***************

Jeffery stood as straight as he could, eyes locked squarely ahead as he had been disciplined to. Not even the strand of sandy hair that had fallen across his nose and was itching fiercely moved him as he waited for his master to acknowledge his presence. He spoke not a word, arms firmly at his side, shoulders stiff, all in all a very uncomfortable position for such a young boy. Inside he begged the Sankton Gym leader to look his way, but not a flicker of emotion passed over his face to betray him. He was too well trained for that.

At last Arin turned his attention to the boy. They were the same height—despite the fact that the Gym leader was years older—but his arrogance made him tower of Jeffery. The spiky blond tossed his Pokeball to him. "Take that to the Pokemon Center," he ordered. After an excellent catch and a smart nod, Jeffery was certain he was going to be dismissed. But to his surprise, Arin advanced until he and the boy stood nose-to-nose. The dark green eyes of the Gym leader were dangerously narrowed with cunning and ambition. His voice, when he spoke, was low and dripping with savored malice.

"Now listen closely, I don’t want to have to repeat myself. Go to the Pokemon Center with my Rhyhorn. Then go straight to Sunset Lake and find warehouse C-5. I want you there before those blockheads. Take every alleyway and shortcut you know. Tell Team Rocket I’m delivering the ones they want right to them. And I expect to be repaid for my service. I want that Stormweaver. Got it?"

Another firm nod was his response, the only appropriate one, with his face still totally expressionless. And, secretly, Jeffery was glad Arin frowned upon his attendants ever speaking. His insides were quivering so badly he was afraid that, if asked to talk, it would give him away. So he was intensely grateful when the Gym leader waved a hand to dismiss him. Clutching the Pokeball, the young boy disappeared from his master’s sight.

When he was gone, Arin allowed a pleased smile to transform his face. If that Pokemon thought it was a good fighter with that idiot of a trainer, just wait until he got a hold of it. . . .

* * *

Jeffery hurried from the Pokemon Center, not daring to wait for the Rhyhorn to be healed. Those four kids had a big head start on him, and he had to obey Arin. He wasn’t surprised or ashamed or even remotely interested in his master’s plan. As a matter of fact, he had no opinion at all. It wasn’t a servant’s place to question his master.

A person like Arin wasn’t popular enough to become a Gym leader without a few little tricks up the sleeve, blackmail and the like. That was why Jeffery knew the alleys and shortcuts of the city like the back of his hand. This wasn’t the first time he’d run such an errand, and it wouldn’t be the last. Still, he didn’t have time to spend waiting for the Pokemon. So he cut down his third alley quickly, without checking it as thoroughly as he might have if he hadn’t been in such a hurry.

That was a disastrous mistake. From deep within the shadows a low and angry growl issued forth like a challenge of doom itself. Jeffery jumped out of his thoughts as if burned. His head snapped back and forth like someone watching a brisk tennis match, trying to look in every direction at once. His heart was pounding like the drums of war. He caught swift movement out of the corner of his eye and whirled just in time to meet his attacker head on.

A flash of orange, white and black was all he got before the assailant barreled into his chest, knocking him backward into the brick wall of the alley. Dazed, he slid down to the concrete, ordering to make his eyes focus. When they did he wished they hadn’t. The gleam of white fangs and inhuman, white eyes with large dark pupils burning with the thrill of the attack were the last things he saw before his eyes mercifully rolled back into his head and darkness descended.

He had fainted.

* * *

"I don’t like the feel of this place," muttered Misty when the six friends found themselves at Sunset Lake. Despite the fact that it was only mid-afternoon, the entire waterfront seemed cast in shadow. This might have been because dilapidated warehouses squatted side-by-side around the edge of the large lake, forming narrow streets between themselves and the water, but if felt like something much more sinister. Old sailboats and a couple of dinghies were tied to the docks with limp ropes. All of these looked as if they hadn’t been used in months. The wood was rotting, the sails were dingy and moth-eaten, and everything looked like it desperately needed a new coat of paint. However Sankton City got its commerce, fishing sure didn’t have anything to do with it.

"You’d think the water would be more populated since it’s summer," the female trainer continued. "No one’s fishing or swimming or catching water Pokemon or anything!"

