"I'm really sorry to hear what happened," said the Devon Corporation clerk as he handed me the bracelet. It was an iron ring, definitely not stylish in any sense of the word, and had a rainbow colored gem embedded in it. This was my new Mega Ring.

I stayed silent and nodded my reply instead. I clasped the bracelet to my arm and looked at it from a few different angles. It was slightly on the uncomfortable side due to its weight, but this was something that I was willing to deal with.

"How does it feel?" said the stone dealer, who was getting visibly worried because of my silence.

"It feels alright," I said, putting him at ease. "Thanks." I put the money down on the table and started to walk out of the building. "I'm sorry that the ring you worked so hard on was lost."

I heard his reply faintly as I walked out the door. "I'm afraid you've lost a lot more than I have, Elron."

-----

"So this is Rusturf Tunnel, huh?"

I walked the single path through the cave that was being extended by humanity with my flashlight in hand. There really wasn't much of note in the cave, except for the surprising lack of Zubats and the abundance of Whismurs hiding behind rocks. Well, until I hit a dead end that is.

Some tunnel, I thought sarcastically. I looked around, but didn't see much of anything, and certainly no traces of any Mega Stones. I let Aaron out of his pokeball. "Do you like... sense anything by chance?"

He looked at me strangely.

"I guess that was a weird question." I looked around, but still saw no sign of anything important.

Aaron saw me trying my hardest to find any clue at all to the location of the Aggronite, but he didn't bother helping me. Instead, he found a comfortable rock to lay his head on and fell asleep.

Thanks for the help. I rolled my eyes and kept searching. I theorized that the crystal would have to be buried someone in the stone of the cave, but it sure wasn't logical or possible to dig out an entire cave for a single stone. Maybe the rumors that people find them here are lies...

"Hey, you!" shouted a rough sounding voice from behind me. "What are you doing here?!"

I turned around, surprised to see another person in here and worried that I was doing something wrong.

The man was a tough, muscular man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. He had working clothes on, but was not yet dirty from doing any digging.

"I'm trying to find something. Errr... You wouldn't happen to know where a guy could get an Aggronite would you?"

He gave me disapproving look. "Another person searching for one of those, eh? No, I do not know where you could find one of those, but I'll be happy to let you know that you're not allowed to do any digging to find one! The pokemon here are disturbed by the noise caused by digging, so it's an environmental concern to do any more." He looked confident and like he felt superior as he finished his reasoning. "If you understand, then please leave."

I looked around the cave, once again finding the only pokemon around to be Whismur. "You do realize that Whismurs have the ability of Soundproof, right? You could make as much sound as you wanted and they wouldn't care," I retorted.

"Nonsense! Every time that we tried contributing anything to the tunnel's construction they would cry! Hmph, I pretty sure that counts as bothering them." He once again seemed to be proud of his sense of righteousness.

"I'm pretty sure they were just trying to add to the uproar. It's kind of what Whismur do." Is he seriously this ignorant?

He shut out my opinion. "Nope! The Corporation said we had to stop, so we did. Trust me, I would love to dig in this tunnel, boy! I'll have you know that I have a girlfriend that lives in Verdenturf Town, and finishing this tunnel would make it a lot easier to see her." He shook his head. "Just what are they teaching kids these days?"

If only he knew what I've been through...

Aaron still laid there on the ground, sleeping and ignoring the ensuing argument like it was none of his business.

Come on, help me you dork! This stone is to make you more powerful!

"Are you deaf?! I said..." He brought out his pokemon, a Loudred. "...Get out of my tunnel!"

I jumped back to Aaron's side. "Get up you lazy oaf! He's trying to force us out!"

The Aggron didn't move.

I sighed. "If he makes us leave then I'll have to return you to your pokeball, and then you won't have a nice cold cave to nap in."

He suddenly thrust open his eyes and stood up, full of fighting spirit.

I guess that I have to let him nap in here after we're done now... "Iron Tail!"

He swung around his tail, which started glowing white, and he hit and shattered his rock pillow in the process. He cancelled his attack and looked back, shocked at what he'd done. Apparently he wasn't used to his larger body yet. Then, in the rubble from the rock, I saw something shiny.

Both my opponent and I noticed and looked curiously at the rock, temporarily forgetting about leaving the tunnel. I walked over and brushed off the small rocks to find not one, but two gray gems in the rubble.

The man's jaw dropped as I picked up the stones and looked at them. "Say... How about you give me one of those and we forget that this all happened?"

The Whismur started calling out to each other, creating an increasingly bad racket. I suspected that the sound of the smashing stone set them off.

"Sure," I yelled over the Whismur. I threw one of the rocks to him, deposited the other, then covered my ears with my hands. I don't need a second one anyways. I swiftly made my exit from the tunnel. Aaron, disappointed that his nice stone bed had suddenly become unavailable due to destruction and noise, followed me out.

-----

I let out all of my pokemon, and put some bowls filled with food on the ground in front of them. They didn't waste a second, and dug into their food without grace. I found a tree to lay up against and I pulled out my lunch: a few sandwiches and an Oran Berry. I sat there quietly, slightly separated from my pokemon, and nibbled at my meal.

The pokemon quickly finished up, but they weren't the type to sit still for very long, so they started up a game of tag. Gyarados almost immediately become "it," and the game became too easy for the other pokemon. I laughed a little when I saw poor Gyarados trying to squirm its way to the other pokemon on land. If it was in water, it would have been a different story, but he was out of his element here. He eventually gave up and laid down, ending the game prematurely.

I watched my pokemon have fun, almost without a care in the world, for a short while before realizing that I had more pokemon that could join in. I fumbled around in my bag and pulled out the five pokeballs that had belonged to Flora and let them out. Trainers weren't supposed to carry more than six pokemon on them at any given time, but I didn't really care. These were a special case in my mind.

After that it became an entire crew of eleven pokemon running around and creating a ruckus, and it made me smile. Then, without warning, my mind wandered and I imagined Flora and I running around with them to complete the scene. Tears filled my eyes, and I couldn't hold back anymore. I started not crying, but bawling. It's always the smallest things that can set us off, isn't it?

I had held off my emotions the best I could for so long. The anger, the frustration, and the ignorance of my circumstances had been around for a short time, but now all that remained was my sadness. I couldn't help but cry, not because my situation was new to me, but rather because I was finally accepting reality. Flora was gone, and I needed to move on, and I knew that. That didn't make it any less sad though.

My pokemon saw what was happening and halted their games. Before I knew it, my pokemon were laying around and up against me, trying to comfort me. They too let their sorrows out in the form of tears.

I was sad, but at the same time I was also happy. How could I not with such great pokemon with me?

"It's okay to cry, right?" I asked them. With my dad telling me to grow up and my own obstinance I had convinced myself that it wasn't okay to be the human that I was.

Now it occurred to me that my dad wasn't trying to tell me ignore my feelings, but to accept them and move forward with my own goals. He just had a bad way of expressing himself: a problem that I as a fellow guy could understand.

The pile of pokemon that sat around that tree and me eventually got tired and fell asleep. Manectric's spiky hair poked me in the arm, but it was okay. I was uncomfortable, but I was comforted.

I wiped away my own tears and fell asleep surrounded by the best pokemon a guy could ever ask for.

***

A/N: I literally almost cried writing this chapter. Never thought that would happen :*)

Also, after finding out that I did my math wrong (*gasp*), I have found out that this story will end as 24 chapters, not 25 as originally planned. I went around saying that it would finish on August 12th, so I'm a little locked into that plan now :P Luckily, I think that will work perfectly for my plans for this story :) See you next week on WSGABATA :D