Three months. It had been three months since Pastoria, three months since Jack had freed the Legendary Birds, three months since he started scouring Sinnoh for any sign of the person responsible for sending the Birds after him, and giving him those freakish dreams, and three months since the dreams had suddenly stopped.

Jason didn't know why the dreams had stopped, but it seemed to correlate with Jack freeing the Birds; he hoped that meant the mysterious antagonist had given up on that plan, which would mean that the Birds were safe. There was one thing Jason knew though; that day, three months ago, was when everything had changed.

Three months prior...

"Who am I, Jason," Jack had asked him that evening, after the Legendary Birds had left.

"Does it matter?" he'd replied. "You're my brother, and my best friend; that's enough for me."

Jack sighed. "Until now, that would've been enough for me too. But this business with the Birds got me thinking; I really know nothing about myself. I've had these superhuman abilities for years now, and it's become so normal for us; but where did they come from?"

"I don't know," Jason said.

"Precisely my point. Neither of us know why I'm like this; or why I was in Greenwood that day, or who left me there, or even why I have these robes!" Jack said, his voice steadily rising. "Who am I, Jason?!"

"I don't know," Jason repeated.

"Well then, don't you want to find out?" Jack asked.

Jason looked him in the eye. "Why do you? You were always perfectly happy just being Jack Storm; what's changed?"

"What changed," Jack said grimly. "was I realized that I didn't even know who Jack Storm really is."

"Well, who do you want to be?" Jason asked.

Jack sighed. "It doesn't matter who I want to be, I want to know who I am. What if I'm putting you, and everyone, in danger just by being near you? Because that's what it seems like to me; there's someone out there who it seems will stop at nothing to get to me, and that paints a big, fluorescent pink target on all of you. I don't even know who he is, or why he's after me. I'll bet you any money it's somehow connected to my origins which I, once again, know nothing about. You see my problem?"

"So," Jason said, "You're going to lure out the guy who's following you and get some answers out of him. That sounds like a good enough plan to me."

Jack smiled. "Yeah, but a plan alone won't answer my questions. It has to work first."

"Well then," Jason said. "let's hope it does."

Jason watched thoughtfully as the sky slowly faded from pitch black to a soft grey. The sun had yet to peep over the horizon, but the night was already starting to retreat.

Up until that point, Jack had been going through the traditional trainer's journey for the fun of it. Both Jack and Jason had craved adventure ever since they were young, and the whole 'Trainer's journey' thing seemed like the perfect way to get some. After that day though things were slightly different.

Jason sighed as he leaned on the balcony rail. "'Things' were different? Who am I kidding. 'Things' stayed pretty much the same; it was Jack that changed."

Jason wouldn't have taken any notice of the conversation he'd had with Jack that day, except that it coincided with a subtle change in Jack's attitude. Looking back now Jason realized that he probably wouldn't have noticed the change if it weren't for that conversation. Funny how the world works, but then that was the root of the problem.

Jason wasn't worried about Jack wanting to know more about his past; that was only natural. What worried Jason, was that his brother had started drifting away from God. Jason had first noticed that Jack wasn't praying and reading his Bible as regularly as he used to; gradually, maybe even unconsciously, Jack had simply gotten out of the habit.

"Watching the sunrise?" Jack said, coming up beside Jason and putting his arms on the railing.

"Yeah," Jason replied.

"You've got that look on your face," Jack said. "The one you get when you're thinking hard about something."

Jason looked up at him. "You're the one who gets that look, not me."

"Who do you think I got it from?" Jack countered with a grin.

Jason chuckled. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense; I remember how you were always following me around. You must have thought I was the best thing since Mother's Oran Berry soup."

"Well, not quite that good," Jack said jokingly. "But yeah, I really did admire you; you were always the big brother. And then I learned my first move…" Jack's grin slowly faded, and his voice took on a sad undertone. "After that, our roles started to reverse; eventually I was the one in charge, and you were the one hanging off of me."

"I was never 'hanging off of you'," Jason said in mock indignation.

Jack chuckled and a smile briefly crossed his face, his normal cheerfulness returning for a split second before fading again. That was another thing Jason had noticed; ever since that day, three months ago, Jack had started smiling less and less. He still laughed, he still played and joked around, but it was only skin deep; he was never genuinely happy. He just wasn't his normal cheerful self any more, and Jason missed that more than anything.

"So," Jack said. "What were you thinking about?"

Jason looked up at the brightening sky. "Do you think we'll win?"

Jack grinned confidently. "Are you kidding? We'll wipe the floor with the lot of them; for sure. And when we do, maybe the mysterious stalker will finally make his move."

