Three days down.

We've started dreaming together. At first I thought it was a coincidence, that the sensation of flashing had just transferred into my subconsciousness at some point, but when the group reported similar sensations and our dreams turned into a mix of vivid Pokemon sensation and my own meandering midnight narratives, we became sure that we were dreaming as one. Last night we were wandering a sleek stone and river covered landscape together but the night before we were all sharing the same viewpoint. I wake up halfway through the night on a bus to Vermillion, Fang spread over my lap, and miss the place as if it was somewhere I'd actually been and not a figment of our collective imaginations.

Travelling like this reminds me of my first journey, when I'd sometimes give up and collapse wherever instead of going to a hotel or popping a tent open. I see young trainers doing it in the streets sometimes, falling over like those now-infamous fainting Gogoat onto benches or Pokemon center couches.

One Pokemon who hasn't shared in this in any way is Suicune. In fact, I haven't a clue where they are. Even Ethan was part of it the first night, when he slept outside with us a half-mile from the designated campground, but he's been more sociable since his transformation anyways.

The bus comes to a halt in the morning, settling onto its wheels with an anxious sigh. I'd liked to have spent the time we wasted on the bus training but all we really lost was a few hours of sleep. As for what we've gained... well, that's another matter. The Kanto transportation system is a blessing that has cut our travel time in half. It was one of the few good ideas Suicune proposed thus far.

I try to pick up our bond, flimsy as it is, and manage to pinpoint them as somewhere between ten and thirty miles away in any given direction, close to water. Oh boy. Suicune has insisted that they need to attend to their duties and has since given up their official "position" on the team. I was worried at first about owning them without keeping them in a Poke Ball or anywhere nearby, for that matter, but then I remembered that having them on the team would mean putting up with Suicune for more than two minutes at a time and found myself much more willing to oblige.

I let Ethan out when I get out of the bus, stretching out my pains from being cooped up in the back seat, and the Lugia yawns. His large, pink, healthy tongue lolls out of his mouth and I see his lean, powerful muscles shift instead of bone beneath his skin. He blinks as he looks to me, tail waving a bit in spite of himself, and then his demeanor shifts when he sees the team. Minerva's the only one who's overtly glaring at him, but the others range from concerned to upset. Few of them look happy to see him.

"Morning," he says. "Sorry. Again."

Minerva rolls her eyes. Reginae's nostrils flare and he exhales a long sigh, steadying himself. Fang can't be mad at anyone for more than ten seconds and in a great display of completely misjudging the mood (to my relief) he calls, "Morning to you too, big guy!"

Hycanith? I can't read Hycanith.

On the bright side, Ten has also been a stalwart defender of Ethan ever since the battle with Suicune. It's going to be hard for the team to ever forgive Ethan for letting Red into the data of the game, because the alternative is placing the blame on me instead, and no matter how many times I accept said blame they're not going to get at my throats for it because they trust me more than they trust themselves and if my relationship with them goes downhill, so does our entire team dynamic.

"Do you want to go for a swim?" I ask Ethan, looking towards the harbors. Ethan gives me a quick, subtle nod, nervous energy and a silent pleading in his eyes. We approach the harbors of Vermillion and he presses off the dock with his huge hands and folds them against his side, shooting downwards into the sun-touched waters below.

Ships in nearby marinas quake at his entrance, wobbling on his wakes, but he's a gentle giant. Ethan swims deep beneath the water, inhaling through the gills his old body couldn't manage despite the years of testing and exhaling streams of bubbles.

I tap into his energy and find that it's like trying to reel in a fishing line when you have a Feraligatr on the line. Ethan's energy shakes me, and with a glance around my surroundings I find that once again civilians have begun to stare at me. My wide grin and sudden seizure are nothing if not suspicious and I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Ethan's legendary power shoots through my veins, electric, and I can trace his arc in and out of the water. Several people have stopped to take photos, others are pointing, and some punk throws and misses with a Poke Ball.

"He's mine, throw anything and I fight you," I warn the crowd.

MY HANDS WORK, announces Ethan with all the power of someone shouting through a megaphone into a microphone which is hooked up to a full stereo surround sound set. MY LIMBS WORK. THIS IS WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO. EVERYTHING WOOOOOORKS!

Reginae looks aghast, but Hycanith (who is leaning against his side) gives Ethan a thumbs up. The others have disappeared into the crowd, which promises to be a nightmare, but who cares! I don't care. Nothing matters right now, not when I feel like this-

Shake it off, Ashley.

