[Pokémon] Wings Have We

Dawn was breaking.

Somewhere farther along the horizon than Casey cared to look at the moment, the sun was just barely scraping the visible sky. This painted a rather nice-looking blast of colors upon Calda City, as the rays of overly-described radiance slowly squirmed out from the other side of the world.

Of course, it was still just as frigid as the interior of a frozen Metagross.

It was then Casey found himself very fortunate to be in an airplane, where there were some body-heat generators at the least. One of these body-heat generators (otherwise known as human beings) was sitting next to him, staring vacantly out the window. Fortunately, Giratina hadn't made his hair look too stupid to be sticking straight up, though the part that was out behind him was sort of irritating when he happened to be in a seat with a back taller than his own. The odd glances did not stop, but they were something to be expected; after all, he wasn't out of Calda yet.

Once he touched ground at… wherever he was landing at, Solun or something, then he should be in the clear. After some further interrogation of Giratina, she had said that the island region was used for scientific research in the distant past but had made a return as one of the Regional Leagues entered under the giant listing of them kept somewhere in the Orange Islands (this, at least, he knew of). This meant a lot of Trainers running around – and, by extension, a lot of people in stupid clothes.

According to Giratina and his own immensely limited experiences, anyway.

Of course, someone was bound to mis-label Casey as a skilled Trainer based entirely on the stupidity of his outfit, but the woman sitting next to him made him feel slightly better. Her skin was somewhere between light and dark, about the shade of chocolate milk. Her trench-coat, which seemed to reach down to her knees, was roughly the shade of a paper bag. Wearing a gray shirt and some khaki pants, she had her legs crossed to show off the rather unimpressive black-and-green sneakers on her feet.

Like most people Casey had met since this whole thing started, the most fascinating thing about the woman was her head. Her eyes happened to be an emerald green, and though her face was positioned away from Casey and towards the window, he noted in the reflection her eyes flicking around nervously every once in a while. Her hair was yellow-blonde and tied into a ponytail, with the tips of her bangs and ponytail dyed a mint green slightly lighter in shade than her eyes.

Overall someone who, going on appearances alone, would look more like a teenager than a woman in her early twenties. But, alas, a twenty-something was what she was. She had one hand constantly in her pocket. Casey noticed her arm moving ever so slightly, and his brain set to work wondering what she had stored in her longcoat that was so immensely important that she couldn't let anyone else see.

He noted the look of relief showing on her features as the plane landed, and she shuffled down the line with not much more than an "excuse me".

'Interesting,' he thought. 'I wonder what other abnormalities I'm going to see on this trip?'

As he found out upon exiting the plane, terminal, and finally airport, quite a lot.

The entire city he was in seemed to all twirl around a central point – a giant tower poking above the skyline in the distance, with three shorter ones at strategically-placed points to form a sort of triangle. It looked rather imposing against the blue sky, but was either one of two things: one, it didn't have a purpose (but it looked far to complex and un-stylized for that) or two, it did have a purpose and wasn't being used right now.

That, or it was doing something invisible. Casey preferred option number one.

After some impressed wandering around the metal-coated city (the place looked so stylized and hi-tech that it was easy to jump to conclusions), he finally came across some sort of open park in what appeared to be one of the city's many cobblestone squares. Checking out a map, he found (much to his dismay) that a certain arrangement of city, country, and remarkably straight waterways basically made the entire place look like an enormous Pokéball. He also found something more comforting: the people who named this city had no sense of originality. It shared a name with the region it was in.

The region it was in was called 'Holon'.

"Holon?" Casey wondered aloud. "Why would someone name a region Holon?"

"Because," said a voice from behind him, "whoever was stupid enough to name the region and city the same thing also noted that 'holon' means – in some form or another, I don't remember which – something that's a part or a whole at the same time."

Casey turned around, only to look into the smiling face of a fifteen-year-old boy – presumably the owner of the voice.

"Do I understand how that's possible?" he continued rhetorically, snorting and seemingly unaware he was talking to a complete stranger. "Nope."

"Um… hello," said Casey awkwardly, not sure what this kid was up to. Was it some sort of Holon custom to walk up to people and ramble about the meanings of stuff?

He was relatively tall for his age, though his exact frame was hidden by the baggy clothes he was wearing. ('At least,' thought Casey, 'there were no spikes or bandannas.') He was wearing an orange hoodie and a red shirt – either the hoodie was too short or the shirt was too long, because the bottom of the shirt went below the hoodie's hem as well as behind its deep V-neck. The hoodie was splattered with yellow periodically – on both elbows there was a round dot, and a half-oval coming up from the bottom hem. There were also two black triangles on either side below the armpits, dipping downwards rather steeply.

The hair was the same color as his eyes – chestnut brown. It was evidently remarkably spiky; some stuck a little into the air, and some fell into his eyes as bangs. Compared to the rest of his get-up, the bottom half was decidedly less impressive; somewhat worn blue jeans and brown leather boots were nowhere near as exotic as everything else, but Casey – growing up in the closest region to 'normal' that most people knew of - had never seen someone dress like that before.

As he fished around in the pockets of his pants for something, the boy turned his head and Casey got both a profile view and a shock – instead of more spikes on the back of his head, he had it tied back in a rather short ponytail. Finally, the boy found what he was looking for, and passed Casey a small mechanical object. On the screen was what looked like some sort of license.

It was difficult for Casey to stop himself from wearing an expression of utter confusion. 'Who in their right mind would name a child 'Caro'?' he wondered.

"My name is pronounced Cay-roe, not Car-oh. It's a common mistake, really, but accents are just such a pain to type into a computer that most people ignore it on registration sheets." He snickered. "So, who are you?"

"Ah," Casey replied, "my name is Casey."

"Hey, cool, we've both got the first two letters in common. It's pretty clear you aren't exactly native… so what're you doing in Holon this fine day?"

Casey bit his lip. Had Giratina told him what he was supposed to do?

Just as he was pondering this, a whisper was emitted from the rock settled in his neckerchief. "You need to sign up to be a Trainer," Giratina's voice mumbled.

His eyes shot upwards ever so slightly at finding out that the rock actually did what it promised to, but Caro seemed too preoccupied to notice his reaction. "Did you hear something?" the boy mused.

"What? No," said Casey quickly, hoping to cover up the blunder. "Um, anyway, I'm here to sign up as a Trainer."

"Oh, signing up to be a Trainer! Cool. Well, I know where you'll need to go to get that done, then."

"Really?" asked Casey. "Where?"

"I'll tell you…" Caro started. "…but there's a condition."

Casey bit his lip, but didn't respond. There was always a condition.

"Assuming that you are actually accepted into and listed in the Holon Trainer Database, I want permission to come along with you on whatever journey you choose to tread."

"Um… what?"

An exasperated sigh echoed from the rock. "You're going on the Holon League Challenge, Casey," said Giratina's voice. "Tell him that; he's not deep enough to ask more."

'How does she know what Caro is like?' Casey wondered, but relayed what she said anyway. "I'm taking the Holon Challenge, actually. Sorry, blacked out there for a bit…" But Caro didn't seem to be listening. His features had taken on the same confused expression, and he was looking off into the distance at an angle.

"Wow, that is really weird. There must be something wrong with my ears…" He snapped out of the trance suddenly, and turned back to Casey. "Oh, so you're following the Challenge. You know, a lot of people say it's easier here than in other regions. You know, because of there being six Gyms and whatnot."

Casey nodded, not knowing any of this but pretending he did.

"Most of the gyms – and their Leaders – are harder, creepier, stranger, or just more off-beat than what they're used to, and it's not a really big region in the first place."

"Really?" Casey replied. "I wasn't aware of that."

"There are," said Caro as he began walking. "Come on, you've got to follow me or we won't get to the Lab." After Casey fell into step beside him (Rotom having realized that Planet Casey had merged with Planet Caro to become the Groupies Galaxy, and hovered around both of them), the new acquaintance continued with his speech. "Yeah, sure. There sure aren't any other Gyms or Leaders like 'em, I'll give you that. Say, Casey. Have you entered any regional tournaments before this one?"

"Um, no."

"Oh, I see. Don't be surprised when you move up to Kanto or Sinnoh or something and find some pretty mediocre opponents compared to these guys…"

"Are they really that weird?"

"So I've heard."

"Mhm." Casey dragged out the first syllable slightly.

"Right! So we should be getting to the Lab now. Let's go." Caro pivoted on his heel and started strolling in the opposite direction. Now, normally this is a (mostly) normal thing for a person to do, but Casey couldn't help notice that he actually turned on one heel and didn't seem to lose his balance in the least.

Casey was, by this point, slightly confused. Hadn't Caro pointed him in this direction a few minutes ago? Feeling incredibly foolish, Casey tailed after his tour guide.



Eventually, they came to the city's limits. Caro stopped and stared at a building in front of him, smiling proudly with his arms crossed. Casey (who had fallen behind as Caro continually picked up the pace until he was practically running) caught up to him, panting, and looked up at the building as well.

It was a two-story building, wider than it was tall, with a forest green paint job. There were multiple windows, but only one door – it was on the right side, and painted a lighter green than the rest of the place. Caro explained that this was Professor Driftwood's (not Dawn's, as he was quick to point out, but her elder sister Delilah's) laboratory, and was one of the certified locations in Holon where one could sign up as a Trainer and receive a starter.