Jason scowled inwardly. It always came back to the stalker eventually; it had become almost an obsession for Jack, finding the stalker. Jason knew though that catching the stalker was just the means to an end; namely, finding out who Jack 'really' was. Jason would've been fine with it all, in fact he would've jumped at the chance to learn more about his adopted brother, except that like he said; it had become almost an obsession to him.

Jack and Jason watched as a red sun rose over an enormous colosseum, with three smaller arenas jutting out from the sides. Each of the four battlefields could be specifically tailored for a different type of terrain, adding an element of unpredictability into the matches held there; it was a marvel of modern architecture and engineering.

In the last three months, they'd beaten the remaining four Gym Leaders of Sinnoh and collected their badges; they'd fought many other trainers as well, defeating most of them with ease. And finally, they'd gotten here; the place all trainers in Sinnoh long to some day. The Lily of the Valley Conference. They had made it into the Sinnoh League.

They'd gone through a screening process the day before, which they passed with flying colours; and last night the League Torch had been lit, and the round one match-ups had been announced. None of it really interested Jason, he just wanted this whole business to be over as quickly as possible.

Over the last three months, everyone had gotten quite a lot stronger; although there were no new additions to the team. Everyone now knew at least five moves; except for Thomas, who still knew only his original four. Namely Signal Beam, Discharge, Lock-On, and Tri-Attack. Jack was both thankful of that fact, and incredibly curious as to the reason behind it; every time a member of his team learned a new move, it was a reminder to Jack that he was probably the one causing it. The only explanation Jack could come up with was that it had something to do with Thomas being, by his own admission, an artificial Pokémon. The others, however, had been learning new moves at an increasing rate.

Jason had mastered Close Combat, and learned Psychic to counter his weakness to other Fighting Types. Cap had learned Bide, Katana had replaced Vacuum Wave with Air Slash, and Lucy had replaced Payback with Return. Wendy had replaced Confusion with Psychic, and had also learned Teleport and Light Screen, Aura had learned Agility, once more making her the fastest thing alive, and Solomon had upgraded Ember to Flamethrower, Thundershock to Thunderbolt, and Powder Snow to Ice Beam. And Ivy, taking to her new evolutionary form like a Golduck to water, had learned both Energy Ball and Giga Drain.

As for Jack himself, he'd trained the hardest out of all of them; in everything from his mental and auric abilities, to his Fighting Type techniques, to his elemental move-set. The third one is, probably, the most interesting so I'll focus mainly on that. After seeing Solomon's unorthodox Fire, Ice, and Electric elemental moves, Jack began training in controlling as many different elements as possible. He'd always had an affinity for lightning, and for the others he'd found that he could use telekinesis to easily simulate many elemental moves.

For instance, he'd already developed what could pass for a Water Pulse technique by simply levitating water and compressing it into a sphere, and a Leaf Storm attack by gathering random foliage and telekinetically keeping it rigid. Doing much the same thing with other basic substances yielded impressive results; he'd not only learned simple stuff like Stone Edge, Earthquake, and Air Slash, but also Ice Beam and Flamethrower just like Solomon. Jack had become a veritable walking arsenal.

There was also... that technique; it easily eclipsed all his other ones, but it was somewhat of a last resort. A trump card, if you will.

In all, Jack's confidence about the Sinnoh League was justified; unless they did something really stupid, Jason didn't see any way they could lose the League. Little did they know, someone would soon beg to differ.

Last night, after both the screening rounds and a hard day's training, the sixty-four contestants who had made it past the screening rounds had congregated in the central arena; eagerly waiting for the round one match-ups to be revealed.

Jack and his team had gotten to the conference late, and they'd barely had time to sign up before registration closed; mostly thanks to the reporters and paparazzi who, even after three months, were still desperate to get so much as a single statement out of Jack. After that they'd spent most of the day in their new suite, unpacking their stuff and generally making it feel more like home.

They'd only really left their room when it was time for the screening matches; after that, they quickly retreated to their room again to avoid the ever-present cameras. As such, the announcement of the round one match-ups had been Jack's first opportunity to scout out the competition.

The trainers lined up in an eight by eight square, which allowed Jack to easily scan for familiar faces. Most of the trainers were complete strangers to Jack, but a few faces jumped out at him; figuratively speaking.

The first person he saw was Ash, with Pikachu on his shoulder as always; Ash saw him as well, and the two shared a grin of congratulation. Since they'd gone their separate ways at Veilstone City, what seemed like an eternity ago, Jack had only seen Ash and his entourage once; at Sunyshore City, where Jack was forced to wait several days because he refused to take the Beacon Badge without fighting for it. What was the point of challenging the Gyms if you didn't even get to challenge them? Fortunately Ash showed up and got the Gym Leader, Volkner, to start accepting challengers again.

