[The Lamb]

Lyra had known Ethan for most of her life, but she did not truly see him until a few weeks before he was pulled out of school. In the past, she had found him annoying. He was always loud at the worst times, always shy until he embarrassed himself.

However, that was easier to ignore when Ethan became something hollow. At first, he just started acting weird before becoming an orphan. He shut down. Everyone in the school talked about it. Gossip about what was wrong with him ravaged their bored schoolmates, but Lyra was caught watching Ethan.

He looked confused and lost. Then, he became fully despondent. Ethan was enough of an anomaly she had a slightly morbid fascination with, like watching a terrible trainer battle, born from the boredom of having no friends and being in a small town where she already knew everything.

The girl knew that his mother had died and that he had been placed in the orphanage. The boy quickly became something she recognized into something unrecognizable at all. It was a hard thing to describe fully.

Lyra never told her mother for fear of being scolded, but she thought Ethan looked like a ghost. A depressed ghost. He didn't speak anymore and always looked like he had nothing to say. A blankness on his face like a turned-off TV.

Lyra was unnerved by it, so she avoided him. He was pulled out of school, and the other classmates eventually forgot about him over a few months.

Lyra was the type of person to get distracted easily. A tournament occurred between the Ace trainers of Kanto and Hoenn for the first time in fifteen years since the Great War. She had been looking forward to it for months, months!

So yeah, she did not think about Ethan until after that tournament. She felt horrible for him, really, because she saw him moping around the orphanage under Matron Mary's prompting. Personally, if her parents died, she would have been devastated. This is an obvious statement to make, but her point still stands.

She mainly just felt for him.

And well, Lyra was always told by her mother that she was too flighty for her own good. Her mother remarked that she switched from interest to interest besides battling like a fluttering bug 'mon.

The river incident was what drove Lyra to truly become curious about the person that Ethan was. She was in Cherrygrove when it happened- visiting her cousin Derrick and his family against her will when the screams for a doctor reached through the open window of her cousin's parlor.

"Wait in here, Lyra!" Derrick said as he raced out the door. She looked down at Marill, who tilted her head at her and chirped, waving her little hands at the door.

They were definitely not going to wait.

Lyra peaked her head out anyway because why would she not? She saw the adults clamoring around and Matron Mary tearing through the middle road of the town.

"Ethan fell into the river!" Oh, that was unfortunate. She doubted Ethan's ability to swim because he seemed like he would suck at it.

Slowly, Lyra moved out of her house to avoid her cousin's gaze from where he was talking to the old batty couple next door in their garden. Their family pokémon, an old senret she had forgotten the name of, peered at her cautiously. Lyra put her finger to her lips and stuck her tongue at him.

The senret rolled his body over and didn't give away her position. She nodded in solidarity and snuck around the fence until she could peer into the crowd of adults.

There she saw Ethan. Looking like he was half-drowned and clutching a totodile in his arms. Where did he get a starter? What was he doing falling into rivers and holding totodiles?

He was eventually swept away by the doctor. Lyra was stuck in the homely decorated room to scheme.

"Lyra, I told you to stay in the house." Her cousin sternly said to her, pushing her back towards the house from her hiding place, peering over the fence.

"I did, though!" She pouted before going back into the house.

Marill was slumping too, but her tiny, beloved pokémon just chittered and rubbed her body against her leg. Lyra giggled and picked her starter up, mind already whirling in interest.

...

A few days passed, and Professor Elm gave Ethan, a boy who had shown no interest in a pokémon journey and a non-trainer, a lab starter pokémon.

However, the more important thing was Ethan had jumped into the river to save a baby pokémon.

Ethan, freaking Ethan! It made her a little jealous, sure. Lyra was more curious about what the hell someone like Ethan did to gain the approval of a pokémon professor to get a war pokémon for free. It didn't make sense, it was stupid. Her parents were getting annoyed by her ramblings about it, but now Lyra had to get to the core of the issue.

She was too curious for her own good sometimes. Whoever Ethan was, she needed to figure it out. She had to befriend him.

So, a plan needed to be created. Amid that day when Lyra suddenly decided that she and Ethan had to be friends, or the world would end.

What kind of person risks their life to save a pokémon? A person that Lyra wanted to be friends with. So she waited until Ethan stopped being hounded by the kids and the village. His new totodile was very cute and then enacted the first part of her plan.

Ethan was like a shy mareep. The girl was scared to spook him away in fear, he would forever just try to ignore her. She didn't want to be a creep. Her cousin rolled his eyes as she explained her three-step plan to befriend Ethan.