"But you need to receive a starter, even if you have a Pokémon on hand already," explained Caro in reference to Rotom, who was still floating around inside the Groupie Galaxy. "It's so that while most people are starting out with Bidoofs and whatnot, nobody can walk in with their Gible and be all, 'I'm here to sign up with this immensely powerful Pokémon!' Of course, they could just keep the other Pokémon and trash their starter, but a freebie is a freebie."

Casey's head was whirling at all the indecipherable words, and so he merely changed the subject in the smoothest way he knew how. "At least this building isn't covered with metal like everything else back there." He glanced backwards at the more urban part of the city where skyscrapers did exactly what their name implied, with a pointy iron edge to boot.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Caro with a hint of sadness in his voice. "You know, that big metropolis used to be some small scientists' village when work was still centered on the Magnet Tower."

"'Magnet Tower'? Was that the big metal structure in the center of the city?"

"The very same. A while back the people started messing around with electromagnetic… um… things, generated by something very hush-hush – people assume it's a magnet of some sort, since the place is called 'Magnet Tower' and it has something to do with electroMAGNETism." Caro put emphasis on the 'magnet' part. "But we know it was at the top of that Tower. Of course, after the scientists got pestered one too many times by Pokémon rights activists who were complaining that the electro-things were having a negative effect on the Pokémon in the area, the project was dropped. And then Holon – the city, of course – became used more for other things, and so the world continued to turn and eventually nobody was allowed in the Magnet Tower again."

"Fascinating," said Casey flatly, not having picked up much of it at all.

Rotom seemed interested, though, and halted his orbit to perch near Caro's head about half way through his explanation. It was the first time (to Casey's knowledge) anything had kept him occupied for more than five seconds.

Caro coughed loudly to signify the end of his rambling, and Rotom returned to orbit. "Well, um, we should, you know, get in there, then."

For some reason, I checked this topic this morning and was no chapter, and now there is. Creepy.

Anyways, I'd be repeating myself about the quality of the chapter, but I'd like to point out some things.

First, I found it a perfect example for a chapter for having no errors at all. Except for one small thing:

"...having not picked up much of it at all."

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"Not having picked up(...)" is the correction I'd make, but that's just me.

Secondly, I smoehow found these paragraphs interesting:

"But you need to receive a starter, even if you have a Pokémon on hand already," explained Caro in reference to Rotom, who was still floating around inside the Groupie Galaxy. "It's so that while most people are starting out with Bidoofs and whatnot, nobody can walk in with their Gible and be all, 'I'm here to sign up with this immensely powerful Pokémon!' Of course, they could just keep the other Pokémon and trash their starter, but a freebie is a freebie."

Casey's head was whirling at all the indecipherable words, and so he merely changed the subject in the smoothest way he knew how. "At least this building isn't covered with metal like everything else back there." He glanced backwards at the more urban part of the city where skyscrapers did exactly what their name implied, with a pointy iron edge to boot.

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Maybe its because it applies to many people who haven't played Pokémon since it came out in 96? I do that association for some reason. =p

So, keep up the good work, especially on the descriptions!

Giratina of Never-Turn-Back said:

Mmm, good point. That was fixed as well. Thanks!

What confuses you about it, though? Is it the transaction from third to first person, or the characters, or what? I'd be happy to explain.

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I copied that floppy.

But, I dunno, Its not the transition, its just that I was speed reading, and probably missed some things, when I red it a second time it was good.

But I'd suggest writing a bit more per chapter.

Palkia spread his wings to leave too, but before he did turned his head to face Casey with quite a serious expression on his face. "Fate knows where you live, kid," he said. "Try to evade it, and sooner or later it's going to come chasing after you and hunt you down. And it's now always going to be as forgiving as Giratina trying to get you to face the facts." The light soon enveloped him too.

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I'm sure it's 'not'.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Caro with a hint of sadness in his voice. "You know, that beg metropolis used to be some small scientists' village when work was still centered on the Magnet Tower."

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Your loopy font choices are messing with my post now. >.< This could be a phonetic misspelling but I think you meant 'big'.

Anyway, this is not a little convoluted, surprising and occasionally indecently shocking about its abuse of writing conventions (blatant self-insertion and fourth-wall-ravaging oh my), reasonably bizarre at points, and for all that surprisingly entertaining. I think what makes all the unorthodoxy (is that what you call it?) actually amusing is that it is rather well-put-together. Giratina is a character in her own right (or otherwise your own life is a good bit more interesting than other mortals'), the funky narration style--though grammatically awkward at points--gets down to describing the scene well, and all in all I get the impression of something unusual but not, at any rate, internally shoddy.

Fun. I'll say something useful in my next review, when I've got one chapter to focus on. *waves the lame excuse shamelessly around*

I'm just having some difficulty with pasting stuff from Word. |3 I have just now discovered the 'switch text editor' button, so that should stop in the future chapters, but... still. Silnaek, your typo points have been taken and shall be fixed.

Giratina... well, she's a difficult thing to explain. After I figured she'd simply be a minor character in Metal Coat and never seen again, I found another use for her and the self-insert thing sort of snowballed. She's a self-insert in personality and alias only - I am, speaking from outside of a joking context, entirely human. x3 And by 'grammatically awkward' do you mean a strange way of saying things with a bit more... erm... personality than most people's narration, or is it just the strange way things are formatted (thanks primarily to the goofy perspective swapping and other things), or what?

And I thought reading the post was fun. :<

By grammatically awkward I mean, uh, probably both. The sentence structure at a basic level sometimes gets oddly lopsided; I remember some other reviewers pointing bits out. ...And of course actually looking at the reviews fails me as no one seems to illustrate what I was trying to say, and neither do I really remember my point for that matter.

Hm, upshot probably is your prose has more personality than other kinds of sentence structure. It's very conversational at points, but you're still holding together a detailed narrative, so the combination is... unusual.

Oh, and you forgot the Delta Species Plus this time, too. Unless there is none for this chapter? *gratuitously points at the TWEWY reference in the second chapter and walks away*

Eh? There was no The World Ends With You reference in the second chapter... was there? The only thing that looked like a reference was 'fate knows where you live', and I'm pretty sure I heard it somewhere other than from TWEWY. |D I'll need to play through it again. And nope, there was no DS+ for this one. I'll need to include one with the next, lazy me. Kukuku. I see what you mean about the strange story structure, though... the way I write is most definitely NOT standard, so I guess funky structure happens too. Whiny and demanding as I must sound, do you think you could maybe point out some instances? I think it'll be a while before I realize that this story was worded very, very badly... like what always happens in every story I've ever written, ever. D'hurr.

EDIT: Oh. You meant in the title. Duh. [brick'd]

*looks around* Hm. It's more complex than that simple explanation I offered. Let me see... Description is often a little more effusive or unconventional than perhaps actually useful. See?

Somewhere in a vast stretch of white, there stood a large and imposing-looking wooden desk sitting on what seemed to be air, but was in fact a floor the same color as the surrounding area: white. All of it was fully and entirely white. Upon this imposing wooden desk was a computer (quite blatantly labeled 'Dea Procol Machina' in black marker ink) with an oversized keyboard and a giant monitor, with smaller monitors springing off at various points to create the sort of thing you would expect a French boy genius to have in his dorm room while he converses with his friends who are all running around in cyberspace, slaying monsters.

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What I can only understand to be the description of Never-Turn-Back morphs into a digression about a place called France (what an imagination you have, dreaming up a country like that!) and boy geniuses. It's not necessarily bad, per se, and very entertaining, but it is unusual and therefore perhaps what you wanted to see.

Plus more complex points sometimes pass over the reader's head because you don't out and explain them, encyclopedia-style, but get your characters to try and describe them in conversation.

"One of the things that make Rotoms a cut above other Ghost Pokémon!" said Rotom proudly. "We're able to possess some other electronic equipment and turn into a new form! This one spawned the second head, and guess what I took over! Guess!"

"You…" Casey spluttered. "…can you get out of it?"

Rotom faltered. "Well…" it hesitated, "…um… that's the thing. I tried and… no."

"No?"

"No. I really can't come out. I tried before, because it's really weird having my energy in a form that looks like a Mightyena and I didn't like it, but I think maybe the Pokéball thinks I'm in it and out of it at the same time."

"In and out of it at… so you can't come out because it won't let you de-possess it. Have you tried entering the Pokéball entirely? They… Pokéballs can do that, right? They're for storing Pokémon?"

"I tried that too. But there's no way I can, because a Pokéball has to touch a Pokémon to catch or return it."

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You didn't, for instance, explain the beginning of all this. Presumably the rotom possessed the pokeball exactly as the mightyena was coming out, but no one mentioned that and the matter was a little hazy until I sat down and thought. Not bad, again. Different from other styles of exposition.

That should get you started. The more pedantic parts of narration (description, exposition) are twisted a little because such an informal narrator is describing them. (Anyway, I don't have to time at the moment to hunt for more.)

And yes indeed, you should watch this transformation. I'm still trying to work out what Dea Procol Machina means. The Goddess's Faraway Machine? The Goddess of Far-Away's Machine?

Luphinid Silnaek said:

What I can only understand to be the description of Never-Turn-Back morphs into a digression about a place called France (what an imagination you have, dreaming up a country like that!) and boy geniuses. It's not necessarily bad, per se, and very entertaining, but it is unusual and therefore perhaps what you wanted to see.