"Maybe there’s an indoor pool somewhere," Ash ventured, but he too felt uneasy. Trying to cover it, he laughed abruptly, making everyone jump. "It certainly has atmosphere, doesn’t it?"

"Atmosphere like this I can do without," murmured Aurora. Her mismatched eyes were constantly moving, searching for the end of this surprise-laden journey: C-5. But every storage building looked the same, just row after row of low gray boxes. Only the signs with a single letter and number hanging above the hanger doors distinguished one from the other.

Aurora hurried them down street after neglected street. They were close now, she could feel it. It was as if an invisible cord was pulling her forward, steadily forward, and she had never wanted to obey anything so strongly in her life. As if she had navigated the lanes all her life, she soon had them standing before warehouse C-5.

The warehouse looked no different than any other. It was as gray and drab as the rest of them, and just as rundown. Ash and Misty’s latest argument—the fundamentals of water Pokemon catching—died away as they watched Aurora noiselessly creep up to the huge hanger door that faced the lake. Set into it was a smaller door meant for people entering without cargo. Stormweaver perched on her shoulder, revealing his anxiety by the way his wings refused to stop twitching and the thrashing of his tail, as she sidled up to the smaller door and hesitantly tried the brass doorknob. When it turned easily she motioned for her friends.

Brock, Misty, Ash and Pikachu hurried to join her. All four of them thought the same thing at that moment. They wanted to stop her, to warn her to think things through and make a plan before charging in. But the girl glared at them like she knew they were about to speak and shook her head fiercely. A current of nervous anticipation wound the small group tighter than a coiled spring, all but palpable in the sodden lakeside air. Aurora’s brown and blue eyes shone with a strange intensity. Before anyone could caution her she eased open the door and slipped inside. There was nothing to do but follow.

No lights brightened the inside of the storage building. Heavy darkness descended as the door closed partway, demanding silence much more than the single girl had done. It was hard enough just to breathe; words would have been sucked away by the darkness before they could have been uttered. When her eyes adjusted Aurora could see her friends as dark blue outlines, but anything beyond the group was still black as pitch.

Black, that is, except for one patch of low light against the far wall. It flickered at least forty yards away, against the far wall of the huge open-floored building, and what seemed to be stacks of crates stretched between it and them. They couldn’t tell who or what was using the light, if anything. But suddenly Stormweaver gave a savage growl and leapt off his dragonfriend’s shoulder. Then Aurora heard what he apparently already had. Low voices drifted to the small party in the direction of the light across the room.

"Stormweaver, come back!" hissed Aurora desperately, fearful of being overheard. But the dragon’s flight had already taken him beyond hearing range, and he had vanished into the darkness. Aurora edged forward, undecided. She couldn’t see, it would be safer to stay where she was. If she went charging after the emerald creature she might lose whatever advantage that sneaking up on Team Rocket would give them. But if she didn’t, Stormweaver might get caught himself. The thought of losing her oldest and most trusted friend solved her dilemma for her. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, and she knew it, but at the moment she didn’t care.

"I’m going after him," she muttered to her four friends. Before they could object she cut them off, whispering directions. It was a small comfort to take charge again. "Misty, Brock, you two edge along the left wall and try to get behind them. Ash and Pikachu, you take the right. I’m going through straight across."

"But you can’t see!" Ash protested softly.

"I’ll just have to hope luck’s on my side. Now hurry up, Stormweaver flies fast. Go!" She shoved the two pairs against the wall on either side of the door and didn’t stop to see them start out. She set her mouth in a firm line of determination and plunged into the darkness. There was no time to be cautious. After the first few steps proved nothing littered the floor in her path (and hoping this was true for the rest of the room) she picked up her pace until she was dashing quickly but quietly across the gray concrete. To her, her footfalls sounded like the booming of war drums, but they were practically silent compared to the pounding of her heart. She swore she’d alert Team Rocket by that alone.

Aurora didn’t dare call for the green dragon again, though she thought she could faintly hear his wing-beats ahead of her. She couldn’t see or any of her five friends in the darkness. The only thing she could see was the light she was steadily approaching, the wall of crates in the way keeping her just as invisible from the people on the other side as they were to her. Stormweaver must have been flying close to the ground to keep his approach secret, or else she would have seen his silhouette against the light. And Team Rocket would have seen him.

