I wake up the next morning and Shauna is on my bed, humming to herself as she packs up all of our stuff littered around the room. "You really love to clean, don't you?"
"I like being helpful. If I keep my mind focused on doing mundane things, I don't have to think about anything else. Trust me," she says, carefully folding a shirt, "We all have a lot to think about right now."
I nod sympathetically, sitting upright. Rune mumbles in his sleep and I feel a gust of wind as the window opens. Pich stands in the windowsill, looking out at the city. My heart skips a beat, feeling an odd sense of deja vu and guilt. My sleepy mind remembers yesterday, and suddenly I'm clutching my head. "Oh, Arceus." I mumble through my hands.

Shauna looks sympathetic. "You basically passed out after the battle. You didn't talk or anything all afternoon. Can you remember?"
I shake my head. Shauna looks shocked but says nothing. Rune shudders awake, Chrona's tongue lolls out of her mouth as she yawns, stretching and ramming her foot into a plastic chair which shoots across the room and hits Nephthys in the side. The Absol awakens with a start but doesn't retaliate. She doesn't even open her mouth or express pain. She just looks at Chrona with a subdued and slightly sad expression, like she thinks she's being punished for that long ago murder.

Slowly but surely the whole room wakes up, and the room next to us with Bronze in it. Pokemon complain about how hungry they are and Bronze flips through TV channels.

"What'd you do with the body?" I ask.

"Already buried." Shauna says. "We brought you back up to the room and did the ceremony. Crypt did most of the work."

"Where is he?"

"In his Pokeball. Returned himself afterwards. Hopefully he's okay in there." She picks up the Pokeball, which she looks at with a look of profound curiosity on her face. "It's kind of weird to think I could fit in one of these in a past life." She looks at me, "Have you ever been in one?"
I nod. "Not unless I was hurt. Ashley was anti-Pokeball in most cases. It's not like it hurts us or anything, she just wanted us to bond with her as equals, I suppose."

"Do you miss Ashley?"

"More than anything else in the world."

She looks at the Pokeball. "Is it nice to be on a team? I know we're kind of a team, as trainers, but it has to be different."
I nod quietly, noticing most of our Pokemon are listening in. Luna the Delcatty purrs, rubbing against Shauna's leg and Thistle is eying Shauna from a distance. Thistle seemingly never lets her out of her sight. I look around at them as well as my Pokemon and say, "If you ask, they'll probably tell you."
She looks disappointed. "So you don't want to talk about it?"

I shrug. "It's... Pokemon, in the wild, have painfully short lifespans. That's why you don't see level 100 wild Pokemon- by the time they could've grown that large, something will have killed them. It's absolutely brutal out there, although Pokemon tend to act more docile around people. Something about them- us-" I pause, "Them... calms our- Pokemon's nerves. We look up to them. We want them. We need them." I think about Ozzy, and tears well in my eyes. "I remember I would've died for Ashley anyday. It didn't matter what her motives were. It didn't matter what I was fighting for. I just knew I wanted to fight."
Shauna is holding my hand, which tingles with warmth. "That's..." She's crying too. Bronze comes in and sits on my other side.

"Lilly. Are you okay?"
"She was talking about us." Nico says. "She just told Shauna why we fight."

Bronze looks down. "You're thinking about Ozzy."

"Of course I am!" I say, my voice shaking. "I can't believe he's dead."

Bronze squeezes my other hand. "That's fine. Just let it out." His warm eyes look into mine. "We should leave today."

I nod.

The team packs up and leaves the hotel with a backwards glance at our room. Usually, when we leave it's with a sense of longing for the team to stay together, but we always parted ways after these short segments of time together. It feels so much better for us to be together as a team.

"Wait," I say. "I have something I need to do."

I let Crypt out of his Pokeball, and Shauna releases Escargot, who's still bubbling with excitement at having finally evolved. She looks beautiful, her eyes kind and her gooey body plump but curved.

With that, I run into the Pokemon Center, and ask, "May I withdraw my Pokemon?"

Nurse Joy nods and turns back. "Which one?"

"Nina."