I take a long, deep breath and calm myself.

"Are you crying?" asks Reginae, his sympathetic amber eyes staring right into mine.

"No," I lie. "Do you know where Fang, Minerva, and Ten went?"

It's a stupid question. I might as well ask where my left hand is.

"They're in the crowd. I can feel them tugging," Reginae says. "Are they... are they battling?!" He laughs. "Wow, I guess sightseers aren't the only thing Ethan's attracting."

"Shoot," I whisper. "They better not get themselves into any trouble."

Hycanith and Reginae are both casting me the most deadpan look and I realize how redundant the sentiment is. It's Minerva and Fang, how could they not get themselves in trouble?

"Fine," I tell them. "I'm going."

It doesn't take long for me to locate them, since all I need to do is pull our bonds like leashes, and I brush my way through some teenage onlookers to find that Fang and Minerva are dueling at least ten Pokemon at once. Ten is serving as de facto trainer, calling out moves and strategies, but it's all courtesy. When a Houndour bites his leg, Ten joins in as well, and the three of them fight back to back, covering each other with arrays of stars and fire. Fang's sending off Last Resorts like it's the end of the world, but the low PP of the attack catches up to him and he's left defenseless in the middle of a group of angry Spearows.

"Get 'em," calls a youngster from the sides.

"Fang, Faint Attack! Minerva, Will o'Wisp. See if you can deter them a bit. As for you, Ten, don't try anything. It's not worth it." I call, stepping back in.

"I wasn't going to," Ten tells me, swinging a ruddy looking Growlithe back towards its trainer with Psychic.

The mob shows no signs of abating. Eager trainers press in from every direction, some of them dueling each other, but it looks like a lot of them are here to try to take us out.

Ashley? We're having some trouble back at home base, Reginae warns me.

"Right, that's it. Retreat, team." I put them back in their Poke Balls and make a run for it. Several trainers start yelling incomprehensible things at me as I go, waving Pokegears and grinning, but I'm not in the mood to start collecting numbers now.

I make it back to the port and clutch the handrail that separates us from the ocean and send back out my renegade team members. Trainers have progressed from sightseeing to an all out assault on Ethan, who is now waving between other Pokemon wildly, trying to throw them off with huge waves and blasts of Dragon Pulse. At the forefront of the hunting party is a slick Empoleon, eyes narrowed, going in for the attack. Its talons slice empty water.

"He's not wild!" I yell to the trainers behind me, holding my Master Ball.

"Can we fight your Lugia anyways?" asks a man from the back. The Empoleon waddles back on shore and goes to stand next to him. "I'm travelling from Sinnoh, my friend Magnus and I would love a real challenge."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible at the moment," I say. "At least, um, not in numbers like this."

"She can call you when she fixes her Pokegear," Minerva teases.

"I will not," I say, but then realize that no one else can hear this damned vixen besides me. "Um, ignore that, also, I guess I'm writing down numbers now?"

Oh boy.

The trainers roughly conglomerate into a line and I go from five numbers to close to fifty in a quarter hour. When the crowd finally disperses, I scroll up and down the list a few times, baffled. It seems like something out of a dream. Fifty people? Fifty? I don't think I've talked to fifty people my whole journey.

After a brief heal-up at the Pokemon center (in which three people ask me if I'm "the Lugia girl), my team heads out to the far right of town and onto the route before us. It's wilder than most of the Kanto routes, and though it maintains the same picketed fences and neat, docile rows of grass, the paths are a little twistier and the Pokemon a little rougher. Their excitement glows electric in their eyes, and they're not even pretending to hide themselves in the grass. If I get any closer that Nidorino is going to jump me.

Nidorino, huh? I let out a melancholy sigh.

"We still don't know when, where, or if we're going to find them again?" asks Ten.

"I know my Pokemon," I promise. "They'll come back for me."

"I always do," Ten agrees.

"I always will," swears Reginae, and Hycanith's aura is warm and gold with agreement, same for the rest of the assembled team.

I let Ethan out when we're out of the sightline of most passersby, or at least enough so that I won't have to deal with another crowd.

"You have fun, bud?" I ask the Lugia, who still drips with water.

"Yes," Ethan says, trying (and failing) to restrain his excitement, "It was fun. Do we... err, do we need to do anything? We don't have much time. We need to..." he pauses, looking my way for cues, and manages to choke out, "work."

