United We Stand, Divided We Fall.

"Oh, Citrine! You switched to an active wheelchair?"

When Citrine was finally deemed able enough to be released from supervision, she worked on her rehabilitation harder than anyone else.

Now she visited the Pokemon Centre, and the Nurse Joy are more than familiar with her now.

Citrine grinned with a happy hum of approval, "once I get used to this, I can continue with my journey!"

It was about time for her to get back on the hike, anyways. She just needed to settle the loose ends in this town.

"How's Magnemite?"

"It'll be up completely in a few days, Citrine," she led the girl into the back room, "it's been waiting for you all day."

Citrine wheeled her own way in, to the nursing wards of Pokemon who were recuperating from dire injuries.

On one of the beds, a Magnemite turned its magnets when it spotted the girl. In its excitement, it tried to float, only to tilt from uneven weight and land on Citrine's lap when the girl rushed forward to receive it.

"Looks like the screws are still loose," Citrine observed, taking in the cracks that couldn't be healed but were bound together with bandaged to keep them together.

"It's unfortunate," Nurse Joy agreed, "but it seems that the screw no longer fits into the socket. We're looking into a suitable spare part to fill in the hole, but so far there's been no luck."

And Citrine hummed at that. The screw on the top of its head was shaky and jutted out a little more than usual... the little gap between the body and the screw head--

"Citrine!" Wattson barged in, surprising all of them and the injured Pokemon on the beds, (Nurse Joy sent him a warning glare and he flinched), before he marched up in a panic.

"What's wrong, Mister Wattson?" Citrine cradled the little Magnemite in his hands, depositing it back into the bedding before turning to the Gym Leader.

"It's your Lombre!" Wattson couldn't really understand indoor voices right now.

Citrine froze. Then, it registered, "what?!"

-

Lombre was hanging off a branch at the edge of a very tall cliff, and it was steadily crawling further.

"What an absolute cliche," Citrine muttered under her breath as a crowd formed, "what is she trying to reach?"

There's a faint shine in the distance.

"It's a ring," someone spoke up beside her-- "a small, white ring... there's a diamond on it."

Citrine looked to the side, to the brown-haired girl wearing red trainer clothes-- and it took everything in her to not flinch in surprise.

"Sapphire?!" she squeaked before she could stop herself.

The girl with a Combusken looked at Citrine, confused. "You know my name?" she pointed at herself, not too sure if she's seen this girl before and never remembered.

Citrine covered her mouth, panicked.

(Wait, this isn't the time for that!)

"You said a ring, right?" Citrine reached into her collar, and retrieved Dustoc's ring, which she had threaded into a necklace, "did it look like this?"

Sapphire seemed to understand that explanations could come later too. She nodded.

Citrine's fist tightened.

Lombre and Loudred had still been hunting around for Dustox, because they were still trying to find her. She had left them be, because they all needed their time to mourn. Now this happens?

Citrine reached for the crutch at the back of her wheelchair, and hefted herself up.

"Please make way!" she called out frantically, pushing her way through to the front, "that's my Lombre!"

She seeded through the crowd with little difficulty, then dropped her crutch in favour of getting on the branch Lombre was on.

At the very far edge, hanging on a branch as thin as a thread, was a silver gleam. A ring.

And Lombre was crawling toward it, trying to retrieve it.

"Lotty!"

Lombre jumped, suddenly realizing Citrine was right over there. She got up, then slipped off the branch, scaring the living daylights out of half the crowd. Lombre held onto the wood by her claws, looking at Citrine with an expression that spoke much of how she shouldn't be there.

"Lotty, it's dangerous there. Come back over here now!" she raised her voice over the wind, trying to sound strict.

Seriously, Lotty was such a timid one. Why would she do something so stupid and reckless?

Lombre shook its head rapidly, making whines desperately as she pointed at the ring, trying to prove a point.

"Don't care about the ring, Lotty, it's fine!" Citrine yelled back, "I'll give you a new one, okay?"

Lombre shook her head again.

This time, she didn't wait for a response. Lombre continued to crawl over the branch, and her claws were within an inch of the ring now.

A loud creak sounded, and the branch began to give way.

"Doesn't anyone have a flyer Pokemon?!" someone in the crowd yelled.

Too late.

With a shuddering crunch, the branch tore, pure white splinters bursting from the fissures-- and it began to give way from the trunk.

Lombre's arms gave in, and it was sent flying.

Citrine didn't think twice.

She ran forward, past the broken section, then leaped. Lombre's attention headed for the ring, two palms closing over the accessory. Citrine's arms wrapped around Lombre's form-- then they began to fall.

All at once, many things happened.

Wattson sent out an array of Magnemite, who drew their electromagnetic waves into a shield underneath the two.

A colony of Zubat rushed out from nowhere, holding up Citrine and Lombre by her clothes. Their wings flapped furiously as they lifted her, then set her down carefully on Magnemite's floating platform.

A sound wave burst from below-- was it an Uproar? No, it was stronger. Hyper Voice?

The sheer impact of the wave sent the Pokemon scrambling to keep upright, hiding behind Magnemite's protect field. But the debris was blown away in one fell swoop, soaring high into the sky before any wooden chip even dared fall on the girl.

Citrine watched it all happen, laying flat on the shield with Lombre in her arms. It had happened so immediately, she couldn't believe it.

It was a coordinated formation from three different Pokemon, with no prior planning and indication. Pure instinct and desire fueled those moves, and they worked out so miraculously, Citrine was completely unharmed.

(So this was what the Pokemon world was really like.)

(Humans and Pokemon lived together in harmony, helping each other and working with each other, even without words.)

Looking down, she saw Loudred. Her Whismy, staring up at her for any indication of her wellbeing.

The crowd above her cheered when the Magnemite drew the force field back up to the ground. The Zubat flapped around for a few more minutes, swirled around to make sure she was alright, before all but one left.

Lombre opened her hands, and there the ring was, pristine and not lost in the scuffle.

Citrine couldn't help but breathe out in awe. Her hair disheveled and her heart beating hard from the stress, the excitement-- her cheeks flushed with the thrill.

"That was amazing."