ALEXANDER

He was cold again, in the tunnels, but he wasn't scared. It was dark, but the walls seemed to give off a faint blue glow. He tried to remember the last time he was here, it was when he visited his mother's memories on Mt. Pyre. He tried to recall the twists and turns in the cold halls. Alexander Specter couldn't remember.

He ran and ran, but his feet seemed like they were slower than usual. The fine powder underneath him absorbed his footfalls. He stopped, gasping in the dark, his breath glowing a faint blue in the chill. He was looking for a way out, or a way through...

What am I looking for? he wondered. The ghostly face of his mother swam in his memories. Perhaps she was here. "Mother!" he called, voice echoing through the labyrinthine cave. "MOTHER!"

She didn't answer, but the voice that came back to him was icy and sharp. "Remember who you are," it said, again. Was it calling to him through the cave, or was it in his head?

"I am Alexander son of Susan Forrest!" He called back. Forrest... Forrest... Forrest... his answer echoed.

There was no answer. Alex felt the temperature drop suddenly, and a mist began to swirl down the hall. It was approaching him, shimmering in pale light of the icy walls. He wanted to confront it, to stand and fight it, but in the end, he knew it would consume him. Alex turned to run, but again, the powder under his feet slowed him down. "Mother!" he called out. She could help him... It was her memory that brought him here last time. "MOTHER!" he was so scared.

The cold mist was suffocating...

Alex awoke with a gasp, the sword he had fallen asleep cleaning fell off his lap and clanged to the stone floor. The candlelight was far across the room on the wooden table filled with maps, but he could feel its warmth. He welcomed it.

"Miss your mummy, do ya?" asked the man armored with a golden sigil. An Odaran. He seemed annoyed. The Odaran commander looked at Burningtree, who had brought Alex along in his mission. "There's no place for mummy's boys in our army. Quite the company you Brightflames keep."

The bald man with the burly Blaziken, Burningtree's brother, scowled at the backhanded comment. Burningtree stared at Alex, his facial tattoos shining in the light. "He is my hostage," Burningtree said. Alex couldn't tell if he meant it or not. "His captivity will ensure the Draconids fight on our side or not at all."

That was the part that Alex didn't understand. What made him so important to the Draconids? He was a dispossessed and presumed dead former nobleman's son. If anything, he figured he was more dispensable, a bounty to the Empress or his father at best.

He watched as Brandon Brightflame, who was Burningtree's older brother, apparently looked over the Mt. Chimney map studiously. That makes Burningtree a former royal, he thought. He was a member of a great family, and the lean, swift Blaziken that was his Spirit Partner confirmed it. And a member of a Great House. Alex's mother was a Forrest, belonging to one of the three Great Houses of legend, but his father was fat Lord Specter.

Alex scowled. He had tried to forget that the fat slob was his father, who was a disgrace in the young man's memory. He hated him. On the journey to Meteor Falls, he had replayed the fight with his father over and over. Next time, he wouldn't hesitate. He had experienced his father's fighting style first hand, and next time would be different... But I don't have a Pokémon anymore. If it was hard to think of Specter as his father, it was even more difficult to accept the fact that Bannette was dead and gone. They had grown up together, played together. We should have died together.

"Like I said," Burningtree said calmly, to the other three men of the war council. "I will lead a squad of men through the tunnels and open the gates of the city from the inside."

The Odaran commander laughed at him. "You'll have to go through an entire army if they don't bottleneck you in those sewers. It would be a suicide mission, and we need all the men we can get."

Burningtree smiled. "Then Pyro and I will go alone." Burningtree's Blaziken, the silent Pokémon named Pyro, looked at its eerily red arm and a calm flame burned at its wrists.

"What can you possibly accomplish? You're one man."

"Am I?"

The man in the charcoal grey armor with the flame on its breastplate, Brandon Brightflame spoke up. "When I left you, you were a brave, but scared, little boy. Now it seems you've grown into a fool. Even if you make it through the tunnels untouched, you must find a way to open and hold the main gate for our armies. An impossible task."

Alex saw a glimmer of light extinguished in Burningtree's eye, as if his brother's disapproval had wounded his pride. "What would you have me do?" he asked.

The third man spoke, the one with the misshapen arm, and when Alex turned his head to him, he noticed the man averted his gaze. "My scouts have pinpointed one of the generals in Cassandra Starfall's army. His Spirit Pokémon is a Machamp, and he is a furious fighter. We lost four scouts alone to his own might. Not only is he a skilled fighter, but he commands a large host of her armies. If you can eliminate him, our enemy's forces will be in disarray and demoralized."

Burningtree looked at the man. "An assassination?" he asked, bored.

Brandon Brightflame spoke up. "You spent the last seventeen years as an assassin have you not? This is how you can serve me, serve our family, serve our father best."

Burningtree looked to Pyro and looked down. "As you command, brother."