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I tend to do that, too. It's called Going On Tangents Just Cause. :D

Luphinid Silnaek said:

You didn't, for instance, explain the beginning of all this. Presumably the rotom possessed the pokeball exactly as the mightyena was coming out, but no one mentioned that and the matter was a little hazy until I sat down and thought. Not bad, again.

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AH! I just thought that Rotom'd accidentally spawned a virtual Mightyena head. XD

Oh, Casey. If only you knew what we know about Giratina's twisted sense of humour. >:D
And that you were talking to Caro Caro. You need to spend more time on teh internetz, boi!


Anyway, good work! I'm enjoying this!

So... I never knew the back story to the Delta Species, and I'm enjoying this. :D

*disappears in a splash of goo
as Orson Scott Card comes out of a loo*

Dea procol machina = screwed-up Latin for 'goddess at the machine'. Apparently, upon checking it a second time, Giratina misspelled 'procul' (at the) for 'procol' (brash). How appropriate.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Mighyena head thing. |D Here's how it went down:

• Casey dropped the Pokéball containing Rotom behind his bed and fell asleep on Friday night.
• The Pokéball landed, and released Rotom.
• Rotom, not finding much room to move around in, got scared and possessed the Pokéball.
• As part of Pokéball-Rotom's design, the canine-energy head was spawned.
• The next morning, a few scenes pass before Rotom (who speaks through Beast) has Beast impersonate a Mightyena (meant to be as a general example for all Pokémon, by the way) for Casey to understand that Rotom did, in fact, possess his own Pokéball.

There was never any Mightyena in the equation. It was merely a canine head that is always with Rotom; the canine head looks more like a Mightyena than anything else. Rotom was having Beast impersonate a Mightyena because the canine head looked similar to one and he needed to convey the message of 'Pokémon coming out of its Pokéball'.

Why he couldn't just say it? Well, that wouldn't be much fun, now would it?

Oh, Casey. If only you knew what we know about Giratina's twisted sense of humour.

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I BLAME PALKIA.

Giratina of Never-Turn-Back said:

• Casey dropped the Pokéball containing Rotom behind his bed and fell asleep on Friday night.
• The Pokéball landed, and released Rotom.
• Rotom, not finding much room to move around in, got scared and possessed the Pokéball.
• As part of Pokéball-Rotom's design, the canine-energy head was spawned.
• The next morning, a few scenes pass before Rotom (who speaks through Beast) has Beast impersonate a Mightyena (meant to be as a general example for all Pokémon, by the way) for Casey to understand that Rotom did, in fact, possess his own Pokéball.

There was never any Mightyena in the equation. It was merely a canine head that is always with Rotom; the canine head looks more like a Mightyena than anything else. Rotom was having Beast impersonate a Mightyena because the canine head looked similar to one and he needed to convey the message of 'Pokémon coming out of its Pokéball'.

Why he couldn't just say it? Well, that wouldn't be much fun, now would it?

I BLAME PALKIA.

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That makes a lot of sense, and it's what I thought before I read Luphinid's ideas, whereupon I wondered about Beast getting stuck half out of the ball.

Maybe there's another unknown legendary at play here?




:D

I come with chapterzorz. :D


"Wow."

Casey was unable to say anything other than that. Upon entering the large building that was supposed to be a Pokémon laboratory, he hadn't expected much – some bookshelves, a desk with a computer, maybe one or two Pokémon in cages, with the rest of the room being vacant space. Of course, he had clearly never met Professor Delilah Driftwood.

"Can I help you two?" asked a voice from somewhere in the darkness. Speak of Darkrai, here was the Professor herself.

She was a woman with black hair (which almost looked navy blue in the light), whose only apparent uniform consisted of a hanging white lab coat that was buttoned in the bottom half, but loose on the top. It was a strange look, and combined with the woman's apparent fondness for deep V-neck shirts, it wasn't surprising that some males felt uncomfortable (or quite the opposite) around her. However, Delilah makes up for this strange appearance with her straightforward attitude.

"You seem surprised," she said in a rather flat tone of voice. "Is there something about my laboratory that surprises you?"

"U-um… no, not really," stuttered Casey, who was currently recovering from having a woman in a lab coat hop out from the inky shadows. Most of the laboratory was either covered by complicated machines, books, or assistants. For, indeed, some people (also clad in lab coats, albeit ones that were buttoned normally) were squirming around inside the maze-like, dark mess of a lab.

"Good. So I repeat my previous question – what are you here for?"

Casey didn't seem inclined to speak for the first second after Professor Driftwood had finished her own sentence, and this was enough for Caro to take the non-existent hint. "My friend here," he said (seeming remarkably calm in the face of the Professor's apparently stoic demeanor), "is here to receive a starter Pokémon and a Trainer's License. He already has befriended a Rotom, as you can see, but the thing is not really a fan of battles. It likes hovering around things more."

Driftwood did not look impressed. "So you were simply carrying around a Pokémon without proper authorization?"

Casey felt his stomach lurch, and figured that he might as well get it over with. After swallowing once, he replied. "Well… yes."

The woman looked him over for a few minutes under severe hazel-colored laser beams, and then nodded. "Fine. Come with me, mister…"

"Casey."

She merely nodded again in reply (though Casey realized a second too late that she wanted a last name), and set off. Swerving calmly through the stacks of mazelike clutter, she gave off the impression that she knew this labyrinthine place like the back of her hand. The duo, of course, didn't know very much about it at all; they kept their heads down to make sure they didn't accidentally walk into some of the woman's research.

"For a lady so uptight you wouldn't think she has this much stuff lying around," whispered Caro, sidestepping a scale model of a Luxray.

"It is sort of weird," replied Casey in equally hushed tones, "but you can't blame someone for acting differently than you thought they would."

Caro looked at him, slightly puzzled. "How old are you again?"

"I never told you. I'm…" Casey hesitated. How much had Celebi aged him? Until he was fourteen years old, right?

Caro wasn't amused. "You alright?"

"Yes, I'm okay. I just sort of blanked for a minute. I'm fourteen years old."

"Fourteen? Really?"

"Yeah."

Caro blinked and stepped carefully over an overturned stack of heavy books. "It doesn't seem like it from the way you talk, I guess. Most people your age… I think they would act differently."

"You 'think'?"

"Yeah. More like…" Caro had unintentionally raised his voice at this time, and looked upward to see the glowering face of Delilah Driftwood.

"Is there a problem?" she asked without any concern for whatever their problem may be.

"No, ma'am," the other two chorused.

The Professor didn't respond except for a raised eyebrow. Instead, she stopped walking at the back of the enormous laboratory in front of a desk. After shuffling and reordering the papers on the table, she finally seemed to find what she needed and turned back around to Casey and Caro. Trying to put on a warm smile that only served to make it more obvious that she really ought to stick to blank expressions, the woman in the lab coat began to speak.

"Refresh my memory," she said. "Who here has come to be a Trainer?"

Caro stepped back at once, leaving Casey a step closer to Professor Driftwood. The youngest of the pair considered saying that he was the one to get a Trainer's license, but figured it would probably look redundant after Caro had gone to all the trouble of isolating him. So instead he merely nodded.

Professor Driftwood returned the gesture and turned around briefly to snatch some things from the desk. After this was done she swiveled back to face Casey, a clipboard (with appropriate forms) and pencil in hand.

"You need to fill this out," said the Professor in practiced cheeriness. "It's not too long. Sit anywhere you like, or stand; just try not to knock too many things over. Arceus only knows what would happen if something else crashes into this mess." She giggled, and Casey smiled meekly, but it was clear to everyone present that she didn't find it funny at all.

Taking the objects he was being handed slowly, Casey scanned the first line. The shadow of a grimace appeared on his face.

"What's wrong?" asked Caro and Professor Driftwood at the same time.

"Oh? Uh, nothing." Casey, startled by the synonymous question, looked up from where he was standing. Walking over to a chair that (miraculously) wasn't covered with vitally important clutter, he crossed his legs and began writing.

'Even at the first question it's difficult for me,' he thought. 'What am I supposed to say to 'List your full name, first and last'? Hadn't Giratina said to make one up?'

Casey chewed the inside of his cheek; any lip-biting would signify that he was either thinking hard or panicking, and the act of writing down one's name shouldn't fall under either of those criteria. Finally, he cleared his head and wrote down the first surname he could think of.

The date of birth was next – changing the year a few notches fixed any of those problems easily. Home region was a little harder, but he decided to give the actual answer (albeit twisted slightly). 'Region of Calda – moved to Hoenn at a young age.' Casey was fairly sure he had spelled 'Hoenn' correctly – it was, after all, the only Pokémon-populated region other than Holon that he knew of that didn't end in a long O.

Then the questions got a little nosier. They began to feature such wonders as "WHAT POKÉMON DO YOU HAVE AT THIS TIME? LIST ALL OF THEM AS WELL AS ANY NOTES OF INTEREST."

'Oh, lovely,' Casey thought. Quickly, he scribbled down, "Rotom. Accidentally took control of his own Pokéball and is unable to get out. Obtained before entering Holon.' No way was he going to admit he got a Pokémon in Calda, after all.

-

Finally Casey looked upwards.

Caro didn't notice the movement at first, and was in deep conversation with and what seemed to be his Raichu. Figuring the Pokémon was just playing with his Trainer and the two different species didn't know what each other were saying, Casey diverted his attention toward the Pokémon professor. She had grown bored of waiting for him to finish up, and had sat down in a computer chair. In her hands was a thick, well-worn volume entitled in gold lettering 'The Care and Keeping of Dragon-Types'.

