I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to take this long to update! It all started with some writers' block and exams and soon spiraled into utter chaos! DX But I finally managed to pull something together; although, the theme I originally had in mind has been put aside due to the aforementioned writers' block.

Enjoy!

Statistics

Theme Two: Emergencies

Pairing(s): one-sided! Barry x Cheryl; implied! Riley x Cheryl (Aoshipping)

Summary: When it comes to saving the region, the stat Trainers are amongst the best. When it comes to saving one of their own...ah, not so much.

When Riley had been woken up that morning by his cell phone, which had announced a call from a certain 'Canaclave Psychiatric Services', he knew it wasn't good news. Currently, the dark-haired Aura-user was marching down the corridor of the CPS, toward the only room in the entire building from which screaming could be heard. Slamming the door open, Riley glared at the two males, who had fallen silent at his entrance.

"Where is he?" he asked as calmly as he could muster. Both males pointed at a closet in the back of the room before resuming their screaming match. Riley marched over to the door, then knocked. "Dr. Richmond?"

"No! Don't rip my guts out!"

Riley winced. Just how bad had it been this time? "No, doctor. It's me, Riley. Roark and Byron said you'd be in here."

"Yes, and I'm never coming out!"

The Aura-user sighed. This had to have been the fifth therapist that had given up on the father-son duo. For the past three years, Riley had been trying to reconcile the differences between Byron and Roark, to no avail. "But Dr. Richmond-"

"Don't 'but' me! Those two are incurable!"

"But-"

"INCURABLE!"

With yet another sigh, Riley trudged towards the redheaded Oreburgh City Gym Leader and his muscular father, the gym leader of Canaclave City. One pointed glare was all that was needed to silence them both.

"Well, I hope you two are happy now: the therapist refuses to come out of the closet."

"No offense, but I really don't see what the therapist's sexuality has to do with me," Byron remarked wryly.

Riley groaned, "Byron, this isn't the time for jokes."

"You see?" Roark spat, "This is exactly what I'm talking about. He never takes anything seriously!"

"Well, at least I'm not an uptight hardass-"

"I'm only uptight because you're always jumping on my case!"

The two continued to bicker until Riley, once described by Sinnoh Monthly as a man of 'infinite patience', finally snapped.

"ENOUGH." The force of his anger thrust Roark and Byron to opposite sides of the room, where they remained bound by two large hands made entirely of aura. It was silent for a few moments, until Riley said, in a much more composed, yet weary, tone of voice, "Listen, you guys. You seriously need to put this whole father-son conflict to rest. The only reason I'm doing all of this is because I care about you both." He turned to Roark. "Roark, you were the first guy to accept me for what I was, at a time when no one knew what aura was and everyone thought I was some kind of freak. But you're an adult now and you need to learn to let things go."

"Hah!"

Riley shifted his gaze to Byron. "And Byron, you were the second adult in my life to actually see potential in me, the second adult not to freak out when my powers accidentally broke a lamp…or ten. But I won't hesitate to tell you that you seriously need to stop putting Roark down. I know he's not exactly the most manly man-"

"Hey!"

"But he's a very intelligent guy who's in charge of a very successful and increasingly difficult gym. So cut him some slack-"

The cell phone hooked to Riley's belt began to vibrate. Releasing the two from his aura-powered grip, he answered, "Hello?"

"Riley? It's Mira!"

"Oh, hey! Do you mind calling back later? I'm in a meeting with Byron and Roark-"

"But-" A loud SMASH, followed by shouting interrupted the girl.

Riley swore under his breath. "Hold on a minute, please?" He put the cell phone down. "Hey! You two, cut it out right now."

Mira could hear more shouting and smashing in the background.

"Hey, be careful with that! If you break something, you'll have to pay-Byron. Byron, no. Put my cell phone down, Byron. Byron, no! I'm in the middle of a very important phone call-"

The line disconnected.

0o0o0o0o0

Barry thought that Cheryl was the prettiest girl in the whole world-no, the universe. She had long, pretty hair, a pretty face, pretty eyes, pretty everything. Her healing hands were as soft and smooth as silk and smelled of sunshine and rainbows. And her voice was as melodious as those of a million-no, ten million-angels. The blond felt it was such a shame that she was with someone like Riley. Seriously, she could have someone better-someone like him.

Their current situation was proof: the two of them were deep in Eterna Forest, crouched low behind some bushes as they plotted to take some Enchanted Honey from the Combee hive. Clearly this was dangerous work-too dangerous for a lovely maiden like Cheryl to do alone. But where was Riley? Nowhere to be found! But no matter. Barry would be her knight in shining armor-

"Barry!"

"Yes?"

"You turned off our cell phones, right? Even the slightest of noises…" Cheryl explained, but Barry was too blinded by his affection to pay much attention, only giving the occasional nod. It wasn't until Cheryl began to creep forward that the blond snapped out of it and began to follow.

Unfortunately, just as Cheryl was about to play her Pokè Flute to soothe the Combee, her cell phone, which had been in Barry's pocket, went off.

"Barry! You were supposed to turn our cell phones off!"

"I'm so sorry-oh, my Arceus! What is that?" the boy shrieked, pointing at the angry bee-like creature who emerged from the hive. Unlike the adorable little Combee, this Pokèmon had a body resembling a striped yellow and black dress and a hideous face that not even a mother could love.

