“Okay, Ferio, we have to talk.”  Sora, dressed in her Denryuu nightgown, sat on the bed in the room she was sharing with Ferio.  They had just spent a day at the Maiden’s Peak Summer Festival, where Petra and Aidan had run off and still weren’t back yet, even now at 11:00.
 “Talk?” Ferio asked, sitting on her twin bed opposite Sora’s.  “About what?”
 Sora blushed and giggled.  “Well, now that he’s not here and I don’t have to worry about him maybe hearing me ‘cause his room is right next door…”
 “Aidan, you mean?” Ferio said.
 “Of course!” Sora laughed.  “There aren’t any other he’s in our group.  And in case you couldn’t tell—which you probably could since you know me better than anyone—I have a tremendous crush on him.”  Sora’s cheeks went pink.  “And he could say the same…about you, that is.”
 “Yeah,” Ferio mused, “I’ve noticed the little puff has a thing for me.”
 “Ferio!”  Sora threw a pillow at her cousin.  “He’s not a puff…well, obviously he’s not if he likes you.  So you don’t like him?”
 Ferio rolled her eyes.  “He’s a wimp.  It’s so stupid how he thinks he fell in ‘love at first sight’ with me because of some stupid gym leader’s convention that I wasn’t even at…”
 Sora held up a hand.  “Wait a minute, back up there.  So you…weren’t at the gym leader’s convention where Aidan thinks he saw you?”
 “I don’t think I was, anyway,” Ferio said.  “He says it was three years ago, right?  So that would make me 13 when the supposed ‘event’ took place.”  She shook her head.  “I wasn’t even a gym leader then, Sora.”
 “Really?” Sora looked baffled.  “Then what…why…oh, I give up!”  She threw her hands up in exasperation and fell facedown on the bed.
 “I guess Aidan doesn’t realize this,” Ferio said, “and even if I told him so he’d probably continue to live in his little delusional world.  Besides, even if it was another girl he saw, he likes me now and from the looks of it he’s gonna stay that way for a while.”
 “Yeah,” Sora said.  “Well, I guess that’s too bad then, because he likes you and you don’t like him.  Wow.  I feel really sorry for him now.”
 Ferio glowered, then her face adopted a sympathetic expression.  “You like him a lot, don’t you.”
 Sora was looking down at the bed coverings, and Ferio thought she saw a tear in her blue eye for a second, but the next second it was gone.  “No kidding, I do.”  Sora crawled under the covers and turned on her side, facing away from Ferio.  “Well, goodnight, Ferio.”
 “Night, Sora.”  Ferio switched off the light and slipped between the sheets, where she was to stay awake for at least half an hour after that, thinking about the conversation she had just had.

***

 “PETRA!  AIDAN!”  The yells disturbed the quiet morning atmosphere around the Maiden’s Peak, causing flocks of Pidgey who had been sleeping around the statue to scatter in fear.
 “Hey, I think I see them,” Sora said, pointing down into the gap between the statue and the cliff.  There Aidan, Petra, and Clyde were lying on the rocks, asleep after their night of chasing after the Maiden’s Peak ghost (which, as Sora, Aoife, and Ferio had found out the last night, was actually a Gengar). 
 “Hey, Aidan!”  Sora yelled down at the blond boy.
 “Hey, get up, you Snorlaxes!”  Ferio used a not-so-encouraging technique to wake up her companions.
 “Wha…?”  Petra opened her eyes, then sat up and began to look around in a dazed manner.  “What the…where am I?”
 Aidan was the next one to awaken.  “Hey, what’s going on?”
 Aoife, Sora, and Ferio climbed down to retrieve their friends.  “You were out here staring at that stupid rock like it was God come upon earth,” Ferio explained.
 “Rock?”  Aidan looked up at the statue.  “Oh yeah, that rock.”
 “Yeah, ‘that rock’.”  Aoife grabbed Aidan and Petra’s hands and pulled them up.  “Now come on, we’ve got to get out of this Maiden’s Peak place before tonight, so the spell doesn’t take effect again.”
 “Too late,” Sora remarked, seeing Petra scrambling up the side of the cliff.
 “Oh, Aphrodite!  I’ve come to see you again!  I…huh?”  The rock Petra was holding onto crumbled off in her hand, leaving her with only one handhold left.  “Uh-oh.”  Her hand slipped, and she went tumbling back down the side of the cliff.
 Aidan, in a panic, stood up and raced over to where Petra was falling to catch her.  He succeeded, but supporting the extra weight threw him off balance and they both fell into the waters of the bay.