"Are you finished?" she asked, apparently forgetting to put on the 'kind female Professor' mindset. Caro and Raichu looked up from their thrilling discussion. Casey nodded and handed the Professor's things back to her, which she took (tossing Care and Keeping back on the pile of books in the process) and began to read.

And read.

And read.

Finally, the woman looked up from the desk and looked at Rotom curiously, who was now sitting on top of her computer and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Beast looked back at her and smiled toothily.

"Yes, he really did that," said Casey before the Professor had time to open her mouth.

She cleared her throat and regained any lost composure she had shown in the act of gawking at Rotom. "Yes. Well. I believe this application is acceptable. Hold on a few minutes longer, please…" She pulled a clean sheet of paper out from under the mess upon her desk, picked up the pencil that Casey had used to fill out the application, and wrote some things down.

Silently, she handed the note to Casey and in the same motion made a waving motion with her hand.

Casey got the memo and Caro understood a second after; they both turned and walked out of the lab, saying about as much as the Professor did.

"Were you a little scared by her, too?" asked Casey the moment the duo got out, Rotom having returned to his normal orbit.

"No," said Caro nonchalantly. "Not really. I must be used to creepy people by now or something… I've met far more than I should have."

"Really?" It was at this point Casey realized that he didn't know much about Caro at all. Steeling himself for the probable answer, he continued before Caro could give another reply. "You know, you never really told me about your history, did you? Since it looks like you're not intending on leaving any time soon, you might as well tell me."

"My… my history?" Caro seemed caught off-guard by this, as he stopped walking and blinked at Casey (the guy almost looked a little scared).

Casey nodded. "Mhm. I'll need to know this stuff sooner or later, won't I?"

The older boy gulped. "Um, yeah, I guess you would…" He didn't go on any further. It was clear to Casey that he had just poked a rather unpleasant nerve, so he dropped the subject.

Caro rescued it from the ground and dusted it off. "Well, truth is, you'll never have heard of where I came from," he explained, losing the grim undertone and returning to his normal optimism level.

"Would I now?" Casey challenged light-heartedly.

Caro nodded, smiling. "I'm sure of it. It's a place called Treasure Town, and… it's not around here, that's for sure."

Casey raised an eyebrow. "Oh, please. Just 'not around here'? I thought you knew better than that when trying to stump someone!" It was clear that they were both having a good time on this subject, despite Caro's constant fumbling in the beginning.

"That place… it's practically in a different universe." Caro snickered. "'Not around here' is an understatement, that's true."

"Different universe? I wouldn't go that far, Caro."

Caro shook his head. "Another way you and I are different, then. Though it really is something like that!"

"Right…" said Casey. He meant to ask Caro more about the Holon League… whatever he was supposed to be doing, but then remembered that all of his information had been obtained by Giratina. She hadn't bothered to tell him what the League challenge actually was.

"Right now, we need to get to a Pokémon Center," said Caro out of the blue as they returned to the city square. "You do know why, don't you?"

"I'm guessing it has something to do with this paper," replied Casey uncertainly, holding up the paper in question.

Caro nodded. "See? You're getting it already. What you need to do is turn in that note from the Professor for a JAWS."

"A what?"

"Journey-Aiding Worldwide System, commonly shortened to JAWS. It's sort of like the Pokémon Digital Assistant thing they carry around in Orre, except this one has a map, Pokémon identifier, e-mail system, Trainer ID, and it plays music when you shake it very, very hard."

"Music? What's the point of that?"

"Well, see, it's a certain song, and the JAWS are manufactured by a company whose logo is a Sharpedo…"

Orre PDA omgz! :o
(^These simply caught my heart x3)

Anyway, nice work with the professor's personality and the description of the place, and extra nice work for making a simple quiz that hard! xD

By the way, I didn't find any errors. Horrays :p

After that reference, the JAWS got me curious enough to get another reason as to why to keep reading the fic! Keep up the good work!

Well, the P*DA was the closest comparison I could think of in the Pokémon world. My obsession with Gale of Darkness doesn't help. : D Well, the professor was originally going to be a big goofball like her younger sister Dawn, but then I figured that having them as opposites would be more amusing for readers who actually remember who Dawn Driftwood is. Ooh, extra-nice work! Yay~

Ohh, the JAWS. That one was actually an immigrant from DS' predecessor, a roleplay site titled Pokémon Sol. Of course, the Sol equivalent of the JAWS was actually shaped like a Sharpedo...

{7} pokémon hunter s​

Rhoter City was, indeed, upon them.

It was a peninsula, connected only to the mainland by a remarkably fragile thread of land that was partially dipped in water. Fortunately, the city council had taken mercy on foot travelers and built a large elevated bridge that the pedestrians could opt to walk across instead, to save their feet from being the temperature of a frozen Metagross for the rest of the day. However, there was actually another perfectly legitimate reason for building such a bridge.

The view from it (as Casey and Caro soon realized) was also very pretty.

Caro actually stopped about halfway across, walked to the railing-lined edge, put his hands in his pockets, and whistled in appreciation. "It's nearing sundown, you know," he told Casey. "Good thing we got here when we did."

"Yeah," replied the younger boy, stepping alongside him and leaning on the railing. His red hair lost its gravitational properties for a few seconds and drooped over the edge. "Running around a route at night doesn't sound very inviting."

"No, no, I don't mean that! I mean if we were still walking along on that route right now, we would never see the sun setting over the water like this. Not that trekking at night sounds particularly inviting – I'd had more than enough of that a couple of years ago – but still…"

"Wait… what?" Casey had, in actuality, been thinking the same thing. But after briefly considering if Caro would care about a sunset, Casey had said the more practical thing that came to his mind. His tutor in the art of Pokémon travel didn't seem like the type to linger on things that involve beauty or other simple pleasures.

Caro didn't do much but smile. "You do think it looks good, don't you?"

"Oh, sure I do."

They stood there for a few minutes longer, and soon the wind began pushing their hair lightly in various directions. They remained standing there, letting the breeze whip their faces as non-threateningly as it could. Before long the sun plunged below the horizon, and Casey began to stir.

"It's over," he remarked softly to Caro, elbowing him.

"Huh?" The boy seemed to be lost in thought. "Oh. Right. I see. Alright, then, we should get going soon." He backed away from the edge and began walking towards Rhoter, Casey following suit while trying to hold down a yawn.

They continued in a similar formation until they stepped off the bridge, at which point Casey slowed down somewhat. When Caro turned around to inquire what on earth he was thinking trying to delay his mentor's rest, he found the younger one simply standing in the middle of the street, looking around at the scenery.

"We'll have time for that tomorrow!" Caro called from a few yards away. "Come on, I'm tired!"

Casey looked back at him – startled for a second, but then understanding – and walked back over to Caro. His eyes were still on a point on the horizon. "Hey, Caro, what's the deal with that building over there?"

"I don't know. There are loads of buildings."

"No, I mean the huge one on the edge of town. Is it another professor's lab?"

"Um, not that I know of…" Caro followed Casey's gaze and soon found what had captivated the red-haired kid's attention. It was a building taller than most of the ones closer to him, which made it stick up from the rest. Atop it was a single antenna – it was a thick one, not bending to the forces of nature like some other building-toppers Caro could see. "Oh, that. I don't know what that is, actually. We'll go check it out tomorrow."

Casey's personality switched abruptly. "Wha… check it out? What does 'checking it out' entail?"

"Oh, you know. Going around the perimeter, sneaking in if it looks cool, that sort of thing." Caro shrugged as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be sneaking into a mysterious building with no permission or supervision by someone with a maturity level similar to their age.

"Sneaking in if it looks cool?" hissed Casey as he followed Caro's eccentric path cutting through the city and into the Pokémart. "Are you insane? Who knows what could be in that place?"

"That's the point, duh," snorted Caro as he walked up to the counter. "I need to restock some things; go find a backpack and we'll check out, alright?"

"Oh, okay. You're paying, right?"

"Naturally. You're flat broke."

Reminded of this unfortunate circumstance and feeling considerably worse than he did coming into the city, Casey turned away and began to dive into the jungle that was the Rhoter City Pokémart. After grabbing one at random (they really all looked the same once you got past the colors and tags) he returned to Caro, who was loitering around near the counter, talking with the person manning it. Casey coughed loudly, and watched in amusement as Caro jumped in surprise before turning around and acting as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, hi. You ready to buy stuff?"

Casey nodded and handed over the backpack.

-

"Hey, give her Rotom and Murkrow."

Rotom, upon hearing his name called, chirped happily. "Yaaa-" Casey's warning glare cut off the exclamation of happiness. Rotom looked away, and Beast began to flicker before their eyes. Naturally, some wandering eyes in the Pokémon Center looked their way, but after realizing that there was nothing immediately entertaining they turned back to what they happened to be doing: eating, relaxing, or spending some quality time with their ('Ugh,' thought Casey) Pokémon.

The Joy, however, simply smiled at them as if it were an entirely normal occurrence to watch a talking Rotom argue with its Trainer. "Please give me all of your Pokéballs so I may heal them and your JAWS as well so that I may verify that they belong to you."

Casey coughed. "Um, Rotom actually possessed his Pokéball… can he still be healed?"

"Of course." The Joy smiled (it made Casey feel slightly uncomfortable).

