The Time the Sky was Dark

The Return

Team Sapphire finally returns home! What now?

Enjoy!

BTW- I know you guys have been Aaron-deprived (I can hear your groans now, why you guys no likey?) So I stuck him in there.

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The morning had been spent perfecting what exactly they were going to tell the guild. They decided to leave out Crystal's capture, as it would add confusion, and also Crystal refused adamantly to tell exactly what happened. After a couple theats, they decided to drop the issue altogether. They decided to keep pretty much everything else, and much to Crystal's protests, the spat they had on top of the hill.Of course the fact that Celeste and Rise were now an item would make it in there, and Crystal finally learned the whole story about that. To her credit, she didn't explode on them, on the contrary, wished them well. Only Rise could sense the hurt in her eyes when she said it, but decided not to push it farther.

The walk through town luckily was rather uneventful. No one seemed to recognize the three, which was rather unusual, but they supposed weirder things had happened during their deport to the future that they had no business commenting on the fact that no one recognized them, even with Crystal's scar, and all their badges in view, seeing as they really didn't have anything to cover it with. There was a brief, frightening moment in which one of the kecleon brothers called out to them, but it turned out that he was just trying to get rid of some leftover blast seeds, much to Crystal's delight and the other team member's hesitancy. Other than that little fiasco, they successfully sneaked through town. The time was late afternoon when three sets of eyes lit up at the sight of their former home. The weary travelers were finally safe.

"It's Wigglytuff's guild!" Celeste cried out with an elated yell. The other two quickly, mischeviously shushed her.

"Let's surprise them! We can all fit through the bars." Rise whispered, and the three of them tiptoed around the gaping hole used to identify them, and they slipped through the bars that were the guild's doors quietly as they could. Rise motioned for the two girls in front of him to go first down the ladder, even though they could see the golden aura of his excitement radiating off of him, because after all, ladies always went first. Crystal was voted to go down first, much to her surprise, and the three of them clambered down the ladder.

"Huh? what's that? I thought Diglett and Loudred informed us of any visitors..."

"Eeek! I don't know!"

"SQUAWK! What's going on?"

Crystal started down the ladder. Everything was going well until about the third rung down, when Crystal slipped. The fall probably would have hurt her severly, except she landed on something as soft as a feather. Both Eevee and creature she'd landed on screamed, but the bird under her was more muffled. Stunned, Crystal continued sitting on the poor creature upon which she'd fallen, until Rise and Celeste joined her... and were immediately surrounded by the guild members, who looked none too happy. All except one, that is, who flamboyantly burst through the crowd and scampered to the front, putting his green arms around the eevee and flung her around excitedly.

"Le gasp, you're back! I was so worried!" Aaron yelled as he twirled her around much like he had back when they'd danced. Rise was too stunned to attack, and inwardly groaned. Of all the Pokemon to welcome them, why did they have to be stuck with him?! Celeste looked confused, and Rise guessed that she probably hadn't even met him yet.

"That's Crystal's dance partner." He whispered to Celeste, and she chuckled.

"She dances?" she asked.

"..." Rise grinned sheepishly. "Apparently."

Aaron had finally finished flinging her around and had set the dizzy Eevee down. "It's great to see you, Crystal."