"Then I conclude this evening's session," Brandon said. "You're all dismissed."

Burningtree and Pyro looked at Alex, then walked out into the darkness of Meteor Falls. Alex got up to follow them, when he felt the eerie gaze of the man with the mangled arm. He had been staring at Alex as long as he could remember. It was creepy, almost as if he knew him. Alex tried to ignore him and walk away, but he was chilled when the discolored and scarred arm stopped him.

"He's Carson's prisoner, not ours, Hector," Brandon's voice called. "Leave him be."

"I can't," said the voice of Hector through his black and grey beard.

Burningtree turned from outside the doorway and looked at the situation curiously. "Have you gone mad, Hector?" Brandon asked. "Fallen in love? Don't forget your wife back home. He's my brother's hostage, now leave him be."

"Alicia has nothing to do with this," Hector said as he spun Alex around surprisingly quick with the mangled arm. The other hand grabbed his jaw. "Look at him, Brandon, can't you see it? Can't you see him?"

Alex was confused. Was this man truly mad?

"Don't you go senile on me as well, old friend," Brandon looked away, as if he didn't want to see. "Or I'll put you with the woman, under watch and with only my pity until the end of your days."

"Let me take him to her," Hector said frantically. "I'm asking as a friend."

Alex remembered the screeching he had heard from upstairs when Burningtree was first reunited with his brother. For some reason, the thought scared him.

Brandon looked back at Alex and studied him. "Fine. Make it quick, then return him to my brother."

Quickly, Alex felt himself marched up the stairs and along a dark hallway. Halfway to a door at the end marked by a single candle, he heard a humming sound. It chilled him and he felt as if he was in one of his cave-dreams again. The sound got louder, and sadder as it went. Until Hector opened the door with his ugly hand and entered the room.

It was a heartbreaking sight. A woman lay on a bed, hair white and frizzled, smiling and crying, stroking a light blue Pokémon's head as hummed a sad song. Was it a lullaby? She didn't notice as Alex walked in the room, but the Pokémon in the corner did.

It was a Gallade, once tall and proud, Alex could tell, but now it sat on the floor, staring at Alex wide-eyed. The door shut behind him. "Gallade," Hector's voice said. Alex noticed him bow respectfully to the Pokémon.

"Why am I here?" Alex asked. With the sound of his voice, the humming stopped, and the old woman's eyes awoke. The blue Pokémon with a fin crowing its head turned and looked at him. Alex's blood ran ice cold as half of its head looked splotched with a deep maroon birthmark that flared crimson in the candlelight. It looked like blood.

"Tomp?" it seemed to ask curiously.

"Chris?" The woman's voice was croaky and tired. And when she tried to speak up it was shrill and piercing. "My son! Oh, my son..." Alex could tell she began to get excited, and it was unhealthy. She began to calm, though, as a soothing pink aura surrounded her body. The Gallade slowly walked to her side, staring at Alex the whole way. When it touched the old woman's hand, her voice calmed.

Hector's voice broke the strange and awkward silence. "This is Luna Love," he said. "She was queen of the Slateport Kingdom, married to King Marsh... She was kidnapped by the Empress and endured a terrible torture. Brandon and I rescued her during the Second Great War, and then we escaped to Odara. It wasn't safe for an exiled Brightflame, or former Royalty in the Empress's new Hoenn."

Alex understood that... After all, his father had admitted to killing his mother, Susan Forrest, and had without hesitation sliced his Aunt Caitlyn's head from her shoulders. "Why are you showing me her?" he asked. Alex felt uncomfortable, like he was the center of some experiment.

Gallade's eyes glowed a bright pink that overtook the candlelight, and the old woman, Luna, woke and sat up calmly as if she was decades younger.

"My son... You've come back," she reached out a withered hand and stroked Alex's cheek. He was expecting the cold touch of age, but her hand was warm, the pink aura from the Gallade giving it life. "Your sister, Lily, she missed you. I missed you."

Sister, Alex thought. What sister?

Hector's voice whispered in his ear. "She thinks the Marshtomp is her daughter. She's confused and gone mad for years. I've told her the Pokémon is a boy but she doesn't listen."

Alex looked down at Pokémon, and it stared back at him. He had never seen anything like it in his studies or in person. "What... what kind is it?" he asked. He tried to look past the stain-like birthmark... but it was difficult as the Pokémon stared at him.

"A Marshtomp, like I said, the ancestral Pokémon of the Great House Marsh."

The pink aura began to flicker and the woman spoke again. "It would warm my heart for you to hold her, one last time," Luna said, her voice dying as the aura did. Alex looked at the Gallade, it had fallen to its knees.

"Her Spirit Pokémon has kept her alive for far too long," Hector said as Alex turned to him. His eyes were watering. "Please," begged and motioned to the Marshtomp still staring at Alex with wonder. "Grant an old woman a wish."