After fishing around in his backpack to find the JAWS he had shoved in there at random a few minutes earlier, he removed Murkrow's Pokéball from a handy strip of leather sewn onto the wall of the backpack that held up to six of the red-and-white spheres. Handing both of the objects to the Joy with Rotom following along with them, he caught sight of the other objects on the table.

Another JAWS, a Great Ball, Azumarill's Net Ball, two yellow-and-black Pokéballs, and one that seemed a lot more intricate than the others. It was purple with two pink blotches on both sides and a white M in the middle.

Caro followed Casey's gaze and jumped again. "Oh, hey! That doesn't have a Pokémon in it. Oops." He took the purple Pokéball and returned it to his pocket before putting another yellow-and-black one in its place. He shot an apologetic smile at the Joy, who simply retained her wide grin.

Casey, however, bit his lip. "What was that purple one, Caro? You seemed quick to put it away."

Caro shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Oh, um, you know, it's pretty rare. There's only two people who make them. One of the guys gives 'em to the lottery to make ultimate prizes, which are really hard to get, and the other guy… he's…" Caro's voice faded into nothing. "Well, I try not to strut that I have one too much, okay?"

"Sure." Casey wasn't particularly convinced.

"Your Pokémon have been taken to the healing rooms," said the Joy, cutting into their conversation. "Please return in two hours to claim them."

-

"Well, we have two hours to kill and we can't leave the city…" noted Caro. "Wanna get some dinner? It's, like, six PM now."

Casey nodded slowly. "I think there's not much else to do that won't occupy our time for another- Oof!"

The boy had seemed to be lost in thought while walking. While lost in his miniature dreamland, Casey had failed to realize that he was on a collision course with another person in the busy town square until he was shown the hard way. Naturally, 'the hard way' was the two crashing into each other with great force.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" laughed the woman he had rammed into after she recovered from the blow. "I wasn't looking where I was… Hey, don't I know you?"

Casey got his senses under enough control to send a message of what the woman looked like and what she said. After a few seconds, exactly who this woman was registered itself in his mind. "Oh! Yes, I saw you on the plane."

"Right." The woman smiled. "I think I was sitting next to you."

Caro raised an eyebrow. "So you know this chick, then? Not bad, I say."

Both of them turned on him, glaring.

"Anyway," sighed the woman in a firm voice, "my name is Sheridan o'Reilly. I'm a traveling Trainer and rare Pokémon hunter. Who might you be?"

"My name is Casey. I'm a traveling Trainer and… well, just a traveling Trainer, I suppose." Casey shrugged apologetically, as if he was ashamed to not be counted with a shiny title like Sheridan was.

"You're also taking the Holon Gym challenge," noted Caro. Casey inclined his head in the boy's direction as if to say, 'That too.'

Sheridan's face lit up at once. "Oh, the Gym challenges! Hey, I did that when I was younger. There's only six Gyms here, you should know that, but each and every one of them has an eccentric little twist to it that makes the entire experience vastly different than any other's…" Sheridan laughed. "Some say that Holon is best for beginning Trainers trying to get up to the big Leagues. They're out of their minds."

Casey laughed weakly. "Um… yeah. Well, this is actually my first Region, but only because it was the most convenient."

"Oh yeah? Are you from Holon?"

"No… um, I was born in Calda then moved."

Sheridan nodded understandingly. "I see. Well, I was born and raised in Hoenn, and eventually got lovingly booted out into the world to do something. Rare Pokémon hunting was my profession of choice."

"So, if you're a rare Pokémon hunter, why were you in Holon?"

She laughed. "I can't be plagued by the constant phobia of missing a Shiny all the time, you know!" Caro snorted in amusement too, as if he actually knew what a Shiny was, but Casey was (as always) left in the dark.

The woman sighed. "No use beating around the bush. Would you mind if I joined you in your growing posse? Not that I'm in it just for the nostalgia, I'd like to see some more of this place too, and maybe catch up on what I had missed back in the days when a Sandshrew was all the rage for me. So what do you think? May I join in?"

Casey flicked his gaze to Caro, who nodded eagerly. 'Somehow I doubt that had much to do with whether she would be a good addition or not,' he mentally grumbled, and then tackled the brain job on his own. Looking her up and down, Casey took a few steps back before remembering something very important to this woman's story. "So, if you're a rare Pokémon hunter, where's your rare Pokémon?"

"I thought you'd never ask," said Sheridan proudly. "Here." She fished a Great Ball out of her pocket and released it. After the red light faded, there stood a round, purple creature. The top half was a light lilac purple, the bottom a bit deeper and closer to violet. On its head were two ears, twitching constantly, small and beady eyes, and a short but wide trunk. This was all well and good, but the thing that really took the cake was the brief flash of white sparks that came out as the Pokémon did.

"See, this is Kaeo," explained Sheridan. "He's a Shiny Drowzee."

"Now, what most people don't know about Shiny Pokémon is that the alternate coloration is truly a malfunction in their DNA, like albinos are to humans. It's also considered a disease, though, because the skin, fur, or feathers of the creature is discolored and as such tend to shed off a fine, flaky, but very glittery powder." She rubbed a finger along what appeared to be Kaeo's arm and displayed one glitter-covered finger out to the impressed teenagers. "What goes on when a Pokémon with such coloration when it's released from a Pokéball is unknown, but it has a mysterious tendency to send out a shower of this shining stuff in an enormous burst. Usually, the shine-powder isn't noticeable." She took a deep breath. "These Pokémon are called 'Shiny' because of this powder, and are regarded as a sort of collector's item among trainers. Regular ones don't really care about them because they don't have any statistical advantages over regular ones, but some – like me – are different."

The only word that Casey and Caro could say was, "Whoa."

Sheridan and Kaeo basked in their awestruck stares for a few moments before snapping back to reality. "So that's my story. Mind if I come with you?"

"Uh… sure. Go ahead, I guess." Suddenly, looking at Kaeo sparked a thought in Casey's mind. "Hey, do you know what time it is?"

"About…" Sheridan checked a watch on her right wrist. "Seven-thirty. Why?"

"We need to be back at the Pokémon Center at eight to pick up our Pokémon – they got in a pretty bad fight with some foul-mouthed Murkrows and…" Caro stopped short, eyes wide and scared. "Uh, I mean, yeah. They got in a fight with some Murkrows and got pretty hurt." He nodded. "So we sent them to the Pokémon Center and intended to get some food."

"Hey, I know a place!" Sheridan's eyes brightened as she returned Kaeo. "Hey, Rhoter isn't a big city, and it's my hometown to boot. Do you want the grand tour?"

"'Kay," they said in perfect unison.

Wow. I need to catch up. lol. I'll do that as soon as possible. :)

You should have a while yet to do that. :D

The advent of Sheridan and her arrival did not help Casey's attempts to convince Caro that sneaking into a mysterious building with no authorization was a really, really stupid idea.

Hence why the 'leader' of the trio – and also the youngest compared to Caro and Sheridan (twenty-five years of age) – had found himself being dragged along in the wake of Caro and Sheridan after a good night's sleep at the Pokémon Center. They were currently leaning against the west wall of the building in a frail attempt to look as inconspicuous as possible, formulating a plan to get in.

How such a preposterous thing stemmed from a totally innocent, ordinary, legal tour of the city Casey didn't actually know.

"I still don't see why we have to go in at all," said Casey. "I mean, really, it's just a building. Surely you've seen that before?"

"Yeah, but there's something about that building that I don't like," said Caro. "It seems… suspicious, somehow."

Sheridan frowned. "Hey, have either of you two kids ever heard of Team BDV?"

Both eyes turned to her. "No," they said in unison.

"Is that sort of like those… um… not-really-teams in other regions, like Galactic and Magma and those guys?" added Caro.

Sheridan seemed to wince at something he said, but nodded nonetheless. "Yes, like those guys. Well, uh, Team BDV runs along the same lines. They seemed to like thinking that nobody knew they were much more than an innocent company of unknown production earlier on, but eventually things about them leaked and they haven't tried so hard to cover up their tracks. You still don't see their underlings around here very often, though – from what I've heard, their ranks are small."

"Small?" asked Caro. "Does that mean none of them, uh, Grunts populate the place?"

Sheridan shrugged. "They still have Grunts, just in smaller numbers. I'm surprised you've never heard of them before… you seem to be something of an expert on evil teams?"

This apparently struck a nerve. "They aren't 'evil'," defended Caro, crossing his arms. "Just… you know… unconventional in nasty ways."

"…Which basically means 'evil'," noted Casey.

Caro harrumphed and turned the other way.

"Anyway, if we're going to go in, we'd better," noted Sheridan. "Well, Caro? Since you seem to be the most knowledgeable here, what's your say in the matter?"

"Let's go in," he said in reply.

"Don't I get a choice in the matter?" asked Casey.

"No," the other two replied in chorus.

"We're going to get in so much trouble for this," he reminded them. He was returned with a couple of confused stares.

"Stop thinking like an eleven-year-old," said Sheridan (who, naturally, didn't quite understand yet that Casey still had the mental disposition of a boy exactly that age).

Casey grimaced, but didn't respond as the trio slunk around the back of the building. Caro very nearly stepped on a particularly large piece of dry wood, but Sheridan held him back by the hood (they were in single-file order; there wasn't much else she could do). He shrugged in her direction and hopped over the branch a little more dramatically than was absolutely necessary.

After making quite sure that there was no convenient back door that could possibly make entrance easier, they walked away from the building and held a kneeling conversation on what to do next in the nearby foliage.

