if I need anything. We should probably meet up before Claire. I text him. The answer comes surprisingly quick.

Thank you.
I look up and see a teenager about my age with golden, spiky hair holding a Pokegear just a few tables down. His Gengar is by his side, head pressed into the plate and even before the man looks up I know it's him.

I almost choke on the last of my mixer but I manage to sip it up, tears welling in my eyes not from emotional pain but more from the taste of Haban berry wedged back in my throat somewhere.

I wave to Morty before getting up. I swing my bag around my waist and pick up our tray. It looks like everyone's finished, save for Pisces, whose straw I get rid of. There's no way she could sip anything through that, seeing as her jaws are wide enough to fit a car in.

"Let's hit the road." I tell the team. "We still have a lot to get through."
My Pokegear buzzes. Best of luck getting wherever you need to go.

I try not to smile.

The route before us is incredibly small, as it's little more than a quick tree-filled area and then the notorious Mt. Mortar. Pisces takes her mixer and five seconds later, she spits out the plastic cup. I guess I probably should have considered that she might have swallowed the cup but luckily for us all, she looks fine.

"Right." I say, stopping in front of Mt. Mortar. "This is a quick and easy cave, so I say we just move through it quickly as possible. We're going to grind all the way through it."

"Doesn't Mt. Mortar have a giant waterfall? I bet Pisces would really like to see it." Fang suggests. His bell is tinkling loudly, making it almost as loud as he's running his mouth right now. Pisces stands over him. She looks content with her current position and says nothing. Fang continues, "We don't get Pisces out much. Do you think she'd really want to go back into the Pokeball?" His eyes are large and pleading.

"This is a terrible idea." I tell them both. "If you end up causing a cave in and the world ends due to my death, it's officially entirely your fault."
"I can live with that." Pisces tells me.

"Actually, none of us will because we'll be dead from the cave in."
"It's a figure of speech."

"Don't you dare wordplay your way out of this one."

They're both already gone. The other team members are also coincidentally halfway through the cave, and today, I don't feel like fighting them. I run in after them, following their trails and just trying to live in the moment.

Why is this so much more chaotic than it was with my old team?
Why can't I feel it the same way I did with them?
My eyes burn and I realize I'm not flashing, but rather, there's a flash of light throughout the cave emanating from up above. I run towards it and see Fang standing there, his fur dark as coal and rings lining his ears, paws, and sides. He's about two feet taller and his eyes are bright red. The Soothe Bell lies on the floor, possibly broken by his sudden explosion in size.

"Fang!" I yell. "You evolved!"
His eyes widen and he moves one of his paws. "Woah. Nice."

"How does it feel?" I ask.
Fang ponders this for a second, looking himself up and down. "Hmmmm.... meh."

"Are you kidding me." I say, slamming my head against my face. "That's the best you've got?"
"Woah, Ashley. It's not like I don't appreciate evolving or anything, I just... I don't feel intensely aggravated anymore. It's like someone took..." he pauses, "...the opposite of coffee... and just spilled it all over my body."

"What?" Reginae asks.

"I don't know. I just feel very mellow. I guess I got some cool powers out of the deal thought. Watch this." His rings glow and then flicker off again like a flashlight. I can feel my eyes burn in their sockets, tears springing up from the intense light. "Pretty nice, huh?"

"Yes! Please stop doing that." I say.
He flickers off, leaving us back in the darkness. "Great. Now my eyes have to readjust." I say, specks of that weird fuzzy stuff you see behind your closed eyes levitating in my field of vision.

He nods. "Pisc and I can clear the cave. Come on, let's have a little fun with it." He grins, his teeth surrounded by shadowy energy.
The two disappear again and Rose says to Reginae and Ten, "We should head along as well. We erm- have some very important older member stuff to do. Isn't that right?"

Ten hoots, "Absolutely! Have fun, Ashley!" He takes off as well and even Reginae is moving at an impressive pace.

"Shit! Guys, don't leave me alone in-"

"I'm right here." Basil hisses. "There's something on your mind, isn't there?"

I think of Morty and then, as I always do when I think of Morty, I desperately try to stop thinking about Morty. "I usually get the pep talks from Rose." I say skeptically. "What's going on here?"

"Yes. Rose told me that there was absolutely something on your mind." Basil says.
"How kind of her."

"She wants us to flash so she can prove its a problem with her specifically. There are two ways to trigger a flash for the first time- life threatening situations and talking intensely about emotions. Seeing as everything in this cave is ten levels under us, we're going to have to go with the second one."

"I don't know, there could be a cave in." I tell him.

He looks incredibly frustrated. "You know, I know what it's like to lose people too. My trainer ditched me and now I'm on a team where the trainer could care less about me and I'm being used to further the agenda of the world's most aggressive and conniving Togetic. Can you please just work with me?"

I sigh. "I have something we could try. I want to see if this will work."

"Go on."
"Shut your eyes tight as you can."

He closes his eyes. "Sure."
"Focus on someone... or something important to you. Something you've lost."

I close my own eyes and try to think of my team but my thoughts keep coming back to Morty. My team is coming back, I know it, I'm sure of it, I feel it in my blood and bones... but the person I once loved is dead beyond a shadow of a doubt. Still, the images of the Johto I knew, of Ethan, of the team and I just joking around, all of it converges behind that last image of Morty and I holding hands beneath a sky the color of nothing.

"What next?" asks a voice in my head.

"Lead us home." Basil and I say in unison.

I can feel my own body numbly, as if it was just a limb, and I command it to keep walking forwards. This is the control Rose was grilling me on earlier and we're finally making it work. At the same time, Basil and I move through the cave as one, feeling our breath rise and fall, sensing the cold stone beneath us and the presence of every Pokemon hiding in the cave. I can feel the intense power of our emotions holding us together in his body and nothing else in the cave seems to want to come near us.

In the distance, I see shadowy figures huddled around a distant light and realize that we're close to the end. Something tugs at me and I feel cold, hard hatred burn in Basil's throat. My own emotions overwhelm me and the two of us split apart. I fall backwards and he turns around.

"Are you well?"

"Fine. We did it, right?" I try to smile but there's something holding me back.

A memory. It's hazy because it isn't my own, but I still can make out a shape overhead, grass beneath me, a burning, pulsing warmth. A passion.

"What was your trainer's name?"

"Ana." Basil replies.

It's cold on the other side of the cave, as if we just stepped out a month or two into the future. A night breeze whips around us and chills us all. Fang's dark ears twitch as he stares up at the stars, and I whisper, "Guys... do you hear that?"
Far away, there's an incessant mechanical beeping. It pulses in my ribcage, in my heart, and I can feel it at the back of my midn.There's no escaping now.

Team Rocket's plan has finally begun.

(*QUICK UPDATE SPLURGE*
There will probably be another update tomorrow and then maybe a few more quick ones so I can finish the 10-chapter-ish Team Rocket arc before I get back into school.

I don't want to spoil just how incredible this is about to get but let's just say Team Rocket is WAY, WAY worse this time around.)