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Throughout the two weeks, I could tell that Shelly and I were both getting stronger, faster and more accurate. By the end of the two weeks, we were so well known that almost every battle we had was broadcast on TV or in magazines or in the newspaper. Sapphire told us that each battle we won gave us almost five thousand Pokéyen, and steadily rising. She said that we may even be able to buy my egg.

Finally the day came when Glacier would be released from the Pokécentre. After four weeks, he would finally be able to stretch his wings and ride the winds. I was ecstatic. That morning, we glided to the doors, the Chansey who greeted me was even more happy than usual.

"Just give us ten minutes and he'll be out!" she piped, and bounced off to help with the preparations.

After what seemed like three hour, Glacier, trailed by three Chansey and Nurse Joy, strutted out of the Pokécentre. I leapt up from my seat and ran clumsily over to him, tears once again streaming down my cheeks.

"How do you feel?" I asked him, tearing myself away.

"As I told you before, I felt like I could have been let out five days ago, but they wanted me to recover fully. Let's go get our egg!"

"Just one thing. Remember Sapphire? Well, she's been training me and I'm in a battle this afternoon at the gym. Also got some training to do before lunch, but we can start out tomorrow. Would you like to see me battle?"

"I don't know. We've lost a lot of time..." he sounded anxious to leave.

"Oh, you have no idea how everyone will react to seeing two Articuno, specifically one with a tail!" I joked.

He thought for a while, but slowly nodded. "If we must."

"Good on you! Give some time for you to get used to flying again, too," I added, before spreading my wings and motioning to Sapphire to get on. I flapped hard and rose again to the sky. Glacier glided up beside me.

"You can carry her?" he asked, plainly surprised.

"All part of the training!" joked Sapphire.

We landed again out the back of Sapphire's house. The crowd had now grown to at least half the town. Glacier was looking nervously at all the people and their little black boxes.

"Are they always here?" Glacier queried.

"Yeah, apparently, we're really rare, so rare that before I came, people thought we were just stories. You know they call us gods?"

"Nifty," he said, puffing his chest out to the crowd, who were more than happy to see us both.

"Come on, need to show you the gang," I had to stop him, I could see his head growing rapidly larger. I gripped his tail with my beak and dragged him bum first to meet Sapphire's other Pokémon.

"Good to see you again, Glace," said Shelly, walking up to pat him on the back.

"You too Shell. So who are all these others?" he said, indicating the group with a wing.

"Everyone, this is Glacier, my mate. He's the one who's been in the Centre for weeks." I introduced everyone to Glacier. Sapphire was explaining to the crowd that we wouldn't be here for a few weeks. I heard a moan rise up, which quickly changed to a cheer when we arrived on the scene.

Training went along as normal, but Glacier tried a bit out for himself too, just to regain his strength. Once again we had photos at the end, but this time went for twice as long. I'm not sure whether that was because of the extra Articuno, or the fact that we'd be gone for a while. Whatever the reason, the crowd didn't disperse for a good ten minutes.

Relaxation time after lunch was frequently known to us as interview time, and, as expected, there were a lot of interviews. Of course, most of them were centred on the coming of the new Articuno, and where he had come from. Finally, Sapphire told the remaining interviewers to bugger off, then we left for the stadium.

The battle was the same as any other, we won of course, except for a Delibird I was up against. When it was beamed to the ground, it flopped onto its front and reached its stubby wings out to me. Touching its forehead to the ground, it called out to me and Glacier.

"My lieges. I cannot battle you. Oh Gods of Ice and Snow, you are the great ones..."

And so it continued. Delibird had a habit of doing that, even in the mountains. It would make easy prey, only they've got to be the worst tasting Pokémon on the planet. I couldn't battle the poor thing, it would be no contest; it wouldn't retaliate. I turned and walked to the sideline.

"Send someone else up, Sapphire, it won't battle me. It thinks I'm god."

So Dewdrop went up against it.

Another win and another five thousand Pokéyen later we left for home once more. Glacier of course didn't battle, he was still too weak from doing nothing for so long, but the press were more than happy to take photos of the two of us, more so of Glacier because he was new, and had a tail.

Again we watched ourselves on TV, and again they mentioned that we were looking for our egg and wanted information about EggSales.com. They had mentioned this every night, they had even had our egg being stolen as one of the main stories, but still there was no phone call about the elusive company.

We bedded down for the night for a good night's sleep, ready for the long journey ahead of us in the morning.

Nineteen | Twenty-One