1. Say Hi to him.

2. Talk about battling.

3. Victory.

The plan seemed stupid, to some degree, but she had vision and faith in her capabilities of befriending a shy kid. So Lyra found the perfect opportunity. She waited until she found Ethan reading and hid on the shelf beside him, waiting for him to notice she was there.

He did not. After a few minutes, Lyra got tired of it and just spoke out loud.

"Hello, ah, you look annoyed! My name is Lyra! It is so nice to meet you. Professor Elm told me about how you saved that totodile, and, like, that is the coolest thing I've ever heard some non-trainer do before!"

Marill cheered, and the totodile that was lying by Ethan perked up. Both kids watched them look at each other curiously before circling each other cautiously. When Marill, looking adorable, cheered again, the totodile perched on his haunches and yipped back. They immediately started talking to each other in comfortable pokémon chatter.

Success! Marill, good job! One out of two and Lyra looked back at Ethan who looked at the two pokémon with confusion. She stuck her hand out and Ethan turned his head back at her.

Ethan blinked at her. His smoky grey eyes grew confused as his face twisted. He didn't take her hand, so she dropped it smoothly. It was as if he wasn't expecting her to be there. Little did he know, she had been waiting for him to notice her for fifteen minutes before giving up. Lyra was not a patient person.

"What?" Ethan said, his voice so soft she barely heard him. The boy in front of her had grown so quiet over the past few months that his voice had become unfamiliar. When was the last time she had heard him speak?

"Let's be friends!" Lyra declared, and Ethan flinched back slightly. Okay, she needed to tone it down. The boy was pulling away after one word. He tried to close the book in his lap, but she stuck her hand out and physically stopped him.

"What are you reading?" Ethan flushed and looked down, blinking blearily.

"Uh... it's about..." Ethan trailed off and opened it again to the page he was on.

"It's about pokémon legends." SUCCESS! He was speaking to her, this was going great! It was also great because Lyra knew a lot about pokémon legends.

"Oh, my favorite is the legend of Ho-oh! Which book is it?" Lyra asked and plopped down beside him. He stilled but allowed it.

"Professor Elm gave it to me... it is the fifth edition of Legends of the Wilds." Lyra nodded sagely and looked at the picture of a cave drawing of the legendary bird pokémon.

"Who are your favorites so far?" Lyra asked, staring and taking Ethan in. He had hair the same length as hers, to the shoulders. His was almost black, while hers was a warm brown.

Ethan hesitated but slowly turned the pages to one of the beginning chapters.

"I really like Arceus." That was... interesting. Normally, people said Arceus was overrated, even though that was outright blasphemous to some who believed in Arceus.

"Hm, I've heard his story so many times from my grandfather when I go to the daycare, I'm just used to it." Lyra remarked, eyeing how Ethan trailed his finger down an interpretation of Arceus. The boy didn't answer, he just fiddled with the end of his shorts as he waited for her to do something.

Did he want her to leave? Her mind raced uneasily. Her bravado was wavering in the silence. Marill was still chattering away with the totodile, who was rolled on his back and wiggling.

"Your pokémon is so cute!" Lyra gushed, turning on her knees as the totodile yawned and looked at her.

She was going to explode from the cuteness.

"He is cute..." Ethan trailed off and set the big book in his lap to the side to turn around with her. He stared at the pokémon in front of them and rolled around with a sad look.

"Ethan, do you want to be friends?" She blurted out, and the boy beside her looked at her wide-eyed. She watched him shift and open his mouth to speak before closing it.

"I, uh, sure?" He said softly, again, which was a win for Lyra no matter how reluctant it sounded. Mission completed! She jumped up and down in excitement, not even trying to contain herself and Ethan just blinked at her. Somehow, he looked less put off by that than when she had asked him a question.

"This is going to be great!" She declared and immediately told Ethan about the battle between Volkner and Red that was scheduled to broadcast tomorrow. The boy blinked at her excitement but listened dutily.

This, she thought, is the start of something brilliant.

...

Snapshots of the next few weeks were like this:

Lyra asked Ethan about his favorite pokémon: trubbish (she didn't know what a trubbish was and she was pretty sure Ethan made it up), a charizard, and a torchic. Then they argued about which pokémon were cutest, Lyra was right no matter what.

Lyra showed Ethan everything. Her favorite contests, for the moves of course, that she had downloaded and the battles that she watched religiously. At first, Ethan was nearly silent. Then, however, rather timidly, he started to speak.