That was when the gods of fate decided to deal her a wild card. She hadn’t stopped her unbroken progress to make these observations, and she was mere yards from her destination when her foot came down on something that rolled away when she put her weight on it. With a wordless cry of surprise she went down hard on her hands and knees, wanting to bite her tongue for the traitorous sound made.

But it was too late. To the wild girl’s utter horror, harsh lights flashed on from the ceiling, blinding in their intensity and illuminating the entire floor. Aurora clenched her mismatched eyes shut against the stabbing of the sudden light even as she climbed back to her feet, knees and palms aching. She heard exclamations of shock from her friends and forced them open again, ignoring the needles of pain and the white stars that dotted her sight. What she saw was etched into her mind forever. Years later she wouldn’t recall it for months, only to have it pop into her dreams again and awaken her. The sight was one she would never forget.

Like some huge, life-size painting, reality seemed to have frozen. No one moved, and no one spoke. Even Stormweaver’s wings appeared to have stilled, holding him in air above and between her and the wall of crates before her as if by magic alone. Against either wall to her left and right, she saw her new friends out of the corners of her eyes. She could see their expressions, their various eyes locked straight ahead on faces filled with shock and alarm. But she didn’t indulge in studying them long. Her attention was fixed on the group that had stepped in front of the crates as the bright lights exploded into existence. Team Rocket she recognized, complete with her beige backpack! It was the fourth person who held the gazes of all the people in the warehouse.

She was tall and thin, with rippling muscles plainly visible under sable leather armor. Her dark auburn hair fell in flawless waves down her back, actually giving Jessie serious competition. A face as cold as unblemished marble, complete with stone-gray eyes, completed the air of perfection. At her hip hung a long scabbard with a jeweled hilt. The sight of the woman drove terror like nothing she had known in a long time shooting through Aurora. She knew this woman, had seen those steel eyes before. And she knew with deathly certainty what she was doing here.

Stormweaver was the first to break the stillness in the building, bringing everyone back to life. "Murderer!" he screamed in a voice no one had ever heard him use before—including Aurora. Fury was not strong enough to describe his tone, and under it his dragonfriend heard a tremor of true terror. Fear for his very life, and those of the ones he loved. "Slayer! Merlac! You butchered my kind, you filth!"

The woman gave a feral grin and drew her sword with a mocking bow. When she spoke, her voice was as frigid as her features. "Allia Merlac, at your service, beast. Come closer and you’ll join the rest of your worthless kind at the end of my blade."

"No!" Aurora cried in anguish when she saw he was about to swoop at the woman. "Stormweaver, return!" When he hesitated she added, "Please!" A dangerous noise rumbled in his long throat. Snarling in the direction of his four enemies, he finally gliding to her shoulder.

Following the descending dragon, Allia’s eyes fell on the girl standing defiantly alone in the center of the room. And if Aurora was terrified before, it was nothing like the ice that flowed through her veins as they lighted on her. There was recognition in the dragonslayer’s eyes. "Ah. Aurora Sango, I presume? I hadn’t thought you had survived. You’ve grown a lot since I came looking for the last dragonfriend."

"Y-you didn’t find us, either!" she returned.

"True, but I seem to have compensated for that fact now, hmm?" A dark, scornful laughter shone in her gray eyes as she took the backpack from Jessie. Stormweaver tensed and Aurora felt her stomach sink into her shoes, even as her heart jumped into her throat. She had hoped the dragonslayer was here for any reason other than that, had prayed she didn’t know of the life held in that little bag. For the first time the wild girl considered this adventure might be her last.

Then she felt she wasn’t alone. Glancing to her right and left, she saw her new friends had come to stand beside her courageously. Ash, Pikachu, Brock and Misty wore identical expressions of anger, directed at their old enemies. Five against four the two groups faced each other, and it seemed an all-out fight would break out any moment. But Team Rocket abruptly discovered they were outnumbered. They knew only one way to even the odds.

"Arbok, go!"

"Go Weezing!"

As the two poison Pokemon—joined by Meowth—leaped forward, Brock and Misty pulled out their own Pokeballs with relief. Battles were something the Pokemon trainers could understand and handle, dragons and family feuds were a little out of their league.

"Pikachu, Thundershock, now!"

"Geodude, I choose you!"

"Go Starmie!"

