Crystal Forest

Valiant turned to Wing. "It was a leafeon; I never caught her name. However, I get the feeling she's like Lavender, or Flare, or the others. I believe she may play an important role related to everything we experienced in the cave. She ran off not a moment ago, and Copper followed her. Flare and I are going to go see if we can catch up with him."

Copper ran through the forest, calling out, "Hey! Leafeon! Where are you?". The cat stopped at a clearing beneath the tree where the pokemon was perched. "Grr... Where did she go?!" He asked himself concernedly.
"Need some 'elp?", The spiritomb asked.
"What do you mean?", Copper replied.
"Well, I'm a ghost pokemon, so I can do this." Suddenly, the spiritomb's presence faded form the espersian's psyche.
"W-where are you?", The cat asked.
"Over here." The disembodied voice replied from behind. Copper turned to see a floating rock with a strange symbol on it. "See, we ghost types have this power of possession. Normally we can only control living organisms, but some ghost lovers help us out by carving these symbols into items. They sorta work as talismans that let us possess the items for a short while. Our presences wear em out though, so they start to rot or crumble. So in a few minutes this rock'll be history and I'll be stuck back in you."
"Interesting to say the least.", The cat replied, "But how will this help me?"
"Easy." The floating rock said as it floated upwards and began to spin, scanning the area for the leafeon. He continued spinning until a speck of purple and brown caught his eye.
"I see something!", He shouted, attracting the cat over to the Leafeon's tree.

Leafeon kept quiet. She slowly moved and then gulped down the rest of the bread quickly. She jumped down out of the tree and began running again. But,she was running towards Copper. She jumped over him and ran all the way back too the group. Her body gave out,and she plopped down,exhausted.

Flare and Valiant walked up to where the espersian and the leafeon were. The leafeon was lying on the ground. The duo approached her slowly, Flare in front. "Hello, I'm Flare," he introduced himself in a upbeat and polite tone, "and this is my friend Valiant. He's the one who caught you."

Meka blinked. She looked up and smiled. Her energy was restored a bit,and she got up. "Pleasure to meet you two.My name is Meka." she replied,smiling still.

Copper emerged from the forest behind her, looking rather annoyed, the floating stone trailing behind him. He walked past the leafeon and his other comrades and approached Voltico.
"Voltico, are you alright?", He asked, "Where have you been all this time? What is going on?"

"Alright?" Volt echoed. "Yeah... I think. I'm feeling rather energized, now. But... I'm really sore." He shifted around, moving his weight so as not to press on any tender spot too long. Volt looked at Meka. "So... you were just hungry?"

Copper looked at Meka. "You're guessing this from the crumbs in her fur?", he responded to the Jolteon.

Meka blinked. She sighed and walked over too the hole by the tree,slowly dissapearing into it.Inside of the hole,was her den.She curled up into a ball on a pile of leaves and began to drift slowly off into sleep...

Volt paused and blinked at Meka. "What an odd character this one is," he commented.

"Not a very social creature, it seems.", Copper replied. "Maybe it's best we leave her alone... Yet, I worry that those after the guardians might come after her as well. In a case of mistaken identity or otherwise."

Flare was about to respond to Copper's statement with his theory about Meka, but before he could speak, he heard Valiant's voice in his head.

<We should wait until we are certain of her identity before we state our opinion to Copper. I know she is radiating a power similar to that of a guardian, but due to the recent loss of Synth, we do not want to put any more pressure on Copper by revealing our theory so soon. If she is indeed a guardian, the best course of action would be to befriend her, keep an eye on her, and make sure she is not harmed before she realizes her true power. And once she does, we all can help her understand it. But for now, it would be best to remain quiet.>

<You're probably right, Valiant. Alright, but I still think someone should tell Meka. She should know what kind of danger she might be in because of her energy signature. The others must have sensed it on her, I imagine.>

<This may be true Flare, but there is no need to worry her yet. She is young. I'm sure you and I can both agree that this kind of news would be difficult to almost anyone of this age. Please, for her sake, don't say anything to anyone else, unless they ask first.>

<Fine, I suppose that's fair> Flare responded.

Copper approached Flare. "Flare, I'm somewhat worried about the safety of that kid. Any eeveelution living right beside a chasm containing evil phantasms that want to destroy the guardians of her species can't be too safe alone." The cat lowered his ears, "Many lives have been cost due to our presence here. I don't feel safe leaving her here..."