 “AAAACK!” Petra shrieked, jumping out of the water and shivering.  “Th-that’s the c-c-coldest water I’ve e-ever felt!”  In a fit of shivering, she fell backwards back into the water again, on top of Aidan, knocking him over as well.
 “Cute,” Ferio smirked, beginning her climb back up to the mainland.  “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going back up.”
 “But Clyde still isn’t awake,” Aidan, who had managed to tow himself out of the icy water, reminded them.
 “I’ll just have to wake him up, then,” Aoife grinned, taking out a Pokeball.  “Go, Shellder!  Water Gun, now!”
 “Shell!” Shellder said, spitting a jet of freezing water on Clyde.  Needless to say he woke up fairly quickly after that assault.
 “WAAAAAGH!” Clyde yelled.  “Geez, that’s cold!  Who…”  Turning around, he spotted his enemies.  “Oh, it’s you.  Great.  I’d do the motto if Bonnie were here.”
 “Oh, but I am!”  In a flash of green and blue, someone jumped down from the cliff.  “Prepare for trouble!”
 “And make it double!”
 “To rule the world with greatest power!”
 “Stalking around at the midnight hour!”
 “To denounce the greatness of evil and sin!”
 “With our Pokemon we’re sure to win!”
 “Bonnie!”
 “Clyde!”
 “Team Rocket, flying in the night!”
 “Surrender now or you’ll lose the fight!”
 “Or not,” Ferio said.  “Now what exactly was the point of that?”
 “To celebrate our great reunion!” Bonnie and Clyde squealed in unison, hugging.
 “I haven’t seen you in, what, ten hours?” Bonnie asked.
 “Oh, I know,” Clyde said enthusiastically.  “We have SO much catching up to do.”
 Sora rolled her eyes.  “Never mind them.  We should get going.  We want to make it out of the Maiden’s Peak Bay area at least before sunset tonight.”
 “Can’t we just stay a little while longer to see the Maidens of the Peak perform again?” Petra pleaded.
 “NO,” Sora insisted.  She planted her feet on a foothold in the cliff and groped for a handhold.  “We’re going now.”
 “Fine, fine,” Petra sighed, climbing up the cliff along with the rest of the group.

(Who's that Pokemon?  It's Seleneon!)

 “So what does the Nav-Comp say about this area?” Sora asked, leaning over Petra’s shoulder as she consulted their navigational aide.
 “The Pokemon in this area are mainly Eevee, with a few Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon too.  A lot of Raichu too, and some Exeggcutor.”
 “Those are all Pokemon that evolve using evolutionary stones,” Ferio deduced.  “We might be in the Evolution Mountain area.”
 Petra scanned the map displayed on the computer’s screen.  “Yeah, Evolution Mountain is a few miles north.  That must be it up there.”  She looked at a mountain standing tall on the horizon, then to Ferio.  “That’s good deduction there.”
 “Eevee?” Aoife asked, checking Dexter.
 “Eevee can evolve into seven different Pokemon,” Dexter explained.  “Jolteon with the Thunder Stone, Vaporeon with the Water Stone, Flareon with the Fire Stone, Ferneon with the Leaf Stone, Seleneon with the Moon Stone, Blackeon if raised at night, and Eefieon if raised during the day.”
 “That’s cool,” Aoife murmured, looking through the different Eevee evolutions.  “Hey…if you guys had an Eevee, what would you evolve it into?”
 “I never thought about that,” Sora said.  “Seleneon are cute, though.  They’re pink.”
 Ferio wrinkled her nose.  “I wouldn’t want one of those, then.  I might like a Blackeon or a Flareon.”
 “I’ve actually never really thought about that either,” Petra admitted.  “A Ferneon would be useful, though.”
 “Aidan?” Aoife asked the last remaining group member who had still not answered her question.
 “Jolteon,” Aidan replied.  “Electricity, while not at a particular advantage to ghost type, still has an effect on it if the electric Pokemon is really strong.”
 “Yeah,” Aoife said.  “Well said, Aid.  I think I’d like one of those Eefieon things, myself.”
 Petra looked at her watch.  “It’s almost 1:00.  We should stop for lunch soon, and I think there’s a town a little further down the road.  How about it?”
 Her question was met with a resounding “YEAH!” from Aoife and Sora, a “Sure, why not?” from Aidan, and no response from Ferio.
 Fifteen minutes later, they came upon a small town at the foot of Evolution Mountain, which was, according to the sign over the city gates, Eonville.  “That’s a strange name,” Aoife commented.
