How do I describe this feeling?

Visions of Flora slipping through the cracks repeated incessantly in my head. That last forced smile haunted my every move. The thoughts of the underground water maliciously stealing her away were just like...

I shook the thought out of my head, but then it came back. The similarities, the feelings, and the new understanding became apparent to me. My circumstances were not unlike that of Daron.

As much as I hated to admit it, I suddenly had a smidgen of sympathy for the man that almost tore apart the world. Even losing his love to the water was the same.

My mind wandered and wandered, getting into trains of thought that I wanted to escape from at all costs.

I need something to take my mind off of all this...

I stood up and brushed the dirt off my pants. I was taking shelter from the rest of the world under a tree, as far from any city as humanly possible. Why? Because I thought I needed time to think. Turned out that wasn't such a great idea.

The question is where to go and what to do...

I had left myself vulnerable. Painful memories entered through the opened mental floodgate. I couldn't think of any place without it having been somewhere that I went with Flora. Then it hit me. There were places in the waterworld of Hoenn that we had not gone: Victory Road and the Elite Four.

The wind rustled the leaves, each one gossiping behind my back. "Does he really think that he can move on from this?" they asked each other, and answered each other in an almost plastic applause. "What can he do on his own? Is he so cocky to think that he can handle the weight of the real world after being extracted from his prolonged fantasy?"

These were all questions I had for myself.

Father's words challenged me. "I will be waiting for you at Evergrande City. Once you grow the hell up I expect to see you there!"

Was I not handling this well?! His words stung harder than a Beedrill. I truly thought that I was doing the best that I could, but I now know that I was wrong. My frustration quickly turned into anger. I felt like I had to prove my father wrong. I had to show him that I was mature enough to take him down. Of course that's exactly the answer that a child would arrive at.

I shouted at the sky, frightening nearby Taillow into taking flight. My blood pulsed with fighting spirit, but for all the wrong reasons.

"I'll take down the Elite Four and then I'll be the Champion!" I shouted at the empty audience that was the sky. "Once I'm at the top no one will be able to look down on me! I will have nothing to fear!!!"

I pulled out Bagel's pokeball. Bagel, yet another itching momento of my past. His name, his previously fellow Bagon named Baguette, and even the fact that he was a present from my father bothered me. I held up his pokeball in front of my face.

It was just a normal pokeball, but it now held so much intrigue. This was the object that I owed my adventure to, both the good and the bad parts. It was just a red and silver ball, but the meaning it held was far more than that. Inside it held all that it meant to be a pokemon trainer, as long as you had the mind to see it.

I remembered my first pokeball. It was Aaron's. The now grown up cave dweller that caused me so much trouble, but brought me so much fun. Those were good times up until recently, and it was a pokeball that set the entire thing into motion. It was only a single pokeball.

I calmed down momentarily, thinking about the good times, but then I remembered another thing. It was also by the adventure brought on by a pokeball that left a body count. I was on a roller coaster of emotions that had no end in sight.

Bagel's pokeball was still in my hands. I looked at it once more, then remembered a promise that I made.

"That's right, I told her that we would challenge the Elite Four."

There was no "we" left, but the promise still stood. I had to challenge, and beat, the best and brightest that the region had to offer. There was no way around it. I would do it for Flora.

I let out Bagel. His large reptilian body hit the ground was a slight earth shaking force. I looked at him, and he looked back at me. There was disappointment in his eyes.

"Not you too! Listen, we're beating the Elite Four if it's the last thing we do, okay?! The only thing there is left is for us to reach the top so that we can stop this stupid journey!"

Bagel's eyes revealed sadness from my words, but he quickly turned his face away. I hopped on him and we took off towards what I thought to be the final frontier: Evergrande City.

-----

I stood on the same ground that I stood upon long ago, watching Magikarps dancing their ways up the waterfall. Phantoms of my past loomed over me and played out the same scenes of that one day, reminding me that day would never occur again.

I turned away from the ocean and towards the mouth of the cave. Victory Road: the last step before challenging the Elite Four. Technically you can just fly over the cave and reach it directly, but it's taboo in the trainer world to do so. You must first prove your strength, and that's what I came to do. However, I came to do it as quickly as possible.

I stepped inside the dirty old cave. Footprints of countless trainers and pokemon littered the ground, and makeshift bridges hung between the small stone peaks like vines between trees. I wandered about, searching for the exit. I saw the spilling of light on the other side of a rock wall, but I was unable to climb to reach it.

"Come on out Aaron!"

Aaron, the newly evolved Aggron, came out just as summoned and looked at me, confused.

"I let me boost off your shoulders or something so that I can climb over the wall! It'll be much faster that way."

I thought I was being clever, seeing as I would still technically get through the cave, but Aaron had other thoughts. He picked me up, which now was an easy task for him, and he carried me away from the wall and to a ladder in the ground. He pointed with his arm that I should go down it.