Will scuttled out of the hole and looked around.
"...How long has it been since I went in there? I can't remember... Oh well. Not important~" He said in a singsong voice, before collapsing to the ground.
"...Tired."

Wing blinked. "So she is... a guardian, like us?" He murmured, sending this information to Lavender as well. "Interesting. I thought that the Leafeon had been killed... hmm. Perhaps the powers get passed on, even if the host dies? Does that mean we're... disposable? Hey, wait up!" He called after Lavender, who had begin to chase after the others.

"If there's a new Leafeon, I want to meet it!" She called back, the events of their trip into the cave blurring as the exitement of being aboveground, back in the forest, where she was meant to be, was returning.

Flare looked at Valiant again, who nodded back, and then turned to Copper. "I know, I'm worried for her safety as well. She seems so young and innocent, and I don't want to see her hurt because of our presence. I agree that we should stay here and ensure she is not harmed. Plus, it's not everyday you meet another eeveeloution, although you wouldn't know it by our group," he chuckled softly.

"In any case, the other reason I want to keep an eye on her is her coloring. Did you notice the purple on her paws and in her eyes? I think there may be something more to this young one than she is aware of..." his voice trailed off, suddenly realizing he had said aloud something he meant to keep in his thoughts. Oh well, maybe Copper had noticed and was thinking similar thoughts.

Copper frowned at the flareon. "I know what you're getting at, Flare, I am telepathic in case you've forgotten.", He said with a sigh, then added, "Although I can't quite count on any of this power at the moment." He continued telepathically, <"I realize the sudden loss of our companions and the appearance of this odd Leafeon seems fortunate and almost as if desti-"> His voice faded from Flare's mind. The cat stopped pacing and looked up to the darkening sky and rising moon and walked away as though resolved in making his statement. "Voltico, would you come with me to find food for the group?", Copper asked, walking past him and towards the forest, passing Lavender as well.

Meka peeked her head out of her den. She kept her ears down and started to spy on everyone. But soon she couldn't see,so she quickly jumped out. Her purple eyes glowed from the moon light. Her ears came up a bit,and she looked around,studying everyone.

Volt looked up from the ground where he had been idly kicking a pebble around the root tips of a large maple. "Hm? Uh-of course."

Lavender slowed down as she approached the Leafeon's aura, barely noticing Copper as she continued past.
It's great to be above ground again, I feel like I'm living for the first time in... a while. It's hard to remember so many terrible things happening when you can look up at the sky and see the faintly outlined stars beginning to resolve into the pattens they take... Wait, stars? She thought, looking around and seeing that perhaps her memory was just faulty, but the trees and the foliage surrounding them seemed thinner and slightly discolored, not truly as healthy as she remembered them being. Because of that, many more stars were visible. The though left a bad taste in her mouth, so she brushed it off and wagged her tail.
"Hi. I'm Lavender!" She said in a friendly tone as she saw the leafeon step out of what she assumed was her den.

Meka blinked. She smiled at Lavender and nodded."I'm Meka. It's a pleasure too meet you. " she replied. Her ears dropped down as she sat down and she stared at her paw. This was strange. Her paw had started to glow.

Flare looked down. He couldn't tell if Copper was dismissing his thoughts simply because it was more convenient to, or because it truly sounded far-fetched. "If only we could learn more about her," Flare pondered quietly. Looking up, he noticed that the leafeon had emerged from her tree and was talking with Lavender. Flare approached the two casually.

"Hey Meka, I don't believe I've seen you around the forest before. How long have you lived here?"

Meka blinked and looked over at Flare. She thought for a moment,putting her glowing paw on her head."Hmm.....Ever since I was just about......Hmm...I can't remember. Sorry." she replied,shrugging a bit. Her gaze turned to Lavender,then Flare.

Copper had led Voltico far into the forest, the pale moonlight shining over them and still little sign of food.

"Voltico", Copper began, "There's something going on with you. You're in turmoil. Is there something you'd like to talk about?", the cat's normally monotone exterior broke, his face showing pure concern for the first time since his transformation.

"Oh," responded Flare, somewhat disappointed, but hiding it in his voice. Unfortunately, this didn't help to shed any light as to why Meka was in the forest in the first place. Maybe a slightly different question would work, Flare hoped. "Well, do you know if you've lived anywhere besides here?" he asked, indicating her den.