“Okay so let me try to sum up what happened.” Chanler told Saphire as she sat next to Johnny on the rickety couch. Theo was sitting on Chanler’s right side; watching her curiously and slowly coming to terms with what Saphire had explained who was sitting across from them all on the separate chair. “So from what I can understand you ran into a Sylveon on the street as you were nearing home. He said something along the lines of a trigger phrase and from what Johnny told me it was ‘Starlight Rising’. Then when you passed out and went into a coma you revisited one of your previous memories that you couldn’t previously remember. That memory to you seemed to be the last one you could remember about your parents before they disappeared.”
   Saphire took in a deep breath and slowly nodded her head. “Yeah, that’s pretty much all I can remember.” It was a pretty accurate summation too, and nothing short of what Chanler is able to really do. “Do either of you know what that means?”
   Johnny sat back in his spot and crossed his arms as he always did when he would think. Though as she watched him lean back it was almost as if she didn’t believe he was thinking of an answer and almost as if he was remembering an answer. “It has to do with the fact that.” He trailed off and sighed and he began to debate something in his mind. “We didn’t necessarily tell you about where you came from. Or at least not the whole truth about it.”
   Chanler looked over to him, Pikachu looking at Pikachu for a long moment before Chanler would sigh as well and lean back with him, but her arms were placed in her lap. “Theo I think you should go into the other rooms for the time being. We need to talk to Saphire alone.”
   With a noise of complaint Theo opened his mouth to protest! Only to look to his right and see a glare from Johnny that seemed to make him shut his mouth immediately. “Yes, Miss Chanler.” Theo told the Pikachu with a small nod and quickly launched himself up off of the couch and off to one of the spare rooms in the house.
   All of this commotion and Saphire had to wonder just what was so important that Theo could listen in. It seemed as if it was some huge secret that no one else was supposed to know except for her. 
   “Saphire there’s been something we’ve been holding back about how you were raised for a while because we feared for your safety and your upbringing.” Johnny started as he casually leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees so that he could support his head up with his paws. Under his arms his legs were split apart with the soles of his paws pressed together. “We didn’t want to share this information with you until you appeared ready to learn it, but with these recent events we can’t hold off any longer.”
   The Eevee cocked her head to the side just barely as she watched both of their expressions change from one of curiosity to that of conflicting emotions. She thought it was quite weird to see that come across their faces since she had only ever seen them as either happy or neutral mostly.
   Chanler continued on this time as she had crossed her arms now, her tail flicking up and down behind her in a rhythmic pattern. “We need to know that you’re also ready to hear what we have to say before we’ll tell you what we know about your past. Sadly we cannot go into too much detail as we don’t know what really happened, but we can tell you the situation you lived in.”
   Now Saphire could tell things were getting serious and that the information they held about her past was not something to be taken lightly. She could almost feel every inch of her being quiver with fear, but at the same time in tingled with excitement. While swallowing her saliva down Saphire gave a few quick nods before confirmin“Yeah. I’m ready, Miss Chanler.” With those few solitary words Saphire could feel that her life was changing forever.
   Here is where Johnny took the lead on the conversation as he adjusted his sitting position so that he was sitting up straight. “Alright. Be warned that it is a bit of a lengthy explanation as I didn’t have time to properly prepare a speech.” He curled his arm over his mouth; coughing into it a few times to clear his throat before starting.
   “I’m going to be blunt about this right out of the gate. You come from a very wealthy family and the influence of your family runs far. There’s not a soul alive who hasn’t heard of your family surname.” Johnny could see Saphire was about to ask a question and held out a paw. “Save your questions until the end. I’ll get through most of your questions in time.
   “Now as I was saying. Your family is rich, powerful, and infamous.” He paused for a moment and closed his eyes. “You might be thinking that ‘infamous’ is a very weird word to describe your family since I just got done praising them. Well where your family is at now is far different from where your family was years ago.”
   “I’ll take this part, Johnny.” Chanler said as she pat his shoulder with her hand. Saphire was still completely confused by what she was getting told, but forced herself to pay attention. “Back when we were children the criminals of the world were much fiercer and more savage than they are today. You couldn’t walk ten meters in the wild without walking across a dead body. Roughly thirty three years ago there was a massive break out in the prison. This sudden increase in criminal numbers caused quite a disruption and forced the entire civilian population to vacate an entire region of the continent. That region just happened to have our capital city and prison. Since then Great Usarus has been our capital.”
   Johnny put a paw on Chanler’s shoulder and leaned forward until he was sitting upright once more and Chanler was leaning back. “That’s when it was discovered that the Starlight family might have had something to do with the prison break out. The main suspect was your grandmother. Her name was Yuki. To my knowledge she is no longer living, but that is beside the point currently. When everyone fled from the region, the Starlight family was forced to stay behind, being banished from civilization and branded as criminals. This included all of their children.”