"I still think this is a bad idea," noted Casey helpfully. He was ignored.

"The only way in is through the front entrance," noted Caro. "There was one really suspicious-looking door in the lobby – I saw it through the window, stop looking at me like that – and since there was really no other door that I saw in there and there must be some purpose for the rest of the building…" All of their eyes flew up towards the top of the building.

"There must be a key," mumbled Sheridan more to the air than to anyone else.

"Yeah," said Caro.

"I certainly hope not," sighed Casey. "I'm the one on the journey, don't forget that…"

"Yeah, but we're the ones who are helping you. So we need the ability to make some decisions on what to do." Sheridan crossed her arms as she switched from kneeling to sitting Indian-style. "You'd be lost without us, don't forget that…"

"Well, there's a way in there, and I intend to find it!" cheered Caro complete with fist pumped in the air, a little louder than was absolutely necessary. As the other two leaned in closer to shush him for being so loud in such close proximity to clearly evil people, a distinctly human-shaped shadow fell over all three of them. Its body language didn't look happy.

"Hey!" boomed a voice from the general direction of the shadow. "Don't you people know this place is off limits? Scram!"

Sheridan was the first to look up from Caro's shocked expression, whether at the intruder or his friends it wasn't clear.

"Grunt," she whispered to Casey and Caro.

Oh, yes, it was definitely a Grunt.

Now, Team BDV grunts dress oddly, but any evil-team Grunt worth his salt does, anyway. This guy was covered primarily in a sleeved cloak with no middle hem, but seemed to convey the message of 'dress' more than anything else for a few seconds. The hood was up and over the BDV Grunt's head, plunging the top half of his face into shadow, save for the eyes. A diamond-shaped pattern of insignia with a few lines and three dots inside it was embedded onto the front hood of the robe-thing. Overall, it was a pretty normal BDV Grunt except for two things: one, BDV grunts don't often wear gray gloves.

Nor do they typically carry around blunt weapons.

The blunt weapon in question was a thick metal pipe, which was currently slung over his left shoulder like a baseball bat. The man's other hand was on his hip, and he was frowning at them. Nobody moved.

The grunt turned his head to look both ways before acting, and then he kneeled down, holding the metal pipe like a staff. "No, seriously, you need to go," he whispered. "This is still considered BDV turf, and I'm not kidding when I say nobody else would care about what you were doing here."

"We'd better," muttered Casey. "Thanks. Come on, guys, let's go." The group nodded in agreement and got to their feet. They all took a brief pause to dust themselves off calmly before running away very, very fast, with the BDV Grunt feigning some yelling act to attempt to chase them off.

-

"And finally," said Sheridan after they had gone through a tour of the rest of the city, "this is the Rhoter Gym. The Leader here trains Water-types. I think there used to be a Rock-type Gym Leader, but he passed on before I took on the challenge. The second in the line of Water Leaders runs it now." Rotom took the opportunity to flick from the Casey Orbit to the newly-established Sheridan Orbit, which snatched him with one hand and proceeded to observe for a second before returning the struggling Ghost to its natural motions.

"So do we go in?" asked Casey.

Sheridan nodded, waving off the last of the ectoplasm Rotom had spilled onto her from his blue-glowing core. "We do."

As they pushed their way through the revolving door, they were immediately greeted with a waterfall.

Oh, it was a nice waterfall. Yes, a very nice waterfall. But it was also a big waterfall, and practically the only thing in the room as far as they could see. Oh yes, the rest of the room had a very nice shade of blue on the walls, but the calming effect was sort of diminished by the big waterfall roaring like an angry Ursaring that cut the room in half. The trio weren't amused by the sight.

"Do we have to walk through it?" asked Caro.

"I hope not," added Casey.

"I think so," said Sheridan, walking up to the waterfall with one hand over her eyes to block the spray of water now emitting from it. "And there's got to be some sort of trapdoor on the other side. There's not any other way around it. Do you see one? I mean, it's an empty room with a waterfall crashing through i-"

And then the waterfall stopped.

Yes, it just suddenly stopped flowing. The last bits of water crashed to the grate as gravity called to them, and now that the room beyond the waterfall was revealed it was made quite obvious how they were going to progress.

Well, they were going to walk right over the grate.

Shrugging and smiling, the group stepped over the grate; Sheridan, being the closest, walked past the grate and no-longer-roaring waterfall. She turned around on the other side and beckoned with her hand for the two boys to follow. Caro, wise in the ways of Gym Leaders and their Gym traps, scrambled across quickly. Casey, on the other hand, hesitated a few seconds before walking back across.

As a result, the back-facing tips of his hair got dripping wet as the waterfall resumed its course.

Badly startled, Casey gave a little squeak and had to be pulled out of the way by Sheridan while he was willing his heart to return to a normal beat. After that had been accomplished, they turned around and faced… two more waterfalls, these separated with a wall in between them.

A few seconds passed, as the trio (and Rotom too, admittedly) waited for the water on one side to stop. Because clearly the one that stopped first was the right answer to go down (well, okay, it wasn't and they knew it, but what choice did they have?). However, a few seconds of surprise were scavenged up when both waterfalls stopped at the same time and they each had to pick a waterfall to look down. As soon as they had committed the scene to memory and looked over to the other side, the waterfalls started crashing again.

"Okay," said Casey. "So the one on the left led to a path that looked like it wound to the right."

"And the one on the right," added Sheridan slowly, "went to the left."

"So does that mean they both connect with each other?" wondered Caro. "It must, since they both bend the same way, right?"

"Sure it does!" chirped Rotom, who surprised everyone with his presence.

"Not necessarily," said Casey. "For all we know, one of them could be a trap!"

"A trap?" asked Caro in disbelief.

"Well… they do put traps in these places, don't they?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Caro, "but what I was wondering about was how do you know that?" He crossed his arms and stared down upon Casey, using his half a foot of height advantage to its fullest. Casey looked up at him for a second and then diverted his attention towards the waterfall.

"Well, if they've got kamikaze waterfalls, then there must be traps too, right?"

"…He has a point," admitted Sheridan after looking at the waterfall as well for a few seconds. Caro shrugged and returned to his normal posture.

"Well, okay then. We split up. Sheridan and you go this way, I'll go the other. And if one of them leads to something bad, we wait for the waterfalls to stop and walk back out and go in the other way." Caro accentuated his directions with a pointing of the finger in the given direction. "Are we all in agreement then?"

"Okay," shrugged Sheridan, picking Rotom off of his orbit and observing him again like a Sableye would a particularly delectable piece of diamond.

"Um…" mumbled Casey, thinking it over and trying to repair the various parts of his Casey-Logic which had been shattered in the last five days (was it five? Casey was beginning to find it hard to keep track) he had been pulled into this journey. "What if we can't get out of it? What then?"

Caro waved Casey's worry away with a few flicks of the hand. "No Gym Leader would do something that evil."

Casey gave an unconvinced grunt as the group split up. 'Would they really not?' he wondered, trying to take his mind off of the fact that he was worrying far more than was absolutely necessary. Though this was a boy wandering around in a mysterious Gym with none of the guiding light that Sheridan and Caro had projected onto him, and he was at least expected to be slightly unnerved…

…Well, that's just the way Casey was, and that was also why he jumped roughly a foot in the air when a face – and, a few seconds later, a whole entire body – materialized in front of him.

"Watch it," grumbled the boy as he slipped past Casey, practically at a sprint and carrying an orange monkey-ish Pokémon in his arms. "Oh," he backtracked and noted as Casey swiveled around to investigate, "watch your feet. There's something down that path there and you won't be getting out easily." And then he was running off in the direction of the waterfall that Casey had just passed, seemingly swerving back and forth as if he was fighting off some sort of blackout.

Gulping and quite unnerved by this spontaneous event, Casey shuddered and got back on his scheduled path. However, he very soon felt quite alone, and so vouched for the companionship of his increasingly-silent partner. "So, Rotom," asked Casey to the air, "what do you think is past here?"

No reply. 'Oh, well, that's nice,' thought Casey grimly. 'Not even a hyperactive little Pokémon wants to talk to me right now…' And he turned his head upward, intending to grab Rotom out of the air and maybe hold a forced conversation (but hey, if he wasn't holding one with himself, then it was an improvement, right?).

And he found oxygen. Plenty of oxygen. But he could have all the oxygen in the world concentrated in that one building and he wouldn't give a Ratatta's tail about it because Rotom was not with him.

However, a young woman in a bikini and a sea blue flower-patterned (was that a flower?) towel wrapped around her waist was.

And she was wielding a Pokéball like it was a weapon. And a girl in a bikini, even one holding a Pokéball, was more than enough to push Casey's sanity ever closer to the hypothetical edge.

"Oops, did you take a wrong turn?" snickered the bikini-clad lass. "And get your hair wet too? Aww! Ah, well, guess what? Our eyes met, didn't they?"

"Uh… no…"

"They are right now! And that means you've got to battle me."

Casey silently cursed his manners for dropping him into that trap. "Fine, but can we make it a one on one match?" He thought of adding 'please', but manners didn't get him very far a few seconds ago.

"Ooo, one on one match! I like a guy who knows what he's doing! But… I have two Pokémon… and I want them all to be seen by everyone! So we'll make it a two on two!" The girl snickered at Casey's face (which had swiftly turned to a shade of pink) and tossed the Pokéball into the air. It whisked back to her hand cleanly, and what came out was a slightly disturbing but remarkably cute sight in and of itself.

