Dusk was following the Murkrow for hours, ceasing to rest while Hank followed behind. They didn't make exceptional speed, causing the Murkrow to circle back a few times so they could keep up, but the two have made considerable distance towards Ashport. The sun was setting, causing the amber sky to almost tint the phantasmal body of the Murkrow.
"We approach the town
And it will not be long till-"
"Still can't speak to Pokemon, Dusk."
Dusk opened his mouth, but said nothing, as there was no worthwhile return for any further conversation.
Minutes later, the two were inside the town, looking around for Eros with their eye-holes. Although the phantom had led the two to the edge of the city, it had immediately flown back to the scarab and painfully crawled back inside as soon as the two had set foot on pavement.
It didn't take long for Hank and Dusk to find Eros, as the gym had resided in one of the main streets, the location the two decided to search first. As Hank came walking around the corner, he was greeted by Eros and Sicily sitting on a bench, both enjoying an ice-cream cone. Although one would assume the two would be having a great time (when have you ever seen someone sad eating ice cream? That is, unless they're eating it from a tub), the two had a look of grief or exhaustion, not unexpected for the circumstance.
Hank ran up to the two, leaving Dusk a small distance behind. He grabbed a Pokeball from his belt, releasing Surge from inside and preparing for combat. "Sicily, you jerk! What have you done?"
Eros turned to Hank, retorting, "Hank, it's alright. We-"
"Eros, she attacked Cer- you know who." Hank avoided saying the name, as to avoid drawing any association to himself with the aforementioned witch. "Under any other circumstance, yeah, that might be forgivable. But she hurt my sweet- ahem, Cer."
"Yeah. She told me. But, to be fair, she was manipulated."
"Are you INSANE?" By this time, a scene was being made, as having both trainers have Pokemon out while arguing in the streets generally led to a battle; Hence, there was a crowd about the two. "That's the problem! She's gone crazy! And even if she could recover, you don't just get better in a day!"
"She wasn't crazy. She was just upset. You know, like having a tantrum."
"You understand why I find that hard to believe, right?"
"I suppose." Eros looked over to Sicily, who was afraid of doing anything; On top of that, she was badly injured, making any success fighting Surge improbable. "I'm not going to fight you, though."
"You don't have a choice. Surge, use Iron Tail!" As the last words came out of his mouth, Surge started to lean heavily on his hind legs, setting his tail aglow, the sheer possible force of which could simply be told from its presence. The force in Surge's rear legs was released as would from a cocked spring, and so did he fly through the air, spiraling once or twice before landing on Sicily with the force of his metal tail.
Sicily reacted naught to this, simply taking the blow and crashing over the back of the bench. The crowd was a bit distraught at this, slowly dissolving into the normal flow of traffic, as if watching this was a sin unto itself. Surge hadn't a way to land properly after this, crashing into the bench and tumbling out of it. Sicily was, once again, knocked out, lying on the ground.
Eros, in response to this, looked at Hank in bewilderment and said, "I-I said I didn't want to fight!"
"You're coming back, now."
"Sicily's not dangerous!"
"How can I trust you?"
"Because, Hank, if she really was dangerous, I wouldn't go back!" Hank looked at Eros with disgust, upset at the decisions he was making. Even so, Hank was starting to become less aggressive in his tone of voice.
"She's volatile. She's a risk to everybody else."
"If it happens again, I'll take care of it. I promise."
Hank shifted a little, letting the thought process for a while. He eventually ended up saying, "Fine, but if this is a lie, we're putting her down. And I doubt Cer is going to be happy." He looked around a bit, finding one or two people were staring in confusion, still expecting more of a fight; This did not last long, as everybody dissipated into the crowd, with Hank and Eros (who had Sicily in her Pokeball) slowly but surely making their ways out of the city. Soon, the city was out of sight; All that could be seen for miles around were trees and grass.