Pride filled Aurora Sango, pride and a humble gratitude for such friendship. As the six Pokemon clashed in battle overseen by their five trainers, she turned to Allia Merlac. She was still afraid, only a fool wouldn’t be, but now a determination as hard as the steel in the dragonslayer’s eyes enveloped her. Allia held the three eggs in one gloved hand, but she could not use them as hostages to escape. Aurora would not allow what happened with Team Rocket in her forest to happen again. If they were able to retreat now, any future outcome would be the same. They would threaten her with the destruction of the eggs and get away. Not this time.

Allia wasn’t planning on retreating anyway. She had been ordered to capture the child that stood before her years ago, and had failed. It had been an unredeemable black mark on her for a long time. This dragonfriend wouldn’t escape her again, her dragon either. Not this time. "What are you waiting for?" she hissed at the girl. "Attack me!" Her thin sword flashed in the harsh light.

Aurora looked around wildly for a weapon. A length of old pipe lay on the floor scant feet away, and she realized this was what had tripped her. How ironic that the very thing that had exposed her would be what she defended herself with. "Create a diversion," she muttered to Stormweaver, who growled gladly.

"You will pay for what you did to my family!" he thundered as he sprang at the dragonslayer. But his anger had cooled enough for him to think. Stopping outside the range of her blade, he hovered and summoned a Charmander’s Flamethrower and threw it straight at the woman’s chest. So fast she was a blur that spoke of years of training, Allia unstrapped a light wooden shield covered in the same black leather as her outfit from her back and brought it up in one fluid motion. She held it steady under the force of the attack, even though she had to use the hand already clutching the straps of the beige pack to hold the shield. The flames were amazingly halted by the simple cover, and Allia remained untouched.

She laughed at the dragon when the column of fire ceased. "It’s been years since a dragon and a Merlac have faced each other, beast. But we didn’t stopped developing our defenses just because our foes seemed vanquished. I think you’ll find your precious Mimic quite useless with my weapons—hey!"

As soon as Stormweaver left her shoulder Aurora threw herself at the pipe on the floor. Her movements felt agonizingly slow to her, but she prayed she moved fast enough to take Allia by surprise. Curling her hand around one end of the cool metal, she didn’t bother to scramble to her feet but hurled herself at the dragonslayer from the ground. She had thought to swing the length of pipe at the woman’s legs, hopefully taking her down, but briefly hesitated when it actually came time to strike. Aurora had never attacked anyone or anything in her life. Her conscience held her back when she heard Allia’s cry of surprise.

That hesitation nearly cost her her life. Recovering way too fast for Aurora’s comfort, the dragonslayer swung her sword down fast even as she kept her shield up in case Stormweaver tried to attack again. Suddenly thoughts of right and wrong were driven out of Aurora’s mind as she struggled to raise the pipe to meet the blade and found herself just trying to stay alive.

The emerald dragon hovered uncertainly above the two figures, wanting to help his dragonfriend. But the Merlac and the Sango were fighting like wildcats now, a fury of flashing metal and ringing clangs. He could hardly tell where one ended and the other began, and couldn’t risk attacking and hitting Aurora instead. Not to mention his siblings were in there somewhere! Wishing fervently that his Fear worked on humans, Stormweaver knew there was nothing he could do. Aurora was on her own . . . for now.

Wheeling to see what he could do for the battling Pokemon, the dragon swooped down and clouted Meowth on the back of the head just in time to save a momentarily dazed Pikachu from a nasty scratch. Here, at least, was somewhere he could be of help. Goaded by the helplessness he felt for being unable to help Aurora, he attacked with a furor that turned the tide for his side.

Arbok, dark cowl spread, bared its fangs and snapped at the giant purple starfish before it, trying to catch the glinting red jewel in its jaws. Weezing and Geodude sparred in a patch of sludge as Pikachu and Stormweaver combined a Thundershock that literally blasted Meowth into Jessie and James, knocking all three members of Team Rocket to the ground. Masters gone, the two poison Pokemon faltered in their battles. Starmie and Geodude slipped through their defenses and both scored heavily. Soon the giant snake and its partner retreated back into their Pokeballs in defeat.

"That’s it!" Meowth muttered as he painstakingly got to his feet again, slightly smoking. "I don’t care if the Boss is gettin’ paid a fortune for those oversized chicken eggs. I’m outta here!" He crossed his paws over his chest. "Team Rocket’s done its part and—oof!"