"The Vespiqueen," Cheryl gasped before shrieking, "RUN!"

Barry didn't need to be told twice.

0o0o0o0o0

Marley was hiking up Seabreak Path with her undyingly loyal Pokèmon, Arcanine. The hike had become a monthly ritual for them as they tried once more to encounter the legendary Pokèmon, Shaymin. Ever since she was a little girl, Marley had always wanted to meet the adorable creature her mother told her about through many fairy tales. And today was going to be the day. Nothing was going to stop her-

Her cell phone began to vibrate. With a slight scowl, the gothic Lolita-dressing girl looked at the phone. Sure enough 'MIRA' had come on the screen. Now, it wasn't that Marley didn't like the younger female stat Trainer-in fact, she found the little girl to be quite adorable-but she was on a mission, one that couldn't wait for Arceus-knew-how-long it took Mira to get tired of speaking. It was quite a conundrum: did she dare to pick up the phone, thus delaying her quest or simply move on as if nothing had happened?

"Hmm…find Shaymin or pick up the phone? Find Shaymin or pick up the phone? Find Shaymin or-whoops."

Marley had 'accidentally' tossed her phone into the water. Arcanine eyed her disdainfully, but the girl merely shrugged and continued on.

0o0o0o0o0

Flint forcefully shoved a protesting Buck under the bed before tossing himself inside, causing the boy to cry out from being squashed. The younger of the two brothers had simply been minding his business playing videogames, when all of a sudden, his total nut of an older brother rushed into the house, picked him up, and tossed him under the bed in the elder's bedroom. And Flint was not a neat person.

Grimacing as he took his arm off of the moldy pizza slice it had fallen onto, Buck asked, "Flint, what the hell is going on? I was just about to beat my high score!"

"Trust me, little man, I'm saving your life!"

Buck sighed. There was only one situation where his brother would say something like that. "Okay, how'd you piss off Volkner this time?"

"Well…you know those bottles he has on top of his dresser in his room? The ones we thought were for polishing his guitar?"

"Yeah…?"

"I decided to replace the liquid inside with glue."

"What?"

"And it kinda wasn't guitar polish-it was hair conditioner."

"WHAT? Flint, you idiot-"

"And now Volkner's bald and coming over here to kill us! What are we going to do?" the elder male sobbed, putting his face into his hands. "I'm too young and sexy to die!"

"Hey, what is this 'we' business? I had nothing to do with this crap! So here's what you're going to do: you're going to get the hell outta here before Volkner comes!"

"B-b-but I'm your brother-"

"I don't care! You screwed up, so you fix-"

Buck's cell phone began to ring, belting out an intense S-Rock song.

"Turn it off, Buck! Turn it off! Before Volkner hears!"

"Okay, okay!" Buck answered the phone. "Hello?" he half-whispered, half-huffed.

"Buck! Thank Arceus! Mira was starting to worry that no one was going to help her!"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm stuck in a cave!"

"That's terrible-wait. Which cave?" Buck asked suspiciously.

"Heh, heh…just a cave…in Sinnoh…under Cycling Road…"

"You totally went into Wayward Cave, didn't you?"

"What? Pfft~ No! Mira would never do something like that! Riley and Cheryl told her not to!"

"Mira…"

"Fine, Mira is stuck in Wayward Cave! Can you help her?"

"Sure, I'll be-" But the boy was suddenly cut off by a CRASH of a door being slammed open, followed by another CRASH as Flint's bed was tossed aside, exposing both Buck and Flint to a very pissed off, beanie-wearing Volkner.

"Flint…" the formerly blond eighth gym leader hissed, his voice dangerously low.

Flit let out a very manly scream-and the narrator says this with much sarcasm-and made a dash for the door. Unfortunately, Volkner was much faster, pouncing on the Fire-type Elite Four member before giving him the beating of his life. Buck sighed once more.

"I'll be there-just as soon as I can get the Jaws of Life to pry Volkner's hands off of Flint's neck." Buck hung up before summoning his Claydol, who merely stared at the two elder males, then back at its Trainer, as if saying "Again?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Mira sighed as she hung up her cell phone, then slumped against the cool cave wall. She was bored, tired, hungry, and seriously starting to regret hiking into Wayward Cave. But the idea of being able to actually explore a cave all by herself, had been too appealing an idea to pass up at the time. She just hoped someone would find her soon.

"Hello?" asked a female voice. Mira perked up. "Is anybody there?"

Maybe she'd get out of there sooner than she thought.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Author's Notes: Once again, I am so sorry about not updating sooner! But at least this time, the theme's longer, right? XD OTL

Anyway, special thanks goes to Master Bleach, Ten-Faced, The Flying Lion, ObsessedwithBirds, and Victim of Doubt for their reviews and favorites;

Kballkdball, Rat2rrj, UnderPressure-27, and x-sayrie-x for their favorites;

and JazzApples, JazzClover, Metal Star Tiger, and Mystery Man Eusine II for their alerts (UnderPressure-27 is also thanked for their alert)! Plus, I'd like to thank Aria Diamonds for putting this story into her C2!

Basically this theme takes place during D/P/Pt, namely when you encounter Mira in Wayward Cave. Just wanted to explain why the others couldn't help her. XD

Please feel free to write up a little review! 'Cause reviews = SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS. XD

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