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The summer had reached its high, so they were stuck eating popsicles and sticky rice by the old aunties. Ethan would tell her about the stories he read, and then sit and talk about them together. They were attached at the hip and did everything together. Some of her favorite parts of the day were dragging Ethan around and throwing him at the aunties to escape their attention.

She thought it was going great so far. They had inside jokes, which is what friends did! They had things in common, and-

Ethan asked her to take Totodile.

It started with her having to track Ethan down to his room that day. She was in a great mood because there was going to be a playing of the 'Legends of Ectureak Towers' in a few weeks she wanted to ask if he wanted to go to. The boy often stayed in his room until he was forced out, so that wasn't the shocker. Matron Mary had even told her that it was one of his 'bad days' so to be gentle with him. Lyra got that. Lyra knew she had to be cheerful.

She had been learning that to be friends with Ethan she had to be the energy. Not that Ethan was exactly draining, but he just needed a boost! So she always rambled until he felt open enough to respond and talked excitedly until he got excited.

Of course, there was something wrong when she walked in. For some reason, everything seemed off-color, the wrong shades. Some miniscal thing; some object must be off.

Or maybe it was just Ethan himself.

When she went into the room the next thing she noticed, besides the world looking wrong, was that Totodile looked depressed at the floor. Ethan... well Ethan looked tired.

She didn't understand how Ethan could be so tired. It looked weird to see adult things on him. But Matron Mary told her that Ethan felt bad, so she should cheer him up!

She ignored how upset he looked, because well she really didn't know what to do with that anyway, and started telling him about the play. Which was honestly going to be so interesting, she heard they got the pass to use pokémon moves again for effects and-

“Lyra, will you take Totodile?”

"What?" She watched Totodile wilt more, and when he looked at Ethan's eyes she was scared.

It didn't end well.

...

She told Matron Mary that Ethan was trying to run away. She told Professor Elm when she ran through the woods with her heart pounding to New Bark Town with Marill hot on her heels. She scared away the weedles and wurmples having a turf war in the road as she almost ran them over.

Ethan couldn't leave her. They were friends! And she felt bad for pushing him to the ground, but that didn't matter. Lyra just had to make sure he wouldn't leave.

...

Ethan got in trouble and apologized to her after getting yelled at for hours. He stood in front of her, eyes glued to the ground, and rolled his shoulders back before speaking.

"I'm sorry Lyra. For asking you to take Totodile, for..." He grimaced, face twisting. Lyra was a bit confused about it because boys didn't really ever apologize for doing stupid things. Ethan was always different, she guessed.

"It's okay, I'm sorry for telling everybody," Lyra said ashamed, shifting on her face and looking down at her untied shoelaces. Her mother had sternly lectured her on telling people's business, especially someone she considered her friend, and she had been thoroughly guilted about it all.

"No, it's okay," Ethan said, and then he looked at her and smiled. It was a small smile, almost hidden by the grimace on Ethan's face.

Ethan didn't smile a lot. Only when something really funny happened, or he couldn't help it. His smile was nice.

"Do you want to go watch the battle today?" Lyra said, and she grabbed Ethan's hand excitedly when he nodded yes.

...

Lyra often looked forward to school ending. So that she could train with Marill or talk to her new friend. That is how they spent the next few weeks. Ethan wasn't 'well' enough to go back to school yet, but she heard the adults talking about it. Lyra couldn't wait until they went to school together again.

Because she liked Ethan. She enjoyed hanging out with him and being by him. Her mother thought she had a crush on him, but she had never met someone who didn't get annoyed at her. The hyperactive energy she had and her overly positive attitude had always pushed people away.

She stubbornly refused to change herself because of it. However, she was still scared of the girls at school not liking her, so she toned all the good parts of herself down. To act cool and to talk about competitions instead of battling. But Ethan didn't care about that.

Ethan always looked at her like she was smart. Lyra liked telling Ethan things. She wanted to be interesting and have someone follow her. All the other girls at school she knew, Ari and Heather, only really hung around each other because their parents hung out together.

When they were all pushed into the kid area, they only tolerated Lyra. For that reason, Lyra was unnerved by them.

But Ethan, Ethan always looked at her. Even when he was sad, he made time for her. She slowly realized that Ethan needed someone to cheer him up a little. The boy was funny when he came out of his shell and spoke his mind. So she played with him, showed him her dress collection, all her favorite trainers and their strategies. She showed him all her favorite places in Cherrygrove and New Bark Town. Lyra gave every piece of herself up so Ethan would want to be friends with her.