Alex looked at Luna. Her old eyes were watering and her mouth trembling as she smiled and folded her hands together. She looked at him with a mother's love that he had never known.

I'm not her son, he knew, but if it means that much to her, and if it will get me out of here quicker, then... He reached down and picked up the blue Pokémon. It was light, and it wrapped its arms around him in an embrace. It's cute, Alex admitted to himself, and then he placed his hand on the birthmark to stroke it...

He felt a rushing sensation like he had never felt before, and he was sitting in the sand on a beach far away watching a little girl toss rocks into the ocean next to a Marshtomp almost like the one he held in his hands... and a young man who looked like himself.

The vision changed. The little girl was on her hands and knees staring at him, alongside the young man. Why are they looking at me like that?

"It hasn't hatched yet," the little girl's voice had a strange echo to it. "Listen to it, brother, how much longer?"

"Not now, Lily," the young man's voice said. They disappeared into a blur, but Alex still heard him say "If you're good tonight, maybe tomorrow."

He was on the beach again, but a fear took hold of him as he saw a fearsome Gyarados roar and hold captive green Pokémon, like a female Gallade. He heard the sobbing of a woman and she materialized on the beach. He recognized her eyes, those hands... It was the old woman in day long gone by. "I can give you anything, please!" She screamed at somebody. Alex was terrified he tried to dig himself into the sand, but he couldn't. It was as if his hands and legs were bound... It was as if he wasn't human anymore. He saw the pink flash of the captive Pokémon's eyes and the warm sand began to smother him... but Alex didn't need to breathe.

"Mommy! I'm scared!" was the last thing he heard as he caught a glimpse of the young girl again, the scream of anguish from her mother, and he felt the warm blood soak into his flesh. He felt a mix of emotions then that he had never felt before: a terrible fear mixed with

He saw large bearded man in some sort of metal room standing next to Gallade, brooding... Alex could feel the man's hate, it filled him with an intense rage.

He was free... and in the old woman's arms again... No, she was younger again, but noticeably broken. "Fear not, my child," she said. "Don't be afraid, Lily, it's only a storm." Alex felt the ship lurch as a storm churned the waves outside. He saw Hector was there, much younger, and a young Brandon Brightflame. The vision began to blur, and the last thing he heard was and old man's grizzled voice saying "Odara."

He was back in the tunnels with the sandy floor and icy blue walls... and he wasn't alone. The Marshtomp was standing there with him. Human and Pokémon looked into each other's eyes. There was a connection that moved beyond the physical world. Alex looked at Marshtomp like he had always known it. Inside, he knew he had, somehow.

The sharp voice called to him. "Remember who you are?" It made sense now, it was a question, a riddle. Alex was the riddle. He looked back in Marshtomp's eyes and he saw the young man with the little girl in them... and he heard the old woman's voice whisper, my son. He knew the answer the riddle

"Alexander Marsh," he called back, voice ringing with a previously unfound pride. The icy wall on the cave shone blue and turned at a fork in the tunnel.

"Then enter, Alexander Marsh, Child of Water, bringer of Love," the icy voice said. Alex and Marshtomp took a single step, and they were suddenly back in the room.

The old woman lay sleeping, and the pink aura of the Gallade began to dim. The tall, green Pokémon leaned against the wall and closed its eyes. The aura disappeared. Luna Love awoke for a final time, called out "Sam!" and breathed her last breath. Marshtomp closed her eyes and shed a tear.

Alex didn't understand what had just happened. He turned and saw Hector still standing there, and Brandon Brightflame with his Blaziken, and Burningtree with Pyro were waiting.

"Bloody hell," Brandon said, an incredulous look on his face. "You were right."

"What... happened?" Alex asked.

"You formed a Spirit Bond," Burningtree said. "That Marshtomp was meant for you. Send him back to the Draconids, brother. They need to see him."

"He's a Marsh," Brandon said angrily. "We can use him to garrison support from the South for our cause! What used to be the Slateport Kingdom-"

"Solomon Forrest is alive, brother, the supreme commander of the Draconids," Burningtree interrupted. "And the boy's uncle. He needs to see him. This is more important than your war plans."

"Are you abandoning me?" Brandon asked accusingly as he turned to Burningtree. "After we've been reunited? After all these years?"

"No," the assassin answered. "I'm staying. But Alex is going back." Brandon stormed off, followed by Hector, who bowed to Alex. It was a strange feeling.

Burningtree and Pyro approached Alex and Marshtomp. "What did you see? Besides the memories?" Somehow, Alex could tell that Burningtree already knew the answer.

"A cave... a tunnel," he looked at his new Spirit Pokemon and it nodded, the blood-red birthmark flickering in the light like Blazikens odd crimson feathers covering its arm.

"I thought so." And then Burningtree smiled. He had never seen the assassin smile like that. Like he had found something. "We have hope," Burningtree said, and put his hand on Alex's shoulder... as if he had found an equal.