 “You know,” Sora said, “like FlarEON, JoltEON, SelenEON, and so eon…I mean, and so on.”
 “Freudian slip,” Ferio smirked.  “Let’s go find someplace to eat, shall we?”
 “How about in here?” Petra asked, scarlet-faced, pointing to the window of a shop.  “Chantelle’s Stones” read the sign over the door.
 “Um, Petra?” Aidan tapped her on the shoulder.  “That’s not a restaurant, I don’t think…”
 “It’s a store,” Ferio observed, peeking in the window of the shop, “and it sells evolution stones.  So unless you want a Leaf Stone for lunch, let’s go somewhere else.”
 “Too late,” Aoife sighed, noticing that Petra had already made her way into the store and up to the counter, and was now chatting up a silver-haired girl at the counter.  The rest of the gang followed her in, getting themselves ready to pull their friend out of another rejection.
 “Erm, I’m sorry, uh, miss…” the girl at the counter was saying, “but I don’t exactly go for that sort of thing…” She noticed Petra’s four companions enter the store and brightened up.  “And I have to go help these people now, so you’ll have to wait, all right?”
 “I apologize for Sappho over there,” Ferio said as the girl Petra had previously been talking to dashed over, eager to get away from Petra.  “She just gets a little weird sometimes.”
 “Oh, you know her?” the girl asked.  Then, waving her hand, she said, “No, forget it, that’s okay.  Can I interest you in a sale today?  How about buy two stones, get a third one free?  I have almost every known type of evolution stone; I’m sure you’ll find something you can use.”
 “No, we just came to—”
 “Actually,” Aoife cut Ferio off and pushed her way to the front of the group, “I might take you up on that.  What stones would you recommend I buy?”
 “You have a Pikachu, I see,” the girl said, noticing Chu-Chu.  “I’d suggest a Thunder Stone.  Make it into a Raichu.  It’ll be a lot more powerful.”
 “Pi!”  Chu-Chu hid behind Aoife’s legs.  “Pika-pika!” it shook its head.
 “Um, I don’t think Chu-Chu’s interested in that…” Aoife said.  “So…you’re Chantelle, I take it?”
 “How did you…oh,” Chantelle said.  “The name of the store.  Of course.  I just graduated from Pokemon Tech and I had a lot of inheritance money so I started this store.  Although it’s not very useful since around here you can go outside and pick up a stone lying on the ground, and more than likely it’ll be an evolution stone.  But most people can’t tell them apart, so that’s what I’m here for.”
 “That makes sense,” said Sora, looking around the shelves at the different stones.  “They all look the same…how can you tell?”
 “You’d need a magnifying glass to really see,” Chantelle explained.  “Would you like to come back into my storage room?  I’d love to give you a tour…”
 “Oh, but of course!” Petra practically skipped across the store after Chantelle as she led them into the back room.
 “Control yourself,” Ferio muttered as the group went into the back of the store.
 Chantelle was being modest when she said that she had almost every known type of stone.  From the looks of things, she had just about every type.  Boxes lined the shelves, and although only a few of them were open for the contents to be seen, Aoife knew they held hundreds of stones altogether.
 Chantelle turned to the group and winked, causing Petra to nearly pass out.  “You know the five main stones, I’m sure—Fire, Water, Thunder, Leaf, and Moon—but there’s another lesser-known type.  I’ll show you that later.”
 Ferio looked unimpressed.  “The Reversal Stone, you mean?  What’s the big deal about that?  I’ve seen more Reversal Stones than I can count during the years I worked on the Orange Islands.”
 “Spoilsport,” Aoife thought, glowering at Ferio.  But Chantelle didn’t seem to mind that Ferio had ruined her surprise.
 “Really?” she asked.  “On the Orange Islands?  Are there a lot of them there?  Because they’re pretty rare around here.”
 “They’re as common as the other stones,” Ferio said.  “Besides, who ever uses those anyway?  Who wants to reverse evolution?”
 “You’d be surprised,” Chantelle said.  “I’ve had a lot of people coming in whose Pokemon have found a stone and evolved by accident.  That’s considered an emergency situation—if your Pokemon evolves, you can only use the Reversal Stone within 48 hours of the evolution.  After that, the evolution is for good.”
 “Wow,” Aoife murmured.  “I didn’t even realize a stone could do that!  So you’re telling me you could evolve your Eevee into, say, a Vaporeon one day, and then un-evolve…de-evolve…reverse-evolve…what’s the word?”
 “Devolve,” Chantelle supplied.