   “Wait!” Saphire suddenly shouted out, her eyes wide open in shock and dismay. It was completely understood by Johnny and Chanler but this was something new to her. “Are you saying that I come from a family of criminals?” She asked with a heavy stutter.
   “I said to hold all of your questions until the end so that I do not lose my train of thought.” Johnny told her with a stern looked, and Saphire nodded while averting her gaze to the floor or walls. “Included in their children was your father, Zander. He was my best friend before the break out happened. We were only about one at the time but I know he was nice. But that might’ve changed since then, but it may also have something to do with the fact that Yani came into the family. No one knows where she came from exactly, and some speculate she came from nothing but ended up marrying her way into the family name.
   “I don’t know when they got married, but I was made aware some ten years ago that they had a child. I’m unsure of what their name was but it was their first born. At the time they would be four, and you would’ve been two; so they would’ve been your elder sibling. Then a couple years later I heard of more being born and that’s when the guild decided.” Johnny paused for a moment, curling his hand into a fist and pressing the side with his thumb up to his closed mouth. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before finishing his thought. “The guild decided to take action and attempt to infiltrate the house the Starlights used as a hideaway to rescue you and your siblings. At the same time we were tasked with taking Zander and Yani in dead or alive; alive being the preferred option for the guild.
   “Though things didn’t go quite as planned.” Johnny started, and Saphire could start to visualize what happened only it wasn’t just imagining she was reliving it.

*  * *  * *

   In front of her was a pink shield, her brothers and sisters beside her cowering in fear as their parents Yani and Zander stood over them protectively. She looked back out in front of herself to see a rather large clearing - or at least large to her relatively small and short body - and finding that she was staring at lots of tall trees and thick bushes. “You all have made a grave mistake attacking my family in our own home!” It was Yani who spoke in a cruel voice as the Espeon would look around the clearing for the ones who she spoke to and quickly snapped her head to look straight ahead but just a little bit to the right.
   Saphire looked around to where Yani was looking as well but she couldn’t see anyone there. Then she could just barely hear a voice, and ended up having to strain her ears just to catch little snippets of words being said. “Yani, we have a-” cut off there was a male voice that she could just barely hear- “and Zander. This doesn’t have to come-” Then again it would cut off as it became harder to hear over the wind- “death. Surrender and we’ll make sure-” and then that was the last she heard of his voice.
   “You think I’m going to let you have my children you self-indulgent piece of shit?” Yani suddenly snapped at the male that spoke just a moment ago. The barrier Yani had made disappear now reappeared once more, but this time it looked to have cracks in it instead. Then as quickly as it appeared it was soon discharged in each direction; expanding at a rate she couldn’t believe until it broke in five places Saphire looked around at each shattering point to see five different looking Pokémon, but she recognized four of the five instantly.
   The first she recognized was Michael as the current Guildmaster of the GU Guild. Second was Karsel; her very first team leader, and the one who was to teach her while she trained at the Guild. To Karsel’s left she found Chanler who was her guardian, and Johnny’s brother. Then finally she recognized Johnny and the final of the five she knew. But after all that begged the question of just who the fifth was exaThe only clue Saphire had of who they were was that they held the form of a green snake.
   That’s when Michael showed up out of nowhere and slammed a Shadow Ball into Yani’s side. The force of the miniature explosion sent a shockwave through her body and the bodies of her siblings beside her while it out right shot the Espeon across the clearing. The same explosion sent Zander backwards as well, but due to her knowledge of typings she knew that he didn’t really take that much damage and only felt the blast pressure from it. Though what she didn’t realize when she originally watched it all happen was that there was a protective psychic barrier shielding her and her siblings for the brief moment that they would’ve been hit by the attack.
   On the opposite side of the clearing from her Johnny walked out of the shadows and approached Yani. He stood only ten meters away and now Saphire could hear his voice crystal clear. “Yani, why won’t you give up? As long as you’re living the life of a criminal you won’t be safe.” He said to her while crossing his arms over his chest.
   Yani didn’t appear to want to follow along with what Johnny said however and snarled back at him. “Why do you think it is that I would trust you? All of you guild rats are the same! Taking orders that you shouldn’t, and meddling in other Pokémon’s lives that you don’t need to be!” She shouted at him in pure hatred and trying to make herself heard crystal clear from the sounds of it. “This isn’t over between us, Spark. Not by a long shot.”
   Only an eye blink later was Yani standing beside Saphire once more, and a split second later Zander was behind them. “Kids grab hold!” He told them as he drew in a huge breath of air and quickly began to exhale a thick cloud of black smoke around them. Everything was growing dark as the smoke covered up the moon and left them in complete darkness.