Meowth found himself on his back, flattened by someone about his size, with smoldering lime green eyes mere centimeters from his own. "You," the dragon growled in a way that made the Pokemon sweat, "may cost me my little brothers and sisters’ lives. If any harm comes to them, I’ll spend the rest of my days tracking down your wonderful Team Rocket—and you in particular, Meowth—and making sure you pay." When the cat-like Pokemon opened his mouth Stormweaver cut him off with a snarl. "Go now. Run back to your Boss and tell him that messing in the affairs of dragons is a bad idea. We tend to hold a grudge." Sharp white teeth flashed in Meowth’s face at the last word. When the Pokemon offered no further objections, as frozen as when the dragon had used his Fear on him, Stormweaver slowly receded until he stood beside Pikachu and its two battle mates.

The four fighters stood in front of Ash, Brock and Misty as Team Rocket wisely decided to flee. No one stopped them, and Stormweaver rose his head proudly as they ran. He had defended his honor and repaid the villains who had stolen the three eggs under his protection, though he felt they hadn’t suffered nearly enough. The thought reminded him: Aurora! Realizing how quickly events had progressed, how little time had actually passed since he had had to leave his dragonfriend, he whirled toward the sounds of metal on metal that could still be heard clashing not ten feet away. While Brock and Misty recalled their Pokemon, Ash and Pikachu joined Stormweaver in his attention on the fighters.

Aurora’s world had narrowed to two very simple thoughts. Her desperation couldn’t make up for the dragonslayer’s skill with a sword, but she managed to keep from getting killed. Neither had really scored a hit on the other, the battle was reduced to one attacking and one defending, not giving ground but not gaining either. Aurora’s short hair was damp with sweat and kept falling into her eyes, a fact that she didn’t let distract her. Her whole upper body ached with fatigue. How could this Allia not look as if she was ready to collapse? Aurora was sure she did.

Her first thoughts centered on keeping herself alive and well, but the entire time she fought her eyes were solely locked on the beige backpack in Allia’s firm grip. In such an intense battle, the three eggs inside would surely have been crushed despite their protective covering in minutes, but the dragonslayer was being as careful at keeping them undamaged as Aurora was. Not that the wild girl suspected she felt any sort of compassion for them; she was sure the Merlac had a plan in mind that needed them to succeed. And this fact more than any other made Aurora determined to stop the dragonslayer.

Aurora’s arm muscles screamed as she met another blow of the sword with her pipe. She couldn’t stand much more of this. One of them was going to slip up soon, and she didn’t feel it was going to be Allia. Meeting the woman’s gray eyes, she saw them fierce and glad. The Merlac was reveling in the battle, could keep it up all night, the eyes were telling her. Desperate, the girl with the mismatched gaze just wanted some way out of this.

Then something presented itself.

The sword had etched faint white grooves down the length of the pipe as they had collided again and again. Caught in one now, the dragonfriend and the dragonslayer were for once still, trying to push each other off balance with their weapons. While Allia was the stronger of the two, Aurora had better leverage for the moment. But a slight movement suddenly disengaged the weapons. The sword slipped and flashed by Aurora’s right ear, coming perilously close, as the pipe shot forward and tangled itself in the backpack’s straps.

This was the opportunity she had been looking for. Giving a mighty yank, Aurora ripped the backpack and the shield right out of Allia’s hand. Both objects went sailing into the air with the force.

"Stormweaver!" she yelled in horror as the beige bag arched and began to plummet. The dragon had already launched himself skyward. He rose to meet it, wrapped his forelegs around the middle, and flapped hard. But the backpack was almost as big as the dragon himself. Still falling, albeit slowly, he managed to coast until he was just over Misty’s head. The pack and its precious cargo dropped into her waiting hands safely.

"All right!" her friends cheered her catch triumphantly. Aurora pumped a fist into the air, not even noticing the pipe had slid out of her nerveless fingers a moment ago. Ash, Brock and Pikachu converged around the redhead as Stormweaver circled above happily. It was over! She had done it! They had won!

A dangerous noise behind her reminded Aurora it wasn’t over. She whirled just in time to see Allia looming over her, sword raised above her head and fury written on her once-cool face. There was no time to move or retrieve her weapon or even to pray. She could only feel a quick pang of wistful happiness, knowing Stormweaver and his siblings would be in good hands, as the blade descended.