It was almost entirely rounded, except for a few protrusions for flippers, feet, and ears. The top half (which tilted backwards along the creature at about a 180-degree angle) was a sky blue, while the lower half was beige. It had a huge, grinning mouth, and a pair of disproportionately small, beady eyes to boot.

The JAWS gave its name after some fumbling, shaking, and dunduhdunduhdunduhdunduh-ing, and at that point Casey was quite convinced that the Spheal was going to haunt his nightmares for however long they cared to last.

Gritting his teeth at the unfortunate double-whammy of staring at that thing and the thing he was about to send out, Casey practically flailed Murkrow's Pokéball out of his hand. Naturally, this led to the black bird being sent out (quite literally) on a crash course to the ground, which in turn triggered a bout of very angry squawking.

Casey wasn't quite sure what it was saying, but the nightmare-Spheal was losing its scarily idiotic expression for some legitimate (and intelligent) fear.

'Yes,' thought Casey. 'Please keep on doing that.' The nightmare-Spheal wasn't quite as horrifying when it was horrified. The girl simply snickered.

"Oh, by the way!" she called. "My name is Marianne!"

"N… nice to know." Casey blinked as the fog in his brain cleared. "Alright, then, let's start the battle." Did he know why this random girl, Marianne, had challenged him to a fight? Nope. But he knew that this was probably another one of the Gym Leader's tricks, a powerful Trainer sent to a corner of the waterfall-maze to knock out Trainers who might actually get to them.

Murkrow's irritated squawking (and the downright hilarious expression of horror on nightare-Spheal's face) brought him back to the present day. After briefly scanning Murkrow's moves on the JAWS, Casey returned the small Sharpedo-stamped object to his backpack and stared down the Spheal. (It was too busy cowering in fear to notice.)

"Alright, then," he said with a sudden courage that he wasn't quite sure he had a couple of minutes ago, "let's do this! Murkrow, use Haze!"

Murkrow gave a loud, booming caw. As the crow Pokémon gulped in air afterward, though, out of his mouth spewed a large amount of black smoke which them proceeded to settle comfortably over the battlefield. Giving another hooting screech, Murkrow plopped to the ground and struck a pose that will be familiar to anyone with a younger sibling: he held his feathers over his head and stuck his tongue out from an open beak.

Spheal whined loudly.

"Powder Snow!" called Marianne's attack from the dark.

After a brief caterwauling fit, a few specks of snow began to fly through the dark barrier that the Haze created. They simply drifted lazily for a moment before seeming to realize that they were actually there for a purpose, and that they needed to fulfill it. The entire group of snowflakes then proceeded to slam themselves into Murkrow as one snowy entity. As Murkrow screeched loudly and flapped his wings, even more flying snow particles simply washed the Mist away with the wind they were carried on.

The haze swept away into nothingness, as Murkrow tried to shake off the clingiest cold goop that had stuck to him.

"Fine," said Casey, "so that didn't work. Well then, Murkrow, use Pursuit!" Did he know what it did? Nope. But it was a damaging attack – that much he knew – and Murkrow could use it. So he watched with arms crossed as Murkrow spewed another screech (the Spheal cringed) and dove towards the big, round target.

The big, round target rolled out of the way without its Trainer telling it to and fired an Ice Ball in Murkrow's direction. Having already set a course for the Spheal, Murkrow had no time to swerve out of the way before the frozen wad of ice clocked it in the face. Spitting what Casey could only assume to be some unpleasant words in Pokémian, Murkrow shook its head to dislodge the remaining shards of ice from its crest and stood back up, poised to continue the fight.

"And again!" cheered Casey, pointing at Spheal in true anime fashon.

Murkrow cawed his approval and took to the air again, this time making quite sure to hone in on Spheal before attacking. He made a nosedive for the little creature, and though the Ice-type squealed and scrambled it simply couldn't evade Murkrow's attack.

Diving lower to Spheal, bringing himself parallel to the ground, Murkrow screeched again and practically speared Spheal with his beak. The bird turned his head to the side and clamped down on Spheal's ear with his beak before clutching the tail with his talons, henceforth leaving the Spheal to ride around in the dirt while Murkrow performed a victory lap that he assumed would be truthful.

"Murkrow! Put him down!" snapped Casey. Murkrow obliged to his Trainer's wishes, albeit grudgingly.

Grumbling angrily, the Murkrow soared back to its usual position in front of Casey and resumed much the same pose it took at the beginning of the match: glowering at Spheal with all of the wickedness it could muster. Murkrow grumbled something at Spheal before following Casey's next order.

"Peck it." Casey didn't quite recall whether this was on the Pokédex listing either, but Murkrow was in possession of a beak and should therefore be able to hit something with it. Fortunately, the Pokémon seemed to respond to his call, and Murkrow took to the skies once again. This time, though, he didn't bother with any fancy flying; instead, the crow Pokémon simply dropped on its feet in front of Spheal and pecked it hard in the nose before pushing off into the open air once more.

Spheal whined and fired another Ice Ball.

"What? You didn't tell it to do that!" objected Casey.

"Oooh, someone didn't read up on their move descriptions," cooed Marianne in that sickeningly high-pitched voice of hers. "When it makes contact, Ice Ball will keep on hitting the target for five turns until it's at its biggest and strongest, and then…"

She was cut off as the Ice Ball soared into the ceiling of the Gym and shattered into many pieces, which rained down on the entrance of the waterfall maze. Screams were heard as other people trekking through the maze watched a clump of frozen water fly over their heads.

"Mmm," said Casey, turning around with one gloved hand on his hip to look at the damage that Spheal's Ice Ball caused. "Doesn't look like that quite made contact."

Marianne simply huffed angrily as she turned to her Spheal. "Okay! Teach that mean Murkrow a lesson! Fire a Water Gun!"

Spheal screeched in reply and opened its mouth wide. This ended up taking up about half of the front part of his body. Casey was a little creeped out by the huge grin, but Murkrow didn't seem to be dazed by it and simply waited for the attack to come.

"Astonish!" called Casey. Upon looking at Murkrow again, Casey could have sworn he saw an energy in the Pokémon's eyes that he definitely didn't have before. The Murkrow bobbed his head slowly up and down as he flew towards Spheal in an eccentric fashion, bobbing and weaving from one side to the next. Casey had no clue what was going on, but Murkrow seemed to be convincing Spheal that something was very wrong, and that was nice. He skirted away from the Water Gun with ease, and finally drifted towards Spheal, mumbling and humming things under his bre-

"MURRRRR-KROOOOOOOOOOOW!!!"

…Okay, so Casey didn't know that was going to happen. He, along with everyone else in the area, jumped at least three inches in the air at Murkrow's sudden outburst of raw sound. Murkrow had dropped from the air and landed onto Spheal at the exact same moment. And this time he didn't even have to drag the Pokémon around the ring; it was quite obvious that Spheal was knocked out.

Murkrow counted the seconds on his feathers, holding up one clump after the next to form five finger-like appendages. One… two… three… four… five.

"Aw, boo, you won! Fine! Hmph!" Marianne tossed a few things in a random direction, recalled Spheal, and stormed away. Casey caught the objects and peered down at them curiously for a second before realizing just what they were.

Murkrow gave a cry of triumph.

"She's still in Holon. I sense it."

On the top floor of the Rhoter BDV Building, making up the entirety of one of the walls, was a glass panel. It was extremely strong and reinforced glass, not likely to shatter without a long fight, and yet was also perfectly transparent. The only frequent occupant of the top floor found this glass panel very pleasant to look out of when he was feeling particularly… devious, which wasn't really quite often considering his position. But that brief little feeling did flicker to life in his mind, and so he decided to ride the cliché wave to its fullest. Crossing one leg over the other, the man in the chair leaned his head on one arm, slouching in the armrest-endowed swivel chair.

"Oooh? Really? Think so? Mrrrhrrrrhrrrr. I don't think She can leave, can she? Mrrr?"

His chair, which was facing opposite the desk in front of his and the rest of the room, suddenly took weight from the back.

The occupant of the chair turned his head to look over at his new acquaintance. He didn't need to look at him to know who had invaded on his space; there was nobody else he knew who spoke in a pitch like that – and nobody else period who said 'Mrrr' on such a frequent basis.

"She must be able to, Juan, or else I think we would have found Her by now."

The man got up from his chair, leaving Juan – who was still leaning on the back of the chair – to correct the balance of his companion's perch (and himself) before both tumbled into a mess on the floor.

"Oh, but Hikaru, mrrrrhrrrr, you know how She hates people." Juan picked himself up easily – 'Honestly,' thought Hikaru, 'that man's a real acrobat even if he does walk like a Spinda' – and wandered to his side once again. "Mrrrr… we learned that from the other guys, right?"

Hikaru shook his head, letting the blue-and-red bangs that framed each side of his face like a Cloyster shell wave how they would. He ran his spindly fingers over slicked-back blond hair so silvery it was practically white, sighing daintily as he did so. "The trouble with Her," said the man, crossing his arms under the white poncho (with triangular red and blue patterns on it), "is just what you said. She hates people; apparently she learned from the last group's efforts to locate Her. This makes our job harder, and that spire back in the capitol isn't making matters any easier what with the… things it makes."

"Ooooh, mrrrr, like us?"