 “And then devolve it the next day and turn it into a Jolteon?”
 “That’s possible,” Chantelle said.  “But try not to do it too many times, otherwise your Pokemon’s DNA might get confused and you’d end up with a highly weakened Pokemon…or a mutant.”
 “A mutant?” Aidan repeated.  “That’s strange.”
 Chantelle nodded.  “I’ve seen it happen.  When it comes to stones, I’ve seen every situation possible.”  At this, Petra grinned wryly and looked like she was about to make an off-color remark, but Sora noticed and bonked her over the head before she could say anything.
 “But enough of this worst case scenario stuff.”  Chantelle pulled a box down from the shelf and opened it.  “Would you like to see some—”
 Then there was a CRASH, and suddenly, the box Chantelle had taken down from the shelf wasn’t the only one on the floor anymore.  The seemingly sturdy brick wall had caved in, but by no fault of the builder.  It had been pushed down from the outside…by a white truck with a red R on the hood.
 “Oh, no,” Aoife groaned.  “We help them out and then look what they do.”
 “How could they have known we were here?” Aidan pointed out logically.
 “If they saw us come in, maybe?” Aoife returned.
 “Or maybe they just feel like attacking a prominent store today,” Ferio said.  “I get the impression they do that from time to time.”
 “Prepare for trouble!”
 “And make it—”
 “CHUUUUUUU!”  Chu-Chu silenced Team Rocket’s speech.
 “This is the second time today,” Aoife said.  “We don’t need to hear it again.”
 “Oh, great,” Bonnie muttered, treating a burn she had gotten from Chu-Chu’s Thundershock.  “You again.  And here we thought we were going to get away with some valuable stones!”
 “Yeah,” Clyde said.  “Maybe even free stones if we’re lucky enough to manage to steal some.”
 Ferio reached for a Pokeball.  “Well, how about NO WAY?  Hitmonlee, I choose you!”
 “Go, Sundance!” said Clyde, his Vulpix leaping out of the truck behind him.
 “Hitmonlee, double kick!” Ferio shouted.  Hitmonlee swept around with one leg, sending Vulpix out the hole in the wall and into the back of the truck, and again with the other leg, causing Team Rocket to fly across the storeroom and crash into a shelf, knocking it over.  Unfortunately, Hitmonlee’s aim wasn’t so good, and it also happened to bring the shelves down on Aoife, Sora, and Chu-Chu as well.
 “Oh, dear!” Chantelle said.  “Um, Aoife?  Are you all right?”
 Aoife poked her head up from the pile of people, Pokemon, shelves, and overturned boxes with stones spilling out.  “No, I’m obviously NOT all right,” she said crossly, propping one of the shelves back up so she could get out.  “Geez, Ferio, watch where your Pokemon is kicking next time.”
 “Well, it did beat up Team Rocket,” Ferio said.  “You _could_ thank me, or something…”
 “Yeah, thanks for toppling the shelf on me,” Aoife retorted, as she and Sora climbed out of the rubble.  “Now where’s Chu-Chu?  Chu-Chu!”  She started digging through the pile.
 “Chuuuu!” a distressed voice said from under the pile-up of stones…but it didn’t sound like Chu-Chu, or any Pikachu Aoife had ever heard, for that matter.  A lightning-bolt-shaped tail poked up from the stones, and it was yellow like Chu-Chu’s…but it was shaped differently than a normal Pikachu, and a slightly darker color as well…
 “Uh-oh,” Sora said.  “Aoife…I think…um, Chantelle?  What type of stones did you keep on this shelf?”
 Chantelle didn’t have to answer, the Pokemon that popped out of the pile of stones answered for her.  It was unmistakably Chu-Chu; Aoife recognized the Claddagh necklace she had given it when she left Pallet Town.  But this Pokemon was a Raichu, the evolved form of Pikachu.  “Rai,” it whimpered, unhappy with its new form.
 “Thunder Stones,” Chantelle whispered.  “Oh, Aoife, I’m so sorry…maybe we can find a Reversal Stone.”
 “No, please, don’t bother!” Bonnie said, as she and Clyde stared at it with starry eyes.  “A Raichu…we’ve never been able to catch one…”
 “It’s not just Raichu you aren’t able to catch,” Sora said, shocked at Team Rocket’s insensitivity.  “Honestly, you two, Aoife’s just…”
 “If we take this back to HQ, they’ll absolutely _love_ us there!” Clyde gushed; he and Bonnie had clearly ignored Sora.  “We MUST catch this Raichu!”