And Allia suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

Aurora blinked in confusion, vaguely wondering why she wasn’t dead. The pain in her head didn’t make thinking any easier. Raising her hand to brush against her forehead, she was mildly surprised to find her fingers stained red. The end of the sword had just nicked her, then. Realizing how close a call it had been, Aurora’s whole body began to shiver uncontrollably. The warehouse’s lights chose that moment to go out.

The next thing the wild girl knew, she was lying on her back on the floor of the building. Above her were the faces of all her friends, wearing identical looks of concern. "What happened?" she murmured.

Brock was holding a handkerchief to her head. "That lady almost got you," he told her. "We wouldn’t have been able to stop her in time."

"But your eggs are all right," Misty put in, the backpack still safe in her arms. "I checked; they’re fine."

"Pika chu," Pikachu confirmed.

"Are you?" asked Ash worriedly. She tried to nod to him, but it hurt too much.

"I’ll be all right," she said instead. "Stormweaver?"

"I’m right here," was the immediate reply. His long face came into view above her. "You’ve only been out a second. You fainted," he added unnecessarily.

"No kidding. Thanks," she told Brock, taking hold of the handkerchief herself and extending her other hand for someone to help her up. Ash grabbed it and gently pulled her to her feet. "What stopped Allia?"

But no one needed to tell her. The dragonslayer lay slumped on the floor before them, and it was obvious from her position that she had hit the crates behind her hard, then fell to the floor. She was unconscious and her blade had been pointedly removed.

Between the group of friends and the downed woman stood a proud creature, orange and white with black stripes. Its inhuman white eyes with large dark pupils stared at her protectively.

"A Growlithe!" Aurora exclaimed.

"Yeah, you should have seen it!" Ash burst out in admiration. "It came barreling in here and jumped between you two like lightning. It knocked that woman right into the crates and knocked her out." His voice became sullen. "I wanted to catch it, but Stormweaver wouldn’t let me."

She felt the dragon jump up to his usual place on her shoulder. "Growlithe says it wants to be your Pokemon, Aurora. It doesn’t want to battle; it wants to apply for the position of Protector of the Dragons and Their Dragonfriends." Stormweaver grinned, making the words an honored title. "I told it it’s not exactly a paying job, but it insisted. Right, Growlithe?"

The puppy Pokemon stepped up to Aurora and bobbed its head as if giving a quick bow. "Growl lithe!" it announced importantly, and everyone had to laugh. It sounded like it was offering itself to a respected sire.

Aurora cut herself off, mid-chuckle. "You were the one following us, weren’t you?" she realized, eyeing the tiger-striped creature suspiciously.

The Growlithe hung its head in atonement and whimpered. "Lithe. Growlithe, growl."

Stormweaver interpreted. "It says its been shadowing us since we left the forest," he reported. "And that we have it to thank for stopping someone trying to make trouble for us."

"Arin, from that Gym, I’ll bet," Misty snorted angrily. "I knew he was up to something."

The suspicion passed from Aurora’s face. "Then I guess we’re in your debt, Growlithe. I don’t have any Pokeballs to offer you, but you’re more than welcome to join us. Sorry, Ash."

"Aw, that’s okay," the trainer shrugged. "I can’t make it come with me if it doesn’t want to." The wild girl smiled in appreciation.

Then an alarmed look chased it off her face. "What about Team Rocket?" She looked around wildly as if expecting the three members to leap out of hiding and attack now that she remembered them.

Her friends laughed again as they recalled the battle. It seemed they were all a little slaphappy, now that the action was over. Aurora wondered if it was their bodies’ way of dealing with all the sudden stress. Or maybe it was their minds’ way of retaining their sanity. It abruptly occurred to her that she had fought against a trained swordswoman with nothing more than a piece of pipe. A tiny cut on the head could have been the last of her worries. Shaking the thought away, the wild girl returned her attention to Ash’s explanations.

The black-haired trainer was congratulating himself quite thoroughly. "Ha ha! They didn’t stand a chance! It was Ash Ketchum: 45, Team Rocket: 0!"

Brock and Misty stared at him irritably and cleared their throats together. "Pika," his Pokemon warned, its cheek pouches sparking.