A day's walk and half a night's rest later, Eros and Hank were lying on the ground, using leaves and foliage for a makeshift blanket, if it could be called that. The night was still, as were the leaves and the wind. Tucked under Eros' arm was Dusk, whose presence was dispiriting instead of comforting, Dusk being the ghost he was.
A small noise woke Eros, who recognized there was a sound too late to understand which direction it had originated. He looked over to Hank, who was snuggling with Surge. He thought to himself, wishing that he had chosen a more huggable Pokemon.
A sound originated from the forest again; This time, Eros knew exactly where it came from. It appeared that the sound had been caused by a small animal, but was much louder than it should have been, as if it had stepped on an especially loud branch. Atop of this, a small sound of distress, high in pitch, came from behind a tree nearby. Without a doubt, Eros decided to go ahead and look for the source.
After walking a few feet, scanning the immediate area slowly but surely, he eventually found that he landed a foot on an unsuspecting Pokemon, which let out a suspiciously familiar yelp of pain. Eros removed his foot to find a familiar Eevee below, shrinking back at the pain.
"Huh? Alice?"
She uttered in a hushed voice, "E... r... os? Sh-SSSHHHH! SHH! Keep it quiet! Somebody is watching us!"
Eros looked around, scanning for any possible offenders. "Huh? Who is?"
Alice scanned around to, sniffing at the air. "I... I don't know. But I had this feeling for a while now. Somebody is watching us."
"Well, then, I'll be quiet. Hey, where's Croconaw?"
Alice had instantly switched to an expression of anger, looking keenly at Eros. "Don't say his name! Say nothing about him! He's far away from here."
"What? Why are you here? And how do you know what I look like?" Eros never recalled showing his true form to Alice, only ever greeting her as a Sandshrew.
"Well, you see..." Alice started to scan around again, but was doing it this time to seemingly hide her feeling of guilt. She slowly met eyes with Eros once more, slowly uttering, "I think Keldeo is after you."
"You think? I mean, I've only seen him once, but still... Really?"
"And, y-you are going to laugh about this later, and honestly, for all I've-"
"Yes?"
"-I might have told him some stuff about you, without your permission..."
"What? What stuff?"
"Well... It's actually a long story, buuuut... I accidentally told him where your secret fort was... And about... A lot... Sorry?"
"Wha- Like what? What did you tell him?!" For as much Eros was trying to hush his voice, he was aggressive and demanding when he spoke.
"Well, I might have told him... Maybe... About how you look... And what you've done... And learned... And about you as a kid... And... A lot."
"H-how do you even know this?"
Alice looked to the ground in shame, sighing with the deepest of regrets, finally raising her head to say, "Let me start back way at the beginning. I promise, I will tell you everything.
"It all started on a boat. We were fishing, or cruising, or something... It was a dark and stormy night, honestly. Thunder was crackling all around, and we were stupid, stupid... We set sail anyways. I even brought my Grovyle, I didn't even think of his well-being. So stupid... Even the waves were against us. Our ship was beaten up, we hadn't any food left... And then it got even worse. Lightning hit our boat. It cracked in two, and we started to sink quickly. It was capsized... And I let my Grovyle die. It was so stupid! Everything went wrong! He shouldn't have died...
"Then I wake up on a beach, like this. It was terrible. I couldn't walk the same, and everyone always stared at me. I know they always did, I know it. I was lost, and I hadn't a clue as to who I was. I just looked around, afraid, not knowing what to do. Then Totodile -that bastard!- met me, and he led me to the guild, and we were best buddies, and everything. He always carried around this funny stone, but not like the humanity stone thingy. It was white and had markings on it. Everything went great for us. No cares, no worries. All we had to do was fight a bit, and even that wasn't too hard.
"Then one day, I saw Keldeo. He was just outside, standing there, looking for me and Totodile. We didn't know why, but the day after you and I went to the bell tower, he wanted to talk. He asked about you and Sicily, and why you went in there. I told him you were after the stone, then he lost it. Started asking questions left and right, not even letting me get a word in. It was like he didn't want me to answer, until he stopped and let me speak. He asked if I remembered anything important that you said, and... And...