   “Sister! Sister! Hurry! Grab onto mother!” She could hear her younger brother tell her, but she couldn’t see him, Yani, or Zander.
   Moments later did she find all of the black smoke had cleared, and she was all alone in the open space under the moon’s light. Standing tall to her right was Michael a few meters away and to her left and quickly approaching was Johnny. She would back up a little bit and tremble in fright from how intimidating he appeared. “Hey, little one. What’s your name?” Johnny asked her as he stared right into her eyes.
   Her mother’s words of standing tall rang in her head and she took a small step forward while trying to puff out her chest. “Saphire.” She said, but her fear leaked through her confidence and caused her to stutter.
   The next minute or so remained a blur to her as her mind seemed to cloud up for some odd reason. Everyone seemed to move so fast, and their words came in slurred and sounded of gibberish. It was only when they were about to leave the woods when she suddenly heard her mother’s voice clear as day. “Mark my words, Johnny Spark. I. Will. Kill. You. I will kill all five of you!” There was no hint of lies in her voice; only malice and pure hatred. Then in one large flash of white light she couldn’t remember anything else happening and it was as if she was floating in a white space of nothingness.

*  * *  * *

   “So that’s pretty much what happened. You came to live with us, and we lived happily together for the past seven years.” Johnny finished as he finally lay back in the couch with a long drawn out sigh of relief. “You know I was rather afraid to tell her all of that, but now that I have I feel so much better.”
   Saphire was hardly listening to him as she reveled in her own thoughts. “Is that what really happened? Were all of my memories from before then just made up by whoever sealed away my original memories?” She looked up from her lap to look at Johnny and Chanler who looked back at her in concern. “I remember.” Stammering only a little bit Saphire continued her thought. “I remember that night seven years ago.”
   Chanler looked to Johnny with a bit of a worried expression before turning back to Saphire. “Whatever you choose to do now is completely up to you, Saphire. Just know that whatever you do choose we will not hate you for us. You have a right to hate us and never forgive us for what we did but just let me say that we did it with the best of intentions for you and your siblings at that time.”
   There was a long few moments of silence between the three of them as she thought about something to ask. “If you had to do it all over again knowing what you know now would you have done it any differently?” She asked them both with a level of seriousness neither Chanler nor Johnny had ever seen from her before.
   The siblings looked to each other for another moment in thought before looking back to her with a smile. “No. Because if we did anything differently then we would’ve never had been able to spend these last seven years being together with you.” Johnny said before adding. “Saphire we love you as much as any parent could love their child. That will never change, but if we had to go through what we did to have you with us we wouldn’t change anything.”
   Saphire stared at them both for a long time afterwards with not a single thought in her mind. It was as if her entire mind and body were in a stasis being unable to move, talk, or think. Suddenly she leaned forward and a single tear formed under her right eye as both began to water up and get blurry. “Thank you, Johnny, Chanler. That’s all I wanted to hear from you.”
   As though they all had the same thought Saphire stepped off of the chair while Johnny and Chanler got off of the couch. Each advancing at their own pace before Saphire hopped up on her hind legs while the other two stood up and grabbed her in a soft but firm hug. The moment was cut short though when Johnny made a noise of pain and withdrew from their group hug. He backed up and held his hand out; a few drops of blood flicking out onto the ground below them. “Damn I cut my thumb on your claw, Chanler.”
   Saphire stared at the blood and drew in its scent quickly with a breath of air. The iron that was within those small beads of red liquid filled her nostrils, but it stained them far more than she thought possible. That’s when all of her senses suddenly kicked into overdrive. A few thoughts quickly passing by her mind:  Johnny had blood, Johnny’s voice, blood, wood boards, and danger.
   A vision quickly filled her sight, replacing the two Pikachu in front of her with a scene she wished she could quickly forget. In front of her on the ground was a mass of yellowish-cream fur that was stained heavily with blood on the side that was on the ground. Johnny was standing over them, shaking the mass with his might. “Wake up! Get up off the ground dammit! You’re not dying on me today!” He would shout out in an equal mix of fear and anger. She would lean to her left and be able to feel wooden boards that seemed to be the exterior wall of a building while a lingering sense of danger was still present.
   Then as quickly as it had come, the vision was gone and she could see Johnny and Chanler once more. Barely a moment had passed when it was done and Johnny raised his arm up so that he could suck on his paw pad to suck the blood out of his cut. “What was that just now?” Saphire thought to herself, a look of dread showing up on her face. “All of that blood. Who was Johnny standing over? Wait.” An even more frightened expression showed up on her face. “Did I just see the future?”