"Oh . . . uh, well, it was a group effort really," he amended. At their encouraging looks he added, "And Stormweaver helped too."

The dragon tried to put on an air of nobility, but failed miserably when he broke into chuckles. "Did you see Meowth?" he laughed. "He was so scared I thought that stupid gold thing was going to fall right off his head!" Everyone broke down at that, and now Aurora was sure there was a hint of hysterics in the sound. When the laughter died down there was a bit of silence, broken by the oddest sound.

"Eeep!"

Everyone turned in the direction of the sound: to Misty. "It wasn’t me!" she objected, twin spots of red appearing on her cheeks.

"Eeep! Eeep!"

Stormweaver was the first to make the connection. "The bag!" he gasped. Aurora caught on next, eagerly reached for the backpack. Her face was now alight with joy as it was handed over. Misty, Brock and Ash shared a look of puzzlement while the girl sank to her knees on the concrete floor. But when she opened the top and began pulling out the soft grass cushioning, they understood. Four humans, two Pokemon and a dragon crouched down, forming a circle around the hasty nest Aurora fashioned out of the grass as she gently placed the dragon eggs on top. The three orbs were vibrating strongly, and the odd noises were issuing forth from inside.

Not one of the seven onlookers could have told afterward how long they kneeled there. Cramped muscles, injuries or other fatigues from their various battles were forgotten as they watched. Eyes remained riveted as jagged cracks appeared in the colorful shells of the hatching eggs, cracks that widened and eventually broke off small pieces. Other than a slight shift of weight or the occasional sigh of wonder, the group was motionless and silent. As if the spell that froze time had stuck again, the world was still.

When it was over they sat back on their collective heels with deep breaths of relief and even deeper awe. Aurora looked at her friends and saw an almost sacred expression on their grinning faces, as if they had witnessed something holy or miraculous. It was the same feeling that had been in the air the night she had shared the secret of the backpack with them, only intensified. Smiling so hard it made her face hurt, she looked back down on the grass nest.

With the spell broken, Stormweaver had curled himself around the nest in brotherly love. Pikachu stood on one side of him, round eyes shining, with Growlithe on the other, obviously guarding its new charges. Aurora, Misty, Ash and Brock made an outer circle as they sat down on the ground.

The three new hatchlings looked a lot like Stormweaver, save their different colors and the fact that they were smaller. Like the eggs they had rested in moments before, one of the baby dragons was a pale rose, the others sky blue and soft yellow. Their eyes were tightly closed, their ears plastered to their heads. Not yet strong enough to fold wings much too big for them, they hung limp and wet as butterflies’. And only the pink one had Stormweaver’s horn between her nostrils (nothing but a speck of one really). The blue had one slightly larger horn above each eye, while the yellow had none at all. After their initial cries and movements had subsided, they had foundered through the grass and eggshells until finding Stormweaver’s warm body and falling into content slumber.

A gentle storm of loving emotions shone in his lime green eyes—and a few tears of joy—when he looked up at his friends. "Thank you, everyone," he whispered. "I am alone no longer. Dragons are again in the world."

He wasn’t the only one misty-eyed. "You’re brothers and sisters are beautiful," murmured the redheaded girl, brushing her hand across her own blue-green eyes.

"Brothers and sister," he corrected, bestowing another fond gaze on the three sleeping infants.

"How can you tell?" wondered Ash with a frown.

"I just can."

Brock stood up and motioned for the others to join him and led them a few steps away. Stormweaver didn’t move; neither did Growlithe. "Newborns need their sleep," the tall boy began in a lecturing tone. "And when they wake up they’re going to be hungry. We’ll have to find someway to keep them warm, but we can’t put them in your backpack anymore, Aurora. . . ." He continued on with the things newborn creatures would need and want and she, remembering how much Brock wanted to be a breeder, giggled to herself.

Misty was still admiring the babies from afar. "I can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt such beautiful creatures," she said to herself.

But her words caused Aurora to blanch as they reminded her. "Oh no, Allia!" she gasped, whirling to the wall of crates where the dragonslayer’s body had fallen.

Allia Merlac was gone.