"Box?"
"One."
She types something in on the computer and then turns around with a large smile, handing me a Pokeball.

I bring it outside and throw it, releasing Nina. "Go!"

Nina turns around. "I didn't want to be back on the team this quickly." she snapped. "Please let me rest."
"Yeah, well, your replacement died." I say. "We really need you out there."

Nina looks shocked. "What?"
I look down at the ground. "I can't believe it either."

Crypt, seeing us, runs over on his long, strong legs, stopping abruptly when he reaches us which causes his tail to swing around, slamming a lamppost. I flinch when I see the large scratch it leaves, but I return my gaze up to my largest team members.

"Did Ozzy really die?" Nina asks in a hushed tone.

"It was awful. He was so young." Crypt whimpers, "We barely knew him."
"Crypt, it's not your fault..." she tries to put a hand on his shoulder maternally, looking at him with kind eyes, even though she herself radiates a sullen air about her.

"We barely knew him and we killed him. I watched him die. Doesn't that seem wrong?" Crypt says, almost repeating himself as he turns to face her. "Why didn't you come out? We need you here. The team needs us."

Nina turns away. Her tail lashes angrily. Her hand leaves his back. "No." she says. "No, they really don't. Maybe you, with all of your strength and childish determination, but I was nothing but a liability in the gym and I'm nothing but a liability here."

"That's not true!" I say, but to my surprise Crypt opens his mouth, revealing rows of sharpened teeth.

"You're not a liability. You're a coward. If you had been there, you could've helped him. I told him all about you. I thought you were going to come right back. We all did. We thought you just needed a little break, but you're really just done, aren't you?"
Nina punches him in the face. Crypt yelps as a tooth falls from his mouth onto the ground, and his pupils dilate at the blood. From a distance, I hear someone yelling and see Bronze running towards me. Nico gets there first, holding his arms out in front of me as Nina lashes around.

Before Nina can do anything else, half the team is there, with Shauna's team and some of the slower Pokemon on the way. She looks around at all of us and yells, "F-fine! I'll train by myself!" She pushes Crypt aside, who falls to the ground, his small arms clutching his mouth in shock and panic. A low roar gurgles in his throat but he's too startled to do anything.
I watch her go, still shocked, and Nico turns to me. "Are you alright, my lady?"

"Is there any way we can track her?"

Nico nods. Aura pulses around his hands and his eyes are alight with blue fire. "I can guide you to her, if you'd like."
"We should let everyone else catch up first. If we go off alone into a route, we're going to be in just as much peril as she is. There's a reason the gyms are a higher level around here. Don't split the party."

He looks in the direction Nina is headed. "I believe we already have."

Chrona bounds over. She looks at Crypt and begins pushing him up with her vines, which are surprisingly strong.

Crypt wails, "This is all my fault! I can't believe I made her run off. I don't know why I was so angry!" He ducks his head in, and Chrona whips him across the face, right where Nina hit him.

"Stop it!" I yell, but the truth is, Chrona is stubborn as a Tauros and has the might of Lugia itself. If she's decided on something, there's really nothing I can do to stop her. Besides that, I've learned to trust her judgement. Over the journey, we've both grown in ways neither of us could've imagined. While Rune is my starter and Pich will always be my eyes and loving friend, Chrona and I are a team in a way that the others aren't.

Sniveling, Crypt looks up into her eyes. "Please don't run off."
"Of course not! I'm not an idiot. You just need to get over yourself!" She says, slapping him again.

"Please stop hitting me." Crypt says, his voice still unsteady.

"Chrona is nuts." whispers Bronze. "You're not seriously going to let them attack each other, are you?"
"She knows what she's doing." I reply.

"This never would've happened in Ashley's team."

"This isn't Ashley's team." I say with an air of finality.

"Look. This is your team too. You may have tried to distance yourself from it and let yourself become anchored to her, but that's not how it's going to be from now on. We need to be united as a single unit before we can be united between all our teams and you need to grow a backbone. Are we clear?"
"Y-yes, Chrona." Crypt says.

"Good." She releases him, and he staggers for a bit before finding his balance. "We going to stop Nina or not?"