Voices stirred and whispered around him.

  There he was again, floating in limbo in that fractured field full of nothing. That galactic void swirling endlessly, hopelessly empty and blue save for strange floating islands.

  He could hear it.

  It was ringing. No, not ringing. Whistling. In his ears, the noise was almost screeching. Almost, but not entirely. A windy melody, short and infinite, it whispered echoes across the void in an unrefined, uncontained, and unspeakable tune.

  “Again. It will be done again. But this time, I have decided to use you… yes, I will use you for my purpose. They are not aware. They cannot see. You, vaguely. That is… until I decide to unfold what you have forgotten. In time.”

  In the blink of an eye, Lucas plummeted, heavy as a ball of iron, to the bottom of the void; the tumbling of his heart booming in his ears until it all came to a deathly halt when a leviathan's distorted shadow swallowed him whole.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

  Barry gripped his collar with the strength of a raging Rillaboom and shook him so profusely you might think his bones would displace and disjoint; but this strangling remedy seemed to be the antidote to whatever poison had made his friend lose all sense of actuality.

  “Look now, he got away!” came Barry's outburst. “We could've caught him and taken him to the police if you weren't such a bitch standing there scared! Never mind, maybe I didn't even need you—I should have just gone myself, and I would've stopped him!”

  Lucas's vision spun around him, his head ailed by a numbing headache, pins and needles all up in his brain. When normalcy fizzled back in, the sky, which hadn't existed for the past few minuetes, had reappeared; as had the snow-capped pines and glistening lake. Frozen wind smothered his face—but was soon overwhelmed by the fiery words Barry was spewing from his mouth.

  “I'm sorry, okay? I don't know what happened, I spaced out—”

  “You were scared, that's what happened—since you always need someone to help you figure things out.” Barry seethed. “Shit! I can't believe I let myself stand around doing nothing instead of acting. And what were you doing, you dumb little Turtwig? I saw you backing away; that was so pathetic! If we're gonna win, you can't be doing that, Twinleaf—be better!”

  The little tortoise lowered its head, a cryful stress on its face under the pressure of his trainer's disappointed finger.

  “Come on, Barry,” Lucas said, pleading almost. “You're being a bit harsh; he was just a bit scared. We were all scared. Those Pokémon… they didn't look sane—they looked like they were gonna kill us—”

  “Shut up! I wasn't scared; that was all you! And has anyone ever told you how much you sound like a girl? 'Why don't you be nicer, Barry, (′Д` )'—try not being such a pussy, Lucas! I'm trying to raise the strongest Pokémon, not a useless thing of on the verge of crying! That's all, and Twinleaf doesn't need you to baby him! You're far too emotional. Your softness is why you're such a loser. I'm out of here; once I see the professor, I'll be long gone!"

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  “What happened to catching Mesprit?”

  “Oh my god, it's like you're glued to the past—do you like staying behind? I'm over that shit, I have real things to do. You can go home and cry; I'm done fiddling my fingers—Twinleaf!”

  Twinleaf jolted, struck and stung by Barry's thunderous voice, contrary to the norm for a Grass-type.

  “Agh, forget it; you'll probably slow me down too…”

  Spilling not a single drop of precious time, Barry recalled the slow turtle back into its Poké Ball before dashing off back the way they came. In less than a second, it was like he was never there.

  But Lucas still was. Stuck behind.

  What had just happened? He'd had that dream again—but no, it wasn't like a dream; it was real! At least, that's how it felt. He could feel the void's rippling empty air… if he could even call it that. He hadn't taken a single breath in his time there, but he didn't need to? It was strange…

  But there were stranger things unfolding around him.

  For some reason, all the (unreasonably) annoying cries of nearby Starlies had stopped. Even the rustling of trees had slowed, quieted down. Obviously, you'd have to be the most nitpicking thing on the planet to notice something like that… but that was exactly the point.

  You don't notice details like that, which is why Lucas began to worry. Soon, all noises became drowned by some unspoken silence that grew louder and louder, muting everything around him, muting even his nerves. All Sinnohans were used to the biting cold even in winter… but that wasn't why he was beginning to feel numb.

  Then he heard it.

  Echoing in his heart, not his ears. He couldn't hear, but he could hear it… because ears cannot fathom pure emotion. A sweet, whimsical jingle glittered over his body. "Glittered" being the only way to describe such a beautiful noise.

  Lucas's head was tugged in the direction of the noise… And would you believe, swimming in the sky, twisting the air around in a warped mirage, a deific smile on its lips was none other than the being of emotions staring down at him.

  Mesprit.

  It looked unreal. The sort of thing you see in dreams. Its twin-tailed body was a mix of a pristine, washed-out gold and royal magenta. Strangely, Lucas had imagined it a different color; although he couldn't say why, he imagined it to be a subtle silver. Nonetheless, it was gorgeous, his heart was racing, and his tongue uttered words of disbelief, though he couldn't hear them.

  Soon, however, it had vanished; looking more like a little magenta shooting star skiing over the lake's cold water, and Lucas’s senses melted out of their numbing bind so he could hear his bewildered speech.

  “It was just passing by…? If all that stuff I felt was just from it passing by, we really had no chance of catching that thing... not that that was gonna happen anyway."

  He held the scarf cuffed around his neck, the only thing that could give him even a whisper of comfort after all that had transpired. It couldn't have been a coincidence for all those things to happen so closely together, could it?

  Maybe he was thinking too much. But he felt compelled to do… something. To chase after the spirit. The mysteries of his homeland always seemed to resonate with something deep inside him; he felt the need to discover more.

  Perhaps that was when he made up his mind.

  Or maybe it was before that. Either way, he knew what he had to do. There was no avoiding it. It was time to pay the professor a visit.

  He'd found his way back through the pine trees, his mind latched onto the words he'd heard earlier.

  It would be done again? What would be done again, he mused. Who on earth was the one speaking in that void? Maybe the professor had answers; surely he would, right? He knew everything! Seriously, everything! If anyone knew, it would be him.