After their respective epic battles with said Gym Leader, and thwarting Team Rocket who had somehow turned the solar station into a robot... don't ask. Jack and Ash spent a while catching up, which of course included a battle, which of course Jack won. In any event, Jack was glad that Ash had made it into the Sinnoh League; he liked the impulsive young trainer, and he looked forward to seeing how much stronger Ash had gotten.

The second thing Jack noticed was Nicholas, who was standing next to a powerful-looking Infernape which Jack realized was Blaze; if that was any indication, Jack expected that Nicholas's team had gotten a lot stronger as well since the last time he'd seen them. And that was saying something; Jack had run into Nicholas several times in the last few months, almost always at a Pokémon Gym. One of them would get there first and challenge the Gym, then the other would show up in time to catch the end of the battle.

Despite Jack's fears, the two became closer each time they met; the red-headed trainer had repeatedly assured Jack that although he did want to become stronger than Jack, he still wanted to be friends. As such, when Nicholas noticed Jack and the two locked eyes, it was once again with a congratulatory grin. They both knew exactly what the other was thinking; 'see you on the battlefield.'

Jack's gaze moved on across the field, looking at each trainer in turn; then he saw the one thing he hoped wouldn't be there. A shock of purple hair, and a blue jacket.

"Paul," Jack muttered.

The purple-haired trainer had already noticed Jack, and was eyeing him with a look which was impossible to read. Jack couldn't tell what was going through Paul's head, but he could take a wild guess. One thing he knew, neither of them was happy to see the other; Jack had long since moved past his hatred of Paul, even if he greatly disliked the boy's training methods. Jack hadn't seen Paul since Pastoria, three months ago; he hoped he'd get to fight Paul in the tournament. Speaking of which...

Hung above the battlefield, a giant television screen burst into life; on it the likeness of each one of the sixty-four competitors was displayed, matched up in pairs. Jack didn't recognize the person he'd been matched up with, but he looked forward to showing the world what he and his friends could do.

Me: And that marks the start of Book 2 of Rising Storm; not the most flamboyant entrance, I know, but don't worry your pretty little heads. The action escalates quickly from here; this chapter is mainly just to set the scene, since there is a fairly substantial time gap between Books 1 and 2. As for that, well... To be honest, nothing happened that was worth more than summarizing; I know some of you probably would've loved to see Jack and Nicholas's rivalry grow, or how Jack would've reacted to Team Rocket trying to steal the Sunyshore City Solar Plant, but trust me when I say that the time gap is the best option.

Jack: I don't buy it; the Sunyshore City incident was hilarious, I really think you should've put that in at least.

Me: You lost your right to criticism in Book 1; still, maybe I'll write a one-shot about it sometime if I get writer's block for the main story.

Jack: But don't forget, You've already got some side-projects on the go; you might want to finish those up first before you go starting any new ones.

Me: True enough. In other news though, I have a special commendation to make.

Jack: What else is new?

Me: Shut up. This story is one that I've followed from its oh-so-humble beginnings, and watched and Beta-Read as it grew into something unbelievably epic! Trust me, this story is worth a read. It's called The Ancient Fuse Evolution by Krominicon, and it is awesome; I believe I recommended it back in Book 1 once, but it's come a long way since then. Spoiler free, it's about a trainer named Ethan and his Lucario named [Classified], who have inherited the titular Fuse Evolution from their respective ancestors; what ancestors, you might ask? None other than SIR AARON AND HIS LUCARIO THEMSELVES, one of which comes back FROM THE DEAD! And, believe it or not, it actually works; the main characters are great, the setting are good, the plot is epic, the villain is literally evil incarnate, and as if it needed it, do you know what else this story has going for it?!

Jack: It's a bird!

Jason: It's a plane!

Me: IT'S A CAMEO! Yes folks, Jack Storm himself makes a dramatic and utterly mind-blowing appearance later on in the story; and it's not just one chapter, he has an ongoing and meaningful presence in the story, written by yours truly...

Jack: Francis of Yorkshire.

Me: Shut up. In any event, The Ancient Fuse Evolution deserves every view you can give it. I am hoping to resume a somewhat normal writing schedule, but since I have both school-work and a new job to deal with, that may or may not work out perfectly; so if you're looking for something to read between chapters of Rising Storm, you should definitely check out Krominicon's The Ancient Fuse Evolution.

Jack: See you in the next chapter, whenever that is.