"I have a way we can get the best of both worlds. We're close to that water route that runs back up to the Rock Tunnel and Lavender City, aren't we? Do you think you could grind underwater?" I ask.

"Attacking feral Pokemon?" Ethan asks. He sounds more than a bit nervous, seeing as he hasn't fought since the Red incident, but now that he's in a more suitable form for battling he has to get back on it eventually.

"Yes."

Ethan makes an expression I can't discern as a grimace or some attempt at a smile, but he whispers, "Okay."

We walk together down the twisting paths of the new routes and out towards the ocean, which is cleaner on this side of the route than it is in the harbor. The waves send up columns of sea spray as they crash against the rocks, sticking their white-foam fingers between the dark stones before receding. Ethan lifts his hands again, and with some hesitance, plunges back into the sea. I feel the freezing water against my spine and back and he pulls me along with him like a safety blanket, throwing us both down into the current.

His vision must be a thousand times clearer like this. Our eyes dart about in the murky darkness, taking in every swirl and ripple, every mote of dust floating through the waves. When a larger shape emerges from the depths, swimming our way at a frightening rate, we bite down and the Seaking lies limp in the water before coming to its senses and moving back into the depths.

Ethan, with a twinge of guilt, drops our connection and I'm standing back on the shore. The air feels empty around me and for a few seconds it's hard to breathe before I remember how thin air is supposed to be. I can still sense Ethan mucking around in the dark, and I can see his more purposeful attacks as he shoots luminescent beams across the water.

Am I doing it right? he asks. I feel really bad. I'm trying to just stun them... they don't seem too hostile, either. I think they think I'm actually Lugia.

For both our sakes I don't follow up on that last bit. Instead, I answer telepathically, You're doing fine. In fact, he's doing more than fine. My Pokedex pings and I throw it open. "Holy shoot," I exclaim as even Ethan's tremendous experience bar shoots up. I slap an Experience Share onto Hycanith, who's used to the aggravating contraption by now, and her level dings several times. If I thought this morning was a gold mine in terms of levelling up, this puts all of that to shame. Hycanith takes the EXP share off and Ten places it on, waiting for the levels to ding up, but it appears that the surge is abating.

"Speaking of 'holy shoot' moments," Minerva says, "I took the leisure of talking to some natives while Ashley was staring into the distance and there's a tunnel not far from here that leads clear across the region. We can get from here to Pewter before midnight!" suggests Minerva.

Skeptical, I say, "Sounds like a trap. You sure the thing isn't going to collapse on us the second we walk in?"

Hycanith beams with enthusiasm. She taps a bone against the earth and nods.

Pretty solid, then.

"Hycanith's been there, I think." Reginae says. "She knows it's sturdy, whatever the reason."

"Good enough for me. Let's go." Minerva says.

"We just got here." I protest.

"We've been standing here for two hours," Minerva replies.

"You spaced out for a long time. We were legitimately concerned." Reginae says.

Ethan. I say. We flashed for five minutes, right?

My perception of time has been altered since I became a legendary.

So you don't know.

... sorry.

"It's fine," I say out loud. "We got a bunch of EXP out of it, so I'd say no harm, no foul." I press a hand against his chest. "We're all getting used to this."

I feel his chest retract beneath my touch as he exhales. He's aware of how awkward he is on land as Minerva paces ahead, indignant with us all. My stomach grumbles, unsure of what meal it's missing this time, and I pull out a granola bar for a late lunch. Reginae's photosynthesizing as we walk, and Ethan's guilt lets me know he's had lunch at some point down in the deeps.

None of us want to go back to Vermillion anyways. Pokemon have always eaten less than humans and even at the tremendous amount of energy we're expending, I can swear my time is living off the adrenaline of the fight.

The cave is located up to the north of the main route, not up where we were headed but rather back towards the entrance. It's an aggravating walk on its own, made worse by Minerva's insistence that we "speedwalk," but even that has nothing on the surprise when we get there and my day is officially ruined.

There, hulking over the entrance, is Red's Snorlax. It looks content in its sleep, but even the bloated Snorlax's non-threatening pudge and chummy smile are betrayed by its massive size. We all know that if that thing wakes up, it'll go into a rampage.

Loud as ever, Minerva asks, "Welp, who wants to wake it up? We'll have a one turn advantage before it knows what hits it."