"And it all came back to me. Not really everything, but I remember one thing. And that was you. I remember, way back when, when I was a human or whatever... My life was centered around you. I had pictures of you, drawings, and I always drew a little heart around them. I drew my first name and your last, then your first name and my last. You were my high school crush. I knew it. People said Hank was way hotter, but nobody was like you! You-"
"You're that g-girl! The one always staring through my window! You were stalking me!" Eros remembered this girl, a semi-attractiveish girl who always seemed to be nearby. He didn't have any feelings for her, but it made him feel a bit special to have an admirer. And a bit afraid, considering the rumors that she once killed somebody (yet, this was just a rumor). "You disappeared a year- no, it's been a year and a half, now- ago. It was over summer, and you said you were going sailing."
"Yes! You do remember me! And this is how I felt when I talked to Keldeo..." Alice had grown almost brighter in a sense, but she faded back to anguish. "It... Just felt so right to try and remember, to know things again, and to think about you... You were my life... And it all just came out. I told him about high school, the love letters, everything- so stupid! He looked disturbed, but intrigued at the same time. He kept on doing this hypnotic nod, letting every word pour out of me... I told him about you, when you were human. I even remembered your face, to every exact detail... I thought he would help you.
"And not too much later, something else happened. There was this weird Absol lady, though, and she came with Celebi. She told the guild master about the other stone and everything. She even gave the exact location, and when to send out the letter, and everything. And nobody questioned her, they just assumed she was a time traveler or something. Chatot looked disturbed by this, but hey, that's how he is. And stuff happened, and stuff happened, then what seemed to be just a bunch of filler and grinding levels...
"Well, that was still when I was in the guild. The last mystery dungeon, though... I lost everything again. Some jerk used snatch on me, and took my badge. Croconaw took off, not even looking back for a second. Somebody I thought I could trust, just running off and away. And not long after, I fainted. In the dungeon.
"I promise, that is something you never want to happen. Your mind gets twisted, and it's like someone puts a drill through your head... I never really grasp what overcame me, but it was kind of like... Apathy. The place was cozy, and I was at home. Nobody could touch me. Nobody. I was safe and jolly and didn't care about anything. I didn't mind anybody, I didn't care about the guild, I didn't care about Croconaw, nothing... I almost miss the dungeon. I knew being betrayed should have made me feel something, but I didn't feel a thing. The dungeon protected me, I was one with the dungeon...
"Then Keldeo rescued me. I don't know what it was, but he almost... Broke what the dungeon did to me. And he carried me out, and everything. And now, I'm here. I knew where the fort was. I asked Lapras every day who was coming, and from where, and for what, and when, and why, and how long it would be... Eros, I love you! You're my world to me!"
Eros stood appalled, stunned by what Alice had done. She was responsible for all their suffering, for everything! He didn't know why, or how, but somehow. Keldeo made his life worse! He told Zekrom, he tried to kill him... Just the mere thought of Alice was now repulsive to him, the utterance of her name making bugs crawl from under his skin.
"K-Keldeo... He tried to kill me... Zekrom hurt me and Sicily... And Zekrom made Sicily hurt me and Cerci... And now he knows where we are, and he has who knows who on his side, ready to attack, I bet... Go." Eros suddenly lost his inhibitions, shouting, "GO! I HATE YOU! RUN!"
Alice started crying, running off into the forest, where nobody could see her shame, leaving behind only the smallest of trails.
And Eros felt terrible. What has he done? Alice didn't mean to hurt him; Rather, she loved him. And in turn, he pushed her as far away as humanly possible. Eros started to cry a bit himself, wishing he could take back the few seconds of inexplicable rage that was let out in that brief moment. He creeped back to his little "bed", unable to dream of anything but nightmares that night.
He was sorry, and vowed to repay her one day; And yet, he didn't even know if they'd ever meet again. No words could describe what he felt, nor what happened the next day.