"Are you serious?!"

He kept pointing, and refused to move from that stance.

Even my own pokemon are out to get me. I sighed and returned the rebellious pokemon, then made my descent down the sketchy wooden ladder.

It was too dark to see down there, so I pulled out a flashlight. When I did, though, I was greeted by another trainer that was standing in the darkness.

"Long time no see, Elron," he said in a serious voice. His cape waved slowly in the cavern's winds.

"Not now Ryuusuke, I have things to do," I said in an irritated tone.

"I don't think you understand." I flashed his cape. "I've been told by your dad to not let you pass without battling me!"

I gritted my teeth. Father is just interfering with everything. "And how are you going to stop me?"

A Sceptile walked forth out of the darkness.

I snickered. "So that's it? Have you forgotten that I too have pokemon?!" I prepared to let out one of my own.

"Two things. One: your pokemon are on my side. Two: wouldn't you just be engaging in a battle with me if you were to do that?"

I didn't believe the first point, but I couldn't argue with the second. I almost let go of my pokeball, but I had a change of heart halfway through the action. "I'll do what I want. Heracross!"

The bipedal insect came out and stood in front of me. He didn't even bother looking back at me.

"Use X-Scissor!"

He didn't move.

"Heracross?!"

He didn't budge an inch.

The Sceptile walked out in front of Heracross, but did not hit it. Instead, the two just looked at each other, as if carrying on a conversation without words.

"Don't you see, Elron? How can you hope to continue on if your own pokemon won't listen to you?" Ryuusuke held up his right wrist, and his sleeve was pulled down by gravity, revealing a golden bracelet. He pressed the face of the strange wristband, and it started shining brightly.

Sceptile too began to take on a new light, and it was the very same light that I had with all of my pokemon just a few days ago. My eyes widened as I saw the power erupt forth. Sceptile's tail had multiplied in size, and it took on several other physical changes. He had mega evolved.

"Do you see the bond between us, Elron?! This is what the relationship between pokemon and trainer should look like! Right now, you're so emotionally distanced from your pokemon that you'd never be able to do this, even with the necessary crystals."

I knew he was right, but didn't want to admit it. A bead of sweat rolled down my neck. "So you know about that huh?"

"Of course I do," he said with a flicker of cape. "And I know that it was no fluke that you were able to pull it off. However, that was only possible because of the immense understanding that you had during that moment with your team. There is not a speck of understanding now."

I gritted my teeth. He was ticking me off with his high and mighty attitude, even if he did mean for the best. "What are you, an evolution expert?!"

"No," he replied with a sad shake of head. "I am a pokemon trainer. No, I am more than that! I am a dragon tamer! Now stop grovelling in the dirt and pick your head up, because you are supposed to be a dragon tamer too!" He smiled and extended his hand symbolically my way, as if gesturing me to go to him. "Elron, there is no mistake that what has happened is tragic, but if you don't learn to grow from it, what was the meaning of all that you've gone through? You should be making Flora proud, not as the Elron that is angry with his hand in fate and is trying to reject it, but rather the Elron that has accepted what has happened as fact and is pressing forward because he wants to. Why? Because you are a pokemon trainer!!!"

There was something about the confident pose, those choice words, and the atmosphere of the encounter that left me dumbfounded. Heracross finally turned his head to face me, and there was a happy yet sad expression with him.

I looked deeply into my pokemon's beady eyes and saw that Ryuusuke was right, and that Heracross thought so as well. I hadn't known Heracross for very long, but his comfort and silent support showed that he wasn't just another pokemon. He was another member of my team.

My tense composure loosened up while a sense of tranquility filled its place.

"Why go so far out of your way for me?" I asked.

"Why?" he said with a half revolution turn, sending his characteristic cape a flutter. "Because you are a pokemon trainer, a fellow dragon tamer, and a friend to me. I need no other motivation. I'll be there to watch your battle against your dad, so don't disappoint me."

The normally goofy guy walked away from me, Sceptile in tow, with my newfound respect for him.

After he disappeared into the darkness, I looked at my pokemon.

"Well Heracross, let's try this some other time. I think we have some more to do before we should challenge the Elite Four. What do you think?"

The sap-sipper's mouth opened in glee, and it waved its arms above its head in agreeance.

"Alright then! It's settled!" A feeling of determination swept over me. There was no doubt that the gloom of losing Flora was still there, but now I felt that it was just a part of me. It was something that made me who I was that day, but I couldn't let myself stop there. I had yet to fully grow--no, evolve.

"Let's find those mega stones!"

***

A/N: So this chapter is a little early because I'm going on a forced vacation to Oklahoma tomorrow -_- Anyways, I was going to take the plot a slightly different route a few hours ago... but I came up with a much better idea :3 I was going to have Elron rage on for another few chapters, but what's the fun in that?! See you next time on WSGABATA!