In a hushed tone, Fang replies, "Minerva. If we can burn it and confuse it, it'll drop its attack and its chances of hitting us."

"I like your style. So, Ashley, permission to attack?"

"Great strategy, terrible idea." I say.

"Sounds like a 'yes' to me." Minerva says, and her tails alight with blue fire. Fang's head ring glows with eerie yellow light and the two both attack at once. As expected, the Snorlax awakes, its head raising and its breath raising into an aggravated snort. Its eyes don't shoot open, but it gets up onto its feet, paws extended, and it lets out a low, terrifying growl.

With one hand, it reaches out and swats Minerva and Fang aside. Minerva, unprepared for the melee attack, slams into Fang, and they both tumble out of the way. Reginae and Hycanith step in, with Reginae hurling a torrent of petals at the new foe. Snorlax grumbles, swatting them away, and Hycanith hurls her bone right at its hand.

The Snorlax slams the bone against the ground, where it makes a startling cracking noise. Hycanith runs to pick it up and the Snorlax leans forwards before falling right on top of her.

I scream, but the impact never comes. Reginae has wedged himself right under the Snorlax's head and Ten's psychic energy is helping keep the body from crashing against Hycanith, who scuttles out unharmed. Her weapon of choice has a long, nasty crack running up it, but we both agree mentally that we can handle it later.

Minerva swings back in from the left and the Snorlax lifts one hand, blue energy flaring around it. A Focus Blast hurtles through the air and erupts on the ground, blasting Minerva sky high, and now Fang is back in the battle, pouncing and dodging around the behemoth Snorlax. The burn damage is beginning to wear on it, but its blows are quite direct for a "confused" Pokemon.

"We could use your help," Fang yips to Ethan, who moves over Reginae and opens his mouth wide as it will go. The air dries around us as all the moisture is sucked into a singular Hydro Pump, which Ethan fires at the Snorlax, point blank. The Snorlax bellows and falls onto its back.

"What just happened?" asks Minerva.

"I don't know, but I like it." Fang says with a smile.

Ethan takes another step forwards, fingers clenched. He leans down towards the Snorlax's face. "Did we... did we beat it...?"

With a sudden lurching movement, the Snorlax grapples Ethan by his underbelly, picks him up, and throws him. The startled Lugia crashes into the nearby forest. The Snorlax struggles to stand before giving up in a sitting position and bringing its hands together. The blue blast of energy grows larger between its paws, and my worn-out team's futile attempts to counter it have no effect.

"Oh biscuits," Fang murmurs, on hasty retreat from an ineffective Faint Attack. He's found himself, unwittingly, right in the line of attack.

The woods groan as Ethan gets back up and slides ungracefully into the way, taking the Focus Blast to the side of the chest. Fang, whose years of battling experience have taught him to take any available opportunity, uses the shield to cover his Last Resort. The volley of stars score direct hits across the hide and belly of the Snorlax, which moans and begins disintegrating. Silver lines of code fill the air before peeling away into nothing.

My Pokedex lights up. I didn't know it had texting capabilities, but right across the screen is a message from Red: Well, I tried. Kind of. Watch your back- I'm watching yours.

"Alright." I say, throwing the Pokedex to the ground. "Alright! That was fine! We're all okay. I'm fine! I don't know about you, are you guys fine? Are we all okay with Red now being able to send his Pokemon after us before we even hit Mount Silver?"

"Ashley, calm down." Reginae soothes me, releasing a floral scent from his petals. I'm hyperventilating a bit, which gets me a full faceful, but the spark still hasn't gone out yet.

I throw my hands skywards. "You guys could have died!"

"We could die in any battle," Fang points out. "P-Pisces died in a random trainer encounter."

I sigh, fondling one of his ears. "I know. Look, my point is that I'm worried and I didn't sleep too well on the bus. How about we get some rest and keep going tomorrow?" I ask.

Minerva shakes her head. "We're getting through this tunnel if it kills me, Ashley."

Fang sighs, "No one's worried about it killing you, Minerva. Your pace is going to kill us."

Minerva steps her front paws into the cave and Hycanith follows, looking no worse for wear. The Ninetales swings her head back to the group, eyes flashing with defiance, and calls, "Welcome to the endgame! This is the pace that's going to save the world." 

(A/N: I'm going to have some questions up in these last few chapters just because I'm curious as we reach the end, so... What cross-team interactions are you most excited to see?)