For once in her life, besides Marill and her family, Lyra felt like she had a friend. Ethan was smart and a nerd. He gave her a view of the world that awakened something starving inside her. For knowledge, to be great like the stories and trainers they saw on TV. She was going to be just like Connor Winters and Red.

Then, in the quiet of one of the heavy heated summer days that Johto had, Ethan and Totodile were gone. In one night, Lyra was alone again.

...

[The Dog]

Connor Winters was knee-deep in letters he needed to deal with a week ago and calls on his pokenav pilled up like a bad joke when he got the call. He hadn't taken a shower in two days because there was only so much allotted time he could feasibly train according to the schedule he was given by his battle trainer.

He was seriously about to go mad about it all. If he hadn't spent a good portion of his life trying to get into his current position or paid a shit ton of money, he would've said fuck it and disappeared to become a farmer in the outskirts of Kanto.

But he owed himself this. He owed it to the people who had supported him and even his pokémon, who had been working with him for years for every battle. Connor wanted to win badly. He wanted to win so much that his every waking thought was about propelling himself further to his goal.

Every gym battle he has ever faced, all the days he has spent training. The sacrifice and minute.

Eating, training, battling, watching broadcasts, training, trying to call his brother-

His life was a cycle despite being a professional trainer now. There were only so many events and battles you could go to before it became familiar. Connor wasn't exactly a seasoned veteran, of course. It was just that the beginning of familiarity had started to peek through the idealization of his life.

The League was on his ass about battle insurance he thought he had taken care of months ago. His training bill was stalking up to him like a purloin. That little bitch of a brother of his was ignoring his calls once again.

And he missed that little fucker. His little brother did his mail for him and helped him tell people to fuck off without damaging his reputation. He missed his brother's gible waddling around after Cinder and Sire.

So that was what Connor was dealing with when he woke up this morning. The state of his room was an absolute mess. Hammie, his starter bibarel he regrettably named when he was ten, was hogging the bathtub for the millionth time.

"Hammie, it's Sire's turn in the tub." Connor said without looking away from his pokenav screen. The quagsire plopped in the middle of his bathroom floor and chirped at him in relief. Hammie didn't even bother responding, and he heard a splash as something occurred in the bathroom.

He didn't even want to know or look.

Connor sighed as he heard Hammie barking at Sire and just got up to slam the bathroom door shut. They were battling pokémon, for fuck's sake, let them deal with that themselves.

He heard another thud and screech and set himself to put that problem off until he wasn't driven insane by paperwork and business.

Connor needed to hire someone to do this shit for him immediately. The cramped apartment he found momentarily for his training and battling in Golden Rod City was wrecked by his pokémon. Cinder, his charmeleon he just started training a few months ago, had burned a long streak across the bedroom wall. He was never getting his deposit back.

Well, there wasn't much he could do but deal with some of this mess. He looked through his messages to sort out the spam and answer the various dumbfucks who tried to scam him.

He needed to call his brother, shit, he needed to down to Kanto and track down that brat himself. He was too young to disappear off the map and not answer his calls.

The ringing of his pokenav startled him out of his thoughts.

The thing about Connor Winters is that when you look at him on the broadcasts, he is a chill, polite guy who smiles charmingly. That, mixed with his casual Kanto nationalism drippping off of him- are the elements of what made the people like him. They wanted a trainer with odd, underdog pokémon to win for the underdog region. So he covered his accent, wore clothes he never had before as soon as he got the money, and scrubbed himself clean of anything that would push him down.

The pokémon he used to let go crazy whenever they wanted to were now 'proper trainermon'. He had to uphold this persona for the public, it was one of the first things his publicity trainer had told him.

So he went to the award shows in Unova suits. He put in the work and the time. He talked to reviewers and on the stations. Every battle deal he got he put in his best effort. Turning down bribes, promotional agreements, and even time with things he wanted to do just to always keep pushing forward like a machine.

Anyway, the point Connor was trying to make was that he was a punctual person. So even though he rolled his eyes, he picked up the call from his manager.

"I'm dealing with the messages now, don't worry about it." Connor said into the device, leaning back and sighing.

"Winters, pleasure as always. I know you haven't answered your calls yet. I had to make sure your sponsorship from Surge was not in jeopardy because you put the paperwork in your spam." Carrie said smoothly, as sure as always. However, there was a pinch in her voice that put him on the back front.

