It's you, it's me, it's us

Chapter 2- parting ways

"Sylveon!"

It was him! My trainer...I knew he'd come back!

"I'm here!" I shouted.

"Sylveon? Where are you!" 

He couldn't hear me?

"Sylveon!" His voice became desperate. "Sylveon, I can't find you anywhere!" But he was right in front of me! He was right there...

"Sylveon!" his hands passed right through me. "Sylveon, please!" 

"I'm right in front of you!" I called. Why couldn't he see me? Or hear me? Or even feel me?

"Oh sylveon! There you are!" he walked away, in a direction completely different from where I was standing. A cage landed on top of him, trapping him inside. I rushed to help him, but I couldn't move. I was paralyzed. 

"Sylveon!" he yelled, his voice cracking. "Sylveon, help!" 

"I'm trying!" I cried desperately. "I'm coming!"

but I couldn't come. A pair of hands held me tight, hands that kept me from reaching him...

"Let me go!" I shrieked. "let me go!"

"Sylveon? Sylveon where are you? What's happening?"

I struggled to get free, but the hands gripped tighter, and tighter, and tighter... Something was shaking me, shaking me hard. I ignored them. I had to help my trainer.

"Sylveon!" a different voice was calling now. "Sylveon please! You need to wake up!"

"This isn't a dream!" I screamed at them. "Sean's in trouble, I have to help him!" In frustration, I used tail whip on the hands that kept held of me. I heard a screech, and opened my eyes with a start.

"You're awake!" said Kirla, hugging me. I felt hot. Did I use tail whip on Kirla? 

"Don't worry." Kirla assured me. "I'm okay. You did give Beedrill a surprise though."

"Talk about it." muttered beedrill in annoyance. 

"Are you ok though?" Helioptile asked anxiously

"Oh, stop worrying," snapped Vivillon. "Nothing happened." 

I stared at her. Since when was she like that? The vivillon I remembered would never say anything like that. But maybe she wasn't the vivillon I remembered. Everything's changed.

"Vivillon, when will you learn to keep your big mouth shut?" said Espeon. 

"My mouth is not big!" retorted Vivillon. "And I'm only speaking my mind." 

"Then maybe you shouldn't." sniffed Espeon. 

Vivillon looked like she wanted to say something else, but she thought better of it, closed her mouth and flew to the other side of the room to talk to Nurse Joy's Wigglytuff. 

"Is it just me, or is Viv acting weird today?" said Butterfree, who flew over to join us, holding a poképuff. He was the only one who ever called Vivillon by a nickname- Vivillon absolutely hated nicknames. When Seam first tried to give her a nickname, she'd refused to battle for ages. And she was the same if anyone of us tried to too, except Butterfree. 

"Well, vivillon's got attitude, that's for sure," muttered Vileplume.

"I guess..." I said. "But even if she does have attitude, she'd never say something like that!"

"Really?" Butterfree tupped his head. "You know, she's taken him being gone pretty hard, if you ask me."

"Haven't we all?" I said, watching her get into an argument with beedrill. "What about you, butterfree?"

"Well, I did too, I'm not heartless, like some pokemon I know." said butterfree through a mouthful of pokepuff. Crumbs spilt out of his mouth and landed on vileplume, who promptly swatted him with his petals. Butterfree jumped up to dodge.

"Yeah, but don't you think she's still being very, i dunno, weird?" I asked. "like, she's so argumentative now, and so impatient and just so- so not Vivillon, I guess." 

"Oh, you're always"- dodge "the one who notices"- dodge- "the most, Sylveon." said Butterfree, trying to fly away from Vileplume while talking, only succeeding in spilling more crumbs onto him. 

"But even Vileplume's noticed it, right Vileplume?"  said Helioptile. Vileplume nodded. "

"Hey!" called Kirla. "I think we better get going!"

***

"So, I guess this is goodbye..." said Helioptile slowly. Togetic nodded tearfully. 

"Uh...If you don't mind me asking, can't we just get this over with?" said Butterfree.

"If you say so." Vivillon rolled her eyes. "Bye!"

"Wait!" said Butterfree and Beedrill at the same time. "I have an announcement to make!"

"I'm going with you guys!" they said in unison, Butterfree flying over to join me and the rest while beedrill went over to Kirla.

"Beedrill, you want to come with...me?" said Kirla, surprised. Beedrill didn't usually get along with trainers, just the ones he liked or thought were cool."

"Sure do." said beedrill. "So, b-" he was cut off bye Azurill.

"hey I want to go too!" said the tiny blue pokemon."if Butterfree's coming, he'll be eating everything and I won't get any of it!" She jumped over to Kirla.

"Azurill? You want to come?"

"Yuppers!" cried Azurill cheerfully. I suddenly felt my eyes tearing up- this would probably the last time I heard her say that.

"Hey, let's not get emotional down there." said butterfree, coming down to join us. "We're going to Sean's house! Aren't you even excited?"

"I'm not!" I cried, tears threatening to spill over. "Even if we are going there, Sean won't be there anyway! What's the point? And we might get captured and then we'll have to follow someone else around and we might never see beedrill or togetic or Azurill ever again!"

"Sylveon-" Espeon began, but Vivillon came down from the clouds, apparently abandoning her pretense of not being interested at all in the saying goodbye part of our schedule.

"Hey, it's not that bad," she said, putting her wing on top of my head. "Kirla will come to visit, and we'll find a way to not get captured."

I nodded, and waved as Kirla set off into the distance.