The group of five rushed over to examine the area. It was Pikachu who discovered the second exit behind the crates. "Pika pi!" it called urgently. As the four humans followed its voice it scampered to the door swinging open in the breeze. A view of Sunset Lake, turned red by the very act it was named after, shone through the doorway. The electric Pokemon stopped at the exit and looked back questionably.

"Let it go, Pikachu," Aurora sighed wearily, suddenly feeling the day’s actions catching up with her. "It’s over, and we have more important things to worry about."

* * *

It was a tired, bedraggled party of seven (plus three) that appeared at the doors of the Pokemon Center in Sankton City just as the first stars were blinking into existence that evening. Nurse Joy took one look at them and immediately cleared her schedule. Ushering them into a modest room emptied especially for them, she ordered her assistants to prepare food, hot baths and beds. The latter was reserved until after questions had been answered, but the group got its fill of the first two eagerly.

Aurora had just returned to the room, still toweling her short hair dry (while being careful not to disturb the dressing over her cut), to find everyone else present and happily sated. Nurse Joy, whom Aurora found to be a caring and trustworthy person, was tucking the last of a pile of warm blankets around the again-slumbering trio of hatchlings. The little ones had practically emptied the Pokemon Center of its supply of fish and seafood, (Brock had been right, they acted as if they might never get another chance to eat again) and then sent up the most piteous cries imaginable until warm enough to fall asleep. Growlithe had refused to leave their sides since entering the building.

Misty, Brock and Ash lounged on three of the four cots that had been erected against the walls, while Stormweaver stretched out on one side of the nest of blankets on the counter and Growlithe vigilantly sat at attention the other. Aurora saw Nurse Joy’s questioning blue eyes set on her upon entering the room. She wondered if her friends had refused to explain what had happened, waiting for her. "I suppose you’re wondering how the only Pokemon trainer to ever discover a Stormweaver suddenly found three more of them, hmm?" she addressed the nurse.

"The thought had crossed my mind," admitted Joy.

Aurora sighed in resignation as she slouched onto her cot. She wanted nothing more than to fall into a deep sleep and preferably not wake up for a week, but she knew she owed the Pokemon Center, if not Nurse Joy herself, some answers. Raising her head to look the Pokemon caregiver straight in the eyes, she stated, "Nurse Joy, I’m sorry, but I lied to you. These aren’t Pokemon at all. These are dragons."

Her quartet of friends gasped, their own fatigue momentarily forgotten. Stormweaver hissed in alarm. Growlithe growled. Nurse Joy looked confused. Aurora sighed again. Then she motioned for the pink-haired nurse to take a seat and launched into the lengthy tale. She told her all she knew of the dragons, of the feud between the Sangos and the Merlacs, of the slayings and the pillage of Sango Manor. She told of the hatching of Stormweaver, and the "haunting" of the forest to the south. Then she told how she had met the traveling foursome, and the theft of the dragon eggs. She recounted how they had followed the thieves into Sankton, the encounter in the warehouse, the hatching of the three eggs, and the disappearance of the dragonslayer.

And through the entire narrative, she saw her friends’ jaws dropping lower and lower with every word. Concluding, she turned to them and tried to trudge up a weary smile. "I’ve done a lot of thinking, guys," she told them. "We can’t hide anymore, certainly not with the little ones. It’s time this world remembers its forgotten people. With Growlithe to protect us, we’ll be safer. We can bring the knowledge of dragons back." The night had darkened remarkably through the windows of the room. It was very late by the time Aurora had finished. Thoroughly exhausted, she slumped against the wall and closed her duo-colored eyes.

Opening them again, the wild girl saw Nurse Joy looked surprised. Not shocked, not amazed, not stupefied or even afraid. Just surprised. Somehow Aurora wasn’t. She had the impression this was just the kind of person Nurse Joy was. The young woman carefully straightened her nurse’s cap on her head and patted her hair into place as she stood up. "Well, I’m glad you brought this to my attention, Aurora. There isn’t much any of you can do tonight. Why don’t you get some sleep, and I’ll make some calls. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe in the Pokemon Center."

Smiling understandingly at all of them, she turned to leave and closed the door securely after her. But instead of immediately moving away, she paused and listened through the closed door. Five voices were talking lowly but adamantly in the room, sounding as if the topic was one of monumental importance. Nurse Joy predicated they wouldn’t be sleeping for a while yet, and resolved to make sure no one disturbed the poor kids until late the next morning.