Chapter 1

"Rebecca, you need to get up!"

The girl tried to ignore the voice and pulled the blankets over her head.

"Rebecca! Dangit, Skarmory, she's your trainer, you get her up!"

Then there was something on top of her, pulling off the covers and tugging at 
her hair.

"Agh," she said, "Skarmory, off ."

With some difficulty, she pushed the steel bird away and sat up. He jumped 
down from the bed next to a frowning girl with sandy brown hair.

"Okay, I'm up." Rebecca yawned. "Rachel, what time is it?"

"Around ten," she replied. "Everyone else is at breakfast, but you can't go, 
because we have to leave early, remember?"

"Oh, right." She looked around at the empty beds around her, trying to 
remember what was so important about today. "Right. Shoot, the tournament's 
today!"

Skarmory grinned at her, a few strands of black hair caught in his beak.

"Next time, don't stay up until three reading." Rachel kneeled down and 
pulled open the drawer underneath the bed. "You need to get ready fast, 
because we're leaving soon. Wow, how did this get so messy?"

"Because you don't listen to me when I tell you to keep out of my stuff," 
Rebecca said, leaning over and grabbing a hairbrush from the jumble of 
clothes and books.

"It's not all my fault. I've never left it this bad," she snapped, throwing a 
purple shirt at her. "Hurry up and get dressed. If you're not ready in five 
minutes, I'm telling Mark to leave without you."

"Why? You're not even going to be battling?" Rebecca said, dropping the brush 
to catch the clothes. "Oh, unless it's because of that guy with the Salamance 
you think is so–"

Rachel shut the drawer with a loud wham. "Oh, just get ready, please!" she 
muttered, her cheeks reddening. "We'll be waiting outside."

"What? I don't think he's that bad myself," Rebecca called after her as she 
walked away. "He's good at battling, he's–"

"Oh, shut up!"

Slam went the door. Skarmory jumped at the sound and gave Rebecca a 
reproachful look.

She sighed. "I probably shouldn't have teased her so much. She hasn't been in 
the best of moods for the last month."

He nodded, then pointed at the clock.

"Yeah, I know, you don't want to miss this either," she said, picking up the 
brush again and struggling with her long hair. "Although technically we won't 
miss it, we'll just be late, and that won't be so bad."

He glared at her and angrily bit a shirt lying on the floor.

"Hey, don't do that!" Rebecca snapped, pulling it away. "You don't have to 
bite things everytime..."

She stopped when she saw what the shirt was. It was red with a black M on the 
front. It had a hood once, but Skarmory had bitten it off not long after she 
joined Team Magma.

Was he still angry at her decision even now, two years later?

Skarmory pulled at her arm and pointed at the clock again.

"Right," she mumbled, putting the shirt back in her drawer. "I think it's 
been five minutes already. We should hurry."

-

"No, we can't leave without her," he was saying. "We need Skarmory so that we 
can fly to Fallabor after the tournament is over." 
 
"We could walk," Rachel argued. "It's not that far from Lavaridge." 
 
"You could, but I'm not. We have time, we'll wait for another ten minutes." 
 
Rachel glared at him. "We don't have ten minutes; the tournament starts in 
half an hour and it takes us almost twenty minutes to get there." 
 
"That's when we walk, though. If we run–" 
 
"Mark, you may be a higher rank than me, but that doesn't mean you're always 
right. We have only five more minutes at the most to wait. If that means we 
have to walk to Fallabor, then we'll just walk to Fallabor." 
 
The older man sighed and ran a hand through his dark blue hair. "Yeah, buut 
then we won't get to spend as much time there. And I don't want to be the 
only one battling. Why are you even coming, anyway?" 
 
"That was your idea," she retorted. "I just wanted to go to Fallabor, and you 
said that it would be easier to come to the tournament as well." 
 
"Right. I am regretting that now, believe me." 
 
Rachel looked up at the sky again. The sun was high in the sky, but the light 
was obscured by the ash that fell down from Mt. Chimney. A thin covering 
coated the ground, the trees and, to her annoyance, her clothes. She tried to 
brush it off her black outfit, but it stubbornly stuck. 
 
Mark checked his watch. "Okay, it's ten eighteen now. I say we wait until–" 
 
"Skaar!" 
 
Something gray suddenly burst out of the trees, flying low over the ground. 
Mark jumped back with a yell as it darted past him and soared up into the 
sky. 
 
"What was that?" Mark yelled. Rachel grinned. 
 
"That," Rebecca said, running down the slope, "was Skarmory. I told him he 
could fly to Lavaridge ahead of us. What did he do?" 
 
"Nothing," he muttered, "just scared the... never mind, it's nothing. What 
took you so long?" 
 
The girl shrugged. "Just took a while getting up. Sorry." 
 
"Well," Rachel said, feeling much more cheerful than before, "we should go, 
shouldn't we?" 
 
Without waiting for an answer, she started walking down the road. The others 
followed a few steps behind, talking quietly among themselves. 
 
"I know she was close to him, but... Lord, wasn't she so cheerful before?" 
Mark said. Rebecca nodded. 
 
"Yeah, but a month isn't that long," she said. "She'll be fine." 
 
"A month isn't that short, either, though. Why did he just have to disappear 
like that?" 
 
Rachel pretended not to hear, but her smile disappeared.