"Wait, you still have my login information?" Connor groaned and wiped a hand down his face. He did not want to deal with this.

"Yes, Connor. You are welcome for that, but that isn't the problem." Even on call, he could tell she was hesitating. Connor twisted his pokenav in his hands and stared down at it. He could feel Cinder stir in her ball in his lap. He stared at the screen, the plastic that stored all this information for him.

"What is wrong?" He said, putting the pokenav back on his desk.

"You know these calls are recorded, so don't say anything you'll regret."

What the hell did that mean? Connor could feel his nerves turn his stomach.

"That doesn't bode well," Connor said teasingly, but he heard his manager sigh softly.

"Your brother hasn't been seen in months."

A light flushed the room brightly as Cinder let out a roar upon her release, which was loud but not as fearsome as her future evolution as a charizard. Still, Connor couldn't even bring himself to respond. Her tail burned ferociously enough for him to feel it even from a few feet away.

Months... what did she mean months? Cinder snarled as she looked for the threat in the room triggered by Connor's distress. He heard Hammie chittering in worry from the closed door of the bathroom.

But Connor could only think about how he had left his brother in that shithole to protect him, and now he was gone. Connor was fucking around parading like a fancy trainer while his brother was missing.

"What the fuck do you mean my brother is gone?" Connor regretted the words as he said them. It was stupid, a channel recorded for legal reasons and Carrie didn't deserve that.

"He hasn't been seen in two months. The couple you had assigned to watch him informed me this morning." Carrie said further.

There were so many things wrong with that statement he didn't know where to start.

"A couple, you mean the Winns? Why didn't they tell me he was gone weeks ago?" Connor said, standing up and holding his hand out to Cinder who looked ready to trash his pokenav with one easy fire breath.

He sent his brother away to protect him. To get him out of the spotlight and the rising of Team Rocket again. Connor knew the little shit would be mad at him for sending him away, so he expected his little brother to not talk to him for a few weeks.

"Yes, they said they thought he was camping in the woods, but now they are worried something happened to him. They have contacted the rangers, but-"

"The rangers?" Connor echoed. He vividly remembered how useless those rangers were from the years he spent in those woods.

"I have informed the League of the disappearance, and they are heading a search party for him immediately."

Connor stayed quiet, trying to think. Where was his brother? Was he trying to prove a point? Or did something happen to him...

No, Connor refused to believe that was true.

He and Ferris had raised each other in those woods, it would take something crazy to take him out. That was the reason he didn't care if his brother went back to the shithole that was Haze Town.

"You have to stay in Goldenrod, I can't afford you to go into the backwoods of Kanto-" Meaning she had paid off the press to not say anything about this. Which meant that he had to be seen like his little brother wasn't missing. Meaning-

"Cancel everything."

"Connor," she admonished in the technical voice the pokenav provided. "I have done too much for you to do in the next week alone, never mind however long it will take you to do this, for you to go right now."

"I don't care, dock my pay. Tell them it's an emergency." Because it was, which died on his tongue.

He knew that Carrie didn't take Ferris seriously on most days.

The call grew silent, and Connor got up immediately to yank his suitcase to throw a few changes of clothes in it as fast as possible. His mind swirled; he had a winning streak going on down at the training rink. Connor had a battle tomorrow that was going to be broadcasted, fuck he had a gym leader battle with Whitney in four days for a showcase battle. A charity event at the Goldenrod Mall that was going to be held on Friday.

But all the pressure, those responsibilities, were nothing compared to the fear in his heart at the thought of losing Ferris. He had known, ever since they were kids, and had been inseparable and only had each other that he shouldn't have left him behind. Connor thought he was doing good for once in his life. Then came the curveball. A big ringing sign as to why he had always made sure his brother was in his sight.

"I can do it, but I can't cancel your training with Koga in three weeks," Carrie said, annoyed, but Connor really couldn't care less. He grabbed his poke supply bag and opened the bathroom door to the intense stare of his two water pokémon.

"We gotta leave, grab what you need," Connor said quickly, opening a suitcase on the floor for his pokémon to use and grab stuff. Hammie nudged his leg in comfort and chittered at him softly.

He knew they would be worried about Ferris, too.

"I'll call you when I find transit to cross the border," Connor said into the pokenav, quickly shutting it off to throw it in his bag.

Ferris better hope that he was missing and not just hiding in the woods, or Connor was going to sick 'Sire on him.