"No, not like us. It stopped making things like us a while ago, didn't it?" A moment after he asked this question, Hikaru realized that Juan probably didn't know the answer. Not mentioning it, the man listened to Juan's 'Mrrr-rrr' (he intoned it like anyone else would say when they're shrugging). He turned to the window and placed a hand on it, letting the twinkling lights of Rhoter illuminate tiny fragments of the inky sky. "I can't help but feel bad for the Pokémon… not just Her, but all the others being affected by that thing…"

"I guess you should," said Juan. "It's not hard to see why, I think. Some sort of… mrrrrr…" He thought for a second, trying to think of the right word. "Oh! Some sort of retained fragment… piece… thing. Of back then. Mrrrr. But don't let the Boss hear you talkin' like that, mrr?"

"So, you don't?"

"Me? Mrrrr. No, not much."

Hikaru shook his head again. "Juan, you can be so strange sometimes."

"And you've just figured that out, mrrrr?" Juan laughed loudly, catching Hikaru by surprise and making his jump, startled.

Hikaru – who, it should be noted, seemed to have the patience of a martyr, if not a saint – simply continued to look out the window, and spoke more to the window than to his companion. He talked softly, as if mourning a deceased loved one. Even though Juan's eyes weren't visible, Hikaru could tell he was blinking in surprise. "I'm sorry for them. Only five will be commonly seen, and She may be in danger too, but there are more. And I feel for them."

And then the door slammed open.

<---

"Didn't I tell you guys to keep out?"

'Well,' thought Casey, 'that was unexpected…'

Indeed, after claiming the Tide Badge from Marianne (who was, as it appeared, the Rhoter Gym Leader), the trio had returned to the Pokémon Center. Trekking through the Gym had apparently taken up the entire day, and you couldn't do much in a small town like Rhoter at six at night. That night, Caro had come up with an idea with a competence level to rival the average invention of Dr. Kaminko (or, in other words, absolutely moronic) – why don't they all go back to the evil Team's base which that had been forcefully ejected from just a few days ago to see what was going on in there?

Why, it was perfect. Clearly, nothing could go wrong.

Except, of course, being caught again by the same person they had seen last time they attempted to break and enter the Rhoter BDV building. But they had gotten inside the 'employees only' part of the building this time, so that was an improvement, right? Perhaps.

But Palkia just wasn't on their side today.

"Umm…" said Caro, averting his eyes from the man who had found them twice now. The Grunt was still holding that metal pipe, and he looked about ready to make use of it, too. "Yes, about that."

The Grunt sighed, clearly exasperated. "Listen, twe- eh, pests, you seriously need to get outta here! If you don't…"

Casey crossed his arms and scrutinized the Grunt. "Help us get to the bottom of this."

"…wait, what?" The Grunt had apparently gone on a brief rambling spree on what, exactly, would be done to them if they didn't comply to his demands. He apparently didn't expect to be interrupted – especially from the guy who, he had realized last time, was a total wimp.

"You know, the bottom of it," he continued. "What's going on in here. Come on. Please?"

The Grunt snorted, clearly not impressed. The kid had started off strong (and had even gotten him worried for a moment there) but then was blown back into territory usually only reserved for ten-year-olds. "Okay, I don't know who you're trying to fool with that 'please' act, but it certainly isn't me. So unless you've got some sort of crouching-moron-hidden-persuasive-genius thing going on I suggest you—"

It was at that point that Caro interrupted with an irritable sigh. "Do you want us to get your sorry tail out of here or don't you?"

This froze everyone in their tracks.

"No," said the Grunt with a tone about as firm as a wall made of Jell-O.

"If you did, you would have called… whoever you call on us by now, right?" continued Caro with a slight smirk. It seemed (to him, at least) that he had won the fight.

"You know what? That's a wonderful idea. I think I'll do that right now."

Apparently not.

The Grunt reached slowly for his pocket, as if daring Caro to snap out suddenly and wrestle his arm from its proper position. But no, Caro did not dive for him, and the Grunt actually pulled out the small machine and held it to his mouth, one finger hovering about half an inch away from a button that very clearly implied 'On'. Everyone – including the Grunt – held their breath for what was clearly about to happen.

They knew he was going to press it. He knew they knew he was going to press it. And he didn't.

"You know what? Again?" he said. "You're right. I don't want to press it. You three did a better job of sneaking in here than I did; you escaped once. Leave it at that, won't you?"

"No way," said Caro and Casey in unison.

He sighed. "Oh, come on, really, I'm not kidding. Just go, okay?"

Sheridan crossed her arms and delivered the first of many Death Glares to one of the rest of the unsuspecting inhabitants of the world. Death Glares, as the rest of the world would soon learn, were clearly not to be trifled with.

"And we're not kidding either," said Sheridan with an iciness in her voice that none of the others had heard before. "We're here to get to the bottom of this, and we also intend to do it. So help us up to the top of this Mewforsaken building and get your tail outta here or be stuck doing… this for however it takes for another chance like this one to kick you in the gut." She crossed her arms. Overall, even though the Grunt was taller than her by at least three inches, she came off as remarkably scary. "It's all your choice, of course."

Casey was relatively sure that Sheridan was just as surprised by this outburst as everyone else.

"Um. Well." All scary or otherwise imposing presence the Grunt had generated for himself dissolved in a matter of seconds. And he didn't say a lot for the next few minutes – neither did anyone else, for that matter. They mostly just stood around and looked at one another, not really knowing what to do. Sheridan was firm in her assumption that the Grunt had finally cracked, and was right now waiting for him to sigh dejectedly and think of a way to get them up to the top of the building without a particularly large punishment.

And that's exactly what he did… well, the first part, anyway.

For, at that time, a staticky noise came from somewhere in their general area. "Hey? Hey! RT-102, what's the holdup? You're supposed to be at the Sixty-Sixth Junction by now! …Mrrr!"

The Grunt, instead of sighing again as he was expected to, brightened considerably and put one gloved finger to his lips. He then leaned casually on the metal pipe he seemed to carry around and whipped out a walkie-talkie with his other hand. "Ah, yes, sorry about that. Well, there was a problem, but it's all resolved now. On my way." He shoved the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and turned back to the group.

"Okay. So. Right now, the guards will probably be staying in their assigned positions because my monitoring spree was interrupted by your dropping in. So you're going to follow me and hide somewhere – like a side closet or something – and let me go on my way. The shifts change every five minutes, so it will take about half an hour for me to return to your place again, but when I do I'll knock on something and point you in the direction of the next floor."

He didn't wait for a response, but rather started walking.

After a brief silent consultation with each other, the trio shrugged in unison and followed him down the hallway.

-

A knock.

The three had found themselves stuffed inside a relatively cramped little room, with Casey and Caro pressing themselves against the wall and Sheridan attempting to do just that with a big broom in her way. They were all getting rather bored (as a matter of fact, Caro had begun to fall asleep), but finally the sacred noise rang out to them. Everyone looked up happily, but the door opened for them.

"Across the hall. Quickly!"

The three slipped past the Grunt with relative ease (it was soon decided that Sheridan would go first) and they made a beeline for the staircase at the other side of the long room. It had a lock on it, but that had been disarmed and now dangled uselessly from the hole in the door handles.

Sheridan glided up the stairs like a ghost, Caro acted like he was wearing lead boots (which earned him an irritated 'Shhh!' from the others), and Casey found himself somewhere in between.

They emerged on a small landing shaft. Walking over it and through a door to the room beyond, they found themselves in the middle of a long hallway; it formed a T, where they just came from being the vertical line and the rest of the floor spreading out on each side.

"Do you remember the place being rounded like this from outside?" asked Caro to nobody in particular, walking a few paces to the left and peering down the appropriate hallway. Everyone else answered with a shake of their heads. Making a ponderous 'hmm' sound, Caro walked further down the hallway while the other two hadn't even made a move. Casey soon noticed that the boy had darted off, and scrambled after him.

Finally, after a (very) brief chase, Casey caught the older boy by the back of his hood. "Whaddya think you're doing?" he hissed. "We're not supposed to be here! Don't just run off!"

Caro reached behind his back and moved Casey's hand away from him, frowning as he did so. "Jeez… you're starting to sound like Kris in here…"

"Eh?" asked Sheridan, walking up behind him. "Chris? Who's he?"

"Not Chris with a CH, but Kris with a K." Caro turned around. "When I went around Sinnoh, I traveled with her for a lot of the time. Dunno where she ran off to now, though."

The red-haired boy smiled and seemed on the verge of laughter. "Oh. I thought that you meant 'Chris' and that he was like… a not-blood-related sort of older brother or something."

Caro shook his head. "Nope. My not-related-sort-of-mentorly-detachedish-older-brother was named something else. Anyway, let's move."

The other two followed him, trying to collect and register what the word 'not-related-sort-of-mentorly-detached-older brother' meant. They proceeded relatively unscathed down the hallway – the guards were lesser in number and considerably more drowsy up here, since the honchos probably didn't expect as many infiltrators really getting to the second floor.

Finally, after slipping into and out of a couple of doors to evade the shifty and quite guardly eyes of the BDV Grunt who happened to be running their sector of the rotation at the time, the small band of 'explorers' slipped into the stairwell across the hall and stormed up the first staircase, past a landing with a door, up another flight, and onto the next floor of the building. They didn't notice the window sticking out from the door, nor its incredible usefulness as a stakeout spot.

And that was where they picked up their first three stalkers.

delta species plus: character profile #3 (sheridan, finally)​