 “I don’t think so,” Aoife stepped in front of Chu-Chu.  “Evolved or not, this is still Chu-Chu and I’m still going to protect her!  I’m not going to just turn her over to you now that she’s evolved!”
 “Rai rai!” Chu-Chu agreed, sparking at the cheeks.
 “Hey, Bonnie and Clyde,” Ferio grinned, “Raichu’s electricity can knock out a Dragonite.  What do you think it’s going to do to you?”
 “Oh, you shut up too!” Aoife snapped back.  “This was your fault in the first place!”
 “Well, it actually wasn’t _directly_ her fault,” Aidan dared to speak up, “but…well, yes, anyway.”
 “Rai…” Chu-Chu was still gathering up its electricity, getting ready to channel it into Team Rocket’s truck.  “RAIIIIIIICHUUUUUUUUUUUU!”
 Team Rocket, the truck, and Sundance made like Icarus in the seconds following the Thundershock, blasting into the sky with a yell of “We’re blasting off agaaaaaiiiiiiin!”
 “Good, they’re gone,” Chantelle said, relieved.  “Now about your Pika—I mean, your Raichu…”
 “Yes?” Aoife said eagerly.  “Can you reverse it?  Please?  Oh, please, can you try to reverse the evolution?  I really prefer Pikachu better than Raichu, and I’m sure Chu-Chu does too.  It doesn’t matter that Raichu are more powerful, Chu-Chu is happy as a Pikachu and that’s what I care about.”
 Chantelle, touched by Aoife’s display of sympathy for her Pokemon, nodded.  “I’ll see if I can find a Reversal Stone…but with this mess it might be hard.  So…” She whipped out six magnifying glasses and passed them around.  The group facefaulted.  “I’m sorry, but it would really go much faster if you all helped.  You’ll know the Reversal Stones when you see them: they’re translucent when you hold them up to the light.”
 “Well, if it’ll help Aoife, we’ll do it,” Petra agreed, taking her magnifying glass to a pile of stones lying nearby.
 As they searched, they noticed Chantelle laying aside a group of stones for later use.  “What are those?” Aoife asked.  “Reversal Stones?”
 Chantelle shook her head.  “If they were, I would have just given them to you to begin with.  I was just thinking, after this is all over…well, I know an Eevee breeder who lives here.  Maybe I could get him to give you an Eevee each to evolve into whatever you like…you know, for helping me with Team Rocket.”
 “Oh, no, you really shouldn’t,” Sora said politely.
 “Oh, no, you really should!” Aoife argued.  “I’d love one!”
 Chantelle laughed.  “Okay, I’ll see if I can arrange something.”
 “Hey…” Ferio squinted at a stone she was holding.  “This looks sort of translucent…here, Chantelle, maybe you better take a look.”  She handed the stone over to Chantelle, who examined it under her glass.
 “This…this is it!” she gasped.  “Hurry, Aoife, bring Chu-Chu over here!”
 “Rai?” Chu-Chu asked as Aoife picked it up.
 “Here, Chu-Chu, we’re going to return you to normal now!” she said, as Chantelle laid the stone on Chu-Chu’s forehead.  It started to shrink, its fur lightened, its ears and tail changed shape…and soon enough Aoife held the old Chu-Chu that she knew and loved in her arms again.
 “Chu-Chu!” Aoife hugged her Pikachu.
“Pika!” Chu-Chu said.  “Pika pika, pi pikachu!”
“Guess it missed being able to say ‘pika’,” Sora giggled.
Aoife turned to Chantelle.  “Oh, thank you so much, how can I ever…”
 “Hey, Aif,” Ferio broke in.  “Don’t thank her, I was the one who found the stone in the first place.”
 “Okay, fine,” Aoife admitted.  “Thanks, Ferio.”  She sounded as though she were forcing the words out of her mouth.
 “Now how about those Eevee?” Chantelle offered.
 

Author's Notes
Kinda long for me...over 7 pages.  That's probably because it wasn't just about what happened to them in Eonville, it was also the conclusion to the last episode, including the interesting Sora/Ferio exchange...hmm, what do you make of that, eh, guys?  That will be resolved shortly after Ruari appears (in three episodes, yayee!).  Well, maybe not really shortly, but pretty soon after.  Like, when they reach Cinnabar Island.  Or sooner.  Or later.  Y'know, whatever.  Three more episodes until I reach my goal, by the way, and a new character will be introduced in Aoife's Soul Badge episode, which is soon also (and not just the Fuchsia gym leader, a new permanent character, not just a one-episode wonder).

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